My Weapons Repair Mod [WIP]

[palasprince]

Ok, first a bit of background as to what I'm doing. Repair in Fallout 3 seemed a bit too... easy. I've heard other people say similar things. So I'm working on a mod that looks like it'll actually come to fruition as I've got the basics working of it going great thanks to a script provided by on these forums.

 

So here's how my mod works: It disables the repair function from the Pip-Boy entirely, requiring you to do most of your repairs at an actual workbenches, thus making them actually useful. I've created a "Field Repair Kit" that's working, but a bit buggy right now that you'll be able to use in the wild to do emergency repairs to your equipped weapon, but nothing nearly as beneficial as actually using a workbench.

 

I'm also working on the ability to clean your gun at a workbench. Which be an action that you could do say once every six hours that would very slightly increase the durability of your weapon. Right now it looks like it'll be a global six hours, meaning you couldn't clean every gun in your inventory at once, but just one every six hours. I'm still working on a way to fix that though.

 

Now, instead of just repairing a 10mm gun with a 10mm gun, I've got a feuture where you break a gun down into it's basic components and use those to repair your other guns. For instance breaking down a 10mm gun gives you a Trigger, handgrip and barrel then you use those parts respectively to repair any other guns that use similar components.

 

What I'm working on now is a list of components that each gun would break down into and which ones would be compatible. For instance every gun uses a trigger and could thus be repaired by any trigger, whereas combat shotguns have a very specialized magazine and would thus need another combat shotgun magazine to repair it.

 

So what I'm asking for ais a little assistance as to what components there should be and what each gun should break down into. I'm not a gun nut at all thus I know very little about them.

 

I'll check back in a few hours to see what kind of responses I get. Thanks in advance. :)

[Skree000]

Theres a bunch of repair mods already in existance, perhaps one of them suits your needs before making an all new one?

 

if not that, theres also a ton of people working on repair mods that you might be curious to contact or give them a hand etc.

I heard last week someone was making or had already made a repair tool mod... do a forum search or, better yet... i just did one, here you go...

 

this guys trying to remove the repair function from the pipboy:

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=138672&hl=

 

this person wants to overhaul the repair system, to be more like oblivion:

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=138382&hl=

[palasprince]

:) I find it funny that your first link was of my older thread.

 

The second link had already provided me some inspiration, but if you'll notice it's a request he never said he was actually working on it. I PM'ed him though just in case he is working on it actually because I enjoy collaborations.

 

And yes you're right there are plenty of mods that affect repair in various ways, but none that I find truly satisfactory. Plus I enjoy modding as a hobby and many times will make a mod that there are already 50 versions of just for the experience (though I don't upload them at that point).

 

So yes, I browsed previously released mods, and I used forum search. :) Now that we know I'm not a complete forum newbie, back to my original point. :)

 

And thanks Skree.

[Skree000]

doh, hehe sorry <=)

[palasprince]

All is forgiven :)

[Denizen]

This sounds great pretty much exactly what I was asking for :) I'm not much of a modder only released one which didn't even require me touching scripts at all. When the workbench is engaged what options come up?

 

Just a few suggestions:

 

I think what may be a good idea is that as the weapons condition decreases different parts of it 'fail' and to repair the gun you need to use those particular parts that have failed (although fail is probably too strong a word). I think that which part fails first should be random too so as not to be too linear.

 

I think a similar system should be introduced for armour, so you have to patch them up or something.

 

You should be able to find weapon components in the game world, so they need meshes and textures if they don't already.

 

Maybe implement the ability to strip a weapon of its remaining components at a workbench, which either results in the weapon havinf massively decreased condition or simply being replaced by spare parts not sure which one though.

[cniall]

Dismantling a weapon for components seems like a good idea; it doesn't make sense why, say, a laser rifle can only be repaired with laser rifles when it must share a few components with the laser pistol.

[HugePinball]

Hey palasprince - as you know from pm, I've done what I think you're looking for as far the repair function. I just finished up a demo video (fancier than it needs to be, but I just started playing with Movie Maker :)). Watch in HQ if you can:

 

 

We may use System 1 in some form for FOOK2. I think what you're looking for would be System 2.

 

As far as breaking down weapons, I've also got everything needed for that done too. We're introducing a vastly expanded scrapping system in FOOK2. I've created a "Field Salvage Kit" that allows you to break down weapons, armor, and some other junk items into new and existing junk and component parts. The only things that are not fully complete yet are a finalized list of new component parts, and complete lists of salvaged parts from all items. We'll also be adding the scrapping feature to workbenches as well, but we're not completely decided on when or how. There is more than enough done for a demo though, and I will try to get a video of that up a little later this evening.

 

 

I think what may be a good idea is that as the weapons condition decreases different parts of it 'fail' and to repair the gun you need to use those particular parts that have failed (although fail is probably too strong a word). I think that which part fails first should be random too so as not to be too linear.

That's a really good idea, but I suspect that it would be very tricky to do. Trying to track the health of multiple parts for each weapon and armor, and then requiring specific items to repair at different times is likely possible, but in my opinion would require too much effort to be worth the result. I'd also love to restrict the number of times you could repair a weapon with a particular type of junk/component item, but you'd be dealing with similar problems. If things were like Bioshock where there were only 5 or 6 kinds of weapons, and you only ever had one of each, it would be a different story.

[palasprince]

I did come up with an idea as far as degrding peieces of weapons...

 

Though I haven't experimented with it enough yet. Here's my idea, it would be hard to have a piece of a gun go bad, without doing some major modding. But if you could find the formula for how much a certain item gets repaired you could alter it.

 

Right now, the forumula looks probably something like this (at just a guess): CurrentWeaponCondition+(RepairSkill/100)=ImprovedWeaponCondtion

 

Where the Condition variables are between 0 and 1 (to be coverted to percentages). Obviously his is an extremely simplistic approach as having 50% repair doesn't repair an item half of it's maximum health but it'll do for arguments sake.

 

Now, suppose we factor in how recently an item had been repaired by a specific piece. It would require some scripting obviously but it would work something like this:

 

You repair an item, by replacing it's trigger. When you go to repair it further if you hover over the trigger it'll show that it'll add 0% durability by taking into account time passed. Say 12 hours later ou look to replace the trigger again, it would only repair half as much as replacing the trigger the firt time did. Another 12 hours pass and repairing the rigger has the full effect.

 

I think there's a way to do this with scripting, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. Some of you more experienced scripters have some input on that?

[palasprince]

It's still a fairly complicated approach because as you said there're so many guns in you're inventory at once keeping up with how long it ben so you repaired each one could be kinda rough... But I think it's at least easer than tracking 'health' of individual pieces inside a gun.

 

And nice video! Yeah that's one way that works great to do exactly what I wanted. I have some experiments going on to attempt a custom UI. I managed to get it to pull up a screen that looks like when you pres 'ESC' but with different options. I think in the XML I've found a way to add the list boxes and such, essentially copying the repair menu, but moving it outside of the Pip-Boy entirely. If I can get this working for sure I think it'd be neat to model the workbench and add an oscilloscope to each one, then when you activated it adict a sript that would move the camera and zoom in as if looking at the oscilloscope. But I don't know if theres a way to control the camera with scripts... surely there is.