SirDanest

Don't know if I should post twice, maybe nobody is looking anymore. But I'm also considering looking into implementing _deep_ snow. Connecticut is quite capable of deep, fierce blizzards, and I can't think of any games that have done this. Skyrim has snow, but it's basically white terrain. A world without snowplows, covered in three feet of wildly blowing, drifting, foot-sinking, freeze-your-beard-solid, snow sounds like an apocalypse all of its own. The Frontier mod sounds like it's going to have cold affects like SKyrim's frostfall, but I don't know if "everything is buried in snow" has been attempted in a game yet. I think it's a good idea for an apocalypse setting, at least.

There's a mod that supposedly improves the AI. I wonder if it just raises the difficulty to 5? I haven't gotten around to experimenting yet.... I'm sort of waiting for New California before I do my next New Vegas. https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/39990

Caps have been the currency in the west since the beginning, that was the Hub's influence. Caps were definitely used in Fallout one, and were being made worthless in 2 by the ncr coinage if I recall -- which fell out of favor and was again replaced eventually by the Hub's choice of caps. The question is how they are also, conveniently and somehow also the currency in the east, in Bethesda's part of Fallout. The Hub doesn't appear to have a canon presence in the east. So either they actually have influenced the east, or by some incredible coincidences, two coasts thousands of miles apart chose the same garbage item separately of one-another, to back as money. The commonwealth and DC don't appear to have a common denominator either, something existing in both places that could back the same strange currency. So I am assuming that the Hub does indeed have an as of yet un-shown influence on the east. It seems strange, but I think it's the most logical explanation for both coasts using the same weird currency. edit: Anyway, I'm not trying to tell other people how to interpret their game. It's just all in my own mind filling in the blanks with my own "head canon". :)

It's been discussed before, but as far as we can tell, almost every post-war civilization uses bottlecaps. The capital wasteland, California and the Mojave, and the Commonwealth. It's been a while, but I think they were used in some places in Point Lookout and the Pitt as well. I think they were used in some of the semi-canon mid-western locals too. 1. It could just be one hell of an incredible coincidence that all these different locals just somehow ended up using the same unlikely money source. I'm not a huge fan of that theory, because it's just too big of a coincidence to happen randomly. 2. "Because Bethesda said so." I bet this is the official reason, that Bethesda just didn't really think very hard about why caps were used in DC. We could at the time try to blame the brotherhood for introducing caps, but it seems unlikely that they'd have the clout to introduce a new currency that would totally overwhelm megaton or rivet city's influence. And that wouldn't explain the caps in Fallout 4 that apparently have been in use all along without diamond city or goodneighbor starting their own currency. 3. Somehow, behind the scenes, the Hub has access to both coasts. I'm guessing this, and haven't found it in the lore. But it makes more sense than the other explanations. We haven't actually seen the NCR cities / the Hub since fallout 2, we don't know precisely how they're doing or what it looks like "today." Just snippets here and there about corruption and taxes. Does shady sands still have green, tree-lined parks and perfect roads ? We're guessing. Sp maybe the hub water merchants have Shi flying-vehicle-blueprints. Maybe they even have a transpalonder somehow, that they just aren't telling anyone about. It's odd, but not completely impossible. And in the food and water-starved DC, they would easily be able to make a water-backed currency that they control, and keep the people alive until the lone wanderer fixed the water situation. I wouldn't be surprised if they're supplying Diamond city too, because I'm not convinced they have access to a large enough of a food supply; they don't seem to be wanting. In my personal "head canon," they control both the eastern regulators AND black talon behind the scenes. Illuminati conspiracies ain't got nothin' on that. So yeah, maybe they're influencing the east incognito, sort of shadowy, which is why we don't see a giant "HUB HEADQUARTERS HERE!" in these eastern places. And they're not going to tell the NCR too much, because they don't want their cross-country capability being confiscated by the military... which I do believe it would be if it's unique. If it weren't unique, if the military had it, you'd see at least a tiny NCR ambassador presence in the east, probably seeking potential help from the easterners. Edit: And the existence of Jet in the east is either a mistake on Bethesda's part (which I don't like, but it's probably true that they just didn't think that hard about the lore) or more evidence of east-west travel. If random travelers had made the trip, they probably wouldn't have had the clout to back a pile of garbage as a brand new currency (and might not even have had the motivation to do so,) especially since simple barter works pretty well too in the first place.

I don't know if this is an official mandate of the nexus administration, but I think modders can pretty much make their own laws on their own mod page. Most don't seem to do that, but I think they're allowed to in most cases.

It would be interesting. Almost nothing is known about China in 2077. Do they also have the strange 1950's aesthetic of the Americas, a sort of black-and-white-era Leave-it-toBeaver with a fatman nuclear catapult? Was their technology stunted in some places and advanced in others, as was the US? Is there the same certain bizarre not-always-very-serious-tone to the world that fallout has? What does "retro" imply in China? Edit: Are there public domain model and texture (safe, legal to use) resources for buildings and maybe even... a moose, that can be put into a mod? Animation might be complicated, but a static building model... maybe. The buildings of Fallout 3/NV might be better resources for Hartford than fallout 4, and Casinos are already a fully functional concept in NV. I think there's also a bottling factory in Hartford. Such a thing might even be a threat to the economy if some enterprising individual were to try to get it running again, post-apocalypse. Whomever had control of the Colt building would be formidable as well. There's a statue of a rearing horse with a gun or two. I can only imagine what wastelanders would think of that.

The internet seems to be full of people claiming that caravan is far, far too easy; broken-level easy. If they're not bluffing, then there's a foolproof strategy that is almost brainless in its implementation. If that's so, I'd sure love to see an npc using that same foolproof strategy.

It seems that all merchants in NV will buy any item. You could buy the best items in stock from any merchant -- with pool balls, if you had a big enough bag of pool balls. The merchant apparently is ok with that. "Yeah, he bought out my stock. Uh, I hope you want to buy pool balls."

Nah, they do. A little overly aggressively, but the Caravan playing NPC I created for my recent Mod can be a real pain. So does this npc have a unique deck and/or caravan ai?

Oh, I hadn't thought of that...

People don't usually think of Connecticut when they think of post-apocalyptic survival (Unles we're having another bad winter.) ;) But Hartford has in my opinion some pretty interesting architecture. The highway bridges are almost maze of multi-level criss-crossing bridges. And a stilt building for some reason. There's a "welcome to hartford" tunnel that made me want to start building a scrappy settlement in there. Colt is or was in Hartford... imagine if in 2077 only the robots in the factory were left running the place. I see shenanigans and a faction right there. The wadsworth atheneum looks like a medieval castle, battlements on the towers. In modern day real life hartford, there's already a taxidermied two-headed calf. Pre-war brahmin! And I think there should be ornery giant radmoose... moosen... mooses. Yes, _giant_ moose! if I could knew how to do architecture.... or moose... :)

Is there a way to make a trader who won't take bottlecaps for goods? I doubt it, caps aren't even treated like normal items, but I thought I'd ask. For example, Caesar apparently destroys the culture of his conquered tribes, to create uniformity. I suspect then that things like a bottle-cap currency would be a threat to him; he's already got his own money and isn't interested in multi-culturism. I really suspect that if Caesar had his way, he'd have only his own currency being used. The closest I can think of is a trader who basically opens a crafting window, that turns a non-cap type of currency into various products sold, but that might be an imperfect solution that doesn't allow for bartering items for items. Any other ideas out there? Further Rambling: I also wish that sunset caps and the rare nuke brands' caps were worth more than the regular ones. I'm pretty sure that's potentially moddable, at least. And anyone know where all the pre-war coins went? ;)

Wow, I was literally just about to post pretty much the same thing myself, as I'm coming back to check out Morrowind again after so many years. I know there's a morrowind graphics extender which looks like it can do some very, very fancy things for a game from 2001. Nice screen shots at least. But the game apparently gets pretty crash-prone when loaded with high end graphics mods. It looks like there's no ENB for Morrowind? I've heard of something called ENBboost which apparently helps many games, but I guess it's no option here.

Someday I'd like to see the opposing factions of the brotherhood finally come in contact when the dominantwest and east factions spread and eventually meet, although the west coast brotherhood really needs to stop getting their asses kicked so much or that will never happen. The minutemen were probably the, and I mean THE most pitiful faction in the fallout universe. If you can't even stop raiders, you're very likely not important, politically or militarily. The sole survivor was entirely responsible for their potential greatness. Not Preston. The Kings were even better protectors than the Minuteman without the player's influence, and that's saying a lot. The NCR and Legion's fates were altered by the courier, but had their been no Courier it still would have been big battle at the dam, between two strong factions. I want the Minutemen to win from a moral perspective, but I kind of hope they don't, canonically. I want the legion to die in a fire, and yet, there are stories to tell from a powerful conquering empire collapsing into chaos after its Emperor's death. Despite their corruption and taxes, the NCR probably brings eventual relative safety wherever they bring their laws. Shady Sands is probably kind of safe and dull these days, compared to Freeside and the Mojave. I think we find that there are any Enclave left, I hope they do something smart next time. Like use propaganda to recruit armies from the populace, instead of once again "Genocide, Isolationism, and Power Armor." It's not enough. Been there, done that. It's why the brotherhood will eventually fail too; same thing, ironically.

Sierra Madre on the strip creates all kinds of generic caravan players sitting around, so it got me thinking that westside could probably have a caravan club/bar/low-key card-game casino or something. The lore specifically states that the strip doesn't do caravan. and freeside is sort of chaotic and poor. A cover charge or entry fee to the caravan casino could explain how the casino still manages to make money, I suppose. It's certainly done with Magic the Gathering clubs/tournaments, and MTG surely doesn't need the top vegas casinos to support it. :wink: If the card club had snacks or drinks that are uncommon among rest of the vendors that could be an additional draw; I'll have to look at the drinks and see if there's something already there that isn't commonly for sale. Edit: Barstool games mod for fallout 4 is demonstrating the ability to add card games into a fallout game that was never meant to have them. So I still hold out some ridiculous hope that some genius dedicated modder will add poker to New Vegas someday. Probably not. But maybe. Modders have done super-ambitious incredible things before, so we'll see I guess.

Yeah, I'm not thinking of what would be the most pleasant ending (the Minute Men I think), but rather the ending that would lead to the most interesting sequel. The Minute Men don't immediately make me think of Wow what happens next would be awesome! They're more predictable I think. I think an ending in favor of the NCR is probably most likely on the west coast since that's the direction west-coast fallout has been moving in. But like the minute-men, I'm not completely sure it is the best jumping board for a story. I think they might water down the Mojave like they probably have done to California. A House or Courier-ruled Vegas would save Vegas an interesting, unique place, but the chaos from from a Legion victory followed shortly by a collapse after Caesar's death from illness would lead to even more potential apocalyptic adventure. we can't have the wasteland get too civilized, after all. ;) And that means some factions like the Minutemen are probably not best for the long term story potential.

I suppose the AI wouldn't use a deck like that correctly...

If you knew you were going to be playing against a real person in Caravan, one who was good at the game, what would you put in your deck? Assume no knowledge of what the other player's deck might look like, other than that this will be a veteran human player who knows the game well. I think it's possible to make new caravan decks for npcs and if I manage to do this, I'm going to try to make a master caravan player who can actually put up a bigger challenge than is typical in the Mojave. Advice from "I have the best deck" people sounds like a good idea, then. :smile: I have googled a lot and apparently a deck of just 10's and 6's does really well against the AI much of the time, but I'm not sure it would always work as well against a wily human player, so a npc deck of 10's and 6's will probably not suffice for my theoretical caravan champion npc.

I'm not aware of any that acknowledge the changes to the mojave or vegas as a result of the winner of the war, etc. It's probably too big of a task; but there's certainly options if you just want to be able to go around and finish up side quests without worrying about the results of the final battle.

I seem to recall any number of performance-fixing and anti-crash mods for new vegas, like NVAC, I think it was called. Are there any mods that do something like that for fallout 4, increasing stability? And if not yet, maybe they're still possible to create

The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel seems to be having better luck than the west coast BOS. So perhaps one day we're going to see the East Coast BOS meet in the middle against a growing NCR.

So which of the endings/factions is the best springboard for an east-coast sequel? It's also a convenient time to mention the same for the west coast and New Vegas, because I bet someday the two coasts will meet in the middle and duke it out. Would a House ending be the best material for a sequel? Or another NCR-benefiting ending like they've typically been assuming in past fallouts?

I think the Fallout 4 plasma weapons are both ballistic and energy. Maybe a rail-gun "bullet" that can carry the plasma along with it -- I have no idea what could contain or attract plasma to a moving projectile though.

On another note, I think Vault city and Shady Sands are interesting because they're not built among the ruins of a pre-war town, nor were they glorified scrap-and-garbage shanty towns like Megaton or much of Diamond City. Rather they're examples of "geck-created" towns, with Shady Sands being the biggest city in the NCR; that's probably impressive, harsh taxes or not.

we're ultimately guessing as to what Shady Sands looks like today. even if the taxes are harsh, so are they in some real life countries -- so it might be terrible, or it might not be. Either interpenetration is probably potentially valid without exact lore representations. In any case, they might have cities with high populations, that don't look like they're made out of trash or blasted pre-war ruins. Vault city and Shady Sands could both look rather different from the ruins of D.C. or Goodsprings or Megaton. It might lack the flash and lights of New Vegas, but then, New Vegas is special in its own way. Maybe they even sweep the garbage off the floor, something they don't seem to do in much of the fallout universe. It's somewhat hard to believe that Caesar found _that_ many sociopaths to work for him. Admittedly, dictators have always had their fair share of people willing to work for them, but as far as I can tell right now, pretty much every legion man is identically obsessed with profligates. Even with brainwashing propaganda, I bet there's people who don't like Caesar, be they rebels or people just wisely keeping their heads down. I can imagine some strong willed-women who made a run for it and are running some kind of (possibly quite futile) resistance somewhere out in the remote regions. There's probably a story there. Maybe even a vault that Caesar couldn't blast open. _Anything_ other than endless hivemind kill-bots from horizon to horizon. Regardless I'm glad to see someone is working on both areas. I really did want to see both areas.