Ideas you can steal from me

[OnTheBounce]

I suppose you could try and simulate the effect of lasguns hitting a shield by creating a entity for the shield and then having variables set up for if player x has a lasgun equipped, player y has a shield on (equipped) and player y has less than 99% attribute hitpoints then use the kill player trigger or just play the nuke movie and end the game to the fail screen. Vice Versa for player x having a shield equipped and player y with a lasgun etc.

Except that this would lead someone to be killed if they had been wounded w/something, then someone equipped a Lasgun. Unfortunately the trigger system does not let us take into account what type of damage they have taken. Were that a case, a Dune mod would be eminantly "do-able".

I think a better solution would be to come up w/a setting based on Dune, but not trying to copy it. Basically someone could sit down and come up w/a setting in which the basic primitive melee fighters vs. high-tech but low accuracy troops is preserved and also have the conflict resource driven.

OTB

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Except that this would lead someone to be killed if they had been wounded w/something, then someone equipped a Lasgun.

Hmm good point, though you could still work it if the player was the one with the lasguns and the actors had the shields in certain situations. It would be a good way of limiting a player from using their advanced weaponry at crucial points in a campaign. For instance, you arrive at a mission and the briefing informs you that intelligence believes that many of the guards in the map may have access to shield technology so to be wary of using lasguns. Then the player has the choice of using their powerful weapons and risk ending the mission prematurely by hitting a shield or they can play safe and stick with other (perhaps more stealthy) weaponry.

It could also be used outside of a Dune inspired scenario, if you had PA but were told the armour/insulation over the micro-fusion reactor had been penetrated and if someone was using a certain type of weapon, then you could risk an explosion if the reactor containment was breached. Then the player would have a choice of using their PA or a lesser armour, perhaps something worth thinking about if you want to equip your character with PA at the begining of a campaign but limit it's use.

I think a better solution would be to come up w/a setting based on Dune, but not trying to copy it.

Well it would have to be inspired by Dune, rather than a Dune campaign/map, anyway. Not just because of copyright issues but because of the lack of worms. You couldn't set something on Dune with the worms!

[airsoft guy]

I've been saying it shouldn't be Dune, but a campaign set on Dune with the Fremen. Come up with a campaign for them where they go aroundcausing trouble for the Baron, stealing his stockpiles of spice, and eventually you move up into the larger cities taking out warehouses and factories, espionage, doing the stuff the Fremen are good at. Alternate timeline kind of stuff, what if this event didn't happen? Well we get the current events.

You can to do Dune without sandworms, those are only used for transportation, so you just insert into the town or caves or whatever and say that you rode up on a worm in the night, hopped off and snuck past patrols or whatever into the town. Move in, gather intelligence, blow up a hangar or something like that, then you leave, next mission, raid a spice stockpile by clearing out the caves, once done a 'thopter will come to pick up the spice. Most battles happen in caves or town, not out on the open sand with worms, there's only one battle that had worms in it that comes to mind, the battle at Arrakeen at the end of Dune, but you could even do that mission without the worms, you just start off in the city with a ton other Fremen, or you could be there to weaken the defenses before the big attack, you are commandos.

Like I said, a Dune mod would have to take some creative liberties to make it work. A few mistakes I can live with, as long as there is a semi-logical explanation.

[PaladinHeart]

It sounds like an interesting concept. Although I must say I prefer settings where I can make up and/or add new stuff if desired. The fallout world is really lenient about that.

I dunno about Dune though. Sounds like fans would get mad if everything wasn't done 'just so'.

I guess im more interested in using a basic outline while being free to put in and/or add whatever I want.

[airsoft guy]

Those fans are douche nozzles, and I don't care what they think, and neither should anyone else, as long as you're not making money off of the idea it's okay, once you start bastardizing the thing and telling everyone it's the same as before, but better, then we have a problem (hmm, sounds familiar, don't it?) Any true fan would encourage them to keep up the good work, and politely point out little things that could have been done better, instead of screaming and bitching about something that doesn't matter, like gun-shop commandos that sit around pointing out obvious problems with weapons in games, but if they knew anything they would just accept it and point out failures when needed.

[PaladinHeart]

I would actually consider doing a Dune campaign if I knew more about it. Perhaps I can read some of the literature sometime.

Of course, the less one knows about something, the more imaginative you can be.

But even if I do start working on a dune campaign, i'd have to finish my current project first. And there are other ideas I have been tossing around as well. Its a good chance that after im done with my RPG, i'll want to start a whole new campaign world that merely borrows elements from Fallout, Dune, etc..

[Jimmyjay86]

It is much better to make something wholly original. Why go to the trouble of using some aspects from Dune? You can't faithfully translate the Dune universe into what is possible with the FOT engine so why even try?

Originality is always more interesting than a hodge-podge of ideas from various sources that don't fit well together.

[OnTheBounce]

Originality is always more interesting than a hodge-podge of ideas from various sources that don't fit well together.

Hear, hear!

I remember when I had finished reading Dune back in '84 I was GM'ing a Star Frontiers campaign. I had liked the novel so much at the time that I immediately tried to shoe-horn a goodly portion of it into my SF campaign. A disaster. Like JJ86 put it a "hodge-podge of ideas from various sources that don't fit well together." Never made that mistake again.

In my previous post I said "based on Dune" perhaps I should have said "inspired by" instead. Basically, what I would suggest doing is to take the elements (not the gadgets) from Dune that you want to emulate, then repackage it. For instance, you could have a high-tech faction at war w/a low-tech faction that relies on stealth and commando operations to get around the other side's advantage in tech. You could give the high-tech faction a cadre of elite troopers, too. Only I would suggest not calling it Harkonnen and Saudaukar vs. Fremen. It could just as easily be Enclave (w/elite "Black Watch") vs. Tribals. You'd still get the same game-play, but w/o leaving the wreckage of the Dune milieu strung out on the highway.

Any way, that's my $0.02.

OTB

[Sirgalahadwizard]

Heh, I always get in on good discussions like this pretty late. So I guess i'll put in my two cents starting from the beginning.

I like the idea for more melee weapons. In fact, in some of my mods i've incorporated more of them and made them a tad bit more powerful than normal (because I feel they were given too much of a handicap).

Because FOT has a VERY LIMITED number of damage types (ie, no piercing/bludgeoning/slashing)... i've decided to reduce the damage on bladed weapons but make them to JHP damage... and bludgeoning weapons do "smashing" damage but have AP modifier (or even DU).

I took over the "gas" damage type and replaced it with "Smashing" damage, it has the same death anims as "Normal"... but it gives me an extra slot to do stuff with (because armor doesn't protect as well against bludgeoning damage and that distinction had to be made - you can still get clocked with something real heavy even if you wear power armor).

I'm also working to reduce the number of firearms at the beginning - zip guns and other "improvised weapons" are great alternatives to begin with. It helps balance things out, given that firearms in my game are pretty dangerous (specifically handguns, they've got a 'Snap' fire mode that only costs 3ap... it's not long range, but the raiders aren't usually that far away).

Using .22cal LR ammunition is definatly a good idea because it has just as good a range as better firearms and it doesn't do as much damage as even a 9mm (and finding a lesser weapon to a Nine is needed badly). My earlier improvisation was 4.6mm assault rifle bullets - civilianized for target rifles and handguns (though they did a little less than a Nine, they had the DU armor modifier).

I expanded the idea of the Speargun shooter to be a general wasteland survival weapon. So alot of guys you run into have arrowshooters ala Mad Max Thunderdome, except mine have clips and are CO2 powered (darts have their own CO2 reservoirs). Poor range, about as much damage as a 9mm, 5 shot clip, slow. But they did have different types of bolts you could use for them (wooden, razor tipped, explosive).

I tend to disagree with the idea of assault weapons being hard to find. Someone, somewhere will start manufacturing them again... or older simpler versions of them (like the MP-44 or Grease Gun from WW2). Also, normal weapons such as hunting rifles or handguns can be made fully automatic... and it's no bother making a fully automatic AR-15 out of a pre-war semi-auto version. But they perhaps should be rare for the purpose of "to get it you hafta kill the guy using it"... and you've got to make sure that simple bad guys dont have them or you've got a plot problem.

On the flipside I think there should be some damn good armor suits in the game. Power armor and such, and things even stronger and worse than that. And to counterract it without having to get really big guns (like an M2 or big energy weapon) i'm giving my players the option of buying Explosive ammunition for their pea shooters. Mostly it just acts as a JHP or Refined modifier... but it does explosion-type damage too (and the armor is also balanced so that explosion damage hurts more - lots of DT, not much DR). It also costs alot and it's rare, so it balances out so people dont get used to bursting with it.

As for energy weapons... they're dangerous enough. But you can always make really low-wattage versions in case someone just happens to pick energy weapons as a tag skill (hehe, toss them a real low power laser pistol with a long-lasting battery - then it's just like they've got a beretta with lots of ammo). Though it'd be better to leave low-powered energy weapons lying around in old bunkers or ruins rather than activly used by wasteland inhabitants.

I think plasma weapons are less feasible technologically than Lasers or Pulse weapons, so i've cut them out of my mod (also a technical problem with not having a "plasma" damage type anymore)... and it really hits things home when you go from lasers directly to the godly-powerful Pulse Disrupter weapons (from something that just catches you on fire to something that disintegrates you and pierces your armor).



Heh, I always liked the idea of making something else the main nemesis in FOT besides the robots, just for spite. Some say Raiders can't be made badass... oh but they can be if you tweak them right... especially after packing on about 15 character levels... and you can always design custom armor suits for them (Raider Combat Armor MK2 ring a bell?). Of course making powerful raiders runs bad plot risks... but you can always say they looted some old military storage shed and kidnapped some tech guys to make shit for them. Though im more partial to Ghouls and Mutants making an alliance and being the badguys, since they've got the knowhow and musclepower to do it (and ghouls in my mod are *tough*).

Another plot idea I dont think many have considered is that you're not part of the BOS at all... rather some other group who's trying to unify the wasteland. Or maybe you're just a mercinary hired by some organization (ie, like BOS but less goal-oriented or fanatical)... and it's in everyone's best interests to eliminate the head nemesis. A good way to make the game better for that regard is to lower the number of recruits - that way you dont have lots of manpower until much later.

Quest ideas to make the game more of a roleplaying experience can introduce puzzles or things that require more than just HP and good weapons. For instance, a multi-stage process just to get a certain gate unlocked, yes it'd be a "go fetch this" routine - but you can make things dicey with tricky locked doors and guards you've got to sneak past.

Other tricks and traps are that everybody's gone... when you get to the map to do whatever with the people there, they're hiding somewhere and you're beset with other dangers you wasn't even aware of while looking for them. Such as a horde of mutants or a squad of robot mercinaries (oh *thats* a good one), or complex webs of minefields and goo. And then when you actually *do* rescure or kill whomever, your path of escape is cutoff by a new (previously unknown) enemy. They did that ok enough in Map 3 (Rock Falls) of FOT, if you didn't kill all the raiders out front the scientist guy got killed.

Another idea i've come up with is that you've got to go rescue some recruits who got captured (first level idea), and to pull it off you've got to wear a disguise and pretend to be a merchant (barter skill check)... and if they see through the disguise you get escorted farther away from your comrades than you'd normally have been. It would make getting them out harder, and in this mission you've also only got one character, so you're going to be on the run more often than if you'd had two recruits backing you up (making for a pretty damn hard first mission, get killed and mobbed more often).

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

On the flipside I think there should be some damn good armor suits in the game. Power armor and such, and things even stronger and worse than that.

It's damn criminal that they didn't do the combat armour, what's the point of a point of a tactical combat game without combat armour. :x

As for energy weapons... they're dangerous enough. But you can always make really low-wattage versions in case someone just happens to pick energy weapons as a tag skill (hehe, toss them a real low power laser pistol with a long-lasting battery - then it's just like they've got a beretta with lots of ammo).

I think it might of been OTB who suggested that there would of been civilian versions of the energy weapons coming onto the market by the time the bombs dropped, and if you made an energy pistol that used no ammo you could have a nice low damage weapon to start the game with that was similar to the solar scorcher.

but you can always say they looted some old military storage shed and kidnapped some tech guys to make shit for them.

Isn't that basically the back story for the Reavers?

Another plot idea I dont think many have considered is that you're not part of the BOS at all... rather some other group who's trying to unify the wasteland.

That's what MF should of done, sometimes I think they got the concept of the Enclave and the BOS confused.

I was going to mod the game so that you started out as a vault guard, your vault has just opened it's main door but at the same time the armoury doors have sealed shut (with most of the weapons and explosives inside) so after your scouts come back and report on the local situation you're sent to find some explosives to open the armoury doors and forge relationships with the local settlements.

[PaladinHeart]

It is much better to make something wholly original. Why go to the trouble of using some aspects from Dune? You can't faithfully translate the Dune universe into what is possible with the FOT engine so why even try?

Originality is always more interesting than a hodge-podge of ideas from various sources that don't fit well together.

Well I actually didn't mean it that way. Just a basic sense of style from something. Like the fancy structures from Dune, but not the fat guys, the lasguns, etc.. I just think a campaign with fancy structures would be cool, even if it took a while to do. It'd be nice for the player to occasionally take a break just to look at your buildings, lol!

[rabidpeanut]

I HAVE put an attack with ALL the pistols on tactics that alows you to hit with them when you have no ammo or are just bored, this is the first time i have read this page, so if our ideas overlap it is a coincidence but a good thing too as it shows that i am not a COMPLETE idiot, and have therefore done something semi good for once.

[rabidpeanut]

I think it would be cool if you could make fallout 1 again using the fallout tactics engine(If only it didn't crash so often)