Big Town - Crossroad Keep

[Face_Breaker]

Those of you who have played "Neverwinter Nights 2" will be familiar with Crossroad keep and how it significantly changed the game.

 

Basically, I was wondering what the odds were of seeing something similar to that in the style of Big Town. Lets face it. The kids are in a mess and it makes sense that they'd try to make their lives easier. Be it by fortifying or expanding, recruiting scavenging or patrolling.

 

These are the ideas I have for it (though most are based on NWN2):

 

*Player is becomes mayor assuming they rescued Red at least.

*Player is presented with a new pip-boy screen that highlights the status of Big Town (shows defences, morale, trade, citizens etc)

*Red acts as the "Kana" (officer that passes orders around) of this mod. So the player will talk to her more often.

 

*'Defence' of the town would simply be allowing the player to give Red a certain amount of caps in stages (100, 300, 700). When they give Red a set amount, the mod would change the fortifications of Big Town to something better than wooden boards (say Sandbags or Metal Fences etc)

 

*'Morale' would depend on several things. Namely how strong trade is (citizens get smokes and beer etc), population of Big Town, Attacked or not, living quality and so on.

 

*'Trade' would simply be including the Canterbury Commons traders in the town to do trade. If the player gets all traders there, the amount of supplies that come in affect morale, quality of living and whatever else.

 

*'Citizens' would be a strangee one. As a mayor, the player has the right to tell his citizens what to do and bend them to his/her will. So one thing would be that if the player wanted more people in big town, they would have to pay to expand the towns borders. (Any other upgrades done (like better walls) would automatically carry over to the extended town.) Also, the mayor would be able to group citizens into different tasks based on their abilities. Say if three citizens were skilled with small arms, then they'd either be scavangers or guards. Or say if three of them are skilled at 'Repair' then they act as traders or work to improve the living quality.

 

I know these ideas are pretty rough but I remember thoroughly enjoying being the Captain of Crossroad Keep and when I first wandered into Big Town I though "Man, a Crossroad keep version of this would great". Unfortunatley, my modding skills are terrible and I would have no idea how to begin. But, if there's someone out there who knows what needs doing, by all means give it a go.

 

Other than that, thoughts?

[Rossum]

There is the Real Time Settler mod that lets a player start their own settlement, though it doesn't let you control pre-existing characters like the ones in Big Town.

 

Also, the RobCo Certified mod that lets you repair broken robots, have them follow you, and then order them to wait in a spot where you drop them off. This could be used to just drop off more robot guards in Big Town to protect the people there (if any more attacks come after you finish the quest).

 

 

Anyway, if there was a mod that allows you to take command of Big Town then here are a few ideas:

 

 

1. train the population in multiple ways of defense, like setting up a minefield and then having robots behind that, and then have everyone in town carry a gun and keep up their stealth training.

 

The Minefield would be set up in that area in front of the bridge or around other areas if the town expands. A computer terminal would be set up to allow you to remotely arm or disarm all the mines (so they could have the minefield set up in front of the town, an intercom would be placed out there so people can talk into it, and if the visitor is friendly then the guy in charge deactivates the minefield with the terminal so they can come through). If mines are detonated then the town would replace them during regular maintenance.

 

The Robots could either be constructed by a robotics expert in the town or they have a deal with Tinker Joe to buy robots from him. If you have the RobCo Certified mod then maybe it could be made so that you can donate or sell robots to the town to help guard it.

 

Every once in a while you can arrange a shooting contest where everyone in town competes to see how good a shot they are (or maybe a hunting contest). This boosts morale and helps keep everyone trained in guns.

 

Maybe a giant Hide-and-seek contest as well to train their sneak skills. This trains sneak and boosts morale, kind of reminding them of their days in Little Lamplight.

 

Or maybe a BB gun tournament where everyone gets BB guns and hunts each other. If a person gets even scratched then they are out of the game and the last person left wins... they use BB guns since its very unlikely that anyone will get killed from a BB shot and they don't have paintball guns.

 

 

2. You work to establish trade with Little Lamplight. In exchange for the Big Town members bringing in supplies, they get some Cave Fungus which is good to get rid of radiation and can use to trade with the caravans. They keep this thing a secret since they know its best to not bring 'Mungo' attention to Lamplight.

 

With enough science and medicine knowledge, you learn how to set up a fungus farm in Big Town. You fertilize the fungus with various meats but Strange Meat (or human flesh) works the best. Depending on how unethical you want to be you might get the residents of Big Town to pack up their guns and robots, head into Paradise Falls and slaughter all the slavers there (with your help), harvest all their flesh, and come back to feed the fungus vats to get a veritable bounty of precious radiation-cleansing cave fungus.

 

Oddly enough, once Big Town starts growing Cave Fungus then raiders and thieves might try attacking it to get the valuable commodity, the raiders get creamed by the defenses and then Big Town collects the corpses and feeds the Fungus vats that are making them wealthy.

 

Put Bittercup in charge of running the fungus farm.

 

 

Player: Hey dad, you spent all these years building a giant water purifier just so you can cart water around on Brahmin to give to people for free? Well I just discovered an awesome naturally growing fungus that cures radiation in people... and I set it up in like two weeks tops, and its fueled by the flesh of raiders and slavers, and I'm getting freaking rich off of it! All the evils of this wasteland come to my home to die and feed my wealth with their own corpses! Muh HAHAHAAHAAA!!

 

Colonel Autumn: Ahem, we demand that you turn over control of this... cave fungus growing facility to the Enclave and that you assist our scientists in its operation.

 

Player: Heh heh heh... *sharpens Shish-kebab*

[Face_Breaker]

I like it!

[Face_Breaker]

One thing that worries me about this is that when the player pays for upgrades to the Big Town buildings (fences, watch towers etc), it means the game will ahve to automatically put these structures into place after a certain amount of time/ I'm no modder. but something tells me that doing that could cause a lot of crashes or riddle the game with bugs. Anyone like to correct me?

[Rossum]

One thing that worries me about this is that when the player pays for upgrades to the Big Town buildings (fences, watch towers etc), it means the game will ahve to automatically put these structures into place after a certain amount of time/ I'm no modder. but something tells me that doing that could cause a lot of crashes or riddle the game with bugs. Anyone like to correct me?

 

 

I'm not a modder but I know that the game has numerous instances where there are changes to the areas (but they are always done when the player isn't there). Like the Megaton crater if you blow up Megaton, Tenpenny tower during the ghoul invasion (the interior changes to a destroyed building when the ghouls are attacking, I haven't stuck around with that saved game but I know that the place is still wrecked for a while after you finish killing the residents inside and I suspect that after a few days the ghouls clean the place up to live in it. But I haven't tested that.) so yeah, as long as the player isn't in the area when the change is made then you can add all sorts of stuff to the game and it won't cause problems. In fact the Real Time Settler mod lets you place buildings and objects easily without having to leave the area... though it does break immersion to move stairs and stuff around to place them.

 

 

(on a random side-note, I did the Tenpenny tower invasion thing a few times, the first time I killed Roy right after unlocking the door for the feral ghouls and ran inside without the ghoul mask and with five RobCo Certified protectrons with me. It was kind of amusing to see wave after wave of ghouls rushing into the tower only to get shot down by my robot minions while the residents of Tenpenny Tower were cowering in fear but ultimatly safe since the ghouls couldn't get past my robots. If I was a nefarious mastermind then it would have been my plan to kill of Roy and his gang, kill a huge number of ferals that I would have had to hunt otherwise, and use the whole thing to look like a hero to the residents of the Tower by making them think that Roy had opened that hatch himself somehow. Plus, if could convince the residents about how great robot guards are then I could sell them robots and they could afford them. But since the waves of ferals were unending then failure was the only option because all the piles of corpses was slowing down my computer... plus all the tenpenny guards insisted on fighting as well and eventually ran out of bullets and started punching at them... and dying horribly for no good reason since my robots were doing just fine at wiping out the ghouls.)

[Face_Breaker]

Good point. I've not tried the Real Time Settler Mod but jusdging by what I'm asking for I think it'd make sense to check it out. I suppose instead of having to be away from the area whilst upgrades are done, you could just wait for 12 hours on the spot whilst the work is done then have it suddenly appear once the waiting screen dissappears.

Dya reckon if I asked the makers of the Real Time Settler Mod to have a go at this they'd tryi it? From what you've told me about this mod of theirs, it's already a good start.