Project Van Buren

By far the best VB remake so far. It's amazing how accurate this is to the tech demo. Looks completely professional.

 

It's almost as if real time and turn based combat doesn't really mash with each other.

 

Yup, for a fan project I really think he should just pick one and stick with it rather than try to develop two separate systems.

 

Well, good luck with that then.

 

The point of TB combat is to have the time to evaluate the situation and choose the best action for that moment in time.
The point of RT combat is frenetic thrill, and to make the best action you can manage in the time allotted; mistakes and all.

RT == Tetris
TB == Jigsaw puzzle.

No the two don't mix, and only TB was intended in Fallout. In fact... the dev team was pressured to make it RT; as Diablo had released to great approval.

*Diablo had been turn based initially, and the change made it a different game—which they liked, and went with. With Fallout, the combat engine came [was developed] first, and was designed around GURPS. GURPS is turn based.



Early on, Fallout had 14 called shot targets.


Making a Real Time [spin-off] of Fallout is not wrong per se, but it is akin to making a turn based version of Myth:The Fallen Lords; it goes against premise.

Spoiler

 

And Arcanum combat was terrible. Pretty much the worst part of the game.


Don't remember when equip animations are played anyways. They are unnecessary when changing items in the inventory interface, and while in combat they can just run if nothing is conflicting with them.
If we take the Arcanum example again, you can never change your gear outside of the inventory, thus there are never animations for the switch.

Can't rember how it was in Tactics. My guess is it was taking action points or just player time. However, due to the garbage combat in Tactics, players are just hiding behind a corner anyways, blasting stupid AI that comes around. Pretty sure nobody ever switched to 2nd hand weapons while that twitch-combat was running.

 

To answer your Twitter post, it seems to me that the obvious solution is to include equip animations in TB but remove them for RT, as to not disrupt the flow of RT combat. If you really want consistency between TB and RT then just don’t include equip animations at all. In my opinion you really shouldn’t sweat the small stuff like this, just go with the path of least resistance for simplicity’s sake. Equip animations don’t really matter in the long run. Attack and death animations are where it’s at.

<Insert obligatory rant explaining why real-time combat sucks in a fallout game blah blah blah>

 

Since your project isn't commercial like Arcanum was- you don't have any deadlines, so you can tinker with both combat modes until they're good. Having 2 options to choose from is always better in my opinion.

Just don't repeat the mistake of Kingmaker- combat encounters were designed with RT in mind and are a massive slog in TB.

Regarding equip animations:
add an extra box in options and allow the player to choose.
Some RT players might prefer to have them on, even if they cause a slight delay in combat. Some TB players might turn them off, even if they have no impact on TB combat.
To avoid having to tinker with the settings every time someone switches combat modes you could make separate options for both combat modes.

 

RT/w pause and turn based are not at all the same thing.

If you meant Baldur's Gate series when you mentioned the popular D&D game, know that under the hood, they implement individual combat rounds for each combatant. Each character/creature in the fight has a loop that acts when their time to act [turn] comes along in their internal combat round. The player has no idea when that will be.

Also this introduces an unfortunate side effect that the engine will determine a hit even as the projectile leaves the attacker; the engine animates the projectile to the target—even as it moves out of the line of flight, causing curve-ball stones, and [heat] seeking arrows that twist and change trajectory as the target dodges.

The real world delay for the player is not the relevant comparator for the two combat systems. In turn based combat, the player is afforded the hindsight of all that has occurred before their turn to act; and they can use that to decide. More importantly they can visualize the consequence (in sequence) of their next action... This is not the case in RT combat, because no action is guaranteed to have happened by the time they have acted.

It is not so simple as having a delay put between actions; the core intent of experience is different between TB and RT, and RT/w pause—each apart from the other. None succeeds at the other's intended experience.

In a [very loose] way, RT/w pause is similar to phase based combat (the kind seen in Bard's Tale & Wasteland) due to the nature of the combatants all declaring their initial intent of action, but with no set order of operation. As with BT & WL, the BG characters can embark on their attack, only to have their target die before they get there—this cannot happen in turn based combat; happens all the time in phase based, and in real time systems.

The experience matters, yes; the RT experience is the wrong experience, and that's what matters most. Bethesda's FO games can never be proper Fallout games for this reason by itself, despite the many other reasons.

Mechanics matter. A turn based Myth:TFL for instance, would destroy the intended experience of the game—no matter how well designed and implemented; it's simply the wrong gameplay. RT is wrong for Fallout.

A false choice, unless the entire list of encounters is rebalanced for each game mode. Just consider an encounter between a lone PC and four (or five?) Enclave, where under the real time system they all fire in unison; and again, and again.

 

There's already a function in sFall since ages: change InstantWeaponEquip to 1 in ddraw.ini

 

is there a download link available?