Going to make a motorcycle mod.

[Flowerguy360]

Hopefully the spawning a bike thing should be easy. I was thinking of having a first person view, but nothing too fancy. No PA hud or anything, just you and the handlebars. I was paying no mind at all to weapons, as I was intending for this to be a pure fast travel replacer. However, that raider chase just blew my mind!

 

Can you imagine?! There you are, you have a big haul of salvage and you're on your on your way back to sanctuary. Then you hear the distinct sound of a chopper over-revving, quickly followed by ecstatic hooting and cheering. Then comes the dreaded call "TUNNEL SNAKES RULE!".

 

I'm probably going to have to inlist help for that one, but daym, that will work.

 

If you can manage it, when you get to the HUD, I would suggest a scaled-down gatling of some kind in the middle of the handlebars, with a standard reticle for aiming. Of course, this might be some fun adding to the model. :/ I dunno. Whatever you think would work best, but given the setting I do think a weapon would be appropriate.

 

Honestly, I was expecting something with a forced 3rd person perspective, as was done in the links I sent you. So this is an interesting take to me. As for the spawning, there were several follower mods for Skyrim that had the companion spawn a horse to ride which would then despawn. I can't imagine the scripting would be that much different. Try Vilja, for example.

 

Hope that helps. And I'm glad you like the raider idea. :)

[SkyisaGod]

First of all, Fragilcious, thank you for making this mod. This is exactly what the game needs and has been begging for since it first teased us with those rusted Lone Wanderers. Next, I would like to add that I will be perfectly happy to get what you originally set out to create, that being a motorcycle that is mobile, player driven and is used as an alternative to fast travel, even if the end result is restricted to when you're Lone Wandering, is completely defenseless and is ugly.

 

Now that I have that out of the way, I do have some requests I'd like to make for the long-term:
-Restored cruiser or cafe racer styles that will be lore friendly

 

-Until bike is defensible (can shoot weapons while riding OR bike has mounted weapons), make it indestructible as it will be a pain in the ass to have it blow up/break down all the time because you're just getting shot while fleeing. Also regarding that, I know you're not using PA mechanics as a base but considering the way your character interacts with it, I wonder if it wouldn't be TOO difficult to use your weapons while you're mounted on the bike. Considering you also mentioned looking into Skyrim's horse mechanics, and weapons were usable from horseback in that game I feel this might be easier than creating or modifying weapons onto the bike itself.

 

-Enable a way for any human, ghoul or synth companion to ride b****

 

-Be able to mod accessories and make a few upgrades. Possibilities include bigger engine to increase speed, thrusters for speed bursts (bike sprinting haha), saddlebags/hard cases for storage/loot transport, tire options (like better off road traction or faster road movement), a choice to add armor and lose speed and maneuverability or use lighter materials parts for the opposite effect, or even eventually some kind of ultralight advanced materials armor that results in small gains or at least doesn't/barely slows you down. If you or someone winds up adding built in weapons to the bike that your operate while riding, imagine if you can change between an Assault Rifle, a Minigun or a Flamer mounted facing forward.

 

-Also, an optional side-car, because it would be hilarious to have Strong or Danse in it as you pointed out, and because we could stick a minigun on it like the vertibird has and you suddenly become much scarier driving around while your companion wreaks havoc.

 

-Include some kind of key system, either with coding alone or an actual key object so that NPCs and enemies can't steal your bike like they can with power armor, since you mentioned eventually wanting to have NPCs riding their own individual bikes (it would be immersive but too annoying to have to remove the fuel/power source every time I get off the bike like I have to do with the PA fusion cores). If saddlebags or hard cases are used, key can lock them too so you can safely leave loot sitting in bike while you go into dungeon!

 

Now, I have a conceptual idea that might be helpful to you, one that I believe could save you a lot of trouble with animating. It's simple, and very lore friendly: make the bike nuclear powered. All the cars and generators already are, so even though it would essentially equal riding a nuclear bomb around, it's pretty believable that they would have made some of these, even if the prevalence of motorcycle gas tanks in FO3 meant that they were still using ICE motorcycles in large amounts in 2077.

 

"How does that help?", you might be saying. Because with the amount of energy generated from a nuclear power source, you can produce an absurd amount of electricity that would power things you normally wouldn't spare the energy on. For example, did you know that there exist today magnetic suspension systems that require no moving mechanical parts? Unless I horribly misunderstand your current challenge, this could make programming the bike's reaction to terrain changes far easier. You also wouldn't need to do any kind of animations for a chain or belt drive either in this case. Obviously some degree of animation to the whole bike is needed to look immersive, but with the simple and lore friendly explanation of nuke power, I believe you could cut down on how many individual components need animations and I hope can lessen the degree/ complexity of your task at hand.

 

Hope this was useful, I will be following this thread and chime in if I have more ideas.

Edited June 6, 2016 by SkyisaGod

[Fragilicious]

Thanks for the post Sky, lots of good points and ideas. Deffo taking notes here.

 

However to address your final point, you think I'm animating chains and drive belts? Nuh uh. Just wheels and associated parts lol. I'm not that good.

[SkyisaGod]

I mean, what do you consider an associated part of the wheel? Those are what actually spin the wheels on most bikes so I figured it was in the realm of possibility haha.

Well, in the spirit of realism and easiness (gotta love it when those two collide), consider making it shaft driven instead of with a chain or belt drive. This has the advantage of being an enclosed mechanism, which just looks like a chunky object sitting on the back wheel and has no visible moving parts with the case on. This is also more "advanced" technologically and less used because it has the least efficient ratio of energy to wheel motion (or so I have been told), which is of course not a problem with a nuclear power source. This site isn't letting me link a pic but google "motorcycle drive shaft" and you'll see what I mean.

 

Glad you liked some of my previous stuff. I am following this thread, I will let you know if I have any other ideas. I wish I could help but I'm pretty new around these parts and to modding in general, and my programming knowledge base is one semester of C++ nearly a decade ago. If you want help when you need something tested in game, let me know, that's about the best I can do for now.

Edited May 28, 2016 by SkyisaGod

[Fragilicious]

Drive shaft is a good idea, I like it. Also, you may be pleased to know that I went for a chat down my friendly neighborhood biker bar and had a good old chat about frames, engines, suspension systems, etc. There is a way to slightly modify the 'Lone Wanderer' to be realistic enough that it can be functional. Turns out a couple of the patrons were fallout fans!

Edited May 28, 2016 by Fragilicious

[HeRoKickXX]

Endorsing the project!

[SkyisaGod]

Turns out some of us who ride do play video games, shockingly haha. That's awesome that you're going on fact finding missions to your local bikers, definitely a good community resource! Does that mean you'll be able to chop up and use the Lone Wanderer in game resource to create your model, or are you still having to work from scratch?

[Flowerguy360]

Oh.

My.

God.

 

I will totally be happy with whatever is made. :)

 

But that last post...

 

...what an awful and marvelous idea, chopping it up.

 

To build your bike in the Robot Workbench.

To be able to use parts of your bike with parts of robots.

To be able to use parts of robots with parts of your bike.

...

...Or, quite simply, to be able to use the Robot Workbench to modify your bike's weapons, speed, fuel, etc.

(Really, simply, this would probably be more immersively and better implemented with a Garage Workbench, but...)

 

I honestly just do not have the words for how awesome that would be.

[padraigsh]

A sidecar would be a really good thing. Side-cars were used a lot in the 1950s by people who couldn't afford a car. Fallout 4 is the late 1940s, mid 1950s in the future. Military sidecars with all wheel drive and guns had a role in WW2. They would fit in this setting. Bubble cars like the Heinkel Kabine used motorcycle mechanicals and the Zip car represents them in game (in a few ingame posters Commies liked them). They became popular in the UK in the late 1950s after the Suez crisis meant a shortage of oil. Now that would be for later, but they could share their engine note. Perhaps sometime in the future the Corvega cars could be made mobile as vehicles. What I mean is I have seen them occasionally shoot along those broken elevated roadways because something hit against them. That might mean they have more potential as vehicles than the Lone Wanderer, which I know OP might not be using anyway. Motorcycles seem to be the main mode of transport in the poor countries on earth. Getting one working, would fit the Fallout setting. Just some thoughts.

[Fragilicious]

Hey, yeah that chopping up idea is hella cool. Once I've got a functional mod going I plan on adding little things like that to it, and developing it over time (if time allows that is, my schedule is still pretty thin).

 

I'm still working on learning how the bike would actually work, though when I get back to the models I will probably try to use the lone wanderer, if only to save me having to learn how to create textures.

 

I never doubted that this would be a big project, and one where I would have to learn many aspects of modding to make work. I really, really, really appreciate the support and tips guys.

 

Thanks!