BadPenney Posted July 21, 2009 Author Share Posted July 21, 2009 I had to play test the Yankee Trader caravan quest with a companion to see how it would work. So I made a video while I was at it. It highlights 4 gamedays in 4 minutes. I saw no problems with bringing a companion along. On the contrary, Fawlkes proved to be quite useful. Either he directs his fire very well, or the caravaners don't flinch at his friendly fire (they'll shoot players for it though). I've set the caravaners to be essential when they are running the circuit alone, but if a player signs on as a quard then Raven, the caravan boss, loses her essential status. So you have to keep her alive. She's pretty tough, and regains health after combat like a companion, but she can die. If she dies you fail the quest, and she won't respawn. Having Fawlkes along improved her survivability, so I have no more worries about companions on quests. Raven and her crew show up after the Fargo Trader quest is completed successfully. They will loiter outside the entry gate into Shady Sands indefinately until you talk to Raven. Then whether you sign on or not, their circuit begins. There are 2 half circuits between Shady Sands and Canterbury Commons that pay 500 caps each, and a player can do them in any order to get credit towards the Yankee Trader Perk, which gives a 10% discount when buying from traders. She will only offer work while loitering at either Canterbury Commons or Shady Sands, though she will still trade with if you happen to meet up elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archonon Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Wow BadPenney that last video was terrific, it brought up a lot of memories from the original Fallout's escort quests! Shady Sands will definately be one of my favorite places to visit again and again in the Capital Wasteland. Thank you for putting so much effort in creating this fantastic new place :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarbagePickles Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 BadPenny, I think you should know that there are some people doing a total fallout conversion mod, and the sheer fact that you already did junktown, the HUB and shady sands, I mean you would be invaluable to their project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadPenney Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 BadPenny, I think you should know that there are some people doing a total fallout conversion mod, and the sheer fact that you already did junktown, the HUB and shady sands, I mean you would be invaluable to their project.I appreciate the sentiment, but I think that I have approached the use of the Fallout 1 stories from a different angle than they are doing. My approach has been much more loose I expect. I have taken elements and used them in a way that will probably get me flamed by Fallout canon purists. My Shady Sands looks nothing similar to the original. There is a brahma pen and a garden and a girl named Tandi, and that is about where the similarity ends. There are no adobe houses or walls. Seth the gate guard is now Seth the sentry bot. The name of Tandi's father is not Aramesh it is Lars, and he guards the gate and allows or denies entry to visitors. Killian has a store in Shady Sands, not Junktown, and he is the town leader, not Aramesh. I have combined the characters of Razslo and Doc Morbid into one. Gizmo is not an obese and physically helpless casino owner, he is a renegade super mutant who leads the Khan raider gang by being the most physically powerful member, something like Lord Humongous from Mad Max 2. BTW, Max Rockatansky is now a Shady Sands resident, and his little blue heeler dog wears a red kerchief around his neck. The Fargo Traders from the Hub is in Shady Sands and Butch and his "second" Rutger sleep in the same bed (hmm, maybe that's why Butch doesn't like to talk about his personal life). There is a ghoul in town, but his name is Beck not Harold, since Harold already exists as a tree in FO3. I've also placed some important characters (important to me, at least) that don't exist in Fallout 1. The discrepencies go on... I wish the fallout conversion crew good luck. It is a massive untertaking. I suspect that if I tried to work with them, though. they would want me to get in line according to canon, and that is just too restrictive for me. Although modding Fallout has been a lot of fun, I've found it to be extremely frustrating as well. I'm not sure that I want to deal with it much longer. Even now, when I thought that RTSS (Return to Shady Sands) was done, I find that patching to 1.6 reveals LOD tree textures all over town. Until I find out how to get rid of them, I won't be uploading. I'd also like to give Blender a serious go. That, and updating versions of RTSS, should keep me busy for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archonon Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Hey BadPenney, have you asked on the Beth forums for assistance concerning the lod textures? I mean of you have no idea what's causing them to appear that is. Could their appearance be a load order conflict with another mod you have installed? I know that before patch 1.5 there was a problem where if you entered a new worldspce from the capital wasteland all the trees would for some reason appear floating above the air, it would be fixed by saving and reloading the game. With 1.5 they fixed that problem and the trees don't float in the air anymore, obviously this fix is included in 1.6 so maybe something involves this fix with your problem? What GECK are you making the mod with? The last GECK released was the 1.5 version. I could be just talking a lot of hot air as I know nothing about this; but if you made it with an earlier version of the GECK, maybe the 1.6 patched game requires the 1.5 GECK because of thi issue? Like I said I really don't know so don't pay too much attention to me here as I'm just taking wild guesses lol Anyway I hope you can find a resolution to the issue soon. Also thanks for the multiple videos you've made and posted here, they are really exciting teasers to torture us before release! :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadPenney Posted July 25, 2009 Author Share Posted July 25, 2009 I thought that I had moved past the treeLOD issue, but I started a new character as a test and they were back. I am using an old version of the GECK, so I should try patching it too. I am planning to turn my .esp into a masterfile with FO3Edit, because of the NPC skin issue, hopefully I can get both issues resolved that way. I still see occasions where NPCs forget their AI packages or do completely unexpected things, but I can't detect a pattern in that behavior. I think that it may be more of an FO3 issue than a mod issue. I used to find one of the guys from Flak and Shrapnel's in Rivet City wandering far away in the wasteland. I used to think that maybe it was planned to happen, now I'm not so sure. The only mods I am running currently are my own and Fake Patch 1.5. The Fake Patch is a recent addition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadPenney Posted July 26, 2009 Author Share Posted July 26, 2009 http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/1103832-1248579749.jpg http://www.fallout3nexus.com/imageshare/images/1103832-1248579655.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archonon Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 Excuse me for not responding sooner but I'm having lots of trouble connecting to these forums specifically; so if I start getting problems again I'll continue to check for updates by seeing if you released it on Nexus. Hehe :whistling: I know the AI in the game can get kind of wonky from time to time but 1.5 and 1.6 did fix a lot of AI related issues so hopefully that will help in some way. Of course there is always 1.7 for Mothership Zeta, though I hope they don't mess with stuff too much since 1.5-1.6 supposedly introduced fairly good stability to the game. But hopefully patching up the GECK might also help. Anyway the town looks stunning! Can't wait to return to Shady Sands...Good Lord that was LAME... :ermm: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archonon Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 Damn double post! Anyway have you decided how you are going to release the file? Will it be in several files or one large one? How big will the mod be? Keep us updated! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadPenney Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 Just 2 days ago I backed up all of the necessary files (plus a few backups .esps) onto a CD-R and it was less than 500Mb uncompressed, so I may be able to compress it all and get the whole lot under the 300Mb max upload size with one zip file. If not, then 2 files should be enough. I patched my GECK to 1.5 and didn't see any real difference. It didn't get rid of the treeLOD problem, I had to drop the weird trees and put new ones in their place. Tested FO3Edit's masterfile updater and it got rid of the white fleshed NPCs alright. I was finally able to regenerate new object LODs for the monorail tracks and rocks that I moved about. Had to create a bunch of TGA files to do it, but I'm happier with the look of the town now. As you approach the town big objects don't suddenly move around anymore. I don't think that I will have to include the TGAs with the upload now that the LODs have been regenerated but I'll have to test to make certain. Have a new issue wherein all my NPCs that use default dialogue have stopped using their custom dialogue. Can't figure that one out so far. Sometimes when I make changes to the .esp while I am playtesting it seems to buggerup the savegames in strange ways, so I'm going to try a fresh cycle and see if it helps. I turned off the FakePatch too so that might be part of it. Oblivion just seemed so much easier to work with than Fallout. Patch 1.7 already? Need to check that out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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