Evarin

I've never witnessed the death of an online community before, but I believe i'm about to do so now. I just didn't think Steam would be the one to kill it. Best of luck to all you guys who call this place home, I think you're in for a bumpy ride.

Whenever I decide to start modding my games I go premium. It doesn't cost that much and I feel like i'm giving back. Come on, guys. If you're downloading 5-10+ mods a month, just go premium. Every bit helps.

The idea is to change the game to a true barter system. Without caps, you wouldn't be able to easily stockpile wealth. Ammo would be the main currency, and you would either be forced to use melee weapons, or literally expend your wealth in order to use more advanced weaponry. Without caps, you can also simplify the cost of items. Costs for items would be reduced, but in order to purchase items, you would need to expend useful items like ammo, weaponry, and drugs. The worth of items would also be reduced. Any item that is not food, ammo, weapons, gear, or meds would have a negligable value. Raider armor would only buy you a few bullets. It would still have value, but not enough to just slaughter them relentlessly and become rich. The overall point of the mod is to not only bring the economy into balance as a true barter system, but to also balance the game towards melee combat in most early/mid-game scenarios. Ammo would be extremely scarce. You'd only find rounds in ammo tins, not in drawers and the like. Enemies would be balanced by having a greater reliance on melee weapons. Those that did carry weapons would have them be nearly broken, essentially minimizing ammo scarcity by having them switch to melee once the weapon breaks. Finally, I would attempt to base the mod around FWEs weight standards, so you could not simply carry every round you had on your person, or a fortune in drugs, etc. Remember too that without caps, you would only be able to expend your hard earned loot on items merchants stock that is useful to you. This mod would radically alter the economy of the game and make you think twice about every round you fire off. It may not be for everyone, but honestly, once I hit 10k+ caps in Fallout I lose interest. Many mods try to put off that moment for as long as possible. This mod would circumvent that problem entirely.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I suppose I should start small and go from there. I may try to balance my mod idea by making FWE a requirement and making a compatibility file. That would save me a lot of time/effort.

As I mentioned in the Fallout Mod Request Folder, i'm looking to make a game balance mod that basically removes caps from the game. That being said, I know nothing about programming mods and need some info if you guys in the know can answer a few questions. Please also tell me what mod tool is needed to make the change (GECK, FOSE, FO3Edit, etc) 1. Has a mod like this been done before? I don't want to waste my time if this idea has already been implemented elsewhere. 2. Is it possible to set cap worth to zero? 3. Is it possible to set cap spawn rates to zero? 4. Is it possible to remove all caps from vendors? 5. Is it possible to change what weapons/gear enemies spawn with? 6. Is it possible to tweak the durability of specific gear enemies spawn with? 7. Is it possible to change the rewards quests give out? 8. What programs are used to change item weight? 9. What methods are there for changing NPC dialogue? 10. What methods are there for making items worth less than one cap? .01-.99? Also, if there is a simple resource of knowledge for modding, please point me in that direction. If someone is feeling EXTREMELY generous, could they volunteer themselves to be a mentor? I'd like to have someone I can bounce questions and ideas off of as I work. Thanks in advance, E

Another way to possibly remove NPC's unlimited ammo is to set all spawning weapons durability to RIGHT before total failure. This way they could only get off a few shots before their weapon breaks, and they swap to melee. Would that be a viable workaround for balance purposes?

Edit: I've decided to attempt to make this mod myself. It will be my first attempt ever at modding, so it may take a long...long while. I am likely going to start a new thread asking for advice on specific goals/issues with this idea. I always liked the idea that gets rid of caps entirely, or to the greatest extent possible while still allowing the game to function properly. The idea would be to make ammo worth a fortune, as that would be the currency of choice. How hard would it be to remove all caps from containers, all NPCs, and all quest related rewards? I suppose an additional work around would be to make the cap item itself be worth nothing. It is an effing bottle cap after all, isn't it? I think this would help keep the game difficult because of the inability to easily hoard massive amounts of wealth, and therefore eventually render the shop system broken. I'd also drastically reduce the value of all non-ammo items and even most guns, FAR below the levels that mods like FWE sets. Of course, to compensate for this reduction in ammo availability, most enemies should have their weapons removed, and rely upon Melee. It isn't really fair for raiders to have unlimited rounds, when it cost you a fortune to fire off a clip of an automatic weapon. Melee/Unarmed weapons would suddenly become the norm, rather than the novelty or voluntary difficulty modifier. Finally, with the removal of caps, you could completely simplify the barter system and keep things as straight forward as possible. 1 10MM round is worth 1 cap. A fully repaired suit of raider armor is worth 1-2 caps. One missile is worth 10 caps. A fully repaired suit of power armor is worth a whopping 100 caps!! Just drop all non-weapon/armor/ammo values to 0, or .1. Make food items .2, etc. Obviously, you couldn't stop NPCs from referencing caps without decimating dialogue, but would it be possible to mod it so that doctors accepted something else other than caps for their services, or simply remove the ability for them to heal you at all? Same thing with buying companions, I suppose. You could either find an alternate means of hiring them via modding, or simply remove them entirely. What do you guys think? Is it possible to make a Fallout free of caps?

It would have to be something that makes sense. It would be like a power regulator, or something of a sort. Hell, you could even have it be powered, taking 2 rounds per shot.

No one has a favored Rivet City house mod?

I haven't come across the Infiltrator Sniper rifle just yet. I imagine it would be very useful, though. I can't seem to put a silencer onto most sniper rifles I come across. Can't put a silencer on my laser/plasma weapons either.

I love my Drifter's Laser Rifle. I use that quite a bit. Beyond that, I tend to use the Glock Plasma Pistol, but I imagine there are better plasma pistols. There is a sniper rifle that uses 5.56 ammo, and that is quite useful as you can get that ammunition cheaply. Hard to say "best" weapon, as the whole point of FWE and other mods was to try to make every weapon useful in some capacity.

I'm looking to add a player home to Rivet City. Can anyone suggest a good mod that installs with NMM, is lore appropriate, and is purchasable/upgradable via caps? It would be great if people knew off-hand that there weren't any compatibility issues with most major mods as well. Thanks in advance, E

FOOK actually contains quite a few graphical updates. The awesome blood texture mod comes with FOOK, as well as reskins for quite a few pieces of clutter that NMC missed. I didn't install FOOK, but when going through and installing other mods I notice they are listed as being included. Wow. That FEV mod looks GREAT! I will definitely add it to its own unique section of monster reskins that play nice with MMM.

I will add it now, thanks.

A few questions I could really use answered: 1. Does FWE improve any textures? Should I list it? How about FOOK? I know FOOK upgrades item appearances but I don't use it. Can someone spell out what it improves upon graphically? 2. Creatures...I use MMM so I shy away from using HD retextures of creatures. Is there a problem with trying to do so? If you know of a texture swap that works fine with MMM please let me know. Also note that i'm trying to keep these textures in-genre, meaning I avoided texture packs that switch images for ones like coke cans or duracell batteries. Any and all feedback is welcome. I'm looking to make this list as definitive as possible.