Custom Weapons, Energy Projectiles and Projectile Characteristics

[GimmeBackMyMoney]

I'm new to modding, but for fun, I want to add a few weapons unique weapons based (NOT ported) on a few from the FEAR franchise. Before doing real work on this, I'm trying to become familiar with all the required tools - Blender, GECK, GIMP and the various requires plug-ins, converters and whatnot. I've seen some YouTube videos on how to add custom weapons and modify certain parameters, and I'm reading some of the tutorials in the FAQ.

 

I wanted to ask about continuous projectiles for energy weapons (lasers and the tesla beam). Say I wanted to add a lightning beam; would I have to create the mesh using a program like Blender and add additional animations, and then import it into Fallout 3, adding the NIF to the projectiles subfolder (which based on what I've read, is a cumbersome process)?

 

Finally, I want to know if it's possible to program these characteristics with FOSE:

* The lightning beam curves towards an NPC, even if the player aims slightly off

* The lightning beam splits and bounces off the target, homing onto nearby targets but doing less damage

* The beam always stays connected to the gun, even if the player suddenly turns after firing the weapon at a target

 

I know that one existing weapon works in a similar fashion, and it might be a starting point to edit its projectile and weapon model, but if I could add these unique characteristics, and program the splash damage to represent split lightning arcs homing onto nearby targets, it wouldn't just be awesome, but it would give me some scripting practice too. Ultimately, I want to add a miniquest that lets the player obtain schematics and parts to modify the existing weapon and give it this capability, but with a different model from the original FEAR game (due to rules that disallow importing of models from other games).

 

It's not a very original idea, but it's a start, and covers a few areas in modding. It wouldn't be lore unfriendly either, since advanced energy weapons are a thing of the Fallout world, but I'm mostly doing this for practice. Although the FAQ has information, I want to know if anyone else has any tips or starting points for what I want to do?