Project Phoenix: Fallout 4 Reborn - A Complete Fallout 4 Overhaul

[RogueMatriarch]

From the wastes of Washington, D.C. emerged Wanderer's Edition. Treading the sun-scorched deserts of Vegas, Project Nevada arrived with a Big Iron on its hip. Now, the ruins of Boston and the Commonwealth have been burned down to herald a new beginning...



Project Phoenix: Fallout 4 Reborn
The Main Theme may be listened to here, courtesy of DrDissonance1 of Youtube.

From humble beginnings as mod simply adjusting a few things to make the game more reminiscent of its predecessors, one person's burning desire to see Fallout 4 be reborn into the title many had hoped it to be has turned Project Phoenix into just that.

As to be expected from its title, this mod will essentially lays waste to every aspect of Fallout 4 in one way or another in order to create a whole new experience; one befitting of the Fallout label in honor of both the franchise and those who found themselves not overjoyed or entertained by the game but disappointed and embittered by it. Gone was a majority of the roleplaying aspects, the complex characters and choices one would expect to encounter nowhere to be found. Your character was not even your own, given a voice you did not choose nor ask for; conveying emotions you may not share or even remotely feel. Even morality was no longer choice, only how sarcastic or greedy you were, with dialogue options limited to a pathetic four. What you chose may not be what you wanted either, whole sentences symbolized by just a handful of words if that.

Weapons were as limited in variety as the insultingly-simply dialogue system and just as much as a grab-back when it came to their performance, many useless once you surpassed the early-game point. Melee and Unarmed weapons suffered as they always did, paling in comparison to their ranged counterparts with little hope of being viable. However, firearms had their fair number of issues as well: limited number of options, reused mods, nonsensical effects, ridiculous crafting requirements, damage penalties on automatic weapons, horrible accuracy for many, the list goes on. Explosives were limited to just grenades and mines, only somewhat useful and hardly worth the effort due to awful collision meshes and the poorly-planned grenade hotkey.

Armor was just as unimpressive, many pieces sporting the exact same mods with the only real differences being weight and protection offered. The bland generality of the sets and poor implementation meant that only a handful would actually be used such as Combat Armor, Leather Armor, and Metal Armor. Raider Armor would be immediately tossed out in favor of them while one-piece sets were completely impractical due to their weight and comparably-weaker defenses they offered. This results in characters, both player and non alike, resembling one another rather often as the best gear was easy to discern. Power Armor fared little better too, X-01 being the hands-down best with T-60 a close second, the T-45 and T-51 left to rust if a full suit could even be found before T-60s become commonplace.

All of these issues and more will be remedied with Project Phoenix.

About The Mod
As said, Project Phoenix aims to overhaul nearly every aspect of Fallout 4. However, it is done with regards to realism, practicality, and respect to previous titles alongside established lore. At its core, Fallout is a Post-apocalyptic Roleplaying Game and with this mod, Fallout 4 shall wear that title like a king instead of the jester it once was.

This means adjusting, removing, and evening adding several core components integral to gameplay. Crafting, gun mechanics, and the character-creation system will receive most of the attention when it comes to tweaking. Leveled Lists and the Legendary System are going to be scraped entirely, both producing negative effects in terms of experience with the latter more befitting a Borderlands-style shoot-'em-up then an action-RPG. Familiar mechanics such as Ammo Subtypes and Crafting, Karma, Speech Checks, Skills, Traits, genuine Unique Weapons, and Damage Threshold are planned to be reintroduced as well among others.

However, it should be noted that this mod is in its infancy. Like Wasteland Edition and Project Nevada, it will not be finished in its entirely for years to go in all likelihood. That said, updates will take the form of individual mods covering various aspects of Fallout 4. Once enough of said mods have been released, they will be added to the Files section as Compilations.

Compilations will range from Armor and Weapon Reworks to Perks and Gameplay Changes. By doing this, .ESP count is lowered and people can play using the mod without having to wait for it to be 100% complete.

Current Focus: Weapons

Being a central element of Fallout 4, the weapons will be first thing tackled by the project with a focus on balance and realism. Each will be tackled individually and then whole weapon groups released as packs. Due to how some are reworked, they will be either more or less useful then their non-reworked counterparts. That said, there is nothing keeping you from using them as you see fit.

Reworked Weapons

Unarmed

Knuckles Weapon Rework

Melee

N/A

Ballistic Weapons

.44 Pistol Weapon Rework

Broadsider Weapon Rework

Double-barrel Shotgun Weapon Rework

Fatman Weapon Rework

Minigun Weapon Rework

Missile Launcher Weapon Rework

Railway Rifle Weapon Rework

Energy Weapons

Cryoloator Weapon Rework

Explosives

N/A

Thoughts, opinions, suggestions, and discussion are highly encouraged and welcomed. After all, this is a mod intended to create the experience we, the players, were hoping for and as such, your input will be taken into consideration. It should also be mentioned that a configuration menu is planned to be implemented as well, allowing you to enable/disable specific features and allow you to utilize Project Phoenix as you see fit. It will either be based off of Mod Configuration Menu from New Vegas/Fallout 3, a similar mod, or from scratch and custom-made for Project Phoenix.

Lastly, it should be noted that this is not the first version of Project Phoenix. That can be found being discussed in this thread but will no longer be updated. That version of the mod itself has been discontinued due to the sporadic manner of how changes were being made, rendering it nigh-unplayable and incompatible with most mods. This version was started from scratch and will focus on specifics elements throughout its development instead of all of them at once. Features mentioned in the old thread may or may not be included in the new version of Project Phoenix depending on the complexity, time and/or resources required, and so forth.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Mavrickhunter2

[WolfmanMODS]

Might need to compare notes and see if we can help eachother, but I totally hear you on making Fallout 4 into the title that us fans had hopped it would be: Anyhow my rant of the issues with Vanilla Fallout 4 can be found in the forums here, and some videos of work that has already been done are as follows:

-Short Recap of Realistic Weapons and Ammo

-Full 2+ Hour Live Stream of Full Gameplay Overhaul Demo

[RogueMatriarch]

Might need to compare notes and see if we can help eachother, but I totally hear you on making Fallout 4 into the title that us fans had hopped it would be: Anyhow my rant of the issues with Vanilla Fallout 4 can be found in the forums here, and some videos of work that has already been done are as follows:

-Short Recap of Realistic Weapons and Ammo

-Full 2+ Hour Live Stream of Full Gameplay Overhaul Demo

I indeed saw your mod a while and intend to am an in-depth anaylisis of it in order to see how you implemented features that I have already done or are in the process of doing. I believe we may be able to collaboratee, if not just exchange notes and ideas, if you are interested in doing such.

 

However, I should note that the work done on Project Phoenix thus far as been all done on my own. I do plan to assemble a proper team to work alongside me but for the time being, it is just myself. If you would like to send some of your members my way, if not just to discuss methods and ideas, that would be greatly approciated.

 

As for readers, take this as an invite to share your thoughts and ideas. If you would like to see specific features, certain mods incorperated, or would like to help in some manner, feel free to leave a comment and I will reply when possible.

[RogueMatriarch]

Good news, everyone!

 

Thanks to MechTechnal, author of the "What if Fallout 4 was GOOD" thread and one of the members of the Fallout 4 Redefined mod, Project Phoenix now has its own custom logo after some cooperation between Mech and I. The main post has been updated to include the new logo but it can be found below as well.

 

 

Project Phoenix also has its own theme now, courtesy of DrDissoance1 of Youtube! The theme can be listened to [here] It too has been added to the main post for every to see when they first check the thread, right below the new logo. Feedback on both the logo and the new theme would be greatly appriciated, as well as sending love and thanks to DrDissonance1 and MechTechnal for their help in making Project Phoenix that much better!

Edited June 21, 2017 by Mavrickhunter2

[Gruffydd]

Since you're planning on making it one piece at a time instead of all at once, will this be modular, allowing the user to install only the overhauls that match their vision of what FO4 "should" be, or will this be all-or-nothing?

[RogueMatriarch]

Since you're planning on making it one piece at a time instead of all at once, will this be modular, allowing the user to install only the overhauls that match their vision of what FO4 "should" be, or will this be all-or-nothing?

This is addressed in the initial post, actually.

 

A configuration menu is planned to be implemented as well, allowing you to enable/disable specific features and allow you to utilize Project Phoenix as you see fit. It will either be based off of Mod Configuration Menu from New Vegas/Fallout 3, a similar mod, or from scratch and custom-made for Project Phoenix. Ammo weight, item condition, and more will be adjustable and/or togglable using the configuration menu. Not all features, mentioned or discussed, may be implemented at the time they are talked about but will hopefully be at some point in the future.

However, as of this moment, such a configuration menu has not been implemented. With only minimal changes being made thus far though, I do not see this being a problem for the time being.

[Gruffydd]

No, it was touched on, but not clearly. Being able to customize/toggle "some aspects" does not equate to being able to pick and choose from the modules.

For example, I have little interest in customizing/crafting ammo, and got burned out years ago on having to deal with item condition. I would have little to no interest in using those parts of the overall mod. I am, however, quite interested in whatever faction work comes along.

So, if the customization allows me to "turn off" phase 1 (ammo), but keep phase x (factions), that would be great for me. But if the customization is only a few aspects of how​ the ammo customization works without the ability to skip it entirely, that's not so useful for me.

Others may have the opposite tastes. They're very much into the ammo overhaul, but don't care about factions, or settlements, or whatever. Or, they may be interested in all of it except the ammo overhaul because they already have an ammo mod they really like that would conflict.

So, my question wasn't will we be able to use the toggles and customization within the phases. What I was really asking was if the overall mod would be modular, allowing the user to exclude some phases entirely, while keeping the rest of the overall mod, or if the phases will be interlinked to the extent that you can customize some settings and toggle some things, but won't be able to exclude the phases you're not interested in.

Sorry if I wasn't clear about what I was asking.

[anarchy1990]

Hi :) if you'd like an extra 3d modeler/cell designer I'd be happy to offer any assistance I can :D

[Exilejedi7]

Just a thaught, enemies can jump into attack , jump small fences just like the player,,, no more easy escapes by jumping , sumpermutant mele fighters have a lunge attack, BoS have jetpack troopers? Jumping implemented well could increase the AI versatility in combat.

[RogueMatriarch]

No, it was touched on, but not clearly. Being able to customize/toggle "some aspects" does not equate to being able to pick and choose from the modules.

For example, I have little interest in customizing/crafting ammo, and got burned out years ago on having to deal with item condition. I would have little to no interest in using those parts of the overall mod. I am, however, quite interested in whatever faction work comes along.

So, if the customization allows me to "turn off" phase 1 (ammo), but keep phase x (factions), that would be great for me. But if the customization is only a few aspects of how​ the ammo customization works without the ability to skip it entirely, that's not so useful for me.

Others may have the opposite tastes. They're very much into the ammo overhaul, but don't care about factions, or settlements, or whatever. Or, they may be interested in all of it except the ammo overhaul because they already have an ammo mod they really like that would conflict.

So, my question wasn't will we be able to use the toggles and customization within the phases. What I was really asking was if the overall mod would be modular, allowing the user to exclude some phases entirely, while keeping the rest of the overall mod, or if the phases will be interlinked to the extent that you can customize some settings and toggle some things, but won't be able to exclude the phases you're not interested in.

Sorry if I wasn't clear about what I was asking.

Once a Configuration Menu has been created and implemented, yes, a wide variety of features, all if possible, will be toggable and/or adjustable one way or another. However, this is a technical matter far beyond my current expertise and will have to look into the MCM mod for guidance or have someone else create one for Project Phoenix.

 

Hi :smile: if you'd like an extra 3d modeler/cell designer I'd be happy to offer any assistance I can :D

Fantastic! Custom assets are definitely going to be a thing and a modeler would be most welcomed! What kind of experience do you have? Any mods to showcase?

 

Just a thaught, enemies can jump into attack , jump small fences just like the player,,, no more easy escapes by jumping , sumpermutant mele fighters have a lunge attack, BoS have jetpack troopers? Jumping implemented well could increase the AI versatility in combat.

Improvememt to enemy AI is definitely going to be something included in the mod, as is larger variety. However, this is further along and no definite plan as to when they will be included.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Mavrickhunter2