Duck and Cover

In my maps I ty to make weapens as realisticly as possible. A burst from most rifles at short and medium range will kill most leather and metal armor wearing chars with average HP in 2 if not 1 burst. AKA my standard is that all projectile weapens have doubled damage from the game default, and all H2H weapens have a tripled damage from default.

One thing most people have given up on completly is melee and unarmed, sure H2H is useless when chars are walking around in power armor and carry miniguns (Except ripper, cattle prod and powerfist maybe) but like the mini campaign im making right now theres very low tech where tribals throwing spears at raiders with pistols and SMGs suddenly make for very cool tactics.

Also one thing that really bugs me is grenades, they are so lame it makes me scream! Sometimes you have to throw 3 frag grenades at a raider to kill him crists sake! With my standards theres no way a charater without at least a Enviro suit will come close to even surviving a frag grenade. Plasma grenades is a whole nother talk.

AP cost needs to be redone as well, SMGs and pistols cost way to much. Long range weapens and heavy weps need higher AP as well. I think most people agree on this one though.

Anyways, whats your standards and thoughts about the weapen damages?!

It depends on how you want your game to play. If you are going to include more advanced armors, H2H would be useless unless they are ninjas! I haven't modified the original weapons in the maps I am working on and instead have bumped up particular skills and stats with NPC's and PC's alike. The most advanced armor I have is metal armor and I have some rottweilers that attack and do up to 12hp damage per bite. They can find the chinks in the armor!

I also vary the derived stats of the enemies including armor class, melee damage and bonus damage to make them more lethal. The end result any way you do it is to make it challenging and difficult to stay alive.

I have to disagree, completely, with how you view it. I can't even answer your poll.

Melee is far from useless, and in fact is very useful. Take for example one of the generic BOS guys who is given a monkey wrench. Once the ammo in the M60 is gone, most likely emptied into your friends, he pulls a wrench and prepares to cause a little more damage. Not only is it brutally effective without any modding at all, if it's used in conjustion with people ranged, it's devastating.

Realism killed Fallout: Tactics, in my opinion. If you want realism, go play Action Half-Life or Counter-Strike. They're made for that. I won't comment any further.

Grenades as well are far from useless. Not only can they take people from behind cover, but they cause splash damage. In multiplayer, a grenader and two snipers can take out an entire swuad of six. When forces to move away form the grenade blast people move out inot the open away from cover, and thus are easy bait for snipers, or even prepositioned heavey weapons such as M60's and miniguns.

Tell me, why do AP costs need to be adjusted?

My thoughts on weapon damages is that they're just fine. Realism isn't key in my book, it comes just below bugless, and that's below atmosphere, and that is below fun. Empting my magzine at soemone in leather armor, seeing it take them down to 'Severly wounded' is great.I duck behind cover, realod, and get read to fire a few more rounds. Shooting a single urst, and having it kill the person leads me to running in with guns blazing without much care.

Shadowvalor wrote:Tell me, why do AP costs need to be adjusted?

The majority of pistols aren't worth using w/the standard AP costs. Lowering the AP cost of semiautomatic pistols to 3 AP makes them extremely useful as close quarters weapons. (Provided that you aren't still crippling them w/9mm Ball, but replace it w/either FMJ, or at least one w/the subtype set to "None".

Personally I've reversed the AP costs for revolvers vs. semiautos. I have the former set to 4 AP and the latter to 3 AP since the revolvers in the game are generally chambered in heavy-hitting and better suited to (relatively) long range shooting.

The AP cost argument is more aplicable to CTB play, however. You can't suppress someone in TB, so one of the main advantages of quick-firing close combat weapons is gone.

Shadowvalor wrote:Shooting a single urst, and having it kill the person leads me to running in with guns blazing without much care.

You'll be SFL-gaming if you try it in my campaign. What you can do to the enemy they can just as easily do to you. High lethality is a great way to get players to keep their heads down, encouraging them to use covered routes to approach the enemy coupled with stealth.

Basically, I'm setting it up so that the average character, wearing typical armor for a given point in the campaign can be killed by two max. damage hits from the standard enemy weapon. Go in guns blazing, get caught in a crossfire, see recruit(s) butchered/the failure screen.

I agree about HTH weapons, though. They are pretty nasty, especially since they seem to score gobs of critical hits. I didn't use them much at all in the core campaign, but I've been playing around them a bit lately, and I have to say that it is extremly amusing to have a recruit waiting around a corner w/a Claw Hammer and cracking Raiders as they come running after someone being used as bait.

OTB

Also with regards to melee & unarmed: The wielder's strength comes into play. Take a looksie at my Rebellion map. Dennis (a Super Mutant) can get upwards of 700 damage with a cattle prod set on Overload. Why? 'Cause I boosted the living crap out of his base melee damage and he has 300% melee and unarmed (not to worry about balance - he gets 7 skill points per level ). His normal (unarmed) hits do ~50-70 damage. Normal bad guys have ~150 life (snipers have ~100, leaders have ~250).

Another issue to consider is the map's layout (IIRC we had a discussion on the old boards about this). If the map has nothing but wide open areas, it's gonna be a tad hard for a melee-oriented character to get close enough to hit the bad guys (or bad girls, bad 'bots, bad brahmin, whatever). However, if the map has some narrow passages, buildings, corners, etc. (maybe even some secret passageways...), the character can "come out of nowhere" and smack the enemy before he/she/it can react.

OnTheBounce wrote:You'll be SFL-gaming if you try it in my campaign. What you can do to the enemy they can just as easily do to you. High lethality is a great way to get players to keep their heads down, encouraging them to use covered routes to approach the enemy coupled with stealth.

Basically, I'm setting it up so that the average character, wearing typical armor for a given point in the campaign can be killed by two max. damage hits from the standard enemy weapon. Go in guns blazing, get caught in a crossfire, see recruit(s) butchered/the failure screen.

There's a big diffrence in what you said, and what he said. Acroding to what you just said: They do more damage to me than I do to them. That's great, sicne you have the advantage of being a thinking human being. Infact, that's most likely how many campaign is goign to be. Their critical chance and prefered weapon still is going to have a boost- stright off. All in all, they are going to more deadly than you in flat-out firefights. Even your allies are hindered compared to who you fight.

Where what he said, it's all 'realistic.' This leads to a 'shoot faster than the other guy' mentality.

Also, if you would please excuse my n00bness. SFL?

Max-Violence wrote:Normal bad guys have ~150 life...

*cough*Hit Points*cough*

Max-Violence wrote:Another issue to consider is the map's layout (IIRC we had a discussion on the old boards about this).

Good point and yes, we did have a discussion about this on the old board.

Terrain is a very important factor to consider when designing a map/level. Personally, I'm of the mind that not every situation should be solvable by every type of character. It encourages teamwork if one one or two types stand a chance in one area, yet are virtually useless somewhere else.

OTB

HP, life, WTF's the difference?

I think every situation required to complete the map should be "solvable" by any type of character. Obviously, if an objective is to get an item that a certain NPC has without killing the NPC (i.e. stealing), then only a thief-type of character can do it. Using that example, I would do one of two things:

A) Make getting the item required, but how the item is to be gotten is optional. If the PC's straight-up kill the NPC, grab the item, and take off, then OK. If the PC's sneak in the the NPC's room/house/whatever and get the item without the NPC or the NPC's bodyguards knowing it, then the PC's get a lil' bonus.

Or,

Make getting the item completely optional.

Either way, the situation is solvable by either an assault-type character or a thief-type character.

That's enough from me, I'm off to rebuild my map's zones *grumble*

Shadowvalor wrote:There's a big diffrence in what you said, and what he said. Acroding to what you just said: They do more damage to me than I do to them. That's great, sicne you have the advantage of being a thinking human being.

No, I'm not talking about tweaking the game to make enemies tougher than you. You're generally only under-gunned for a short while, since once you shoot up your first batch of enemies you've just gotten the next generation of weapons.

Basically, what I'm talking about is making the weapons in the game more lethal, by doing two things:

1. Raising damage. Generally, I'm only inflating damage by roughly 20-25%.
2. Changing most ammo types from "None" to "FMJ".

This by itself isn't all that bad. What you really have to do is to look at the big picture and adjust things like the amount of healing items available. (At least to the player. I'm not shy about using the "Non-Lootable" option when it comes to enemy equipment.)

As for realism...that topic has been beaten into the ground several times. I'll give a brief synopsis of my position: It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to not have weapons chambered in their proper caliber. Beyond that, a hit point-based system can't be made realistic since hit points don't represent the physical damage capacity of a character. Therefore you can only balance things in a relative way.

Shadowvalor wrote:Where what he said, it's all 'realistic.' This leads to a 'shoot faster than the other guy' mentality.

If you're only looking at adding difficulty by increasing weapon damage, you're right. You have to take a wholistic view of editing. For instance, a Behemoth is a nasty opponent. But if you place it on open ground the players snipers will shoot it to scrap metal before it can get to the maximum range of its heavy hitting guns, which is only 15 meters. So things like weapon damage aren't the only factor to consider.

Shadowvalor wrote:Also, if you would please excuse my n00bness. SFL?

Oh, sorry. SFL = Save, Fail, Load. Generally used to refer to gamers who rely on this tactic to overcome game mechanics, for instance, the player who uses this type of gaming to steal everything worth having from everyone on a map with only a 14% Steal skill.

OTB

Well, even if I do shoot faster than my opponent, I'm always the one in multiplayer who uses his brain. I'm also the person who uses the poison item you get to kill things that are far larger to take down than my guns currently allow.

OnTheBounce wrote:No, I'm not talking about tweaking the game to make enemies tougher than you. You're generally only under-gunned for a short while, since once you shoot up your first batch of enemies you've just gotten the next generation of weapons.

As for killing things to get the next generation fo weapons, I made a simple solution for this, that does have an RPG reason, but I don't think I'll say much about that since i don't want to give much away.
The main group you fight doesn't drop their weapons. When put in comparison with your own weapons, theirs are a little better, and in high numbers. Along with that is your inability to use them.
Early on, you see them carring Miniguns, M60s, and other such massive weapons. It won't be long until you see your allies with Enfeilds(that are also unlootable) dropping before your eyes.

Needless to say, the only time "if you die first we're splitting up your gear" works is for your own squad, and any raider or civilian that gets in the way.

OnTheBounce wrote:As for realism...that topic has been beaten into the ground several times. I'll give a brief synopsis of my position: It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to not have weapons chambered in their proper caliber. Beyond that, a hit point-based system can't be made realistic since hit points don't represent the physical damage capacity of a character. Therefore you can only balance things in a relative way.

Hence, leave the whole realistic thing out of Fallout when it comes to damage. Also, if you don't mind me asking- Since you bought it up, what weapons don't have the correct ammo caliber assigned to them so that I might fix this?

A player in a campaign is usually "grooming" the characters, and will load-save to keep from losing the "investment".

The AI is livin' in the moment, and playing in a "relatively real" environment. If rushing in to melee or h2h is the only option for the AI, taking casualties is part of this reality. Expending warriors like ammo.
If not prepared, this made the super mutants a problem at close quarters, or when a vehicle was rushed in a random encounter.

The surprise effect makes for a different balance in game play.

Consider opportunities when melee and h2h are not contrived. The Zulus over ran the British in at least one battle. Is an AI possible that can wait
for the player to be (possiblely) low on ammo, or is a "time release" control the only work around? Is an AI possble that can effect a "last stand", or is it only possble to rush at the player characters like a missle?
Kamakazi's.

4too

If someone misunderstood it, im all for making melee/H2H workable in my maps. I love it and as said before im making a mini campaign where the player chars are tribals with spears and so ive modded spears to be lethal throwing weapens like they should be. Also sneaking up on enemies with a knife or a club is a good idea or else they pump you full of bullets before you get to them.

Shoot first mentality is cool for crists sake! How do you think you win a war?!? By shooting last? Youll be dead and gone then. Place your chars so strategicly that they get the first shot and if one of your chars die and you still win, well thats the way war goes. When I play the maps I only save to reload if my main char dies or something buggy happens. I play the core campaign on tough guy as well, which makes for some kicking and screaming when you make 1 little error and half your squad dies. But that makes it all more fun, since im pretty sure if you went into combat in reality one little mistake would be enough to get you killed.

The default settings on FOT weapens makes for I shoot you, you shoot me, I shoot you Etc combat, which I see no fun about.

Back to work! I gota get some maps finished...... Im making 4 at once.

Wouldn't it be possible to use triggers to set off HtH attackers? You could have them hiding behind a wall, and when the enemy gets past a certain point close by, they rush out and beat him to death with sticks before he can get off a second burst.

Obviously, ambushes are only good in Tough Guy mode, because otherwise the player will reload and prepare for it.

4too asked

Is an AI possible that can wait
for the player to be (possiblely) low on ammo, or is a "time release" control the only work around? Is an AI possble that can effect a "last stand", or is it only possble to rush at the player characters like a missle?

Cool thinking, yes it is possible. Just modify the ammo used in the game so that it has a tag-name and use the "Player X has less then XX items tagged ammo at Anywhere" trigger condition. Then just change the enemies tactics from Hold to Attack. It would be interesting to play a last stand

Cranberry asked

Wouldn't it be possible to use triggers to set off HtH attackers?

Yep, similar deal. Use a zone to trigger an attack. But you can't use the trigger to make your own guys rush the enemy that is what Sentry Mode Aggressive is for.

Shadowvalor wrote:Also, if you don't mind me asking- Since you bought it up, what weapons don't have the correct ammo caliber assigned to them so that I might fix this?

Real World Weapons

The SAW in FoT is chambered in the generic 7.62mm round. It's actually chambered in 5.56mm NATO/.223 Remington.

The M-14 in FoT is chambered in .303 (AKA .303 British). It is actually chambered in 7.62mm NATO (which is what the generic 7.62mm round is supposed to be, from the looks of it).

The Cassull Revolver in FoT is chambered in .45 ACP. It is actually chambered in .454 Cassull.

The Skorpion in FoT is chambered in 9mm. It is actually chambered in .32 ACP (AKA 7.65mm Browning).


Fictional Weapons

The Minigun and Avenger Minigun in FoT were chambered in 5.56mm. They were chambered in 5mm (which was different from the .223 round) in FO/FO2.

The Vindicator Minigun is chambered in the generic 7.62mm round. It was chambered in 4.7mm Caseless in FO2.

Note that some of these require you to add custom ammo types to the game. I wrote a tutorial for this, but it was lost when I got zapped w/the KLEZ-H virus. I'm going to re-write it in the next couple of days.

Some of these are understandable - for instance the Cassull being chambered in .45 - for issues of compatability. However, in most cases there were weapons which could have been substituted for them. In the case of the .454 Cassull, it should have been replaced by the Colt M1917 Revolver.

OTB

Max-Violence wrote:HP, life, WTF's the difference?

Well, one gets ya labeled a munchkin. The other doesn't.

Max-Violence wrote: I think every situation required to complete the map should be "solvable" by any type of character. Obviously, if an objective is to get an item that a certain NPC has without killing the NPC (i.e. stealing), then only a thief-type of character can do it.

Yes, mission essential objectives/goals should have multiple solutions. Otherwise if you loose someone in your squad you're fuckered. Incidentally, the example you cite is another reason I was looking for a way to knock people out w/drugs, since then you can take from their inventory at will. :twisted:

Max-Violence wrote: That's enough from me, I'm off to rebuild my map's zones *grumble*

You know, it might be a good idea to save all of your zones, sounds and even triggers as files. That way if you do something like [fill in whatever the hell is was that you did] you'll can simply reload the appropriate file. (This is a "note to self" post. )

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