Fallout 2 mod EcCo Gameplay Overhaul (new version for RPU)

[lostabroad2]

Actually I like this option the most. In general, it makes sense that when you recruit somebody - you can use their skill to your party's advantage. So Option 1 would be strange in that regard. Option 2 - if I understood correctly, is to increase final Barter but only by a fraction of difference between dude and party member? I will think about this, thanks for suggestions.

Option 1 and 2 are easily implemented by modifying the script (I'm surprised you didn't already). Option 3 is even easier...

You understood correctly. The question is which skills, (if any), should boost Chosen One's abilities and to what extent. Should having a party member with higher Small guns, Throwing, Gambling, or Sneaking give you a bonus? I think most people would say no to weapons skills but yes to Gambling, Repair, Doctor, etc. If there is to be a bonus, (and I think there should be with Barter), then a proportion of the difference in values is the best way to do it. The 3 alternatives are: 1) to use the higher value. The problem is that there's no incentive to put points into those skills if there's no short-term benefit, as is currently the case with Barter. 2) Apply a uniform bonus dependant on the highest party member throughout the game. The problem here is that there's still a bonus for having a party member value of 50 when Chosen One's value is 120. 3) Apply a uniform bonus dependant on the highest party member until the value matches Chosen One's value. The problem here is that removing the bonus creates a sudden drop in value. EG if there's a 10 point bonus for having a party member with a value of 80 then at 79 your effective value is 89. Add another point and it drops to 80.

In my opinion Option 2 is the best staring point with a long-term goal of also applying it to First Aid, Doctor, Gambling, Repair, and Outdoorsman. Option 2 allows for increasing NPC skill values in Option 3 so that the bonus proportion is lower and allows for a decreasing bonus up to 125 or even higher. For the record a variation of Option 2 is used for skill book bonuses.

I don't have the computer knowledge to do what you suggested. When I was in my teens I wrote some commercial game software in Basic for the Spectrum. When I left school I went into a different World and didn't touch a computer again until my late 40s. I'm nearly 60 now with poorer eyesight so learning to code would be beyond me. I can look at a script and understand what it's designed to do but I couldn't say if it was written correctly. I'm very good with the math so I can test in Basic or on Excel sheets but I wouldn't know where to put scripts or even how to open protos.

Good luck with how you choose to proceed.

 

[lostabroad2]

It's been several years since I used this mod so take the following with a pinch of salt. My, (very limited), experience with crafting was negative. Given the economy is much harder at the start of the game it required almost all my resources to pay for the 'create a leather jacket perk'. Having paid for it I still couldn't use it. I went through the notes only to find out that in addition to paying for the perk I needed to have a skill value that was about 30 points above what I had. I would have needed to use nearly all the points from 2 early level-ups just for the chance to make my money back. Crafting might be a good thing but the in-game dialogue information was incomplete and requiring players to read through all the notes to use it was a negative. The cost of the perks and skill values required were set too high. If you're going to have Crafting it should start off cheap and easy, (like the Temple of Trials), to get people involved, and the conversation triggers should be easier to find. From memory I almost missed the leather jacket perk seller.

Traps in games are a lazy gimmick. If I could i'd take out all the traps in Fallout 2. Adding more traps would have been a no-no for me. Just 1 grumpy-old-man's opinion.

 

[phobos2077]

The cost of the perks and skill values required were set too high. If you're going to have Crafting it should start off cheap and easy, (like the Temple of Trials), to get people involved, and the conversation triggers should be easier to find. From memory I almost missed the leather jacket perk seller.

Strange, I remember I've added very early crafting items that you can do almost from the beginning. Leather Jacket is only 40 Repair and recipe is only 300 caps. You can craft it many times for money.

 

[gustarballs1983]

Personally I'm all for the crafting system, but the crafting fun ends mid game, when your party has metal/ combat armors there's little in the sense of crafting.. how about to be able to turn metal armor, to Mk2 version by disasembling it polishing with flint, and assembling back together? or a formula to upgrade standard combat armor to Mk2 or brotherhood version.. I mean when You reach san fran You don't waste money for combat armors when you can buy Power Armor, and speaking of Power Armor, why not involve Crocket at hubologists ( or steal the data from his computer), so that You get a recepie to be able to upgrade Power Armor to it's hardned version. it's pretty shitty to keep your companions alive if playing legit with only standard power armor versus enclave troopers with gauss rifles or something similarily deadly, perhaps with upgrade to HPA your party NPCs would survive.

As for crafting I'm personally a fan of another mod on moddb.. or was it nexusmods.. one guy made a mod where you can disassemble any item in the game into basic components like metal parts, weapon parts, leather strips, ammo parts, explosive components, electronic parts and chemical components, each item could give varaing amount of up to two types of specific components when dismantled, and could be crafted from a different amount of up to three components. each item had some skill requirements regarding it's crafting. It's a bit over the top when you could craft let's say APAmk2, especially that the guy that made the mod gave debug options to spawn huge amounts of crafting materials on demand without any restrictions, so i would actually like to take that silliness out from that mod. dismantling all your excess items to get components, actually alows you to keep the barter formula as is, because you'll have hard time to buy as much stock as you can just for gold, and keep up with paying quest related NPCs for whatever you need :p

as for traps..
I don't think crafting traps is nessecary in this game, however during disarming the ones in the game, should give some bonus, like a free explosive charge to be dismatled for components, to craft explosives like dynamite/ plastic explosives, or explosive ammo/weapons like rockets for bazooka, frag grenades, fuck i'd even allow to craft holy hand grenades, if you find that one from vorpal rat cave.. this would make for a whole new level of throwing build.

and yeah as for the damage formula I'd stick to the one RPU uses ( vanilla i think), YAAM causes too much stir.. as you want to craft shotgun slugs from the get go, as they do more damage than the puny blue ones, since almost all enemies have 3+ damage threshold which gives +10%dr for every point in difference between armor DT>ammo DT.
what's funny is that actually it works the other way around too if ammoDT>armprDT You reduce 10% damage resitance yealding more damage done.. ( and I think it can go below zero too, at least that were the results of my test back in the day..) I was running with party members with SMGs, and pistol/rifle only were using shotguns with slugs, and they could take down anything, except enclave troopers and aliens..

EDIT:

Oh almost forgot.. I'm lookong forward to someone finishing the slavery rebalanced alternative mod, where you could reenslave slaves from slaver encounters,( by using rope on them you add them to your party) and get them to carry your stuff around, they could not use weapons, nor would they fight for you, just wear armor up to best combat armor ( brotherhood armor), they would have to be excluded from control combat mode=2 and mode=3. giving them any sharp object in inventory gives 50% chance for them to run away during next time passing in pipboy. ( so that they shouldn't carry junk around, only firearms).

 

[phobos2077]

and yeah as for the damage formula I'd stick to the one RPU uses ( vanilla i think), YAAM causes too much stir..

EcCo was built around YAAM from the very beginning. It's the foundation of my balance. With vanilla damage formula, AP ammo and different ammo types in general, just wont work.

you want to craft shotgun slugs from the get go, as they do more damage than the puny blue ones, since almost all enemies have 3+ damage threshold which gives +10%dr for every point in difference between armor DT>ammo DT

This is not true. I think you misunderstood the formula. If Armor DT > ammo DT, it means the bullet didn't go through and armor's normal DR value will be used. There's no increase here, like you suggest. Only DT is reduced (for example, if armor DT 3 and ammo DT 2 and damage is 5, then final damage will be = 5 - (3 - 2) = 4. With vanilla formula, it's 5 - 3 = 2 always.

what's funny is that actually it works the other way around too if ammoDT>armprDT You reduce 10% damage resitance yealding more damage done.. ( and I think it can go below zero too, at least that were the results of my test back in the day..)

This is not "funny", but the main feature of this formula. Ammo DT > Armor DT means armor was defeated and armor resistance gets decreased by 10% for every 1 extra point of Ammo DT left. And no, it doesn't "go below zero".

This formula is as robust as an AK and much simpler than the alternatives.

You can see how it works here: https://github.com/sfall-team/sfall/blob/master/sfall/Modules/DamageMod.cpp
(search for "DamageYAAM")

 

[gustarballs1983]

So basically You're not aginst my other suggestions, it's just You are more comfortable to stick to YAAM formula than say Glovz formula for example?

I like Glovz more because it doesn't mess with ammo proto files.

When someone changes the damage formula to something else when protos are tampered with, folks start to complain around the forum that the game is buged, when it's obvious they screwed up the installation process for example, i would just like to avoid noobs coming in here with complains, since when they get misstreaded for their stupidity, they often yell outside the forums how bad we are over here, it doesn't bode well for NMA so to speak

 

[phobos2077]

it's just You are more comfortable to stick to YAAM formula than say Glovz formula for example?

Yes, I'm more comfortable because it's easier to understand and to work with. But it's just more flexible. As I explained in this post, you can't have a configuration where some ammo is better in some situations with Glovz, because of a weird way it uses Damage Mult / Div (maybe it was inherited from vanilla? idk, but vanilla was broken anyway..).

Having to "mess with proto" is not an issue, since this mod already "messes" with almost all weapon, ammo & armor protos anyway. Also, if you're not already aware, there's a scripted solution to this issue being included in mods now, that automatically adjusts proto based on DamageFormula the user chooses. I'm not going to have this option in EcCo though. YAAM or bust

Regarding other suggestions:
- Crafting - yes, it's a common problem with many games where crafting system is not the only way to gain equipment. Maybe I'll look into it.
- Other scripted/complicated features - not from me. I'd stick to pure balancing and working with existing stuff as much as possible this time.

 

[_Pyran_]

Gambling, barter and other skills:
Use 10-20% of the npc's skill (if his skill is higher).
And ... Depends on the values in UsePartySkills=1 or 0
0 - add % to use skills: repair, doctor, outdoorsman, etc
1 - these skills are used by npc. The percentage is not added, but the full skill value is used. The action is performed by a npc.
*outdoorsman - it's good if this skill should use the maximum value in any variant.

Traps:
Decontamination of traps should not always give out material (explosives, stake, grenade) - only in one case out of 5. But the higher the skill, the greater the chance to get the item. But even with 100% chance = 1/3.
* some items should break during neutralization - I think it's logical.

Craft:
High-tech things cannot be collected by simple crafting. From metal and motor - we can't assemble APA, but we can improve leather armor, metal and combat. To improve the existing Power Armor, you will need "mechanism" and in addition to spare parts, you need a special instruction (in order to then start the improvement process through the computer (which manages the mechanism).
For example, converting combat armor II to ca-bos requires scheme, spray, metal and mechanism + "Science & repair" skills.
*And remove some of the items from the locations so that it would be more profitable to create them than to find them.

Oh almost forgot..

about slave master - something similar was in megamod (bounty hunter and handcuffs).
In order for the slaves not to escape, you need a reliable party member(s) (who does not react to karma) or a mercenary who needs to be paid for every transition between locations.
* and so that the money is not stored in his inventory

Glovz formula

I know 3 versions. Integrated into sfall (2 versions) and the third Glovz + fix2 (external config)

 

[gustarballs1983]

Regarding other suggestions:
- Crafting - yes, it's a common problem with many games where crafting system is not the only way to gain equipment. Maybe I'll look into it.

Craft:
High-tech things cannot be collected by simple crafting. From metal and motor - we can't assemble APA, but we can improve leather armor, metal and combat. To improve the existing Power Armor, you will need "mechanism" and in addition to spare parts, you need a special instruction (in order to then start the improvement process through the computer (which manages the mechanism).
For example, converting combat armor II to ca-bos requires scheme, spray, metal and mechanism + "Science & repair" skills.
*And remove some of the items from the locations so that it would be more profitable to create them than to find them.

Regarding crafting, I did not mean that crafting should be the only way to obtain better equipnent. Please don't remove stuff from the game that is there already, I rather ment that crafting should be viabe for mid to end game too.
I know crafting metal armor shouldn't be possible so only polishing the plates of a normal metal armor ( with flint) would yeald Metal Armor Mk.2.
combat armors, are in a bad spot in fo2 since right after you get metal armors Mk.2 for all your party members You land in san fran with tons of stuff to sell, and power armor vendors, so beeing able to upgrade combat armors to their better versions is a small way to fix this..

Power Armor upgrade to Hardned Power Armor, does not require any schemaitcs, only some chemical reagents ( which interact with the armor's surface and harden it) which chosen one could create if he had the knowledge (from Crockett ( the science guy at hubologists) for cash, or stolen from his personal computer). Since there is only one advanced power armor in the game and one Mk.2, the rest of your party will use power armors ( of which two are going to be Hardned versions from Crockett) so this leaves up to two (or more if playing with fo2tweaks party limt remover) with standard power armors, which is not enaugh if tackling enclave, however if player had the opportunity to upgrade all of the power armors to the Hardned versions, things might change.

about slave master - something similar was in megamod (bounty hunter and handcuffs).
In order for the slaves not to escape, you need a reliable party member(s) (who does not react to karma) or a mercenary who needs to be paid for every transition between locations.
* and so that the money is not stored in his inventory

I never played MegaMod nor i inted to (too buggy for my liking) However I've read somewhere the slaves don't follow you around instead they are inventory items to sell to metzger.

What I wait for is more of an universal mod that replaces only rope and ecslave scripts that could in theory work for any mod including total conversions too and not just be tied to fallout2 storyline.

 

[_Pyran_]

Please don't remove stuff from the game that is there already, I rather ment that crafting should be viabe for mid to end game too.

I'm not going to delete it. Just a reflection to improve crafting in EcCo.
Improvement\polishing using flint - I think it's not a very good idea. Flint, chemicals, abrasive substances and additional metal sheets.(my guess, no more)

Power Armor\Hardened PA -conditionally: chemicals and an upgrade machine (I think it's more appropriate)

 

[NineCoronas]

How does one get into crafting? I haven't found any crafting stations or seen any new buttons that'd let me craft

Edit: Not sure if this mod is still being maintained or if this was intentional or a bug, but the Ghoul in Gecko that sends you off to find Woody in the Den seems to be buying/selling at the normal rate

 

[_Pyran_]

How does one get into crafting? I haven't found any crafting stations or seen any new buttons that'd let me craft

Try using the binoculars icon on yourself

 

[NineCoronas]

That worked! Thank you!

Is Marcus supposed to be able to use the Bozar? I can't get him to equip it

 

[_Pyran_]

Is Marcus supposed to be able to use the Bozar? I can't get him to equip it

Check for fracture NPCs or weapons better than bozar.

 

[gustarballs1983]

That worked! Thank you!

Is Marcus supposed to be able to use the Bozar? I can't get him to equip it

Have you messed with weapons preferrence setting in Marcus's "custom" behaviour?
If you've set "unarmed" in there then marcus won't use any ranged weapon. other than that marcus should be capable of using any gun that is either "minigun" animation or big gun animation ( flamer, all heavy machineguns, laser and plasma rifle), in theory he should be able to use rocket launcher as well ( although i'm not sure if it is the case with Lieutenant's animation frames ( when wearing his custom metal armor))

 

[phooey]

Hello, I'm on NCR bounty hunting quest. How do you find the tribal savage? I run around modoc a million times but never met him.

edit: looks like ecco 0.6.3b isn't fully compatible with RPu.

Is Marcus supposed to be able to use the Bozar? I can't get him to equip it

The new bozar have the same animation as sniper rifle. If you want marcus wield it you'll have to change it back to big gun animation with f2wedit.

 

[william dempsey]

Hello, I'm on NCR bounty hunting quest. How do you find the tribal savage? I run around modoc a million times but never met him.



The new bozar have the same animation as sniper rifle. If you want marcus wield it you'll have to change it back to big gun animation with f2wedit.

Do you live in Hong Kong phooey ?

 

[phobos2077]

Now I wonder, do you guys actually use this mod without one or more of the major optional components? (new quests & items, armor and NPC rebalance, progression changes, etc)?

Goal for the next release is to rebuild/merge everything into for latest RPU with Pixote updated maps. Because I changed a few maps and game scripts, there are likely to be compatibility issues. I am, for one, hyped to see what Pixote and burner did to RP over the years, as well as try other popular recent mods and make sure they work well.

For now, I think to ditch the installer, just a zip with manual folder-based installation, like EtTu. No changes to the actual mod(s) will be made. This way, people can start playing/testing it ASAP, and I will have a solid base for further work.

If that goes well, then I can start playing from the beginning and tweaking/fixing some things. I had a list of TODO I kept back in 2015 with a lot of ideas, most of which are probably outdated/too ambitious. What I'd like to try to do first:

- Move code from hs_* scripts to global scripts. This might allow to separate certain features. More easily adapt them to other FO2 engine games, or release as separate mods.
- Split some optional stuff (like Party Orders) into separate folder-based mods, EtTu style
- Write some tool to export stats of all weapons/ammo/items/critters into CSV for analysis
- Use the data to make sure there are no major issues with combat balance
- Maybe write a new damage formula, because all existing ones doesn't seem to satisfy all needs

Other things I can tweak and add as I play, like the missing crafting recipes for higher-tier stuff. One thing I know for sure, I won't able to play this game like a normal person anymore. Recent New Vegas experience proved that (had to use tons of mods and fine-tuning to get what I want from gameplay).

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

Wow those are pretty interesting plans, I've been wanting to replay FO2 for a while now (I need to finish a FO1 replay first lol) but I wanted some bigger rebalances like your mod does, and I saw yours has quite interesting components. Going to watch this one for further updates, by then FO2 should come on my gamelist.

 

[phobos2077]

Version 0.8.0 is done. You can download it from github:
https://github.com/phobos2077/fo2_ecco/releases/download/v0.8.0/ecco_0.8.0.zip

Installation instructions:

Spoiler

1) install RPU v26 on a clean game installation (installer version is recommended):
https://github.com/BGforgeNet/Fallout2_Restoration_Project/releases/tag/v26

2) download the archive and extract it's contents into the folder where you installed RPU in step 1 (should overwrite rpu.dat file)


3) extract the contents of the ecco archive into the game folder, overwriting files

4) edit ddraw.ini and change the following:
a) Find DamageFormula and set it to 5 (to use YAAM)
DamageFormula=5

b) Find and uncomment the following lines:
PerksFile=sfall\perks.ini
BooksFile=sfall\books.ini

5) start Fallout 2 and play

What's new? Almost nothing. The mod was rebuilt from the ground up for RPU with updated maps from Pixote's. Every script, every map, every file was carefully examined and merged. Some bugs might've been fixed in the process, others added. Installer is gone for now. The Russian localization will be coming later.

This is very early stuff that I don't really recommend to play right now. I wanted to push this out ASAP so I can sleep better knowing the mod is at least playable. And maybe someone will be willing to give it a try.

For next update, I'll try to focus on the damage and economy balance to make sure it's actually working as I intended originally. Based on some feedback, it didn't sometimes.