Brotherhood Overhaul (Conceptual Stage)

[Athanasa]

 

Just tossing this one out there too in regards to a high-rise building revamp mission.

• Start it underground. *should reduce mod conflicts* (Metro station? Maintenance entrance to sub-basement from another building?)
• Manhole covers in the street / basement entrance hatches near buildings. Easily added in GECK?
• Have a Vertibird pad on top of the building for EVAC. Shouldn't be out of place and it would be something a major would have IRL anyways.
• Or entry, to shake it up if there's multiple missions. Maybe the ground around the bottom of the building is covered in rubble, but you need to get to the basement. Top-down clearing.
• Squad is pinned somewhere with only one exit. (easy to ambush) Sorta like Reilly's Rangers. Could even have an elevator issue to resolve to get to the roof. (a bit copypasta but it would work and makes sense)
• Potentially a thing for a rescue mission? A bait distress beacon.
• Optional high-tech MacGuffin for the player to find/fix/retrieve for Proctor Quinlan.
• I wonder if this can be tied into other parts of the mod / game storyline somehow?
• Super Mutant Mini-Boss fight. No Behemoth's please.
• Mirelurks if it's in sewers? Also those big assault-y robots. Can't remember what they were called. Some phased boss fights would be cool, I haven't seen any of those in-game yet. Not sure how you'd do it in a non-gimmick way, though. A chase-fight would be cool - maybe through sewers? "That Raider stole the MacGuffin!" Queue sprinting through traps, turret rooms and raiders to get to your target.
• Lots and Lots of things to disarm. Grenade bouquets, trip mines, laser trip wires, etc.
• Like that one car park? Can we have a mission where someone's made off with a Brotherhood scribe or something and put them at the end of one of those mazes? "We wanted to see how the Brotherhood handled it. The Wastelanders hardly showed any skill at these."

 

Adding in my replies in white. Then sleepsy time.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Athanasa

[Vaernus]

 

 

As for blowing the reactor... what does BLOWING a reactor entail? How much damage would that cause? Is it possible to disable it without destroying it? E.G removing the fuel source, or slicing all connecting cables?

 

*Sorry, didn't actually answer that question. "Blowing the reactor" is having it explode. Its the default nuclear explosion. It would basically destroy all of down-town and leave a massive pocket of radiation behind. Like Chernobyl. (Sorry, I'm American, we use the term "Blow" in regards to an explosion or to "Blow Something Up". I'm not 100% sure but I think the term comes from the the 50s (or even earlier) referring to the shock-wave "blowing" like wind. But I could be completely wrong on that. /shrug Or it could have something to do with an even older use of the term "blow" to mean an impact. I really have no idea.

 

Well, you can disable it by just shutting it down. Tampering with its internal workings or removing parts of it while operational will just result in meltdown and cause either an explosion or massive levels of radiation. Think Chernobyl again.

 

Which, now that you mention that... That could be one of the options to destroy the Institute without blowing the reactor. Have the reactor go into meltdown then seal it off. Radiation floods the Institute and kills everyone or turns them into Ghouls. (wouldn't do anything to Synths actually so maybe that just isn't a very good idea).

 

And then have the Institute become FO4s equivalent of FO1's "The Glow" and add it to the radiant quests to clear it from Feral Ghouls. You could even have Proctor* Quinlan give you quests to recover technology and take a scribe with you. Lots of tech down there. Could be fun.

 

 

That really is an excellent idea. You end up with the giant super-radiated hole going down to the bottom of the institute, but can get into many of the side areas. Technically this could be done as a revamp of the area you currently get (a giant lake) and give some needed flavor to the location.

 

I must say, as a nuclear engineer, I don't see how the explosion even happens. Megaton? Fine. Its an undetonated nuclear bomb, and you had some futuristic gizmo to cause it to arm and activate (even though the device they use for the Megaton bomb is the exact same device you use on the Institute but whatever). A nuclear reactor works on different principles than a bomb. Even worse, these are apparently not fission reactors but fusion reactors. Fusion reactors are absolutely safe, as the failure of the reaction immediately causes the plasma to disappear (such as Tokamak's using electromagnetism to keep the plasma in place which is a very very simplistic explanation of the process).

 

Even if you say the fusion pulse thingamajig is the first stage of a fusion bomb (where our current bombs use a fission stage to then fuse the contents of the much more destructive fusion stage), you still can't assume that the fusion reactor is setup to work that way. If its fission, the worst that happens is its a meltdown from loss of containment and coolant. If its fusion, then all you really did was blow up a fission bomb next to a fusion reactor. The reactor has no real bearing on it. And if its just a fission bomb, the more applicable location would then be to drop it around the center of the facility which is by the elevator.

 

If the BoS simply puts a highly optimized version of the Mark 28 bomb at the elevator, we end up with The Glow as that highly concentrates the radiation underground, while the pressure blows the top off the area. You could feasibly then have a hole in the ground versus the lake, it would be much less destructive of the surrounding area (thinking the bomb going off in the copper mines of the movie Broken Arrow here), and yet substantially more deadly when entering than the Glowing Sea (i.e. The Glow Mk2).

[Guest deleted2588518]

I wouldn't say they were absolutely safe. They don't explode like people think they do, I'll give you that. But if enough pressure builds up in the enclosure... Boom! Its not a huge mushroom cloud boom, and its more like a large cough... but its still a boom. Nothing like the default FO4 explosion.

 

But then, the average person is just thinking "Atomic Bomb" when they think nuclear reactor.

 

A Molten Salt reactor is 100% safe tho. But that isn't the type being used in FO4 under the Institute.

[Vaernus]

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/public/style_images/underground/attachicon.gifFOR THE BROTHERHOOD.jpg

 

Fair point, though.

 

 

 

Back on topic of the Brotherhood, but away from the Institute idea.

 

If the player becomes a Sentinel, do they get their own Brotherhood squad? Like the Lyon's Pride. The members would be you, the Paladin and their Scribe (if Vaernus agrees to the idea). This helps give weight to you being a Sentinel, and finally adds some sense to you bossing around your Paladin friend if they're a companion.

As your own special 'division' of the Brotherhood, you'd need an awesome name... actually, I'll throw these burblings into a Google Doc so they can mature into something coherent. But basically, my brain's thrown out this so far.

 

• Become Sentinel, get squad (like Sentinel Lyons and the Lyon's Price)
• For the sake of voice acting, the Paladin / Prydwen can assign your character a Brotherhood name ("That's not a very knightly name, soldier. You are now Knight [WHATEVER]")
• This means that the Paladin-Companion can now talk TO you. Like with Piper calling you Blue. Always calling you "Soldier" could get confusing if you're always around multiple soldiers.
• The name of your Sentinel Squad could then be based off whatever name they give you.

 

 

Yea I know there's been talk in the Bethesda thread about being able to train troops directly (maybe, or it was here, or it was the conversation at work today). Was definitely brought up at work today as well. I could see something like the companions playing a big part in this. Sponsor companions and they go into the BoS fold. You can then pick X amount of companions to be part of the SS's Pride. On missions that the Sentinel is involved in, if the squad is fully defined, they join in the attacks versus standard BoS troops. It would be fun in terms of directly determining who you want, getting them outfitted and trained, and then perhaps even having some functionality to increase their abilities in certain areas to be more efficient. The other concept brought up at work was being confident that if you leave members of these squads at various locations, you can be sure that they'll hold the fort down if you don't respond to every "defend the BoS holding" mission popping up.

 

It'd be really interesting to start an assault on Gunner's Lobby (beefed up as it will be from the overhaul). You're on the Prydwen and are to report to your vertibird to begin. Going outside, you see 3 vertibirds primed and ready, with the pride ready to go on their respective vertibirds. You hop on yours, and all 3 unhook from the Prydwen and fly over to the location in formation. They assault the area based on your tactics (perhaps one vertibird drops off its troops while the other two launch their payloads of gatling lasers, gunner miniguns, missiles, and mini nukes on the area, and you work with the force to wipe the area out completely. Brings a tear to my eye....pity for the Gunners.

[Vaernus]

 

If the player becomes a Sentinel, do they get their own Brotherhood squad? Like the Lyon's Pride. The members would be you, the Paladin and their Scribe (if Vaernus agrees to the idea). This helps give weight to you being a Sentinel, and finally adds some sense to you bossing around your Paladin friend if they're a companion.

 

 

Wanted to touch on this one again. I think this would be a good place to start implementing that idea from earlier in the thread where you guys were talking about recruiting followers like you did in Skyrim for the Blades.

You're now a squad captain and can fill the ranks of your squad with members of your choice.

Excluding (obviously) Strong, Nick Valentine and X6-88.

 

Though I think to even have X6-88 available you would have needed to fully join the Institute and that would make it impossible to recruit anyways. But IDK if there are any loopholes and I never tried to "Free" him or found the opportunity.

 

But yea, basically I think when you guys touched base on doing a Blades style recruitment of followers... I think that's a really good chance to incorporate that idea in with the personal squad idea.

 

There is also that event in FO3 with Reilly's Rangers. (sorta mirrored in the Police Station event but w/e)

Could use that as a blueprint for a squad based mission quest where you're trying to recover tech downtown and get ambushed by super mutants and need to fight your way down thru the building. Not just an elevator ride taking pot shots and muties through holes in a wall... >.> That could be the kick point where the Brotherhood recognizes your ability to successfully manage a squad. You get dispatched to rescue a recon team out collecting tech in a high-rise and you have to pull them out. Once you get the squad back to the Airport, Maxon (or whomever) gives you recognition for a job well done and then asks if you would take on the responsibility of leadership for a squad of your own. This way, it gives precedence for the decision to give you your own squad. Maybe before you gain Paladin status. Knight-Captain would be a good place to set the player up for future promotion and makes you feel like you're actually earning your ranks and not just being promoted out of exploitation.

 

There are plenty of high-rise buildings downtown that aren't currently used for anything. Hijacking one and using it for a mission with a custom interior would be kinda neat. Could do as many floors as you wanted to give it a challenge. (wasn't pleased with only having one or two floors in most skyscrapers downtown other than Mass Fussion and 33 and elevators)

 

 

And naturally as I read down further, TotalMeltdown expresses my exact response to Athanasa so....yea I think we're having a meeting of the minds here.

[Athanasa]

And yet "We can't have more nuclear power stations, what if the UK gets hit by a massive earthquake and a tsunami!"

 

If that happens, we have bigger things to worry about. Like the earths crust going mental on us.

[Athanasa]

The reason Sentinel Lyons squad was called a Pride was because of a pun, not a title. Although, a pride is cats - generally fairly autonomous. But maybe that's bad memories with the whole Lyons thing...

 

I quite like the idea of being a pack, but that's mostly because I think I saw a mod with dog combat armour in Brotherhood flavour for "Paladin Dogmeat".

[Guest deleted2588518]

And yet "We can't have more nuclear power stations, what if the UK gets hit by a massive earthquake and a tsunami!"

 

If that happens, we have bigger things to worry about. Like the earths crust going mental on us.

 

Panic in the streets, cats and dogs living together...

[Vaernus]

I wouldn't say they were absolutely safe. They don't explode like people think they do, I'll give you that. But if enough pressure builds up in the enclosure... Boom! Its not a huge mushroom cloud boom, and its more like a large cough... but its still a boom. Nothing like the default FO4 explosion.

 

But then, the average person is just thinking "Atomic Bomb" when they think nuclear reactor.

 

A Molten Salt reactor is 100% safe tho. But that isn't the type being used in FO4 under the Institute.

 

Oh of course, nothing is ever perfectly safe. But even our modern fission reactors are pretty damn safe. In the event of any major problems, we have so many failsafes that I'd honestly trust a nuclear power plant over coal/gas/etc. Its clean too. Plus I'm sure we can get a bit more constructive than just using the spent fuel in weaponry in the future to remove the whole "dump cans of atomic waste wherever" situation that is commonly portrayed as the "dirty" portion of a reactor.

 

But fusion reactors are different. The reason Chernobyl even happened is because you cannot "stop" a nuclear reaction. At best, you can slow it down to near 0, but that's it. Therefore when the systems failed, all you have is a build up of pressure followed by a super heated core melting down through containment into the ground (hence a meltdown). With a fusion reaction, it either works or its gone. There's no build up. If the containment field controlling the plasma fails, it just goes away. And from what I gather, outside of actual vehicles which use a fission core and need coolant (hence the signs found at Red Rocket stations), it seems like all of their major reactors are fusion driven (including the one in Liberty Prime and the Prydwen).

 

Edit: I cannot fathom where all this coolant is going either. The "coolant" in our modern fission reactors is a closed pressurized loop. It doesn't increase or decrease. In fact, if it does, it is a prime reason why the reactor would fail as you'd either get a drop in coolant (which causes a buildup of heat, which then causes boiling, which then causes you to lose full control of the reactor), or the pressure goes off (and you get similar results). Its all about equilibrium. A reactor is just a really super efficient way to boil water, just like any other power generator.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Vaernus

[Athanasa]

Although the Prawn (whatever, Phone) needs coolant too.