You know, it would be awesome if Fallout 2 had a mind-reading unarmed enemy, so you could deliberately script it to do shadowboxing, just to troll the player.
This post is rich with sperg, SPERG WARNING.
Jim the Dinosaur said:
Guess it was a memory saving measure, what with them being the exact same in the original.
1998 = Average computer has 16 or 32 megas of RAM and 500 MHZ, games are well-programmed and run well and seamleselly in the average system.
2013 = Average computer has 4 gigas of RAM and something like 6,000 or 8,000 MHZ divided in multiple processor cores, games are programmed by fucking amateurs and take considerable time to load even in a high-end system.
Oh future, you so hilarious!
Play aggressive and try for an early resolution if you have low EN and be more cautious and defensive with high EN would be my guess.
Seems to favour my current character (Agile, tough and strong unarmed dodger ligh armour and lots of drugs), good thing you fixed the snapshot thing.
Stims weaken your exaustion penalty, right? How about Jet and Stims (and the Adrenaline Rush perk) being capable of giving you a "Positive Exaustion (IE Adrenaline Rush) Bonus" which is essentially a bonus against enemy attacks? That is, until you come down from the drugs, then you're fucked.
(stims are SCARY to use now because of the HP hit, and a jet comedown fucks up the player good if you take too long fighting, trust me I know)
Just go to this part in the .ini:
Cool, more challenge is always good.
What's bad? The new formula or the fact that it doesn't ramp up the difficulty? If it's the latter, the main goal of all these changes was primarily to change the stupid inverted difficulty curve of (moderately) challenging in the beginning and dirt easy after that into a more steady progression in line with the beginning. If you want more difficult critters in general, just up all the values a bit.
Nah, AP ammo becomming universally better.
That said, I think the dificulty curve is already better due to the combination of factors (morale system, exaustion, fixed HP, unarmed vs unarmed, more cripples) making combat a lot more random yet balanced, because now the player can't simply count on his usual "Pump weapon skill to 130% by level 6, use EN 4 + lifegiver for hp bloat and eye-crit my way to victory" schtick.
What should they do differently?
Not really sure. In vanilla the choice of one-handed weapons was Magnum Revolver vs 233 vs Hcp 10mm SMG, it was essentially a stopping power vs shooting speed vs lotsa bursts choice, with fast-shot characters going with the Magnum or hcp and switching only for the Really Tough Shit (turrets, Super Mutants, Wannamingoes, Deathclaws), until they got the Gauss Pistol. I would say shooting speed, but I don't think the difference is really meaningful like the difference between a pistol and a rifle (normal pistols with rifle-like damage IMHO are a little ridiculous), their function in your mod seem to be a longer-ranged in-betweener weapon between light pistols, shotgun and rifles.
Not really sure, I need to number-crunch and think more.
That's a good idea, but I don't need a special perk for that (I can just check for two-handedness).
Good!
Possible way to differentiate some weaponry:
Light Pistols = 0/-5% AC vs unarmed/melee attacks (a pistol is light, shoots fast and can be easily used in a melee fight)
Heavy pistols/smgs/shotguns = -%5/-10% AC vs unarmed/melee attacks
Two-handed weapons = -10%/-20% AC vs unarmed/melee attacks (Big, unwieldy, etc. Rifles can be used for butting but its kinda bad for enclosed spaces, which is why sappers and tunnel-fighters use guns. Unsure how to simulate this)
(or maybe the penalty is in DR? Need to think more)
Like I said, the idea is to think in terms of niches and character ideas and how those differences apply. I saw your interesting ideas on dodging and hit chances and created my Fast Unarmed Dodge character.
Another potential character I created in my mind is a classic Fallout Lone Sniper, but with different stats because of the fact PE now has bonuses beyond 7 (seriously, PE 8 or beyond doesn't make you more accurate), in my mind he would be something like this:
ST: 05 (+2 enhancements with module and perk)
PE: 08 (+2 enhancements with module and perk)
EN: 06 (+2 enhancements with module and perk)
CH: 01 (no use, can boost with shades to recruit a single NPC)
IN: 07 (good smarts, can boost by +2 with module and perk, and +3 with hubologists bonus)
AG: 08 (+1 with RP Agility Serum, +1 with perk +1 with module - 1 with Brotherhood Armor)
LK: 07 (+2 or +1 with hubologist scanning, +1 with perk)
Not sure yet myself. The min strength for weapons element really bugged the hell out of me because it was so obviously phoned in. Every weapon has a value between 3 and 7, with the 6's and 7's reserved for big guns almost exclusively. Of course you'll probably have Power Armor by the time you get to use these weapons anyway so you'll end up choosing between 4 and 5 ST at start up every single time with a ranged character (unless you just want to use the 10mm pistol, which is I think the only min ST 3 weapon). At least with the new system, every ST at start up would have its upsides and downsides, which is something. I already implemented it and it works nicely. Here's some examples of the new min strength values:
Why not make it double ST to dual-wield, or double ST + 1? Could make it more useful and acessible.
For example, only character I can think that would take advantage of the 1/2h wield rules would be a Big gunner/Melee/Ranged hybrid character with enough starting ST to use two-handed weapons by double-wielding until he reaches the middle-game and uses Tag! to switch to a Big Gun.
Bear in mind now that in your mod PA gives a severe -2 AG bonus. The Metal/Combat armor -1 bonus is quite severe, but manageable (especially with the RP). In fact, I would recommend a different penalty to power armor, but I have no idea which.
As for throwing, I really have no idea as to what do with that skill beyond what I suggested. Its a skill with few weapons, lousy weapons with marginal use (throwing the ocasional molotov on crowded enemies is quite cool, having to put a proper gun in the same slot in the next turn ins't) and there's not even scenario destruction to justify it.
IMHO it would be awesome if a Fallout 2 Total Conversion used this mod as default.