Favourite AWOP area

[djmystro]

1: Collapsed Underpass @ The Emergency Railyard Station (Including the station, Collapsed Underpass North & South, Maintenance Tunnels, Control Room & Carmageddon).

2: Freeside Interiors (Includes Freeside Thug Hangout and The Freeside Bank)

3: Spring Mount-Bonnie Spings (Includes Headbangers Turf, Fabrie's Shack, Spring Mount Visitors Centre & Station and Bonnie Spings Sewer)

4: The Ivanpah Run - From The Maintenance Tunnels to Nipton Sewer and back via the Ant Caves (includes, Ivanpah Maintenance Tunnels, Weapon Facility Barracks, Weapon Resaerch Facility, Nipton Sewer, Pit-Stop Bomb Shelter & the Ant Caves)

5: Underground West (Includes Incomplete Sector, Access West, Workers Brracks, The Abyss, Ghost Town, Reactor B etc...)

6: Underground Occupied (Includes Freetech Broadcast Building, UG Residential, UG Market, Diner, Armory etc...)

7: Underground East (Includes Military HQ, UG Emergency Station/Armory, Scoweels Quarters, Tech Raider Barracks, The Arena etc...)

8: Zed's Caverns (Includes Zed's Caverns, Boulder Sewer, Lost Legion Camp & The Radshack)

9: Anywhere else (Primm Sewer, Vault 40, 41, Radilogical Research Facility, Novac Collapsed Tunnels etc...)

 

Just thought I'd see what comes out on top coz I'm a feedback junkie :)

 

BTW I eventually chose The Collapsed Underpass for a whole load of reasons and the Repcon HQ I think is my favorite Rumble. I'm not sure why, maybe just the ambience, but I like it. Very tough decicion though given each location has it's own theme and awesome monsters and unique creature 'shock moments'.

Probaly a contraversial second choice but the Freeside areas would be second on my list. I know only the elite seem to be able to run the place properly/smoothly but I spent about four times longer on those two areas than I did on any others and it pains me everytime I have to go back and remove stuff. Plus Space, despite almost every programming command to the contrary seems to genuinly want to die. She has a package telling her to sit down and not move. Her door is locked and marked 'Ignored by sandbox' (meaning NPCs should not interact with it). She is set as neutral to the Thugs and vice versa with no affiliation to the player and is set to be at least brave to stop her running away at the first sign of combat. Despite all this half the time I reach her she is dead somehow. I gave up trying to fix it. Like it was meant to be, just a sad story.

[deu58]

That is reallly a tough call because your areas are so well designed and I like so many of them! I have not yet played every area you have in your recent mod yet but I love the main under ground area because it is so sprawling. For me I download for added content and there can be no doubt that you do deliver on that. I saw the poo poo thing when you first posted on that and the comment that the mod covered the entire state. Well I hope it eventually does! The more content the better!

 

So with that let me say what I think is my least favorite aspect of the mod and in my own opinion it is to much use of the radiation effect. That is my own only personal complaint and it has more to do admitedly with my own personal playing style . Hard enemies in superiorer numbers bring em on but dang I get tired of hiking back and forth to the doc because of radiation sickness. :)

 

Besides that your mod has become to me like Marts Monster Mod became to me with Oblivion. I can't play the game with out it.

Edited May 21, 2011 by deu58

[djmystro]

deu58 :

Thanks for the feedback and suport :) I'll try not to add too many more radioactive areas (although once I've cleared Goodsprings & Primm I'm generally starting to pool Radaway & RadX myself). Never had a mention of that before (apart from a glitch 1000 point marker that is now fixed).

Using some mods like Hardened can eat up Radawy & Rad X fast coz Radroach explosions & Centaurs deal huge Radiation damage (can get upto about 400 rads in a few seconds sometimes). If that's the case though just do a bit of sleeping 'till all the vendors restock. Between the Underground NPCs (Tecoult, & Vandereng plus sometimes Marra & Phillipart in the Apartments), vanilla vendors & Space in Freeside (if she's not dead - she has very suicidal tendencies despite her programming) there should be at least 20 doses of each anti rad drug every 4 days or so.

[deu58]

Meh, My complaint is minor. I do have a modding question for you though. I know that is common for added areas to cause crashes etc and for some reason esm is better for added areas than esp. I remember there was a problem in an earlier AWOP with the door leading from the radio station to the under ground. I have other random ctds when moving through areas that have things added such as Frankies store and the cig factory. Fire tooths cave has got me a few times. Not a complaint because I know this is a geck issue more than a mod issue. If you want added areas this is the price you pay for it.

 

Are these types of crash entering/exiting errors in custom cells fixable? If so is it possible for you to briefly point me in the right direction on what the fix is for that? I am planning on adding some areas to my own mod but I have never added any areas before. I read on another sight that interiors are the way to go because of the height map function not working

[djmystro]

Not sure to be honest, I hardly ever get crashes entering my own locations (in fact apart from bugs that have since been fixed it pretty much never happens to me). That's not to say I don't get crashes. More frequently I get 'em trying to exit my locations but that's due to all the extra enemy mods I have running in the wastes for the most part (and effects vanilla loctions to the same degree).

I used to get frequent crashes on modded interiors with my original FO3 Load order. I kept thinking no-one knew what they were doing coz every other mod crashed on me. Turns out I had several buggy and incomplete mods in the list which took a long time to weed out (mostly relating to Raider mobs for some reason). I have not had that problem in FNV with any of the extra location mods so far.

Interiors for the most part should be easier to load than the wasteland, modded or not, coz they are smaller self contained areas (though in all fairness they do contain ten times as much clutter).

[deu58]

Thanks for the mod info . Ok Favorite areas. I had to think hard on that and it is a toss up for me between the stalker den just as you cross the bridge leaving the friendly side of the under ground and the Arena. There were so many twists and turns in that den I got lost and every time I thought I had finally got all the buggers I would walk right into another cul d sac of them.

 

The Arena I really liked because I play a stealth/sniper character and that was a real challenge for me. Loaded with good solid enemies well defended and fortified and I have to either find or create a weak spot to get in a good position to take the area. I do not use companions nor do I do the run in guns blazing thing. All lone wolf sneaky Pete stuff. Hit and run, Take the high ground, try to flank from behind all that stuff.

 

All that was with an older AWOP. Just before the earache patches. I have the newest AWOP and just started a new character for the DLC's and I am just about to go through the underground again.

 

I like how you have added the sewers to the different towns. I liked how you managed to balance the two sides of the Primm sewer one with the powder gangers and one ghouls. That is relatively small area but it is packed with good action.

[djmystro]

Cool - thanks for the awesome feedback :)

Nightstalker Dens a fun one I forget about sometimes (though the new Rumble Zone will fix that) - I'm always surprised by the challenge in there, I think IWS on max spawns = about 60 Nightstalkers in there. I don't know how that even works, but it does :)

I almost always run in guns blazing, if I think I can get away with it. Keeping Masseling alive through the Arena is near impossible otherwise (though I spose you can just leave him outside if he's following you). Lots of fun tho with a 50 cal machinegun and AP rounds. especially if you can find more for the troops - If I arm them with the weapons I have now It'll be a Tech Raider Massacre (I have over 10 diferent guns that do between 350-600 DPS out of about 50 guns in total - love 4D Storage).

[deu58]

If I were using a companion I would leave them out side the door as an ambush. My main tactic is lure the NPC's into the center of the arena to isolate them from the main pack and thin their numbers. Sometimes that no worky so well and I get a mob of them all at once and I run back through door. Usually a couple NPC's or at least one will follow me through the door and if your companion has got your back! :)

 

My games take much longer to play because I wait for the NPC's to get comfy again and I show as hidden and then I sneak back in and whack a couple more. What takes one player maybe a few minutes and a few game reloads can take me an hour or more depending on the level design and number of enemies. I am in no hurry to ever finish a game. The Stalker/Gecko type dens provide different advantages and challenges for me. The primary advantages being dark and height advatage by getting up on a ledge or a big rock. The disadvatage is the dens are all twists and turns and when things go wrong running back out it is easy to get lost and next thing you know they are all over you.

 

Your fire tooth den is a good example of a den that is easy to get lost in. Up down all around and then it is where the heck am I with a pile of Geckos thinking that I am a marshmellow! :) That is a great den layout.

 

If you wanted to make it more difficult for a stealth player such as myself then less accesable platforms/ledges/rocks etc and a little more light in the darker corners would make my life much more difficult. Gives us less places to hide etc.

 

EDIT Oh yeah tech raiders. I noticed in a newer mod that some of those folks have taken up position under a power line tower towards the mountains close to the city I forget the exact area but they right up against the mountains across form the outer housing area around the city there and it is a fair size area. I saw the enclave bug zapper looking thingy from a distance and wondered if you had brought back the Enclave in you mod. Walked over to take a look and whap they handed me my head! Good spot Good enemies and I will be revisiting those guys soon even things up!

Edited May 22, 2011 by deu58

[kevkiev]

Man oh man, tough choices! I ended up voting for Underground East as my fave area - not only was it amazingly amazing (man those Tech Raiders are freakin' RELENTLESS), but I thought it was pretty cool to discover after going through the nighstalker area, and then discover that the good guy's base was just a stone's throw away. Great atmosphere. Actually, that's one of the many cool aspects of AWOP - when you're tooling around underground and start piecing together the proximity of various areas.

 

Voted for the Collapsed Underpass as my fave RZ, again an awesome atmosphere and it was really cool teaming up with that elite unit. Though I coulda throttled that one guy with the LMG a couple times - does he not know cars can blow up?! ("Carmageddon" - that's priceless!) Still, that just added another stress factor and ended up being pretty cool too.

 

All in all, though, some really tough choices. The Devil's Ahole was flippin' intense!! Also loved the dark and misty spookiness of Death's Cavern and the other cave nearby the name of which escapes me at the moment. Went through the repconn HQ yesterday - those cyborg security guys are perhaps the coolest things I've seen in NV. And, oh yeah, the Spring Mount area was pretty badass too. Well, okay, I could probably go on and on and on and on.... etc.

[djmystro]

Big thanks for the feedback :)

 

deu58 :

Sounds like a good tactic for the Arena.

Dont think I'll get chance to try it myself - my sqaud are an unstoppable killing machine (apart from when they get in front of me during VATS). They're droppin Pyschos like level 1 Fiends. Only got the Station & Arena left but I think I'm gonna get 'em all out alive for once.

They all have looted Power Armor (51B) or Reinforced Metal M (so min DT 24).

Got 'em armed with:

Oso- HK416 Match (530 DPS)

Holmstromm- MEC Gauss Minigun (800DPS)

Nitzinsky- Browning M2 (550 DPS) but the guy prefers his SPAS 12 Guage (420 DPS)

Wessels- AR-50 M (700 DPS)

OBrien- Minigun M (500 DPS)

Iapicca- Marksman Carbine M (350 DPS)

Milx- CFW Gauss Rifle M (380 DPS)

 

I tend to use the Stoner XM110 .338 which seems to level out about 550DPS with match ammo, and has a good scope on it. Drops Psychos in two clean headshots. High ROF. I also use all the AP boosting drugs I have coz they rarely seem to result in addiction.

 

Glad you like the maze effect of some areas. I guess I don't notice much coz I know where everything is. Also the nightstalker Den for example has coloured mushrooms that indicate whether an area has loot in it or not. A bit of a cheat but I doubt many people will figure it out. Blue = nothing, Orange = Loot and Green could be anything.

 

I'll try and make unnavmeshed areas less accessable in future updates (like the big rubble piles at either end of the Collapsed Underpass, though in there I figure people will be grateful for all the help they can get).

 

I like that North Tech Raider camp too. Nice loot fest and a sneak attack (or 4) with a hi-ex 25mm Grenade Launcher M (or XM-109 if youre like me with the BoE) works wonders.

Not sure what the Enclave Zapper thing is. What does that look like?

There are a few Enclave types in AWOP but theyre all ghouls so probably would not be welcomed back into the organization anyway. They are probably trying to make up for that by trying to take over the world again on thier own.

 

kevkiev :

Cool, glad you liked those areas :)

I think I thought UG East would be a favorite for myself but the fact I designed it with sqaud combat in mind I think limited my replay options a little in that area. Still a lot of fun though. It was meant to be a Death-Trap for the troops but it just became the first of many. On balance I prefer the combat in The Arena myself coz it's more unpredictable.

 

Collapsed Underpass was just fun to make, play, everything really. Came together very fast before it got to testing Merreks dialogue options (where everything went to piddle for about 3 hours) but other than that all good. I think I could write a movie about just that place. Lots of other peoples suggestions in that one.

The bosses in that place are amazing too. The big Deathclaw was supposed to be named 'Big Daddy' as a reference to 'Big Momma' but I forgot about that so I'll hafta change that for the next update.

I use grenade lauchers to detonate the cars from a distance (I just spray grenades everywhere are soon as I enter an area). Scatters some loot (there's a nice skeleton/sniper hidden on the top of a bus who usually goes flying and finding Kendo is near impossible sometimes coz she's draped over an undetonated Motorbike). Saves crippling everyone up close though.

 

Devil's A-Hole is very difficult. I'm saving that 'till last (looting up on Tech Raider gear first). I might even take the troops with me just for fun.

I don't kill the Warrior in the Tech Raider Mini Vault who is on the 'hit-list' so the troops should follow me anywhere until I go back and kill that guy.