FoT Weapon Conversions

[dude_obj]

It looks like most of the weapons from FoT can be converted to FO2 without much trouble, but there are some that might be problematic.

Spasm NeuroDisruptor - Without the ability to add new weapon perks, I can't make this work as a normal weapon with a fire mode. It could be done as a misc item with a "use on" action (firing a script that alters target's perception/agility), but that would be a poor implementation of this weapon.

Dynamite Spear - This weapon needs to be destroyed on use. So it too cannot be used like a normal weapon, perhaps it could be done with a "use on" action (in a script).

Festering Spear - This weapon does poison damage, but there is no poison damage type in the prototype editor for weapons. Poison level can be applied if the item is classed as drug, but that would be a bad way to implement this.

Grenades - There is only explosion and fire damage types, no acid, chem, smoke, etc. Without special damage and/or special effect for these, I don't see the point in implementing them (if all they do is varied damage amounts). If FoT has special explosion animations for them, that would be cool, but I don't see how those can be associated in the FO2 prototype editor. There is no option for setting the explosion animation, I assume that the selected damage type triggers the appropriate animation.

Mines - These might be implementable with scripts. I assume that there is special animations for their explosions. I think that spacial scripts can only be attached to map tiles (not items), so some other script commands would be needed to trigger them. Question: are mines usually "armed" with some kind of switch, or does one have to carry them very carefully? It may be possible to do the "use" action to arm a mine, then have a script detect if a critter steps on it and trigger the explosion, apply damage. I will look into mines later. For now I will set them up as misc items.

Thrown weapons - Not sure yet if the new projectiles can be added for boomerangs and such. Will test that after I finish adding all of these new weapons. I hope they work because I think they are cool.

If anyone has any ideas or comments about these weapons, let me know, or try implementing some of them ....

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Spasm NeuroDisruptor was just a piece of MP fluff, I wouldn't worry about it, the image makes a good energy carbine or smg though.

Most of the fancy grenades either weren't implemented or just used the standard explosion effect.

You could make the dynamite spear a throwing weapon only and have it explode like a grenade. I always though it a bit daft to be prodding someone with a stick of dynamite on the end of a spear. A distance of a spear length isn't really going to protect you from the resulting explosion.

I'd leave mines as a trap such as the raised plate, something the player has to disarm but not pickup and carry around with them. I don't think mines as weapons would really fit into an rpg.

 

[dude_obj]

I have another issue with ammo ... FoT uses a completely different method for damage ... and I need to assign these numbers:

AC Adjust
DR Adjust
Damage Multiplier
Damage Divisor

These are the new ammo types I need to assign these number to:

30.06
.303 caliber
40mm grenade
bolt
12 guage flechette (what is this)?
12 guage rubber
12 guage slug

I don't think I can do 12 guage EMP because that would have to be specific to the weapon (not armor) in FO2 .. unless we want an EMP only shotgun ...

Does anyone want to suggest numbers for these?

BTW, I know that some ammo adjustments were made in the unofficial FO2 patch, and also observed that some people think the adjustments were too powerful. Any suggestions for adjustment to the original ammo that makes sense (not too powerful but fix the useless AP armor)? I'd like to have a decent fix for this problem in the expansion pack.

 

[dude_obj]

I just discovered that scripts can be associated with both weapons and ammo, so there may be more hope for special weapons like smoke grenades and such.

 

[PsychoSniper]

12 guage flechette would be best assigned as a JHP


Think of a shotgun shell that launches nails, thats basicly a flechete, its best aginst biologicals.

 

[dude_obj]

Goofiest weapon I have seen in a game so far ... plunger ... gotta watch out for those viscious gangs of mutant plumbers. Okay I'm leaving out the plunger, spear gun, and exploding beetles.

 

[dude_obj]

One of the more interesting weapons to convert is the punch gun, which fires shotgun shells when you punch someone. It works fine, uses its 3 shell capacity, reload works, and it deals out some serious damage. But with the attack mode set to throw_punch, I get the punching sound (not shotgun sound), even if I have the sound code set to R (same as shotgun). If I change the attack mode to fire_single the weapon doesn't seem to work at all, it won't fire (weird). I guess I will have to try what Corpse suggested for sound (editing a new ascii code in hex, next ascii code in sequence), but I'll have to figure out the naming conventions for sound files.

Almost done converting the FoT weapons

 

[Corpse]

I tried assigning a sound to the punchgun in my old mod but got the same problem; my guess is that any weapon that uses a punch action, uses the puch sound by default. This is most probably handled by the engine so I don't know any way around it.

Flechette rounds fire small dart like projectiles; for more info check out the link below.

http://www.antipersonnel.net/sdllc/007.html

 

[Wild_qwerty]

I would like to see the spear gun included as it could use the new 'dart/arrow' projectile

Spear gun - Arrow projectile
Thrown dart - Arrow projectile.

It would be the closest thing to a bow in the game and would be a good show off for one of the new projectiles, just use the rifle animation for the attack sequence.

Spasm NeuroDisruptor was just a piece of MP fluff, I wouldn't worry about it, the image makes a good energy carbine or smg though.

It could be nice to have an energy weapon taht is an SMG, i dont think there are any by defualt.

Using the explosive spear as a grenade would be great too, hopefully that will let you use the spear throwing animation still

 

[dude_obj]

I would like to see the spear gun included as it could use the new 'dart/arrow' projectile

Okay I'll put the spear gun back in, but I have to draw the line at plungers
I'll put the spasm disrupter in too, maybe it can be made into something else.

It would be the closest thing to a bow in the game

I want a crossbow! waaaaa

 

[dude_obj]

Spear gun - Arrow projectile

I just tried the spear gun using the existing spear projectile, and it actually looks fine. I will try the new bolt animation a bit later though (for both the spear gun and thrown dart).

EDIT: I wish the game engine was set up so you could configure damage type for ammo instead of weapon. That way I could make fire bolts and explosive bolts etc. The way it is you'd need a different gun to do different types of damage.

 

[Wild_qwerty]

The plunger coudl be added as a quest item, you could use it to un block a toilit or sell it to "bob the plumber" or something like that. Thats why I named most of the tools with their own 'tool' suffix, most tools can be used as a weapon too, though a plunger is a bit silly for a weapon I suspose

For the new explosions, we might be able to add them as 'scernery' instead of 'misc' art. you could then script them to keep playing over again or mayeb to randomly appear on a different hexes. This could be used to signify some crazy person firing a mortar or artilery, perhaps even a metor strike. Doesnt really matter the point is that mappers could place 'explosions' on a map

 

[dude_obj]

Using the explosive spear as a grenade would be great too, hopefully that will let you use the spear throwing animation still

I thought that there would be a problem with the spear not being destroyed, and also usable more than once (which it shouldn't be without some kind of ammo), but apparently I was wrong. With the projectile set to spear, and the damage type set to explosion, it works just like a grenade You see the spear flying, and you see the explosion, then the spear is gone.

If I set the damage type to fire, I get a burning animation, but the spear doesn't get destroyed. That's not good because you shouldn't be able to use it more than once without reloading a charge. I tried to make a reloadable explosive spear that uses a case of charges you buy for it, but that didn't work out very well. I'm having problems with the reload function, which doesn't seem to work properly. But for just explosions (with destroy) it seems to work fine (like a grenade).

EDIT: BTW the rifle (M79) and pistol grenade launchers are working nicely, as long as you don't try to fire them to a too close target, in which case your player does the ANIM_chunks_of_flesh anim

 

[dude_obj]

The plunger coudl be added as a quest item

I'll make it a misc item, not weapon. A fist would work better than a damn plunger.

For the new explosions, we might be able to add them as 'scernery' instead of 'misc' art. you could then script them to keep playing over again or mayeb to randomly appear on a different hexes. This could be used to signify some crazy person firing a mortar or artilery, perhaps even a metor strike. Doesnt really matter the point is that mappers could place 'explosions' on a map

Well there already is the script command explosion(where,elevation,damage) ... Sets up an explosion at a given tile number (where) on a given elevation, that will cause damage in a radius. But more and varied animations are goodness. They had that random artillery effect in NWN where firebombs are landing all around the fort.

I was thinking this: I want some radiation and poison weapons. How about a suitcase nuke There was not enough radiation and poison in fallout. Only the glow in FO1 was really deadly. I think we need some new weapons, perhaps traps, that make it more dangerous.

 

[Wild_qwerty]

If I set the damage type to fire, I get a burning animation, but the spear doesn't get destroyed. That's not good because you shouldn't be able to use it more than once without reloading a charge.

That must be why the molotove cocktale does explosive damage instead of fire damage, which meant the FO2 dev's knew about this problem and got a little lazzy

I was thinking this: I want some radiation and poison weapons. How about a suitcase nuke There was not enough radiation and poison in fallout. Only the glow in FO1 was really deadly. I think we need some new weapons, perhaps traps, that make it more dangerous.

Sounds good, more traps would be a good thing (mines etc...) can you set teh explosion animation for a trap? So could we make a plasma mine that uses the FOT plasma explosion animation?

 

[dude_obj]

Sounds good, more traps would be a good thing (mines etc...) can you set teh explosion animation for a trap? So could we make a plasma mine that uses the FOT plasma explosion animation?

I did a quick look into this and there is little documentation (actually none). There is an option in the mapper to place a spacial script on the map. When someone wanders near the hex where that script is placed, the script will fire. We have ability to do "standard" explosions and apply radiation and poison effects to a player. For animations, the only commands I am aware of are the ones listed in the animcomd.h header. None of those allow direct playing of the special effects like plasma explosion. They are just the basic things like stand, walk, run, fire, etc. Having said that, there seems to be lots of undocumented capabilities. My guess is that its probably possible to trigger some of those special effects via script but its not documented. I'll try to trigger some of those special effects with a script later, but I'm busy finishing the weapons and critters for the explansion pack, and I want to reorder the scenery and walls, which will be a big job. I think its more important to make what we have easier to work with than trying new stuff (although I want to do that too).

While I'm on the topic, I had to reorder all of my items (600 of them) again to include the FoT weapons you extracted. I could have put them at the end but I wanted all weapons grouped nicely together, so everything had to move ... again. I plan to do scenery next, so if you're planning to extract any FoT scenery, now's a good time, before I reorder all that stuff, or give me a heads up what you think you'll want to add so I can leave space for it in advance.

The mapper docs say this: "The main problem with map-building will be finding all the art pieces you want. " That's the main problem I'm trying to fix through a lot of tedious grunt work, while at the same time adding all of the new stuff from FoT. I should have a release that allows you to try all the new weapons and critters very soon, probably in about 2 weeks.

 

[Wild_qwerty]

okay, there are a couple of new items I have converted, but I have been told that they dont look right as the angle is slighrlt different, I think all these are in the art pack I uploaded to NMA

The only other one I have done is the 'buring barrel' from FOT. This looks okay, and is an old barrel with a fire going in it.

 

[dude_obj]

I guess what I'm wondering is whether you plan to convert any more FoT stuff, before I delve into reording of scenery and walls. I already plan to include the art pack 1 stuff. If you think there will be more scenery from FoT, let me know. I think reordering scenery will be the biggest job because there is almost 2000 FRMs each with a proto.

Did you ever take a look at just how many different tiles there in FO2? When you browse them in the mapper, they seem to go on forever, there are over 3000 tiles peices. And like the rest of the art they are strewn all over. To make the floor of the enclave lobby for example would be not much fun! I don't know if I'll ever get to reording of tiles, but I'd sure like to figure out how to add new tiles. One thing about FO2 is that the tiles are much simpler than other games. Adding new tiles to 3D games is a huge and complicated job. It should be possible to add new terrain to FO2 with not too much trouble I think.

 

[Wild_qwerty]

at this stage the only scenery time I will be doing is:
-Burning barrel
-Rusty Helpecopter from FOT
-Mutant Freak (animated mutant blob on table, would suit the 'goo' vault tiles)
-Biological Experiment Tank (animated glass tank, full of liquid with mutant inside)
-Morter firing, only faces 4 directions so not enough for a critter turret
-Bridge, medium tech (not sure if I included this in the art pack)
-Bridge, high tech (not sure if I included this in the art pack)

As ar as new critters go have you added at the ones from Fallout 1 that are not included in Fallout 2?

These include:
-The overseer
-The master
-Mutant Lietenant
-Gizmo
-BOS guy in Power armour with no helmet

I suspose it wouild also be possible to convert the vehicals from FOT and just add them as a critter, but I think corpse has already converted the vehicals, if not I could do them if you want.

I've got to finish painting the ceiling in the bathroom tonight and aftyer that I wil take a look to see what else I had been planning to convert. The helecopter model is 50%-50% as is is broken into separate parts and I will need to make sure the parts are aligned.

 

[dude_obj]

at this stage the only scenery time I will be doing is ....<snip>

Cool thanks. I will leave space for these. Also, I will do for scenery what I did with items, which is: I leave a number of empty (unused) protos at the end of each type of item (armor, weapons, etc), so when people want to add new stuff, we don't fall right back into the "art strewn everywhere" arrangement (see all the unused spaces I left in the new itempid.h and check out how nicely grouped everything is). I now have 840 item protos (!) but quite a few of those are "unused" space for new items. I have 140 of those 840 left to edit (I am editing each one by hand with a hex editor -yikes- to change the PID number).

As ar as new critters go have you added at the ones from Fallout 1 that are not included in Fallout 2?

These include:
-The overseer
-The master
-Mutant Lietenant
-Gizmo

Yes these are already included.

-BOS guy in Power armour with no helmet

This dude is in FO2. They were used in the enclave. I used a directory compare util to see which critter FRMs are in FO1 but not in FO2. The answer was: just the 4 you mentioned above.

As I mentioned earlier, I made 140 critter protos, one for each unique FRM set, which includes all of FO2, the 4 from FO1, and your critter packs from FoT. However, when I finish these items, I'm revisiting the critters, and making 3 protos for each FRM (weak, strong, and tough). When that is done I will move on to scenery.

I suspose it wouild also be possible to convert the vehicals from FOT and just add them as a critter, but I think corpse has alroseady converted the vehicals, if not I could do them if you want.

Cool! Those are useful even as scenery items. Corpse, can I include those vehicles in the Fallout Expansion Pack I'm working on?

As critters they have lots of interesting possibilites. I have seen this done in other games (vehicles becoming critters), in fact I've seen tricks where people change the player into a vehicle (when he drives) and back into human when he exits the vehicle (these were hacks but very interesting). In FO2, ANIM_walk is drive slow, ANIM_run is drive fast, etc. I already have some random wandering routines that could be tweaked easily for vehicle movement.

I've got to finish painting the ceiling in the bathroom ....

I still have lots of work to do on the items and critters, especially since I want to have the browser pages up-to-date with the correct information (these pages don't have the recently added weapons yet). Those web browsable pages are a great reference for planning games and just for seeing what's available to use in the maps. I will also have spreadsheets with all of the game objects proto data available for a version 1 release (easy to search).

I have 10 days off and this pretty much all I will be doing, so progress will be pretty quick in the next couple of weeks. What I wanted to avoid was finishing scenery only to find that there's a bunch more from FoT to add. Thanks for the heads up.