"Safehouse" - A fledged-out RPG/base-building/resource management focused experience!

[f1re9arden]

So I was playing 60 Parsecs with a friend. I was digging the incognito behind what's the fate of the characters whenever they journey into the wasteland, and how they tell the events afterwards when they make it back. All of a sudden, I recalled the experience Fallout Shelter gave me back then on mid-2015 (I know MANY of you dislike that game, but hear me out). Then, that took me even further, to the point of reimagining Fallout 4's core based on what I consider to be a pretty neat concept.

Here's the deal:

Gamemode:

It would be inspired on something in between "Ironman mode" from S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Battlefield 2 campaign and Escape From Tarkov. When you die, you can choose which of your still-breathing companions you want to take control of. When that happens, the game would freeze for a moment to give the player some time to properly get on the new character's shoes by placing a prompt in the middle of the screen that would have a "Ready" button in appear the center of it when the game successfully performed the "player transfer".

If your whole squad is wiped, their corpses will disappear with their loot and you will be forced to choose a survivor from your base to control.

The quests progress persists through characters.

Start:

The player would be offered 2 options to choose from.

1- Random group of 3 level 1-5 characters. You can choose who you will take control of.

2- Custom level 5 character and, choosing between a random level 1-3 companion or a dog.

Every character would have their former perk points already spent on skilltrees that matched each character's affinity, based on the points they randomly received for their S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

Core gameplay:

Take over a vault/warehouse/apartment/etc. separated from the main open world (Like most Vaults). Claim it after cleaning all the enemies in it. The "main" objective would be to survive by scavenging for food, water resources, weapons, parts, seeking new folks, keeping your safehouse up (By upgrading it with help from the building menu) and your survivors alive.

You can personally give order to your companions to alter their playstyle (Keep distance; stay close-quarters; fight melee; attack on sight; hold fire) or use the "radial menu" to give the same order to everyone.

Since the base-building component would always be indoors, survivors would have to feed and hydrate from the "safehouse food container" (Placeholder name, right) where the player would store all the survival-focused consumables. Alternatively, players could also give food and water to their companions in the openworld or once selecting them for the journey inside the safehouse.

Your survivors should only suffer an increase in hunger/thirst (and die from each cause when reaching 0) when going out with you as companions, kinda like how it happens on Escape From Tarkov raids with your character.

Survivors statistics could always be checked in the safehouse terminal.

Inventory space is always reduced 50% for everyone, companion pick-up command is disabled to avoid infinite companions inventory bug exploiting.

Vanilla settlement system should be completely restricted in open world, leaving it only allowed in cells.

Safehouse system:

Each safehouse would have a "safehouse terminal". By using your it you can decide who to take with you in your next adventure (With a maximum of 2 companions at a time for balance reasons), or who to send scavenge the wasteland in a maximum group of 3 (Of course, they would "disappear" from the gameworld once in journey because the idea is to have RNG determine their fate based on their equipment/level/group size). If they come back, you'll find a "field report" on your safehouse terminal, telling you how's their health/hunger/thirst, which items they managed to find, how much experience they earned and where do you want to put the new perk points they gained, if they levelled up. Obviously, this would have to be properly balanced with special attention to avoid getting consistent items by doing literally nothing yourself as a player.

Only after maxing out one safehouse capacity by having 6 survivors in there, you would be able to take over a second (and last) one. You would be able to have 2 extra safehouses outside the vanilla gameworld. One in Far Harbor and another one in Nuka-World (And you should never be able to befriend the Nuka-World raiders).

You can only "migrate" from one safehouse to another by emptying all containers except from the "safehouse chest", which would have limited space (Not precisely small) but would transfer everything you store in there to the next safehouse risk-free. All of your "stored" furniture from the building menu would transfer too.

Now... when you start the migration, ALL OF THE SURVIVORS IN THE SAFEHOUSE WOULD GO WITH YOU INTO THE WASTELAND AS COMPANIONS, putting them in danger.

While not in a migration, you can use your safehouse terminal to send survivors between safehouses transporting X amount of water/food/resources and see if they make it. This would work the same way as the "RNG journey" system.

You can try to dismiss your fellow survivors, but they always could take it as treason and react with hostility (You would be able to talk to them at a distance so it's not that risky), or even worse, "accept" it and leave but come back few days later with a group of raiders or people from enemy factions. You could never get to see any of your ex-companions after walking/running out your safehouse door, for balance reasons.

Also, while in the safehouse, you can experience RNG events like "Someone is heavy knocking at the door, shouting unintelligibly, what do you do?"

a- Try to talk to them from the inside (CHR 7).

b- Remain silent (AGI 7).

c- Go outside and talk.

d- Shoot at the door.

World:

There's no main quest, but all 3 factions and DLC content are unlocked and access-free from the start. Maybe some workarounds here and there for alternative player introductions to some characters, (Example: Hearsay about Valentine on Diamond City).

No fixed quest rewards. No fixed power-armors spawns. No hand-placed items. No streamlined gameplay, no quicksaves. No bullet-sponge legendary human enemies, but well-geared ones. Heavy focus on levelling individual S.P.E.C.I.A.L points in exchange of the great reward of living another day by talking your way out of danger (CHR), locking a terminal-controlled door (INT), making a hole on an airbrick wall with a sledgehammer (STR) or bypassing an Assaultron's interrogation by making animal noises! (LCK).

Loot is SCARCE, traders are BROKE, people are FEW, friends are FEWER, foes are REALISTIC, hostility is RULE, bullets are DEADLY, radiation is... Well, you get it: Just like a true post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Enemies can run out of ammo, then flee/go melee/ask for reinforcements by shooting a flare gun/switch to another weapon, run out of ammo again and so on.

Gasmasks should be mandatory for entering high radiation zones. "High" radiation protection only wouldn't ever be enough in a situation where you are constantly breathing toxic fumes.

If you want to stack up on fusion cells, high-caliber ammunition, grenades, you're in for a rough ride.

Many new open-world events should be added, like the ones from Skyrim.

Power-armors would be RARER, TANKIER and WAY TOO EXPENSIVE TO KEEP UP.

And that's it...

I hope a talented guy/team sees this post and potentially makes it a reality! I'd be willing to help.