Incline Fallout 2 Mechanics Overhaul Mod Discussion

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Does this mod makes combat more tactical, gives you control of allies and stuffies?

I've always wanted to replay the fallouts, but the too simplistic combat is a letdown nowadays.

Sorry for this sort of question in the middle of the discussion, but I'm not reading 18 pages of thread.

Don't worry about it; wouldn't expect anyone to be so masochistic. It tries to make combat more interesting, yeah (except the control of allies stuff, but you can enable that without the mod through sfall anyway), but I wouldn't download it until the next (pretty huge) version as the current one's pretty broken. I'll try to have a succinct list of changes in it to make clear what's being changed.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Ok, I've decided to change the way armor works again. A couple of reasons for this, the more boring one's having to do with the limitations of the engine and the other one's being:

- I want to decide piercing potential on both a weapon and ammo basis.
- I want to have AP ammo widen the damage range and JHP ammo constrict it (though JHP of course still does much more all-round damage if it properly makes contact).

So what I'm doing is simply make the upper range of a weapon's damage its armor piercing rating as well: AP ammo (and possibly laser weapon's secondary attack) simply raises this upper range. I think this makes sense: in my system the upper range represents weight and speed, thus priviledging small, fast, heavy rounds, which is precisely what you need for penetration (in addition to hardness of material, which is what AP ammo adds).
The armor's DT/DR that the round encounters is decided in more or less the same way as I said before (only slightly more easy to understand): against the torso, with minimal repair skill for the wearer, DT/DR is between 80-100% of the total. If the wearer has higher repair skill this shifts upwards, e.g. 90-110%. If you hit the target in a bodypart where there's more chance of encountering a weak spot, the lower range drops (e.g. from 90-110% to 70-110% for the arms). Like with damage, the outcome of the random roll is influenced by luck.

edit: scratch that last part, to keep it more straightforward and easy to implement, DT/DR stay constant. Like said, armor penetration is based on the upper damage range, but to make it more flexible it's a roll with that value at the center and +25% and -25% on either side of that (so, if your weapon's upper range is 100, armor piercing is between 75 and 125, which like previously is first checked against DT, and if higher that gets ignored and the value is substracted from the target's DR). The upper range of that gets raised with harder to hit bodyparts.

Repair influencing armor repair I'll just do through perks.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I've been going through all the weapon stats, systematizing every single one of them (again, mostly because I'm changing so many things that assigning arbitrary values would end up requiring so much balancing and endless reworking). As you might imagine, weapon prices were especially hard to get "right" (e.g. for ranged weapons this is based on a combination of damage per attack, damage per AP, range, mag size, and damage per burst taking into account strength required to avoid recoil).

If any of you has the time/inclination to go through them before I painstakingly run them through the item editor I would much appreciate it, (The Brazilian Slaughter?).

Couple of new changes to keep in mind if you do: base AP cost (so before spending additional points on aiming) is based on a combination of weapon type and weapon weight (mainly to give more of an advantage to low weight weapons), and melee damage is no longer the tiered system I talked about earlier, but a (slightly) more simple universal value: each point of ST adds 10% of the melee weapon's weight to your max damage, and 7.5% to your min damage (it also adds 0.5 pounds to the "weight" of your unarmed attacks). So, with a sledge of 12 pounds, having 5 ST means that you do 8-12 damage.

Here's the excel sheet: https://app.box.com/s/08i9i5gcdsr2rwa2473r

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Timeslip has decided to do some sfalling again last night and filled three of my requests so that I can now (1) raise the inventory AP cost (I'll probably just put it at 8 or something, still with the one action maximum, with non-inven reloading at 7), (2) experiment with the increased backwards movement AP cost I talked about a while ago, and (3) limit the max carry weight to worn and active hand without workarounds. So yay.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Keeping up my perfect run of posting progress updates on a mod which hasn't seen an update in a long while, I think I've finally come up with a way to deal with PE and weapon ranges in a way that's intuitive. In vanilla, PE gives a flat bonus and long ranged weapons give a THC bonus for the first so many hexes, meaning high PE character with a long ranged weapon doesn't get bonusses based on range, but simply by virtue of attacking, which is boring and counter-intuitive.

Instead, I'm going to make it so that you have a penalty per hex distance (lets say flat 5% drop each hex), of which the weapon's range gets substracted as a percentage (e.g. if you have a rifle with a range of 50, then 50% gets removed from the distance penalty, making it 2.5 per hex). However, this is only the case with maxed out PE; every point under that reduces 10% from the weapon's range bonus (so, with a PE of 5 applied to the previous example, you get an "effective" range of 25, thus only removing 25% from the distance penalty). This means I don't have to do any of the stuff vanilla had to do with weapon perks giving bonuses for "long range" weapons: it's all included in the range itself. Having a weapon outfitted with a scope adds hexes to the range, and raises your PE (you can go over 10 PE this way: 15 PE would give you a 150% effective range bonus).

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Because a lot of (2 or 3) people have complained that there isn't a clear introduction anymore to this mod and the whole discussion has become pretty much unfollowable, here's one I've been working on. This is also the new first post.

The goal of this mod will be to address what I consider to be a number of systemic shortcomings of Fallout 2. Will have the first proper version up in a few weeks.

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 will be 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 hands and wear as armor. 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 to 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.
- 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.

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.
- 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. Same as always.

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 10%, up to a maximum of 200%, meaning a maxed out AG character can spend 2 AP aiming for a 100% 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), 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, 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.
- 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.
- First Aid and Doctor have become more relevant with Stimpaks mostly healing temporarily, 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.
- 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.


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 will be to have perks every level, and nerf the more overpowered ones. Also, perks will no longer be 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. You can find a provisional list of perk changes here:
https://app.box.com/s/0eema1esji3omeurwbae

The second problem is the game's lack of combat difficulty and complexity. Before you ask, no the point isn't to make FO2 into JA2, just 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 no longer heal very much permanently, so should be used with care. 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.
- Avoiding utomatic 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.
- Giving more options during melee combat. You'll be able to choose whether to block or 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). 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. Sledges can either produce knockback (swings) or not ("thrusts"). Laser beams can be concentrated to add armor piercing. And so on.
- 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:

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. Lasers will penetrate targets and potentially hit targets next in line. Plasma rifles do splash damage to nearby targets. Cattle prods produce more knockouts. And so on.
- 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, and high PE scoped rifles. 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 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 (now takes 5 AP to 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).

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" restock based on the amount of cash they have and the cost of the items they want to buy.

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.

 

[Sevenfm]

It's sad that no news on this project. Is it still in work? Any news on release date?

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Hey man, just stopped boring people with updates. Won't that too long for a release, I'm seeing the end of the light.

 

[Sevenfm]

Jim thats a good news! Just wanted to say i'm waiting for this mod to start a new Fallout journey All improvements that you have posted here are really interesting for me, hope that day will come when i will get my hands on them

 

[hiver]

Likewise.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Check out the first post guys, finally got something out the door: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/fallout-2-mechanics-overhaul-mod-v-0-5.83317/

The Brazilian Slaughter

 

[Sevenfm]

First impressions.
Started with a str=4, tagged two-handed.
Now fighting with spear in the Temple is very hard, I need to hit rscorpion dozens of times with maxed aim and strength, and a lot of running away. Ok, I can probably live with it.
But in Arroyo, I realized that I cannot do any damage to those plants (and geckos are invulnerable, too), even with sharpened spear and attack strength maxed.
Hmmm, it doesn't seem right.
Previously, the spear (and the sharpened spear) was a deadly weapon early in the game, even in the moderate hands (str 4-5).
Now, if you have str<6, it's useless. And fists are of no help, too.
I agree that heavy weapons (sledges and such) have high str requirements, but the spears? I always thought they are one handed weapons, also.
Maybe using a knife is more appropriate to this situation, but there are no knives in the temple, and even in arroyo it's not easy to find one.

So, these things I dislike:
-high str reqs for spears
-no minimum damage (even with sharp weapon! do the plants really have bioceramic armour?)
-the need to tag both small and two handed melee to be able to use knives and spears early in the game (I like them both)
-the same problem with pistils and rifles probably, and there are only 3 possible tagged skills
-strange slowdown when aiming in the temple (when fighting with guard in fists)
-also, critters now do not rush at you, they take one step and stop, they will be sitting ducks probably when I get some ranged weapons

The things I definitely like:
-probably most of the stuff
-ap changes are interesting
-hp changes are really good (I never liked having 300hp)
-first aid, doctor are really useful now
-generally, str for melee system is good, except mentioned spear and min. damage problem
-aiming, attack strength
-...

The things I miss:
Improved crafting from Phobos2077_E&C_mod_0.5.1 (is it possible to make the crafting part of that mod compatible with your mod in the future?)
Some hotkeys for quick change of aiming and strengh (sorry if they exist, just didn't find any list )

p.s. I used manual install of RP2.3.2 over this mod, without overwriting anything.

 

[Sevenfm]

A lot of random crashes in klamath rat caves.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/su6tybjiole8k99/SLOT01.7z

Xander Root not stacked in inventory
Rats, Geckos sometimes 'drop their weapons' after successfull critical hit
Shown AP costs for moving are not equal to real AP cost if you move there

Max carry weight is only 40 for my char (str=4), is that intentional?
Think I will not be ably to carry even quest items (for example, shovel weight is 10, and I need to carry a weapon, armour and ammo)

One handed and two handed skills seem to be switched.
'Unable to do any damage to plants in Arroyo garden' bug is fixed with RemoveCriticalTimelimits=1 in ddraw.ini, but sometimes I need to exit to OS and restart fallout.exe to be able to inflict any damage (for example, after killing one plant, the second becomes invulnerable again)

p.s. used RP2.3.2 with this mod

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Sevenfm totally missed your posts dude, sorry about that. Thanks a lot for the reports! I will get back to this thing in a couple of weeks when I feel up to it again and address all this stuff.

 

[Glovz]

Hey Jim, RP 2.3.3 out and killap even release source files. You may want to take a look and maybe that will spur you to update your mod and release your source files.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Hey Jim, RP 2.3.3 out and killap even release source files. You may want to take a look and maybe that will spur you to update your mod and release your source files.

I'm going on vacation in a week and I've promised myself I'll get to it when I get back. Late august mechanics overhaul final release or bust .

 

[Glovz]

Jim the Dinosaur
ok - so if this is busted then zip up all your source files (even stuff not completed) and send me a link - I have some time off coming up and I want to examine what's there and get some help from NovaRain over at NMA.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

New version up, sorry for the really long wait guys. Mostly lots and lots of fixes (turns out it was, and quite probably still is, a buggy mess, who'd have figured), enjoy! Check the first post for the downloads!

The Brazilian Slaughter

Sevenfm, in case you're still around, this should fix the issues you've been having. I went through the rat caves and temple a couple of times and there were none of the crashes/slowdowns/invincible enemies you were complaining about.

Also:

Max carry weight is only 40 for my char (str=4), is that intentional?

Yes, "carry weight" now only applies to weapons and armor equiped.

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).

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

New version chockful of new perks (thanks agentorange and RK47 for helping me come up with a couple of them):

Version 0.6.5: (Downloads in the first post, including an updated version of the Perk & Trait changes doc)

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.

 

[agentorange]

the harpoon one sounds sweets. i gotta make a melee/throwing character and try some of this shit out

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

For the next version I'm going to change the way healing works (again). The system I have now essentially forces you to A) invest in healing skill/get a party member with that skill AND B) invest in/collect healing resources, while the latter should probably be an alternative for the former to make sense from a gameplay point of view (it's less intuitive maybe from a simulation standpoint but whatever).

For the moment I'm thinking in these terms:

-Resting in cities heals you up to a certain percentage based on your party's highest combo of Doctor and First Aid skill (e.g. 100% Doctor and 100% First Aid results in full healing)
-Resting in the wastes heals you up to a certain percentage based on your party's highest combo of Outdoorsman and First Aid skill.
-First Aid kits get "consumed" while resting just like they do now, but result in a flat increase of the percentage healed rather than one based on FA skill.

Crippled limbs I was thinking of handling in the following way. The actual cripple you can heal instantly by resting, but you now get a residual effect that lasts for a long time after, and which decreases in severity based on the highest party Doctor skill. E.g. you'd heal the worst of being blind by resting, but you'd still have a THC penalty for the next week or so. Again, Doctor's bags would give a flat bonus to healing.

edit: I also have a very involved barter perk planned to take advantage of the new economic system. You'd "spawn" a merchant when taking the perk who'd essentially work as if he were a regular merchant in that area: he buys and sells merchandise based on the demand in the area. Thus, you simply have an extra merchant to trade with; but he's also on your "team", and as you do more trading with him, he becomes wealthier and can afford goons to help him out; these goons can then come to your assistence if you have trouble on the map where the trader is... might end up fun; barter needs more stuff anyway.

 

[Irenaeus]

Never heard of this mod, great job, Jim. I should try it someday. I loved Fallout 2 back in the day.

 

[RK47]

Jim how about a Feminist trait?
Deals & takes more damage from opposite gender.

 

[Irenaeus]

Jim how about a Feminist trait?
Deals & takes more damage from opposite gender.

Requirements: INT and CHA lower than 5

 

[RK47]

barter needs more stuff anyway.

My recommendation for Barter is to do 'off-screen effect' for your party.
Why? Because it's a CHA skill and it's very hard to translate it into a self-improvement combat bonus.

Team Outfitter (3 Ranks):
Your remarkable trading skills have resulted in your team being better equipped to handle any threats they faced in the wastes.

I felt maybe with high Barter skill the Chosen One can actually negotiate for better deals when his allies are shopping in town, therefore leading into higher companion Damage Resistance & Overall increase in weapon effectiveness.
If you think about it, the only decent way for a Diplomatic character to overcome threats is to gather powerful allies, this perk should reinforce that idea.
Yes, even 0% Barter Char still spends a lot of money buying Super Sledge & Power Armor for Sulik in San Fran - but a Barter character can actually achieve this at much less caps but he simply can't farm caps that effectively early on, and neither can he find shops that sell good gears since Klamath and Den is somewhat a shithole.
So how do we 'simulate' this? Unlock a dialogue option labeled (Team Outfitter) that spends cap to upgrade your individual party members so the Barter Boy won't be forced to rely so much on traders.
Hell even dogs can get stronger if you feed it high quality food and vitamins, right?