Carry weight - a mere nuisance?

[avv]

I've noticed that carry weight serves only the role of a nuisance or retardant for player's economic progress. It may restrict the ammount of equipment and loot a player can carry, but so what? The player can always fast travel to his stash or shop and then return where he was. It just takes time to go back and forth but spending time isn't challenging. Because of this, I always set my cw to about 100k. Why wouldn't I because otherwise I'd just haul stuff via fast travel, upping cw just saves me from boring travelling. Having high cw and being able to sell everything quickly makes the player rich very fast and game starts to lack challenge even with very hard difficulty and EN1. I had hoped that the food system would prevent excessive fast travelling but it appears food and water are plently in the wasteland and hunger/thirst are absolutely nothing to worry about.

 

So I'm wondering if there's any mod or mod combination out there that really challenges the player's economic and survival skills?

[pjz]

It's a staple of pretty much all RPGs and imo it's extremely forgiving as it is - it wouldn't be terribly practical to carry a thousand rounds of ammunition, multiple rifles and pistols, and a month's worth of food even for an ultra-fit person, and in Fallout (and pretty much all RPGs) you can do it with minimal strength. You're not even affected until you're carrying over your max (even with 1 strength I think this is 150 pounds). The whole concept of weight would have to be redesigned from the bottom up to give you what you're looking for, and the Long Haul perk would need to be removed. I haven't seen a mod that does this, although I've never actually looked for such a thing. TBH I don't really understand what you're asking for, if you wanted hardcore mode to be more hard core but are also willing to ignore carry limit - nothing wrong with that, just utterly contradictory to each other. Set your max carry weight to 20 pounds or less, with 5 strength, before you become encumbered and you'd at least be in the ballpark of the real world.

[avv]

TBH I don't really understand what you're asking for, if you wanted hardcore mode to be more hard core but are also willing to ignore carry limit - nothing wrong with that, just utterly contradictory to each other.

 

What I'm looking for is a gaming experience where the challenges related to enomics and survival (food&water&sleep) were dynamically implemented with the rest of the gameflow (questing and exploring). The way I see it, hardcore isn't about grinding and fighting against boresome tasks, but more challenge to the wits. I wish the game could maintain the challenge level the player feels the moment he starts the game.

 

Set your max carry weight to 20 pounds or less, with 5 strength, before you become encumbered and you'd at least be in the ballpark of the real world.

 

Then I'd just fast travel more and spent time on repetitive walking. Say I run out of ammo, I'll just go fetch more from my safehouse even if it meant walking through all floors of vault 22 while overburdened. It's just time. Spending time isn't challenging and I want to spend my gaming time solving challenges, not killing time by walking through empty corridors.

[Alastair91]

Try these out:

 

No Fast Travel

 

IMCNNV - Imps More Complex Needs

 

Puce Moose Tweak and Balance Center

 

As for carrying weight, it can be easily done with GECK. You may request Puce Moose to create a seperate esp for weight, I'm sure he's willing and up for it.

Edited December 3, 2010 by Heyy_Adrian

[avv]

Try these out:

 

IMCNNV - Imps More Complex Needs

 

Puce Moose Tweak and Balance Center

 

Hey thanks man, those mods seem really promising. They seem to include some badass features which are hopefully going to to keep the player on his toes all the time.

[pjz]

I wish the game could maintain the challenge level the player feels the moment he starts the game.

 

This challenge early on exists because you don't have gobs of stuff. If you have infinite carry limit, you will collect gobs of stuff and there goes your challenge. If being required to carry a larger variety of gobs of stuff will add challenge for you, have fun I guess :)

[secksegai]

The biggest challenge in this Fallout version for me is acquiring a silenced sniper rifle and meeting the ideal use requirements. It's all downhill from there.

 

In other words, equipment acquisition is a primary difficulty factor. What makes the beginning such a challenge is the sheer fact that the player can't kill everything with a nearly broken varmint rifle or 9mm, or laser pistol. While carry weight is a nuisance, it serves an important purpose. I find it somewhat irritating to hear someone complaining about carry weight when the game does quite a bit to streamline the process. Looting the dead, especially after a larger battle is a time consuming process. Peeling clothing/armor off the dead alone is an unplesant and lengthy process that the game breaks down to a matter of an instant. It also doesn't make sense that someone would want to buy 50 burned books when it would be very likely that said vendor could acquire better fire fuel for cheaper, and the same thing applies for a large number of other junk items. Why should a vendor purchase something that no one else in the game-world would find a use for?

 

Also, in regards to carry weight, the cost of time is also a major factor. Being a major packrat myself, a lot of the stuff I pickup is really a waste of time, but I have the habit of collecting weapons, clothing and armor that I never plan on using, like a set of each legion armor fully repaired, when I may use one once if at all during an entire playthrough.

 

For the dynamic you seem to be seeking, you're basically needing just about everything to be deadlier, so one possible avenue is looking at mods that make weapons more effective and/or nerfing of protection. For example, if a group of fiends are now crack shots and their weapons are in perfect condition (as opposed to nearly broken like normal), the likelihood that they'll shoot your head off in a direct engagement makes even them a deadly foe. Cazadors and deathclaws could even be one hit killers depending on their damage or if the player's life has been adjusted. You're better off running a mod that adjusts life versus running low endurance for the sake of perks. Of course, death by bloatfly is pretty pathetic....

[Park77]

Also, in regards to carry weight, the cost of time is also a major factor. Being a major packrat myself, a lot of the stuff I pickup is really a waste of time, but I have the habit of collecting weapons, clothing and armor that I never plan on using, like a set of each legion armor fully repaired, when I may use one once if at all during an entire playthrough.

 

Haha, my packrat ways always get me into trouble. I horde bullets, guns, and armor so that I can sell it to vendors I have a good reputation with (because my barter is weak)

 

I finally took it upon myself to stuff all my various faction apparel in my Novac house, but it wasn't easy. Although at least in NV I didn't get into the habit of grabbing every teddy bear I saw.

 

I don't know what I'd do without my pack mules....erm...companions