Wild_qwerty
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Okay lads, I'm going to share with you a few ideas I've had over time. I reckon a few you you clever scripters could make this happen.
1 - Player Deployable Turrets - PDTs
I think we could make turrets that can be deployed / set up by the player.
Of course once they are set up you couldn't move them (at least I dont think so)
1) Create a new inventory item for a 'PDT'
2) Script it so that when it is 'used' the inventory item will disapear and a Turret critter will spawn into the map in the hex in front of the player if it is clear (two critters cant be in the same hex at the same time)
3) If possible when you "talk" to the turret you give it a command to un-deploy, at which point the critter disapears and the item appears on the ground to be picked up again.
I'm not sure if the turret will keep it ammo/hitpoint count if it is deployed/undployed.
2 - Blast down doors and walls with a rocket
If think I know a way to make walls, doors, boxes etc... targetable so you can blow them up with a rocket luancher or explosives.
Its not really the right way to do something, but it think it will work, but I do stress it is only a work around, and I havent tested it out yet.
You could use this method for walls as well. I think it would be better suited to some walls, like the cracked walls for example.
1) Export the FRM for the door out of the master.dat
2) Edit the FRM so that you have a "clossed door", "breaking down door" and "broken or dead door"
3) Add these to the data/art/critters folder
4) Make up a proto for a new "door" monster
5) Set the proto to "cant move" and "leave body when dead" (sorry I cant remeber exactly what they are called). Also makes its damage resistance high for everything but 'explosives'
Basicaly we turn the wall/door/crate into a critter and then we kill it.
3 - Make a critter stand / duck / lay down
I know we couldnt really do this for any of the existing FRMs but for an NPC or some enemy critter that is using the FOT art we could probably script it to change the FRM the criter was using.
Remeber Goris? at the onset of combat he would remove his robe and go Deathclaw on the bad guys. Well the Robe was a completey different set of FRMs, it didnt even have the same base name. So it must be possible at the begining of combat (and maybe during) to have someone change their FRM set. So if I converted the prone critter set for a given model it could be scripted for the player to lay down for cover and attack.
The other option would be to make a shape shifting mutant, or maybe a group of invisable soilders cloak into view slowly. Maybe a Camoflaged pop-up turret suddenly slides into view out of the ground and the player find himself standing next to a set of dual miniguns at point blank...
4 - Boot Spikes
This one is actually pretty darn cool and make HtH attacks just that little bit better, its very low on the technology side of things as well and makes a HtH character a little more attractive.
Boot spikes! Think of the kicking equivilent of the brass knuckles! Of course we could probably dream up a high tech powered version for later levels (to match the powerfist and mega power fist). But it would be pretty cool to have a strap on boot knife/spikes to make kicking worth while later in the game.
Combine this with the punching equivilent and the HtH combat guy becomes a slightly more viable path.
I tested this a couple of years ago and it works sweet.
5 - Alternate death scenes
I know there must be a setting in the scripts for where the player is located (inside, outside etc...) as when you talk to a NPC the back ground of his talking head changes in realstion to you location. Perhaps we could just use this for the death scences.
Death in Wasteland ====> Original Death scene
Death in Caves ====> old skeleton being chwed by rats
Death in town/building ====> a body chukced into the corner of a room with other rubbish
Death in vault/prewar location ====> An old skeleton in a dimmly licoridor of a vault at the feet of a security bot.
Scripters, Do you think this is possible? There must be a setting the scripts can call to check what location you are in.
5 - Still 'Talking' heads
Most of you by now know of how big a problem making the new talking heads will be, well not so much a problem but rather how long it takes....
The long part is making the LIP files that syncronise the head movements to the voice.
Well the following option may be a quick work around:
1) just make 'garbage' LIP files that are totaly out of sync
2) Just have a couple of still shots for each NPC, so it wont talk as such but it will at least give an image of what the NPC looks like. We could probably combine this with a series of 'empty' ACM sound files so that we wouldnt need to even record a dialog, in short we could have a still image for every NPC in the game
I think no matter what you do, using option 2 for less important characters would be good, it would save a lot of time and allow you to include ten times the number of heads, as the only hard part would be rendering new face.
1 - Player Deployable Turrets - PDTs
I think we could make turrets that can be deployed / set up by the player.
Of course once they are set up you couldn't move them (at least I dont think so)
1) Create a new inventory item for a 'PDT'
2) Script it so that when it is 'used' the inventory item will disapear and a Turret critter will spawn into the map in the hex in front of the player if it is clear (two critters cant be in the same hex at the same time)
3) If possible when you "talk" to the turret you give it a command to un-deploy, at which point the critter disapears and the item appears on the ground to be picked up again.
I'm not sure if the turret will keep it ammo/hitpoint count if it is deployed/undployed.
2 - Blast down doors and walls with a rocket
If think I know a way to make walls, doors, boxes etc... targetable so you can blow them up with a rocket luancher or explosives.
Its not really the right way to do something, but it think it will work, but I do stress it is only a work around, and I havent tested it out yet.
You could use this method for walls as well. I think it would be better suited to some walls, like the cracked walls for example.
1) Export the FRM for the door out of the master.dat
2) Edit the FRM so that you have a "clossed door", "breaking down door" and "broken or dead door"
3) Add these to the data/art/critters folder
4) Make up a proto for a new "door" monster
5) Set the proto to "cant move" and "leave body when dead" (sorry I cant remeber exactly what they are called). Also makes its damage resistance high for everything but 'explosives'
Basicaly we turn the wall/door/crate into a critter and then we kill it.
3 - Make a critter stand / duck / lay down
I know we couldnt really do this for any of the existing FRMs but for an NPC or some enemy critter that is using the FOT art we could probably script it to change the FRM the criter was using.
Remeber Goris? at the onset of combat he would remove his robe and go Deathclaw on the bad guys. Well the Robe was a completey different set of FRMs, it didnt even have the same base name. So it must be possible at the begining of combat (and maybe during) to have someone change their FRM set. So if I converted the prone critter set for a given model it could be scripted for the player to lay down for cover and attack.
The other option would be to make a shape shifting mutant, or maybe a group of invisable soilders cloak into view slowly. Maybe a Camoflaged pop-up turret suddenly slides into view out of the ground and the player find himself standing next to a set of dual miniguns at point blank...
4 - Boot Spikes
This one is actually pretty darn cool and make HtH attacks just that little bit better, its very low on the technology side of things as well and makes a HtH character a little more attractive.
Boot spikes! Think of the kicking equivilent of the brass knuckles! Of course we could probably dream up a high tech powered version for later levels (to match the powerfist and mega power fist). But it would be pretty cool to have a strap on boot knife/spikes to make kicking worth while later in the game.
Combine this with the punching equivilent and the HtH combat guy becomes a slightly more viable path.
I tested this a couple of years ago and it works sweet.
5 - Alternate death scenes
I know there must be a setting in the scripts for where the player is located (inside, outside etc...) as when you talk to a NPC the back ground of his talking head changes in realstion to you location. Perhaps we could just use this for the death scences.
Death in Wasteland ====> Original Death scene
Death in Caves ====> old skeleton being chwed by rats
Death in town/building ====> a body chukced into the corner of a room with other rubbish
Death in vault/prewar location ====> An old skeleton in a dimmly licoridor of a vault at the feet of a security bot.
Scripters, Do you think this is possible? There must be a setting the scripts can call to check what location you are in.
5 - Still 'Talking' heads
Most of you by now know of how big a problem making the new talking heads will be, well not so much a problem but rather how long it takes....
The long part is making the LIP files that syncronise the head movements to the voice.
Well the following option may be a quick work around:
1) just make 'garbage' LIP files that are totaly out of sync
2) Just have a couple of still shots for each NPC, so it wont talk as such but it will at least give an image of what the NPC looks like. We could probably combine this with a series of 'empty' ACM sound files so that we wouldnt need to even record a dialog, in short we could have a still image for every NPC in the game
I think no matter what you do, using option 2 for less important characters would be good, it would save a lot of time and allow you to include ten times the number of heads, as the only hard part would be rendering new face.