The Long 15 (Advice sought)

[MyGoodEye]

Hey SayinNuthin... MyGoodEye here... WarZones author... poking around the forums with some spare time...

 

Couple of quick things for you:

 

1 - WarZones actually is NOT in a separate gamespace. The original entrance to Barstow was through the gates at the Mojave Outpost and a bit of a walk down the Long 15. When the DLC came out and utilized that exact area/gate for the Long 15, I moved some of Barstow "up" the map and had to add a door (to my chagrin)... but didn't change the description page graphic. In essence, most of Barstow is North of the Long 15.

 

2 - The Peaceful Coexistence mod is for use with the mod, Rust Town (http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/39454/?). Without Rust Town, the Peaceful Coexistence mod will crash on startup. The reason for Peaceful Coexistence is because Rust Town, if I recall correctly (it's been awhile), IS placed in the area directly south of the Long 15 and in some areas that Barstow covered (or, WAS placed in the middle of Barstow and I moved it south of 15, can't exactly recall). That isn't to say you shouldn't expand South of the Long 15 as you'd like, but just some potentially helpful info.

 

3 - The reason Barstow doesn't go South of the Long 15 is that the Pip-Boy map concludes somewhere around there. At the time, I "walked" the empty areas marking the Pip-Boy map "borders". Again, having been awhile, I don't remember exactly how far. I opted to allow all the new areas in WarZones to be accessible by walking and fast-travel on the Pip Boy - rather than new worldspaces which would have required a "door". My thinking at the time was that this allowed for a "seamless" experience as the player would walk around, hearing a battle in the deep distance and thereby drawing them towards it...

 

4 - Lore wise, this one is easy. Each new area in WarZones has a "story" - whether I spelled it out or not, there is a "point" (and reward) to each place. Barstow is, basically, a huge bombed out, fiend infested ruin of a city in which a Vertibird - loaded with goodies - has crash landed. The NCR are there attempting to get to these "goodies" before other factions - or you - can. There are a few NPCs throughout the game that speak about this. It is not exactly another "front" in the war, as I look at it.

 

5 - Pumping bullets, eh? Hahah... I readily admit that the goal of WarZones was to add a ton of combat with small regard for players who prefer a more "nuanced" experience.

 

- David

[SayinNuthin]

Thank you for your response MGE I guess the Barstow entrance load door threw me off. And as for Peaceful Coexistence I think I was that excited to 'finally' get to check the thing out (Nice job on the spawn control BTW) I didn't read carefully enough.

 

The Pip-Boy map is a hard limitation on developing all the DEM map they put into the game world. It's big, its VERY big. I set a character on [TCL] and left him running S-W while I watched a movie.. Then another and the DEM model abruptly ended after a couple of (jogging along) hours off the PB-map. I think they have a good proportion of California in there.. Could be wrong but that would make the thing a fair bit bigger than the United Kingdom.

 

I freely admit broad ignorance on the Lore stuff as I haven't played previous to F3 so I'm looking forward to properly playing Warzones as opposed to going in there checking out the real-estate. And next time I am playing tourist around your spectacular work, I'll try to remember to take my difficulty OFF very-hard... Which will probably save a mountain of ammo (Doh!)

 

Breathtaking, Epic work you are to be congratulated. If you don't mind me asking what are you doing at the moment? Other games, Skyrim or other endeavours entirely?

[MyGoodEye]

Thanks for the compliments!

 

Whether you play WARZONES or not, one thing I will absolutely recommend is that you use at least, the ENB BOOST function of ENB SERIES .249. ENBs can be found on the NEXUS. Most, if not all, "disable" in-game IMODs (ImageSpace Modifiers) which, in turn, can end up causing you to not see visual indicators like when you're poisoned or on drugs. They can be configured to allow the in-game IMODs (which I prefer so that I can use IMAGINATOR & DYNAVISION), but I honestly can't remember how to configure ENB for that (someone will know... probably an ENB designer).

 

That said, as I understand it, you can disable the ENB "effects" and the Memory Manager will still work as planned. Your system may not care for all the add'l effects anyway (then again, it might with the increased memory)... What Boris (the ENB author) did with extending the memory the game can access is brilliant.

 

NEW VEGAS ANTI-CRASH has been helpful for me as far as I can tell.

Also NEW VEGAS STUTTER REMOVER and, naturally, NVSE.

 

As to what I'm doing at the moment... well, my professional life has been quite busy!

 

This is the usual "quiet time" and I'm kind of getting the itch to revisit some of my mods (FNV and SKYRIM) to "finish" them off, update them and/or finally add some things that have been in the back of my mind for awhile...

 

This lurking around the forums is probably the beginnings of me convincing myself to "return" for a bit... hahah.

 

Whether I do or not is up to debate... and I frankly stopped being charmed by many of the Skyrim mod-users. After awhile, I was left wondering why I even bothered given the ignorance and hostility that was on display at that time. All I knew was that the mods I'd made had been great fun and a great challenge to me personally... and that they worked as planned on my system. It got tiring trying to configure everyone's individual needs in conjunction with the 200000 mods they all seemed to want to shoehorn into their game... given that I had increasing professional obligations, I opted to leave the modding hobby behind for awhile.

 

So, yeah, I still have professional obligations, but I will admit I've missed my modding-hobby.

 

- David

[SayinNuthin]

I'm using the Stutter-Remover but it was the 4Gb patch that's given me the new-lease on it, that's the biggie for me. I'm trying modding in FNV to work my way up to Skyrim and then 'Beyond Skyrim' which is a project of such breathtaking proportions I just want to do some of that, even if it's only some cups or something equally mundane.

 

But as soon as I looked in there I knew I was completely out of my depth... I couldn't even follow the conversations :confused: let alone ask sensible questions! So back to the Mojave for me and lets see if we can't get the basics of this stuff down. And it is fun. Today I built a stone arch through the mountains behind Doc Michell's house that leads to the empty wilderness out there. Put a deep pit surrounded by Juniper bushes (Hey, they are my Juniper bushes). Further out the body of someone who seems to have been fleeing a plane load of escaped convicts (Hope he likes sand). And way, way out started my Sad Hill Cemetery (Arch Stanton?... Yeah)

 

I found the palm trees in the lists so where shall I put the 'Big W'?...

 

Me, having a ball but seriously doubt one person in a hundred will get much out of what I'm producing here...

[MyGoodEye]

Hey man... the "point", as I see it, is that you have a ball. If anyone likes what you make, then that's great too! Keep it up! If you need anything, let me know. Feel free to PM.

Edit: Actually, you are welcome to PM, but maybe the discussion can help others, so you're also welcome to leave it right here or a new topic. Just alert me to it ;)

Edited June 27, 2014 by MGE

[SayinNuthin]

Hey, the one in a hundred turned up yesterday, he'd wandered through the outpost gates and started a 'what's all this empty space for' thread. I told him about your work but he also said he liked my idea of a desert with amusing things dotted about. It's a bit premature to be looking forward to my mod friend but thanks.

 

I'm only just up to the stage of poking things an trying to work out what it just did. I worked out not to make holes or lower the base mesh for instance, well you can but the game is just going to ignore anything you have done and fill the in again! I've worked out putting extra texture into the empty cells is going to be expensive unless I can wangle a way around it in, the regions menu perhaps?..

 

I've found the original TES CK helps are better for a complete novice as although it's for a different app it explains the How & Why something does what it does in a much more fundamental way than the GECK tutorials do. But mostly I've learned to copy/paste the version of the .esp you have just made to a separate location before you f**k with the landscape edit tools! 'cos the 'undo' doesn’t undo that stuff.

 

But given I'm using a really powerful tool on the actual FalloutNV base itself I could really do with a way to LOCK everything that I don't want to mess with such as the navmesh which is all too easy to accidentally grab and drag. (And EVERYTIME I do that I have to shut it all down without saving) Which is a good reason to go out and work in the wilderness beyond the game's invisible barriers. Unfortunately the Devs left the whole boundary a terrible mess with stuff not joined or blended and the LOD works fine that close to the gamespace so it looks dreadful. Which will all need cleaning and fixing 'cos it hits you in the eye all the way from the CA-NV border.

 

All good clean fun but I'll be bloody surprised if I don't have to reinstall the game by the time I've worked out how to do what I want to do - Working on the base world, Hell yes! Worst case scenario, low level format my work drive :laugh: which would justify all the paranoiac backing up I do.

 

Which raises the question of who's going to test this? A mod that changes large areas of the games base, by a complete novice..

You see I'd be all right with testing that, but then I'm paranoid and have EVERYTHING backed up. I don't have hundreds of interdependent mods running so I can drop a clean install in an hour or so. Perhaps one of you experienced modders should just look at it before I upload anything. That would be a weight off my mind, just look at it in your GECK and make sure I haven’t built the equivalent of the San Andreas fault letting go.

[SayinNuthin]

The Long-15 turns out to be so encumbered with lore (of which my understanding is incomplete) and other mods that I've pretty much given up on the location and built Columbia Pass and Sandy Valley road N.W of Goodsprings. And the dessert-mod idea has morphed into Movie-Sets-of-the-Mojave (though still has lots of empty dessert in it). So here's one of the almost complete locations, the best I can do with vanilla components and a screenshot inset of the original from the film.

 

The thing is I've basically no chance of learning what I'll need to do the interior and whole fight thing together, I've still got thousands of hectares of dessert to do, and quite a few more sets/scenes... Would anyone here be interested in doing it? And I can get on with graveyards, plane wrecks and my open spaces.

 

Now I'm being coy about exactly which movie that shot or set is from because if I or anyone else could get the interior together I'd post the mod and not spoil the surprise :devil: (but well done you if you spot it without having to look here). Needn’t be anything very clever, I had some wonderfully impractical setup ideas but I'd rather be out in the badlands playing with rocks than trying to work how to turn hookers into bloodsucking deathclaws so I'll settle for anything. Y'see this is just one of my locations, not even the central one, which is the Sad Hill Cemetery so I want to crack on.

 

Is there an etiquette to this, can I post it and just invite anyone to f**k about with it and see what they come up with? It's almost all vanilla so far...

Edited October 13, 2014 by SayinNuthin