An independent New Vegas mod.

[tnu]

So has anyone considered how the funding of thignslike the redevelopement of hopeville will be handled?

[dragonuff]

Tnu probably investments into it like lucky 38 reloaded mod would be my guess these guys are pretty good at figuring out cool ways to do things

[devinpatterson]

So been pretty busy, but I think (from teh limited testing I'v been doing) that a railroad is a go. In general we need to keep it near flat areas, and avoid turns, but it's impact on system resources is very minimal.

 

Initially in teh old west the first trains were horse drawn. I don't think that's a bad place to start, possibly with the NCR and commercial entities having as many as half a dozen working, jury rigged trains by the time the courier moves on from the Mojave.

 

I believe this will add some great plot elements to our storyline. And while this is primarily for the NCR and NCR friendly storyline, many aspects can apply to the independent version;

*A lot of powder gangers will be brought in to start laying track (the prison is going to be busy), think of them as analogous to the chinese labor that was essentially slave labor.

*Valuable supplies will be moved by rail (weapons, payroll etc) which of course makes them a prime target (and you know we all want to have a running gun battle on teh top of a train racing through the desert).

*It has huge implications for the Legion. A major portion of their strategy is starvign the bear by cutting supply lines. After the second battle of hoover dam they have even less freedom of movement in the Mojave. A developing infrastructure to move troops and supplies at high speed is a grave threat to the Legion (think the north's advantage due to rail lines during the civil war). I think one would have to expect desperate attempts at terrorism and sabotage by Frumentarii, small kamakazie/doomed strike forces etc. This in turn means rangers and troops will be at stations and keeping an eye on the rails. This will create small green zones where settlements can flourish in relative (relative for the wasteland) safety and commerce is amplified by the rails.

*later down the road the trains can expand from brahmin drawn to converted/jury rigged engines. If the NCR doesn't have a source of petrochemicals then some used fuel rods can be used to create steam engines. Once they are in close proximity to each other they can super heat the water. After they are jury rigged, the only resource that will have to be replenished will be water at the stations. There may even be a functioning/restored nuclear train that comes in from the core region.

 

There is a lot we can do with this, and I'v only grazed the surface. There is also some info in the "Railroad Mod" thread.

 

I'm working with Yogogamer on The Legend Of The Sierra Madre and running through a lot of dead money stuff. I noticed Dean says there are hundreds of ghost people below the streets (under notes near the bottom of the page). Pair this with this quote; "It is not clear why the ghost people drag their victims off into the Cloud. Whether to consume, torture, or convert them into something like themselves, nobody knows, or has survived to tell the tale." (same page) and it's hard not to want to expand on this aspect of DM.

 

And that's a big part of what captures my imagination. For instance maybe they'r playing the same gambit as the vault 87 super mutants and trying to increase their ranks. But instead of exposing you to rads/fev like the 87 SM's they have ceremony where they encase captured humans in a hazmat suit and expose them to cloudstuff etc.

 

I could totally see a large underground facility of pipes, machinery and steam works with 10's or a hundred ghost people kneeling (perhaps swaying in unison as if in prayer or reverence) with techno-tribal fetishes and alters formed of a mishmash of captured prey's body parts and random junk as part of the backdrop. At the center our hapless, captured wastelanders (hopefully not the pc) are brought to an alter. A ghost person witch doctor/priest/mambo/shaman takes a large bowel of cloudstuff and begins to force it into the the poor wastelanders mouth. They are then encased in a hazmat suit (I'd guess OWB sent shipments with plenty of extra's if there are 100's of ghost people), and restrained to teh alter as they thrash in pain and agony.

 

During this time maybe the ghost person shaman makes some mystical signs or some such over the victim. The wastelander convulsions become even more violent then suddenly stop....then the hazmat mask's eyes glow a bright green and the transformation is complete.

 

Could make for an interesting scene :wink:

 

I think it was Devilman that had mentioned destroying the red cloud (?). Honestly that wasn't too appealing to me when I orginally heard it. I thought it would destroy the character of the mod and I did't think it was do-able. But some of the things I'v read about OWB and DM lead me to believe it actually may be a machine, a large chemical plant below the Sierra Madre and a quest to destroy it would be the entry point into teh ghost peoples underground city. Could be lots of fun :smile:

[devinpatterson]

In re: to an invasion or incursion into the divide for I thought of an outside faction that would make a lot of sense. The Church of the Children of Atom. They'd like nothing better than to engulf as much of the wasteland as possible in "The Glow" and re-unite all living souls with "Atom". Much akin to "Beneath The Planet Of The Apes". Obviously the couriers intention would be to thwart teh church launching the remaining nukes at the innocents of the wasteland, NCR, legion etc.

[Devilman1975]

Regarding the Church of the Children of Atom idea, I'm afraid I'm not sold on them being a credible threat. I'm sure that they originated in the capital Wasteland and I can't imagine a group that thinks irradiating yourself is the way to go capable of surviving a long trek like that.

 

This version of the Church of Atom sounds something like a militant extremist version of the group we saw in Fallout 3. In the wikia it states that the Church were instrumental in the construction of Megaton as long as the town was built around the bomb and most Megaton settlers didn't mind them residing there. There was also the splinter group in Broken Steel which I just recently put down for handing out irradiated water ( zero tolerance for self irradiating cults in my wasteland) :laugh:.

 

Nothing to stop you from creating a splinter faction or something else but as I said I can't see most of them surviving the trip. Maybe a few survivors could have become ghoulified along the way and began recruiting any ghouls they encountered with a grudge against humans. I still don't know how they would know about the weapons in the Divide in the first place anyway.

[tnu]

So, which mod is getting the most of y our focus right now? Just cuirou s because ti seems like you have a lot of projects going.

[dragonuff]

You guys should get the mod author who made for the Enclave he exselled at making splinter groups of the enclave feel vanala that way who could have a group of enclave reamneats want to join the players new government and a group stuck in the old ways who wants to stop them cuz they remind them of the way there arch drivel acted aka the lone wander

[dragonuff]

Sorry for the missspelling my auto correct sucks XD

[devinpatterson]

So, which mod is getting the most of y our focus right now? Just cuirou s because ti seems like you have a lot of projects going.

Yeah there is a few. I was spending most of my time (90%) on the legend of hte Sierra Madre. But if you want a perfect example of how *not* to mod, just follow my lead.

 

You guys should get the mod author who made for the Enclave he exselled at making splinter groups of the enclave feel vanala that way who could have a group of enclave reamneats want to join the players new government and a group stuck in the old ways who wants to stop them cuz they remind them of the way there arch drivel acted aka the lone wander

Sorry, what mod would that be? Maybe some remnants might be interesting. But FONV paints them as long gone and virtually irrelevant. I'd like to think other regions has active groups though (especially the east coast). And there are probably some private vault systems, military bases etc that still exist even if they are no longer directly connected to the Enclave any longer.

 

But I'm not too sure how that would make for an interesting sub plot in NV.

 

Sorry for the missspelling my auto correct sucks XD

No worries brother, same problem over here

[devinpatterson]

So has anyone considered how the funding of thignslike the redevelopement of hopeville will be handled?

I tend to look at it more (at least for quite a while) as a survivalist/prospector town. Hardened wastelanders that are here to collect pre-war tech and hope to hit the motherload. The town itself would be little more than the barest support for them....at the beginning. Something akin to a gold rush town in hostile territory. At some point enterprising individuals will exercise some entrepreneurship and you'll have a small brothel, a general store, etc. But that will only happen if they can find a safe place for the town to grow. Most actual trade will probably take place outside the divide as prospectors brave the divide to trade their finds in a more civilized part of the wasteland.

 

But if they find a secure facility and a safe route to the wasteland, someday there may be a crimson caravan route to the settlement and a settlement that could rival rivet city in size. I don't think the courier will be around that far down the road, but s/he will make the determining factor whether the settlement gets on it's feet adn finds a secure location to grow, or whether it's swallowed by the divide with barely a trace left of it's existence.