Structural damage and moving/building stuff

[welsh]

What about these combat/tactical suggestions?

Someone once said that it would be a good idea to add structural damage to buildings for Fallout 3. This way one could blast a door open or even blow a hole in a wall. I know some pen an paper RPG's include this option for structural damage, and it might be a good idea.

Would it also be possible to move stuff or build. For instance, one could have sandbags and build a barracade, or some other shelter. IF one could lay mines, one might also be able to set barbed wire across an area. Or if one has enough strength they might move an obstacle, like a cabinet, desk or table, to obstruct a door or window.

Even digging a hole might be interesting, so one might dig a fox hole, or dig their way through to a buried item.

It seems we have a lot of items which fall into three categories-combat (weapons and armor) tradeables (no utility except interest or trade) and items (which are often not used as much as they could be). Fallout 3 would be better if it had more interesting items to use, and use repeatedly.

Would it be possible to do this or would it be too complicated for game design?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

>Someone once said that it would
>be a good idea to
>add structural damage to buildings
>for Fallout 3. This way
>one could blast a door
>open or even blow a
>hole in a wall.
>I know some pen an
>paper RPG's include this option
>for structural damage, and it
>might be a good idea.

The only problem with being able to blow open doors is you can end up with a situation like Arcanum. Found a locked door? No problem, just break it open. Found a locked chest? No problem, just break it open. In most cases it makes lockpicking somewhat redundant.

>It seems we have a lot
>of items which fall into
>three categories-combat (weapons and armor)
>tradeables (no utility except interest
>or trade) and items (which
>are often not used as
>much as they could be).
> Fallout 3 would be
>better if it had more
>interesting items to use, and
>use repeatedly.

Radiation Suit.

>Would it be possible to do
>this or would it be
>too complicated for game design?

I've got no idea.


[link:users.senet.com.au/~dbschah/|DarkUnderlord]
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[Guest]

>The only problem with being able
>to blow open doors is
>you can end up with
>a situation like Arcanum. Found
>a locked door? No problem,
>just break it open. Found
>a locked chest? No problem,
>just break it open. In
>most cases it makes lockpicking
>somewhat redundant.

Yeah! With one Disintegrate spell i could blew most door and chest. But isn't that almost always work in real world? Why not put some Torch and torch the door, just like the bank robbers (Available in Commandos 2)?
We could made a hole instead of blewing it...

>Radiation Suit.

Whaddya mean? Rad Suit?

Well about blowing buildings, door and wall is possible. Look at those Jagged Alliance.... Any door won't budge?
1. Pick an LAW.
2. Point at the right direction.
3. Make sure no one stays behind you.(Backblast! Backblast!)
4. Pull the pin.
5. Fire.
They also got shaped charge to blew locks and wire cutter to cut trough fence.

 

[OsirisGod]

I think u can brake doors in Fallout2(actually i know u can since i did it) but only wooden doors.Try it ,as for the part with the wall , and moving objects to obstruct hell knows what i don't see the point

 

[APTYP]

How will the citizens of Shady Sands react if you blew up their buildings? Will they live on the rubble? Will they attempt to build something else? Or will you risk suspension of disbelief in favor of structural damage? IMHO it is a good idea in strategy games where you are not going back to the place you just totally destroyed, but it would be tricky to pull off correctly in CRPGs.

---

- disabled -​

 

[anon]

I agree. Maybe you could do it in unpopulated areas or places where it doesn't matter if you piss people off (like an enemy facility).

In JA2, if you plant bombs near people they attack you. A similar system could be implemented here, ie. town guards or citizens attack you if you do structural damage to a building that isn't abandoned.

Fox-holes are proboably too much. Sand-bags, maybe. Shovels aren't new to Fallout though. BUT, blowing up walls in JA2 was one of the features that I thought set it apart in terms of realism.

 

[Guest]

I like the idea of structual damage. It actually makes things more realistic. In D&D, inanimate objects have a hardness and hit points. The hardness is subtracted from any damage an attack would deal the object. So if a table has a hardness of 5 and 25HP, and you hit it with a sword for 8, you only deal 3 damage, taking the table down to 22. I could see this system working quite well in fallout. you should be able to kick down a flemsy wooden door, or shoot the lock of a more solid one with a shotgun. As for lockpicks being useless, just make some doors have such high hardness that without a really powerful weapon (like a rocket launcher), you have no chance of doing damage to them. Yes lockpicking would become less useful, but not useless. Besides, why waste ammo when you can use a lockpick. If realism were the only issue, I wouldn't give a crap if lockpicks were useless, because they are in real life. The only peole who use lockpicks are locksmiths when you lose your keys, and spies who are trying to leave no trace of their pressence. It isn't worth the time and effort for a criminal to lockpick a house door when they could just break the window. There is a whole article on lockpicking at howstuffworks.com. Interesting reading. Unfortunatly, realism isn't the only issue, their is the issue of game balance. I think the game would still be balanced if they use a D&D like system. After all, D&D is balanced (at least in the sense that you can break stuff, but that doesn't make the open lock skill useless).

 

[jimmyjay86]

[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Jan-31-03 AT 02:42PM (GMT)[p]Sorry to bring back this older thread but hey not much is going on here anyway!

I'm starting to really dig alot of the functionality of the JA2 universe. Blowing up walls and cutting through fences is an excellent concept and the game deals with them nicely. But you do have to know how to use the explosives or you will blow yourself up instead. Also LAWs and other explosives are hard to come by and they are better saved to deal with tanks. Still it is satisying to blow up part of a building with elite soldiers inside. There are alot of things that JA2 has that would work out beautifully in Fallout. If Fallout had been created by Sirtech it would have been very impressive.

 

[Roshambo]

Now you know the reasons behind a couple of things:

1. The irritation the fans felt when the MicroForté spin-dicks came onto the FOT forum and basically said it was going to be like JA2, but set into the Fallout universe.
2. You couldn't hop over sandbags in FOT, or many other things that made FOT seem more primitive than X-COM.

>I'm starting to really dig alot
>of the functionality of the
>JA2 universe. Blowing up walls
>and cutting through fences is
>an excellent concept and the
>game deals with them nicely.

It leads to a lot more tactics being available. Sorry to spoil, but one of the best ways of beating Alma early on is by using wire cutters and getting onto the rooftops, just take out their snipers.

>But you do have to
>know how to use the
>explosives or you will blow
>yourself up instead.

Only about one devoted grenadier is needed, with some skill for the others. Sidney is a must have, same with Stephen. For explosives, there are a couple that can work with them really well, but I forgot their names. One explosive/tool expert is all you really need. RDX, in a jar by itself, can add more kick if it's tossed next to a wall before you detonate explosives or use a LAW. Chain-explosions can be done this way, and that can be NASTY.

>Also LAWs
>and other explosives are hard
>to come by and they
>are better saved to deal
>with tanks.

LAWs are found a bit more later on. You can buy them online or through Tony. They are best for tanks or some hard to hit hard-targer soldiers. They are also very good for making quick doors and/or diversionary noise.

>Still it is
>satisying to blow up part
>of a building with elite
>soldiers inside. There are alot
>of things that JA2 has
>that would work out beautifully
>in Fallout. If Fallout had
>been created by Sirtech it
>would have been very impressive.

Undoubtedly, that would have been damn impressive, and was what people were essentially promised.