Slip 'Im a Mickey!

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Fri May 17, 2002 10:57 am

Okay, I'm working on a knockout drug right now, but haven't had any success. Right now I think the best shot is a drug w/no effect, except a high overdose setting. Unfortunately I've only managed to kill the target, not to incapacitate it, unless it was one of the player characters.

However, all is not lost, I have come up with something useful:

Let's say you want to set up a situation like with Westin in NCR (FO2). For those of you whose memories are ailing/haven't played FO2, Westin is a cantankerous old coot with a weak heart who can be killed with a syringe full of weak poison so as to make it look like an "accident". Here's the solution I came up with:

Create a Consumable entity. You don't have to enable any of the effects, just set the Random effect to something like radiation or poison points and set the Min and Max to something really low like 1 and 1.
Set up a tagged actor that will serve as the sacrificial lamb on the alter of Realpolitik.
Set up a Quantity Unit trigger that kills the tagged actor when he/she/it has exactly 1 poison/radiation points (depending on what you set your Consumable entity to do).
Set up appropriate objective completion, XP award, etc. based on this occuring. It is also best to have this trip a mission or campaign variable.

This approach offers several advantages over the Ma Baker approach in Cold Water in the core campaign. For one, you can trigger the actors death by other means to have nasty repurcusions for the player. ("I told you to make it look like an accident, you brahmin humpin' tribal trash!")

Cheers,

OTB

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Fri May 17, 2002 12:52 pm

Interesting indeed...

Unfortunately, I got Dungeon Siege (bought it myself), Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (bought it), the Operation Flashpoint: Red Hammer expansion pack (got for b-day), Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (got w/ new sound card), AND Giants: Citezen Kabuto (got w/ new sound card), soooooo...

Oh, and I've exams next week.

Viktor · Post by **Viktor** » Fri May 17, 2002 4:01 pm

Having seen both my squad members and enemies be knocked 'unconcious' for a period of time after a critical hit, it must be possible to trigger this 'entity state' by other means????

Other PC/NPC 'states' I've seen in the core campaign:-

Crippled
Blinded
Winded
Immobile
Bandaged

Could you use a combination drugs/violence approach to making an actor's death look accidental/self inflicted???

I'm thinking along the "fill 'em with booze/shoot them with their own gun/drop gun/run away leaving someone else to find the body" fake suicide lines here.....

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Fri May 17, 2002 8:29 pm

I don't think drugs were meant to have those kinds of effects, but weapons were. The only way to create unconsciousness seems to be a targeted hit to the head. Maybe if you can put something akin to a timed explosive in an NPC's inventory that only does damage to the head? Can explosives be targeted?

Viktor · Post by **Viktor** » Fri May 17, 2002 8:43 pm

Jimmyjay86 wrote:I don't think drugs were meant to have those kinds of effects, but weapons were. The only way to create unconsciousness seems to be a targeted hit to the head. Maybe if you can put something akin to a timed explosive in an NPC's inventory that only does damage to the head? Can explosives be targeted?

I think they do 'area' damage.....but I can't see why you couldn't set the 'damage radius' (or whatever it's called in FO:T) to 1 tile, so that only the holder was affected.....

What about using the needler pistol to do this type of 'knockout' damage??? The item description already says "You suspect the Birgham needler pistol was once used for scientific field studies. It uses small hard-plastic hypodermic darts." - so how about setting it up to give target a quick nap???

I think you might have to alter the ammo as the only version I've seen poisons the target.....

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Fri May 17, 2002 9:59 pm

Viktor wrote:Having seen both my squad members and enemies be knocked 'unconcious' for a period of time after a critical hit, it must be possible to trigger this 'entity state' by other means????

You know Viktor, you might be on to something here, although it wouldn't be quite as clean as what I'm looking for. I suppose you could rig up a Sap/Blackjack/bludgeon that had a very high critical chance, but did very little damage. Still, this has the downfall of a character having to attack the target, which can have potentially fatal results, or result in some sort of cripple.
__________________________________________________________
General: Damn it, you incompetent fool! Don't you know she has to be recognizable for the execution tomorrow! You fuckheads brought her to me with her eye dangling from its socket!

Player: Um...sorry, sir...guess we...um...sorta got carried away...

I suppose you could use the poison solution combined w/a clone, too. The clone could be set to unconconscious.

The Needler Pistol solution won't work. The only Special Damage type you can select that comes close would be Stun, and that simply lowers PE and AG. It doesn't induce unconsciousness.

I'd still like it better if my rather simple little idea of a syringe filled w/anaesthetic or rag doused in ether would work...

OTB

Flamescreen · Post by **Flamescreen** » Sat May 18, 2002 9:38 pm

The only way I can think of that would be related(if possible), would be to have a trigger, when entering a zone with such a devise(don't know how else to call it) in the active slot to have the targeting character replaced by an unconscious one.

That would be somewhat close to what you want to do, provided you want it to complete a quest(as I'm assuming) and not to use continuously.

endocore · Post by **endocore** » Mon May 20, 2002 9:41 am

I hope this isn't irrelevant, OTB, since I'm sure you already knew how to do what I'm about to propose (perhaps I'm just not understanding what you want to accomplish), but if you take a look at a file called anesthetic.ent found in both my Quagmire and What is Honor Amongst Thugs filesets, I think you'll find that a shot or two of this new drug can simulate unconsciousness very nicely. The drug's name and description sum up its effects pretty well:

Name: Coma

Description: An anesthetic normally administered before major surgery

I hope that can help you.

Endocore

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Mon May 20, 2002 11:52 am

Well, well, well! What have we here? The Prodigal Map Rat has returned, like a dog to his own vomit!

[j/k]

endocore wrote:...[T]ake a look at a file called anesthetic.ent found in...Quagmire...I think you'll find that a shot or two of this new drug can simulate unconsciousness very nicely.

I didn't think of simply using a drug to lower stats!

I unzipped the ENT, placed it on my range map and shot an NPC and a PC w/one hit each. The PC's stats were bad, e.g. she was down to 2 AP and couldn't use any of her weapons from lack o' ST. I'm going to play w/this a bit more tomorrow. I'm thinking that -10 in all stats should pretty much knock any NPC on his/her/its ass. If nothing else, you could use a Quantity Unit trigger tied to an NPC's stat level.

Thanks! I'll let everyone know what happens tomorrow.

OTB

PS Get yourself an av post haste, Endocore! :mrgreen: (If you need to host one, PM me and I'll arrange it.)

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Mon May 20, 2002 10:55 pm

Okay Endocore, I worked w/the anaesthetic.ent a little more. Basically, I made it nastier to compensate from stats >10, especially since the Ghoul I was experimenting with has a PE of 13 during the day. I set it up to subtract 15 from the relevant stats, as well as an AP penalty of -15. In all cases, the stats/attributes were lowered to 1.

The funny thing is that if you have a squadmate that you nail with the drug, you'd better take their items from their active item slots before you do it. Since they will only have 1 AP they cannot x-fer anything from the slots to their inventory...

This isn't quite the solution that I was looking for, but it can be used in conjunction w/other triggers to make for a viable solution. The problem is that the actor still has 1 AP and is still aware in game terms. I used a clone switch in one case and that is definitely workable, although there would have to be some sort of warning for the character not to waste the drug on random passersby, old women named Dennis who are 27 y/o, or other Wasteland inhabitants not called for in the mission briefing.

Basically, I'm trying to simulate a kidnapping. One in which the PCs burst in on someone, nail them w/some sort of drug - I'm thinking about a rag and a can of ether for a sprite :mrgreen: - then I have to simulate the dragging of a body out to a vehicle. (I'll probably come up w/a generic sprite of a burlap sack tied off at one end for this...)

Another solution I'd considered was simply doing something along the lines of Talon Squad's extraction in St. Louis, but that doesn't quite cut the mustard in this case, since the PCs still need to deal w/guards, and I'd like to encumber them w/what amounts to a sack o' potatoes...

Thanks for the input, gentlemen.

OTB

endocore · Post by **endocore** » Tue May 21, 2002 1:51 pm

OnTheBounce wrote:Prodigal Map Rat has returned....

Well, perhaps that's a too little dramatic, OTB. Actually I've just been extremely busy at work and haven't had the luxury of the many leisure hours I was enjoying over the winter.

I'm glad if my suggestion was of any help to you. Since it sounds like you're going to have to do an entity swap at some point anyway for your kidnapping plot, my suggestion (probably what you already have in mind) would be to have the PC's drug their mark, and then have a Quantity-Unit trigger such as

CONDITION:

Unit 'NPC Victim' has less than 2 Stat Strength [i.e. the drug has been administered] at Anywhere

ACTION:

Deactivate Player 'Original NPC Victim'
Give item tagged 'Body Bag' from 'Offscreen NPC' to Human
Display [world] text 'Kidnapping Successful'

Hope that helps, or perhaps helps anyone else following this thread who might not have been sure what we were talking about.

Endocore

Ed the Monkey · Post by **Ed the Monkey** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 11:05 am

isn't this what rubber bullets and the stun gun were made to do? I am trying to work on a map where raiders take down tribals. Killing them would be bad, because I want to take slaves as a mission... therefore unconsiousness is essential. Before I go through all this work, i'd like to know if my idea is even possible. If I go after someone with a shotgun filled with rubber shells, will i be able to knock the person out? how could i make it a knock out in 1 or 2 shots?

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Thu Jun 20, 2002 8:24 pm

I am guessing here but.....

In the entity editor you have the ability to modify specific skills, stats, etc. Try modifying perception for one when the rubber bullets are used. I'm not sure if you can temporarily tag the sharpshooter perk when using a special ammo type. Also maybe there is a way to automatically have the ammo target for a head shot. Look at the weapon as well as the ammo and if the editor doesn't seem to do it, try using BOSEE.