[WIP] Weapon Addition and Replacement Suite (WARS)

[antistar]

I like the progress Nadies made with SREP, theirs still more to do with it since it's still in beta of course, like making the leaf sight usable, though your AR15 has a true A2/3/4 style receiver with the fencing, forward assist and gas block, SREP kinda misses out on this.

 

Oh..and I hope you're happy Antistar, sending a terminator to kill me, taken completely by surprise XD.

Haha yeah; that was a fun little encounter to put in. Did you just stumble across it accidentally then, rather than by following the hint in the FAQ? (Oh, for others reading; we're talking about something in M1911-WSW - though it is of course in WARS itself too.)

 

Initially I was looking at having the encounter work like the one that kicks off Clockwork - i.e. potentially happening anywhere in the wilderness - but events like that are quite complicated to set up if you don't already know how to do it, and I didn't want to get too far into the weeds learning how to do it for such a relatively minor thing. Instead I just chose a good spot for it... but it was nearly going to be a "potentially stalk you anywhere" thing. ;)

 

 

Here's an update while I'm here:

 

It took a lot of work to get everything set up on my new computer so that all my tools and everything are basically as they were on my old computer. Seriously, if you haven't done it yourself, you would not believe all the programs and plugins and tweaks and fixes it takes to do asset creation for Fallout 4.

 

It was a bit delayed due to a problem with the new computer, too. Once I got my monitoring software set up, I found that the CPU was running way too hot. Like, it was hitting 100 °C at only 30-40% load. Subtle enough that I can see how they missed it before shipping it to me - and to be fair, they assembled and sent it (a completely custom PC that I selected the parts for) within just three hours of me hitting the "order" button - but obviously not right.

 

After a lot of swearing and fiddling with the BIOS for a while, I bit the bullet and pulled the CPU cooler out, and sure enough it was defective: the heat pipes that were supposed to sit flat against the CPU were all uneven. It took a bit to get onto them (partially due to me discovering the problem immediately before a weekend), but once I did, they agreed to replace it under warranty, no problem.

 

Unfortunately for me, right as that got sorted, I came down with gastro or food poisoning or something for the first time that I can remember. That was miserable. I lost around 4kg (8.8 lb) over only three days - and if that doesn't sound like much, it's actually around 6% of my normal body weight because I am the skinny kind of nerd. Fortunately I'm putting the weight back on now without too much trouble.

 

Also, since I saw a GP about it and it shares some symptoms with COVID-19, I was required to go and get a COVID-19 test. (Which came back negative, unsurprisingly.) I'm very fortunate to live in a place (Australia) where getting the test was interesting rather than terrifying, but still; I was feeling pretty wretched at the time.

 

 

Anyway. After all those miserable distractions, I'm back working on the mod.

 

I'm working on the ammo crafting side of things (with a focus on the Contraptions machines), like I was talking about earlier. It got me thinking about the problem of the weapon forges kind of trivialising the acquisition of some higher-tier weapons. As long as you've got rank 4 in Gun Nut and the requisite components, you can just bang out as many Assault Rifles as you like - out of a single machine.

 

Well, I don't think I'm going to remove that feature, but with the ammo crafting I'm making it more interesting by incorporating more steps and machines (e.g. casings, primers, etc), so I thought... maybe I can do something similar with manufacturing weapons. I wouldn't be the first person to say "it kind of feels like you should be able to build a complete weapon out of a full set of parts for it". Without a dedicated interface for this though - or a very complicated/clever script - the problem has always been all the different valid combinations of loose mods you could build a weapon out of.

 

In the context of building weapons via these mini-factory machines though, I think I can make it workable (and vaguely believable) by limiting the weapons you can build along "factory default" configurations. For example you'd have one or two recipes for the AR-15 like "M4A1" or "M16A1", and those would require the appropriate list of loose mods as components. (Notably using the "Average" quality/condition receiver.) And that's it; that's what you could build using the factory.

 

Obviously you could feed in the required loose mods if you have them on hand, but I'll also add in separate machines to build receivers, grips/stocks, barrels, magazines, etc. Again, only the "factory default" variant/s for each. The basic upshot of all this is that you could still set up a factory to churn out a particular weapon, but getting there would be more complex - which sounds fun to me.

 

It occurred to me that a factory like this might end up having a lot of identical copies of those weapon mod crates moving around on conveyor belts, so I'm diversifying the appearance of loose mods a bit - something else I've been thinking about for ages. I already hacked together a kind of generic plastic military container model for the Power Armour Repair Kits (PARKs) in PEACE recently - basically the less retro-futuristic half of the Institute ammo box mirrored into a full container - so I'll probably use that for a bunch of loose mods in WARS. I'm making a few different sizes and colours.

[Shanzyboo]

This would be exactly what happened, I full on stumbled across it in an interesting story..on survival. My story begins with the objective of eliminating another one of the raider leaders at the Federal Rations Stockpile/Lonely Chapel, Red Tourette's (I wanted This Machine as well as potentially Shinys FN P90,) I decided to enter through the Lonely Chapel, naturally I took that bridge in order to get there, what happens this weird effect appears and this robotic form starts becoming visible (I actually thought it was a synth, until I targeted it in VATS and realized the word Synth wasn't present, not to mention the weird name, and of course the ballistic pistol it was wielding and not an institute one,) all I had was a Springfield M1903, Thompson M1921 and an M1911, needless to say I nearly died in that fight (in fact I would've if not for having 5 companions with me at the time,) I find out this machine has crimson red eye thingys and a longslide AMT Hardballer with a laser sight, reminiscent of the one in the first Terminator movie..named Future Shock, very accurate name to describe the situation from my perspective lol.

[antistar]

I think I've mentioned it before, but beyond the obvious reference to The Terminator, the name "Future Shock" is an extra reference to The Terminator: Future Shock, a game Bethesda released in 1995.

 

(A game that I played when it was new, because I'm getting old. It was the first time I used mouselook controls... which took some getting used to, back then.)

[Shanzyboo]

I think you did mention this before, though I can't seem to recall (hardly look into legendaries much personally,) but I loved the surprise of not knowing.

[antistar]

Here's a quick shot showing what I've been working on:

 

- Manufacturing 01

 

 

Some of this is a repeat of what I've said here, but here's a copy-paste of what I said over in the FO4 image share:

 

 

I love that the Contraptions DLC exists - a Factorio-lite factory system in FO4 is something I didn't expect from BGS - but unfortunately BGS didn't do anything very interesting with that system; especially when it comes to tying it into mechanics in the rest of the game. Ammo crafting? Slap some steel and cow manure together and call it ammunition. Weapon crafting? Once you meet the perk requirements and have enough base components, a single machine lets you churn out as many copies of high-tier weapons as you like.

It's all pretty simplistic and not very rewarding.

I've been working on the weapon and ammo crafting side of things in WARS lately, trying to improve this side of things. I'm focussing on using Contraptions machines to do this, because I want to make weapon and ammo factories! I think that will be more fun and rewarding than using crafting workbenches (in the style of the Chemistry Station). This has been planned since I started working on WARS, actually; it was just always a "back-burner" thing because it is a lot of work.

In WARS, building a (ranged) weapon in a "builder" machine now requires a full set of loose mods for that weapon, rather than base components. So generally a receiver, barrel, grip/stock, sights, magazine and often a trigger group. These are "factory default" lists of loose mods - to make this feature more possible/plausible to do - and the loose mods can come from anywhere, but you can also produce them in other builders, creating a factory line. (The loose mods are built from the same components used to craft them when modifying weapons at a workbench.)

With all these new machines, factories could quickly become confusing if I relied on the vanilla tactic of only differentiating the machines by different colours, so I added signs to the machines to show what they are at a glance.

That's what you can see in this quick and dirty image - along with a simple retex of the conveyor belts, adding arrows to show their direction of travel, even when unpowered.

I've also made some quality-of-life improvements to better support the more complex factories required for weapon/ammo manufacturing in WARS. Builder/scrapper machines now snap to (typically the centre of) standard floor pieces; anything with a "balcony" snap point. Now it's easier to avoid factory lines that gradually veer off into a wall because you couldn't align the first piece properly.

I also added left and right Splitters - using the Sorter model. They split items that enter on their input belt (or that have been placed in their inventory), alternating between their two output belts. Should be handy for distributing components to multiple builders that require them, as in WARS.

Terminal menus for selecting what to build now tell you when you don't meet the perk requirements to build something, and what those requirements are.


There's a lot planned for ammo crafting in WARS; including a return to the New Vegas style of using casings, primers, powder, etc. If you happen to have seen my Ammo Crafting Schematics (ACS) mod for FNV, I've got similar plans here (only using factory machines rather than workbenches). In ACS, you can always craft basic ammo (usually FMJ), but ammo sub-types like AP, HP, etc require you to first find a schematic for that calibre.

I want to do the same thing here, only using the Guns and Bullets and Tesla Science perk magazines in the place of schematics. I'll likely also extend this requirement to weapon crafting. In other words, once you find the right issue of Guns and Bullets, you'll be able to craft 5.56x45mm weapons and special ammo sub-types. (Subject to other perk requirements.)

This makes finding those magazines pretty important, so I'll probably add "tip-offs" for each magazine that the player can buy or (rarely) find that give a simple Misc quest pointing to the magazine location.


Lots to do, but I'm getting there. :)

 

 

 

On top of all that:

 

I've really been in the modding salt-mines lately, working on things that need to be done, but which are very tedious. Maybe not all that interesting to talk about, either. E.g. I've just about finished going through all the new weapon meshes added in WARS and fixing up their collision geometry as necessary.

 

Previously I was just using collision from roughly similar vanilla parts and not paying too much attention to it - because mostly weapons are not moving around and being interacted with on the basis of their collision geometry. That changes when you put a weapon on a Contraptions conveyor belt. Suddenly that lazy collision geometry becomes a lot more obvious. Weapons will hover or balance oddly, or clip through things - or in extreme cases even cause jams in a factory line.

 

So... oof, it's felt like my brain has wanted to escape and do something less monotonous, but the results are worth it. It should help with using the weapon racks in PEACE/BAM, too.

[Radsweeper]

The whole weapon factory part of the mod is great. But I submit a twist if I may. To learn how to use them the player would have to find a secret factory inspired by real life Ayalon Institute. They ran an underground ammo factory under a kibbutz, right under the British occupation force in the 1940's. Now imagine the player having to find leads, and confronting Npcs to discover where said factory is. Once you do discover it, it unlocks the machine tools...

 

One can surmise that many factions, Gunners, Raiders and obviously the BOS would like to get their hands on this.

[antistar]

There's a lot that could be done with incorporating quests and other mechanics into settlement building. I hope BGS develop the building side of things more in Starfield/TES6/FO5/whatever.

 

What you're talking about there with involved quest-lines and inter-faction relations and whatnot would be cool, but is way outside the scope of WARS. I think we can all agree that I've got enough on my plate already. ;)

[Tacoman2331]

How common would you say ammo is in shops? are we going to be seeing the same thing as it is now where theres like 130 rounds for 38 ammo and maybe like 6 for 44? Well all ammo types be more/less common in shops? will it be easier to start a factory to get bullets than to just farm a shop?



love followking the mod, keep up the good work!

Side note, the skorpion is sexy as hell

[antistar]

Ammo availability at vendors has changed a little bit here and there as a side-effect of some other levelled list changes I've made re: how weapons spawn with ammo (related to the "NPCs no longer have infinite ammo" feature), but I haven't really focussed on ammo at vendors yet.

 

I think it will feel a bit different once all the ammo crafting stuff is in. You'll be able to buy ammo crafting components like jars of powder, trays of primers and boxes of casings - as well as cans of surplus ammo, like I was talking about in another post recently. Then you might take that surplus ammo and break it down for components to make better ammo out of.

 

On top of all this, you'll probably be getting more ammo as loot from dead NPCs due to the "no infinite ammo" thing; I gave them more to compensate (based on their level). Or maybe you won't! It will depend on how quickly they go down in combat. Anyway, if it's ammo you don't care about, you might also break that down to make other ammo (or ammo sub-types like AP or HP) out of it. This is where I'm hoping it will be fun to build a factory that breaks ammo you don't want down into casings, powder, primers and bullet components (lead, steel, copper, etc) and then re-crafts it into ammo you do want.

 

And thanks, yeah; I have a soft spot for the Skorpion - not sure why. Maybe because it's an interesting tiny little SMG... or big chunky machine pistol, depending on how you look at it.

 

 

An update while I'm here:

 

I've finished all the builder machines for (ballistic) pistols/SMGs, shotguns and rifles. There's one builder each for those, and then each of those has one builder each again for receivers, barrels, grips/stocks, etc - so it took a bit of work. These are all also hooked up to the "schematic" system where you need to find a particular Guns and Bullets magazine to be able to craft, say, 5.56x45mm weapons and special ammo sub-types.

 

I've also implemented the "sealed intel" system where you can find (or much more likely buy) a sealed intel item for each Guns and Bullets magazine that, when used, pops up a simple Misc. quest pointing to where that magazine is.

 

I've just started doing the above things for Energy weapons and ammo - though it's Tesla Science magazines for them. I'll do it for Heavy weapons too, though I'll need to make my own perk magazines for those since they don't have a Guns and Bullets or Tesla Science equivalent. (I'm planning to use public domain photos/drawings/etc for those, so don't worry that I'm going to spend a bunch of time drawing my own covers or something. ;))

[CanyonRunner69]

I think during testing you'll quickly back out of the NPCs use ammo idea. It just doesn't work with Fo4's combat IMO, especially since there's lots of urban warfare with roofs etc if you'd storm a place like corvega all the raiders will run out of ammo before you get to go upstairs. Unless you plan on buffing their accuracy highly so its like Stalker MISERY balance or something, but even then they have a tendency to waste ammo. I guess if you give them like full loadout ammo loot it could work to a degree.. say 210 rounds for assault rifles.. but then you can grab a 5.56 rifle with a scope of some kind and proceed to drop enemies like flies with little effort early-game. Are you planning on tweaking the AI values? Personally I have them set so they engage you from quite realistic distances.. often scenarios where I get shot at without being able to pinpoint direction of enemy fire. The drawback to that is that some quests in the game can become kinda funny - i.e the railroad quest where you overlook corvega territory from the bridge, that'd just be a gunfight instead. Doesn't break the game in any way but it'd feel odd to play like that for people who never played vanilla before I guess.

 

Great idea about the magazines. I always hated the idea of alt-tabbing for a guide so I never bothered collecting most of them.