Is there a way to remove the trade system for party members?

[JimTheDinosaur]

The reason I'm asking is that one of the few things where I felt Fallout 2 was a step back in terms of game mechanics from Fallout 1 was the way in which party members were once again almost extensions of the pc, like in most crpg's. I thought the introduction of tactics was alright, but should you really be able to take all of Myron's stuff without him minding even the slightest? Of course the Fallout 1 system was hardly better, but at least that tried to sustain the illusion of party members as separate individuals with minds and interests of their own.

Anyway, what I'd like to do is make party members less slavish pack animals by dividing the player's cash between them every now and then, and have them "use" it to purchase things whenever possible (stimpacks, better weapons/armor, etc.). I'm pretty sure I can script all this, but first I need to be able to remove the trade mechanic; so is that possible?

 

[Ardent]

Re: Is there a way to remove the trade system for party memb

I'm pretty sure I can script all this, but first I need to be able to remove the trade mechanic; so is that possible?

You could try editing the companion protos and setting their "Can Trade?" flag to NO. This will result in a "This person will not barter with you" message, although I'm not sure whether it works for companion trading, you'd have to see it for yourself.

 

[oxidize]

this is great idea. I'd love to see improved companion AI. Now it's just not very good.

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

Re: Is there a way to remove the trade system for party memb

I'm pretty sure I can script all this, but first I need to be able to remove the trade mechanic; so is that possible?

You could try editing the companion protos and setting their "Can Trade?" flag to NO. This will result in a "This person will not barter with you" message, although I'm not sure whether it works for companion trading, you'd have to see it for yourself.

Nice idea, I tried it out and it works (though the message now says "this person can not carry anything"); I should probably just have looked at the system they used for K9 etc. in the first place.

Of course, ideal would be if you could still barter, like in Fallout 1, but I'm guessing that would be impossible without nixing the party member options screen altogether.

this is great idea. I'd love to see improved companion AI. Now it's just not very good.

Well, it wouldn't change anything about their AI of course, though probably you didn't mean that. In case you meant what I meant, I agree . I have the feeling that at the very beginning of the development of Fallout 1 they went the right direction with Ian as someone who would join on the condition of "joining in the loot" and then slowly abandoned this concept as perhaps being too punishing on the player ("but it's my loot!"), and ended up with pretty much the generic crpg adventure party system. The problem is that while an adventure party makes still a modicum of sense in dungeons & dragons themed worlds, in the gritty realism of Fallout it just stands out as odd. I mean, of all the regular party members in Fallout 2, Sulik is the only one whose decision to join up with you unconditionally makes some sense (as long as you're looking for your sister in some random direction, might as well have company), but the rest are completely unrelatable. For instance, a bar owner with a heart problem following a complete stranger into the radioactive wasteland after one brief conversation, really? Myron and Marcus' decisions make even less sense.

Also, the way Charisma is incorporated is really weird; why would Sulik happily join you if you're all alone with a Charisma of 2, but refuse you when you have 4 companions and a Charisma of 7? How the hell did safety in numbers become a bad thing in the radioactive wasteland? A far more sensible system would involve a minimum CHA to get someone in your party in the first place (especially with Myron this should probably be extremely high).