Sunset Sarsaparilla's Wild Wild West World

[devinpatterson]

Sorry for the late response I got sucked into skyrim. I'm not really a fantasy type guy (post apocalyptic fiction always appealed to me much more), but skyrim is huge. In fact I liked it so much I bought oblivion (it's on sale on steam for $5, $6 with expansions....until the 17th I think)

 

I just hit this post reading through and almost spewed coffee all over my comp. *chuckles* I've been thinking about how awesome something like that with the pip-boys would be since I first played Fallout 3! Really hope this idea is part of the final package. Thrilled with everything I'm seeing about this mod! (calling it a mod seems cheap since just the vague outline is already seems like more content than HH or LR)

 

I know right? I mean the pipboy is a solid piece of fallout lore, it seems strange that the only variation in FO3/NV is a pimp boy. A (huge) missed opportunity in my opinion. I enjoy mods that expand and detail fallouts universe, making it richer. Plus this lets us introduce new tech based perks and game mechanics, then tie them to the fallout universe seamlessly.

 

And there is a lot of possibilities, my post just touched on them. If people have other ideas we'll certainly try to implement them, so don't hesitate to post.

 

 

 

I see a fun way to play with this multiple personality aspect as well. At certain points whenever the MF is speaking (once you have voices going, or even in text bracketed off ) a different voice interupting with a word or short phrase. Somewhat like the group conversations with the think tank when they all speak through Klien, or for those of you who are or were comic geeks, like the Fog was depicted when he was in Doom Patrol as a member of the Brotherhood of Dada. (In his fog form he absobed other people and then got left with them as voices in his head forever, and they often interrupted him. Arguing with him or each other.)

 

Yeah that sounds like a good idea, and easy to implement, thanks :thumbsup:

[devinpatterson]

can't wait to see this mod put up

 

Thanks gunslinger6792, I took a little hiatus thanks to skyrim, games like crack. But I hope to return to the job Sat. Need to finish up modeling the heavy weapons protectron for robco HQ, and that will probably be the last or almost last custom/new content for chp 1. Then it should just be putting the pieces together (not this coming weekend but hopefully by the weekend after).

[thrill606]

I'm really looking forward to this mod, and plan on downloading it when it's released.

[greenknightfury]

I'v been wrestling with a question ever since I got the protectron MK II's working;

What will be the androids role in sunset park?

 

They're not very lore friendly otherwise I'd have them in every public area of the park. The MKII protectrons can do almost everything the androids can do except change attire on the fly (not a big deal, it's hardly essential to swap hats in a firefight). They do require new modeling for attire though, so that's a chunk of work yet to be done.

 

At this point in time I'm inclined to relegate them to the backseat. With only a handful of actual androids (a sherrif, a outlaw/villan, bronco bills companion etc), in deference to lore. But in the end the mod is for the players and I'd like to know how people feel. Do you want to stick with gun toting, western protectrons? Do you prefer androids so the towns look like a real western or do you want a mix of both?

 

Let me know so I can start preparing for the 2nd mod, where these actors arrive on stage.

 

I'd say that the parts of the park that are already supposed to be the kind of 'living history' total immersion effect should definitely be almost(if not all) completely the androids. Since they would be by far more expensive (though a lot cheaper than human actors, one time purchase/manufacture cost instead of salary and benefits) they would be pretty much all there..although like you said certain notable characters of the park would be them to make them more real to the visitors..for the bulk of the park the gunslinger protectrons and eyebot cowpokes are perfectly fine.

[greenknightfury]

Futurama-talking heads in Robot bodies?

YYEEEEEESSSSS!!!!

definitely Futurama reference is possible in there haha

Dunno if it could/would be implemented into the mod but I'd love to see real heads instead of the screen on securitrons, and maybe even have one that hasn't become feral, just stupid, so conversation would be limited to "uurrghh...ahmaama... bwoooo *he/she begins drooling*" would be great to find it as the head of the board, surrounded by pre-war money haha :P

 

I'd make something of concept art from splicing NV pictures, but no photo software

 

What I think would be even better (i.e. more amusing/disturbing) would be a belljar like dome with the head in it atop the "shoulders" of a slightly smaller-scaled Securitron (scaled to human size, since a regular sized securitron can't fit through a normal sized door..as a mod showed me with it's securitron follower heh). That would also make it much more ripe for the Futurama reference humor, a nod to Nixon running around mounted on Bender's body.

 

Heeeeyyyyyyy....maybe a protectron body with the belljar where it's normal head would be...basically replaceing the grillwork like section with just glass showing the head inside the tank that that would create!

Edited November 20, 2011 by greenknightfury

[greenknightfury]

I just had some ideas run through my head for the pip-boy gainable abilities:

 

1.) A -silent- radio, so you can finally listen to the radio and stealth around if you want (not exactly an essential thing but definitly makes sense...can we all say wireless headphones? since all their electricity is broadcast to electrical devices why would the tesla ideal stop there?).

 

2.) A device that let's you create fast travel locations (i'd think three would be ideal but at least one saved set of coordinates).

 

3.) A "bloodscrubber" device which would be able to remove all rads/cure all addictions/remove poison (preferably taking several hours gametime to do it as if you had just slept/waited through it and taking an equal number of hours to reuse it...or limiting it to once a day use).

 

4.) A reprogramming tool to allow you to reprogram turrets/bots to make them the players faction, so that they will ignore you or your followers, but attack anyone hostile to you.

 

5.) A recharger that will let you to slowly recharge any drained energy weapon ammo over time.

 

 

So what do you guys think?

Edited November 21, 2011 by greenknightfury

[greenknightfury]

EDIT: Dammit double posted on me. Edited November 21, 2011 by greenknightfury

[devinpatterson]

I'm really looking forward to this mod, and plan on downloading it when it's released.

 

Thanks thrill606. If there is anything you'd like to see in the mod, let us know.

[devinpatterson]

I'd say that the parts of the park that are already supposed to be the kind of 'living history' total immersion effect should definitely be almost(if not all) completely the androids. Since they would be by far more expensive (though a lot cheaper than human actors, one time purchase/manufacture cost instead of salary and benefits) they would be pretty much all there..although like you said certain notable characters of the park would be them to make them more real to the visitors..for the bulk of the park the gunslinger protectrons and eyebot cowpokes are perfectly fine.

 

Great minds think alike :biggrin:

 

 

What I think would be even better (i.e. more amusing/disturbing) would be a belljar like dome with the head in it atop the "shoulders" of a slightly smaller-scaled Securitron (scaled to human size, since a regular sized securitron can't fit through a normal sized door..as a mod showed me with it's securitron follower heh). That would also make it much more ripe for the Futurama reference humor, a nod to Nixon running around mounted on Bender's body.

Heeeeyyyyyyy....maybe a protectron body with the belljar where it's normal head would be...basically replaceing the grillwork like section with just glass showing the head inside the tank that that would create!

 

Well the securitron with the jar would be relatively easy to do. The protectron with an jar bigger than the dome is trickier. I'm working on a wild wasteland mod, part of that mod is a robby the protectron (after robby the robot). What you can do is smooth out the ridges in the front, and seperate/split the part of the top of the chasis from the rest of the torso. It's not a distinct vertex group so you have to (or at leas I have to) painstakingly select it vertex by vertex. I still have to figure out the specular and other lighting properties, possibly change the material properties(?) to glass and change the texture. That way the glass all matches. I changed the alpha on it, but it's still dark because it's using the original protectron texture. The texture will probably have to wait until I finish the masks (in gimp), which is also what I'll use for a lot of the sunset protectron re-textures. Right now I only have the chest/thorax mask done (for COP-30's bullet proof vest). but this gives you an idea of the part that can be separated. For Robby I'd put a bunch of gears and electronics in that area, for your idea a head goes in there;

 

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/3891/robbyf.jpg

 

 

 

I just had some ideas run through my head for the pip-boy gainable abilities:

 

1.) A -silent- radio, so you can finally listen to the radio and stealth around if you want (not exactly an essential thing but definitly makes sense...can we all say wireless headphones? since all their electricity is broadcast to electrical devices why would the tesla ideal stop there?).

 

2.) A device that let's you create fast travel locations (i'd think three would be ideal but at least one saved set of coordinates).

 

5.) A recharger that will let you to slowly recharge any drained energy weapon ammo over time.

 

So what do you guys think?

 

Did not even know about the radio, I never really listen to it so wasn't aware it screwed up stealth....makes sense though.

Interesting idea on the fast travel and drained weapon ammo. Maybe by using a fission battery to charge the combat/security pipboy it could restore ecp's and mf's.

While I like the fast travel idea, what do you imagine, would be the in game/lore explanation for it?

 

3.) A "bloodscrubber" device which would be able to remove all rads/cure all addictions/remove poison (preferably taking several hours gametime to do it as if you had just slept/waited through it and taking an equal number of hours to reuse it...or limiting it to once a day use).

 

4.) A reprogramming tool to allow you to reprogram turrets/bots to make them the players faction, so that they will ignore you or your followers, but attack anyone hostile to you.

 

I do have two pipboy variants very similar to the couple you listed above;

 

The medical one can have (with upgrades) several medically related abilities; living anatomy perk (you see all living opponents health on your hud), health/rad/addiction/cripple regeneration, auto stim and other auto injectables (ie below 20% get a dose of psycho if you havn't run out etc). For hardcore mode it will also regenerate other stats (ie sleep, food etc) as long as it's stocked, and it can be used as a workbench for medicine & consumable only (due to it's chemical analysis circuitry) recipes with the correct addon module. In addition there may be some instances in the mod where a life may only be saved with hte medical pipboy.

 

Which plays into "food pills". Food pills were a sort of little piece of americana in the 50's. In the same way that people in the 50's thought science would provide flying cars in the near future, there was also the belief in a complete balanced meal in a pill. Well things may have turned out differently in reality, but it fits in well with the fallout universe and it's lore. They will heal the same amount and speed as other meals, but are weightless. So they'r nothing amazing, but a fun little bit of atmosphere for sunset.

 

The technician/engineer pipboy can have (with upgrades) several abilities such as; allows you to disable as per Robotics Expert perk, acquire robotic followers (in addition to placeable/portable turrets), shows living anatomy on robotic only opponents, increases to hacking, etc. In addition some terminals can only be hacked with the tech pipboy.

 

A very interesting aspect I'm currently working on is remote control, being able to actually see and act through a robot. This initially stated out as a mini quest in the mod. You would fly a eyebot through the reactor ducts to disable safety protocols from inside the reactor itself. As you fly through you have to zap other security eybots with your trusty eyebot laser and engage in a eyebot on eyebot battle royale. But later I thought it would be cool to be able to control other bots from protectrons to security bots. It's only in the initial stages at the moment. And even if I can get it working reliably it wouldn't be included until the later chapters (after the villa). But I thought it would be an interesting game mechanic.

 

This might be a good place to mention some basic concepts I have been trying to keep in mind for the park. One of these is that I'd like there to be three ways to approach the park. 1. Combat, pretty self explantory, you kill anything that moves. 2. Stealth, once again pretty straight forward. By flying under the radar you avoid the heavy weapon protectrons and other challenging targets.

 

3. Now the interesting one, the technicians/robotics path. This involves using science and your wits to achieve your goals. Hacking, jury rigging and science based puzzles are the order of the day. For combat you will be using robotic followers as opposed to being a personal, walking aresenal. This is where the technician/engineer pipboy comes in. I'm also going to ask talkietoaster if I can meld in his RobCo Certified - New Vegas as a perk tied to the technician/engineer pipboy. In addition, in order to balance the gameplay mechanics for the followers I'v invented a couple of limitations;

 

1. A bandwidth limiter. The Sunset bots used a customized version of the Robco unified operating system and continued to evolve and change over two centuries. So their current code varies greatly from other bots in the wasteland. As such the bots are never fully "reprogrammed" by the player. Instead a programming "template" is placed over their core functions altering their code executions at run time. This is essentially lobotomizing/zombifying the bots, by preventing their higher functions. This means the pipboy must essentially constantly interface with the bots to prevent the execution of the higher sub routines. This takes bandwidth, therefore the pipboy can only control a limited number of followers. Initially this will be very limited (maybe one or two) but software modules (via holotape) and/or hardware modules (higher bandwidth wireless transmitter) will be potentially available as spoils of war. These upgrades allow more followers and if we place them accordingly in the mod we may be able to scale them to the players threat level. This way by the time they are getting to the later parts of the mod, where the biggest threats are, they should have more followers.

 

2. EMP. This is an interesting game mechanic for the leader of the follower bots. Essentially what it does is make it possible for the bots equipped with powerful emp weapons (like the eye in the sky's) to zap a bot follower which turns it instantly hostile again (ie it reverts back to it's programming). This makes it something of a gamble for the tech/roboticist. While the EMP bots are comparatively rare if they can hit two or three of your followers you could be in serious trouble. Keeps it interesting :tongue:

 

In addition to bots, I hope to implement portable mini turrets as followers. It's part of the reason I was working on gauss and plasma turrets. I wanted to make a varied threat against the player, but also be useful for strategic situations. For instance a gauss mini turret would be a better choice to cover a large open area because of it's high range. A plasma mini turret would be a better choice for quick high damage output, but there range is limited etc. They count against your follower limit, and they also weigh a fair amount (I'm thinking 50lbs) so that's another limitation on their number. The larger turrets will probably weigh too much to move.

Edited November 22, 2011 by devinpatterson

[thrill606]

I'm really looking forward to this mod, and plan on downloading it when it's released.

 

Thanks thrill606. If there is anything you'd like to see in the mod, let us know.

Well, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but maybe some different variations of Sunset Sarsaparilla similar to the different variations of Nuka cola like quartz and quantum.

Maybe one with a buffout type effect or one that gives rad resistance or takes rads away.