Wasteland Soup [mod-in-progress]

[Soupstorm]

It is here that I announce Wasteland Soup (tentative title), a mod aiming to bring full-scale wasteland simulation to New Vegas, from faction battles to biological systems. The planned changes for this mod are vast and deep, but for the first release, they will be constrained to the following:

 

Malevolent Wasteland

The Mojave Desert will now be more than just an ugly face. Environmental damage effects will now be applied to all NPCs not in Shelter. When you are not in Shelter, your equipped weapons and apparel are damaged by the wasteland environment. Among other things, it also affects your Sleep; resting anywhere but a nice bed sheltered indoors will decrease the maximum SLP that can be attained.

 

SPECIAL Changes

To better reflect your potential for growth and change as a human being, the SPECIAL system will see the following settings:

- Level Cap: 60

- New Character skill points: 100

 

On Level Up:

- Reassign 1 SPECIAL (odd levels)

- Reassign 5 Skill Points (odd levels)

- Add Skill Points: 15

- Add Perk (even levels)

in that order.

 

In addition, the SPECIAL effects on stats and vice-versa will undergo an overhaul.

 

I am upgrading my computer later today, after which I will reinstall FNV and start working on this.

[frank lee]

An interesting idea however the weapons (firearms) degradation is already ridiculous and arbitrary. Guns have NOT lost measurable accuracy and performance after a couple of clips since long before clips were invented! Not in the worst conditions imaginable with overcharged handload ammo could you degrade your firearms so quickly. If you'd spent a busy week (no time to clean) crawling through a swamp in south east Asia, with 30 year old ammo your gun will probably jam and possibly blow you hand off but it won't degrade the way it does in computer games.

If you are working on realism you might want to look some of this stuff up, good luck.

[RZ1029]

If you can make guns jam, though, that would be realistic... sort of. Since most of the weaponry (conventional ballistic only) is similar/identical to weapons used currently or in the past, most of which ARE prone to jamming when filled with sand. Case in point, the M16s were infamous for their issues, both in Vietnam and now in Iraq, from what I understand. Similarly, though, I imagine just about any gun would be susceptible to similar issues in that much sand. That being said... that much sand doesn't accrue in short amounts of time. Say, a month or two out in the desert, I could see it needing a good sand purge. However, I do like the idea of jamming on occasion, if that's doable.

 

NOTE: I am NOT military, more of a gun nut, and amateur historian.

 

EDIT: Also, this is just my own opinion. I know there are probably plenty of people like 'yeah, sure, up the challenge some, bring it on'. It's not my thing, personally, though I think anything you put work into will give you results.

Edited December 8, 2010 by RZ1029

[frank lee]

I like the idea of the desert being hostile, but people are more vulnerable than machines. A machine wont get frostbite at 2am because the night time temperature has plummeted at a rate you have to experience to understand (something to do with the dry air) and loads of stuff along those lines. Could you use the drug transitions to produce sunstroke? Shelter in the middle of the day and night, dawn and dusk being 'safe' to exert yourself? There is a sandstorm mod (in here somewhere) now that could jam a gun pretty swiftly.

Soup is a nice concept for sure.

[Soupstorm]

@franklee: I feel that weapons in NV should degrade at a far higher rate than modern weapons. Any gun in the NV universe is either five centuries old or manufactured without any real industry guiding the process. Guns will degrade slowly overall, but repair items and pristine weapons are accordingly rare and very expensive.

 

I'm planning on either incorporating the Ambient Temperatures mod or scripting my own simplified version of it, to guide Wasteland effects like you mentioned. Exerting yourself during the day causes increased H2O/FOD/SLP depletion and item damage, while making the same journey at night offers lowered H2O/FOD rates (though a higher SLP rate) and little to no item damage, weather and radiation pockets permitting.

 

@RZ: Jamming is also a planned inclusion. A hugely increased rate during stormy weather, a moderately-increasing rate with progressive deterioration, and 0 base jamming after a certain level of item health (say, 90% for now). The rate will also be increased depending on the types of damage the player receives. Taking melee, explosive, or certain environmental damage will severely degrade weapons and items, and might also provide a huge temporary boost in the victim's jam rate for about 1 second. On top of many other things, it'll help give melee combat a reason to be used once my damage model is implemented.

Edited December 9, 2010 by Soupstorm

[frank lee]

@franklee: I feel that weapons in NV should degrade at a far higher rate than modern weapons. Any gun in the NV universe is either five centuries old or manufactured without any real industry guiding the process. Guns will degrade slowly overall, but repair items and pristine weapons are accordingly rare and very expensive.

 

Except for the ones manufactured by the 'Gun-Runners' and any you've crafted yourself, Alice McLafferty intimates that CC wants into the market, Then there's the Van Graffs. The latter opens the questions why an energy weapon with possibly no moving parts??? would degrade at anything like the rate of a firearm. . .

 

You might find this interesting

 

Firearms maintenance forum

 

The penultimate poster reports over 2000 rounds between cleaning with no problems

( I really wouldn't recommend this if you own a gun!)

[RZ1029]

You're right, but I'd also like to point out that I doubt that guy was wandering through a desert constantly dodging gunfire, explosives, and being mugged by legionnaires. Similarly, the quality of ammunition will definitely change how often I clean a gun, personally. If I shoot some real cheap-o .22 I bought, instead of match-grade, I'll clean it after I shoot. If I am shooting match grade, I might wait a week or two before I clean it, since I shoot three/four times a week.

 

On the other hand, all weapons perform differently. For example, Kel Tec pistols like lithium grease instead of oil. Revolvers don't usually need to be cleaned as often, due to simpler mechanisms. A military-grade weapon should (theoretically...) perform better than the civilian variant and last longer before needing a cleaning/repair/stripping.

 

Back to topic at hand, though.

@Soup I actually like the sound of that. It'll be interesting to see how that plans out, and if it's POSSIBLE (Not a pro modder, I'm still working on my first mod) it would be interesting to see a variable rate of decay based upon the individual weapon. Say you get a Service Rifle, that thing's old as nuclear fallout and would fall to pieces pretty quickly. Whereas, say, an All-American would be better-built and preserved, because it's not been subject to the weather and stale air doesn't hurt a gun. (Ok... not for the most part, I know there's technicalities, but that's beside the point.)

 

EDIT: Also, I would suggest coupling this with the tent mod available here on the NV Nexus, to provide a practical way to 'wait out' the storm/night/etc.

Edited December 9, 2010 by RZ1029

[Soupstorm]

As of about an hour ago, I'm finally getting around to starting this mod! So far I have done this:

 

-----special/stats

- Carry weight changed to 30 + 3*STR

- Set levels per perk to 1

- Set health bonus per level, endurance to 0 (PC and NPC)

- Set skill points per level to 10

- Set all base skills to 0

- Set all SPECIAL skill bonuses to 0

- Set tag bonus to 10

 

-----rates

- Set base dehydration from 10 to 75sec/tick (~3.5days before death)

- Set base starvation from 25 to 150sec/tick (~7 days before death)

 

I'm trying to figure out how to collapse the base number of starting skill points to 80, and change the game timescale to 6 hours per day, but I don't know where to look. I know the first has something to do with the core SPECIAL stats but I can't figure out which of the dozens of settings they'd be. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Edited December 24, 2010 by Soupstorm

[HeavyHandz]

I like the idea of the wasteland itself causing status penalties. For now though, you need to revise those carry weight statistics though unless you plan on integrating backpacks that increase carry weight. You mean to tell me I can't lift and carry something that's 61 pounds? Or carry around a full combat pack? Something more like carry weight 50 + (10*STR). I like the idea of revising the point distribution.

 

For future builds, maybe some kind of increased hydration and nutrient burn with increased exhaustion when you carry above a certain weight dependent on endurance could be added (as well as that increased exertion during the day you're already including). I think it would be great to implement Imp's More Complex Needs in addition to Ambient Temperature. The weapon degradation thing would be greatly benefited by weapon specific degradation like RZ1029 mentioned and modified ammunition values as well. You might want to consider making weapon cleaning kits, kind of like what Earache had in his FO3 mod. These would reduce jams if used properly. You could elaborate on the weapon repair system by making, parts of the gun break rather than the whole gun, but I couldn't tell you how possible this is with the game engine. For instance, the barrel conditions (among others) on the older 19th century pattern weapons would be piss poor, especially when found on Fiends, so therefore they would suffer an accuracy penalty. You could make the "service rifle" just jam all the time hahaha. Even modern rifles with direct impingment systems constantly fail to cycle after about 500 rounds without cleaning them. I think those directed energy weapons should suffer catastrophic failures if not properly maintained, especially if they are used in the heat of the Mojave. Think about how sensitive the optics would be to kinetic shock and environmental conditions. Because they are powered by mini nuclear reactors, I think it would be plausible if the weapons had a chance to explode if hit by a stray round.

 

That's a lotta crap to add but hey I'm sure you'd make a lot of the realism/gun nuts on here happy, myself included. Let me know if you like any of these ideas, I got a whole book of those.

[Soupstorm]

Everything is up in the air right now. I only just started learning the GECK tonight, it's going to be a few days before this mod looks like it makes sense.

 

The encumbrance model is going to be reconstructed. Depending on your strength, 34-61 pounds is when your belongings start to interfere with your movement and combat effectiveness.

 

Firearms, ammo, food, water, repair items, and caps are going to be much less common. Combined with the new encumbrance and needs models, choosing between a gecko on a stick and a grenade will actually matter. No more piling twenty Brahmin steaks in your backpack and still managing to have room for a dozen handguns. Weapons, projectile weapons in particular, and energy weapons especially, are going to see a major overhaul. Energy weapons will handle their ammo in a somewhat clip-like manner, among other things. As ammo is scarce, and accordingly more expensive, firing your weapon will be a much more meaningful action. Missing one shot, in dire situations, could mean the difference between scavenging for food and getting a Radscorpion stinger through the chest. Enemies will also be more careful and measured in their shots, and will deplete their own ammo. I hope, at some point, to have some sort of economy simulator that helps manage the supply and demand of ammunition and other expendable items.

 

[edit] Changelog so far:

 

Max Level: 61

Tag skill bonus: 20

XP per level: 800+100x

Skill Points per level: 15

Levels per Perk: 1

 

Carry weight: 30 + 5*STR

 

Base dehydration: 75sec/tick (~3.5days before death w/ timescale)

Base starvation: 150sec/tick (~7 days before death w/ timescale)

 

Cone of Fire: 0.8-0.0075(GUNS)

Edited December 25, 2010 by Soupstorm