Better Institute Director Mod [WARNING SPOILERS]

[PaladinArchon]

So you've inherited the position of the Director of the Institute. The most advanced technology the Commonwealth has ever witnessed is in your very own hands... or not. Muh immersion got hurt.

So I recently finished my first main quest playthrough of FO4, I sided with the Institute of course. I was baffled by the faction. I couldn't wait to unleash the power of the Institute. I was utterly disappointed upon realization that the only thing I got from becoming the Director was a new quarter, you already had one, a power armor paint job, and a lab coat. That's it. No new quests for spreading Institute control over the Commonwealth (although I really appreciated that they added Synth patrols that will secure pre-war military checkpoints, really nice touch. That's what I want more of).

 

Seems that your title as leader of the very institute didn't bring anything except a few new idle lines from Institute NPCs, except they had so few extra lines of dialogue they never stopped mentioning Libertalia. Ever.

You might expect that as Director you wouldn't really be hurting for supplies either, I mean you are the very leader of the Synth scavenger teams that is scouring the Commonwealth, gathering all kinds of technology. Not really. The lack of immersion I felt as I, the Director, felt when I had, as Director of the Institute, to still pay for my supplies from the vendor synth with my dirty bottlecaps like some common wasteland scavenger. I didn't even get a discount.

You might feel like I want some sort of "Oh you are leading the Institute, now you will never have to worry about supplies ever again yay!"-mod. No that's not my point. My point is that you don't actually feel as a leader of the Institute. You still feel like less than the scientists little handyman for their never ending radiant quests. I want something that gives you a sense of actually being a leader, a person of importance.

If you share what I feel - What would you like to see? How can we "immersify" this... lacking position? I know that new quests are a very steep demand, not what I expect either. Perhaps just some smaller tweaks that allows us to have access to a respawning stock of supplies, new rewards such as a unique Institute Rifle (because there is only 1 in the game at the very moment, and acquiring it doesn't fit most people's style of playing, if you know what I am talking about you know what I mean), a set of unique armor?

What would give us Institute enthusiasts a better game experience?

[Parsons41286]

I'd like to allow some of my companions down there. Especially Dogmeat, who is he gonna tell about any sort of "trade secrets"?! Could we reconcile Brian Virgil and the team to work on the FEV reversal en masse? Would Strong be able to be de-mutated? How about Curie after switching out into a synth-body? Could she go into Courser training? How about an ending on par with FNV where through different quest outcomes you can favor teamwork instead of outright slaughter of everyone? (Think getting BOS, Khans and Enclave Remnants cooperating with NCR). Maxson being stealthily replaced with a synth? Perhaps Dr. Madison Li is a double (triple?) agent who could assist pulling it off. How about allowing some synths to leave the Institute with your blessing and turning them over to the Railroad? No need for memory wipes/ facial reconstruction, the memory wipes don't go bad, another Libertalia doesn't coalesce into existence. Or, maybe it does, free will does allow things to go bad sometimes, now the SRB and Railroad agents hunt down truly "rogue" synths. More attempts at bringing the Institute's technology to bare in the Commonwealth to improve people's lives. There's a ton of stuff they could expand the main storylines with, but instead we play bad guy in Peps-Coca-Sney World :-/

[KruxthePoet]

I don't have experience in the Bethesda Creation Kit, nor do I own the game for PC (my laptop doesn't handle the specs), but I'm in the middle of writing up a storyline to try and remedy the lack of post-MQ Institute content. I understand Bethesda's lack of attention to this to an extent... but the sheer lack of acknowledgement by the Institute toward your position as Director is jarring. Allie Filmore repeatedly giving me condolences about Father every time you speak with her, Ayo dismissively making you play courier for eternity, and the already noted lack of anything, ANYTHING gained. Hell, you don't even get rewards for the radiant quests unless you pass a speech check extorting your subordinates.

At any rate, I have a wishlist of things I'm working on. I'd love to collaborate with some creatives and developers to make this happen. Here's a brief list of ideas I'm working on:

Proposed additions

 

Added Features:

 

Recognized as Director- Eliminate redundant greeting lines and gain access to “redacted” terminal entries.

Directorate Meetings- Attend weekly meetings of the Directorate, make decisions, and receive status reports on various experiments conducted.

Director’s Consignment- Receive weekly consignments of food, ammunition, and occasional pieces of tech from the departments for missions above ground.

New Director Terminal- Use the terminal in the Director’s Apartment to issue orders, direct the departments, and coordinate the Institute’s resources.

New Department Heads- Doctor Zimmer returns from his field operations in the Capital Wasteland and reclaims his position as Department Lead, and a new Head of Robotics is chosen by the player.

 

Quests:

 

Reclaim the Deep Range Transmitter- Destroy the Brotherhood of Steel outpost at the Cambridge Police Station and reclaim the Deep Range Transmitter, expanding the range of the Institute Molecular Relay.

Dispose of McDonough- SRB reports indicate that M7-62, a synth posing as Mayor McDonough of Diamond City, has outlived his usefulness. Eliminate the malfunctioning synth by conventional means or conduct a coup to replace McDonough with another replaced resident of the city.

FEV Lab Renovation- as the Director, decide between reinitiating the FEV experimentations or linking the lab with Robotic Sciences to create a cybernetic augmentation wing.

Commonwealth Intervention- Direct the Institute’s salvaging teams to tear apart the Commonwealth in an attempt to find rare and powerful technology or will divert your assets toward making the Commonwealth a safer place.

The Railroad Returns- the Railroad suffered a catastrophic defeat after the Institute destroyed the HQ under the Old North Church, but reports on the surface suggest another cell is picking up the pieces and conducting operations against Institute assets. Hunt and interrogate agents to locate the hidden base and destroy the new headquarters before they can gather strength.

 

I also want to possibly add a "large quest" revolving around a Gen 4 synth model, drawing a lot of inspiration from a Reddit post I saw on the subject that would include recalling all Gen 3's, but I feel the sheer scope of that vision might make it difficult to attain.

[mkr1977]

I was also disappointed by the fact that I wasn't really treated as the leader of the institute once I took over.

Adding to the substantial post by KruxthePoet above, there needs to be some additions.

*Summoning bell: A call function in the board room that summons the other directors to the board room. As it stands you have to chase them all over the institute. They are moving targets, you can get lost or miss them, or chase them to the wrong floor and so on. Its super annoying.

*Generation 4 Synths: While the Generation 3 (G3) Synths are the peak of this technology, they are flawed because their programming can be corrupted, and they can stop obeying orders or think that they are sentient (rather than malfunctioning). It is possible that because the Synth Component keeping them under control is bio-tech, that it degrades over time. Indeed, it appears that although the G3 Synths emerge after creation with knowledge of speech and whatever skills are imparted during that process, the G3 Synths often require remedial training. So what is going on here? It is possible that there is immediate degradation of their programming even immediately after creation, which is why they need to be monitored for faults and malfunctions, and require training.

That means that Generation 4 (G4) Synths are a necessity. However, creating them is easier said than done. In creating the G3 Synths, Shaun's pure DNA was required. There is only one other person in the Commonwealth that has pure DNA (born 400 years ago, and kept isolated), with special characteristics. That person is Lorenzo Cabot.

The mission could be to acquire a DNA sample from Lorenzo, which becomes the basis of the G4 Synths. Because of his special nature of his DNA, there is no degradation of synth programming, and no chance of them turning against their creators. In addition, there would be no need to do remedial training for the synths. They would be ready to assume their roles immediately.

*Dispose of McDonough: This can be handled quite easily by activating the quest 'In Sheep's Clothing', in which McDonough is exposed or killed.

*Director's Terminal: Now that you are director, you should be able to send G3 Synths to live in your settlements as settlers.

*Alternate War with BoS: You are allowed several ways of getting into the institute, but you aren't allowed to choose the way you want to destroy the BoS. Have an option of telling Father that you will handle the BoS with your Minutemen, thus triggering the quest 'With Our Powers Combined', in which the Minutemen destroy the BoS (normally only available after destroying the Institute.

[EnvyDeveloper]

 

 

*Alternate War with BoS: You are allowed several ways of getting into the institute, but you aren't allowed to choose the way you want to destroy the BoS. Have an option of telling Father that you will handle the BoS with your Minutemen, thus triggering the quest 'With Our Powers Combined', in which the Minutemen destroy the BoS (normally only available after destroying the Institute.

 

This mod allows for that to happen:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/19835/?

[mkr1977]

 

This mod allows for that to happen:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/19835/?

 

 

 

Wow, thanks. Downloaded.

[Notsae]

This needs to be seen by modders. And I do mean plural; to do this justice would be a project on a huge scale. Because you can't just slap some garbage together that means nothing and only kinda works (as often happens with ambitious mods). I'm not saying a single, highly skilled modder couldn't do this: I just think a group would have better, faster results in the long term. A group of specialists will result in a more polished product than a single jack of all trades, usually; I have seen individuals create rather epic things.

 

 

I recommend actually asking modders directly to take a look at these ideas and see if they like it; get them to actually think about this idea or it won't ever happen.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Notsae

[StonedUnicorn7]

Bumping this topic as we all *need* an addon for our institute playthroughs... as director of the institute we are in a position to decide over the fate of the wasteland... so why aren't we?

Additional meetings, quests, extended storyline, finally be treated like the actual director... the possibilities are endless!

It really bothers me how it's just over like that... and how you have to buy s#*! from their vendors when you ARE the institute... lol

I was really hoping someone would made an institute director mod like the high king mod for skyrim... just a little better implemented into the game if possible...

Oh, I'm dreaming of it....

[RevanFanMan]

I wholeheartedly agree. I never do anything but an Institute playthrough. If only for the fact that if I wanted to have 3 endings that end almost exactly the same, I'd play Mass Effect 3. I also really like the ideas from the post that KruxthePoet made. It would be definitely something I could get behind. So I really hope that someone or a team could make this a reality.

Edited December 18, 2017 by RevanFanMan

[StonedUnicorn7]

Bumping this so hopefully some modder(s) see this, feel the same and will get to it :) If I had any clue about modding I‘d immediately get started on this (as well as a "better" version of High King of Skyrim)... I guess the main problem with both would be the huge scale these projects have as well as possible lack of recorded voice acting... Now the creation kit doesn’t seem to difficult to figure out, so maybe we could actually get started on some basics like setting up the desired quests for this project (and keep adding on to them since, f.e. weekly meetings with the board shouldn’t feel too repetitive and offer a variety of decisions to make and ideally impact the gameworld as much as possible...). So, the simple things we could probably do. But we would need help with the more complex sides of the mod (like influences in the gameworld, implementing it properly, avoiding bugs and poor execution due to us not knowing better, and so on.) Probably, there would be people willing to help us with that rather than doing it from scrap just because we requested it – since we’re talking about a project of huge proportions here. Unless there is a group of talented modders out there who actually really wish this to happen themselves.

 

I came across a FB page 'Institute Reborn' and was hoping they‘d be working on something like that, sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case. They seem to be just posting ideas as well. So I guess it would at least also be a place to gather more ideas (and support) to bring this mod to life.

 

What do you guys think? Let’s continue the input.