Incline Fallout 2 Mechanics Overhaul Mod Discussion

[Jim the Dinosaur]

THE FALLOUT 2 MECHANICS OVERHAUL MOD

"Frank, killing giant ants was never this much fun, or was it?" "Not sure, Steve, not sure."​

Note for those two people who've played my old, old, old versions: almost nothing of it remains intact (so no morale, exhaustion, etc.).

DOWNLOAD VERSION COMPATIBLE WITH RESTORATION PROJECT HERE

DOWNLOAD REGULAR VERSION HERE

View list of Perk & Trait changes here.

Installation Instructions:

Note: When installing new versions of the mod you only need to delete the scripts folder in the "Mechanics Overhaul Mod" folder before overwriting everything (this is to avoid scripts that might have been removed between versions from remaining).

Step 1: In case you haven't already, download sfall.

Step 1.5 (for RP): Just have RP regularly installed, there's nothing additional you need to do.

Step 2: Place the "Mechanics Overhaul Mod" folder in your FO2 directory

Step 3: Copy the "Fallout2.exe" to the new mod folder. ALWAYS USE THIS FALLOUT2.EXE TO RUN THE GAME IF YOU WANT TO USE THE MOD.

Step 4: Copy your sfall's "ddraw.ini" and "ddraw.dll" files to the new mod folder.

Step 5: change, and if necessary uncomment (remove the ";" before the line), this entry in the ddraw.ini to the following:

DamageFormula=4

and uncomment the following lines:

PerksFile=Perks.ini
SkillsFile=skills.ini
DerivedStats=stats.ini

and copy paste this at the end of your ddraw.ini:

;Set to 1 to enable the new arrays behavior
;Set to 0 for backward compatibility with pre-3.4 scripts
arraysBehavior=0

Spoiler

Version 0.7:

- 8 new perks added.
- Healing system has been revised: the new resource-based healing system has been removed in its entirety, and doctor's bags and first aid kits now work as in vanilla FO2 again, while rest healing is the same effective auto-healing as in the original. Healing powder now works the same as the new stim paks, so you can use them to heal, but only once every 30 minutes. To give first aid some kind of purpose, you can now use 7 AP's to heal yourself or someone standing next to you with the J-key (note that the reduced AP doesn't show up in the UI immediately). The amount healed is based on the FA-skill and whether you have a First Aid kit in your active hand.
- Fixed a problem where "oops! hit the wrong target" was occuring a bit too often and randomly.
- Fixed issue with the message that the "this weapon can't be used properly" message appeared incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug in perks that cause critters to switch teams, so that if they are forced by their scripts to still attack the player on sight, they switch teams again.

Version 0.6.5:

Spoiler

Additions/Changes/Fixes:

- 9 new perks added.
- Fixed Needler pistols doing poison damage, had become broken at some point.
- While adding a perk that adds a small amount of poison damage to each spear and knife the player attacks with (see the "Perks and Traits" doc), I've given one rank of this perk to each "primitive" critter. All this in a bid to make poison damage a bit more relevant (remember that it deals damage much quicker with this mod than in the original).
- To "solve" the issue where kicking progressively lags behind punching for unarmed combat characters because it can't equip anything, and is generally just boring mechanically, it now represents grappling or sweeping unarmed attacks. What this entails is that "kicks" cost more AP than punches, but carry with them a larger chance of status effects (disarms, knockdowns, etc.), and as the only attack in the game ignores the requirement of doing any damage to be able to cause such status effects. So, while kicks will do little to (probably) no damage to armored opponents, they will still be able to cause status effects.
-Implemented the molotov cocktail fix by phobos2077 (in vanilla FO2 molotovs do explosion damage, now they finally properly do fire damage).
-Fixed a bug in the Mobile Attacker perk: now it properly only applies for only one attack per turn.

Version 0.6 Changes/Additions/Fixes:

Spoiler

Version 0.6:

Additions/Changes:

-Completely overhauled the sequence changes to fix a bug which caused melee critters to keep from charging at the player. The system now works as follows:

*if the player is both invisible to AND outsequences the opponent he is aiming at (and his teammates) then the player gets an extra turn to attack after the first.
*if the player is either invisible or outsequences the opponent then sequence proceeds as normal (first the player can attack, then the rest of the combatants, then the player, etc.).
*if the player is neither invisible nor outsequences his opponents then he loses his first turn and combat starts in the regular order of sequence (so starting with the opponent with the highest sequence, which isn't the player).

As mentioned before, these changes are to make sure that A) sequence actually determines who starts combat, and B) that stealth plays a larger role in combat sequence as well.
To make the new system apply to enemies trying to ambush you as well, set the SequenceChanges in JimsMods.ini to 2, note however that this means ANY non-player attack assumes the player is the one being attacked for sequence determining purposes. So, if a critter is attempting to attack another non-player critter in a random encounter, sequence will most likely not make any sense. SequenceChanges is set to 2 by default, but can either apply exclusively to the player with 1 and also be disabled by setting it to 0.
Because these changes threatened to make Perception somewhat overpowered (a low perception character could be A) unable to spot an enemy ambushing him and at the same time be B) outsequenced by him, meaning the difference between starting off combat and having the enemy have 2 turns to start off with), sequence is now determined in equal measure by agility and perception. This way sequence properly represents reaction speed.

-Because of this mod's new non-linear weapon system, the starting equipment of a spear can make the beginning quite difficult if you don't start out tagging the Heavy Melee skill. In case you feel this is a problem, you can now enable StartingEquipment=1 in the JimsMods.ini to have your starting equipment be based on your highest starting skill and attributes (so, a high STR + light Melee character gets a club, while a Rifles character gets a pipe rifle with some ammunition). Note that you will also need to change your sfall ddraw.ini in this section:

;To change the default and starting player models, uncomment the next four lines.
;The default models can also be changed ingame via script
MaleStartModel=hmjmps
;MaleDefaultModel=hmjmps
FemaleStartModel=hfjmps
;FemaleDefaultModel=hfjmps

This is to make sure that your starting character actually has the animation set to use the new weapons provided.

- Added key bindings for (almost) all the new UI options, see the image added.

- Added the option to see the DT and DR of the critter you're aiming at (for the damage type of the weapon you're using) by pressing the V-key after having aimed (or attacked, it remembers the last enemy you've aimed at). This option is mostly for testing purposes.
- When using the V-key after aiming at a party member, instead of DT and DR values, you get to see their skill levels, allowing you to see how the new npc-levelling system is working.
- Similarly, you now have the option to view the chances of getting a certain status effect (e.g. knockdown, crippled limbs, etc.) against the target you've aimed at by pressing the J-key. You get a list of percentages corresponding to each bodypart.
- Cleaned up JimsMods.ini so that all the old variables that didn't do anything are gone. Whatever is there can be used to change the mod.

Fixes:

- Removed old AP cost numbers from appearing underneath the new ones in the interface.
- One- and two-handed melee are now correctly denoted in the skill list.
- unarmed enemies will no longer "drop their weapons" when hit with a crit in their arms.
- fixed a bug where the weapon of the attacker was read as that of the target.
-fixed movement ap cost bug (after attacking or using inventory every hex moved after the first one erroneously cost extra, without even displaying that)
-fixed a problem with evasion bonus from movement periodically stacking incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug where you could still invest an additional AP to aim when the bonus was already at its maximum.
- Fixed a bug where the AI would spend too little AP aiming, and wouldn't spend its AP aiming in a stupid way generally. Now high Agility critters will more often max out their AP spent aiming to account for it being relatively cheap for them.
- Fixed a bug with checking the remaining safe drug times causing a crash sometimes.
- For some reason the Localization system (where a missed attack on, e.g., the eyes still has a chance of hitting the head, etc.) was removed from the mod to a large degree, restored it.
- Corrected the skill stat bonus descriptions on chargen.
- Fixed an inexplicably stupid issue with critters not getting 10 AP to spend as they're supposed to.
-fixed bug in damage formula that decreased the importance of crit chance.
- Corrected the companion skills list in JimsMods.ini (i.e. the list which determines which skills are prioritized by NPC's on leveling up).
- Removed the old npc levelling system, which was interfering with the new one.
- Fixed a bug in the npc levelling system which had broken the entire thing.
- Fixed a variety of bugs in the knife attack mode switching mechanic.
- Fixed a bug with the burst amount changing system where sometimes the attack mode would switch to something weird.
- Fixed the miniburst system (for bursts below 4 rounds) so it would actually work.
- Fixed some compatibility issues with killap's RP (him releasing the source code has made it easy to update the one conflicting script, namely the OBJ_DUDE.int one).

Introduction:

The goal of this mod is to address what I consider to be a number of systemic shortcomings of Fallout 2. (In cursive are remarks on quirks/bugs or unimped features).

The first problem is the lack of useful skills, attributes and perks: It's obvious enough that INT and AG are king, there's only a couple of useful perks, and only a handful of skills are worth investing in at all. Here's a list of the changes that are made to the attributes, perks and skills to alleviate this:

Spoiler

ST:
- Carry weight. This used to be a stat that was more about convenience than anything else: how much would you need to manipulate your mules in the game? Now it's limited to what you carry in your active hand and wear as armor (the counter also shows what's in your inactive hand, but that one doesn't affect penalties). Exceed it and you get movement and THC penalties during combat. This means that having a low ST character will be no more annoying than a high ST one, but you'll only be able to wear light armors and weapons without penalties.
- Weapon min ST reqs. This now only affects recoil: each gun has a min ST requirement per bullet fired, and if you already exceed this requirement for the very first bullet, the weapon costs additional AP's to fire as you spend time steadying it. For burst weapons, every additional round you fire adds up to the requirement, resulting in stacking THC penalties if you exceed it.
- Melee Damage. This is now based on a weapon's weight (or, if unarmed, the "weight" of your punches is determined by your strength): each point of ST adds 10% of the weapon's weight to its damage, making ST much more relevant for heavy weapons like sledges than knives.
- Blocking power. Against melee attackers, you can choose at what THC for the enemy you'll block, adding to your DR based on how much higher your ST is than your opponent. Note that a sufficiently skilled opponent can find a way to circumvent this block.
- Resistance against knockdowns and weapon drops.

PE:
- Sequence. This was a largely irrelevant stat because you'd almost always end up getting the drop on your enemies anyway: the real sequence in combat almost always worked out in your favor. Now the character with the highest sequence always gets the first turn: try aiming your weapon at a character with higher sequence (who also sees you pointing that weapon) and that character initiates combat. Note that this is definitely quite buggy... I left in an option to switch it off at the top of JimsMods.ini, just turn SequenceChanges=1 to =0.
- Ranged Modifiers. Worked as a lame flat bonus in the original. Now each point of PE substracts 10% of a weapon's range from the per hex THC distance penalty. So maxed out PE with a 70 hexes range weapon gives a 70% lower distance penalty. Scopes additionally multiply your effective PE by 1.5.
- Unused AP's defence bonus. If you can see the opponent attacking you and he's standing nearby you, each unused AP is spent focussing on his next move, giving you a defence bonus (due to something weird, I had to set the base "AC" to 1 rather than 0, in case you're confused about that).

EN:
- Hitpoints. This mod introduces fixed HP, meaning that you won't end up with as much of an infinite supply of HP you would regardless of your EN. A low EN character will be very vulnerable throughout the game.
- Rad resistance. This mod has radiation zones on the world map, and increases the effect of EN on rad resistance. You can spot rad zones by either having a geiger counter in your inventory or by asking somebody where the nearest rad zone is located.
- Poison resistance. Poison now affects you every turn in combat and every few seconds outside of it, making it more of a short-term threat. Additionally, Needler pistols now do poison damage.
- Resisting knockouts, missed turns, and crippling hits.

CH:
- Number of party members. Same as always, but the Leadership stat should make them more interesting (see below).
- One minor addition is that it now affects the likelihood of characters accepting a drink or drugs from you (and the number of intoxicants they accept before turning hostile).

IN:
- Skill Points. Nerfed somewhat by moving the start of increased costs down from 100 skill points to 75 and increasing base skill points per level from 5 to 10.

AG:
- Aiming bonus. AP is now set at a constant 10, unaffected by AG. Unaimed and aimed shots cost the same amount of AP (unaimed shots are now simply defaulted torso shots), and you can spend additional AP's to increase your chance to hit. Each point of AG increases the percentage that gets added to your effective weapon skill by 20%, up to a maximum of 400%, meaning a maxed out AG character can spend 2 AP aiming for a 200% skill bonus per AP.
- Movement speed. AG now only affects the cost for the first hex moved. Every second point of AG reduces that cost by 1, going from 6 AP for the first hex moved at minimum AG, to 1 AP at max. The cost of the first hex moved is additionally raised by large weapons (1 for sledges/rifles, 2 for big guns), armors (1 for leather, 2 for metal/combat and 3 for power) and for moving to a hex either diagonally or straight behind you. This of course all in all highly complicates the peak-around-the-corner exploit. Moving during your turn now also gives a defense bonus against ranged attacks.
- Dodge bonus. If you aren't blocking an attack, you gain a dodge bonus against melee attacks based on your AG.

LU:
- Damage. There are no longer criticals in the form of damage multipliers. Instead, LU affects the likelihood of hitting higher values in your damage range (e.g. with a weapon that does 15-40 damage, a high LU character would have a higher chance of getting 40 than a low LU one).
- Armor Piercing. The same principle applies to armor piercing, which is now based on your weapon's upper damage range. There's always a roll made to see how much you actually pierce, and LU determines how high this ends up.
- Special effects chance (knockdowns, knockouts, cripplings, etc.)

Concerning skills, in general your starting attributes have a much greater effect on them: they all have a base value of 10%, to which 40% can potentially be added through relevant stats. Skills have also been capped at 200%, and the first increment of increased cost now comes from 75-100%, rather than the original 100-125%. Now for a list of the changed skills:

- The six combat skills have been changed to One-handed small arms (pistols and smg's), Two-handed small arms (rifles), Big guns, One-handed melee (clubs and knives), Two-handed-melee (spears and sledges), and Unarmed. Skill simply depends on which animation is used for the weapon, so grenades use the unarmed skill, and throwing knives the One-handed melee skill. You also get a defense bonus based on your "relevant" melee skill (so, if your melee attacked while carrying a rifle, your ability to use that rifle as a tool to block an opponent's attack depends on your Two-handed melee skill).
- Gambling has been changed to Leadership, which raises the skills party members gain per level. Party members no longer gain levels at random, but every time you level up. Note that the old gambling checks still use this skill, will eventually change these to basic luck rolls.
- Traps now lets you set traps yourself by entering Sneak mode and dropping either a spear or an explosive on the ground. The value of the item used to make a trap and the type of material of the tile you're placing it on determine how much trap skill you need to place it. How the traps (especially the explosives) work during combat is still a bit of a mystery to me, ymmv).
- First Aid and Doctor have become more relevant with Stimpaks only being able to be used sporadically (see below), and automatic rest healing being removed. You now need either First Aid kits or "Improvised Healing Materials" to heal HP's during rest, and Doctors Materials to heal crippled limbs, also during rest. So be very, very careful with using the "heal until rested" option, lest you get stuck, just don't use it actually.
- Outdoorsman now affects world map travel speed (mostly useful when traveling through rad zones), and the quality of the Improvised Healing Materials you find (which affects up to how many HP's you can heal with them during rest).
- Stealing has gotten an additional barrier: the more allies of the target can see you, the harder it is to even see inside the inventory of your target, let alone steal or plant.
- Stealth has additional uses because of how enemies will be on the lookout for assassins if their buddies step on your traps, and that all unlocked containers are now "guarded" by characters that can see them, and who will warn you not to touch them (they won't automatically enter combat though; if they're weaker than you, they'll simply cause you to lose town reputation). Also, if characters can "hear" you (partially determined by the surface material you're walking on), they'll turn in your direction unless you're stealthy enough, making a stealthy thief more useful at pickpocketing. This turning effect only applies in certain towns for now, because for some reason towns like Den and Reno have lots of scripts forcing characters to look in one single direction.


As to Perks, the problem was of course that the vast majority of them simply weren't viable as 1 per 3 levels picks. My solution is to have perks every level, and nerf (or remove) the more overpowered ones. Also, perks are no longer tiered according to level (meaning you had an ever-increasing number of obsolete low-level perks populating the list): att. and skill requirements only govern which perk you can have. These requirements are also more flexible now with regards to multi-rank perks, meaning that the first rank might cost 40% of a certain skill, and the second 80, etc. You can find a list of perk and trait changes here (bolded means implemented, cursive in the case of traits):
https://app.box.com/s/0eema1esji3omeurwbae

Note that for some reason the new perks don't show up until you've scrolled a bit.

The second problem is the game's lack of combat difficulty and complexity. The point is to give you some more options other than eye critting your opponents continuously. There's a couple of issues with combat this mod tries to address:

Spoiler

- Limiting inventory time. Ostensibly tough fights became a breeze once you have enough HP's because you can simply wait until low on damage, then enter inven and fully heal. However, Stimpaks can now only be used once every 30 minutes. Also, inventory use AP cost has been raised significantly, and you can only use one item in it before being forced to exit. Reloading now also takes substantially more AP's (8 for two-handed, 4 for one-handed).
- Removing drug exploits. The addiction system could previously be easily circumvented, now addiction isn't chance based, but time based: after using a certain drug you have a number of days (determined by your endurance) before you can use it again.
- Avoiding automatic eye-critting. To avoid higher skill levels resulting in almost automatic hits on even the hardest targets, I've nerfed THC at higher values (going from 0-10% THC will be much easier than going from 80-90%, especially in the case of hard to hit bodyparts or burst attacks). Because the mod makes it so that missing a targetted body part can still score a hit on an adjacent bodypart, the base penalties for aiming for certain bodyparts have also been reduced, meaning you should be able to aim for different bodyparts throughout the game now.
- Giving more flexibility for bursts. As said, the amount you can stably burst depends on your ST, meaning you'll now be able to adjust the number of burst rounds through the interface. Additionally, if your burst rounds become less than 4, you now forego the regular burst cone for one that spreads based on your THC (so with high enough skill you can make all your bullets hit the intended target). AP costs are determined based on 5 or less = +1 AP, 5-20 = +2 AP and above 20 = +3 AP.
- Giving more options during melee combat. You'll be able to choose when your character prefers to block rather than dodge, and in addition whether to attempt a counter-attack on a "succesful" block/dodge (to attempt to do so comes at a defense penalty however, counter-attacking is still unimped). Defense against melee attacks is now also partially determined by your own relevant melee skill.
- Adjusting how many AP's are spent aiming.
- Expanded secondary attack modes. All spears and knives can now be swung (for added base damage), thrusted (for more penetration), or thrown (swinging is unimped for spears). Sledges and unarmed attacks can either produce knockback (swings/ punch A) or not ("thrusts"/ punch B). Laser beams can be concentrated to add armor piercing and plasma bolts can be made less stable so they produce more splash damage.
- Limited AI improvements. Not much I can do in this regard, but the AI chooses more smartly which bodypart to aim for rather than the random way it worked before.
- Working AP bullets. AP was always inferior to JHP in the original game. Now AP bullets raise your upper damage range (meaning an increase in penetration) at the cost of a general reduction in damage.

An overview of the new options integrated into a (temporary) UI made by the FoN team:

Note that there's still some problems with the "tags" (Level up, sneak, etc.) popping up over the interface; I've removed them where I could, so pay attention when you level up.

The third problem is that of weapon progression/variety. Replaying FO2, you notice that you always get weapons in more or less the same order, with many hard-to-find weapons showing up too late to be of any use. Too many weapons also play too similar, with no considerable difference between a sledgehammer or a knife, and a rifle or a pistol.

Spoiler

My solutions to this are:
- Gear randomization. You can probably already dream the place you're first going to encounter the Bozar by now, and this mixes it all up, generating weapons based on location, attributes and experience level. There's also more variation in terms of ammo load-outs, with powerful characters in rich regions having more chance of having more, and more powerful, ammo, while poor characters often have only a single round in the chamber.
- More distinctive weapon types. Fallout 2 has a lot of different types of shotguns, but they're mostly indistinguishable from other rifles. So I introduce different types of shells which spread out in a "shotgun-y" way. Also, with reloading having become a bigger problem, pump action shotguns have less reloading to do, but cost one extra AP (for the "pump") to fire. Lasers will penetrate targets and potentially hit targets next in line. Plasma rifles do splash damage to nearby targets. Cattle prods produce more knockouts. There's a spasm gun that does damage based on the target's perception and intelligence. An electrorifle that does additional damage to additional targets if they are standing on a metal surface. Weapons using caseless ammo get an advantage when firing mini-bursts of 3 bullets or less, costing the same AP's as a single shot. Miniguns always use the same AP penalty for bursting, regardless of the amount (+2 AP).
- Non-linear weapon progression. Having you automatically gravitate towards the pulse rifle is quite boring. Instead, different types of characters should benefit from different types of weapons. High ST likes sledges and heavy/burst guns, high AG likes pistols and knives, high PE scoped rifles and high LU weapons with wide damage ranges. Different weapon types should remain viable, rather than becoming irrelevant as the game progresses.
- Less linear armor system. Having bigger armor should not be a no-brainer; it now costs you in terms of agility (indirectly: you get penalties to the AP spent aiming bonus and movement) and (if you're not strong enough) combat effectiveness. The armor system has also been changed so that DT doesn't (nearly) automatically takes off a huge chunk of your damage: it is now purely a threshold which gets ignored if your armor piercing roll (again, based on your weapon's upper damage range) exceeds it. So, almost all weapons and ammo will rarely do any damage against the strongest armors at full strength because they won't pass the DT. Characters with fast and weak weapons (knives, pistols) will therefor be required to aim for bodyparts that give higher chances of penetration. So the goal is that there aren't any "hard counters": if you can't pierce, there's always a way to bypass - it's just harder. Similarly, going around with a combat leather jacket shouldn't be impossible, just very hard because you'll need to place the emphasis on dodging attacks, and taking out enemies quickly.
- Differences between one- and two-handed weapons. You'll now generally be faster both in movement and attack AP cost with one-handed weapons and be able to cheaply switch between hands, which you can no longer do with two-handed weapons to compensate for the shorter ranges and lower damage outputs.
- Systematized weapon upgrades. Instead of having just a couple of different weapons that can have one type of upgrade, each weapon type can get a certain upgrade. So each rifle can be outfitted with a scope, each pistol with an enlarged magazine, etc. All of these upgrades will now have potential drawbacks attached as well: an enlarged magazine weighs down your weapon, possibly making it cost more AP to use, etc. You can have upgrades done at the usual suspects, but also yourself: Guns 'n Bullets magazines now increase the skill you have at improving weapons in combination with either Repair (for most guns), Science (energy weapons), or Outdoorsman (for most melee weapons). (Unimped)

Finally, there's the issue of the economy. Like with combat difficulty, this starts out fine, with you scrounging for nickles to pay for that first leather jacket. It just goes off the rails pretty quickly, with barter becoming absolutely irrelevant soon enough.

Spoiler

To fix it I've put together a pretty complicated economic system. As I see it, the problem is that you always end up amassing a lot of inferior items to buy the superior ones you actually need: you convert a stack of deagles into that plasma rifle you really want. Problem is, why does that high tec trader want all those deagles in the first place? I introduce a demand system based on different zones: certain wealthy zones just want premium goods and won't give you squat for inferior stuff - they also charge more for the stuff that's in demand in their zone. Same works vice versa: tribes won't trade all their livelihood for a plasma rifle they don't need.

To make this work, I also had to deal with money: you could just sell your deagles for cash in one place, then exchange the cash for the plasma rifle in another. So I implemented inflation zones separate from the demand zones: here track's kept of the cash in the zone, and cash prices are adjusted accordingly. Here's a map of the various zones:

Another "issue" was store inventories: they become a bit dull after your second playthrough, and have now been randomized based on the demand zone of the store/caravan/trader. Stores also now "realistically" stock restock based on the amount of cash they have and the cost of the items they want to buy. Note that these stores carry 100 first aid and doctor kits as a placeholder until I find out a way to make it work. Plus, only part of the stores have been changed because I'm still not a 100% sure on the implementation. Here follows the list of stores changed using the new system, so let me know if something's weird about them:

den: tubby
flick
broken hills: liz
gecko: percy
klamath: ma buckner
ncr: duppo
new reno: renesco
eldridge
san fran: lao chou
vault city: happy harry's

A final issue for the economy was random encounters featuring two opposing factions: you'd have free reign to finish of the weakened victors. What I'll do is have enemies appear after so many turns during random encounters: basically the scenario of you stumbling upon two fighting factions will happen to you as well. (Unimped)

 

[Excidium]

You should rebalance the AP costs for reloading weapons too.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

You should rebalance the AP costs for reloading weapons too.

Yeah, I already saw you make this argument somewhere else, and it's a very good idea. I just don't think it's possible to implement yet, so I'll have to ask Timeslip if he can make that happen. I'd like to put reloading at 6 AP (any higher and suddenly critters can't reload anymore).

Edit: Though I could also try something like the missed turn critical miss to force extra skipped turns when reloading something that clearly takes a lot longer than squeezing off a few rounds, like a minigun for example.

Edit2: An AP cost of 5 is actually a better bet probably, because using the inventory will always have to be at least 1 AP more.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

You guys aren't as talkative as I'd hoped; maybe something more specific then.

The next thing I want to do is change the way the morale system works for NPC's. Right now the reason why they run away is most often that they feel they "cannot" hit their target (which usually depends on them having a minimum to hit of between 5 and 30 percent). The problem is that a (exclusive) to hit based morale system is idiotic; why would you be more afraid of an extremely agile midget wielding a spoon than an easy to hit Super Mutant bearing down on you?

So I plan on replacing it with the following three-tier system:

(1) Can't damage the target: the target's Damage Threshold is bigger than the max damage of the attacker's weapon and the attacker doesn't have Armor Piercing rounds loaded in that weapon.

(2) The attacker could be killed next round: If the last person to shoot at the attacker can do enough damage to kill the attacker the next round, best run away.

(3) Can't hit the target, but really can't hit him (so only if the chance is less than 5 percent or so; that midget has to be really fucking agile for me to start freaking out)

I also briefly considered making a team-based morale system (if there's only one raider left standing, he really should run away), but I think that would be unfeasible. Do you guys have any other ideas?

 

[tuluse]

Exhaustion: If the number of combat turns exceeds your Endurance, you get a to hit penalty and the opponent gets a to hit bonus based in part on the ratio of your max carry weight you're carrying at that moment (because (a) Endurance needs a bigger role and (b) carrying 10 miniguns should make you a less capable warrior)

This sounds cool, but I would expect enemies to have the same effects happen to them. Which might make it hard to balance. Would it keep increasing, so the penalty increase at 2X endurance or is it just a one time penalty?

Morale: Based on the outcome of a JA2-esque personality evaluation, it is decided how much the player's morale is impaired by things like killing people (especially children) and getting hurt, and how much it is improved by things like alcohol and good deeds. Any eventual morale failure lasts one turn and impacts either moving speed or to hit chances or attack AP cost (the reason is that where NPC's are regular humans who panic from time to time, the player has the unfair advantage of being something of a B-Movie action hero).

If I'm playing an evil fuck, why would I lose moral from killing things? I don't like this and it seems to limit role playing.

To Hit Balancing: Too many changes to get into, but the main idea is to solve the problem of mid- to end-game dominance resulting in inevitable eye-critting slaughterfests.
Consistent Localization: Now, if you have, say, a 25% chance of hitting someone when aiming for the eye, this means you have a 25% chance of hitting the target, so also the head or body (because it's very strange that narrowly missing someone's eyes doesn't result in you hitting the head)

Not really enough information to decide if these are good changes or not.

No More AC: Dodging an attack now depends on your agility and perks, and actually becomes harder the more bulky armor you wear (because AC is a weird schizophrenic stat in Fallout which seems to embody both attacks ricocheting off armor and you nimbly dodging them; better to split it up into agility and DT/DR).

Fuck AC is an abstraction and I'm getting tired of people who can't deal with it. If your change makes combat better, that's fine go ahead and do it, but if the reason for doing it is "LOL ACs make no sense" fuck you.

Uncalled Shot is now Snapshot: An unaimed shot now costs even less AP relative to an aimed shot, but is also less accurate (because the uncalled shot was always a strange phenomenon and it was weird that an aimed shot for the torso was completely redundant).

This sounds cool.

Critical Failures Can Always Happen/100% To Hit Cap: Even a "hit" can turn into a critical miss if you first fail a skill roll and then a luck roll. As a consequence the max to hit is raised from 95 to 100 percent. (because it was strange that your weapon could only spontaneously explode if you were already going to miss, and the arbitrary 95% cap was only meant to accommodate this weird system)

You're thinking about this backwards. It's impossible to hit someone if your weapon explodes.

Unarmed/Melee Chance to Hit Affected by Opponent Skill: This one was just a no-brainer; can't believe anybody over the span of two games cared to ask the question why experienced boxers would just hit each other exactly 95% of the time over and over.

Might be cool.

Movement: Moving around a lot should make you harder to hit (a la JA2) and also more exhausted.

This seems like a fundamental change to the system where standing still and saving your movement to avoid attacks was the theory behind it. It might be a good change, but it seems counter to what was intended in the system.

Increasing Reloading/Inventory AP Cost: Because reloading a minigun should take longer than it takes to take two steps.

Sounds good. Can you fix inventory AP cost so you can't do unlimited things in there?

Passive Armor Repair: An armor's Damage Resistance gets adjusted based on the wearer's skill in maintaining it (e.g. Explosion resistance gets modified based on combination of Repair and Traps skill).

This seems weird, but maybe it will work.

Stimpak Changes: (Super-)Stimpaks now mainly serve to heal temporary damage, though super Stimpaks also raise the max HP temporarily (because it never made sense that you could survive a hundred consecutive shots to the head in a single battle merely by injecting a liquid in the wounds repeatedly).
Fixed HP: The Hitpoints of the player and all human non-child critters is fixed at the formula 20+Strength+5*Endurance (To fix bullet sponge syndrome and address the ridiculousness of Chinese people in Fallout 2 having the same amount of HP as two Super Mutants put together).

More fundamental changes. They might increase realism, but I'm not sure they'll make a better game.

Healing Rate as First Aid Dependent: If you "rest", your healing rate goes up depending on your First Aid skill (I never bought that you could sleep off bullet wounds, and given that the active First Aid skill works like shit, might as well make resting into a medical break).

This is a good change, though it's going to make people wonder why doctor won't do the same. Can you use a following first aid skill if theirs is higher?

Skill Books: The idea that your Sledgehammer-wielding retard character would spend weeks on end studying science books to end the game with a Science skill higher than most physics teachers was always stupid, so I want to make skill books unusable reference material that raises your skill as you carry them around.

This is going to be annoying.

Replace Gambling with Deception: Right now it's simply a no-brainer that you pump speech full at the beginning and then you breeze through every dialogue, with speech doing everything from charming to arguing to deceiving; might as well use an utterly useless stat like Gambling to try and fix this.

This sounds like a good change, but I somewhat doubt your ability to make good skill checks. I'd like you to prove me wrong.

Companion Upkeep/Independence: I know it's a Codex thing to like having party members as zombie-like extensions of the main character, but I prefer them more as individuals with their own personalities, happily bursting away life's many inconveniences. Basically I want to put back in place the Fallout 1 barter system with companions so you can't use them as pack mules any more and have them take in some cash each week (probably raised according to level) which they spend on guns and other things that make them happy. Actually, I would like the Uncharted Waters companion system, where they try to renegotiate their "contract" with you and you either pay up or have to charm them back in place.

Unless you can make them not be retarded, less control is usually bad. Some kind of influence mechanic would be cool though, where you can guy their loyalty or do other things to get it. Like after freeing Sulik and Vic should insure loyalty for a while. I feel like doing this right would require adding dialog, and usually modders adding dialog leads to a clear drop in quality.

Gear/Armor Randomization: Right now it always looks a bit like every outfit in Fallout 2 has standard issue weapons/armor, which kind of breaks the whole scavenging-the-wasteland atmosphere of the game (did the NCR just happen to find a huge crate of Pancor Jackhammers somewhere or something?). Also, it's a shame that a lot of nice animations don't get used because of this (e.g. every Mexican in the game has a 10MM SMG, while their pistol and rifle animations are unused). I'll try to randomize gear/armor based on whether the critter is in a high-tech (Vault City, NCR, Frisco) or low-tech area.

Map-Based Supply and Demand: Now items get cheaper the more of them are in a map (because Gecko skins should be worthless in Klamath and traders shouldn't be willing to pay a fortune for the 10 Deagles you're lugging around).

Don't go overboard with this. A trapper working in Illinois in 1750 didn't have to travel to France to sell his furs.

Dialogue Based Assassinations:Right now there's only one effective way of assassinating someone without everybody getting involved and that the Super-Stimpak exploit. I'm pretty sure the stealth mechanic of the game is beyond fixing, but a PT-style dialogue based thieving system should be easy to do. When entering dialogue in stealth mode you get a range of options that check the relevant skills. Pass everything perfectly and the target's down and nobody's the wiser, fail one and guards get suspicious and investigate, more and guards come running in, etc.

This should check equipment too, and maybe add new equipment for stealth kills (silenced guns, piano wires, poison etc).

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

sounds like a prosper thread

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Exhaustion: If the number of combat turns exceeds your Endurance, you get a to hit penalty and the opponent gets a to hit bonus based in part on the ratio of your max carry weight you're carrying at that moment (because (a) Endurance needs a bigger role and (b) carrying 10 miniguns should make you a less capable warrior)

This sounds cool, but I would expect enemies to have the same effects happen to them. Which might make it hard to balance. Would it keep increasing, so the penalty increase at 2X endurance or is it just a one time penalty?

Of course enemies have the same effect, and yes it increases.

Morale: Based on the outcome of a JA2-esque personality evaluation, it is decided how much the player's morale is impaired by things like killing people (especially children) and getting hurt, and how much it is improved by things like alcohol and good deeds. Any eventual morale failure lasts one turn and impacts either moving speed or to hit chances or attack AP cost (the reason is that where NPC's are regular humans who panic from time to time, the player has the unfair advantage of being something of a B-Movie action hero).

If I'm playing an evil fuck, why would I lose moral from killing things? I don't like this and it seems to limit role playing.

Like I said, you do a short JA2-esque evaluation to decide these things, more details were in the thread I linked but since you clearly can't be bothered:

Spoiler

Full disclosure: I shamelessly stole the core of this idea from one of Surf Solar's threads over at the Codex.

I always felt it was a bit unfair how NPC's all have the wonderfully human characteristic of occasionally bursting into fits of abject fear, while the player can happily blast away while having half his body shot off.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you like the idea of being some kind of B-movie action hero (it's the same debate as always about Fallout whether you like it for the Reno sillyness or grave Mark Morgan-y graveness - the curse of a game which can't decide on what it wants to be I guess), but I like my heroes a bit more human. Don't worry, you won't be forced to run away, it's just that if you fail a morale check at the beginning of a turn you get one of three effects, each notified by a red lettered floater:

{142}{}{[Panic suddenly takes a hold of you, and your legs momentarily feel like they are made of lead.]}
{143}{}{[Panic suddenly hits you, and steadying your hands becomes almost impossible.]}
{144}{}{[You're suddenly overcome with fear of the enemy, and convincing yourself to attack would take more effort than ever.]}

The first causes your movement to cost twice as many AP's; the second causes you to get a hefty 40% penalty to hit; and the third raises your attacking AP cost by two (unfortunately the numbers don't update immediately for this last one, but it does work).

The morale check itself works like this: you always start off with zero chance of morale failure, then as you kill more and more humans (especially children) it starts building up. It also rises when you're hurt, and goes back down when you're healed. You can bring down the morale failure chance by drinking alcoholic beverages.

To make things more interesting I've added some dialogue to Cameron in the Temple of Trials where you can change aspects of this morale system. The dialogue is this:

{313}{}{. I have the honor of being your final challenge. My task is to first test your resolve, then your physical prowess.}
{314}{}{Listen, me standing here covered in giant ant-entrails or whatever the hell this purple stuff is should be proof enough of my resolve, buddy, so you can just skip that part right away.}
{315}{}{How do you plan on testing my resolve?}
{316}{}{Re...solve?}
{317}{}{Just one simple question. This village has shielded you all your life from the horrors of the wasteland; but soon you will have to face these horrors head on. How do you plan on coping with this?}
{318}{}{I'll probably have some liquid resolve now and then to steady the nerves. But if the Elder asks, tell her I said something about the plight of the village, or whatever.}
{319}{}{My resolve will not falter because I will know that my cause is just.}
{320}{}{Let's just say that I'll make sure that these horrors befall others, not me.}
{321}{}{I'll cope just fine, now get to the last part already.}
{322}{}{[Your venomous breath tells Cameron all he needs to know.]}
{323}{}{Me know good.}
{324}{}{Maybe me horror.}
{326}{}{Muh. [You can't help but wonder whether you couldn't have been more eloquent there.]}
{325}{}{Very well. As to your final challenge, to continue in your quest you must defeat me in unarmed combat. Shall we begin?}

As you can see you'll have three options to change things up: (1) the "liquid resolve" options makes alcohol a more effective morale booster, while also making the stuff more addictive, (2) The "righteous" option makes increases in karma improve your morale, while the killing of humans more easily shakes your resolve, and (3) the selfish option makes killing humans not factor in at all, but makes getting hurt yourself far more demoralizing.

To Hit Balancing: Too many changes to get into, but the main idea is to solve the problem of mid- to end-game dominance resulting in inevitable eye-critting slaughterfests.
Consistent Localization: Now, if you have, say, a 25% chance of hitting someone when aiming for the eye, this means you have a 25% chance of hitting the target, so also the head or body (because it's very strange that narrowly missing someone's eyes doesn't result in you hitting the head)

Not really enough information to decide if these are good changes or not.

For that info you'd really need to check the NMA thread I'm afraid.

No More AC: Dodging an attack now depends on your agility and perks, and actually becomes harder the more bulky armor you wear (because AC is a weird schizophrenic stat in Fallout which seems to embody both attacks ricocheting off armor and you nimbly dodging them; better to split it up into agility and DT/DR).

Fuck AC is an abstraction and I'm getting tired of people who can't deal with it. If your change makes combat better, that's fine go ahead and do it, but if the reason for doing it is "LOL ACs make no sense" fuck you.

No, fuck you, "A is an abstraction" is a bullshit argument because it doesn't address what it is an abstraction of. In Fallout 2, like I said, it's an amalgamation of two stats which are already in the game, namely damage blocking/deflecting (DT) and evasion (agility), so to have them amalgamated in this single stat makes no sense LOL. If you were talking Baldur's Gate then fine, keep AC because there's no Damage Threshold to properly address damage blocking, but in Fallout it makes no sense LOL.

Critical Failures Can Always Happen/100% To Hit Cap: Even a "hit" can turn into a critical miss if you first fail a skill roll and then a luck roll. As a consequence the max to hit is raised from 95 to 100 percent. (because it was strange that your weapon could only spontaneously explode if you were already going to miss, and the arbitrary 95% cap was only meant to accommodate this weird system)

You're thinking about this backwards. It's impossible to hit someone if your weapon explodes.

You don't get the problem I think. Right now the system is that if you have a 95% chance to hit, you have a 5% chance of there even being a chance your gun explodes, right? Move the target back 20 hexes, and your chance to hit becomes 50% and suddenly the chance of your gun exploding rises a whopping 1000%. This makes no sense.

Increasing Reloading/Inventory AP Cost: Because reloading a minigun should take longer than it takes to take two steps.

Sounds good. Can you fix inventory AP cost so you can't do unlimited things in there?

Don't think so.

Healing Rate as First Aid Dependent: If you "rest", your healing rate goes up depending on your First Aid skill (I never bought that you could sleep off bullet wounds, and given that the active First Aid skill works like shit, might as well make resting into a medical break).

This is a good change, though it's going to make people wonder why doctor won't do the same. Can you use a following first aid skill if theirs is higher?

Wow, you're being really arbitrary about which changes you consider fundamental and which you don't. But it is a good point, I think I'll eventually settle on something like First-Aid being twice as important as Doctor.

Skill Books: The idea that your Sledgehammer-wielding retard character would spend weeks on end studying science books to end the game with a Science skill higher than most physics teachers was always stupid, so I want to make skill books unusable reference material that raises your skill as you carry them around.

This is going to be annoying.

Why? I honestly thought this would be the least controversial change.

Companion Upkeep/Independence: I know it's a Codex thing to like having party members as zombie-like extensions of the main character, but I prefer them more as individuals with their own personalities, happily bursting away life's many inconveniences. Basically I want to put back in place the Fallout 1 barter system with companions so you can't use them as pack mules any more and have them take in some cash each week (probably raised according to level) which they spend on guns and other things that make them happy. Actually, I would like the Uncharted Waters companion system, where they try to renegotiate their "contract" with you and you either pay up or have to charm them back in place.

Unless you can make them not be retarded, less control is usually bad. Some kind of influence mechanic would be cool though, where you can guy their loyalty or do other things to get it. Like after freeing Sulik and Vic should insure loyalty for a while. I feel like doing this right would require adding dialog, and usually modders adding dialog leads to a clear drop in quality.

They're only as retarded as the enemy AI; giving you full control would only make the game even easier than it is now; I agree with your last point though, and that is a problem (you can see from the sample dialogue above that it's not high grade stuff, but I think it's bearable as long as functional and brief like in that example).

Map-Based Supply and Demand: Now items get cheaper the more of them are in a map (because Gecko skins should be worthless in Klamath and traders shouldn't be willing to pay a fortune for the 10 Deagles you're lugging around).

Don't go overboard with this. A trapper working in Illinois in 1750 didn't have to travel to France to sell his furs.

I don't really get your argument; if it is that the distance between where an item was cheap (furs in Illinois) and expensive (furs in France) was vast, then I would say that in a wasteland where even ants can kill you, distances become "larger" automatically (i.e. someone in the Den in the mood for buying some Gecko Skins can't just stroll out to Klamath to get them, he needs an armored caravan, which inflates the price immeasurably).

 

[tuluse]

Map-Based Supply and Demand: Now items get cheaper the more of them are in a map (because Gecko skins should be worthless in Klamath and traders shouldn't be willing to pay a fortune for the 10 Deagles you're lugging around).

Don't go overboard with this. A trapper working in Illinois in 1750 didn't have to travel to France to sell his furs.

I don't really get your argument; if it is that the distance between where an item was cheap (furs in Illinois) and expensive (furs in France) was vast, then I would say that in a wasteland where even ants can kill you, distances become "larger" automatically (i.e. someone in the Den in the mood for buying some Gecko Skins can't just stroll out to Klamath to get them, he needs an armored caravan, which inflates the price immeasurably).

Yes, a price difference is good. A trade resource being worthless in the nearest trading hub is bad. Why would citizens of Klamath or Arroyo risk their lives hunting geckos for their skins if they were worthless?

So that's all I mean, don't go overboard.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Yes, a price difference is good. A trade resource being worthless in the nearest trading hub is bad. Why would citizens of Klamath or Arroyo risk their lives hunting geckos for their skins if they were worthless?

So that's all I mean, don't go overboard.

Oh, right, now I get your point. In case you're interested, the very simple formula I have now is: new price of item x = base item price of x / amount of x on map. It's still too "overboard" (having 2 of an item shouldn't make it twice as cheap as having only 1), but I haven't settled yet on what it should be. If somebody with an economics background could give me a nice formula I would love that.

 

[baturinsky]

One thing I want for F2: play as the son of CO (Mr.Bishop), in 2255, with all stuff from F2 outro taking effect.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Fuck you and anyone who replies to you .

 

[RK47]

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Couple of things I skipped.

Movement: Moving around a lot should make you harder to hit (a la JA2) and also more exhausted.

This seems like a fundamental change to the system where standing still and saving your movement to avoid attacks was the theory behind it. It might be a good change, but it seems counter to what was intended in the system.

Yes, and the original system was idiotic. And by idiotic I don't just mean that it's "unrealistic", which plays a smaller role in my changes than you seem to think, but because it serves little to no gameplay purpose. Standing still with a 10 AP character instead of attacking would net the opponent an astounding 10% penalty to hit; there simply was no conceivable advantage to be gained from it. But if you want to give a defense of the old system other than that it's simply the way it was "intended", then by all means.

Passive Armor Repair: An armor's Damage Resistance gets adjusted based on the wearer's skill in maintaining it (e.g. Explosion resistance gets modified based on combination of Repair and Traps skill).

This seems weird, but maybe it will work.

It is weird. Originally I just had it as a placeholder until an active item repair system would become possible, but then I realized I hate most active item repair systems. I'll just see how it works out.

Stimpak Changes: (Super-)Stimpaks now mainly serve to heal temporary damage, though super Stimpaks also raise the max HP temporarily (because it never made sense that you could survive a hundred consecutive shots to the head in a single battle merely by injecting a liquid in the wounds repeatedly).
Fixed HP: The Hitpoints of the player and all human non-child critters is fixed at the formula 20+Strength+5*Endurance (To fix bullet sponge syndrome and address the ridiculousness of Chinese people in Fallout 2 having the same amount of HP as two Super Mutants put together).

More fundamental changes. They might increase realism, but I'm sure they'll make a better game.

Again, the point isn't primarily realism, but that the things it changes are just bad game design. Want the Chinese in the endgame to be challenging? Have them have access to better hardware and better training, make me have to hit them as many times as a Super Mutant because they have great armor.But no, they have this arbitrary combination of weak armor, 200 HP to compensate for it, and the occasional weak ass weapon (FN FAL). If balancing can be addressed in a more sensible way, why not do so? In the case of stimpaks, why make the only challenge in combat having to make sure that you have just enough health left after the enemy's attack so you can refill all your health instantly? Again, feel free to argue for the original system.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Exhaustion: If the number of combat turns exceeds your Endurance, you get a to hit penalty and the opponent gets a to hit bonus based in part on the ratio of your max carry weight you're carrying at that moment (because (a) Endurance needs a bigger role and (b) carrying 10 miniguns should make you a less capable warrior)

This sounds cool, but I would expect enemies to have the same effects happen to them. Which might make it hard to balance. Would it keep increasing, so the penalty increase at 2X endurance or is it just a one time penalty?

Of course enemies have the same effect, and yes it increases.

Sounds like battles that last longer than a few turns have the risk of turning into "oh god when will this end" slugging matches. The pew-pew shootouts are more interesting when they don't last long.

I always felt it was a bit unfair how NPC's all have the wonderfully human characteristic of occasionally bursting into fits of abject fear, while the player can happily blast away while having half his body shot off.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you like the idea of being some kind of B-movie action hero (it's the same debate as always about Fallout whether you like it for the Reno sillyness or grave Mark Morgan-y graveness - the curse of a game which can't decide on what it wants to be I guess), but I like my heroes a bit more human. Don't worry, you won't be forced to run away, it's just that if you fail a morale check at the beginning of a turn you get one of three effects, each notified by a red lettered floater:

It's more about having control taken away from the player. In theory it sounds nice, but if you get hefty disadvantages for performing poorly in combat, chances are you won't be able to recover unless you are way more powerful than the opposition, in which case the disadvantages wouldn't do much to stop you anyway. I guess it would be effective as a means to make you think twice before tackling a big group of enemies like Metzger's Den or the Mordinos' Casino, for example. While you feel you're statistically strong enough to take them all on, if you can't kill them fast enough you'll get hit and suffer penalties to even the odds.

Healing Rate as First Aid Dependent: If you "rest", your healing rate goes up depending on your First Aid skill (I never bought that you could sleep off bullet wounds, and given that the active First Aid skill works like shit, might as well make resting into a medical break).

Time isn't important in FO2 to begin with. Hakunin will wait for you in a pool of his own blood for months if needed. The change makes sense, but it won't really impact gameplay in any significant way.

Skill Books: The idea that your Sledgehammer-wielding retard character would spend weeks on end studying science books to end the game with a Science skill higher than most physics teachers was always stupid, so I want to make skill books unusable reference material that raises your skill as you carry them around.

This is going to be annoying.

Why? I honestly thought this would be the least controversial change.

You'll have to carry an assortment of books to use as crutches when you need to do something you're not skilled in. Which sort of makes sense but has the comical side-effect of having a retarded character carry around a dozen books like a nerd, while the nerd character will use that free space in his bag to lug around another minigun.

Companion Upkeep/Independence: I know it's a Codex thing to like having party members as zombie-like extensions of the main character, but I prefer them more as individuals with their own personalities, happily bursting away life's many inconveniences. Basically I want to put back in place the Fallout 1 barter system with companions so you can't use them as pack mules any more and have them take in some cash each week (probably raised according to level) which they spend on guns and other things that make them happy. Actually, I would like the Uncharted Waters companion system, where they try to renegotiate their "contract" with you and you either pay up or have to charm them back in place.

Apart from the "less control is not necessarily a good thing" factor already mentioned, this would probably make the companions too much of a bother unless you're playing as a noodle-armed diplomat who NEEDS the protection. Could be compensated by making companions more useful somehow. Sulik has Action Boy perk effect to simulate his great physical condition, Goris has Slayer because he has these claws, Myron has Chem Resistant because even in the remote possibility he hasn't willingly snorted his own stuff he's exposed to it all day long, etc. Would have the side effect of giving them some of that personality you seek.

[Map-Based Supply and Demand: Now items get cheaper the more of them are in a map (because Gecko skins should be worthless in Klamath and traders shouldn't be willing to pay a fortune for the 10 Deagles you're lugging around).

Like with the Resting change, this is nice and realistic but won't have much actual effect in gameplay. If the possible gain is too small, most people won't bother*; if you can make big bucks by playing trader, it'll be too tempting to abuse because the only thing making you think twice about travelling across the worldmap is the possibility of meeting a big group of mantises and having to spend the next half hour waiting for them to move.

*money is only a problem in the early game, when you still aren't able to travel safely around the world enough to make good use of this feature anyway. By the time you can make a Redding-San Francisco trip without reloading every time you meet a Floater group or a Press Gang, you'll have more than enough money and most of the gear you could possibly need for endgame.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Of course enemies have the same effect, and yes it increases.

Sounds like battles that last longer than a few turns have the risk of turning into "oh god when will this end" slugging matches. The pew-pew shootouts are more interesting when they don't last long.

Not really (though I probably confused things with my answer to the other guy). Suppose one combatant has 4 EN, and the other has 6 EN; after 4 turns, the first combatant gets a penalty to hit and the other combatant a bonus; after 5 turns this penalty and bonus double; after 6 turns however, this immediately stabilizes (unless one of them is carrying substantially more of his max carry weight than the other) because the other's penalties kick in.

I always felt it was a bit unfair how NPC's all have the wonderfully human characteristic of occasionally bursting into fits of abject fear, while the player can happily blast away while having half his body shot off.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you like the idea of being some kind of B-movie action hero (it's the same debate as always about Fallout whether you like it for the Reno sillyness or grave Mark Morgan-y graveness - the curse of a game which can't decide on what it wants to be I guess), but I like my heroes a bit more human. Don't worry, you won't be forced to run away, it's just that if you fail a morale check at the beginning of a turn you get one of three effects, each notified by a red lettered floater:

It's more about having control taken away from the player. In theory it sounds nice, but if you get hefty disadvantages for performing poorly in combat, chances are you won't be able to recover unless you are way more powerful than the opposition, in which case the disadvantages wouldn't do much to stop you anyway. I guess it would be effective as a means to make you think twice before tackling a big group of enemies like Metzger's Den or the Mordinos' Casino, for example. While you feel you're statistically strong enough to take them all on, if you can't kill them fast enough you'll get hit and suffer penalties to even the odds.

You don't get a penalty for performing poorly in battle, you get a penalty for being heavily wounded in battle. Right now you get the player gets an advantage for waiting until he has virtually 1 hitpoint left before opening his inventory and healing himself. There's additional ways of addressing this problem (see the Stimpak changes), but I feel a morale system is an important part of it. As to it "taking control away from the player", I think you're referring to the objections to Vince's personality system, where the player would be forced to make certain remarks based on the personality he chose for his character. But this system doesn't force you to do anything; it just makes certain things harder, which generally also become harder for the AI.

Healing Rate as First Aid Dependent: If you "rest", your healing rate goes up depending on your First Aid skill (I never bought that you could sleep off bullet wounds, and given that the active First Aid skill works like shit, might as well make resting into a medical break).

Time isn't important in FO2 to begin with. Hakunin will wait for you in a pool of his own blood for months if needed. The change makes sense, but it won't really impact gameplay in any significant way.

Sure, this is more of a convenience thing to compensate for the Stimpak changes taking away the prefered option of just pumping everyone full of Stims after each battle. But convenience still impacts gameplay for me; I always tried to buy every Outdoorsman manual I could find just so I wouldn't have walk to the exit grid every time a pack of Radscorpions turned up.

Skill Books: The idea that your Sledgehammer-wielding retard character would spend weeks on end studying science books to end the game with a Science skill higher than most physics teachers was always stupid, so I want to make skill books unusable reference material that raises your skill as you carry them around.

You'll have to carry an assortment of books to use as crutches when you need to do something you're not skilled in. Which sort of makes sense but has the comical side-effect of having a retarded character carry around a dozen books like a nerd, while the nerd character will use that free space in his bag to lug around another minigun.

But that's the thing: you couldn't use them as crutches. They would raise the skill by 20% or so, with no stacking (probably should've specified this). So the nerd character will carry a science book to raise his skill from 90 to 110% so he can get that one skill check he needs, while the retard would have no point in raising his stat from 10 to 30%.

Companion Upkeep/Independence: I know it's a Codex thing to like having party members as zombie-like extensions of the main character, but I prefer them more as individuals with their own personalities, happily bursting away life's many inconveniences. Basically I want to put back in place the Fallout 1 barter system with companions so you can't use them as pack mules any more and have them take in some cash each week (probably raised according to level) which they spend on guns and other things that make them happy. Actually, I would like the Uncharted Waters companion system, where they try to renegotiate their "contract" with you and you either pay up or have to charm them back in place.

Apart from the "less control is not necessarily a good thing" factor already mentioned, this would probably make the companions too much of a bother unless you're playing as a noodle-armed diplomat who NEEDS the protection. Could be compensated by making companions more useful somehow. Sulik has Action Boy perk effect to simulate his great physical condition, Goris has Slayer because he has these claws, Myron has Chem Resistant because even in the remote possibility he hasn't willingly snorted his own stuff he's exposed to it all day long, etc. Would have the side effect of giving them some of that personality you seek.

Yeah, that's a problem (though as to your solution: there's already a mod out which allows for "companion perks", so that would be one possible fix to the problem). Another big problem would be that Charisma would go from an already crappy stat to practically useless (that's why I would like to also make a lot of the "charming" dialogue checks check for charisma instead of Speech; but that's probably even more controversial).

[Map-Based Supply and Demand: Now items get cheaper the more of them are in a map (because Gecko skins should be worthless in Klamath and traders shouldn't be willing to pay a fortune for the 10 Deagles you're lugging around).

Like with the Resting change, this is nice and realistic but won't have much actual effect in gameplay. If the possible gain is too small, most people won't bother*; if you can make big bucks by playing trader, it'll be too tempting to abuse because the only thing making you think twice about travelling across the worldmap is the possibility of meeting a big group of mantises and having to spend the next half hour waiting for them to move.

*money is only a problem in the early game, when you still aren't able to travel safely around the world enough to make good use of this feature anyway. By the time you can make a Redding-San Francisco trip without reloading every time you meet a Floater group or a Press Gang, you'll have more than enough money and most of the gear you could possibly need for endgame.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to exploit as it is, but hopefully by combining (a) a more dangerous wasteland, with (b) the new penalties for carrying too much stuff, this can be avoided, at least in part.

 

[CappenVarra]

You'll have to carry an assortment of books to use as crutches when you need to do something you're not skilled in. Which sort of makes sense but has the comical side-effect of having a retarded character carry around a dozen books like a nerd, while the nerd character will use that free space in his bag to lug around another minigun.

But that's the thing: you couldn't use them as crutches. They would raise the skill by 20% or so, with no stacking (probably should've specified this). So the nerd character will carry a science book to raise his skill from 90 to 110% so he can get that one skill check he needs, while the retard would have no point in raising his stat from 10 to 30%.

While the general idea is alright, this will just mean that every character will carry a full set of books (weighing what 15lbs?) for an effect equivalent to lowering game difficulty (which also gives a 20% skill bonus, right?). That's just... well, pointless. The Arcanum route (having the books expensive and heavy enough to matter) was alright, but neither money nor storage capacity in the car are hard to come by in FO2. I guess the Educated perk would increase this bonus, which is solid... I was also tempted to think about having INT skill point bonus affect the bonus, but it will only make INT more of a must have stat... So, I'd say: back to the drawing board with this one.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

You'll have to carry an assortment of books to use as crutches when you need to do something you're not skilled in. Which sort of makes sense but has the comical side-effect of having a retarded character carry around a dozen books like a nerd, while the nerd character will use that free space in his bag to lug around another minigun.

But that's the thing: you couldn't use them as crutches. They would raise the skill by 20% or so, with no stacking (probably should've specified this). So the nerd character will carry a science book to raise his skill from 90 to 110% so he can get that one skill check he needs, while the retard would have no point in raising his stat from 10 to 30%.

While the general idea is alright, this will just mean that every character will carry a full set of books (weighing what 15lbs?) for an effect equivalent to lowering game difficulty (which also gives a 20% skill bonus, right?). That's just... well, pointless. The Arcanum route (having the books expensive and heavy enough to matter) was alright, but neither money nor storage capacity in the car are hard to come by in FO2. I guess the Educated perk would increase this bonus, which is solid... I was also tempted to think about having INT skill point bonus affect the bonus, but it will only make INT more of a must have stat... So, I'd say: back to the drawing board with this one.

You make a lot of good points, though I would still say that a (more or less) automatic 20% skill bonus to 4 or 5 skills* is still preferable to a just as automatic bonus of up to 100%. I also think that making them heavier/more expensive will have a positive impact with the new weight penalties for combat (yes, you can now still game this by putting all your stuff in the car before entering battle) and a future system for balancing the economy (I know, a pipedream, but the Supply and Demand thing is a good start in my view). The INT point you made gave me an idea: you could make the argument that INT should give you a penalty, rather than a bonus, to the book bonus. Somebody with a low INT would be less able to solve relevant problems on the fly by making the right inferences, and would need reference material more. And no, this wouldn't mean that someone with a high INT with a book would actually have lower skill than someone with low INT and a book, because of the base bonus INT gives to the skills. Books would now be a way of bridging this base bonus for characters with less INT. Not too sure about this yet, but what do you think?

*: (I forgot to mention this, but I was also planning on changing Guns 'n Bullets magazines into a way for unlocking weapon improvements; every issue let's you point out 1 improvement you want to Algernon or whatever his name was)

 

[CappenVarra]

Not too sure about this yet, but what do you think?

Honestly, I haven't thought much about it - and while I'm sure there are meaningful improvements to Fallout's handling of book learning that could be found, I'm not sure any of them would make the game better than simply "sharpening" the book skill point gain curve.

So, from the general "feel" of your stated changes above, I'd throw out the following random ideas:
- modify the [skill level before reading -> skill level after reading] formula so the max skill level you can reach with books is ~60%
- increase book reading times (perhaps to [11 - INT] hours?)
- if you insist on keeping books as "reference material", make skill use while consulting the books last twice as long (time wasted looking stuff up instead of doing it)

I'll write more if I think of something when I have a bit more time (i.e. not during work hours )

 

[tindrli]

my opinion is that 60 % little.. i agree that some kind of balance is needed but 60 % is too low. maybe the better way would be to make some kind of limit.. like if you start with 0% skill then you could advance to 30 % max when reading books.. and if you allready have 60 % then make it max 15 % more or 20 max

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Want the Chinese in the endgame to be challenging? Have them have access to better hardware and better training, make me have to hit them as many times as a Super Mutant because they have great armor.But no, they have this arbitrary combination of weak armor, 200 HP to compensate for it, and the occasional weak ass weapon (FN FAL). If balancing can be addressed in a more sensible way, why not do so?

I'll just give a better argument than this for fixed HP. The biggest problem with HP inflation is that the effective damage you do remains stagnant throughout the game, meaning that you go from an exciting fight early on, where 3-4 shots kill you, to boring end-game fights, where it takes at least 3 times that amount because that's simply how much more HP you have.

For example, I just did some calculations for how damage would pan out in an early fight with one of Metzger's lackeys with you having a Desert Eagle, versus an endgame fight with an Enclave Patrolman with you having a Turbo Plasma Rifle. In the former case, you do 13.5-22.5 damage with each shot against a 43 HP enemy, and in the latter case you actually do less damage: 8-22 against a 150 HP enemy. So this is a fight that takes 3-4 times longer, mainly because of HP inflation.

Of course, in practice fights wouldn't take that long because you would just eye-crit them one by one, but in my system that won't work any more.

 

[baturinsky]

You also fire about twice more times per turn in F2 endgame. And always crit, AFAIK. But yes, fixed hp would probably work. If you want tougher enemy you can just give him/her better armor.​

Are you going to rebalance DT/DR, btw?​

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

You also fire about twice more times per turn in F2 endgame.​

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Bit less than that usually, but yeah, the increased rate of fire perks are monsters in the game (that's why I've added a small to hit penalty to them in my system. They're still incredibly overpowered, but doing any more would probably have the purists up in arms.)​

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And always crit, AFAIK.

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Of course, in practice fights wouldn't take that long because you would just eye-crit them one by one, but in my system that won't work any more.

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Unless you're referring to Slayer/Sniper, which I've also played around with (again, still incredibly overpowered). Here's my description of the changes to critical hit chances:​

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Spoiler

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The current system works like this: if you score a hit, this has a chance of being upgraded to a critical hit according to the following metric:

(CRITCHANCE + ((TOHIT−RND(1,100))/10))%

CRITCHANCE being the modifier of Luck + better criticals perks + finesse, and an extra roll being made if you have the Sniper or Slayer perk.

The one thing I don't agree with in this system is the fact that the to hit chance still plays a roll: why should a lucky shot to the eye have more of a chance of causing extra damage than a skill-driven one? Maybe this would make sense with the Living Anatomy perk, but that would be a future project. In my system, skill plays no role in getting critical hits.

The other thing is the way the Slayer and Sniper perks work. I know, I know, everyone loves them in spite of the balancing issues, but my main gripe with them isn't even the balancing aspect, but how boring they are. For instance, the first time I heard something about the almighty Sniper perk, I assumed it would have something to do with, you know, sniping.

Anyway, in my system they're still pretty damn powerful, only now they correspond a bit better with their titles/vault boy images. I've made the Slayer perk into the Conan the Barbarian type dealy it looks like from the image, meaning that your critical hit change rises bases on the number of men, women and children you've heard the lamentations of before killing them (divided by 10). The sniper perk now increases the critical hit chance based on the distance of the target (so, with a sniper rifle at max distance, it gives +50 critical hit chance).

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Are you going to rebalance DT/DR, btw?

Not sure yet, that's one thing a lot of mods already do, and I'll probably just see which one fits best with the rest of my changes (the YAAM mod will probably be a must, it's a brilliant mod which not only fixes the AP bullet problem, but also replaces the DR-modifier of rounds with an initial DT-modifier, replaced with a DR-modifier once all the DT is gone). I'll probably need something as well which fixes the uselessness of laser damage.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I have a question for you guys. One of the major problems with ranged combat in Fallout 2 is of course the step around a corner, shoot, step back exploit. I don't really have a good idea yet on what could be done to try and address this; I can only think of two vague approaches, which might create more problems than they solve:

(1) "Interruptions": I saw someone refer to this, and while I'm not sure how this is usually done, it might be something like this: your current AP-count drops below half your max, then a check is made against the opponent's sequence, and if you fail, you lose the rest of your turn.
(2) If you're standing adjacent to "cover" (an impenetrable hex), the game reads this as you actually trying to take cover, meaning that the opponent gets a penalty to his to hit chance, but you do as well (this would try and simulate the "peek around a corner" effect of your actions).

The problem with the second option would of course be that it makes no sense that you're in "cover" if you're standing with your back against a wall (ideally, you would really have to be able to check for corners only, but I wouldn't have a clue on how to even begin making this possible).

The best candidate would then seem option one, but that would probably require overhauling the whole sequence system (which I would actually prefer; the whole double turn at the very beginning thing was always a bit odd to me), which I would have to ask Timeslip about (if he ever shows up again) whether that's even possible.

But how do other games address this problem (for instance, JA2, because I really can't remember)? How would you do so?

 

[Glovz]

@Jim
BTW - the YAAM mod - while great uses modified proto files and because of this ahs two affects:
1- makes it at times incompatible with some mods
2- the changes do not take affect on those protos already on a map (if I remember correctly)

So you may want to look into how to recreate YAAM using solely sfall scripting methods.

Towards the step back exploit; I like the "Interruptions" idea, but some skill checks would need to be added in there to make this a little more appealing of a change.

 

[baturinsky]

Forbid moving after doing any non-move action.