Of UFO’s, Nazis and secret antarctic bases

[devinpatterson]

Also can you imagine the loot on the antarctic ship. At least two subs made it up there before the end of the war. Priceless art treasures, gold bars, jewels etc etc. Maybe we'll have to blow up the saucer just to keep the wealth of nations from ending up in the players hands.

[OldCoot46]

ALso, instead of going the Enclave armor way, why not use this:

http://i55.tinypic.com/iwka47.jpg

 

I'm really not a huge fan of the bug-like Enclave armors.

[devinpatterson]

ALso, instead of going the Enclave armor way, why not use this:

 

I'm really not a huge fan of the bug-like Enclave armors.

 

Oh the enclave stuff was more for enclave uniforms to SS uniforms (with a little re-texturing ). Although I guess the nazis could have caputured some power armor and enhanced it with alien tech too.

But yeah I like that pic, it looks a lot like WWII battle gear to my uneducated eye. I think it would be a good match. Is it from the stalker resources?

 

Actually now that I think of it re-texturing the ranger veteran armor (or maybe just the helmet) and a heavier trench coat like the ten penny duster might also make passable SS battle gear.

Edited May 16, 2011 by devinpatterson

[OldCoot46]

I'm not sure what the resources came from. I found the armor at a site we don't talk about, liked it and am usin it. But it suits me. I liked how it looks, it isn't a PA. It's more of a heavy CA. But as for Enclave to SS, that would be cool. But for a heavy type armor, I would say use the Heavy Combine, which is what is in the pic. But, I don't know if those resources are illegal to use or not. I hope not.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

That armor reminds me of the juggernaut armor from Modern Warfare 2, though it's been a good year or two since I played that game; my brother has both MWs for Xbox & I liked the first one, though second was crap.

[MajikMoshos]

It's real cool that you're taking lots of considerations from users here. I would offer assitance with level design but I won't really be free till the christmas holiday season.

 

Anyway, if you do show the ruined rival ship from Zeta you'd have to take into account what its exterior would look like. Recall what the ship itself looked like when the Lone wander and co fought it with deathrays, and the spacewalk scene. You'd also have to mesh some custom tileset pieces and static objects that take inspiration from MSZ, but with a 'ruined' look. Remember, this thing did explode and thus much of the ship would be burnt out.

 

Now for the actual quest, it'd make sense that you would make it to this crashsite in the Mojave before the nazis do. Perhaps a surviving alien spent years building a transmitter and hiding from humans while he/she scavenged junk from nearby towns. The alien would be young and, like you suggested, a techinical whiz, on a similar if not better level than Veronica and Arcade. Maybe it was only a cadet or young engineer and the sole survivor...or perhaps its mate survived as well. Anyway, it sends out the signal which not only you'd pick up, but so would others as well. Certain radios that would otherwise play static would start playing the message after a certain point in the Main Quest.

 

Being the inquisitive type you follow the source to a new zone, fighting off scavengers, raiders, rouge BOS and the like who are also intent of finding their own alien loot. There might even be a few mutant creatures affected by the alien radiation, or a powersource leaking into the nearby water stream. A sidequest could involve investigating and shutting that off. Maybe the ship crashed near some town that once held a reputation as an alien hotspot? There would probably be a subway or mine tunnel that could take you to the new zone. I'd imagine the area could be revisitable after the quest is complete and you've left the antarctic stronghold. Besides, these things would have a lower priority development wise, so concentrate on the ship, antarctic base and directly related quests first.

 

Eventually, the signal gets clearer as you climb over a mountain - and stare in wonder at the gargantuan sight before your very eyes.

 

Exteriror View of Zeta

 

The destroyed ship

 

There's a bit of inspiration of what you should be going for. My guess is that the ship's hulls were strong enough to survive entry into the atmosphere. Parts would still be shiny, but much of it would be burnt brown or black. Any exposed sections though would likley be burnt out and contribute to some serious damage. Our survivor may have taken refuge further inside where it remained safe from the overwhelming heat. Also, since it's been a few years there probably wouldn't be any embers or flames left.

 

In my head I'm imagining part of the ship would be jutting into the sky (likley whatever remains of the 'disk') since it would crash on an angle and plow into a mountain. It'd probably have left quite a mark too - you would be able to trace what sort of path it took base on the crater and toppled trees. However I'd imagine that not many would've noticed the crash that much - if anything the ship should be relativley secluded, with mutant beasts near the site acting like a Beef Gate that keeps out wandering eyes (and low-level couriers). For that reason, make sure the ship isn't in Legion or NCR territory (Perhaps locate it further north or northwest, where neither side really has much influence according to the lore).

Also, consider having the interior sections lay on a slight angle. It'd add some quirky charm.

 

Anyway, upon encountering the alien survivor you'd eventually make your way back out of ship...and face down a small platoon of Nazis. They knock you out and take you back to their antarctic base, the quest kicking off from there.

 

Forgive me if this is too longwinded, just my way of making some suggestions.

[miscdude]

As far as a location for a massive ship goes, you could venture to put it more south-west. There's a large expanse of desert below Red Rock canyon I was exploring yesterday that has absolutely nothing in it, really good place to put something you wouldn't want interfering with other mods.

 

Edit: You can't get there by conventional means though, so you'd have to flesh out a path and it may require some heavy navmesh editing.

Edited May 17, 2011 by miscdude

[MajikMoshos]

As far as a location for a massive ship goes, you could venture to put it more south-west. There's a large expanse of desert below Red Rock canyon I was exploring yesterday that has absolutely nothing in it, really good place to put something you wouldn't want interfering with other mods.

 

Edit: You can't get there by conventional means though, so you'd have to flesh out a path and it may require some heavy navmesh editing.

 

Which is why it'd probably easier to just makes a door that leads to an all new area, DLC style. Lore wise I think the NCR controls much of the south west (California and such) while the legion runs the east - Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and colorado if I'm not mistaken.

 

Putting the ship within either faction's terriory wouldn't make sense since SOMEONE would've seen it if it crashed in controlled territory, and it would've been quickly scavenged and gutted before the nazis even get there. Heck, what would stop BOS scouts from finding it first if that's the case?

It should be hidden - Prefereably either the Coureir or the Nazis would be the first to actually reach it. No major factions are located up north, so this keeps the idea of the ship as a hidden gem all the more believable while remaining lore friendly.

[miscdude]

There's a mod called "Misanthropy Pure: Warzones" Which actually adds a crashed rocket site along with BoS fighting Super Mutant Behemoths, which your post instantly reminded me of. They put it right up in the snowcapped mountains near Jacobstown, nice and away from NCR or Legion presence. And I wasn't talking about really far into the desert, just right off of Red Rock, seeing as that too is devoid of anyone who would really want to explore it.

[devinpatterson]

some custom tileset pieces and static objects that take inspiration from MSZ, but with a 'ruined' look. Remember, this thing did explode and thus much of the ship would be burnt out.

 

No worries, I think re-texturing it would probably be the easiest part.Now finding the models is something else entirely. I'm hoping the "Mothership Zeta Content Restored" mod will help with that. For some odd reason it's hidden in geck

 

Now for the actual quest, it'd make sense that you would make it to this crashsite in the Mojave before the nazis do.

 

That's what I'm thinking. That way the battle can be inside the crashed saucer. Leaving the potential to hijack, stowaway or be captured via one of the scout ufo's

 

Perhaps a surviving alien spent years building a transmitter and hiding from humans while he/she scavenged junk from nearby towns.

 

We can have the destoryed mother ship crash at any point between MSZ and the current time due to a decaying orbit. So that puts the crash between 2277 (MSZ) and the current date of 2281ish. But if you throw the nazis into the mix it means we have two plotlines we are locked into;

 

1. The nazis cyrogenic sleep would have had to end after 2277 (otherwise they would have tracked the falling ship and already stripped it), which doesn't really give much time for them to ramp up the alien tech in the antarctic mothership, at most 4 years plus whatever amount of time we give them for research before they were nuked by the us of a. And that may be a good thing, because the courier can stop the menace now while there is still time. Once they gear up and start producing drones, more ships etc it's pretty much over. It also means the nazis would have had to come across the info second hand. I like this one the best from a story point of view and it is the most similar to what you have in mind. It also allows the crashed ship to acquire an interesting "ecosystem" of critters and fits with E.T. sending out some distress calls. Theres the minor plot problem of having the courier happen to stumble across the saucer just before the nazi's have tracked it down, but the fallout world is full of strange coincidences.

 

I also like this plot line because we can say our little alien buddy didn't fall in the wreck, but fled the ship in a escape pod (probably along with others) and spent several horrible years on a alien planet making his way to the crash site hoping to find/build a working transmitter to call for help (or for some other reason, perhaps to scavenge etc.). That would be quite a epic tale in itself. During his/it's travels it has left a breadcrumb trail of encounters. Perhaps the alien wild wasteland encounter in the north of the Mojave was his party.

 

2. The other option is;

 

The ships decaying orbit has finally brought it low enough to encounter significant atmospheric drag and the ship falls to earth in the present. A huge fireball streaking across the mojave night. And although it lands close to the mojave the SS have the scout ships and the courrier barely beats them to the smoldering ruins. This gives us the flexibility of having the nazis active preceding 2277 for as long as we want It also implies the alien tech takes much longer to utilize/learn, since they havn't conquered the world yet. In this scenario E.T.'s escape pod will land very close to the new crash site, maybe only a few hundred yards away. It also means I have to create a huge fireball event, and while very cool, I have no idea at the moment how to go about that.

 

Being the inquisitive type you follow the source to a new zone, fighting off scavengers, raiders, rouge BOS and the like who are also intent of finding their own alien loot.

 

I think that idea would better fit option 2, the recently crashed saucer. With various groups rushing to recover the ship.

 

If we go with option 1 (the saucer crashed 4 years ago) it's unlikely the roque BOS, raiders etc have made some stable ecosystem and are still there. More likely that in four years they would have scavenged what could be taken if the ship was accesible.

 

On the other hand I'm thinking maybe of putting it in a high mountain peak (new world space) that is very inhospitable and hidden. That way we can have critters (like surviving alien hybrids) in there but it would be much more difficult for scavengers unless they have a vertibird (and even that would be a challenging mountain side landing).

 

There might even be a few mutant creatures affected by the alien radiation, or a powersource leaking into the nearby water stream. A sidequest could involve investigating and shutting that off. Maybe the ship crashed near some town that once held a reputation as an alien hotspot? There would probably be a subway or mine tunnel that could take you to the new zone. I'd imagine the area could be revisitable after the quest is complete and you've left the antarctic stronghold. Besides, these things would have a lower priority development wise, so concentrate on the ship, antarctic base and directly related quests first.

 

All good ideas. The town would be something like the town of Rachel, Nevada near area 51 where they sell all kinds of alien souvenirs and crap.

 

 

In my head I'm imagining part of the ship would be jutting into the sky (likley whatever remains of the 'disk') since it would crash on an angle and plow into a mountain. It'd probably have left quite a mark too - you would be able to trace what sort of path it took base on the crater and toppled trees. However I'd imagine that not many would've noticed the crash that much - if anything the ship should be relativley secluded, with mutant beasts near the site acting like a Beef Gate that keeps out wandering eyes (and low-level couriers). For that reason, make sure the ship isn't in Legion or NCR territory (Perhaps locate it further north or northwest, where neither side really has much influence according to the lore).

Also, consider having the interior sections lay on a slight angle. It'd add some quirky charm.

 

Yeah I suspect the saucer will have to have it's own worldspace, along with some plot line connection. although I don't know if that will be a portal like a tunnel to a new land, or just a scripted event throwing up a messege saying "you'v been traveling for weeks....."

 

Nice idea on teh interior sections on a slant.

 

Anyway, upon encountering the alien survivor you'd eventually make your way back out of ship...and face down a small platoon of Nazis. They knock you out and take you back to their antarctic base, the quest kicking off from there.

 

Or better yet you fight your way through the various challenges of the ship, kindly clearing the way for the nazi landing party so they don't have to do the hard work. Then there are some options in addition to being prisoner. One, if you have the companion you could kill the nazis and your alien bud lets call him E.T. can drive you to the antarctic base. Two you can stow away (probably less likely since the scout saucers are pretty small).

 

This also brings up a minor moral dilemma near the very end of the mod. Do you allow your alien pal to call home from the antarctic saucer and imperil earth, or must you keep him imprisoned on an alien planet to safeguard mankind?

 

Forgive me if this is too longwinded, just my way of making some suggestions.

 

Not long winded at all, I appreciate the suggestions