Fallout 2 mod Panda - Hunger/Thirst/Stress mod BETA

[Kamos5]

Hello, everyone.

I created (or should I say I'm working on) next mod for fallout 2. This time it's a little bigger in scope. I called it Panda (Personal All Needs Data Analyzer), and it's more or less what you think - mod that add certain meters to base game: Hunger/Thirst/Stress with some other things (perks, more items in future).
All the details (of what is done and what will be added) you can read in excel file.

For now I would say mod is ~50% done and it is in playable state. (I hope )

Now... idea behind this mod was to make use of most misc/unused items from the game (like food, drink etc). Personally I found that like 95% of time I did never use things like beer,booze,drugs...(unless I need to pass certain skill check), so these items were more or less waste of space (or being substitute for money).

With this mod, player will be forced to control his Hunger/Thirst/Stress levels by finding and consuming these items. (But not only - I added some new features for stress maintenance.)
Reward being inc xp rate and bonus modifications to SPECIAL stats. (or negative bonus and xp rate).

I found that there were already some ideas in the past but no one really followed them through to the end.

I'm also including ssl script file for anyone interested. (I know right now code is garbage, but I would really like someone to look at the code and find ways to optimize it or just to inspire .
Unfortunately during development I once deleted ssl file and had to revert from int, so some comments, guidelines and "normal" names of variables were deleted :/.)

Also I would like to now what you all think about something like that. Any suggestions to feature, items or special perks (after acceptance) I will add to TODO list.

While on topic I wonder how can I hook to specific game dialogs so I can track what player click on dialog option... :/

Requirement for mod to work you will find in read me. (it should work - fingers crossed )

Hope you will enjoy it,

Kamos5.

Edit: I noticed that that AP are not calculated correctly for time being :/ enjoy almost unlimited power

 

[naossano]

You might want to check what Wasteland Merc 2, Last Hope and Global Mod did with hunger.

 

[Alphons]

Thirst and hunger are rather straightforward, but how stress is going to work?

 

[Kamos5]

Somehow I totally missed on Wasteland Merc, thanks.

@Alphons.
Stress came up partly as a solution to problem of restrictions in food/thirst system and partly as its own thing. Besides it allows me to make more use of some item (like drugs) or game features (like sex counter, some perks: like divorced etc), to be more useful in the game.

In simple terms stress, is short and long time inconvenience that must be dealt with. It will increase slowly by minor constant factor but in stressful situations it will rise faster. (To give you example, by not taking regular drugs while addicted or by losing companion in a fight. Also being constant hungry or thirsty will increase it.) To reduce it, you will have multiple choices (like drinking alcohol/ taking drugs/going to brothel etc).

In addition to make every game a bit more unique, at the start of the game you will roll special perk. Let's call it: "Character Trait".(eg. you are Masochist) and you "need" to fell pain. Any damage taken will decrease your stress by minor factor. However not receiving any, after a while will make you frustrated and make you more stressed as a result.
Another "dodgy" example that I can give you is Necrophile. (you will decrease stress by grave robbing or by just killing human enemies) . (more info in excel file in .7z)

You can say hunger/thirst will be secondary meter to stress being primary. Not reducing it will make your character depressed (with permanent debuff effect), with very limited options to heal yourself.

Idea behind those perks is to give player additional options of stress reduction and also to make character more unique in gameplay, forcing him to do things that he/she would not do normally.

I just want to give a meaning to some (in my perception) game features that are not used enough in the game. Hunger/Thirst/Stress system is just one of the ideas that I came up with to change that. Besides I wanted to make SPECIAL stats more dynamic system, and by modification through HTS system I get that.

 

[valcik]

Also I would like to now what you all think about something like that.

Nice work, sounds to me it comes with a lot of micromanagement added to the gameplay though.

Any suggestions to feature, items or special perks (after acceptance) I will add to TODO list.

Smell detection? I think that would be hilarious.
Mechanics wise your sneak chances could have been affected by high smell level, with bath services completely removing it. Also human critters could have been knocked out for couple of seconds in close proximity of hardcore stinkies such as ghouls after failed END check.
:: Myron snorts and collapse. The intense smell of nearby ghoul causes him to pass out. ::

 

[Kamos5]

Nice one with that smell detection. However I think I will not implement it

As for micromanagement, it will depend on difficulty. I plan to create automatic "sensible" system for eating and drinking on easy, some kind of upgrade, to do it for you on medium and on hard well... life is brutal It's not like this system will be crippling (saying that, having depression, starving and being dehydrated you will have ~-2 to all stats), but I want it to be easy to maintain and somewhat "natural". Whatever that means.

 

[Kamos5]

@Update

It took me a while but beta version of the mode is finished.

I wanted to create mod that would work with old save game files but after 4 days struggle I'm defeated (damn you Gvars and changing type of items...) :/
So new game is required.

However I added successfully couple new thing:
- New special character perks (which are working now)
- Changes few items from misc to drugs (meat jerky, cookies, cheezy poofs, rubber doll, water flask etc.) - reason being that I needed to hook use action. :/
- Hunger/Thirst/Stress works correctly now, with SPECIAL stat's bonuses etc.
- Added Depression Perk (healed only with Jet) - if player get's 100 stress he will get it by auto.
- Making love is now more important. (having sex reduces stress by a lot )
- Added for Beta (in future there will be q for that) 2 special items: Horn of Plenty and Holy Grail. (Both trade player xp, for food/thirst items) - on hard it is turned off/alternatively cost of using Horn and Grail will be increased (10*level (for Medium) and 100*lvl (for Hard), by default it is 5*level)/per use.
- Power Armor turning off natural thirst increase. Just like still suit.
- Accounting special events for stress management (losing car)

Fixed bugs with additional ap/rad res and 10 luck

Check xml file for more info.

As for additional information please look into f2bin-mod.ini. IT IS BETA build so parameters for food/thirst/stress natural increase could be(and maybe should be) optimized. Any feedback/suggestions from you will be taken into account.

Plan for future:
- add more special perks
- making use of more items
- some new strange funky mechanics (possibly with Horn and Grail)
- quests for 2 new items
- automatic use of items on world map

 

[Mr.Stalin]

Why is the text written directly in the scripts? place the text in a separate msg/ini file.

 

[Kamos5]

Damn... I totally forget about that

You are right, it should be in msg files. I will fix that in the next version. Script is still in rough shape - could and should be optimized. Thanks for spotting that.