Brotherhood Overhaul (Conceptual Stage)

[Scribblesix]

I know precious little about coding Ai, but it strikes me that it might be much easier to improve vertibirds if they had a single weapon type, at least firing arc.

 

So something like a Aerial Rocket Artillery gunship, solely armed with FFARs (like on of the old UH 1Bs). Launches a saturation bombardment, then bugs off. (Would be pretty cool to watch one of these rocket strike a mutant camp)

 

Also, though this is a complete guess, some of the problems with veribirds seem to stem from their having a fixed frontal cannon that they like to use at extremely close range, perhaps changing it to a turreted weapon might make them behave better.

[Athanasa]

Oh! Thought, before it slips away. Record some VAs for use in patches for other mods, such as survival mods. Nothing much, just passive comments for out in the world.

 

"We haven't slept in days."

"Was that your stomach?"

"When was the last time we slept?"

"When was the last time we ate?

"I can take first watch."

While I imagine people won't make companions themselves need feeding, they'd probably get hungry / tired about the same time as the PC.

[Guest deleted2588518]

Oh! Thought, before it slips away. Record some VAs for use in patches for other mods, such as survival mods. Nothing much, just passive comments for out in the world.

 

"We haven't slept in days."

"Was that your stomach?"

"When was the last time we slept?"

"When was the last time we ate?

"I can take first watch."

While I imagine people won't make companions themselves need feeding, they'd probably get hungry / tired about the same time as the PC.

 

This kind of stuff should be done anyways. Regardless of other mods. I remember having Cicero with me in Skyrim for a while and he constantly talked about getting something to eat. Like a carrot, or a sweat roll.

[Vaernus]

 

I know precious little about coding Ai, but it strikes me that it might be much easier to improve vertibirds if they had a single weapon type, at least firing arc.

 

So something like a Aerial Rocket Artillery gunship, solely armed with FFARs (like on of the old UH 1Bs). Launches a saturation bombardment, then bugs off. (Would be pretty cool to watch one of these rocket strike a mutant camp)

 

Also, though this is a complete guess, some of the problems with veribirds seem to stem from their having a fixed frontal cannon that they like to use at extremely close range, perhaps changing it to a turreted weapon might make them behave better.

 

 

I think just overall they need to be attacking from a further distance. Either orbit and allow the gunner to minigun an area at the Fort Strong distance, strafe from a distance while firing their frontal guns, or do a straight bombing run where they line up a route through an area and let all hell loose as they fly over it. Very rarely should they been in the same place for any length of time.

 

I was thinking the Enclave vertibird would be best suited for the aerial bombardment. Have one well stocked in mini nukes, and you get this:

 

 

Only perhaps with a bit more carpet bombing (perhaps it uses MIRV-like devices to annihilate an area) versus the more spaced out bombs like seen above.

[Guest deleted2588518]

If I were to look at this from a "reality" standpoint, the Virtibirds gunships wouldn't even come CLOSE to being in range of ground fire. But seeming as all of the combat and physics in FO4 are unrealistic, then lets focus on what would be reasonable "in-game"

 

One, Virtibird gunships, (mini-gunners on flanks) Would need to be close enough to be in range themselves, without being so close they get pelted with pipe-riffle bullets easily. (but then pip-riffle bullets have the same range as rockets in this game so I guess just toss all reason out the window.)

 

These are heavily armored tilt-wing aircraft. Like a mix between a tank and a V-22 Osprey. They shouldn't be effected by small arms fire. But a missile would be a problem. This can be fixed incredibly easily. However, when you do this the pilot just gets shot out of the cockpit.

 

As for tactics... yea, the Virtibirds themselves should stay on the far reaches of the firefight. Adding support from a distance. This should reduce the need to drastically up the armor on the pilots as they won't be the focus of the raider (or anyone) on the ground. As for a drop-off, two virtibirds with two T-60s would be more than enough for even a super mutant camp. Add one Virtibird for air support and you've solved the majority of your issues. Outside of sloppy AI. Of course, this is taking into account the changes being made to Virtibird AI and weaponry.

 

And obviously, with Virtibirds being tilt-wing aricraft, they don't always need to function like helicopters. A strafing run like an A-10 wouldn't be a bad idea. (provided the weapons are fixed so they aren't just spit-balls)

[Vaernus]

If I were to look at this from a "reality" standpoint, the Virtibirds gunships wouldn't even come CLOSE to being in range of ground fire. But seeming as all of the combat and physics in FO4 are unrealistic, then lets focus on what would be reasonable "in-game"

 

One, Virtibird gunships, (mini-gunners on flanks) Would need to be close enough to be in range themselves, without being so close they get pelted with pipe-riffle bullets easily. (but then pip-riffle bullets have the same range as rockets in this game so I guess just toss all reason out the window.)

 

These are heavily armored tilt-wing aircraft. Like a mix between a tank and a V-22 Osprey. They shouldn't be effected by small arms fire. But a missile would be a problem. This can be fixed incredibly easily. However, when you do this the pilot just gets shot out of the cockpit.

 

As for tactics... yea, the Virtibirds themselves should stay on the far reaches of the firefight. Adding support from a distance. This should reduce the need to drastically up the armor on the pilots as they won't be the focus of the raider (or anyone) on the ground. As for a drop-off, two virtibirds with two T-60s would be more than enough for even a super mutant camp. Add one Virtibird for air support and you've solved the majority of your issues. Outside of sloppy AI. Of course, this is taking into account the changes being made to Virtibird AI and weaponry.

 

And obviously, with Virtibirds being tilt-wing aricraft, they don't always need to function like helicopters. A strafing run like an A-10 wouldn't be a bad idea. (provided the weapons are fixed so they aren't just spit-balls)

 

Perhaps part of this overhaul is making it so various guns have various ranges? Vertibirds would then potentially be out of range of pistols and post-war weaponry that's not heavily modded. Obviously we have to still factor in the players going against the BoS, but even militias can take down helicopters with sub-par weaponry because they find vantage points to either snipe the pilot or RPG the helicopter down. So a vertibird attacking a raider camp would be largely fine at the range, but all raider camps would at least have one designated "vertibird killer" at all times who'd have the right AI to not just stand outside and get gunned down by the vertibird, while the vertibird would have the AI to not stand out in the open making it hard for a missile to connect. It'd be a sort of cat mouse thing where incoming vertibirds largely focus on the only threats to them before opening fire on anyone else. Same with any troops dropped in. Secure the air support, and then clean house.

[Guest deleted2588518]

 

Perhaps part of this overhaul is making it so various guns have various ranges? Vertibirds would then potentially be out of range of pistols and post-war weaponry that's not heavily modded. Obviously we have to still factor in the players going against the BoS, but even militias can take down helicopters with sub-par weaponry because they find vantage points to either snipe the pilot or RPG the helicopter down. So a vertibird attacking a raider camp would be largely fine at the range, but all raider camps would at least have one designated "vertibird killer" at all times who'd have the right AI to not just stand outside and get gunned down by the vertibird, while the vertibird would have the AI to not stand out in the open making it hard for a missile to connect. It'd be a sort of cat mouse thing where incoming vertibirds largely focus on the only threats to them before opening fire on anyone else. Same with any troops dropped in. Secure the air support, and then clean house.

 

 

Yea, I don't think we should make Virtibirds impossible for raiders or Gunners (especially gunners) to down a Virtibird. However, I would say rocket launchers seem to be a frequent armament in the wasteland (which would simulate RPG fire IRL). So long as raiders have a rocket launcher available, taking out a Virtibird should be rather simple. Provided they don't mow you down before you get a good shot off.

 

Remember, its not really "easy" to take down a helo IRL by gunfire. Granted the hydraulic* systems are a nightmare without gunfire... but even so. You should need something heavy to pull it down. I mean Virtibirds are assault aircraft. Heavily armored tanks of the sky. A slow moving troop transport is easy pickings without ground support, but a gunship? Nah, that's going to take some effort to survive, let alone take out.

Edited January 3, 2016 by TotalMeltdown

[Scribblesix]

occurred to me that for a potential content mod, a lot of this is very srs business, so I was thinking of designing a little wacky mission to lighten things up.

As I speak pretty fluent Mandarin I thought, why not use that? So here is the proposed mission.

Synopsis:

• Player is asked to investigate signs of burrowing and strange sounds coming from underground.
• Player enters though (military bunker??) First room is a 'Potemkin village' of badly spelt Americana with secret entrance to..a Robotic Maoist commune! (robots where infected by Chinese virus just prior to the war)
• The robots are engaged in nutty Maoist era directives such as “Dig deep holes" (Cant find an English source on this without google: The 'masses' had to dig great tunnels to hide from 'american bombardment'. Like all Maoist era directives with wasn't carried out professionally, they literally just ordered peasants to start digging tunnels with whatever they had on hand ) and the Great Leap Forward, I'm thinking specifically of the melting of pots and pans to make steel.)
• The robots are underground randomly digging and collecting scrap to reforge into a liberty prime equivalent called *Robot Masses Liberation Unit* (or something equally preposterous) -I thought this might make a nice satire on the player reforging everything from laser rifles to whole towns out of tin cans and cola bottles.
• The player then destroys (violence or Charisma), Reprograms (Sneak or Intelligence) or re-purposes (Charisma)

 

• A 'Backyard furnace' Dig that Hole!http://photocdn.sohu.com/20150424/Img411807314.jpg
• Optional: yes."
• Style: Silly.
• Location: Any, will take place solely in a single, underground dungeon.
• Multiple completion paths? Yes: extermination , Sneaking (hidden reset button-restores original programming)charisma/intelligence: convince robots you are Chinese agent, assist them in making scrap liberty prime which then blows up killing them all. OR convince them to head out into the wilderness to instigate a guerrilla campaign/educate the masses (generates random 'Chinese robot encounters and allows recruitment of them for use as robotic scrappers in your settlements).
• Work required: Textures and Art: Maoist Slogans on posters and walls. Possible re texture of some of the robots.
• Voice work: Not required as robots we can just use text-speech. If wanted I could record mandarin speech for the player (if people want to use a voiced protagonist for the charisma route)
• Mod Size: Flexible. Small to large, the more difficult ending (charisma/intelligence) can be readily postponed.

Anyway let me know what you think, I know we've got a LOT planned for this mod however much of it seems rather advanced (ai overhaul) so I thought projects like this might be something for the lower skilled people (ie me) to sink their teeth into.
All ideas welcome ect.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Scribblesix

[Guest deleted2588518]

I love this idea. But we seriously need to pull you into our conversation off site. We've covered a LOT that isn't here in this thread.

[Scribblesix]

I love this idea. But we seriously need to pull you into our conversation off site. We've covered a LOT that isn't here in this thread.

 

Sure, though my VPN is blocked at present so I'm having all kinds of trouble accessing google. No chance you guys are using BAND is there?