Suggestions for FO3

Cars and other vehicles in RPGs are really a hard marriage. Ever read through the Shadowrun docs for cars? Cars and turn-based, (which is really how I'd like to see Fallout 3, although I'd accept real-time if REALLY well done, and I'm talking better than Baldur's Gate II) just don't work well. The car was good for what it was in Fallout 2, a means to shorten travel time, avoid random encounters, and carry shit. I think there should be more with vehicles in Fallout 3, including seeing them move, but implementing them in combat would be very, very tricky, so I don't think that that should be done. As cool as such a game would be, I don't want Fallout 3 to be "Grand Theft Auto: Wasteland", I want it to be Fallout 3.

Besides, if parts and such are scarce and hard to come by, you'd want to keep your car out of combat since its value to you is far greater as transportation and a means to carry stuff than it is for a boost in combat. Just letting one good tire get ruined could incur massive expense in a Fallout-type setting. As in all things, the way vehicles figure in to Fallout 3 will be a matter of balance.
 
Then there is also the point of "vehicles" not necessarily meaning "automobiles", which leads to all sorts of possible modes of transport in the wasteland. A brahmin cart would be the most basic and common, but I could imagine someone training a pack of geckos to work similar to a sled dog team.

Along the same lines for something as background, using livestock of some sort to run a treamill-drive generator would hardly be amiss. A team of four or so, working full time, could possibly run a small gear turbine generator to power a small building or lights for an area. An excellent opportunity for Repair/Science kind of characters, and maybe the brahmin cart itself would have to be repaired first, or even cobbled with the Repair skill.
 
That's a good point; we saw all those Brahmin carts made from the backs of old pickup trucks running around Fallout and Fallout 2, but they were little more than scenery objects with two stationary brahmin. I think that Geckos would probably be a bit hard to tame but the idea itself isn't faulty. A brahmin cart would be more-or-less readily available, either for purchase, or someone with a decent repair could cobble one together in a junkyard for free. It wouldn't shorten travel time much, but it could carry stuff. It would be a good entry point for a vehicle progression.

Perhaps if you had a vehicle you'd get paid much more for doing caravan jobs. An extra brahmin cart would be worth much more than just a hired gun; a car would be worth even more, and if you actually had a box truck or the like at your disposal, you'd surely be sought after; but since one box truck could conceivably displace an entire caravan team, you'd probably have a few more "defend the cargo!" encounters since rival teams would hate your guts. Then again I'm not sure just how many vehicles there should be, but I think they should be a commodity just like anything else. Perhaps just a rare one. There should definitely be different kinds, though, even if they just look different and there are only three or four different base types like "Cart", "Car" and "truck".
 
Well I agree in that they shouldn't really have the car be anything more than transportation and a container to bring all your stuff with you...


I dont really see how having functional vehicles doesn't fit the game. You look around and see 100's of cars piled up in some junkyard, if you know what you doing you pull enough parts from somewhere to rig something together.

Technolgy was smashed but its remnants were still all around. Both games had people relearning and retooling these things.
Besides, there were energy weapons and working computers in the game.

I dont really know enough about EMP for sure, I think it mainly damages computer circuitry. Its like a current/voltage spike?
 
EMP isn't a problem since all Fallout tech seems to run on Vacuum tubes (valves). Vacuum tubes run at such high current that EMP is not an issue. Only wimpy little solid state devices are vulnerable to EMP, and then it's not a universal. Some stuff would not be bothered. Some stuff would shut down and need to be restarted. Some stuff would need repair. If it's tube tech then it wouldn't even flicker when the bombs hit.

As neat as car combat is, it would tax the Fallout gameplay model. I wouldn't try for outright car combat. I would definitely give the player more things to do with their car (or cart, or truck), and more choices of vehicles to drive, perhaps each with different reasons to drive it and different thigns to do to get it.
 
That does sound fun , having to repair your vehicle whatever it is. As long as it doesn't fly. Broken tire , no problem use a guy like Marcus and haul its ass to the nearest city lol.
That is a major thing no bloody planes as i dont think they have the fuel at all.
Balloons would be a fun thing to see in the game dependant on how many NPC's you have.

I wouldnt mind a better character creation , i dont want them to mess with any of the original stuff but maybe if we could actually create him/her in a similar way as that of a wrestling game. All dependant on the background of course.
I dont think many people will like it but perhaps it could have a story for the NPC's and your actions with them affect the game somehow at key stages.
I mean i know its lone survivor must conquer the wastes but NPC's should have influence in game.
 
the only thing that could add to the character creation would be choosing ethnic group(black, asian, white, mix, etc.) also, if you have a strength of 10 you shouldn't look similar to a guy with a strenght of 5, but it's not very important.
 
I too would like to see customizable player avatars. That would be nice. Maybe even have it affect game play a bit, frex you could have some guy who's got something you need, or the like, and let's say he's got a thing for redheads, so a redheaded female PC would be able to fuck it out of him, while anyone else would have to complete his quests to get his item. OK so it's a basic (and somewhat Seedy :) ) example but there it is nonetheless). Got boring seeing the same guy/girl no matter what.
 
Rosh said:
Then there is also the point of "vehicles" not necessarily meaning "automobiles", which leads to all sorts of possible modes of transport in the wasteland. A brahmin cart would be the most basic and common, but I could imagine someone training a pack of geckos to work similar to a sled dog team.
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Good idea. When in random encounters, the critters that attack you would be more likely to attack the brahmin pulling the cart. If they injure them, then you'd have to use your medic skill. Or, if you're travelling through an irradiated area, the brahmin could randomly get sick, forcing you to, again, use your medic skill (or Rad Away). This could be useful for making medic a bit more functional.

*edit* And if the brahmin(s) die, then you'll have to carry your stuff manually. Possibly being forced to leave much of it behind. This would make the game more challenging and would balance the vehicle vs. no vehicle approach out more.

Thoughts?
 
Having vehicles break down wouldn't hurt things provided the protagonist still has a PiPBoy, since it's basically a GPS unit in its function and he can mark where his stuff is, since I know that if I stood the chance of loosing several pieces of hard-won kit and my vehicle I'd just reload. Your options should be something like: Try to repair the vehicle youself; leave an NPC to guard it while you fetch parts, tools, whatever; set a trap to guard the vehicle (come back and find a raider with a crossbow bolt in his eye :) ), or simply chance it. If it wasn't along a major route for raiders or other unscrupulous persons then it would be OK, but otherwise there should be a small chance (like maybe 20-25%) that it would be robbed of some random stuff.

Having a high repair skill would ward off breakdowns of mechanical vehicles and of wagons themselves, a high outdoorsman would help ward off sickness and other trouble with animals, since you'd know where to have them graze, drink, and what areas to avoid, and you'd be better at calming them. If the "animal Friend" perk returns from Fallout 1, it should stongly affect draft animals, such as giving you 10% better speed and much fewer "breakdowns".
 
All very good ideas Lord 342. Setting traps would be pretty decent, and coming back to see a raider or a deathclaw blown to bits. I love it.
 
The ability to mark locations on your map... That's if you own a PIPBoy or have to earn it, or whatever, as I imagine not everyone would own one, and I doubt they manufacture them... Aside maybe the BOS, the various Vaults who have a said stock and perhaps NCR and other technotopias.

Vehicles, especially basics of Geck sleds and Brahmin carts and of course junk cars and maybe the ultra rare Corvegas.


Also food... Food should be essential. For example, while traveling the map you have food on your pack and eat, and according to skill you'd be able to ration and conserve. The poorer the skill, well, you may end up wasting food or eating it too fast. Better skill, better food management.


Also, player customization.... Hair, eyes, and perhaps facial features. Also tattoos... Yeah, some choices or a whole suite of tatts.

And a lot more perks and traits.
 
Not everyone in the Fallout world should have PiPBoys, but the main character definitely should, especially since it's key to the traditional fallout interface. It just won't be fallout without the PiPboy. In the Fallout world they seemed to be pretty common tech, like modern PDAs that you buy for $79 at Office Max. Saturation is not 100% but it's pretty high. PiPboys are simply information management tools with the maps built in; Given the tech saturation level of prewar Fallout universe, I'd Imagine they'd be pretty common.

I'm not sure how a food system would work in Fallout; There wasn't one before and I'm not sure if people would balk at it or not. I wouldn't like it since it's just not Fallout to me. What do some other people think?
 
Lord 342 said:
I'm not sure how a food system would work in Fallout; There wasn't one before and I'm not sure if people would balk at it or not. I wouldn't like it since it's just not Fallout to me. What do some other people think?
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Maybe if it was kept as simple as the dehydration encounters while travelling the world map in Fallout, perhaps with having food items also do minor healing (with a chance of food or radiation poisioning?).
 
A food system could be good if there was a good way to implement it, I'm no programmer(only a mapper :D ), so I wouldn't know of a way. But it'd have to something that made your character do some of it himself, for example, you can't stop three times a day when you're traveling on the worldmap just to eat! So that's oone thing the char. would have to do automaticly. Another thing is getting the food, on one side, it could add to gameplay by having to calculate how much food you will need on your jurny. On the other hand, it could be a pain in the ass by allways keeping your mind fixed on have I ate now?, when will my char get hungry again? stuff like that...Also, how would you get food in the middle of nowhere? You'd have to hunt, something that would (maybe) be just a pain, A possible solution to this would be to(when on the worldmap) have the speed slow down or even stop some places, to visualize that he's hunting...
There's also a lot of other things it could add, you'd have a way to use all your money(wich, by the way there was waaay to much of in FO2)...I don't know, I wouldn't add it if it was up to me, because I think it's hard to add it without ruining gameplay...
 
A food system would be as simple as merely having food and the player character eating it automatically. Keeping it as a purely survivalistic aspect passes up a prime roleplaying opportunity, however.

Say, for instance, the Pipboy has a mealplanner. In this mealplanner, the player can set the player character's diet based on what foods are available to the party. The kinds of foods the player character eats may have certain positive and negative side effects.

Breads for instance, wouldn't have very significant positive or negative effects, and something like the limitless shelf-life of pre-war calorie rations would have no effects.

A diet high in brahmin meat or jerky, however, would be high in protein. This would lead to a slight increase for unarmed and melee combat modifiers, and the eventual acquisition of a strength boost. The player character would have to maintain this high protein diet to maintain the stat boost, though, in order to keep the player from abusing food related perks.

Other diets could lead to the acquisition of traits as well. A diet high in gecko meat, for instance, could lead to the acquisition of the Gecko Eater trait. A player character with Gecko Eater would have a higher rad resistance, but at the same time would suffer negative effects on its sex appeal, which would manifest by NPC's referring to it as "gecko breath."

A cooking skill has potential, but making it for the preservation of food puts too much strain on the player in regards to experience allocation.

Instead, a cooking skill could be dedicated to the preparation of food in the post-apocalyptic world. A high cooking skill would lead to better positive diet benefits and less significant negative side affects. Higher cooking skills would also lead to a faster acquistion of perks, such as the beforementioned strenght boost, and traits like the Gecko Eater.

A high cooking skill would also allow the player character to participate effectively in cooking related side quests. Say, for instance, an agrarian community has sprung up in a more fertile area of the wastes, such as Modoc and the Ghost Farm. Every year, the community would celebrate a harvest festival that lasts for a week. This festival would be implemented by a more "festive" town appearance and the ability to participate in an Iron Chef style contest. The precept being that it was inspired by pre-war pop culture. A vault dweller player character with a high perception would recognize this from his or her viewing of old entertainment reels in the vault. The participants would be given a "secret ingredient" to work with, and the player character's cooking skill would determine what dishes the player could select to make in dialogue options. To keep this from being too frustrating, all the dishes would have the same effect since they're all in the same quality bracket determined by the player character's skill. The joke behind the festival would be that if the player character returned for another year's festival, the secret ingredient would be the same thing. This ingredient would also be the community's chief product.

A refridgeration unit could also be acquired for the player character's vehicle. The benefits being that it'd take longer for food to spoil. The drawbacks, though, would be less space in the trunk, and a greater energy demand from the vehicle.

The player character could recruit a "Cookie" PNPC. The benefits would be enjoying the aspect of a high cooking skill without having to invest in the cooking skill itself, but Cookie would be slightly sub-par in combat, and the player character couldn't participate effectively in cooking related side quests.

In order to unreqruit an NPC, the player character would have to give him or her some food to convince them to leave. The amount of food it would take to convince them to leave would depend on the location you unreqruit them. In a town, the NPC's demand for food would be less, but out in the middle of the wastes, the player can expect to receive a significant demand.
 
Carib FMJ said:
Vehicles, especially basics of Geck sleds and Brahmin carts and of course junk cars and maybe the ultra rare Corvegas.
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Yeah, there should be some really cool Hot-Rod or something that only becomes available if you complete a number of difficult quests

Carib FMJ said:
Also, player customization.... Hair, eyes, and perhaps facial features. Also tattoos... Yeah, some choices or a whole suite of tatts.
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Hair and Skin color would be nice to costume, but Tattoos would hardly be visible.
Presuming we are talking bout a isometric-game

Carib FMJ said:
And a lot more perks and traits.
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Agreed, the Perks are my favorite thing about fallout, more of those.
No more Increase X skill with Y points though.

Bradylama said:
A high cooking skill would also allow the player character to participate effectively in cooking related side quests. Say, for instance, an agrarian community has sprung up in a more fertile area of the wastes, such as Modoc and the Ghost Farm. Every year, the community would celebrate a harvest festival that lasts for a week. This festival would be implemented by a more "festive" town appearance and the ability to participate in an Iron Chef style contest. The precept being that it was inspired by pre-war pop culture. A vault dweller player character with a high perception would recognize this from his or her viewing of old entertainment reels in the vault. The participants would be given a "secret ingredient" to work with, and the player character's cooking skill would determine what dishes the player could select to make in dialogue options. To keep this from being too frustrating, all the dishes would have the same effect since they're all in the same quality bracket determined by the player character's skill. The joke behind the festival would be that if the player character returned for another year's festival, the secret ingredient would be the same thing. This ingredient would also be the community's chief product.
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I really like the idea of a festival of some type, just to have something different happening other then Townsfolk standing around waiting for you to help them with whatever problems they have.

The food system however might become to mutch of a nuciance in the end.
I can imagine travelling through the wasteland only to get the message: You starved to death
Maybe it should only be implented in the hard difficult setting.
 
Lord 342 said:
In the Fallout world they seemed to be pretty common tech, like modern PDAs that you buy for $79 at Office Max. Saturation is not 100% but it's pretty high. PiPboys are simply information management tools with the maps built in; Given the tech saturation level of prewar Fallout universe, I'd Imagine they'd be pretty common.
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Only before the Great War, and they were also a part of Vault-Tec equipment for the Vaults. There could be more general use versions found around the wasteland, but I doubt most of those would work due to the EMP.

I believe the librarian in the Hub explains a bit more, or might just tell you that they don't have the equipment to read it and then sell you the holodisk. It has been awhile, so I can't state for certain. Then there's the Temple of Trials, arguable place in the game, and then other Vault origins like Vault City may have some floating around.

There's also the possibility that the military might have their own version of the Robco Pip-Boy. What we have seen so far is a rather select group of military installations, so if the game had a location more towards the fighting front, infantry bunkers would be more common and may still protect a few relics.
 
I really loathe to outright say you're wrong, Rosh, but Fallout technology is almost all Vacuum tubes, which are highly resistant to EMP. EMP would not effect a PiPBoy, or one of the big Tube-based mainframes.

Anyways I'm not saying the world should be thick with them like it is now; obviously there is a certain something that goes into maintaining even a hyper-rugged contraption like a PiPBoy that your average farmer or raider won't have; or the capabilities of a PiPBoy are useless to him so he'd rather trade it off so he can eat. What I'm really saying is just that the PC should have one so it can be maintained as the interface, and that they're common enough, that for story/interface reasons, the PC can have one.
 
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