Faithful Dog

War Bringer · Post by **War Bringer** » Sun May 05, 2002 2:11 pm

ok, with all the talk about the character tag names and force speech and conditions and everything, i've started thinking about a lot of stuff that might be possible (hey, it's what i do).

ok, i know it's possible to have a character like dog meat in the game. he can be on your side, but you don't control him. the only thing i'm wondering about is if it's possible to make him appear in the missions you take (as if he was following you) without having to hide a clone entity in every mission, and have an entity spawn trigger.

i was kinda thinking that it might be cool to find a bounty hunter you can hire that has a dog following him.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Sun May 05, 2002 7:50 pm

Yes theoretically it should be possible. The dog can be made to follow you during the entire mission without being your player index. Then when you get to the exit grid, have a trigger that changes him to your index. He will be there at the next mission where you have a trigger to change him back.

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Mon May 06, 2002 2:50 am

One problem with this that I thought of is that the Dog probably won't get any experience when opponents are killedif it's on another Player Index. You could set it up to award experience to the pooch when objectives are met, though.

Of course, you could simply ignore this issue. After all, Dogmeat never improved, either.

How are you going to get the pooch to follow the player, though? IIRC setting a Player Index to "Follow" doesn't work. (You're supposed to have a tagged item that someone is carrying that the entity will then follow, but I couldn't get it to work.)

OTB

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Mon May 06, 2002 10:28 am

OTB threw a wrench into the propeller:

How are you going to get the pooch to follow the player, though? IIRC setting a Player Index to "Follow" doesn't work. (You're supposed to have a tagged item that someone is carrying that the entity will then follow, but I couldn't get it to work.)

Hmm, yes, that makes it trickier. I tried it the way I thought it would work and it didn't so I will play a little bit with OTB's concept.

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Mon May 06, 2002 10:44 am

*hehe* Sorry.

Something I thought of afterwards was: Does switching the dog's Player Index violate the "All Alive at Exit Grids" condition? After all, if "BoS Has All Alive at Exit Grids" is the condition that switches the dog's PI, then all of a sudden BoS doesn't have all alive at exit grids anymore. Maybe you could use a mission variable like "Mission_Complete" that switches the dog's PI just before the game goes to the World Map. Or maybe you could just let the player march the pooch into the exit grid.

OTB

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Mon May 06, 2002 11:01 am

I think I tried just about everything including having the PC try to carry a tagged waypoint in their inventory! But nothing works - sorry Warbringer.

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Mon May 06, 2002 11:07 am

Back when I first found out about Waypoint Follow I had this idea that you could give the Main Character a set of Dog Tags (remember that sprite, JJ86?) that was a tagged, generic item that you could use for things like this, hostage rescues, etc., etc. Unfortunately it didn't seem to work, so I snuffed the idea.

Of course, I'd planned on putting a blurb in the ReadMe that said, "If you loose your dog tags, you will have to back up to a saved game where you still have them!"

Another thing I thought of that would be a problem w/the pooch idea: If you don't have any control over him, how are you going to keep him/her from initiating combat? That could get really sticky really quickly if the pooch charged in before your squad was ready, not to mention that it could lead to the pooch's untimely demise.

OTB

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Thu May 09, 2002 5:12 am

hmmm....I've had a dog in my party since the game was released. Can control him, change attributes, levels, and works like a normal party member.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Thu May 09, 2002 7:05 am

But to have him not be a squad member and still have him follow you is not as easy. In Fallout 1 Dogmeat would follow you anywhere but you didn't have any control over him - you couldn't even tell him to wait for you like you could the other members of your party.

War Bringer · Post by **War Bringer** » Thu May 09, 2002 8:34 am

Mad Max RW wrote:hmmm....I've had a dog in my party since the game was released. Can control him, change attributes, levels, and works like a normal party member.

i tried that too, but what i'm looking for now is something like dog meat. having a dog in your team isn't practical (as otb pointed out) simply because of the fact that dogs can't climb ladders. in order to pass some stages, your team wouldn't be able to leave unless you killed your dog. if the dog wasn't in your team, then that would be another story.

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Thu May 09, 2002 9:05 am

War Bringer wrote:having a dog in your team isn't practical...simply because of the fact that dogs can't climb ladders. in order to pass some stages, your team wouldn't be able to leave unless you killed your dog. if the dog wasn't in your team, then that would be another story.

I'm so enthused on the idea of having a dog available in the recruit pool that I'm simply making sure that it is possible to get out of a mission w/o having to climb a ladder. I simply didn't include one in the starting squad/recruit pool because I would have had to completely rework a mission to make it feasable since having the exit grid open at the start point would have knocked a mile-wide hole in the plot.

OTB

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Sat May 11, 2002 5:28 am

I played the game all the way through with a dog and NEVER reached a dead end where he absolutely had to climb a ladder in order to beat the level. Unless you're talking about custom missions, which I never tried.

Here's what I did to get my dog working so that he actually made the game enjoyable:
First of all, I replaced the worthless medic guy Stitch.
Second, add lots of Agility, Endurance, and Perception. The dog is the ultimate melee-only fighter.

War Bringer · Post by **War Bringer** » Sat May 11, 2002 9:12 am

funny enough, i replaced the same guy when i added my dog. what i looking for is one just to add a little... i suppose a little spice or extra to a character. a recruit/bounty hunter that comes with his own attack dog... what a fun concept. but oh well...

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Sat May 11, 2002 10:40 am

Funny enough, WB hit the submit button twice!

Technically, I could use my powers as a moderator and delete the extra post, but I find the situation rather funny

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Sat May 11, 2002 11:26 am

Max-Violence wrote:Technically, I could use my powers as a moderator and delete the extra post, but I find the situation rather funny

*hehe*

Um...oops. Sorry 'bout ruining your fun, Max. :oops:

OTB

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Sat May 11, 2002 12:19 pm

Eh, it was fun while it lasted

Mad Max RW · Post by **Mad Max RW** » Sun May 12, 2002 2:13 am

I must have missed something. Been gone for the past 24 hours.

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Sun May 12, 2002 6:29 am

WB double-posted, I saw it first and thought it was funny so I didn't delete the copy, but OTB had to go and be a poo-head and ruin the fun