An independent New Vegas mod.

[darkus37]

My ideas for the Legion and NCR was mostly to create new possibilities, not particularly limited by past choices made throughout the game:

 

With the Legion in schism, there could be several new warlords trying to grab power and using the Mojave as a rallying cry.

 

With the NCR defeated not once, but twice, the leadership would definitely not be happy with the Courier (assassination attempts) but if you were good to the NCR otherwise, individuals might be more appreciative, some even changing sides.

 

 

In the case of Yes Man, I meant the resulting personality after the upgrade would be created based off of quest-related variables; but I'll agree that it will be easier to do if if was related to the new quest line.

I actually see that as a distinct possibility: joining as equals for more power rather than being annexed - Senator Yes Man sounds a little wrong - how about... Bob?

 

 

Vault inhabitants don't appear to be particularly well educated, or rather, not very knowledgeable about the way the world really is outside of the vault - it's nice to know how to repair a air filter, but when you're being shot at by raiders using assault rifles, knowing that ain't worth the paper it was printed on.

 

Like I said, the vaults serve their purpose well enough - it would be nice to have them actually protect people other than raiders.

[devinpatterson]

My ideas for the Legion and NCR was mostly to create new possibilities, not particularly limited by past choices made throughout the game:

 

With the Legion in schism, there could be several new warlords trying to grab power and using the Mojave as a rallying cry.

 

Absolutely and your ideas are still in play later down the road a few chapters.

 

For the begining chapters I don't want to weaken the Legion, I want to keep them a military juggernaut & up the ante. One way to do this is to have Legate (read current head of the legion) looking to make an example, something that will leave no doubt in the legionaries & tributary nations. I imagine his thinking would go something along the line of the empire being the body and a rebellion having to be excised, in the same way a gangerous body part would be. He would want to make a statement that makes Nipton look like a disney movie. The wanton slaughter of a whole tribe that attempts to defy the legion,for an example.

 

Another way the stakes are increased is that Legate must prove himself heads and shoulders above any contenders to the crown, and the best way to do in the legion is by conquest. Ie. they become even more aggressive.

 

Essentially what I'm saying is this turn of history can be used to turn up the heat and make the Legion even more dangerous. This is IMHO the best way to balance a higher level character with a small but very potent army, while still keeping the most iconic villain of the Mojave a dangerous threat.

 

But later down the road, the ideas you'v proposed and others we are working on will find their way into the later chapters. In fact by the time we're done with the project, the legion disentergration & destructio may end up being the majority of the mod (although at this moment I don't even want to think about a whole new worldspace). Right now though we still need to set up the "hooks" for those story lines. So keep the ideas coming & I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression that the Legion angle wasn't in play.

 

One way to get that foreshadowing going is rumors along the strip, little barks of dialog.

 

 

With the NCR defeated not once, but twice, the leadership would definitely not be happy with the Courier (assassination attempts) but if you were good to the NCR otherwise, individuals might be more appreciative, some even changing sides.

 

I have no doubt that if Kimball could put a bullet in the couriers head covertly, he woudln't think twice, but it's a Republic where laws do matter. In fact that's probably the only reason the NCR didn't immediately annex NV when it came upon it. And it's also what makes the NCR such a great study in contrast to the legion, and such a great story of the Mojave.

 

 

Vault inhabitants don't appear to be particularly well educated, or rather, not very knowledgeable about the way the world really is outside of the vault - it's nice to know how to repair a air filter, but when you're being shot at by raiders using assault rifles, knowing that ain't worth the paper it was printed on.

 

No I wouldn't think so (re: knowledgeable about the outside world) due to their isolation, but I think we can forgive them in that regard...all things considered.

[devinpatterson]

Like I said, the vaults serve their purpose well enough - it would be nice to have them actually protect people other than raiders.

 

Definitely, and I don't see why we couldn't have the option for teh courier to set up a vault city akin to (on a smaller scale) previous FO games and vault 21. I think it would be a cool part of the story.

[Devilman1975]

I was thinking that any schisms in the Legion may not occur immediately after killing Caesar and Lanius so I came up with an idea that might fit in with later chapters involving the Legion.

 

Regarding the leadership of the Legion when Caesar originally made Lanius his new Legate he chose the strongest warrior in his army for the role. After Caesar's death Lanius was next in line to assume leadership of the Legion but I would imagine that his official ceremony to be crowned as the new Caesar would have been delayed until after winning the second battle at Hoover Dam. Lanius probably didn't get round to selecting his own Legate yet and didn't believe that he would die so soon after claiming leadership.

 

With this in mind particularly after the death of both Caesar and Lanius I can imagine that to quickly select a new Caesar a tournament would be set up consisting of selected Centurions, Praetorians and Frumentari against each other in gladiator combat. The winner of the tournament would then be declared the strongest and crowned as the new Caesar.

 

If the player learns of this leadership contest then s/he would have an opportunity to deal the Legion some serious damage by launching an attack on tournament with either the Boomer's aid or sneaking in and deploying the Archimedes 2 weapon. Eliminating any possible successors would certainly lead to the Legion fighting amongst themselves for control later on.

 

Regarding the Archimedes weapon it would be great if the player has the chance to acquire this weapon at Helios One if s/he chooses the option of diverting power to the Vegas area. I just came across a mod that lets you use the Euclid's C-Finder without powering up the Archimeds 2 at Helios One. Here's the link if anyone is interested in trying it out http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/35007//?

 

While we're also on the subjects of the vaults I came across a modders resource that cleans out most of the vaults in the game with the exception of Vaults 19 and 21. In addition there is also an optional file that clean out the Freeside robot factory which could be used for manufacturing more securitrons. http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/45637//?

[darkus37]

Well, first, let me interrupt you there for a moment, as it is possible to "defeat" Lanius and convince him to retreat - a variable to consider when planning out a Legion back-story. I killed him on principle, but someone else might not take the same path.

 

The way I see it, if both are kiilled - the emperor and his successor in one blow - I can safely say, based off of human nature, that any commander will want to take the reigns of power. I don't know if anyone here played Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun; but the leader of one of the two factions in the game is named Kane, and when he "dies" without a clear successor, NOD fractures into sub-factions, each fighting amongst themselves and their primary enemy, GDI.

 

If Lanius remains alive, I think he should be neutralized anyway - thus my "no confidence" solution. Any commander closely allied with Lanius would want to distance himself from the loser of such a situation. There could still be a tournament, but that's not typically how Roman Emperors gained power, at least I don't remember that being the case. Besides, a tournament is about personal strength, which is good to know but a commander has to be more than that and I honestly don't see the Legion generals willingly surrender power just to someone who can kill better than someone else.

 

A Boomer attack or assassination is still a good idea, in fact I will go further and say that it would be very interesting to have some quests involving a war campaign against the Legion Warlords who are again threatening the Mojave. The Legion appears to respect strength of body and mind, so attacking and defeating the Legion on their own territory will go a long way to forcing them to respect the Courier and leave the Mojave alone.

 

Continuing from the above point, I just got this idea:

 

The courier is approached by a Legion member. He offers to help with stopping the Legion who are beginning to again make raids on the Mojave. He claims to be helping because he hates the Legion for capturing him when he was a boy. He identifies certain target locations and commanders that if destroyed/killed would force the Legion to leave the Mojave alone, at least for several years. After most of these targets/commanders are killed, the Courier begins to realize that something is very wrong with the whole situation as one of the sub-factions appears to be in just the right time and place to take advantage of the Courier's actions. When you confront the supposed turncoat, he admits that the Courier was being used to take out his rivals. At this point, you can have a moral-challenging moment - the Legion General of the strongest rival faction is a monster that makes Lanius look like a kitten - but he will never be able to gather enough forces to keep the Legion as powerful as before, thus softening it up for possible annexation by the NCR - but in the meantime, he will be unleashing untold suffering, a Caligula-like figure if you will.

 

This leaves you with several choices:

 

1) You can kill the rival general and let the "turncoat" take over, but risk a future enemy that will be as capable or more so than Cesar himself.

2) You kill the "turncoat" and leave the rival general in power. The misery and death he unleashes will then be your fault. There will be a huge influx of refugees that will severely tax the limited capabilities of the Mojave.

3) You kill both - this will lead to a further fracturing of the Legion causing them to become nothing more than raiders. Without control, they will plague the Mojave like the Vipers but with better training and less restraint.

4) You send the turncoat away - this leads to a protracted conflict between the two factions. One will eventually win, but that will be somewhere down the line and the Legion may be weaker for it. This is probably the best choice as both faction limit the death and destruction to each other, but the Courier doesn't get the satisfaction of dealing the turncoat.

 

The whole thing could take place through dialog, with no new areas needing to be made.

 

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I don't think the vault's should be restored - cleaned up maybe, but not restored; it really is beyond the technical capabilities of any of the factions. The scripting from the second mod would be good to have, but I would add it to the Secuitron Vault, as I know of at least one popular mod that would conflict with Cerulean Robotics.

[Devilman1975]

There could still be a tournament, but that's not typically how Roman Emperors gained power, at least I don't remember that being the case. Besides, a tournament is about personal strength, which is good to know but a commander has to be more than that and I honestly don't see the Legion generals willingly surrender power just to someone who can kill better than someone else.

 

You are absolutely right in the fact that the qualifications for leadership should be more than whoever is the strongest. However Caesar's own method of choosing his own successor seemed somewhat flawed to me. He selected a man whom he knew had no love for the Legion as his successor and chose him for the fact that he was a formidable fighter and able to rule the Legion through fear. Perhaps the more esoteric aspects of leadership would have required all participants to fill in a written test on military strategy. If the tournament can't determine the new Caesar then it could at least determine who has the potential to become Legate.

 

I like your ideas for a Legion scenario but I'm a bit dubious about the general you mentioned making Lanius look like a pussy cat. I would recommend that he would be on par with Lanius otherwise Caesar would have chose him over Lanius originally if he was such a bad ass. The Caligula reference is a nice touch (my favorite Malcolm McDowell movie after Clockwork Orange).

[devinpatterson]

I like your ideas for a Legion scenario but I'm a bit dubious about the general you mentioned making Lanius look like a pussy cat.

 

Yep, skimming the wiki on him he's called the "monster of the east" because of his merciless & viscous nature. I'm also of the mind, that no one makes Lanius look like a pussy cat. It's part of the reason that he would make such a good villain to head the Legion and turn up the pressure on NV. His reign would be much harsher than Caesars.

 

On a related note for anyone that hasn't read the wiki and tying in to the ideas above are some misc points;

He isn't well liked in the legion (both Caesar and Vulpes Inculta harbor doubts at his ability to lead the Legion)

Lanius is revealed to respect honor above everything. He states that treachery should not be relied on as a tactic

He is Caesars battlefield general (has the ability to sense weakness in any army) so his military & strategic prowess goes well beyond his personal physical ability.

 

Almost no one (Graham, Marcus, House, Ulysses) believes he will be able to hold the legion together in the years after Caesars death. But i'd like a year(ish) or at least a few months of his rampage and the legion at full power so I have a powerful, aggressive enemy to threaten a high level courier backed by a deadly bot army.

 

On other news I started to dig into the geck and do some work on Hoover in VivaNV (I guess that's as good a project name for the betas as any) beta 2. I discovered many items couldn't be disabled through script easily and in fact would only be affected by disable, markfordelete (because they'r activated by a parent). Which isn't the way (delete) I want to go. I want to be able to re enable the whole battle scene if/when I need it. So I'v decided to delve into the scripts/quests etc. It's more time consuming and a heck of a lot more complicated, but I was able to open up the offices, restore fast travel, remove most of the battle settings west of the checkpoint, etc. Here is the beta 2.

 

It would be great if you guys can beta test it for me.

How many of you have a saved game with the independent ending? If we don't have enough I'll UL it to nexus and grab us some beta users.

Also this is a beta, well really an alpha. I think you should save before activating the mod (a clean save), so you can restore your game should there be problems. You obviously shouldn't activate the mod if you havn't finished the end game.

 

And you probably shouldn't leave it active yet. Rather explore it a bit, jot down any notes about problems (remember just to the west of the ncr checkpoint on the dam exterior), deactivate the mod and revert to the clean save. That way we can test new beta's and not have to worry about previous beta's info in your saves.

 

I'm also very curious about everyone's opinion on teh vault city (well vault town). I think it would be interesting to have at least one. But it's a chunk of work to whip up say a dozen or two dozen personalities so I'm interested in hearing if other people think it would be worthwhile.

[TheAtmosphere]

Devin, have you read the Google Documents yet?

 

Also, I'll dive into the GECK and get started on some side quests, I guess.

 

Also, there should be a song called "Viva New Vegas" sung by the king:)

[devinpatterson]

Devin, have you read the Google Documents yet?

 

I havn't as of yet, but i have some time before work, so I'll head over there now and take a look.

 

 

Also, there should be a song called "Viva New Vegas" sung by the king:)

 

Yeah I sure wish we could (copyright, unfortunately), it's a great song, as is the cover by ZZ top.

 

Do you have a independent ending in your game?

 

Any thoughts on a vault town the courier could start? Like it, dislike it, or just meh?

[TheAtmosphere]

Sure, I have a save right before the final battle I think, if I haven't deleted it.

 

Also, we're not making any money of the mod are we? So it is covered by fair use policy and Parody fair use.

 

Also, Vault Town, as long as we can earn a lot of money from it, and it does some real good management skills, then I'm totally in.