[WIP] Unique Weapons Collector Quest

[Pellape]

Thought I write down a WIP for my first F3 quest, both as a reminder to myself if I get ideas but also to get input from the community and also if I get stuck in the progress.

I started to mod Bethesda games 2004 and my 2 favorite mods, well what I think is the best mods I ever made are:

• The Caldera Ancient Mine (Morrowind 2004-2006, remade 2020)
• The legacy of the Champion (Oblivion 2020-2022)

I am also a 3D artist since 2005, Blender mainly and I also went to 3D art school last year but I had to quit as it started to get very advanced with Nuke, photo scanning and stuff, last winter that really got to my nerves and all frustrations made it extremely boring in the end. The 3D boss at Volvo did like this video that I made as he came to me and talked about it at a 3D convent we had last May, and yes, I live in Volvo Town, Gothenburg Sweden.      I do not plan to make any 3D for this WIP, well not yet at least, but if you want something made, we can take a peek at it and if I like the idea, I might try to make it. I am open minded to most stuff really.

Well enough about my background, well now you know what I am able to make at least. 

The Weapons Collector?

There are so many unique weapons in game, that I have not found the natural way, so I decided yesterday to add a dude that is a weapons dealer and weapon smith, with neutral Karma that wants the player to collect all unique weapons there is and who knows, maybe expand it later to collect any unique items really. I could have used Pronto for this quest, but he is not neutral and it is also possible to kill him, which I did my first play-thru, so I decided to add the collector in Springvale, Sam Colt, well not directly as he is placed in a unique cell, and I move him to Springvale with script after the player have completed the DLC Broken Steel. I also move a X-Marker, to the street, just west of the rocket in Springvale and let Sam to sandbox around it. This way, it is impossible to cause any conflict with anything in Springvale at least and my goal is to not add anything in to the game world it self, if I can avoid it. I am an OBSE (fose) experienced script-maker but still, I do not know everything but enough to be able to support the Oblivion modding community for a couple of years here at Nexus.

The idea to make this came up when I noticed it is impossible to get Callahan's Magnum if we do not blow up the Citadel and even if that is an evil weapon, I sure want to collect it as my char did blow up the Enclave yesterday (2nd play true). Sam Colt will port the player to the cell where that magnum is located and also give the player an item so he can port back to Sam Colt after he found it.

I will also add the possibility to complete each quest for each item if the player already found the weapon or already sold it even, well if the item is no longer in game, as then it is lost forever and we sure do not want any quests uncompleted in our questlogs, well I did that ones really, as there was no end to the quest, which made a couple of players a bit pissed off, which I can understand    The Order of the Phoenix (Oblivion 2008). As the Phoenix Bird, resurrects from the ashes if it gets killed, there is no way you can ever complete such task, to kill it and let it stay dead really, which I did try to explain back then.

Any suggestion, ideas, tips or whatever is welcome.

Edited October 25 by Pellape

[Pellape]

The reason that I make this at all is because I use the Underground Hideout, both in F3 and FNV and I plan to make this quest for FNV during the weekend, well at least start making it. In the Hideouts, there are weapon displays and also a option to see which weapons that would fit there as well. It is easiest to just use the console and give the player the items, but that is no sport really nor fun at all. 

Why have I not found some weapons at all?  I play a good fellow, and some of these weapons are just evil.

• Callahan, Dirty Harry, played by Clint Eastwood was an evil bastard and I loved to watch his movies during the 70's. The weapon is only reachable if you blow up the Citadel
• Mesmetron is an item to collect slaves with and I refused to do the slave collecting for Paradise Falls as you will get that item if you accept to do it.
• Lincoln's Rifle. I have not decided yet if I will add a copy of it to the game, well maybe I do really. Who can claim that he only had one single rifle?    I sold mine to a slave.

Sam Colt, the questgiver add these items for sale after he have seen them, as he return them to the player when he have studied them. He also have at least 5000 caps all the time, well it is checked every 3s how much caps he has. He is in Springvale.

Why did I make a WIP in the first place?

During 2004-2010 when I had my first active modding period, we where a couple of modder's, some that really got famous too within the modding community, hang out in another forum and helped each others out and we all made WIP's back then and it was amazing to see some of the best modder's back then work and see their own progress and some of those mods was big hits back then. When the mods where published, we used to make a [REL] thread. I do not know if this is custom these days, but I usually make WIP's. Does anyone make WIP's at all these days? I know some always do it in the Oblivion forum still but I have not peeked here, not yet. If it was not for Qarl's 3D WIP's, I would never got started with Blender really.

There are some tiny differences between the GECK and Oblivion CS, and this is the first time I make quests with the GECK so the first 2 quests took 12 hours to make and the 3rd quest took 30 min only, well I have not tested it yet but it should not take more than 30 min to make a quest, add all topics and making a quest script really. I did some tiny mods for Skyrim and Fallout 4 but so many make mods for them, that I mostly do not need to make any at all but I feel some mods are missing for F3 and FNV so I will make some when I feel like it. I do prefer to make mods for Oblivion, F3 and FNV then I do for Skyrim and F4 really as that is easier. I do not like Papyrus at all really but it sure do not use as much game resources as the script engines in the former games, that have higher priority. I make Quest Scrips mostly6 because they only run every 3s instead of every Frame.    Not many scripts needs to run every Frame really.

Edited October 25 by Pellape

[Pellape]

6 Quest added so far. I add a lot of copies of the weapons direct to the world cells as it is easier to do that than check if the player already have them and where do he store them if that is the case? I bet I can find that out with fose but it gets too complicated for my taste and it is easier to do that in Skyrim and F4 but such scannings takes several minutes to do with papyrus so is it worth it? I did similar checks with obse for Oblivion and that was a bit frustrating to do really, no wonder my fav mod there took 2 years to make.     I could add items to my items dummy cell and I do as well, if there is any named persisted references in the cell, where the items should be put, and I move them there with a quest script, but so far, I have only been able to find one such cell. In FNV there is a command called MoveToCell added with fose but not in F3 so moveto has to be used and to a persisted reference, if there now is any as it cannot be used to a form item number from a script, only from console.     Well it does not matter much really but I do not like to make changes to any cells that is not my own ones, to avoid conflicts. I will be able to do this in FNV instead, keep all cells completely clean, to avoid conflicts, as I bet all that use mods, also use fose but it is not a requirement for this mod, not yet at least, as far as I know. I do load GECK with fose loader anyway.

So far I have added quests for these weapons

• Lincoln's Repeater - I could not resist to add it
• Curse Breaker - An unique Baseball Bat that was not added to the game - Fun thing is that a Raider play Baseball at Fordham Flash Memorial Field so I placed it there
• 2 Flamer's from Adams Air Force Base

All ideas about what should be added, if you have any, just add them here.

Edited October 26 by Pellape

[Pellape]

WIP made for FNV

[Pellape]

To get to the cell the natural way, the cell where Callahan's Magnum is located, require the player to blow up the Citadel. So when that quest starts, no matter what choice the player did at Adams Airforce Base, the player will be added 2 items, 2 10 mm guns that ports the player to the room where the revolver is located and back to Sam Colt. I do not know what will happen if we use the doors out to the crater of the Citadel, if we blew something else up, but I guess we can make a save, take a peek at it and reload as I do guess it is not good to keep such cell as visited in any save game but as it is a separate cell, maybe it will not matter, but I will not keep it in my save files for sure. I will warn about this in the description later as well. Visiting the office where the Magnum is located, will not have any impact on the game what so ever, as it is just a cell as any other cells and maybe it is the same with the blown up Citadel, but still, avoid it. The sight have been printed into my mind and effect my own play-throe. It did look extremely cool, no doubt.    Well this is up to you of course. Will you get effected by it or not?

Getting the Flamers at the Adams Airforce Base was extremely boring to do as the only way to get there is to port to the White House Plaza and run all the way through all metros again. 2 monsters did respawn, well maybe I did miss them in my main play-throe of that quest, as you must do that one before Sam Colt spawns at all. I might add a porter to it later on, well at least to the start point at the Airforce world space. Okay, I was able to fight a couple of Super mutants at the White House plaza, but I am sure we can live without that part really as if we wanna fight those, we can go there any time anyway. Another idea I had, was to add the Flamers to the hotel, as when we do that quest, we will find a holotape at a bench, at the Presidential Metro, an unmarked quest. Well just a thought anyway. What is your opinion about this?

Edited October 26 by Pellape

[Pellape]

Before the player are sent for the

• Burnmaster
• Ant's Sting

...I need to force the player to complete the quest The Superhuman Gambit, as those 2 weapon's are related to that quest, more or less.

I get the feeling all unique weapons are evil but all weapons are really evil, but some more than others from a RP point of view. The Ant's sting as one example is a poison weapon and when I did play Ultima Online long before WoW was planned even, I was part of a RP guild, which I later also lead after our 2nd leader had retire, so I became number 3, (three-dog), well never mind, and we where semi good, was looked as evil in a majority of the community, but using poison weapons in our guild, The Knight and Mages of Kha, was forbidden. Some really evil dark elf guilds where aloud to use poison weapons however. I did make our guild less evil, almost angel like. I was the third Guildmaster and I never met the first one, but he came back to the guild with his friends for a period and first I thought, WOW, I finally meet the real Lord of Kha, and they did not say anything as at one event, 4 players in black robes did show up behind my back, and there they where, completely unplanned, their names where called UnNamed or something like that and I thought, WTF, but damn, that was good RP. I did not know who they where until they came to our HQ with their main characters as I sure knew their names as I had heard a lot about them earlier. He did hate what I had done with the guild and we had a constant arguing and fighting about it but now I was the boss, not him and there was nothing he could do about it and he also claimed he did not want to become a leader, as he was just a temporary guest, still we fought, which in some way was good RP, as we did it in Character, the type of roles we had chosen, but it got a bit frustrating after a couple of days of the same dialogues and honestly, I did not like his or his friends evil play style but they where good RPers, maybe better than myself honestly, but all I wanted was them to leave, which I did not tell them of course. How could I as they did create the guild in the first place. So if I joined them from the beginning, I would most likely joined our enemies instead or another RP guild or whatever.    Enough about that. I did try to RP in ESO and they where extremely deep RP'ers and their way of "pretending" D&D fights, did not appeal to me. In Ultima Online, we did real PvP when we fought, but with special rules, so that was then called RPPvP. So extremely fun indeed. The fights where setup behind the scene between the leaders, we met, argued about something and then fought until last man standing.,     The biggest fight had 500 RPers involved, roughly 250 on each side, and guess who did die the LAG death? I could not even move when the fight started but my general did last long time, I recall. Back on track...   Weapons, we talked about weapons.  

I am doing the Superhuman Gambit myself right now for the first time. The benefit of waiting to do it until you get to this point is that you will get 500 caps, 500 xp, 1 karma "extra" if you take the quest from Sam Colt as he will force the player to go to that town and solve their problems until you can get the Burnmaster quest. I am not 100% sure how these weapons are involved in that quest, not yet, but I soon figure that out. If the player do not find these 2 weapons during that quest, 2 separate quest for them are already made, that require the player to complete The Superhuman Gambit first. Well the player can do other stuff, no doubt, but they will not get more quests from Sam Colt until The Superhuman Gambit is completed. If the player already completed that quest, well then the Burnmaster quest will start and the player will not get anything extra for it. My point of view, is that every quest you do, should have rewards, small as big ones, does not matter really.

I have been thinking about the 2 different perks that gives the player the possibility to become a bounty hunter, when he turn in fingers. Those "quests" only gives karma, which I think is pointless, as either you have a lot of karma in any direction or you are neutral. I will see if there is any mods that changes it and if not, then I make one. I do think a finger should give 10xp and 10caps really + karma. I peek at it later on.

Edited October 29 by Pellape

[Pellape]

Burnmaster was not related to any quest and it sure was a long journey to get it and that was fun as I like challenges and long journeys and I bet you do as well? As I am a new F3 player, these quests I am making, do point me into areas I would not visited without these quest, most likely. I did the same in Oblivion in my house mod, used all 60 boring dungeons that was not quests related, added stuff and enemies in everyone of them with scripts, so the player could be able to fill up the empty library in the house basement. Everything in that house was book related and it also had a huge display room.

You can imagine how many books the player needed to find. Each book has its own place in every shelf, added with scripts, if the player finds them. I made this video to play with Dwemer Light and energy Saving. There are 2 such rooms, One for Dungeon related books and one for game books. Each Dungeon book was a portal to each dungeon that the player had visited and had some useful info. Most paintings are portals as well and will take the player to the place where the screenshot was taken.

Adding weapons to racks in a game that is not made for it was a bloody hell. Drake the Dragon, the moderator in the Oblivion forum did solve this issue for me as it drew me nuts. He told me, why did you not set the weapons to solid?  Solid?    Damn. Now if I hit a weapon, it bends some, but it is like running into a steady fence and they stay in place these days, but not in this video:

I love display rooms and that is why I make this mod in the first place. Maybe I expand it later to a proper home with a proper Display room for all unique weapons, if I cannot find one. The Underground Hideout do have some, but not for every unique weapon. Well we see later about that as it is a nice idea really. Do you know any houses with such displays?

2 more quests made

• BlackHawk
• Board of Education

Blackhawk is a reward when ye get the Violin to Agatha. I do place a copy of it above the ammo box in her shack. Sam Colt do inform the player that he likes violins and that the player should talk to her about music but I do not make a specific quest for it, even if I would liked that, as I already completed that quest, which means I cannot test it and publish untested quests, its not my style as I want stuff to work perfect.

Bord of Education is inside an abandoned shack.

10 quests made. Not in the speed I would like really, but I am in a no hurry honestly and no one here seems to be in a hurry with it as well. 

Edited October 29 by Pellape

[Pellape]

I have applied for Voice Actors today at both NAVA and Voice Actors Club and it would be cool if I can get anyone interested of doing it. I mostly voice act myself but it also takes a lot of time doing it, so I mostly do not add voices in my mods, but it sure makes it funnier and more realistic if a suitable actor is doing it.

[Pellape]

I have decided to make Sam Colt into a companion. Why not? Why should he hang around Springfield and do nothing there except sending the player all over the map? I do prefer female companions and I could make him female, but in the other hand, I already have 4 female companions and 2 dogs. 2 of them guard my house and 2 follow me around and I can always switch between them if I want to anyway.

• Board of Education

The Board is located in an abandoned shack on the north side of the map. I did met a couple of mutants and Talon's there and also captive Wastelanders, so it was a funnier mission than I had expected as it is always fun to fight some, in game that is of course.     Not all these missions is fun to do really...

• Butch's Toothpick

His knife, our friend Butch from Vault 101 do have a dagger called Butch's Toothpick and that one will always be unavailable for the player, so I will add a copy at the bar at the bottom of Rivet City, as Butch did drop it there by mistake. A fun thing to do is really to get the possibility to give it back to him and I think I will add that possibility, for a free haircut maybe?    No matter what, we can always buy a new one from Sam Colt if we want to have it and also give one to Butch. No matter what, we will never know if he pick his teeth with that specific dagger or not, will we?   Have anyone here seen him picking his teeth with a dagger?

[Pellape]

Butch the brat

The part of returning the Toothpick to Butch is really complicated as if he is not already dead, I do not want him to die during my quest

1. Is Butch still alive
2. Is Butch essential (Has the player set him essential, with a mod or via the console? He is not essential by deafult)
3. Does the player really want to aid that brat?
4. Is he an active companion to the player? Which AI-Package is he using when the quest gets to this stage?

 

What do I need to do in GECK?

1. Decide if we want to help that brat? If we do, the rest must be fulfilled:
2. So I added my quest stage in Butch AI-Package to go to Rivet City when it is time to give him the knife and a evp.
   1. Last time I met him, was in vault 101 and we cannot go there, if we do not have a quest that give us access.
3. Check if he is essential, if not, I set it.
4. Set a pointer to him with SetQuestObjective, so we can follow him at the map
5. Deliver the knife or tell him to FO but we cannot kill him, if we now would want that during this quest.
6. When the quest is completed or failed and if he was not essential during the start of this quest, a 5 days timer starts
7. After 5 days, he is set to NOT essential (if the player did not set him essential that is)

I am not sure if he stays in Rivet City or not, so I do not take the chance that my quest will kill him, even after my quest is completed. After 5 days have gone, which is more than enough, then he should have been set to the state he had from the start. Well does it matter? Yes a lot really as some player(s) maybe have him as a companion and maybe they are using a mod that set him essential or they did set him essential from the Console, so if I would have had changed that, that would have been extremely bad. He WILL be essential in any case during this quest, no matter what he is doing or where he might hang out. If he is following the player, this part will be over within seconds

Checking his AI-Package is extremely vital, as if he is following the player, wait or whatever companion package he might have active, I will not interfere with it, as that would had been extremely bad.

Well now you see what mess I have created for myself    I thought this part would had been much easier to make as a nice and realistic gesture, an obvious choice to make really and I really want to include this small part, something that is done within a few minutes in game, gets extremely complicated to make with GECK. I would like someone that is using Butch as a companion to test this.

It is immersive, and that is what questing and interacting with others is, immersive. That is what any player in a RP game really wants. Immersion. I want that. 

 

Any benefits of doing this part of the quest?

Yes there is. Completing this quest by giving the Toothpick to Butch will give

• Double X
• Double Karma
• Double Caps

Compared to if you just show the toothpick to Sam Colt as then he give the player his standard reward. If Butch is not dead, you will be asked about Butch, if you wanna meet him again and return the Toothpick to him. If he is dead, well then that option will not pop up.

Checking if a specifik Reference is alive or not can opnly be done in a script. Well we can make a condition, isdead, but not what is dead, just, isdead...  In this case, well I could combine it with AND getisid Butch I guess...  No matter what, I script it as that is easier and store it in a quest variable. Butch has 5 different Quest Variables initiated, 5 for such a short part of this stage in this quest.    Damn...  

Short ButchDead			;1 Yes -  2 No
Short ButchCompanion        	;1 Yes -  2 No
Short ButchEssential		;1 Yes -  2 No
Short WasButchEssential   	;1 Yes -  2 No
float ButchDays

The reason I do not use 0, but 2 instead, is to be sure the variables are set within the right stage, as 0 is default. I must be 100% sure these variables are set properly. Default values will not do, not at all, not for me.

Well, I am a perfectionist and I cannot do anything about it, it must be perfect, no bugs or screw ups allowed.

 

Betatester

If anyone here use Butch as companion, I would like them to test this, as soon as possible in game. Well anyone that wanna test this can do it. Just reply and I add the link to it.

Edited October 30 by Pellape