Erimus Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 Okay, so...bare with me here...kind of new to modding but an old hand at having really grand ideas (I know, right). So I am working on a mod where Big Town has a lot more potential than it currently does in the game. The general idea is that scattered at 3-4 of the Super Mutant camps are groups of people that number from 2-3 that the player can rescue (Not related to the "Captives" which show up in the base game). These people, once rescued, find their way or are directed by the player to Big Town. Each group consists of one important NPC (calling them Phase NPCs) and the others are just Laborers. With each group that is rescued there is an immediate change in Big Town. -With the first group the place gets cleaned up and a little more organized and the building on the left is opened up as a bunk house for the laborers.-With the second group the building on the right is opened up as a hotel/rentable bed and the barricades on the eastern side of the town are extended out to the two houses across the road (though they are not opened up yet)-With the last group that barricades on the southern end of the town are extended to the two houses directly south across the street and around a water tower I have added just behind them. Also the western most building is opened up as a barracks/security office/jail for the town and there is a patrol of two npc's who circle the town. I could go on and on about the ideas I have but that's not the point of this post. What I am wondering, and this is where it ties back to the beginning part where I said I was kind of new to modding hehe, is this. In order to make the changes that I am talking about (Moving barricades, having a cleaned up version of the town, opening up previously closed off buildings, etc) the route I am going to have to take is to go into the GECK and locate the Wilderness cells in which the town is located (IE. Big Town NE, Big Town NW, Big Town SE and Big Town SW) and duplicate all of them so there is a separate copy of the town for each stage of the quest which results in modifications to the town, correct? All I need to know is if I am on the right path or if I am waaay off base here. I could also be on "a" right path but you may know a better, more efficient way to do this. If I can just get some indication that I am going the right way that is all I need, but if you are a master modder and want to give me more information than that please feel free ;) Once I know that I am at least going the right direction I will keep hammering away until I educate myself on the actual specifics and mechanics of actually doing it (which I would do with this but my wife and I are one week away from baby #2 so my free time to learn is severely impaired hehe). Any input of any kind is greatly appreciated guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadPenney Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 I don't know how the cell duplication idea would work. Easy to pull off with interior cells, but could be difficult to pull off with the Wasteland worldspace. I would suggest enabling and disabling objects instead. If you want a barricade to disappear then disable it with a script. You could place objects that are initially disabled and then have them enabled at a certain point in the building process as well. Same thing for opening up a building for use. Disable the original barricaded door and enable a door that you have placed in the same spot that is linked to an interior cell that you have created Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erimus Posted July 7, 2009 Author Share Posted July 7, 2009 I don't know how the cell duplication idea would work. Easy to pull off with interior cells, but could be difficult to pull off with the Wasteland worldspace. I would suggest enabling and disabling objects instead. If you want a barricade to disappear then disable it with a script. You could place objects that are initially disabled and then have them enabled at a certain point in the building process as well. Same thing for opening up a building for use. Disable the original barricaded door and enable a door that you have placed in the same spot that is linked to an interior cell that you have created Thank you very much for the reply BadPenny, that is a huge help. On a side note, do you if it is possible to actually change worldmap geography as a result of a quest? For instance, raising or lowering actual terrain as a result of a quest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadPenney Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 I can't say that it is impossible, only that I have never done it and have no idea how I would go about doing an actual in-game terrain edit. I have given the illusion of terrain editing though. I've created the appearance of an underground cave-in by enabling a large debris pile with a mini-nuke explosion. Some of the canyon rock meshes and debris piles are quite large and could be toggled to give the appearance of a terrain edit. It might be possible to retexture a large mesh as any sort of ground terrain and place it over terrain that has been lowered, then disable it to make it appear as if the terrain has suddenly been lowered during the game. Digging too far into the terrain will expose a close up view of LOD terrain though, so that is a limited option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony the Wookie Posted July 9, 2009 Share Posted July 9, 2009 I was just throwing around some ideas over in the request area, and mabe you would be interested in some of them for your new immproved Bigtown http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=135559 it is really just me spouting random ideas that I have no intention of makeing, but if you are going to end up makeing something along these lines, tell me and I can probly at least get you some 3D models and stuff done (examples of my stuff in my sig) but I could really see how awesome it would be to actualy have Bigtown be a dynamic livable city that you can keep improving and comeing back to, as opposed to just doing one quest and leaving forever... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts