Fallout: Tactics - Any tips from the pros?

[Cael]

OK. Kansas City.

I don't know why people say the South Gate is the problem. For me, it is the West Gate.

South Gate is easy. The trick is to use shotguns. Run 3 guys to just in front of the ghoul on the right with the sniper rifle. Maybe 3-5 steps in front. All armed with Pancors or CAWS, all set to single shot. Then wait for the ghouls to start firing. When they do, run forward and pump 2-3 shotgun blasts per soldier at the furthest mutant you can see and watch them all drop in a group. Then turn around and hose down the melee mutant behind the trash bin and sniper rifle the minigunner that comes running up. Do not go near or past the car or the other SAW mutants around the corner will blow you away. Then hug the south wall of the ghoul fortress and take out that commander in the building to the south-west of the gate. If you can get the two grenadiers in the same building, so much the better. Then hug the north wall of that building and sniper the two SAW mutants around the corner from the South Gate.

Send a guy to the North Gate and take out the only SAW mutant. The challenge here would be to nail the 3 melee mutants before they trigger any mines with only the one guy.

West Gate is where the bloody mutants cheat by running around corners well within range and hosing down your men. Also, they have a tendency to act twice before your guys could react (run around the corner when you have ended your turn and then move next round before your guys get to move). They also have that M2 bastard preventing you from running more than a few steps ahead of the sandbags before he hose you down, and about 3-4 SAW and a rocket guy running in to give you a reaming you won't forget. Well, not so much a reaming as firing MY ammo... Pancors are worth their weight in gold here. When you are staring down 2-3 SAW and 1 rocket launcher guy at about 20-25 range, you WANT to hit ALL of them as hard as you can. That means shotguns where 1 shot = everyone goes dancing.

 

[Cael]

For laclongquan:

After Kansas City and Jefferson.

 

[laclongquan]

I remember playing this like an arcade shooter-4 deathclaws as an extra place to carry loot, a medic and my character as the only one do the killing and clearing maps.
It was fun if you ignore tactic element that is broken and clunky.

You mean turn down the difficulty to the min and play it Diablo-lite
Anyway

For laclongquan:
snipped.

I hugely suspect your game and mine were differently modded. So in my game the West Gate mutants are mostly armored. So they are tougher compared to South Gate who was normally unamored.

And the sniper up top is generally buffed to the gills, so she can take sniper shot at two RL mutants on two towers. When she can do that, taking long range shot at the mutant milling at the outer gate before running in is easy. Also, sniper invite counter fire so the SM can just shoot their guns dry before running into the ghouls.

 

[Neanderthal]

Pro tips:
Always pay me my money bitch.
Always ask for the cash up front.
Always insist on using your condoms.
Never kiss.
Always pay me my money bitch.
Get regular check ups.
Don't share needles.
Set your prices, don't waiver.
Always pay me my money bitch.

 

[Cael]

For laclongquan:
snipped.

I hugely suspect your game and mine were differently modded. So in my game the West Gate mutants are mostly armored. So they are tougher compared to South Gate who was normally unamored.

And the sniper up top is generally buffed to the gills, so she can take sniper shot at two RL mutants on two towers. When she can do that, taking long range shot at the mutant milling at the outer gate before running in is easy. Also, sniper invite counter fire so the SM can just shoot their guns dry before running into the ghouls.

I am using the bare bones game v1.27.

I was reading this LP, and he was crying about the South Gate.

I, like you, found the West Gate to be a bigger problem than the South Gate. At the South Gate, the biggest problem is the 8 or so melee and 2 grenade mutants charging you, backed by a couple of machinegunners. Snipe/shotgun the machinegunners in round 1 and then pick off the rest with shotguns and you're fine. At one stage, I was down to 5 melee mutants, all heavily wounded, so I just 9mm them to death to save shotgun ammo.

West Gate, though... UGH! 2 SAW with normal armour, 2 SAW and 1 rocketman with spike armour, plus the two asshole spike armoured snipers... And the two normal armoured grenadiers and a bunch of nekkid melee merry mutants.

 

[laclongquan]

The key in dealing with rocket launcher and Saw gunman is always snipe at them to invite counterfire at MAX range. Two or three rounds like that and they shot dry without results thanks to the punishing distance. The sniper rifle has range advantage over them. And later on the laser Rifle.
Also a sniper drugged to the gill can pop off two shots a round. She can be quite useless in the mop-up operation after the siege, but that's a fine trade-off.

The siege is a fine situation to test different builds. The barricades make for some interesting experiment with Psychomaniac flamer with extreme high BG (burst to the face of some unsuspecting melee over the sandbag, or behind the corner of the iron shack, or right beside the upturned cars). IT's dangerous and often not the most efficient build/gameplay but my god it can be hilarating experiments.

 

[Cael]

The key in dealing with rocket launcher and Saw gunman is always snipe at them to invite counterfire at MAX range. Two or three rounds like that and they shot dry without results thanks to the punishing distance. The sniper rifle has range advantage over them. And later on the laser Rifle.
Also a sniper drugged to the gill can pop off two shots a round. She can be quite useless in the mop-up operation after the siege, but that's a fine trade-off.

The siege is a fine situation to test different builds. The barricades make for some interesting experiment with Psychomaniac flamer with extreme high BG (burst to the face of some unsuspecting melee over the sandbag, or behind the corner of the iron shack, or right beside the upturned cars). IT's dangerous and often not the most efficient build/gameplay but my god it can be hilarating experiments.

That's the problem, laccy. My playstyle and yours are completely different. I don't want to invite counterfire. I want their ammo. ALL of it :D That means called shots to the eyes to knock them out fast and/or massive damage. Look at my .50 cal count None of them got a chance to fire a single shot.

 

[laclongquan]

What do you plan to do with all that ammo? Bring them all to your grave?

Spend it! Spend it like mad! And when you get into trouble because of your spendthrift style, use your brain to get out of it.

Note: also your sniper rifle! Does they use 7.62 ammo or those heavy DU ammo? If the latter use your sniper rifle with DU as much as you can as it's the best kind of spending for that kind of ammo.

 

[Cael]

What do you plan to do with all that ammo? Bring them all to your grave?

Spend it! Spend it like mad! And when you get into trouble because of your spendthrift style, use your brain to get out of it.

Note: also your sniper rifle! Does they use 7.62 ammo or those heavy DU ammo? If the latter use your sniper rifle with DU as much as you can as it's the best kind of spending for that kind of ammo.

Plain v1.27. No mods.

7.62mm sniper rifle.

I plan to put it all around the Calculator's pedestal and detonate ALL of them in one shot. Together with ALL of the mines and explosives I have saved. Will make Plutonius look like a popgun!

 

[Cael]

Power of Punch(tm)

 

[Cael]

OK, guys. I am thinking of modding Tactics for the lulz using the editor that came with the game.

I am looking for thoughts, views and any ideas on how to tweak the weapons, ammo and armour.

Currently, I am thinking of the following broad strokes:
1. One-handed pistols and handguns use 3/4 AP instead of 4/5. They would be restricted to single-shot or triple shot only. Revolvers, to offset the fact they have lost their main advantage, will do more damage (+25%) at longer range (range 22/25) with more accuracy (long range trait) over their handgun counterparts (Colt 1911 for the Casull and Desert Eagle for the S&W).
2. Some of the rarer pistols (e.g., Mauser, P220, Calico M950 and Browning HP) will have their damage and/or range upgraded. This is to try to bring into line the idea that you start with inferior weapons and get better ones. As it stands, more than half the weapons in Tactics are bloody useless because you start the game with better weapons in the first place (heck, the baseline Beretta is plain better than the Uzi and Browning HP, and the MP5 is better than just about every handgun and SMG out there other than the Walther and, maybe, the P90 and Tommy Gun, and you can buy enough of the things to equip your squad. Go figure!).

Spoiler

These are bad figures, I believe, but just something to get started with:
Browning HP (4 in the game; 3 in Freeport, 1 in Quincy) - 10-20 damage, range 25/20, 12 round clip.
P220 (2 in the game; 1 in Preoria, can't remember where the other was) - 10-20 damage, range 25/20, 9 round clip.
Mauser (2 in game; both in Brahmin Wood) - 8-18 damage, range 28, 10 round clip.
Calico M950 (1 in game; trader SE) - 10-20 damage, range 25/20, 50 round clip.
Casull Revolver (2 in game; 1 in Preoria, 1 in Mardin) - 15-24 damage, range 22, 6 round clip, long range trait.
S&W Revolver (2 in game; 1 in Freeport, 1 in Quincy, maybe more in Quincy, I forget because I keep selling them as they were so useless) - 18-25 damage, range 25, 6 round clip, long range trait.

I would love to make changes to the Sten, MP38 and P90 as well as you only get 2 each in the whole game. Maybe put the P90 inline with FO2? 3/4 AP, 16-24 damage, 30/25 range, 12 round burst?

3. SMGs - increase their burst to a minimum of 5 round bursts, but not sure about leaving them as 4/5 weapons or make them 3/4 as well. I was thinking of them as some sort of ultra light MGs, so they have a similar damage and range profile as handguns, but their burst mode should spew lead.
4. Rifles - pretty much keep as is except changing the M14 to use 7.62mm rounds and change it and the M16 to have the long range trait (this trait is why the M16 is less accurate than the Hunting Rifle despite having a longer range; the Hunting Rifle had it, the M16 doesn't). Added a night scope to the Sniper Rifle. Should probably add it to the Styer as well?
5. Energy handguns are the same (they already have the 3/4 AP profile) except I increased the Plasma Pistol to 25 range (from 20).
6. Energy rifles have their AP use reduced to 4 per shot instead of 5.


I am not too sure about the actual maps themselves. I was thinking of just wholesale adding the Redux maps to the game, but am not sure how the game would react, since I am not adding in the rest of the Redux features (I don't like the way he did messed with the NPC leveling and many of the weapons and other bits and pieces he added to the game). It would be nice to use his BOS.exe that fixed the Sniper perk, but again, I don't know how that would interact with the fact I am not wholesale converting the game.

So, any thoughts and the like?

 

[Perkel]

Leave it alone mate.
Fallout Tactics editor is just huge pile of steaming shit.
There were shitload of people who tried to use it and they all basically ignored after tinkering with it.
It "looks" nice but you will be tearing your hair in despair after a while.

FT editor was the biggest crime of FT. With good editor we would have awesome maps, overhauls, campaigns done with one of best tacticool systems.

 

[Cael]

Leave it alone mate.
Fallout Tactics editor is just huge pile of steaming shit.
There were shitload of people who tried to use it and they all basically ignored after tinkering with it.
It "looks" nice but you will be tearing your hair in despair after a while.

FT editor was the biggest crime of FT. With good editor we would have awesome maps, overhauls, campaigns done with one of best tacticool systems.

Is there a better editor out there that I should be aware of?

 

[Perkel]

Leave it alone mate.
Fallout Tactics editor is just huge pile of steaming shit.
There were shitload of people who tried to use it and they all basically ignored after tinkering with it.
It "looks" nice but you will be tearing your hair in despair after a while.

FT editor was the biggest crime of FT. With good editor we would have awesome maps, overhauls, campaigns done with one of best tacticool systems.

Is there a better editor out there that I should be aware of?

No. Which is the reason why FT modding scene is garbage even compared to Fallout1/2 which came without editors.
From what i understand editor is just unfinished thing they just added that doesn't really work like it should while engine itself is just one trick pony and outside of what FT did you can't really do anything else.
People tried to mod proper dialogs in but that went nowhere and engine really didn't like dialogs.

 

[Cael]

Leave it alone mate.
Fallout Tactics editor is just huge pile of steaming shit.
There were shitload of people who tried to use it and they all basically ignored after tinkering with it.
It "looks" nice but you will be tearing your hair in despair after a while.

FT editor was the biggest crime of FT. With good editor we would have awesome maps, overhauls, campaigns done with one of best tacticool systems.

Is there a better editor out there that I should be aware of?

No. Which is the reason why FT modding scene is garbage even compared to Fallout1/2 which came without editors.
From what i understand editor is just unfinished thing they just added that doesn't really work like it should while engine itself is just one trick pony and outside of what FT did you can't really do anything else.
People tried to mod proper dialogs in but that went nowhere and engine really didn't like dialogs.

It is a tactical game. My consideration for dialogs in the game is somewhere between nil and bupkiss.

My aim in this is to just mess around with the weapons and stuff and try to see if I can make most of the weapons viable to the point that they are actually in contention rather than just ignored 99% of the time.

 

[naossano]

I don't have the links right now and i am not unlikely to have them soon (currently focusing on other mods), but i do remember some successfull attempt at making a proper dialog system for Fallout Tactics. Although, i don't know if it was easy to use afterward, or if it was a pain in the ass to make new dialogs.

 

[Don Peste]

I don't have the links right now and i am not unlikely to have them soon (currently focusing on other mods), but i do remember some successfull attempt at making a proper dialog system for Fallout Tactics. Although, i don't know if it was easy to use afterward, or if it was a pain in the ass to make new dialogs.

This, maybe? http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/fallout-tactics-mod-in-unity3d.203258/
Seems laclongquan was interested too.

 

[Cael]

Well, at least I found out why Extreme Haymaker is so powerful when compared to other melee attacks, even though it only does a base damage of 8-10:

1. It has a stun effect, which lowers the target's Per and Agi.
2. It has an inbuilt +15% critical rate.
3. It does ENERGY damage, which few things resist.
4. Its default ammo is composite (-11% damage, +31% penetration).

As comparison:
The Adamantium Claws does 6-24 normal damage with no special ammo or extra effects.
The Power Fist does 12-24 normal damage with no specials.
The Microsledge does 8-20 normal damage with knockover as a special effect at range 2.
The Cattleprod does 12-20 energy damage or 10x 4-7 (40-70) energy damage on overload (takes 10 ammo instead of 1).
The Ripper does 15-22 normal damage with no specials.

Seriously, is there any reason not to use the free Extreme Haymaker and skip everything else (other than maybe the cattleprod on overload)?

 

[Mud']

I don't have the links right now and i am not unlikely to have them soon (currently focusing on other mods), but i do remember some successfull attempt at making a proper dialog system for Fallout Tactics. Although, i don't know if it was easy to use afterward, or if it was a pain in the ass to make new dialogs.

This, maybe? http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/fallout-tactics-mod-in-unity3d.203258/
Seems laclongquan was interested too.

I swear i played a Fallout Tactics mod where you had dialogue and it was something related to Fallout 1, i think it was Fallout Awaken.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

There's no "dialogue" to speak of in Awaken. You can speak with npcs, but you don't have different dialogue options.

 

[Cael]

WTF is this crap?

That's a hammer punch on a level 6 toon...!

 

[Pope Amole II]

That's an ancient and well-known bug - left leg criticals are causing unreasonable damage due to some bug or whatever. That's pretty much a cheat mode through the game.

 

[Cael]

That's an ancient and well-known bug - left leg criticals are causing unreasonable damage due to some bug or whatever. That's pretty much a cheat mode through the game.

Hmm... Preoria turrets... The reckoning cometh, bitches... Muahahahahahahaha!

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

well-known bug

Never heard of it.

 

[Cael]

well-known bug

Never heard of it.

Me neither, but I was mucking around with it, and the waifu Stevie just did 866 damage to a brahmin with a single punch. It lost all 8 stomachs from that one shot.