An independent New Vegas mod.

[devinpatterson]

Alright. In that case, I'll periodically throw what'll basically amount to short essays up in this thread about the state of the Mojave post-Dam.

Sounds good. In this way other forum members can contribute and build on your ideas (and vice versa) as well as vet them.

[Devilman1975]

For instance we've talked a bit about black mountain. It could possibly be acquired by Legion or NCR to jam wireless communication between teh securitrons and the lucky38 mainframe, making it a potentially important strategic target. It may also be desired by Marcus to complete his orginal plan of broadcasting to his lost kin. But it's heavily irradiated so it poses a problem to some factions (like the legion). Other factions won't have as much trouble with the rads (NCR ghoul rangers, and SMs....). So you could kind of project how a story could develop.

 

Re: Black Mountain

 

Before I put down my ideas for Black Mountain here are the in game endings for the area.

 

Ending 1: If Tabitha is killed then this will result in super mutants and nightkin who heard Tabitha's broadcast finding no trace of the State of Utobitha. Some mutants will travel to Jacobstown while the rest will wander the wastes.

 

Ending 2: Repairing Rhonda (Tabitha's robot) will result in the two leaving the area and travel through Legion lands and their adventures become a popular collection of children's stories. Black MT will remain abandoned in this scenario with Neal remaining behind to direct mutants to Jacobstown.

 

Ending 3: Ignoring Black Mt entirely will result in Tabitha and her followers remaining in the area and Raul facing his "execution" everyday even though he is pardoned in the end. Travelers near Black Mt will be harassed by Tabitha's followers.

 

Ending 4: Releasing Raul from jail but not completing the quest Crazy, Crazy, Crazy will result in Tabitha taking the rest of the nightkin with her and moving on. Travelers and caravans will be warned not to travel in the region at night for fear off nightkin attacks.

 

It's also worth noting that the Brotherhood have already staked a claim on Black Mt when Elder McNamara asks the player to install a device during the quest Eyesight to the Blind. We learned that McNamara was able to negotiate a deal with Marcus (leaving communications and detection systems switched on for the Brotherhood) before Tabitha's rebellion happened. If the Brotherhood is led by Hardin then I can imagine the Brotherhood moving into the area.

 

I can't see the NCR taking over Black Mt without the Brotherhood having to say something about it. Even if a truce was made between the NCR and Mojave chapter. I would also be reluctant to send NCR ghouls to a highly irradiated area indefinetly. I'm not sure what ghouls to turn feral but I assume it would require constant exposure to radiation. I'm sure the Legion can find some radiation suits to wear but would not want to remain in the area for a long time.

 

I like the idea of Marcus wanting to use Black Mountain to attract more supermutants but I would rather see a single mutant who can be the DJ for a new super mutant radio station. I have to say that I enjoyed listening to Tabitha's station much more than the other stations in the game.

 

It might be possible to make an offer to McNamara to send in a few securitrons to secure Black Mountain for the Brotherhood which would mean they wouldn't have to risk working in a highly toxic area. This could work in the Independent version and NCR version (with NCR Securitrons).

 

Whatever happens to Black Mountain I think we should leave Neal at his shack. He isn't interested in moving back to Jacobstown for some reason and is happy to stay at Black Mt and direct other mutants to Jacobstown.

[sgtKraigO]

 

For instance we've talked a bit about black mountain. It could possibly be acquired by Legion or NCR to jam wireless communication between teh securitrons and the lucky38 mainframe, making it a potentially important strategic target. It may also be desired by Marcus to complete his orginal plan of broadcasting to his lost kin. But it's heavily irradiated so it poses a problem to some factions (like the legion). Other factions won't have as much trouble with the rads (NCR ghoul rangers, and SMs....). So you could kind of project how a story could develop.

 

Re: Black Mountain

 

It's also worth noting that the Brotherhood have already staked a claim on Black Mt when Elder McNamara asks the player to install a device during the quest Eyesight to the Blind. We learned that McNamara was able to negotiate a deal with Marcus (leaving communications and detection systems switched on for the Brotherhood) before Tabitha's rebellion happened. If the Brotherhood is led by Hardin then I can imagine the Brotherhood moving into the area.

 

I think they should take it over no matter what they do but if McNamara he will send little in the way of troops believing he can't spare the forces to man HV, Helios 1, and BM. Hardin will send a larger number of troops believing that HV is secure and hidden enough to spare the troops.

 

 

 

I can't see the NCR taking over Black Mt without the Brotherhood having to say something about it. Even if a truce was made between the NCR and Mojave chapter. I would also be reluctant to send NCR ghouls to a highly irradiated area indefinetly. I'm not sure what ghouls to turn feral but I assume it would require constant exposure to radiation. I'm sure the Legion can find some radiation suits to wear but would not want to remain in the area for a long time.

 

It would be interesting to see the NC and BoS fight. I could also see the NCR launching an attack on HV and depending on how the player proceeds with the attack it will be successful and the NC takes over the base.

 

 

Whatever happens to Black Mountain I think we should leave Neal at his shack. He isn't interested in moving back to Jacobstown for some reason and is happy to stay at Black Mt and direct other mutants to Jacobstown.

 

If the NCR takes over I think they would kindly ask him to leave and inform him that if any super mutants or nightkin stop here they will be informed of Jacobstown. They could also place and add on the pro-NCR radio station about Jacobstown.

 

 

Edit:

 

 

I can't see the NCR taking over Black Mt without the Brotherhood having to say something about it. Even if a truce was made between the NCR and Mojave chapter. I would also be reluctant to send NCR ghouls to a highly irradiated area indefinetly. I'm not sure what ghouls to turn feral but I assume it would require constant exposure to radiation. I'm sure the Legion can find some radiation suits to wear but would not want to remain in the area for a long time.

 

This is what I found in the wiki.

"It remains unclear exactly what precipitates this change in neurobiology and psychology, but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that non-social ghouls, or those in isolation, are more prone to the condition.

It is also quite possible that this is a gradual process, meaning that eventually all ghouls will succumb to this condition. However, considering the existence of ghouls that have been born prior to the Great War two centuries ago, it is quite possible that this theory is bunk, or that the rate of degeneration is dependent on the individual affected and surrounding environmental factors."

 

We know the NCR accepts ghouls in their military and they're used in irradiated areas that humans can't survive in. If the NCR mans BM they should use ghouls with some humans at the base of the mountain.

Edited May 10, 2014 by sgtKraigO

[MarchUntoTorment]

Devin, I think I just found a godsend to us.

 

www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/55773

 

That's going to be very useful, I feel. It'll really help the feel of a militarised New Vegas, and all that we need to change are the troops that are placed in various locations from the default independent ones that come with that mod to NCR troops, Legionaries or Securitrons depending on which ending you choose.

[MarchUntoTorment]

An idea I had for the functionality of making all of this work, both with timescale alterations and the exposition of what's changed -

 

Instead of trying to make the changes play out over a timescale, after the slideshow, a screen saying "Two Months Later" shows, before fading into the player staring at a roof (for hilarity's sake, let's make the roof look like Doc Mitchell's, so the view is identical to seeing the opening of vanilla).

 

Anyway, the player stands up out of bed and quickly sees a young man wearing the Elite Riot Gear from Lonesome Road (I say that we make every DLC a requirement for this - it'll make our lives easier; failing that, just retex the Ranger Armour to have no NCR symbols and be discernible as its own item) without a helmet, relaxing against the wall. The player has a few dialogue options at this point -

 

"Well, this is awkward."

"Answers. Now."
"Who the f*#@ are you?!"

 

Whichever the player takes, the man responds with the following, speaking in a rather crisp, clipped voice (I volunteer to do voice acting) -

 

"My name is Walker. That robot of yours - 'Yes Man', I believe he calls himself - asked me to guard you while you slept, and to keep track of changes in the Mojave in your absence."

 

The player then only has the option of "What happened to me?", to which Walker replies -

 

"You fell unconscious immediately following Hoover Dam; a chunk of lead left in your head after you were shot sunk its way deep enough and hit one of your cortexes. The timing was quite amusing, or so I'm told. Doctor Usanagi was nice enough to remove it for you, but you've been in a coma ever since. You showed signs of waking two days ago."

 

After that, the player can ask a few questions about what's changed following Hoover Dam; this will vary depending on what we decide to do with the various settlements and the like, as well as some personal questions about Walker - he reveals little, save for the fact that he is an information broker and former soldier, and that he has spent quite some time in the Divide (if we decide to go with the Elite Riot Gear thing).

 

Once the player's done chatting to Walker, Walker invites the player outside. They would exit into the Lucky 38 Casino cell (restrict the player to walking speed for atmosphere's sake), and Walker takes the player towards the door; upon loading the Strip cell, the blast doors to the Lucky 38 would be closed (as they are when the player first gets to the Lucky 38). As the doors start to open, cheering can be heard faintly outside, and Walker says -

 

"Well then, Courier - or, perhaps, I should call you by your new title. Welcome to your new world, Emperor."

 

And at that moment, the doors fully open, revealing a massive crowd of cheering New Vegas citizens.

 

Over the course of the post-game, he will act as a quest-giver and narrator, often explaining the fates of various individuals in the Wasteland and about the player's potential enemies. Through one of his potential dialogue options, he might also act as a temporary debug menu, able to force-induce certain conditions (kinda like a Testacles the Debug Centurion for the postgame), which we would strip out after the beta testing was over. The player might also be able to change their title ("Emperor of Vegas", "King of the Mojave", "Lord of Underpants", etc.) through dialogue with him. Functionally, he'd fill the role of Yes Man (who we might say is preoccupied working on defence algorithms for New Vegas and who would only communicate with the player through text messages delivered to the player's Pip-Boy's 'Notes' section - I imagine them being littered with capslock, exclamation marks and smileys for some reason).

 

Oh, and one final suggestion to wrap up this post -

 

Perhaps Walker could be replaced with Ulysses, which would be more work than creating a new NPC, but he fits the archetype well and makes for a fantastic continuity nod. Ideally if he survives, although if the player killed him, we could have a handwave with him saying "Big Empty's technology is a wonderful thing. Dangerous, without question, but it saved me - and you."

 

Dialogue would have to be carefully worked on, but fortunately, his odd sentence structure and largely monotone speech means that reclipping audio together is feasible (see the Ulysses Companion Mod for an example of this).

 

He'd be somewhat reformed from his former self, much like he is if the player spares him, seeing the new state of New Vegas created under the player's guidance as the state that he was trying to create through the destruction of Bear and Bull (holy s#*! I'm starting to talk like Ulysses). He would gain more faith in the player over the course of the postgame, culminating in him eventually forgiving the player for the destruction of the Divide and saying that the good of the player's actions have outweighed their crimes.

 

Well, that's all for now. Thoughts, everyone? If anyone wants me to, I'd be happy to put together this chunk of the mod myself, although it'd take quite a while.

[seanbrenner]

I was wondering is this mod in development? I haven't read through the entire post yet (there is just too much to read in one sitting) If the mod is in development I could help you out by making world spaces and interiors I know it isn't much but it would ease the load on the team (I'm guessing you have a team because it is too much for one person) If you need a sample of my work just ask. I don't have much. One mod so far and its not on the nexus because I still need to do lip sync. Also if it hasn't been suggested you should make the mod compatible with open strip. PS sorry for bothering you.

[MarchUntoTorment]

Oh, hey, it's cool! I'm not head developer (pretty sure that's Devin's job), but we welcome any help we can lay our hands on. We don't need all-new worldspaces and interiors, but what we do need that's going to be overwhelmingly important is adjustments to existing worldspaces - things like the NCR outposts being empty and maybe heavily-damaged with a few NCR and Securitron corpses lying around. That sort of thing!

 

Your help would be overwhelmingly welcome in that capacity. This mod is still very much in development - our priority for now is altering the Wasteland post-Dam to remove things that were obviously pre-Dam. We also need to get rid of dialogue barks and add in a few new ones (y'know, get rid of things like 'The war is near' and replace them with things like 'I wonder what will happen now that the NCR is gone?' and 'Thank God for the Courier freeing us' - stuff like that!).

 

BTW, Devin, can we maybe make the final call on a few settlements/ideas and stick them up in the OP for any potential modders (such as Sean here) to work on?

[devinpatterson]

Re: Black Mountain

 

Before I put down my ideas for Black Mountain here are the in game endings for the area.

I sat down to respond to your post (as well as sgtKraigO's). I think some very interesting points we're made (I had completely forgotten or didn't know about Marcus allowing BOS tech in the past). As I was doing research, I decided to go ahead and abort this subject (at least temporarily) and let it revert to teh end game slides. I think it has a lot of potential but is a lower priority than many issues. Defaulting to teh end slides means we don't really have to do much of anything with it (the end slides are either Tabitha continues to blather or BM stays abandoned) as it's the same post game as pre end game.

 

Later once we have covered higher priority targets we can jump back to Black Mountain. In preparation for that, I'v included my blathering on teh subject (only partly complete) under a spoiler tag.

 

Blatherings;

 

 

 

What I'm proposing is (at least) two different use cases. One, is who settles black mountain (at least somewhat) permanently, and it will add to the character of the Mojave. The second is more directly related to impacting teh securitrons in a military maneuver (jamming the securitrons wireless network just prior or during an attack), and likely only attempted by NCR or Legion forces in a independent or house faction ending (and probably of relatively short duration, just for a quest).

 

So in the first case we have (at least) the BOS, Jacobstown, NCR and possibly others factions interested in BM. For the BOS, I assume the interest relies in it being advanced tech, but detection and communication with the home chapters (as evidenced by devilman's post) could also make it very valuable to teh BOS. For Marcus, it would return to it's past duties attracting SMs. For the NCR I think it could extend the reach of their broadcasts (that citizens of the core region enjoy) further north.....and propaganda can be a powerful tool (some would say essential for a republic).

 

However most of this is conjecture above and beyond the endgame slides. If we forgo creativity for simplicity (and we might have to, just because of the workload)

 

 

It's also worth noting that the Brotherhood have already staked a claim on Black Mt when Elder McNamara asks the player to install a device during the quest Eyesight to the Blind. We learned that McNamara was able to negotiate a deal with Marcus (leaving communications and detection systems switched on for the Brotherhood) before Tabitha's rebellion happened.

Is there a link or any additional details you remember in regard to the deal between Marcus and the BOS? Communications and detection both make a great deal of sense considering the Mojave's chapters relative isolation.

 

If the Brotherhood is led by Hardin then I can imagine the Brotherhood moving into the area.

Yeah I think this question mirrors the default future of the Mojave BOS as a whole. If led by Hardin the Mojave BOS will mimic the home chapters stance in ideology, the truce will eventually be broken and they will share the home chapters fate. I can't find the vault wiki entry that details the NCR operations penetrating the remaining BOS bunkers in the core region, but it made the BOS's future very grim. With Hardin at the helm, I think the NCR/BOS truce could end *very* quickly and without player intervention we'll be scripting a NCR Viva NV with NCR/BOS battles. For an independent Viva NV (NCR friendly), the player has more sway. S/He might be able to broker and enforce the truce, but without intervention s/he will have war in the couriers backyard.

 

In McNamara they have a new hope and flexibility that can result in long term survival. Some power sharing, with the player as the BOS/NCR liaison, should be possible. And I guess BM is as good a place as any to see how that experiment develops.

 

Perhaps a good place to start would be to use the Helios one end slides as a guide, since they take into account the truce. No truce, the BOS takes back helios and the area between it and hidden valley. With the truce they don't take helios under an NCR ending or an independent ending. I'm afraid I don't have time to fire up the geck, but if I remember correctly it was possible to strike a truce with Hardin as head scribe. So according to the developers the truce may carry more weight than who is head scribe. If that's the case we could also apply it to BM along similar lines. The writers considered teh truce but didn't factor in who the current BOS leader was.

 

 

 

 

I think it would also be a good idea to pull back the scope of the mod in general. I find I have less time for modding (especially in the last month or two) and am spending some of it on projects I'm not particularly enthralled by. So I'd like to focus my limited time. I thought it might be a good idea to (at least temporarily) 86 the post game quests and stick to addressing the immediate post game conditions based only on the end slides. It's a far more modest goal, and our loftier aspirations could always be realized further down the road.

 

The one big heartbreaker (at least to me) would be the loss (at least initially) of the independent but NCR friendly ending :sad: But it could be implemented later down teh road I would think.

 

In addition I'd start putting out mods that stand on their own with the viva NV tag and fold them into one faction mod. For example let's take ed-e's babies. I'll put out a mod that implements them and is a stand alone mod (the title will include Viva NV) but I'll also incorporate them into the 3 (or 4 if we do legion) main Viva NV faction mods. This way people can choose to take just parts and pieces of the main mod if they prefer. It also means it will be updated much more frequently.

 

That doesn't mean we have to stop discussing our more far reaching plans (quests, military battles with legion or NCR, resource management and building etc), as I'd like to see them implemented at some point. But right now I think it's best to have a mod that is limited in scope but gets completed vs a much loftier mod that may not see the light of day.

 

I'd love to hear your guy's opinions on the topic.

[devinpatterson]

Devin, I think I just found a godsend to us.

I scanned it (I did not install it), but unless I'm missing something I didn't see anything of value for us. Could you give me a heads up on what we could use from the mod?

 

An idea I had for the functionality of making all of this work, both with timescale alterations and the exposition of what's changed -.....Anyway, the player stands up out of bed and quickly sees a young man

I believe Yesman makes the best independent liaison. While I appreciate your suggestions, I think it would be a waste not to implement a character that is already pre-existing and custom made for exactly that purpose. He's also very handy as he can be accessed from any securitron as long as the wireless network is up.

 

BTW, Devin, can we maybe make the final call on a few settlements/ideas and stick them up in the OP for any potential modders (such as Sean here) to work on?

Yeah, I'll gather some opinions re: reducing the immediate scope of the mod, but I believe some streamlining will soon be the order of the day. And as we par down the mod to a more essential nature we will also finalize settlements and ideas.

[devinpatterson]

If the mod is in development I could help you out by making world spaces and interiors

The original scope of the mod included warfare into Legion lands, specifically sedona (a cloned worldspace of Zion), but I now believe that will shelved (at least until the basics/fundementals are done). However a lot of interiors will be changing so that is something I could use help on.

 

I know it isn't much but it would ease the load on the team (I'm guessing you have a team because it is too much for one person) If you need a sample of my work just ask.

No I'm afraid there isn't a team of developers, I am doing this solo. There are however many contributors to the thread for ideas and plots (which I greatly appreciate).

 

I don't have much. One mod so far and its not on the nexus because I still need to do lip sync. Also if it hasn't been suggested you should make the mod compatible with open strip.

I'll probably put together the basic 3 (or 4) faction mods and once they are finalized I'll make patches/variants for compatibility with other mods. But I'll check out open strip. Is that "The Strip Open by MoBurma"?

 

PS sorry for bothering you.

No worries brother, glad to have your help.