I would like...

[Rixirite]

She is pretty.. Also, a Tomahawk would be awesome. Especially if you could throw it. Oh and about the issue you had with the DLC, i would just go to the electronic store and buy it retail, better to have it on disk in case Digital copies from the provider get.. Lost. Or you know, they go out of business or have to lay off that team, etc all my games are still retail.

 

 

By the way, how did you get her that hair? Is it a mod? Link to it would be awesome. Thanks.

[Oldwolfe]

I made her look like my late wife. So thank you for that compliment.

 

Speaking of which, I'll take a moment to preach a little. Guys and gals, don't ever drink and drive. You never know who's life you will destroy. It's just not worth it.

 

Okay, I'll post links to all the mods I used to make her.

 

Hair Pack Mod:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1146

 

Shoulder Pad Mod:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5424

 

Type3_belts_boots Mod:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5905

 

Lincolns Repeater Re-Texture Mod:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=897

 

Neunen's Axes v2 Mod: (Using the hatchet until he finishes the tomahawk)

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5105

 

Native American Music Pack: (just for a little more atmosphere

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6321

 

Dawn has kind of adopted the lost children of Big Town. She watches over them and lives there. The house in Megaton is really her workshop and place of business. She lives in:

 

Player Home within BigTown Mod:

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5539

 

There's a lot of Big Town home mods. But this one is simple, companion friendly, and just seems to fit with atmosphere a bit more to me.

[Rixirite]

You have my condolences Oldwolfe, I don't see the pleasure in drinking at all, alchohol just makes me sick to my stomach. I replace beer and other alchohol with carbonated liquids, that is good enough of a drink for me. Also, will the Tomahawk be something you can throw? Or is it just a melee weapon? Cause i was thinking if you could have both that would be at most great. Make it like arrows in oblivion so you can recover the Tomahawk after it is thrown?

 

That makes me wonder, does Fallout 3 still contain some of those oblivion aspects like being able to have a weapon coded to release a projectile after the release of the attack key and be able to recover the projectile? I know you cannot recover say.. Railway spikes. Once they shoot out you can't pick them up even though they are visible to you.

 

However, i don't wish to hijack a thread into my own request, so if Oldwolfe wants the Tomahawk to his supervision, i can always make a seperate request thread.

[Oldwolfe]

Feel free to speak your mind. That's certainly something I've never been shy about.

 

My doctor wants me to drink a beer a day for cholesterol reasons. I'm not a huge drinker, mostly I drink tea. I had to put a note on my computer desk to remind me to drink my daily beer.

 

I've seen mods that make knives, sledgehammers, and baseballs throwable. Not sure how they work. In real life I'm a retired soldier. I've never been fond of the idea of throwing away your last weapon. I throw tomahawks for fun, but would never do it in a real fight. Stick to guns.

 

Neunen said he's also working on making traditional tomahawks and war clubs. I think the Fusion he's making should probably be a Unique. Maybe in the inventory of some named bad guy somewhere. Should also have the item code listed in case someone already beat that named NPC. Or accidentally sells it, etc.

 

A mod that makes the hatchets and axes he's already got in the game, plus the upcoming traditional tomahawks and war clubs throwable might be cool, although personally I wouldn't use it.

 

I've been curious about importing bows from Oblivion, but honestly also something that while kinda cool, I wouldn't use. Except for maybe ranged silent killing. Although you'd almost have to add another character skill. After cartridge guns came out, nearly all Indians switched to guns when they could.

[Oldwolfe]

Definitely going off-topic now, but....

 

I know that in the Broken Steel Expansion (which I don't have yet) your character joins the Brotherhood of Steel. I just don't see her there wearing quasi-traditional leather armor. I also just had problems seeing her in powered armor. So I did some digging. I found a Powered Robe mod and altered it.

 

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l141/Oldwolfe/CombatScribe.jpg

 

Okay, THIS I can visualize.

 

I really don't think you'd want to be a bad guy in the valley beneath her, there.

[Rixirite]

I love how the modders out there have all this talent and make things very customizable. That is a good example of how complicated you can get your character in addition to the incredible character creator in the beginning of the game.

 

Also, there is Alexscorpion's Snipergear mod if you want some massive... Firepower. The m82 barrett was very great to play with, and in addition it has the silenced version which makes it stealthy if you like to sneak and do critical hits.

 

I wonder how that tomahawk is coming along?

[Oldwolfe]

I'm shying away from anything that feels a bit too much like a cheat. I have done some item swapping on a one for one basis. For example, I'm using Wanda instead of the Xai Lung rifle, entirely for aesthetics. While I have done a lot of mod alterations to the game, I have tried to maintain balance all the way through. Or changed things how they make more sense. Like the mod that makes assault rifles more accurate. They are simply WAY too inaccurate in this game.

 

I also play using a mod that seriously increases weapon damage. Having to shoot something in the head ten times to kill it makes no sense to me. It also means I have to be more careful. Sometimes I suddenly discover I'm in more trouble than I thought I was.

 

I'm using a .308 sniper rifle, the Valhalla project one with the black camo re-skin. And definitely NOT silenced. I've used guns as a soldier all my adult life and even used a suppressed (not silenced, an MP5SDA3) one for awhile in my job. However, I am aware of the drawbacks of them and how nearly impossible it is to silence a powerful round. On a cool cloudless night, just the clacking of the bolt in my MP5 sometimes sounded thunderous and carried a further distance than you'd want to practically shoot, anyway. Even very soft sounds can carry 100 yards or more with no background noise (like crickets, wind, etc.) to muffle them. The idea of silencing a fifty cal makes me laugh. I remember in one game, someone was trying to explain to me that they really saw silenced hand grenades. (groan)

 

One of the few cartridges that makes itself suitable to silencing is the .45 ACP. That's because some of the standard loads for it are already subsonic, or on the edge of subsonic. You don't lose much power by silencing a .45 auto. Otherwise, if you REALLY want to be quiet, you need to bring along specially made (read in WEAK) ammo. Many silenced pistols are actually made to be manually operated one shot at a time so you can't hear the automatic ratcheting of the slide.

 

There's actually two ways of quieting a weapon. Silencing (which involves subsonic ammo), and suppressing. Suppressed weapons are still supersonic and you CAN hear the crack of the bullet. The advantage of suppressing is since you can't hear the shot from the gun itself, you have problems determining where the shot came from. They have another problem, suppressors and silencers foul up with the carbon from the expanding gasses pretty quickly. You have to take your suppressors apart and clean them out pretty regularly.

 

Any long range sniper rifle that has that big cylinder on the end is only suppressed. If it was fully silenced the bullet would have lost so much velocity that it couldn't maintain good long range accuracy. Some snipers carry subsonic rounds for close-in work like taking out sentries within say 75 yards or so.

 

Believe it or not, the Navy played around with silenced shotgun shells that actually worked. They were supposed to be for use by downed pilots in dangerous territories. They were very expensive to make as the powder was contained in a separate compartment of the shell that expanded as the powder fired. The compartment wouldn't leave the shell. Basically it pushed the pellets out of the shell like a piston. It lowered the power of the shotgun pellets dramatically, but they were lethal, and it was a practical item when they finished developing it. Just way too expensive to put into use.

 

Honestly I think that except for very specific applications, silencers are more trouble than they are worth. One of the drawbacks of having practical experience is that a lot of the "cool" stuff in a lot of games stretch my believability too far. I need at least a little sense of realism.

 

Right now the two guns that Dawn uses are the Valhalla bolt action rifle (which I replaced the Reservist rifle with), and Wanda. Honestly, while Dawn is a stealth character, she doesn't have any problems while sniping. She's so far away anyway that while the mobs know there's someone out there, they usually get killed before they figure out where she is.

 

I'm still waiting on the tomahawk because Neunan had to go out of town for a week, and he won't finish it until he returns.

[Oldwolfe]

This isn't the place for it, but what the heck...

 

Here's a few thoughts on combat and weapons (from an individual level, not group level) from someone who has survived being active in combat zones for about 28 months at various times in various places throughout the world. Also, my thoughts will probably offend some people. Those who love all the gadgets.

 

Probably 80% of all deaths in combat come from two things. The bullet you never saw coming, or simply not being the first person to put the rounds on target.

 

The bullet you never saw coming, not much to address that. At least in this format beyond saying: Stick to cover and keep your head down.

 

Not reacting fast enough, that we can address.

 

As far as I'm concerned, there are two types of shooting in combat. Aimed shooting, and point shooting.

 

1) Aimed Shooting: This is the type of shooting taught to all soldiers in the military. Looking through your sights and taking your time to squeeze off a good shot. The time to do this is when you have good cover, range, and the luxury of taking your time. I call this Offensive Shooting, and it includes sniping.

 

2) Point Shooting: Unfortunately, this is usually only taught to Rangers, Recon, Special Forces, Seals, etc. I'm not talking about movie style shooting from the hip. But keeping the buttstock in your shoulder, spinning quickly and firing down the barrel of your weapon without using any sights at all. If you have ever done any shotgun based skeet shooting, this is EXACTLY the same thing. If you do skeet shooting you know that if you try to aim, the clay pigeon will be gone before you get the shot off. In combat, in this sort of situation, if you take the time to aim, YOU will be gone before you get the shot off. Honestly, skeet shooting is the BEST sort of practice for what I call: Self-Defense shooting.

 

I don't know how many kids I've seen die over the years because they were struggling to aim at someone who was coming in quickly at close range. More than I care to think about.

 

I'm not talking spray and pray shooting either. But accurate, fast, un-aimed shots. I say it over and over. Go try skeet shooting sometime.

 

Gadgets: Aimpoints, iron sights, so called "quick" scopes of any variety, and lasers. As far as I am concerned, junk them all when time is of the essence. At CLOSE range nothing is faster than just looking down the barrel of your weapon. For my main battle rifle, I don't want a scope of ANY type obscuring my view of the barrel. The person NOT using one of these will probably be the winner. Even while lasers are fast, they have ENORMOUS drawbacks. First of all, unlike in games, you can't see the beam without special equipment. So you are looking for a tiny dot on your enemy. Various clothing textures and even wrinkles in the cloth can hide the laser dot. This loses you precious time in trying to hit your target, when you can least afford it.

 

Back in the early 80s I was issued what was called the absolutely apex of technology. It was sort of like a laser, but infra-red and could only be seen with IR goggles. But it was big, clunky, and it slowed down my weapon. It was about half the length of my entire MP-5. First chance I got in the field I took it off and stashed it for later turn-in. And I can think of twice that removing it probably saved my life. Because if I had been just a FRACTION of a second slower, I would have been dead.

 

A lot of the time my team would stash all the surplus equipment we were issued the moment we were out of sight. There's an old Bill Mauldin cartoon from WWII that sort of sums it up. Willie tells Pete to remove the jokers from his deck of cards as they are simply excess weight.

 

Most times in combat, follow the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid!!!

[Oldwolfe]

Okay, okay.... I'm rambling on way too much. And playing with alternate armors way too much.

 

But here goes.....

 

I REALLY like this armor. When I get the Broken Steel expansion, I'll probably be changing out the metal armor legs for some power armor ones. I don't have the needed expansion for that.

 

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l141/Oldwolfe/DawnandWanda.jpg

 

It's Chinese Stealth Armor with Talon Combat Armor shoulder pads, Vault 101 Security Armor chest protector, Metal Armor legs, and some black police belt strapping and pouches on the sides.

 

I think this may be the look I will stick with long-term, after a few simple changes. Like a black pip-boy and hopefully darker legs.

 

EDIT: This is the revised picture with the darker pip-boy and legs. Huge thanks go out to Sin7188 for the Shoulder Pad mod and for being kind enough to add the darker metal legs for me.

[Rixirite]

I like that hexagon pattern on the legs, is that from the metal armor? Also; i didn't know: Broken steel makes armor seperated by types of pieces? Also, you should pop by a electronics store and just buy the expansion retail. It's better than downloading it cause you got a disc to install and you don't have to depend on servers which could be stopped in the future etc..

 

When you say lasers, do you mean the laser rifle? Cause i don't see laser pointers in Fallout 3.

 

Also, here is a picture of my character, named her Miranda. She is a stealthy type with 100 sneak and a M82 silenced barret. She has an asian ethnicity.

 

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/4168/fallout31a.jpg