Fallout 4: Evolution, a biological realism mod

[syphek]

So I'm a Bio major in college and I was having a thought the other day while we were discussing mutation rates in class.

 

The idea is simple: CREATURES EVOLVE.

 

With the crazy huge background radiation rates, DNA is going to get damaged constantly, so mutation will be at much higher rates than pre-war. This is already evidenced by the existence of almost all of the creatures present. This mod would take it one step further by making the environment and the creatures adaptive to changes (mostly caused by you). Essentially the deathclaw you fight at level 60 would be fundamentally different than the one you fight at level 2.

 

The background (or possibly a separate mod) required to run this idea would be a kill counter of some sort. It's already present in the engine, eg. skyrim, so it's just a matter of making it in Fallout, which I don't imagine would be that complicated of a script. If I remember correctly each creature is assigned a family of sorts within the code, so it just needs to count the number per each "family" you kill.

 

Then every creature gets a rate of change and a set of upgrades. For instance, every bloatfly you kill gives a 1% chance of mutating all bloatflies to have a new ability, like adding fire damage to the larva projectiles, or a poison DOT, or all bloatflies are glowing, etc... So roughly 1/100 bloatfly kills would make all bloatflies slightly more dangerous. These rates could be adapted to the spawn rates of creatures, so if you wouldn't see 100 bloatflies in a regular playthrough, it could be 3% or 10% or whatever.

 

These "upgrades" would be random from a list which would increase replayability. So you hit the 1% that makes all bloatflies mutate and it randomly selects the mutation from a list, so it's not just a progression every time.

 

It could also change the way enemies exist naturally. If you're always killing from stealth, maybe enemies develop chameleon, or if you always kill with a laser weapon, they develop reflective shells, etc...

 

Ideally this could also change the spawn rates/locations later on in development. So if you wipe out a mirelurk heavy location, maybe something else will come in later and adapt to the new niche. If you kill a significant amount of deathclaws, maybe gatorclaws move into the wasteland coastal regions, pushing mirelurks to lakes only, etc...

 

Any one of these changes would have cool downstream changes implemented as well. If one thing moves, the environment would adapt. Obviously that's getting a little complicated, but big changes like gatorclaws moving in could be scripted events instead of constantly changing things.

 

Overall I think this would make the game way more adaptive, you would have to constantly be on your toes and remembering what you killed where, and how things have changed. It would decrease the late game boredom, and be way more fun to play than just doubling spawns.

[SupaNerd]

This would be really cool to have, especially if you have it change how Legendary creatures acted when they mutated. Such as increased health regen.