Questions about the "Fear" system

[Surf Solar]

I didn't know where to put it, so now it's here.

What I am basically asking you more experienced modders/people who know the engine is, how the following formula/mechanic works in the game:

You go into a random encounter, with, say 2 Farmers and their kids. You attack the farmers, they attack you, you eventually kill them etc. Then, 4-5 levels and better equipment later, you get the same "Farmer" encounter with the same NPC/Protos. Now, they simply run away from you! I tried to give my character "godlike" stats, then all the npc run away from you as soon as you initiate combat.

Now my questions: how is that "fear" determined? Directly through the AI files? How does the exact formula look for that? Are there any stats/skills/items checked against the enemy? Are these rolls, or simply hard checks? Does it work the other way around (if an enemy is ridicolously strong/overpowered stats - does the PC suffer any penalties?

Many players I asked for this don't even know such a thing exists/never experienced it. No wonder, you never actually see a formula for that in your character sheet and it happens only when two very uneven enemies clash each other. I'd like to lower that treshold and make that formula actually a bit worthwhile in combat.

Some example: Your level 12 character already seen its fair share of fighting in the wastes. While being on some routine quest, you get jumped by some centaurs. Judging on that formula, it may happen you get a bad roll against your "fear" (for a lack of a better name). You get some slight penalty on your tohit chance, or maybe lose 1-2 AP for 1 round, because your character is shocked etc. The same should apply vice versa ofcourse.

Your ideas/suggestions? I'd be very grateful for someone explaining this a bit indepth.

 

[Surf Solar]

No one? Can someone atleast reproduce this, like cheating a character up to test out if npc are running away? Atleast then I wouldn't feel stupid for being the only one who noticed that.

 

[Blackened]

I noticed it a long time ago. It seems that game difficulty and/or combat difficulty affects it. I remember initiating combat against reasonably strong (still weaker than me) enemies, and they were just running away from me. I think that MIB88 had this problem with one of his newly-added NPCs (komodo dragon, or something) - it ran away, no matter the circumstances, but then I think he fixed that, so you might PM him.

It would be nice to reduce that effect, or maybe remove it, because I hate NPCs running outside of exit grids.

 

[Ardent]

It's pure guess work on my part here, but I did encounter this problem/issue/feature before, especially when working on new critter protos for MR.

I think it's the ratio of your stats and skills (the skills are surely important here) to these values of the enemy critter. I noticed most enemies would run away from me after I used the Fallout 2 Hintbook (for testing), especially if their protos were the generic 5555555 and no skill points builds.

Sadly, I have no idea how it's handled in the code, but my best guess is that it's a hardcoded system that can only partially be influenced by editing AI packets.

 

[.Pixote.]

It might be the level of damage resistance or armor class...at very high numbers the critters simply flee from you.

 

[Tom9k]

I am sure that armor takes a part in the fear system. I remmember I had to take off my leather armor when I fought Dunton brothers at Torr's Camp, else they ran away. And try to kill them when you have almost no ranged weapon

 

[Kanhef]

A few debug strings that might be relevant:

FLEEING: Can't possibly Hit Target!
FLEEING: Can't possibly get closer to Target!
FLEEING: I'm Hurt!
FLEEING: I need DRUGS!
FLEEING: Somebody is shooting at me that I can't see!

It sounds like AC is definitely a factor, as Pixote and Tom9k mention; critters will run if they don't have a chance of hitting you. Second one is probably meant to be used for critters that are stuck out of range (e.g., only melee attacks), but in practice they usually just stand around instead of running. Third is obvious, fourth is most likely for when chem_use is set to stims_when_hurt_little or stims_when_hurt_lots and they want to use stimpacks, but don't have any.

 

[Riotlung]

Once, Dogmeat in Fallout 1 kept running away from all combats I got involved in. I later found out that this was due to it having crippled limbs. That might be a factor. Or it could be that having crippled limbs affects chance to hit.