Thanks to all for the comments.
@Elitech
That seems strange, and my first thought in the absence of other details is that you have a corrupted sprite file. My mod doesn't include those sorts of sprites, so the problem would be coincidental in that case and could be fixed by grabbing the proper *.bos archive off one of the game disks and unpacking it into your core directory.
I'll check this, but in case I can't reproduce anything strange could you provide more information on the details of the problem (i.e. "cannot use" because X happens...).
@your evil twin
In general my approach was see if existing content could be made more interesting or fun; I usually didn't cut anything unless I had some superior replacement content or mechanism. There are still plenty of loafers hanging around the bunkers spouting relative nonsense, but hopefully some of the new extras I added (particularly in bunkers one, two, and four) will be mildly entertaining as a compensation.
If you're just reaching the Reavers, I think you'd notice some very substantial differences if you were to start a new game using the mod and replay the missions. All else (bug fixes, etc) aside, with my approach to weapons I feel the player often has to genuinely apply sound tactical thinking to do well in the game now. The first two-thirds of the game are also the period during which my changes have the most dramatic gameplay effect, as most players are likely to continue the old standard approach of relying on energy weapons once the opponents change to robots exclusively. On the other hand hobby time is always in too short supply for most of us, and you would be looking at replaying most of the game (almost fifteen missions).
I feel one of the major setbacks to modding progress in Fallout Tactics has always been the almost universally held desire to conflate FOT with Fallout and Fallout 2. The games have different purposes as well as different strengths and weaknesses. FO and FO2 are role-playing games; since combat is a traditionally important component of rpgs, the games have a decent but hardly rigorous combat mechanic. On the other hand, FOT is not an rpg and doesn't have the technical horsepower to ever become an rpg. In this mod I've striven to enhance and accentuate what FOT does well (small unit combat simulation) rather than try to turn an apple into an orange (a goal which has given us little but grand pronouncements of FOT vaporware dreams over the years). Therefore players interested in a science-fiction/post-apocalyptic military game will hopefully find the game much more compelling and fun than ever while using my mod.
@Felipefpl
I tried to make some attempt to fix most problems (a few exceptions are noted in my documentation), but I'm only one guy and I was unable to secure any substantial second-opinion betatesting prior to releasing my materials. I'm sure bugs and problems remain in the game, though I hope players will report persisting problems so I can examine them in a future update (I already found more spelling mistakes I missed in the current release). Though Fallout Tactics includes a fine level and campaign editor for end-users that FO/FO2 modders would give an arm and a leg for, in other respects FOT is not very modder friendly in regard to engine-related issues. One thing in the game's favor is the advancement of processor and memory technology in the years since it was released; if you played some time ago on an older computer, I think most slow-down related issues would be solved by replaying today on the machine noted in your sig.
@majek
Though I fictionalized all the weapons (no more "Beretta M92FS" or "Ruger AC556F", etc) in addition to redesigning their stats, unfortunately almost all extant sprite packs evidence considerable obsession with "real world" guns as if FOT were a Jagged Alliance game-- and thus I didn't have much desirable material to choose from regarding images for several new weapons. Many of these sprite packs also make use of a formal perpendicular view (again, reminiscent of JA2) that harshly clashes with the existing FOT artwork. More unfortunately, all three modder-made sprite editors for FOT presume the end-user owns Photoshop and is capable of advanced image palette manipulation; since I'll never pay hundreds of dollars for that program I can't make my own sprites that would be more appropriate for the game. Furthermore, in many cases where FO/FO2 frms were converted to FOT sprs in the past, the resulting image quality has been poor in my opinion. Beyond all I've mentioned, FOT is focused on a different sort of gameplay than Fallout or Fallout 2. While I've always been of the opinion that a great Fallout 2 weapon mod would get rid of everything but pipe rifles and rusty revolvers, that approach in FOT would almost certainly detract from rather than enhance play.
In short, regarding weapon images I mostly reshuffled the game's existing art, and when adding novel images I usually tried to choose artwork that looked "science-fiction-y" rather than "real." The trouble then is, there just isn't much to choose from in that department. Hopefully in the context of actual gameplay, most players will find my solutions satisfactory. If anyone has other solutions or additional artwork in spr format of which I'm not aware, I'd be happy to hear about such and have a look.
@valcik
With my revision of random encounters as well as the effort I've made to address crashes associated with Special Encounters, I think you'll find far less trouble with CTDs on the world map using this mod. Though I'm not certain in all cases, I believe I also fixed the bug(s) associated with the player-characters unable to leave a Special Encounter when visiting the encounter map on subsequent occasions (i.e. sometimes no exit grids would appear unless the player-characters started combat and killed all npcs on whatever particular map).
I really admire your tenacity if you managed a whole game of FOT in tough guy mode-- the thought of fighting (actually, standing around and plinking from a distance) thousands of roaches and dogs is too much for me, and for that reason I never tried formal tough guy mode. I didn't consider this before, but perhaps tough guy mode will be more popular under the new circumstances I've created for random encounter deployment.
More generally, I do think the game is more fun with an "informal" tough guy approach-- saving frequently, but only reloading in cases of bugs, crashes, or the end of a play session. If soldiers perish, that's war-- I play JA2 the same way. Though I consider myself a fairly good FOT player, on my last playtest of the modded campaign I suffered four KIAs. One was particularly memorable-- I had developed an already decent sapper recruit called "Marco" into a formidable sneaker and demolitions man. In the Osceolla mission, for what seemed like a good reason at the time (famous last words-- "I think I can take those guys") Marco violated my own Soldier's General Order #1-- nobody goes anywhere alone, ever. Marco successfully infiltrated the numerous surface fortifications and snuck into the very heart of Gammorin's underground complex, and then snuck past and around each guard in the mess hall area and successfully planted a remote-detonation bomb at each mutant's feet. I knew it had to end badly eventually, so when the mutant near the door finally detected this crazy thief guy and shredded Marco with a burst of machine gun fire I wasn't surprised. Nonetheless, I continued playing rather than reload-- and was able enjoy imaginary reveries in later missions about my characters swapping war stories like "Well, if Marco was here, we'd [insert absolutely insane tactic here]." Another KIA was a character named Eldora, whose description in my mod reads:
Eldora is a third generation BOS; her family has served the organization for nearly a half-century. Nonetheless she insists on no special treatment, and is determined to make her own way up the ranks.
When she fell in combat, I imagined my squad leader having nearly inconsolable qualms as he pondered informing Eldora's venerable parents that their daughter had perished under his command.
Of course everyone ought play in a way fun to themselves, but I've always felt playing so that actions (and inactions) have consequences is always best and makes me a far better player. FOT is not an rpg and never will be, but for the player who brings his own imagination to the game in many cases fodder for role-playing can be found in numerous situations and places.
@draeke
Fallout Tactics uses a different engine than Fallout or Fallout 2. This was in fact a major stumbling point to modding progress on FOT that still haunts us today-- years ago Microforte seemed to believe their "supacool, sexy, and top-secret" Phoenix engine was going to make them millions of dollars, and thus they sternly refused to release important tools or even much information for modders to work with. As a result, a decade later we see that this Phoenix engine is largely forgotten while Fallout and Fallout 2 modding (wherein modders always got semi-official support and at least some useful information and tools about how to break down the engine from devs) have thrived.
Another change I made in Fallout Tactics Redux was to drastically increase the usefulness of vehicles, since many players seem to enjoy them and many vehicle-related perks are available for player-characters that are otherwise fairly useless in the standard game. On most maps, players can now make at least some use of vehicles they bring with them when entering a map; in particular, I found fighting the behemoths and pacification bots in Scott City using a "tank versus tank" strategy was a lot of fun even in turn-based mode, which typically isn't very conducive to effective vehicle usage.
In theory practical vehicles could be simulated in Fallout or Fallout 2 with a simple frm change and a few script nodes, though I'm not sure the end result would be worthwhile-- mowing down hookers and drug dealers with an old schoolbus on the crowded streets of New Reno might be fun once as a gag, but after that I think the novelty would quickly wear off. The maps and fighting situations in FO/FO2 aren't really complex enough to justify the work involved, and I think most players would agree the main fun of these games is in situations not related to fighting. On the other hand, if we expand the definition of "vehicle" to include things like rideable horses or motorcycles then the notion becomes much more compelling; the practical limitation in this case is the grave difficulty of creating new animated artwork for Fallout or Fallout 2-- which for most of us as hobbyists is fairly impossible due to the time required for such projects rather than any technical issue.
@all
A rather important change to weapon effects mentioned several times under in-game contexts but that may otherwise come as a profound surprise to players is that plasma rifles, plasma pistols, and plasma grenades now inflict radiation damage as well as mundane fire damage. I meant to mention this rather ominous change in my documentation, but forgot. When facing Reavers and humanoid bots, you'll likely want to either stock up on Rad-X and Rad-Away or have a soldier with "Awareness" to identify enemies with plasma weapons so these threats can be neutralized at once. The reason I made this change is that the mechanic clearly favors AI forces, who won't live long enough to suffer radiation poisoning anyway given the "search and destroy" nature of most mission objectives, and therefore increases the player's need to use good tactics rather than rely on the old "hey, let's just charge into battle with a frontal assault" banality. The game engine assesses radiation damage from weapons in direct correlation to mundane damage-- so if one of your troopers takes several hits from a plasma weapon, his or her strength will plummet from radiation burns and he or she will likely be completely immobilized until attended by a medic. As a consolation, in the grand scheme of things plasma weapons are relatively scarce in the game and careful players should not suffer too much from this sadistic change. As further consolation, among changes to armor values in Fallout Tactics Redux Power Armor and Advanced Power Armor offer substantially increased radiation resistance compared the unmodded game-- but both are relatively rare, and in most cases players will not find enough suits of Advanced Power Armor to equip a full squad of six soldiers. Scarcity of "the best" equipment is another implementation of my belief that a challenging game is a fun game, and that a fundamental failure of the original Microforte product was that the game offered very little challenge.
Players who read the mod's documentation will note that I made several provisions to functionally segregate "bug-fix" content from "enhanced game" content, with concise instructions for further customizing the game to one's own tastes. Therefore if radiation-dispensing plasma weapons or any number of other changes are too much for you personally, feel free to swap out my changed entities for versions from the standard game. One nice feature of FOT in contrast to Fallout/Fallout 2 is that all weapons and other items found in any particular map initialize with their current default entity data when that map loads during play for the first time. Therefore one can change weapon and item values/effects "on the fly" as the game progresses without any drastic consequences for subsequent play. Though items already encountered by the player-characters will remain "stored" in the condition which the player-characters initially found them, in such cases these items can be easily removed from play by trading them away to a BOS quartermaster.
Endocore
While correcting the matter I tested all the other edged weapons with both males and females in various armors, and everything else was working-- so unless I hear otherwise, I'll conclude the trouble Elitech mentioned was while using the Combat Knife.
