Fallout 2 mod Fallout 2 Restoration Project Discussion (ideas/suggestions)

[matthewfarmery]

I think a food system would be a bad idea personally, but maybe optional? the main problem is when you travel on the world map, this can take a while especially when working, so how is the player going to know how much food to carry? I guess if you are heading towards The Den from Gecko, one quest to find that ghoul, so it takes a month getting there and back, (roughly) even to get there would take a while, ok you could have restaurants dotted around, not sure what that will do to the time limit? even then, moving a few squares will take a while, will food automatically be used or would you have to go to the square and manually eat it?

I think it would make for a hassle of a game,

A resting system might be better, with minor SPECIAL decrease (and restored when you are fully recharged?) might work, but again, for long distance travel and under a time limit, this might have a bad effect? not sure

 

[killap]

I think a food system would be a bad idea personally, but maybe optional?

Don't worry. If a food system ever makes its way into the RP, it will be part of the extras and not forced on the player.

 

[matthewfarmery]

that is good to hear,

I think this is getting as anxious as the black mesa project (HL redone on the source engine) been waiting for ages for that, and hopefully will be soon,

lets hope RP 2.1 will be sooner

 

[ralphrepo]

One of the things that I've found puzzling over the course of the game was the "CHEMISTRY" journals (they look rather like the SCIENCE texts) that one finds in SF. I'm not sure, but I think they were supposed to have been for some sort of quest (the hub scientist maybe?) but don't remember for sure, as the player cannot use them?

Further, the learning by reading limitation that one has on a max of 90 skill points, and any additional reading then become worthless (in a particular skill) I think is rather lame. You should be able to use those books to a much higher point level, say 120. There can also be limitations, that at a certain level, you should need to cross reference material found in 2 or 3 manuals (much like in real life reading) before arriving at a nugget of new information and skill point gain.

Additionally, why is there no medical textbooks for the doctor skill? further, you can learn electronics and repair, books that use highly technical language, yet cannot avail yourself of any dictionaries or novels to increase your speech skill? How about a rare volume on lock smithing that would say, offer a one time increase of your lock picking skill by 50%? What about a rare military manual on commando tactics that increase all your Sneak, Armed AND Melee hand to hand combat ability, all three at once? Same with a book on explosives that augment your Traps skill. What about buying and selling; there are no "get rich" self help manuals left after the big one? How about stumbling into a random encounter; a huge library filled with abandoned books that has a lot of each, but have the place infested with nasty creatures? There a tons of possibilities.

Additionally, all of these things would also fit perfectly within the game world and would allow the player a wider variety of ways to upgrade his or her skills sets.

I would also like to see the ability to "use" books on NPCs (like with FOT).

 

[hakimio]

One of the things that I've found puzzling over the course of the game was the "CHEMISTRY" journals (they look rather like the SCIENCE texts) that one finds in SF. I'm not sure, but I think they were supposed to have been for some sort of quest (the hub scientist maybe?) but don't remember for sure, as the player cannot use them?

Chemistry journals was Fallout1 quest item, they are useless in F2.

Further, the learning by reading limitation that one has on a max of 90 skill points, and any additional reading then become worthless (in a particular skill) I think is rather lame. You should be able to use those books to a much higher point level, say 120. There can also be limitations, that at a certain level, you should need to cross reference material found in 2 or 3 manuals (much like in real life reading) before arriving at a nugget of new information and skill point gain.

If you could go up to 120% with books, then there wouldn't be any reason to use skill points on these skills at all.
BTW, currently max is 91 or 92 depending if you have the skill tagged or not.

 

[ralphrepo]

One of the things that I've found puzzling over the course of the game was the "CHEMISTRY" journals (they look rather like the SCIENCE texts) that one finds in SF. I'm not sure, but I think they were supposed to have been for some sort of quest (the hub scientist maybe?) but don't remember for sure, as the player cannot use them?

Chemistry journals was Fallout1 quest item, they are useless in F2.

Further, the learning by reading limitation that one has on a max of 90 skill points, and any additional reading then become worthless (in a particular skill) I think is rather lame. You should be able to use those books to a much higher point level, say 120. There can also be limitations, that at a certain level, you should need to cross reference material found in 2 or 3 manuals (much like in real life reading) before arriving at a nugget of new information and skill point gain.

If you could go up to 120% with books, then there wouldn't be any reason to use skill points on these skills at all.
BTW, currently max is 91 or 92 depending if you have the skill tagged or not.

Ah, thanks for the Chemistry clarification.

As for the reading gained skills, all I'm saying is that there can be much more done, even if the max scores were kept at 90's. However, I'm of the opinion that reading more books should give more points in a distribution pattern like the skill point spread. As the skill goes up, so too will the requirement for number of books, ie. it would take 2, 3, or 4 books to gain one point, to a max of 120 or whatever. In that way, it certainly isn't anything extreme, and the huge number of books required at the higher skill scores would keep it from altering game balance overall. If you need 20 books to gain five points; IMHO that certainly isn't any game altering event. At the most, it would be the equivalent of gaining one level.

 

[SkuLL]

I more like the idea of raising other stats with other books...

Right now there are books for Science, Repair, First Aid, Small Guns and Outdoorsman:

I'm sure there would be some books regarding:
Big Guns (manuals), Energy Weapons (manuals), Doctor (journals), Traps (some mad army buff magazine), Gambling (rule books) and Speech (novels)...

Don't think you can learn any of the other skills through reading... though - don't reckon 'Pugilism Illustrated' and 'Tales of the Junkyard Vendor' would really teach you about their respective skills

Now, to create the graphics for new books would be a piece of cake, and so would coding their effects (I imagine), But to randomly disperse them through the world, would you have to individually insert them by editing all the maps, or is there an easy way?

 

[Nirran]

@skull

i did that for memamod and frp1.2,i simply added them to the merchants,after 2.1 release i will update the mod(trying to make sure the item numbers wont conflict)im always up for new art(not that great myself) tho i did do some copy paste for new book art,check my site

Nirran

 

[ralphrepo]

I more like the idea of raising other stats with other books...

Right now there are books for Science, Repair, First Aid, Small Guns and Outdoorsman:

I'm sure there would be some books regarding:
Big Guns (manuals), Energy Weapons (manuals), Doctor (journals), Traps (some mad army buff magazine), Gambling (rule books) and Speech (novels)...

Don't think you can learn any of the other skills through reading... though - don't reckon 'Pugilism Illustrated' and 'Tales of the Junkyard Vendor' would really teach you about their respective skills

Now, to create the graphics for new books would be a piece of cake, and so would coding their effects (I imagine), But to randomly disperse them through the world, would you have to individually insert them by editing all the maps, or is there an easy way?

Don't think you can learn fighting skills from reading? LOL, I guess you've never seen Kung Fu magazine

 

[lucas.]

I don't think it's a good idea... people would just run to San Fran and buy all those books.


The hintbook at the end would be nearly useless...

 

[ralphrepo]

I don't think it's a good idea... people would just run to San Fran and buy all those books.


The hintbook at the end would be nearly useless...

Not really. It is almost impossible to get to SF at the beginning of the game; as the wastes would easily claim you. Even after getting your first pistol and a few bullets, it would still be nearly impossible to get there. And once there, you really won't have enough money to buy anything.

Further, the hintbook raises your stats to 300. I'm suggesting getting books to raise stats to 120, with having to read several books just to raise a skill point by one (once it gets past 100). And how many books are there in SF? A few, but not enough to upset the game balance.

Also, having more books throughout the wastes that actually teaches other skills is perfectly in line with the idea of using books to raise skills.

 

[valcik]

Hm, too many books may un-balance the character evolution. Even now, with current amount of books, i don't know where put the skill points above level 18. The MegaMod is much better balanced in this way, than the original game.

Also the "Tag!" perk is here, you may boost-up most important skill with him.

 

[ralphrepo]

Hm, too many books may un-balance the character evolution. Even now, with current amount of books, i don't know where put the skill points above level 18. The MegaMod is much better balanced in this way, than the original game.

Also the "Tag!" perk is here, you may boost-up most important skill with him.

I'm certainly not advocating having a newsstand on every corner, LOL... Just another way to gently bump up some of the other skills, like the special issue of Cat Paw for the laser weapons. If it's done judiciously, I think it would complement and enrich the game. Maybe 120 may be too high of a cut off, but I certainly feel that 90 is too low. If it was set at 100, then that's a step in the right direction, IMHO.

 

[SkuLL]

i did that for memamod and frp1.2,i simply added them to the merchants,after 2.1 release i will update the mod(trying to make sure the item numbers wont conflict)im always up for new art(not that great myself) tho i did do some copy paste for new book art,check my site

Where, where? [EDIT: Nice one, thanks!]

Don't think you can learn fighting skills from reading? LOL, I guess you've never seen Kung Fu magazine

Sorry, I just imagined some skinny geek reading a kung-fu magazine, then going out to sleazy bars to do some rightous ass-kicking.

Hm, too many books may un-balance the character evolution. Even now, with current amount of books, i don't know where put the skill points above level 18.

That's a very valid point - skill points become pretty useless after a certain level. I'd still like to see books for Doctor and Traps at least.

 

[Nirran]

www.nirran.com

 

[ralphrepo]

One of the persistent gripes that I've had with the FO series is the total lack of fire control that you have over your NPCs. I mean, there is the combat control screen, which moves in the right direction but does not allow for absolute control. There should be a mandatory choice of never allowing for burst or automatic fire (for safety or ammo conservation) when the player chooses. However, the game doesn't allow that for certain NPC's. I imagine that this is to make the game "realistic" in the sense that not all NPC's will be the same in terms of skill and discipline. Nonetheless, it is annoying.

Further, the game has a penchant of putting the player at a disadvantage at every random encounter. Notice that all the criminals and gangs you meet will always be tactically placed on the screen, while the player and his group will always be in what my company commander used to call the "Graveyard Formation" LOL... That is, one grenade and instant graveyard.

I also find it odd, but I am unable to get Cassidy to use any of the pistols. This makes very little sense to me, as he's able to use shotguns and rifles, and he also clearly states that he "...ain't a bad shot with pistols either" in his dialog.

Also, I noticed that the NPS's will rarely take on sequential targets in the same turn. That is, if one of their shots kills a target, they will let their remaining action points go to waste rather than engage a new target.

 

[mobucks]

In my game vic routinely takes out 2 in a row on the same turn with a .44 speedloader

However with the new resolutions we use, it would be nice if you had a little more distance between you and the enemies in random encounters. I think this has to do with PE, but even more distance would be cool.

I think a "tired" character state would be cool, like "radiated" that can only be taken away by sleeping in a hotel/inn/tavern. Like in baldurs gate.

 

[ralphrepo]

In my game vic routinely takes out 2 in a row on the same turn with a .44 speedloader

However with the new resolutions we use, it would be nice if you had a little more distance between you and the enemies in random encounters. I think this has to do with PE, but even more distance would be cool.

I think a "tired" character state would be cool, like "radiated" that can only be taken away by sleeping in a hotel/inn/tavern. Like in baldurs gate.

Insofar as the speed loaded .44, I noticed that Miria (I'm using the Miria for Real Mod) will engage a secondary target, but not with the desert eagle. Maybe it's something with the weapon aside from the AP totals?

I had wanted to give a speed loader pistol to Cassidy, as he seems to be a great shot, and the speed loaded pistol would allow him to take multiple shots; but he somehow refuses to use the pistols.

On the other hand, Sulik is surprisingly good with either the 223 or 14mm.

On a totally different note, I noticed that just about all the traders or points of sale throughout the wastes generally have some sort of storage repository close by. This enables the player a spot to drop off stuff close to the trade point that he is either not yet ready to sell, or doesn't want to carry back into the wastes. However, I noted that Buster's tent in the NCR bazaar doesn't have anything of that sort. Would it be possible to either place some storage pottery to the left of his tent (where there is already ceramic pots) or perhaps a few coolers or pots next to the Iguana stand? The only other place where you can stash stuff next to a store is within NCR itself, but you'll then have to tell all your NPC's to disarm every time you go in. I'd rather trade with Buster anyway, as he has a wider range and superior goods.

This is interesting in that some of the sellers will use their shelves as a part of the barter system, and others won't. For example, Happy Harry's outside Vault City doesn't seem to care if you use his shelves and tables as your personal storage. There isn't any consistency is all I'm saying.

 

[Josan12]

I think a "tired" character state would be cool, like "radiated" that can only be taken away by sleeping in a hotel/inn/tavern. Like in baldurs gate.

I am working on this. It will be part of my 'Surivialist' mod based on the RP.

 

[Gordulan]

About the newer skill books, what about using some from FOT, the sprites are almost the same when it comes to books.

the piloting book could be used to increase your unarmed and melee weapons skills, "Martial Arts Secrets" maybe?

and that diary one in FORP could be used as a speech boostah