Fallout Tactics mod How to repair a damaged electric system...

[nadeauhugo]

Hi guys!

I am back here with a video of some elements I just added to my mod and I think you could be interested to know that these things are actually feasible and not very complicated to implement. I don't recall seeing anywhere that kind of features, so that is great if that answers to some needs people may have. I realize I am often modding to implement Fallout1 & 2 features in Tactics, and I am glad that some are not only possible, but sometimes better in Tactics!



So! Here is a video showing how to repair a broken generator and putting back electricity online, with color indications on it to monitor it's actual state (broken, defective, glitchy, working). When the repair is completed, the generator activate itself with sound, and the lights goes on. Electricity can then be controlled with a switch. All computers are responding to the activity of the generator and go down if something happen. You can even throw a grenade in the room and power will go down. If by "mistake" (too low repair skill), you actually "kill" the generator controller by trying to repair it, then all you efforts to repair it in the future will be vain.

There are also a nanobot distributor box that can heal you (you need to be close to it after you opened the door and wait a moment), a computer that can give access to new locations to explore (we can see them at the end of the video) and finally an archives computer that gives information on what happened previously in the building.

That's it! Most of that uses very basic triggers. The real difficult thing to this was to change the type of some objects and redesign some sprites to make them compatible with what was need. Hardest part was to make the sound work with the new "object script state" generator, it was possible by changing the generator to a Deathtrap like the Pneumatic Press in the game. That trap is the only trigger activated animation with sound.

 

[Reinar]

Is the crowbar actually just a lockpick?

I was thinking about using deathtrap for healing as well. The problem is it doesn't stop at char's max hp, you can easily have 99999/30 HP with it. You need to have it deal less "damage" per tick and deactivate it by trigger when the player has 100% HP (or less).

Out of curiosity, how are the computers made? Do you spawn different entities based on power state?

Use "Children" instead of "Childrens". The word itself is plural already (Child - Children). Anyway, dammit, the same name of an organization as in my previous campaigns. Only now they seem to be some religious villains instead of the good guys I have overly zealous religious group as the main enemy in my new campaign as well. Crap

You know what, we should join our forces some day and create something together. Looks like we are the two most innovative FT modders remaining active.

 

[nadeauhugo]

Hi hi!

Thanks for the reply! Yeah the crowbar is just a lockpick, but lockpicks are great because you can assign to them almost any stat and skill changes and requirements, so the crowbar is a very good lockpick (+60% at this time, maybe that is way too much), but it requires 6 ST. I am thinking hard about a way to make the electronic lockpicks be of any use and prevent them from being able to unlock most doors, so I thought maybe they could simply be keys with the tagname "Electronic" which can be used only for doors with really hi or impossible lockpick requirements... I could also make them the IN version of the crowbar. Same bonus, but at least 6 IN to use them. What do you think?

As for the "positive" deathtrap oh shit yess, I just noticed that when recording the video that is too stupid. It is easy to trigger another deathtrap to force the hitpoints to go down to the maximum value, but it is still ANOTHER deathtrap to add and ANOTHER trigger, so as the idea is that nanomachines are still in you, I may simply leave the extra points in my mod, but reduce them of course (at this point, it's +300 hits points ouch). Anyways, I made changes to the mod so the maximum HP is not appearing when pressing C, so it can look kind of normal in a way. Going above max HP is hell of a bonus, but I would like to change the ending of the game or maybe even the game somewhere for the worse if you have traces of nanobots in your body... Like, some communities simply refuse you entry because they fear to be "infected".

Down and working computer are yess two different entities that switch places (a bit dirty but working), and their names include the color code Working or Not-Working. That is nice because it is very similar to the Controler that also have a color coded notice, but a little bit different.

Don't know if you know, but you can also hide any indication of hitpoints like "Unhurt", "Almost dead" or else by simply adding "\n\n" after the name between the {} in characters.txt. Sometimes you just don't want people to read that the cart is Dead, the computer UnHurt and the shelves Almost dead ha!

Thanks for the info for Children too, I'll change that. The mod will seriously need some english text revision one of theses days! I guess the Children of A in my mod are anecdotic, a geeky reference to Fallout, a kind of spontaneous implementation of some kind. The text will eventually be improved and they will not really play any important role in my mod, maybe a small as the rest of the group may appear somewhere. They are not related at all to the ones from the original game as I don't know them well and just found they had such a great name since forever. So... You have a GOOD idea here with your villains and go ahead with that really, that will not be something I will focus on in my campaign! There is something really great also to play with as it is not so profoundly developed in the original games, a thing started with the brotherhood and continued with the reavers, I mean technological overzealous madness. Technology may bring everyones crazy in the future he!

Oh yess I would be so pleased to work with you, I liked the first Children of the Apocalypse you shown us, even if I didn't tried it all yet. The bad thing is that I will certainly not involve myself to any big Tactics project after The Sum. As I am a visual artist and performer the rest of the time, I may have a lot of other works to start after The Sum will be completed, so at best I'll do some part-time hobby works on other mods, like helping out with triggers, special items or other stuff. But if it happens your mod is still in the making or you have some other crazy ideas at that time we'll see! Could be fun!

 

[Reinar]

Hi hi!

Thanks for the reply! Yeah the crowbar is just a lockpick, but lockpicks are great because you can assign to them almost any stat and skill changes and requirements, so the crowbar is a very good lockpick (+60% at this time, maybe that is way too much), but it requires 6 ST. I am thinking hard about a way to make the electronic lockpicks be of any use and prevent them from being able to unlock most doors, so I thought maybe they could simply be keys with the tagname "Electronic" which can be used only for doors with really hi or impossible lockpick requirements... I could also make them the IN version of the crowbar. Same bonus, but at least 6 IN to use them. What do you think?

Sounds good, but it completely removes the need to have high lockpick skill. You'd only need enough for the easy locks. Not necessary a con, but feels like cheating. It's a pity lockpicks can't have charges like first aid kit.

Down and working computer are yess two different entities that switch places (a bit dirty but working), and their names include the color code Working or Not-Working. That is nice because it is very similar to the Controler that also have a color coded notice, but a little bit different.

Yeah, I know this dirty move. It's actually pretty good. You can also place them on a waypoint (actually now a spawnpoint? ), even the default entity, by trigger and when they swap later, it's unnoticeable, thus, you don't have to force player to not look at it. Now that I think about it, you could spawn different doors - normal and destructible - depending on what the player has in hands. But that's rather for some single mission and not a campaign.

Don't know if you know, but you can also hide any indication of hitpoints like "Unhurt", "Almost dead" or else by simply adding "\n\n" after the name between the {} in characters.txt. Sometimes you just don't want people to read that the cart is Dead, the computer UnHurt and the shelves Almost dead ha!

Hm, my lockers and shelves (GunTurret race) do not show the status. Only name and hit points with Awareness perk. When I add new lines, it does just that, increasing the space between name and hit points. Not even when they are dead.

Oh yess I would be so pleased to work with you, I liked the first Children of the Apocalypse you shown us, even if I didn't tried it all yet. The bad thing is that I will certainly not involve myself to any big Tactics project after The Sum. As I am a visual artist and performer the rest of the time, I may have a lot of other works to start after The Sum will be completed, so at best I'll do some part-time hobby works on other mods, like helping out with triggers, special items or other stuff. But if it happens your mod is still in the making or you have some other crazy ideas at that time we'll see! Could be fun!

I'd need some trained apes to script the dialogue trees for me That would be a waste of your time. I myself should eat what I cooked, heh. Maybe I'll need some side quests later. Anyway, I'd like to finish the campaign this year. The previous one (CotA) was in development for like 6 years, lol. But I guess I'll drop the ball sooner or later and it will take few years.

 

[nadeauhugo]

Sounds good, but it completely removes the need to have high lockpick skill.

Eh yess I really think you're right on this. My goal first was to have a more useful crowbar in the game without much efforts, give some chances to big bullies that don't have any skills whatsoever, but still want to get access to stuff by force if necessary. I really should at least limit the bonus to 30-40%. As some doors and safes have about 40-60 skill requirements, that makes 0 to -20% chance to unlock them with the bonus applied, that is enough I think since even if you CAN unlock many doors with low lockpick and a crowbar, that will take annoying attempts to do so and you will crave for some more points. And Having electronic doors works with "Electronick lockpick keys" I think add a need to other lock picking tools and a small bonus to very high lockpick skills (100-120%) that didn't find any electronic lockpick yet during the game or don't need to carry one around anymore.

...waypoint (actually now a spawnpoint? ), even the default entity, by trigger and when they swap later, it's unnoticeable, thus, you don't have to force player to not look at it...

Ha good trick about the switched destructible door! As for the spawnpoints, I only only use them for starting characters and always use a waypoint when I want to move something with "Move unit". I guess it just change nothing to the result at the end. And yess that is nice about the swaping trick, that comes in handy at this moment because I am making a trigger that I will copy/past for all other computers that I will install later on in the mod.

Hm, my lockers and shelves (GunTurret race) do not show the status.

Oups, I checked again in my files and noticed that I added like 15 of theses line breaks to be sure the info was removed. I can tell you it works even with the Awareness perk. At first I decided to have all my campaign related items (cart, cooler, campfire, etc.) show 100 hit points to people with awareness perk, but it is way better to remove that attribute directly. I think some of the "robot like entities" of some kind or else, I mean some races don't show any hit points indications or exact hitpoints with Awareness perk and I don't really know why...

Haha, to finish, I'll say that the dialog tree system obsess me in a way and I'll probably try to solve that in the future, because so many damn attempts have been made and they are all a bit complicated and sometimes just SOO strange to make ANY use of them. I've seen everything, from "proning, standing, etc." when talking ; to giving a letter (A,B,C) to a person ; to : waiting some seconds ; to : seeing the person multiply for each answer ; to : adding a big box far away with buttons that your hidden character go talk to. My other idea could be maybe to add color coded buttons entities that appear at 4-5 previously chosen places (with waypoints) near the person and have mouse over texts to choose from (red is always aggressive, white is always peaceful or used to continue the conversation, Grey is always to leave, etc.), buttons that automatically disappear if you leave the zone. It could be a practical solution and the only with a bank of most common sentences like (Tell me more, Ok, sorry I am not interested, I accept your offer, Buzz off, I must be going, bye, [ATTACK] etc.). Each and every answer will have to be added as individual dialogues with a tag (no text attached to them) and added as a click speech in the "Entity Edit" section. Then, triggers will be VERY simple and intuitive to play with. You simply have to store all your answers in a hidden area of the map. I don't really plan on implementing that to my mod, at least at this time because it will take a lot more time to program compared to simple automatic talks that relates on the character statistics and actions. But! If you want, you can try my idea, I'll say there is a 95% chance it will work nicely and look good, as this solution is really close to what is used everywhere else by the game (mouse over informations). As you are using entities names to show the texts, you can even add color coded informations with a line break giving the requirements on such dialogues, like "* Intelligence", and only show the dialogues that have the requirements. Even better, those dialogues could be color coded too, like orange is always related to intelligence and don't appear that much often, yellow for perception, etc. etc.

 

[Reinar]

The stand/crouch/prone system is mine and I think it's the best all around solution. You're limited to 3 answers, which is not great, but not that bad either. You can also progress the dialogue by not doing anything, for example the character threatens to kill someone you don't care about. The 3 stance replies can be various checks, while not saying anything will "choose" the violent path after few seconds. And the [attack] option is basically you rightclicking the character. What's good about this is you are not limited by a zone and you can go through the dialogue as many times as you want. Bad (for someone, I don't see a problem here) is that you always see all the answers, even though you don't have the skill/stat for them, which means you need to write two variants (1. - passed, 2. - didn't pass).

Your system seems good on paper, but it gets messy in a combat zone. When the NPC gets distracted by some fight and doesn't properly return to the zone (i.e. doesn't climb back to tower). Or when the talkable NPC is using waypoints. Also it won't be much lighter on triggers, because you'd have to use variables all the same. Click on an answer entity -> 1) C: speech occurred, A: set variable, 2) C: variable is x, A: force speech. Triggers like C: speech occurred, A: force speech don't work and will crash the game right away if it's the PC.
You could still use it in some interesting way, for example to make some minigame in the place pipes of various form to connect two points before the water starts to pour in style. Using computers to bridge some circuitry or whatever scientific mumbo jumbo. Each computer would be one answer and the main frame would tell you what's the status.

 

[nadeauhugo]

You may yes be right about your system being the best solution at the moment as it is the only one that permits answering with the keyboard fist (like the old fallout), responding without doing anything, and without adding to the game more icons and buttons and things that it already have and they are numerous. It is also light to program (probably lighter than my solution) And of course it is not related to the trigger "move unit" that can be problematic, yess because of game crash when the entity don't exist, but also because if your solution is to force/move the caracter, as soon as you have more than one character everybody start to be moved around anywere and teleport for no clear reason. I think i'll really put that on ice because you bring an important question here: what if the caracter is just busy sonewhere else or you want to talk to people with AI that is set to walk around random waypoints... A system that add buttons placed at the same place as the person you are talking to could work, but I think the buttons will not often be properly aligned...

He for strange reasons I really never could properly used the right clicking feature to attack somebody. It seems when you right-click on someone directly it do not attack, but when you right-click behind or in front of that person it works, but only with weapons that have an area effect like 12 gauge. It also never work with bare hands or melee. That is why the time I was making my global triggers I added a trigger that put all teams to ennemy when you are in TB, and put them back in the original state when in CTB. That is nice because every ones that actually see the fight join in or move to see what is happening if you quickly disable the option.

 

[Reinar]

If you want a working example of the dialogue tree, I can send you one of the first maps of my campaign.

Oh, sorry, you need to hold ctrl and then click. I have this move memorized for years, so I don't think about it anymore and do it automatically.

 

[nadeauhugo]

Ah!! That is a very obscure shortcut but that can come in handy! Being able to attack anyone is just too important for that kind of game! And oh yess, please send me one of your map, that will help me avoid some mistakes as I only created 3-4 dialogues from now and I don't know yet if there are some shortcuts.

Another question that is not related at all to this, maybe you can help me. Do turrets can be linked to switches with the same tagname? I mean can we shut down or activate turrets as we can open doors using the same tagname applied to a switch or science switch and using no trigger? That could save me some time!

 

[nadeauhugo]

Works even with melee weapons! Thanks!

 

[Reinar]

Only Gary in his shack in the middle of the town has implemented the dialogue tree. There's not much to talk, but it's enough for an example.

About the turret and switch - I don't know, but should be really quick to test that out.

 

[nadeauhugo]

Great I'll check this out!!

 

[nadeauhugo]

Hum.... There seems to be some shitty programming going on inside that game sometimes... Did somebody noticed that after leaving a map a first time ("nuke triggers on exit" not checked, nothing has "remove on exit" checked), all science switch suddently stop to work? (!/$!/*$!%?!?%&!&&!!!!) I don't really know what to do with that as I was not able to understand the problem yet. It just look like all science switches have been designed to shut off after leaving the map. I can't include it in my mod that way, that is way too stupid. If someone have more info on this, I'm all listening...

 

[Reinar]

I don't know as I use them for instant actions and don't care what happens to them once you pass the skill check, but the solution should be pretty simple: Use variables. When you turn the switch on, change variable. Then change your script condition to check for the variable and not the switch state.

 

[nadeauhugo]

Are you speaking about using variables with regular switch instead? That msy work yess. The computers in my mod have only a single use utility (find the location of some other cities or read a text) but the bad thing is that if you just look around the map and leave without touching a computer, or if you are too bad in science and can't activate the computer, then you'll certainly come back and try later and that will not work, even if the first use has not happened...

 

[Reinar]

Oh, you meant this. Well, I just tried it in my campaign. Came to the location for the first time, left, came back and successfully used a science switch. Don't know what might be the problem in your case. If you send me the map, I can take a look at it. Maybe you made some stupid little mistake you don't see because you know your map just TOO well.

 

[nadeauhugo]

Oh yess!! Happy to hear that. That is very very strange, I just tested another map today after reading your message with a plain, regular science switch set to 70, and was also able to try it, go, come back and successfully use it again like you. Probably the ones that create the bug are the ones with the custom sprites I used when making them. That means there is some hope after all, just a matter of having the exact good science switch sprite, and that also means my triggers will not need to be changed after all! Thanks for testing this.