Anyone for a trip to mars?

[devinpatterson]

Also, just how likely is it that a post-war goverment/enclave force would have the resources to reliably send and recieve messages across the solar system. The idea of big investors being involved is really nice. It's realistic and gives room to play around with factions/adgendas and the like.

 

It seems incredible, but they (the rovers) get by on less than a 20 watt transmitter. 1/30the to 1/60th the power of a microwave oven. So there may still be facilities on earth that can pick up weak signals like that. Of course the main base would have a much, much more powerful transmitter, but it's crawling with space ghouls so we don't have to worry about plugging that plot line.

 

All this sounds great. I just said Enclave cus I didn't want to write "enclave/military/government/etc..". The original taskforce.

 

No worries, it's all kinda mixed up anyway, hard to tell where and how far the enclave infiltrated before the war.

 

an armory wouldn't be a high priority.

 

I thought a bit about this too. I mean, aside from desertion/keeping staff in line, what use are guns on a planet devode of life? I guess the F.E.V experimentation results were already known so they'd have contigancies for an outbreak but I'd assume that every shipment from Earth would not only be expensive, but would also risk revealing the project to foreign enemies.

 

Oh I think a armory is a must, I just meant probably not a large one in that research area, maybe a small(ish) room with some laser rifles or half dozen side arms etc. The direction I was going with in my head is that most of the weapons (especially heavy weapons that could cause a pressure breach) would be in the main base. It would be important if we follow the storyline of the destroyed Chinese base. Unfortunately for the staff there, the space ghoul/zombie infection blindsided them and they were unable to make use of, or get to the armory. But it could be a valuable prize for the player.

 

Great description, but the temperature and the low atmosphere of mars unfortunately precludes any swamp outside. Liquid water boils off due to the low vapor pressure (sublimation), even though it is bitterly cold.

 

I did try and make it appear in my description as though the surface plants were straggly, rotten and dying. Maybe the entire surface is a kind of hellish F.E.V infested jungle. This would give an extra environment for players to explore. The stories of Fallout Tactics 2 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 were to revolve around "mutant" GECK units, which had become infected with radioactive pathogens and caused mutant plant and animal life to expand and consume huge swaths of land. In both situations, the GECKs were "terraformer" type units, like the Fallout 3 GECK.

 

Yeah I can see where your coming from, and I wasn't knocking the plants, just the swamp because of the lack of standing water. That is interesting about the mutant GECK units, gotta check into that, cool stuff.

 

I didn't see anything about space ghouls in the thread. Are these the ghouls who left Earth in "come fly with me"? Or some different species? Sorry, I think I missed a lot of details on my read through of the thread.

 

This one actually comes from the type of radiation in space, which is quite a bit different in nature, than the post apocalyptic irradiated earth. This post describes it and a little night of the living dead tie-in. Here are a few pics;

 

 

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/6084/screenshot481.jpg

 

Here is a closeup with a minimal membrane shader on the right hand ghoul.

 

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6994/shader.jpg

 

They aren't as bright as I'd like, but they do give an interesting effect. We need to decide on whether we want the blue, indigo or white/xray for them. I may also drop the particle shader since I havn't been able to get it to produce a colored glow :(

 

Ah, good luck with the RL stuff! What's OWB just out of curiosity? I don't really keep up to date with mods :facepalm:

 

OWB is Old world blues (some good resources in there for sci-fi). Thanks re: RL, everything pretty much back to normal, and got (more or less) caught up over the weekend. Hope to start producing some content for the mod starting Tues.

 

Dang, I didn't know that. I actually haven't played through any of the DLCs other than Dead Money... o_O

It's perfect. :D

 

You'v got to play through old world blues. To me it really encompass the weirdness that is fallout

 

One thing I just thought up for part of the horror house area I mentioned; an encounter with a malfunctioning "reprimanding" officer, who is busy "executing" a recently deceased worker when the player arrives on scene- something along the lines of "heart failure is not an excuse. Get back to work, you insubordinate worm!"

 

Will do, is it a normal bot or did you have something unique in mind for the game model of the officer?

 

Hi.

I haven't really read through this whole thing, but have you guys considered the "Face" at Cydonia? I always sorta figured that if any aliens ever wanted to leave a message ( or device ) for us to find someday, that's where they'd leave it.

 

My apologies if that's something you covered nine pages ago.

 

Hi, no I'd actually forgotten about it. The newer pics show more angles on the face and it's really not much more than a shallow peninsula :(

But that doesn't have to be the case in the fallout universe.

 

So I was thinking it would be useful if we can add some novelty or uniqueness to the martian bots. Especially since they will be one of the 2 or 3 races acclimated to the martian wasteland. I had a couple of ideas;

 

A brainbot/robobrain with 2 or 3 brains. I thought this could add a little chracter to a combat encounter or a NPC. As a combat encounter they could be chattering back and forth re: tactics. As a NPC, perhaps 1 brain could be male and hte other femal and since they've been together/alive for two centuries they argue amongst themselves like a old married couple. So I made a larger dome and a little heavier bot to house 2 brains (could fit 3 though), this way we give the impression that they are more durable and add some health and DT to make them more of a challenge. Here are some pics (havn't put the brains or biogel in yet), new models on the left, vanilla robobrain on the right. Also included the martian rover.

 

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/3901/marsrobobrains.jpg

 

I just made the shoulders and dome bigger, and increased the cylinder to give the impression of a heavier, more solid model. I didn't mess with any of the trickier areas of hte skeleton (like the claws) so all the animations are spot on.

 

I also have one (almost done) that has a plasma lamp/ball for the dome, which makes for an interesting visual effect. Hopefully it will be ready Tues.

 

Then the other thing I was thinking about is more of a mini-boss encounter. We don't have any actual vehicles as of yet (although that may be possible with Illyism's rideable creatures script), but I thought about making the robobrain a single capsule where a human could sit in the cylinder with his/her head peeking out of the dome. It looks like it would need to be about 9' tall for a comfortable fit. This would essentially make it a robotic tank, and I figured the military/enclave remnants might use these against the player. Once you destroy the robobrain, you'd have a 2nd stage where you have to kill the occupant as well. Plus I don't think the head for the model will be hard, we'll just put a helmet in the dome and attach a enclave placeAtMe when the attached script runs it's OnDeath block. The enclave/military individual in power armor will appear in the midst of the wreckage and begin the 2nd part of the fight. Here is a pic with a normal robobrain to show scale of the martian assault vehicle (used against hte chinese base?).

 

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9043/marsassaultvechicle.jpg

 

Even though I'v only skimmed the timeline Kibblesticks put up (looking forward to checking out the ideas), I can already see he's included several potential plot hooks....it's going to be an interesting mod.

[kibblesticks]

Yeah I can see where your coming from, and I wasn't knocking the plants, just the swamp because of the lack of standing water. That is interesting about the mutant GECK units, gotta check into that, cool stuff.

 

I guess instead of standing water it could be radioactive G.E.C.K goop?

 

This one actually comes from the type of radiation in space, which is quite a bit different in nature, than the post apocalyptic irradiated earth. This post describes it and a little night of the living dead tie-in.

 

Wow, "Most Important Detail Missed In A Thread" Award goes to... Me! Can't believe I didn't see anything about the space ghouls. In my timeline they don't exist and so the base never got over-run. I'll have to radically alter that part. Maybe have the base split down the middle (perhaps literally via a chasm caused by explosives or something) with one half housing the surviving remnants who are trying to survive, maintain the base and carry on the best they can. The other half (where the armoury is, thanks to Murphy) could be full of space ghouls. The place could be falling apart, with Martian dust eroding every surface and broken pipes and wires hanging from the ceiling.

 

Just to get more of an idea about the SGs, does the radiation cause their brains to rot like normal Earth ghouls? I was thinking maybe we could have it that they are actually dead and being vehicled by parasites. They are spawned in uncountable numbers near supernovas and ride radiation particles in stasis for lightyears until they find a living host at which point they "thaw out" and force their host to attack others in an effort to spread. I dunno, just an idea, I thought it might alter the look of them slightly. They'd still maintain the look of humans altered by radiation like normal ghouls, but might have spore sacks or tumorous growths growing on them. This'd make them more like the flood in Halo which always scare the bejeebus out of me. I could probably model some nasty bio-growths as I finally learnt how to rig Fallout skeletons the other week thanks to Ghogiel. Ghouls with bodies of glowing veiny flesh and sticky pus sacks. mmm...

 

As for the "infection" idea. Maybe you could introduce a level set piece where an unifected guy gets caught in the radius of a SG glowing one explosion and screams. The victim then explodes in a ball of radiation himself and turns into a SG. Perhaps there could be areas in the heart of the infected base where you need a special suit to venture in otherwise you become infected yourself and basically die.

 

Edit: For my two cents, my favourite ghouls are the beige ones followed closely by the purples ones. The beige ghouls look like infected humans the most, whereas the purple ones look more dangerous and demonic. I could see the purple ones being stronger and rarer, like the glowing ones in Vanilla FO.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

[

 

Will do, is it a normal bot or did you have something unique in mind for the game model of the officer?

 

I was thinking along the lines of the Sunset WWWW bots filling a similar role, at least in part; possibly just a security brain bot, like that Mainframe boss in Fallout 3 (was it the RobCo building?) or the bots in the H&H toolhouse.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

 

As for the "infection" idea. Maybe you could introduce a level set piece where an unifected guy gets caught in the radius of a SG glowing one explosion and screams. The victim then explodes in a ball of radiation himself and turns into a SG. Perhaps there could be areas in the heart of the infected base where you need a special suit to venture in otherwise you become infected yourself and basically die.

 

Edit: For my two cents, my favourite ghouls are the beige ones followed closely by the purples ones. The beige ghouls look like infected humans the most, whereas the purple ones look more dangerous and demonic. I could see the purple ones being stronger and rarer, like the glowing ones in Vanilla FO.

Funny that you should mention that. I had a dream about a vague, Cruise ship Doom raid (I have wierd dreams, and forget most of them) with two soldiers running into killer ant swarms...

anyway, somehow, upon waking up, these fragments led me to a plague type scenario (I must have been thinking/remembering the last of us) and I came up with a bio-plague mind control scheme (zombielike bio-weapon) that certain individuals have genetic immunity to....

 

for plot purposes I thought that these individuals could create "vaccines" or "cures" from their DNA (don't know how it would be possible IRL, but who cares?) which would raise interesting moral dilemmas.. for instance, a doctor would work with his children (who inherited the trait from their mother? or somesuch) who willingly turn themselves into doped-up blood-cows of sorts to pump out a lot of these drugs; the player could bomb the equipment and/or try to talk them out of it, possibly stealing/sweettalking the doctors into handing over some of the drugs. The limited supply and macabre "extraction" methods result in a delicious collectivist sacrifice morality dilemma; handing out cures to random civilians feels great, but if the player has talked/forced the blood-cows into ceasing "production" then the supply runs out rather quickly... and if the thing is still up and running, well...

 

there could also be a mass murderer/deserter/criminal slated for execution and/or imprisoned for some reason or another; would the player try to free them in exchange for some blood samples? Would the player try to enslave them, or trust the government (good luck with that...) and reveal that the criminal in question can be used to make plague cures? the criminal could even become a companion. Maybe a more sympathetic outlaw (robin hood, deserter/army killer, etc.) would become a companion in addition to giving "donations" every now and then. Or perhaps one companion might try to steal some of the meds if/when he/she learns about the cures, whether to sell the drugs or use for a loved one.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

Also, just how likely is it that a post-war goverment/enclave force would have the resources to reliably send and recieve messages across the solar system. The idea of big investors being involved is really nice. It's realistic and gives room to play around with factions/adgendas and the like.

 

It seems incredible, but they (the rovers) get by on less than a 20 watt transmitter. 1/30the to 1/60th the power of a microwave oven. So there may still be facilities on earth that can pick up weak signals like that. Of course the main base would have a much, much more powerful transmitter, but it's crawling with space ghouls so we don't have to worry about plugging that plot line.

the big investor thing has lots of possibilities... Actually, why not make this a "Chinese" mod? As in the Enclave/US wouldn't be the ones involved- the Chinese equivalent to the Enclave would be in charge. aside from providing a different take to the ubiquitous "Enclave plot of doom!" it would provide a virtual blank slate to background. Perhaps it could be a Russian operation, even? They seemed to be the RL china equivalent, IE friendly (er) with the US. Perhaps FEV deserters/stolen tech was used in conjunction with vault/GECK terraforming, or maybe Braun was playing ends against the middle, or even a post-World War two tech grab, with the Russians/Chinese getting some of Braun's colleagues/predecessors.

 

Great description, but the temperature and the low atmosphere of mars unfortunately precludes any swamp outside. Liquid water boils off due to the low vapor pressure (sublimation), even though it is bitterly cold.

Terraforming, shields, sci fi tech.... subterranean colonies, a la Cocoon from FFXIII (the only good thing to come out of that game, IMO, 12 was WAY more engaging/deep plotwise...)

 

I did try and make it appear in my description as though the surface plants were straggly, rotten and dying. Maybe the entire surface is a kind of hellish F.E.V infested jungle. This would give an extra environment for players to explore. The stories of Fallout Tactics 2 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 were to revolve around "mutant" GECK units, which had become infected with radioactive pathogens and caused mutant plant and animal life to expand and consume huge swaths of land. In both situations, the GECKs were "terraformer" type units, like the Fallout 3 GECK.

 

Yeah I can see where your coming from, and I wasn't knocking the plants, just the swamp because of the lack of standing water. That is interesting about the mutant GECK units, gotta check into that, cool stuff.

 

:thumbsup: Planet of the Apes, anyone? Seriously, the GECK terraforming thing is way understated modwise and gamewise, IMO. It has huge potential. Add in FEV mutations, and we get a true jungle.

[Jeoshua]

Basically, the story that the alien jungle pictures tell me is this:

 

There was life already there on Mars, which had retreated far below the surface. Long ago the planet dried out, the core cooled down, and what little volatiles had fled the surface, thus so did the life.

 

Until humans came to the planet.

 

See, the GECK was meant for a wasteland. There already being life was not something that was anticipated, and it had some very serious consequences. Now with the return of a somewhat viable biosphere, the martian life was free to come out of it's subterranean hibernation. And to mutate and diversify.

[kibblesticks]

Definately! In the timeline I wrote the humans find a strange artifact in the Martian ruins and hook it up to the mainframe for analysis. Although it's never clearly stated, I'd like to imply the artifact actually infected the mainframe and caused it to activate the G.E.C.K, which in turn brought about the return of life to Mars.

[devinpatterson]

I guess instead of standing water it could be radioactive G.E.C.K goop?

 

Or just keep it a swamp (H20), but put it in the twisted biodome. I'd fit right in there, along with halo "the flood" critters.

 

Wow, "Most Important Detail Missed In A Thread" Award goes to... Me! Can't believe I didn't see anything about the space ghouls.

 

No worries, the thread is kinda large and growing fast. Easy to miss stuff.

 

Maybe have the base split down the middle (perhaps literally via a chasm caused by explosives or something) with one half housing the surviving remnants who are trying to survive, maintain the base and carry on the best they can. The other half (where the armoury is, thanks to Murphy) could be full of space ghouls.

 

Sure I don't see why not, the key part is that the space ghouls occupy the launch pad (prevent exit from mars), communications (prevent contact with earth) and armory (the payoff for our player). They're as much of a plot device as they are a level/encounter, and one of the last obstacles to overcome.

 

 

Just to get more of an idea about the SGs, does the radiation cause their brains to rot like normal Earth ghouls? I was thinking maybe we could have it that they are actually dead and being vehicled by parasites. They are spawned in uncountable numbers near supernovas and ride radiation particles in stasis for lightyears until they find a living host at which point they "thaw out" and force their host to attack others in an effort to spread. I dunno, just an idea,

 

I definitely pictured them as feral akin to the 28 day type zombies in behavior. (doesn't preclude a rare exception or two, perhaps a commander trying to contain his/it's bloodlust).

 

I'd save the idea for the infected, for the twisted biodome (dome 2). Something akin to the halo flood idea you alluded to. But use FEV as the contagion as opposed to the super nova radition particle parasites. It would be closer to lore but could have the same effects and fits very well with what we know FEV can do.

 

 

Ghouls with bodies of glowing veiny flesh and sticky pus sacks. mmm...

 

Something that would be a cool effect is to change the opacity on the parts of the textures that have the boils, that way they would look like they were filled with some transparent liquid or gel. Then lighten that part of the glow map, so they really shine through.

 

As for the "infection" idea. Maybe you could introduce a level set piece where an unifected guy gets caught in the radius of a SG glowing one explosion and screams. The victim then explodes in a ball of radiation himself and turns into a SG. Perhaps there could be areas in the heart of the infected base where you need a special suit to venture in otherwise you become infected yourself and basically die.

 

It's a good idea, something we could implement pretty easily if you'd like to include it. I wasn't really thinking of implementing it in game mechanics per se though, just a good backstory/explanation of why the base was taken over so quickly. Even though they were essentially a skeleton crew, the idea of infection would speed the fall of the facility even faster.

 

Edit: For my two cents, my favourite ghouls are the beige ones followed closely by the purples ones. The beige ghouls look like infected humans the most, whereas the purple ones look more dangerous and demonic. I could see the purple ones being stronger and rarer, like the glowing ones in Vanilla FO.

 

Yeah I don't see why we couldn't have different versions....

 

I was thinking along the lines of the Sunset WWWW bots filling a similar role, at least in part; possibly just a security brain bot, like that Mainframe boss in Fallout 3 (was it the RobCo building?) or the bots in the H&H toolhouse.

 

Cool, let me know what you decide on and I'll whip it up.

 

 

Also, just how likely is it that a post-war goverment/enclave force would have the resources to reliably send and recieve messages across the solar system. The idea of big investors being involved is really nice. It's realistic and gives room to play around with factions/adgendas and the like.

 

It seems incredible, but they (the rovers) get by on less than a 20 watt transmitter. 1/30the to 1/60th the power of a microwave oven. So there may still be facilities on earth that can pick up weak signals like that. Of course the main base would have a much, much more powerful transmitter, but it's crawling with space ghouls so we don't have to worry about plugging that plot line.

 

the big investor thing has lots of possibilities... Actually, why not make this a "Chinese" mod?

 

I agree, the big investor idea will bring in a lot of interesting tech, connect us to fallout lore (via the more famous companies htat show up in fallout all over) and generate separate little story lines that can make good mini-quests.

 

In regard to the Chinese mod, it's just convenience. We have tons of info on U.S. companies, but if you asked me about a Chinese contractor, you'd just get a blank stare. Other than stealth suits and chimera tanks, I know very little about Chinese tech.

 

 

:thumbsup: Planet of the Apes, anyone? Seriously, the GECK terraforming thing is way understated modwise and gamewise, IMO. It has huge potential. Add in FEV mutations, and we get a true jungle.

 

I'v been wanting to do this. Say you have an area that was originally settled by escaped lab primates and has grown to a appreciable size (somewhat isolated). The trog animations are great for primates. Modeling hte body isn't too difficult, but I havn't been able to make a decent primate face :(

 

I'm thinking of buying one off of one of hte 3D modeling sites. But I already have several projects going and was hesitant to start another.

 

There already being life was not something that was anticipated, and it had some very serious consequences. Now with the return of a somewhat viable biosphere, the martian life was free to come out of it's subterranean hibernation. And to mutate and diversify.

 

 

The geck aspect is hard, primarily because fallout itself has some wacked lore around it. There seems to be at least three versions;

 

One, a more mundane kit, that contains seeds, soil supplements and fertilizers. As well as a cold fusion unit for power, a holodisk of the library of congress/encyclopedia etc. The vaults themselves were made to be disassembled and converted into new homes. You know, basically a post apocalyptic survival kit, but nothing truly amazing or the penultimate of tech. This seems to be the fallout 2 version.

 

The second is the geck in fallout 3, " a matter-energy replicator and miraculous terraforming device, transforming an area into energy and then reforming it according to a certain molecular pattern."

There's mention of it making pre-conditioned areas of the moon (I'd assume processed soil, in a pressurized dome) arable.

 

A third, as Kibblesticks mentioned; BOS 2 and tactics have mutant gecks that became infected with radioactive pathogens that follow a line much like Jeoshua is suggesting, that "caused mutant plant and animal life to expand and consume huge swaths of land".

 

So I think we could use a slight variation of Jeoshua suggestion following the B.O.S. 2 lead. A contaminant infected a geck, perhaps a long dormant spore (or one of thos protoeons (?spelling) those protein like structures that are even more primitive than a virus (contain no dna/rna), resulting in the mutant life. This way we can have a good/hospitible biodome and a mutant biodome for two different settings. This is because the contamination is in the geck itself as opposed to the soil (which would mean all gecks used would be mutated by native life, and rather problematic for terraforming). Alternately we can achieve the same same effect of the mutant geck by just having scientists test FEV in the twisted biodome, the results would be more or less the same.

 

Either way, I'd prefer this angle because I'm still interested in pursuing some plot/story lines of a "good" biodome, mostly the noble savages vs the underground ghoul scientists (a mix of eloi vs morlocks from the time machine, with a touch of the old star trek story "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" thrown in). So we have someone for hte player to fight **for** instead of just against. In that scenario part of the plot could be a defense of the good geck (we don't hvae many "base" defense scenarios in fallout and it could make for a fun diversion).

 

A reversed storyline could reflect the twisted biodome with the center of the quest to destroy the mutant geck, and hte player locked in until he/she does so.....

 

 

Definately! In the timeline I wrote the humans find a strange artifact in the Martian ruins and hook it up to the mainframe for analysis. Although it's never clearly stated, I'd like to imply the artifact actually infected the mainframe and caused it to activate the G.E.C.K, which in turn brought about the return of life to Mars.

 

I prefer the atmosphere/story line of the long dead martian ruins that you'v been alluding to Kibblesticks. A native race that existed 100's, 1000's or 10's of thousands of years ago etc, strange and mysterious. Much like the martians in Doom 3.

 

But we may be better off going with the fallout version of the retarded greens. It could be a explanation of the **real** reason we have the mars base/colony. Just about everything the fallout U.S. does, is related in some way to military advantage. And the greatest military advances has come from alien tech. The wiki says that even FO's laser rifles and plasma weapons are based on alien tech. And I'v seen references to alien tech in robotics, biogel, AI, etc etc. So, for the fallout governments of hte world, these are the real game changers and determine who will be top dog.

 

I thought the storyline (and this could be good filler for Kibblesticks timeline) could go something like this; 10 or 20 years before the great war a martian mapping (orbital) probe determines/discovers irregularities at one of the poles. A little later (a year or a few years) rovers are sent to the area and find some confirmatory evidence of something below the permafrost. Give it a year(s) and a manned expedition visits the site and the initial plans for the mars project are set in motion. Over the next few years resources are expended to devolope the base, until the war effort curtails the project. The official story is the pole is used because the water (if there is any, that's where it's at) will be used for agriculture in biodome 1 and water for base personal, as well as split by hydrolysis so you have O2 for peeps and Hydrogen for plasma (just strip of a electron and there you go). Of course the ruins are the real reason for hte location.

 

Biodome 1 is constructed first (a year or two before biodome 2) and is/will be used for agriculture (and some small parts for recreation). Biodome 2 is started as a testing ground for terraforming/martian adaptation. It allows the scientists to have a large area to work with but still contain any specimens. However the geck is contaminated during it's 2 year wait (and/or FEV infection accidentally or by design) and while the results initially appear normal the the flora and fauna are not as they seem. About the time that A. the battle of the Chinese base is occurring (if we include this in the mod) and B. The space ghoul infection has began it's explosive transmission, Biodome 2 begins to show some alarming changes. Accelerated growth and mutation rates are rapidly changing the nature of the dome resulting in a biological deathtrap. So we have all three of these things (war, space ghouls, bio infestation) occurring at the same time and it is simply overwhelming to the base personal/security.

 

The cover story for the project (that base personal believe) can be research of mars, patriotic exploration (ala the space race for the moon), or just isolated area for research to dangerous for earthside. And each is true as well, but the main point being that very few of hte mars personal know the true purpose of the project (the alien remnants). Just some top brass military (enclave members) and the actual scientist (trusted enclave techs). With work being done via bots and the whole thing top secret.

 

The upshot is it's a good explanation why a war crazy U.S. would expend so much money/time/resources for the mars project and it sets us firmly within lore.

 

The downside is the green aliens are such numnuts. But we can play up the mysterious angle, and play with the atmosphere to give them a different feeling (ie holo/light bots are easily within their tech and will give them a completely different "feel"). Plus there isn't (??) any surviving aliens so we don't have to encounter any of hte babbling idiots, just their artifacts, remnants etc.

Edited February 13, 2012 by devinpatterson

[kibblesticks]

Arrgh please don't make the little green derpoids the Martian aliens :facepalm: They're annoying and silly and whilst I quite enjoyed the cheesiness in Zeta, I don't think there's any way anyone could see those things as creepy. The universe is a big place, can't we just say the Zeta dudes came from pluto and leave them out of it? :P Can definately see the reason for going to Mars being the ruins but maybe the government thought they were Zeta Alien ruins when really they were something much much older..

 

Or just keep it a swamp (H20), but put it in the twisted biodome. I'd fit right in there, along with halo "the flood" critters.

Either way, I'd prefer this angle because I'm still interested in pursuing some plot/story lines of a "good" biodome, mostly the noble savages vs the underground ghoul scientists (a mix of eloi vs morlocks from the time machine, with a touch of the old star trek story "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" thrown in). So we have someone for hte player to fight **for** instead of just against. In that scenario part of the plot could be a defense of the good geck (we don't hvae many "base" defense scenarios in fallout and it could make for a fun diversion).

 

I'm unfamiliar with those references but would it not be possible to include a bio-dome within a jungle which is the base for the tribals but has burst open, spilling plants into the wasteland? The ghouls could reside in a second biodome or the catacombs. Perhaps they stole, or are trying to steal, the tribal's G.E.C.K.

 

This is obviously one of those things that just fits differently in different people's minds. I realise you really want the biodome setting so I'll just lay all my cards on the table and if you still want it then I'll go with it 100% (although I still wouldn't have a clue how to make a biodome that was a size worth putting a "jungle" in). Here goes.

 

There's going to be two things in this mod for definate: Wasteland, and Domes. The wasteland you're going to be seeing a lot of and that's fine because wide, open exploration is Fallout's thing. The domes are necessary because the humans have to have somewhere to live and because they fit the retro 50/60s scifi theme.

 

My main concern is that by placing everything in domes you risk "bullet-pointing" the action. We'll have F.E.V mutants on the surface, but how fun is it going to be fighting them with no interesting terrain to fight them on. The aim of the map I sketched out was to avoid large spaces of similar environments which get repetitive fast. Placing something of interest at each compass point gives the player extra exploration potential.

 

Other important considerations include; 1.how interesting an environ is, 2.how many different types of creature it can comfortably and realisticly fit inside, and 3.how much work it will take to create.

 

Open Jungle:

 

1. Has a myriad of different terrain types; bare ground, molds piles, towering trees, a dense variety of floor foliage, pools/lakes of radioactive sludge, and infinte combinations of all of the above. Has huge exploration potential and makes a nice change from military bases.

 

2. Can comfortably fit in as many unique creatures as you like including behemoth-sized bosses, you just have to increase the area of jungle to your liking.

 

3. Is extremely easy to set up. Simply drop the plant meshes on the ground and go. Navmeshing is tricky.

 

Closed Bio-Dome:

 

1. Much more interesting for a focused narrative. Many levelled dungeons offer interesting player options. However there is no reason a jungle couldn't contain bases inside of itself, like a biodome that burst open and allowed the plants to escape. Limited space can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on what you're using it for, but certainly no space for a "jungle". Lacks the sheer space that a jungle affords.

 

2. Can hold a limited variety of creatures. Too many unique types and you start to sacrifice realism or playability. Good for guiding the player into unique scenarios though. But again, no reason why a jungle couldn't hold a biodome within itself.

 

3. Very easy to set up the building itself but plant life would need to be specifically designed to spec so as not to get in the way of the player and NPCs. Navmeshing is quicker and more focused than a large area of jungle, with less chance of collision conflicts.

 

-Like I said, that's me laying my cards on the table. If you still want to go with the biodomes then we'll do it but I'm not going to lie, a G.E.C.K jungle is something that strikes me as truly awe-inspiring.

 

 

As for extra "zones", I'd just like to put forward a suggestion that we keep everything confined to the crater for the time being. Moons and space stations and polar ice caps are great for add-ons and finales, etc.. but Bethesda themselves avoid "transportation" to different areas like the plague and I think there's a reason for that. It's easy to keep things focused if everything is connected.

 

To finish, I'd just like to say I really like the whole biodome narrative. The main base getting overrun and potentially dealing with a chinese invasion/missile strike/whatever explains nicely why they can't contain the G.E.C.K biodome going nuclear. When do you think it happened roughly? About a hundred years ago or much more recently? Both have merits from a story telling point of view. If it's more recent then NPCs are more likely to be talking it up as a big event, but if it happened a while back it gives factions (like tribals) a chance to develop.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

Well, there could be multiple biodomes, or perhaps it's a covered crater.