Fallout 4: How it should've been.

[JarinArenos]

 

Frankly, it's easier to tell you what Project Phoenix doesn't change since it's intended to be a complete overhaul of the game; which means there's going to very little that isn't tweaked or adjusted in one way or another.

 

To give a general overview, though... Combat mechanics, SPECIAL, carry weight, VATS, the perk system, a new skill system akin to Skyrim's use-and-learn, a genuine economy, realistic weapon functionality (overheating, different firing modes, ALL energy ammunition functioning like fusion cores (multiple shots per unit), and so forth, non-charisma speech checks, looting overhaul, enemy overall, better AI, expanded and/or more factions, realistic crafting requirements, ammo crafting, unique weapon mods that can be swapped around a la Lorenzo's Artifact and the Sacrificial Blade, and so much more are introduced and/or changed in Project Phoenix. It's not just an overhaul. It's the overhaul for Fallout 4, much like Project Nevada was for New Vegas and Wanderer's Edition for 3 but on an even larger scale than both.

 

My concern is, weren't both Nevada and WE group projects? This is a lot to bite off for one person who - as you said - doesn't always have free time. Also, with F4SE in limbo until at least late summer (probably later, honestly), how much of that list becomes impossible to implement?

 

Don't misunderstand me, I really want to see this project succeed; these are just issues to consider along the way. It's great to have the overall design charted out, but maybe break it up into individually-completeable and releasable chunks?

[RogueMatriarch]

 

 

Frankly, it's easier to tell you what Project Phoenix doesn't change since it's intended to be a complete overhaul of the game; which means there's going to very little that isn't tweaked or adjusted in one way or another.

 

To give a general overview, though... Combat mechanics, SPECIAL, carry weight, VATS, the perk system, a new skill system akin to Skyrim's use-and-learn, a genuine economy, realistic weapon functionality (overheating, different firing modes, ALL energy ammunition functioning like fusion cores (multiple shots per unit), and so forth, non-charisma speech checks, looting overhaul, enemy overall, better AI, expanded and/or more factions, realistic crafting requirements, ammo crafting, unique weapon mods that can be swapped around a la Lorenzo's Artifact and the Sacrificial Blade, and so much more are introduced and/or changed in Project Phoenix. It's not just an overhaul. It's the overhaul for Fallout 4, much like Project Nevada was for New Vegas and Wanderer's Edition for 3 but on an even larger scale than both.

 

My concern is, weren't both Nevada and WE group projects? This is a lot to bite off for one person who - as you said - doesn't always have free time. Also, with F4SE in limbo until at least late summer (probably later, honestly), how much of that list becomes impossible to implement?

 

Don't misunderstand me, I really want to see this project succeed; these are just issues to consider along the way. It's great to have the overall design charted out, but maybe break it up into individually-completeable and releasable chunks?

 

 

A vast majority of Project Phoenix is actually editing various entries in the GECK , rearranging a few things here and there, and so forth. I'd say about... 10% of the total content of Project Phoenix will be totally new, such as models, sounds, animations, and so forth. It's more of a technical overhaul then anything else, but one that brings massive changes as to how things will work in gameplay. If I focused for a day or so on one thing, such as Chems or ammo, it wouldn't take too long to knock 'em out and move on to the next item on the list.

 

Still, there's a ton of stuff that needs to be edited so I wouldn't put Project Phoenix's finish date any sooner than a year or two, even with help.

[Ethreon]

As there is no MCM, how are you going to pull it off, via holotape menu?

 

and this

"Classic dialogue box- Just like Fo3 and NV, you get a neat little box which states exactly what your character will say. Speech challenges will retain their color-coded difficulty indicator."

 

Classic menu would be any number of dialogue choices. Right now it's 4 and always 4, and I don't think you can change that. But if you mean simply displaying the full dialogue sentence that's easy enough.

 

Regardless, good luck.

[RogueMatriarch]

As there is no MCM, how are you going to pull it off, via holotape menu?

 

and this

"Classic dialogue box- Just like Fo3 and NV, you get a neat little box which states exactly what your character will say. Speech challenges will retain their color-coded difficulty indicator."

 

Classic menu would be any number of dialogue choices. Right now it's 4 and always 4, and I don't think you can change that. But if you mean simply displaying the full dialogue sentence that's easy enough.

 

Regardless, good luck.

 

There's going to be an interface menu, either based off of an existing once, such as MCM, or a custom one that will probably be accessed by hitting the ESC key like the vanilla menu options (Save, load, quit, etc).

 

And people have replicated the classic dialogue system, the box format and telling you exactly what you're gonna say, before. However, adding dialogue is relatively simple from a technical standpoint. Bethesda just went with four options (yes, no-yes, sarcastic yes, and maybe-yes) due to the PC being voiced (which I am annoyed by greatly and mostly likely be removed entirely to make the non-voiced lines not stand out).

[RogueMatriarch]

Weapons Update

Unique Weapons

As mentioned before, unique weapons are actually that now - distinct, separate entities that do not share the same ID as their standard counterparts. Any special stats or effects attached to them are applied via a unique mod, which can removed and attached to another weapon of the same type if desired. The effects and/or stats are assigned to the most appropriate mod slot, meaning that, yes, in some cases, you can apply multiple unique mods to the same weapon. There will be unique scopes, stocks, barrels, grips, capacitors, receivers, and so forth. The unique weapon itself will have a custom description and retain its name even if the unique mod is removed. Transferring the unique mod to another weapon will respectively rename it to such.

 

Crafting Weapons and Weapon Mods

 

Unlike vanilla FO4, you won't be able to simply craft most mods you want anymore even if you've got the right perks and materials for it. Why? Because it doesn't make sense that somebody with a few dozen items of junk can craft a high-tech laser barrel at a makeshift workbench or a Power Armor augment without the use of pre-war tools and machinery. Some genuinely-wasteland weapons, like the Shishkabob for example, and mods, like scrap bayonets, can be crafted but the schematics may have to be found or bought first in order to make them. Some NPCs may carry these, which you can buy or loot from them, or carry the item itself. With the proper perks, you'll be able to deconstruct and reverse-engineer them so you can make your own.

 

For the rest of the weapons and mods, you'll have to find them throughout your travels, be it on enemies, loot, or merchants. This is to emphasize the wasteland setting and how key it is to scavenge, instead of simply grabbing a ton of junk, hauling it to the closest settlement, and making some brand new, fully-functional mods right at the get-go. However, with the right know-how, you can tweak/upgrade existing mods for better performance to give you a little more edge over the competition until you can nab something better.

 

Crafting Requirements

Not all weapons and/or weapon mods will be craftable, as said before. However, those which are will have very logical components and perks necessary for their construction. The more sophisticated a weapon or mod is, the more knowledge you have to have in its respective field in order to create it.

[RogueMatriarch]

Damage Threshold and Armor Update

 

As you may have noticed, one of the key features from Fallout: New Vegas and the original Fallout games is mentioned in the post title. Why? Because it’s back, baby, and here to f*** s*** up.

 

The framework for DT had been implemented but not put into use yet as I’m working out how I want to utilize it exactly. However, I’ve got some general points in mind for it.

 

For those unfamiliar with how it works, DT is basically a wall damage has to first get through in order to hurt you. If it can’t get through that wall, it won’t harm you. If it does though, you experience some, but not all, of the damage dealt due to the wall absorbing some of it. The higher the DT, the thicker the wall and harder it is to get hurt. DT subtracts damage before Damage Resistance is applied, which reduces damage further.

 

Non-PA health is returning to armors and clothing as well, with them being able to be fixed up with their respective materials and the same item being repaired. Finding out how to have certain item restore X health to armor and clothing instead of boosting it back to prime condition is something I need to work on but will definitely be implemented. All items of the same kind can be used to repair another but may require certain perks to do so.

 

Clothing

Clothing has no DT whatsoever unless Ballistic Weave from the Railroad has been added. Even then, it’ll add 1-3 DT at best. Clothing will also have low health

 

Light Armor

Including, but limited to, Leather, Raider, Synth Armor, it has decent health and low DT. However, its light weight doesn’t restrict mobility or slow you down.

 

Medium Armor

Metal Armor, the more protective forms of Combat Armor, Marine Armor, and a few other sets fall under this category. They provide higher DT and sport higher health but slow you down somewhat due to the weight and bulk.

 

Heavy Armor

Robot Armor, Caged Raider Armors, and a select other are described as such. They distinctly weigh you down, reducing your agility and movement speed, but offer much higher DT and health than other sets. Enemies wearing a full set of Heavy Armor should be treated like they’re in Raider PA: fought from a distance and with powerful weapons. They’ll likely be using heavy weapons as well, forcing you to be tactical about how you approach them.

 

Power Armor

Become the tank you were meant to be in these giant suits of walking destruction. Sporting the highest DT in the entire game, while retaining their high DR and health as well, friends and foes alike in Power Armor are a genuine force not to be reckoned with. Conventional weapons and low-calibers will deal little, if any, damage so it's recommended to use high-calibers and heavy weapons and explosives such as Sniper Rifles and Machine Guns. However, they have a few exploitable weaknesses: lack of defense against fire-based weapons, electrical attacks (unless equipped with Tesla Coils), explosives, and armor-piercing rounds. DT is negated by these so make sure to carry one or more of the aforementioned when going up against opponents in Power Armor.

 

All Power Armor Frames by default sport a DT of 5 at full condition, which contributes to the overall DT of each Power Armor set. A list of Power Armor DT values are listed below but are subject to change as I adapt the system for Fallout 4.

 

Raider PA: Base = 12, Max = 18.

T-45(d): Base = 22, Max = 28.

T-51(b): Base = 25, Max = 31.

T-60: Base = 28, Max = 34

X-01: Base = 30, Max = 36.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Mavrickhunter2

[RogueMatriarch]

Power Armor Overhaul

Expanding upon what was mentioned in previous update posts, this will more or less cover all the changes that will be made to Power Armor in general.

Rarity
The frequency of finding Power Armor has been greatly reduced in general, making finding just a frame with a few parts a rare occurrence. However, the rarity of Power Armor types have also been adjusted as well.

Raider: Found in use by Raiders and similar groups only.
T-45(d): The most common kind of Power Armor now, as opposed to be rarely being seen at all on vanilla. Checkpoint outposts and similar military locations are likely to have these.
T-51(b): The second-most common type of Power Armor but still rather rare to come across. Armories and other important military locations may carry a suit.
T-60: Very few sets of these can be found outside of the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel’s Paladins, no longer abundant as it was in the base game and makes earning a suit an actual reward.
X-01: Perhaps a handful of these suits can be found total, all locked away and hidden in secret locations throughout the Commonwealth. They remain among the most powerful kind of Power Armor, surpassing even the pre-war T-51 series.

Variants
The “different” models we could acquire in vanilla Fallout 4 were little more than just slightly-better resistant stats. They didn’t provide any genuine variation, thus we upgraded them to the next model as soon as possible. However, that has been changed now.

T-45d and T-51b are the most common models you’ll come across when you do find suits of Power Armor, with their other-lettered brethren less common than before. Some of these other models will boast less weight, integrated features, better defense or offensive abilities, and so forth while others have the opposite and sport unwieldy or unfavorable features like the frame for T-45 A-C possibly running off Microfusion Cells.

T-45 ranges from A to F, T-51 from A to C and T-60 goes from A to B, the later only having one in existence, and the X-01 has no variants. Later models have less variety due to lack of time for further development and the eventual apocalypse preventing any more from being made.

Frames
Power Armor Frames are the base of which all Power Armor suits are built upon. However, they have received little love in terms of both Bethesda and the modding community in general. In order to remedy this, a number of changes have been planned out and/or implemented.

First off is moddable PA Frames. Unlike before, tech mods, barring a few, will be directly applied to the frame instead of the armor pieces themselves. This allows you to swap them out more easily without having to transfer mods from one piece to another. This includes servos, vents, cores, and so forth. Slots for all of these will be provided.

However, not all frames will accept the same mods due to the new Frame System. Instead of one-frame-fits-all, each type of Power Armor, barring Raider PA, will have its own unique frame. Now, some may sport up to two different frames with one covering the early models and the former the later ones.

T-45: A - C use Power Armor Frame Mk. II while D-F utilize the Mk. III version.
T-51: A and B use Power Armor Frame Mk. V, C is suitable for the Mk. VI only.
T-60 A-B, the only models available, operate on the Power Armor Frame Mk. IX.
X-01: Uses its own unique Power Armor Frame due to the post-war development of the X-series.

It should be noted that the base stats and effects for Power Armor Frames vary from model to model, with the Mk. II being the worst of them all and the Mk. IX/X-series Frame being the best overall.

Mods
Barring Raider PA, which can be crafted using various T-45 and T-51 pieces, no Power Armor mods can be simply be made anymore. Instead, they’ll have to be found, bought, or looted during your travels. Paintjobs are largely unaffected due to being, well, painted on. However, you’ll need actual paint to apply them now which may prove more difficult then one might think given the lack of supply for it.

Damage Threshold
Power Armor is described as a man-sized tank in lore yet Fallout has failed to properly convey that experience as many can attest to being killed by dogs, enemies with pipe guns, and so forth in the past. With Damage Thresholds, however, that all changes.

Incoming damage that doesn’t exceed your DT won’t have you at all. For example, a single bullet does 12 damage and you have a DT of 24. Since your DT is higher then said damage, its completely negated. However, if the next bullet does 26 damage, 2 damage is dealt to you because your 24 DT was exceeded. It should also be noted that explosives, flame-based attacks, eletricial attacks, armor-piercing rounds, and damage-over-time effects bypass DT entirely. This make such methods a viable choice when combating foes in Power Armor, though it means you’re just as vulnerable to them as well if not properly prepared.

Cores
Thanks to Shoddycast's research, it has been revealed that Hydrogen-4 is the most likely candidate for putting the fusion in Fusion Core. However, that doesn’t mean it would be the only kind.

A number of nuclear fuel-based cores have been introduced, including, but not limited to, Uranium-234 and -235, Americium, and Thorium. These cores are much more rare but also more potent, being of the Fission variety. When placed into Power Armor, they offer longer run times and may even enhance performance as well. These same cores can also be utilized by Generators and Heavy Energy Weapons, providing more power for the former and more charges and damage for the later.

Future Plans
Brand-new features like attachable weapons, feet anchors for reduced recoil, and new sets of PA have been planned but due to their sophistication and requirement of new assets, these will not be introduced until the later phases of Project Phoenix.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Mavrickhunter2

[RogueMatriarch]

Automatron Update

 

One of the DLCs that should have honestly been in the base game from the get-go, Automatron is arguably one of the most entertaining DLCs to be added to Fallout 4 thanks to introducing Robot Companions and RObot Customization; allowing you to create a vast variety of robots for various situations and needs. However, how it was implemented was rather lackluster in my opinion due to the horrid crafting recipes and the lack of restrictions when it came to mods among other things. This particular update aims to rectify many of these issues as well as integrate the new content with vanilla more smoothly.

 

Armors

The Robot Armor introduced in Automatron can now be straight-up crafted from the logical parts you seen used in the armor itself plus a few other materials. Plans to have more Robot Armor, utilizing Voltaic and Hydraulic versions of robot mods among others, are also planned. Even Robot Power Armor is being considered, using the larger pieces such as the Sentry Bot Warmonger to craft new parts.

 

Likewise, the Assaultron, Sentry Bot, and Eyebot Helmets will also be craftable at your leisure once you come across them.

 

Crafting

A significant portion of the changes are made to the crafting recipes themselves, utilizing only the materials you see and/or make sense for each and every mod. This means that, for the most part, robot armor pieces will be much cheaper and easier to craft. Advanced weapons such as Lasers will have to be created using their pre-existing mods or scavenged from robots.

 

Mods

To be decided.

 

Weapons

All of the four weapons introduced in Automatron can now be crafted via salvaging their respective mods from bots during your travels, plus a few other thens when necessary. Their stats have also been modified to be more accurate to their robot-use counterparts.

 

Assaultron Blade

• Crafted with the Assaultron Dominator Blade Mod + Steel, requires Rank 1 of Blacksmith to make.
• Weighs 2.30 pounds
• Deals 50 damage
• Swing speed is fast.

Buzzblade (Formerly known as the Mr. Handy Buzz Blade)

• Mr. Handy Saw Blade Mod + Steel + ???, requires Rank 1 of Blacksmith and Science! to make.

Salvaged Assaultron Head:

• Crafted with one Assaultron Head Laser + ???, requires Rank 1 of Robotics Expert and Rank 2 of Science! to make.
• Deals 100 Energy damage, no longer deals self-radiation damage.
• Weighs 4.7 pounds
• 5 shot charging capacity.

Tesla Rifle

• Created with one Tesla Rifle Mod + Scrap Electronics + Steel, requires Rank 2 of Science! to make.
• Deals 40 electrictrical damage, no longer energy.
• Weighs 14 pounds.

 

Update will be continued tomorrow.

[RogueMatriarch]

As of effective-immediately, this version of Project Phoenix has been canceled due to several reasons, primarily due to development was sporadic in both timing and scope. Too much was changed and with very little depth, which would have led to it being nigh-unplayable and highly incompatable with most mods.

 

However, a new version is now in development, started from scratch and taking things one step at a time. It can be found vis the link below on its own forum. Fesatures discussed here may or may not be carried over and are subject to change as well depending on how progroess goes.

 

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5647282-project-phoenix-fallout-4-reborn-a-complete-fallout-4-overhaul/