Fixing what's broke - Fallout: Unity

Post by **Retlaw83** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:16 am

A lot of people will disagree with me, but I think New Vegas is a decent Fallout game. One of the newer mods for it is called Tale of Two Wastelands, which let's you use Fallout 3's resources as an add-on to New Vegas. While this gives you a lot of additional content, it also gives you the all the nonsense and non-Fallout that's Fallout 3.

I'm thinking of correcting that. Below is an outline for ideas I had that I drew up during downtime at work. The goal would be to add characters, locations and events to Fallout 3's gameworld, in addition to removing some stupid things, in a way to get Fallout 3 and Tactics to jive with the rest of Fallout canon. I'm bringing this up here because DaC will be the toughest audience for it, and spewing it out here will give me some accountability.

I'm open to any suggestions about things you guys REALLY want changed for things to make sense. I'm also expecting the "Fallout 3 is too broke lol you can't fix it" posts.

Things I've changed already are in bold.

**Locations**

- Add dead NPCs and possibly survivors to Old Olney so the deathclaw infestation has some drama to it. I think I'm going to do this by adding an NPC stuck in the train station that lost her money in Vegas and can't afford to get back home to Old Olney; they get a quest to help her home and once there they find out what happened in her absence.

- Remove the children from Little Lamplight, replace with Vault 87 mutant guards. Make any unique items from there just be loot.

**Story/System changes**

- Implement NV-style faction system for Enclave, Lyons' BoS, Outcasts, Big Town, Rivet City, Arefu, Oasis, Paradise Falls, Canterbury Commons, Outcasts.

- Tag all Lyons' BoS members as "Lyons' Chapter" to differentiate from real Brotherhood (Mojave and Outcasts)

- Add a questline for Majove chapter/Outcast interaction.

- Add plot point that Enclave wiped out Midwest BoS from Tactics, explains why there current armor looks the way it does; after the oil rig detonation, lost ability to produce Advanced Power Armor from Fallout 2. Some Enclave members will be wearing the Remnants suits from NV because some suits are still functional.

- Mojave chapter of Brotherhood has disdain for Lyons' chapter, but affinity for Outcasts.

- Add an NPC to Bigtown that explains the story of Little Lamplight getting overrun by mutants and the founding of Bigtown.

- Add some Mariposa super mutants as leaders for the Vault 87 mutants. Their leader is a brilliant but insane Mariposa mutant named Twister who believes the Master's plan was not flawed and that in finding Vault 87 he now has the means to fulfill it. They will be voiced. (added one so far)

- Various fixes to player dialog responses that are moronic.

- Reduce amount of karma for killing fiends from 100 to 10.

- No karma loss for killing the Family (might axe that silliness altogether)

- No karma loss for killing Roy Phillips and friends.

**Item Changes**

- Make NCR versions of the riot armor from Lonesome Road to equip NCR Rangers.

- Outfit high-level Regulators in DC with riot armor from Lonesome Road.

- Change riot armor helmets from heavy to light armor. I know a lot of mods do this already but it won't hurt anything.

- Combine loot lists for Pitt raider, fiend and DC raider armor for maximum variety. Also add metal armor to the mix.

- Outfit Cook-Cook in reinforced metal armor with helmet to make him look more bad-ass.

- Put Motor-Runner in similar armor to Ashur, but more stripped down.

- Rework power armor so it has bonuses and modifiers similar to Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics. Will use the following table which descends in order of baddassery:
T-45d
Fallout 3 Enclave armor (renamed Chicago Armor)
Fallout 3 Enclave tesla armor (Tesla Chicago Armor)
Hellfire Armor
T-51b
Remnants Power Armor (Advanced Power Armor)
Tesla Remnants Power Armor (Tesla Advanced Power Armor)

- Make NV food items cost what the ingredients used to make it cost and then a little more; opens up more bartering avenues for a player with high survival and will allow for proper restaurants.

**Changes to Broken Steel**

- Once Citadel is in Enclave hands, the player is then made part of a force whose mission is to find the supermutant source in the bowels of Vault 87 and knock it offline. This is the confrontation with the Twister character I mentioned earlier.

fallout ranger · Post by **fallout ranger** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 12:53 am

That's pretty extensive...looks like you have major hours to put in.

Best of luck with it.

SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 1:58 am

If you're willing to do this yourself then go for it, I'd like to help but it's beyond my abilities.

Sounds like a good idea, and since it's based around New Vegas' updated SPECIAL system and RPG mechanics it'd immediately make Fallout 3 play better.

Tofu Man · Post by **Tofu Man** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:06 am

You're crazy. But then we already knew that.

From the standpoint that it'll never be "Fallout" (meaning tbrpg) I guess it still can be an interesting post-ap survival shooter. A good start would be to bump difficulty up a bunch of notches. Maybe Sawyer's hardcore mod has some good ideas?? Anywho, bonne chance. See you in 15 years.

Post by **Retlaw83** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 4:18 pm

This is a much better reception than I expected from DaC .

As far as difficulty goes, it'd take longer to jsawyer Fallout 3 up than the changes I'm proposing. I got the raider and power armor squared up yesterday. in addition to yanking the kids out of Little Lamplight.

Next step is cramming the place full of muties. I'm going to put a smart one where McCready was and force dialog with him. At that point player can leave peacefully or blast their way into Vault 87.

Post by **Manoil** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 7:13 pm

This is pretty beefy, but really wonderful in concept. I'd advise throwing the idea out on the boards at Nexus and seeing who you could rally to the cause.

Post by **Retlaw83** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 2:40 am

This kind of thing would get sloppy with more than one person working on it, especially since there's no way to merge mod files that I know of.

Post by **Manoil** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 5:25 pm

I don't think that's terribly difficult, actually. I mean, I could be very, very wrong, but if the GECK works to my understanding, it shouldn't be too difficult. I've only made a couple simple mods but nothing on par with what you're talking about.

Post by **Retlaw83** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:03 am

For those keeps score at home, so far I've:

- Combined raider armor lists for the Pitt raiders, CW raiders and fiends. Also threw metal armor and reinforced metal armor in there for giggles.

- Put Motor-Runner in tribal power armor and Cook-Cook in reinforced metal.

- Got the power armor situation sorted out. In order from weakest to strongest: T-45d, Chicago Armor (what was originally advanced power armor in Fallout 3), Hellfire Armor, T-51b, then Remnants Armor (which is named Advanced Power Armor again like in Fallout 2). Storyline justification is Enclave lost the ability to manufacture advanced power armor after the oil rig blew up, and took destroyed most of the midwest Brotherhood, leading to the style of armor found in Fallout 3.

All power armor suits add strength and rad resistance, in addition to a bonus to carry weight equal to the weight of the armor so the suit "carries itself" when worn. Set up salvaged NCR armor so it gives that effect only if you have power armor training. Most of the helmets on higher-end suits have perception bonuses working on the assumption the electronics inside the helmets still work.

- Eliminated all the Little Lamplighters aside from two randomly spawning generic ones I cannot catch. The front is now overrun with super mutants. You meet an intelligent Mariposa one in charge of the operation where McCready used to greet you. Shit doesn't go down unless you don't heed his warning and leave - which you can't heed if you want into Vault 87.

Next on my list is to sort out Big Town and the Germantown Police HQ. Then I plan on going line by line through the dialogue and altering player dialogue choices to have a similar tone to the ones in NV.

Post by **Retlaw83** » Sat Mar 16, 2013 4:21 am

Today I made textures for NCR riot armor. Even replaced the first cavalry division logo with an NCR Ranger logo.

SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:01 pm

I don't have Fallout 3 any more, but you think you could upload all your NV changes separately when you're done with all this?

Post by **Manoil** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 9:25 pm

My God, he's going to do it

Post by **Retlaw83** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 1:02 pm

SenisterDenister wrote:I don't have Fallout 3 any more, but you think you could upload all your NV changes separately when you're done with all this?

I'll see about it. I don't know exactly how feasible separating it out will be.

On a side note, got the art resources done for the Ranger riot armors, but don't have them in game yet. Mainly I just copy and pasted the LAPD vest and jeans onto the riot armor and added bears to shoulder pads. Got a little complicated with the helmets, so I'm really proud of those.

Also, in a manuever that's a real bitch to do, I put Vault 101 outside of Goodsprings. This results in you growing up in the Vault, leaving because your dad did, then chasing your dad across the country as you transform into Courier 6 instead of some vault kid.

Also decided the thing will be called Fallout: Unity. Works on two levels because the main plot I'm adding is Twister wants to reform the Unity in DC. Also decided to kill Autumn in the purifier radiation spike and replace him. I plan on voicing the mutants and the general (Cotter) that replaces Autumn. Anyone with interest and a decent mic can take part if they want.

Amis · Post by **Amis** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:37 pm

Count me in for some voice over work!

Tofu Man · Post by **Tofu Man** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:38 pm

Retlaw83 wrote:I don't know exactly how feasible separating it out will be.

Wait, I thought part of what you're doing was basically pasting Fo3 into NV, connecting the 2 overworlds somehow. Not so?

Post by **Retlaw83** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:13 pm

There's a mod called Tale of Two Wastelands that already does that, I'm just building on it.

SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 7:08 pm

So it's the mod of a mod?

Post by **Retlaw83** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 7:36 pm

Essentially. But with the way that enginr is setup, it treats DLC content as mods too.

rad resistance · Post by **rad resistance** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 4:19 pm

Best of luck Retlaw, your gonna need it.

Post by **Retlaw83** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:27 am

Manoil wrote:My God, he's going to do it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il85E-ms-44

Duck and Cover

Fixing what's broke - Fallout: Unity

Is this a good idea?

Fixing what's broke - Fallout: Unity