An independent New Vegas mod.

[devinpatterson]

You could set up a cubic activator outside the areas that are being evacuated, the front gate of McCarran, for example, and when the player enters it, spawn the troops and caravans leaving, that way they'll only activate when it's appropriate. Or even have them knocking around, and use the activator to add a travel package.

Oh yeah there will definitely be triggers, otherwise all this could happen while the courier was far across the Mojave or even in a completely different worldspace. But I like the idea of a staggered withdraw that takes a while for several reasons;

1. I think it's realistic

2. It's a lot easier on our machines than a mass exodus of AI's traversing the wilderness.

3. The House ending will require the courier to do a bit of friendly escorting of our NCR guests back to the outpost (maybe not quite that far). Not a ton of those quests, those missions can be boring, but at least one.

[devinpatterson]

Hey guys, can you beta test this new Marilyn the Securitron, companion mod for Isabelle and I? She's having a crash on startup & I have no clue why, in addition it's the first beta release so it needs to test driven. Isabelle does some really great voice work on this one, and I think switching the securitron face depending on the dialog is pretty cool. Let me know how she does and what needs to be fixed/tweaked. She'll be in the House and Independent mods. She is just hanging out at the presidential suite.

edited with 1.01 beta.

 

This link has the 1.02 beta esp (esp only no BSA update needed yet). I'll try to edit this link when the next update comes out.

Edited July 16, 2013 by devinpatterson

[kingwilfre16]

any new files?

[LuciaofArroyo]

Hey guys, can you beta test this new Marilyn the Securitron, companion mod for Isabelle and I? She's having a crash on startup & I have no clue why, in addition it's the first beta release so it needs to test driven. Isabelle does some really great voice work on this one, and I think switching the securitron face depending on the dialog is pretty cool. Let me know how she does and what needs to be fixed/tweaked. She'll be in the House and Independent mods. She is just hanging out at the presidential suite.

 

 

She works for me, her dialogue works - although the greeting that should play after she's been recruited doesn't have any sound on it -, the inventory works and she can follow the player. But, alas, she doesn't seem to open fire on the enemy when she's in combat. (attached a few screenshots)

 

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/images/4717656-1373908056.jpg

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/images/4717656-1373908092.jpg

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/images/4717656-1373908146.jpg

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/images/4717656-1373908208.jpg

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/images/4717656-1373908270.jpg

 

I like it though, it's good to know it's possible to change securitron face too...

[LuciaofArroyo]

I didn't want the player to feel like the independent ending was on rails, so I thought we could have 3 general directions; Keep the NV treaty (gain NCR fame, loose substantial income), issue a letter of withdrawal (essentially exactly the course you outlined above) and just for the sake of granting the player freedom of choice, issue a declaration of war.

 

 

If the House ending is implemented you end up as the courier's right hand man (or woman) and as such, your not under attack by house. He'll use you, but not try to kill you. Or did I misunderstand, and you'd recommend axe'ing the House ending all together?

 

 

Well what I was thinking was that the House/Independent/NCR could be merged into one, this stuff can be explained in the storyline, but essentially I foresee a single story as being far easier to manage rather than having to go at making this it from all sorts of different angles.

 

I'm not saying that a dedicated NCR or Legion story couldn't be added on a later date to give the player some wiggle room (they would be entirely different stories in the first place), but it'd be a huge task to incorporate all of these into the same mod at the same time.

 

I think the "securitrons go nuts" story can result from either the House/Independent Ending, as it can be written in that House either betrays the player or this is all his vengeance from the player killing him earlier. Maybe House either decays naturally or the player has done it, but the resulting story would still be the same (edit. in fact if Mr House has decayed and gone berserk then it's perfectly reasonable that he thinks the player has tried to kill him even if they havent). NCRs place in the story could stem from any of the endings; pro-NCR, pro-House or Independent, the end result would be their gradual military withdrawal from the New Vegas area on moderately friendly trading terms.

 

Is that censored word in reference to House?

 

 

Oh... that would be S-w-a-n-k. The Chairman who rhymes with Bank.

 

(probably a vacation villa somewhere safe).

 

 

Or Vault 21 perhaps... who knows what horrors lurk under the concrete :smile:

Edited July 15, 2013 by LuciaofArroyo

[devinpatterson]

any new files?

Yep right above your post. I'd appreciate if you could test out the Marilyn securitron companion. I'd like at *least* two new companions that fit our beloved NV, and support the character/history. Heck I wouldn't mind if we ended up with 8, as long as we have some good audio/voices for them. Right now I'm just brainstorming, but maybe;

 

a ranger....a certain albino ranger, for the NCR ending.

Victor, of course, for teh House ending

I pondered Yesman for the Independent ending, but I suspect it's better to keep him in the mainframe, with only a occasional hop into a nearby securitron, to deliver a message, now and then.

 

A lot of good potential choices. But primarily I want someone/thing that ties into existing lore of the vanilla game......possibly stretching to DLC's (like Ulysses), but that's not my first choice.

[devinpatterson]

Here is some voicework from 404nevada for Yesman. I think it's pretty good, and we're going to need a lot of Yesman lines;

 

[media]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFwpzJN298Y

[media]

[devinpatterson]

She works for me, her dialogue works - although the greeting that should play after she's been recruited doesn't have any sound on it -, the inventory works and she can follow the player. But, alas, she doesn't seem to open fire on the enemy when she's in combat. (attached a few screenshots)

 

Here is a little esp update and tweak to her script. Check it out and see if she behaves. I took her out and about killing fiends and she did a pretty credible job, but it did show me that she's a Mark I, so I'll have to add a little dialog where she upgrades so she can get the missles. I was also impressed that she didn't actually hit me with the gernade launcher, something Veronica tends to do.....a lot :(

 

EDIT: guess I forgot the link, but that's ok so this is an additional update, adds teh ability to upgrade her to a Mk II and a little shader effect. Just ask her if she knows the securitrons have been upgraded (unless you havn't upgraded them, in which case the dialog won't be there for you).

 

Oh I did notice one bug though, it took about 60 seconds (or maybe 30? something like that) for her to get shake off the ring rust and start fighting, during the first encounter. After that she was good to go with subsequent encounters. I'd like to hear if that happens to you as well, with the new esp.

 

I like it though, it's good to know it's possible to change securitron face too...

Very good, because that will come in quite handy with the berserk securitrons quest;

 

 

 

http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/8/86/BerserkSecuritron.png

 

 

We can add a lot of crazy faces, have them rapidly change back and forth, some yelling, some grimacing etc

Edited July 16, 2013 by devinpatterson

[devinpatterson]

She works for me, her dialogue works - although the greeting that should play after she's been recruited doesn't have any sound on it -, the inventory works and she can follow the player. But, alas, she doesn't seem to open fire on the enemy when she's in combat. (attached a few screenshots)

 

Yeah one line was too high bit rate wav, so I converted it to ogg. But BSA commander doesn't know how to flag an ogg file correctly in the BSA archive :(

I still need to find a solution to that otherwise I have to have much larger file sizes (the wavs are at least 4x as big) or skip the BSA and just include loose files.....neither of which I like.

And I havn't found a mp3 bitrate that the geck likes, but I hear the geck stumbles playing back mp3's even if the rate is perfect

But it will be re-recorded soon(ish), along with combat and alert barks.

 

I like it though, it's good to know it's possible to change securitron face too...

Just conjecture, but I wonder if an animated texture could be used for the faces.....

 

Well what I was thinking was that the House/Independent/NCR could be merged into one,....I'm not saying that a dedicated NCR or Legion story couldn't be added on a later date.....but it'd be a huge task to incorporate all of these into the same mod at the same time.

 

I think that's a fair middle ground/compromise (just doing an independent ending, and putting the other two on the back burner for now), because I definitely don't want to squash the NCR (and to a lesser degree House) endings. They will make big changes in NV and the Mojave in general & I think that players love to see how their choices influence the evolution of the game. Plus I'm sympathetic to the NCR fans (even though I didn't play FO1 or 2). I mean you'v got to love the idea of a republic in the lawless wastelands .

 

The House one, a little bit less so, since he spends a lot of time just kicking the cr*p out of everyone that has ever ticked him off. Not my idea of much fun, but there's still the Legion story line and a space theme to shake things up for the house mod.

 

But concentrating (I may work a bit on other endings in the background, but not a lot) on the independent mod has a lot of advantages (most interesting, smaller work load, quicker release etc), so I'm good with that.

 

For everyone in the thread though, I want to stress we need to keep discussing and hashing out stories for all three endings, even if the NCR & House ones are in slower/frozen development. If I have the ideas and story lines before I start developing the other endings, it's a lot easier to put together.

 

 

I think the "securitrons go nuts" story can result from either the House/Independent Ending.... in fact if Mr House has decayed and gone berserk then it's perfectly reasonable that he thinks the player has tried to kill him even if they havent)[/i].

 

Yeah definitely fits the independent ending, plus it can be recycled for the NCR ending, when that starts. Although the NCR ending would have Mk I's (most likely, it's possible to upgrade the securitrons and change allegiance to NCR, but I suspect very few players chose that convoluted path), & you'd have NCR allies, so not as deadly....but still fun. Those two mods are primed for some House vengeance. I wouldn't include it in the House one, although you do make a good point that house in his corporeal form could easily go down hill. One might even make the argument that it's already begun, what with most of the end slides concerning House being a real dbag to every faction left in the Mojave.....but chances are he was like that pre-war too.

 

We share some parallels in our story lines. I had thought of the securitrons turning against the courier from either;

1. a successful hacking attempt of the mainframe from Victor via House

or

2. a failed hacking attempt of Yesman that corrupted Yesman/mainframe.

 

But I wasn't thinking beserk securitrons (although I should have, it makes sense with corrupted programming spreading out through the securitrons wireless network). The crazed bots add a lot to the story line. I mean who doesn't want to fight crazy robots?

 

Wanted to run a few things by you;

 

If the lucky 38 is used as the stage, it could be a good explanation of "the bomb" since it has a functioning reactor that can be overloaded/meltdown, and it has a nice little setup for it in the basement. The downside of that idea, is if you want the player to rescue people actually inside the 38 as per your tops storyline then the 38 has to be open to the public (some players won't like that).

 

I think we need to tweak the bomb & insane bot ideas a bit. I think House would blow up NV if he absolutely had too, to kill the courier. But I think it would only be if he had no other choice. NV is his creation, decades worth of work, and the last thing he wants to see is a good chunk of it blow sky high.

 

I was thinking that maybe there is a twist and that the bomb (whether in the tops or the 38's reactor) is a ruse. So for example with teh 38 story line, it might be easier to reach the basement than the penthouse (which theoretically should have more security, since it houses the mainframe & control of all securitrons). Victor hops into a bot, sabotages the reactor. Player is in a race (or so s/he thinks) against time to stop the detonation. This ruse allows Victor to gain access to teh mainframe without interference.

 

Here would be a good place to tweak the crazy bot story line. House wouldn't' want insane securitrons running about. So I think we have to go with a botched hacking attempt, as one of two possibilities. The 2nd being House gaining control over the mainframe and sending bots with their programming intact to hunt the player down. Berserk bots are a lot more fun, and more challenging, because the player has to wipe them all out before the decimate the population. Where as bots under Houses control are likely just going to kill the courier and whoever tries to get in teh way. I'm not sure what is the best way to determine between teh two (maybe how long it takes the courier to get back, maybe a some dialog option when he's talking to Victor up in the penthouse), but I do feel the crazy bot story line has to appear to be happenstance....sheer chance, never intended by House.

 

We could get around that if House really is going bonkers, as you suggested above, but I think House's intelligence is his greatest asset and his strongest trait as an enemy/villain. I think he'll be a greater challenge if he has his wits about him, and seem more formidable to the player.

 

If the player chooses a closer alliance with the NCR (continuing the New Vegas Treaty) that would leave/have NCR military presence on teh strip, that can be a little extra help against the securitrons. But if it's a hindrance we can also set it up so that most of the military is out. The explanation for that being drawn away for the hoover dam battle, or drawn back to McCarran until the details of the NV treaty are complete.

 

Or Vault 21 perhaps... who knows what horrors lurk under the concrete :smile:

 

I like the way you think :thumbsup:

 

I have always thought something was going on with vault 21, it just didn't make sense to fill it with concrete. That impression got even stronger when I read on teh wiki that it was only *partially* filled.

I had gone with the angle that there was something down there House wanted to trap, hide, possess etc, but your idea makes a lot more sense.

 

There is no better safehouse than a vault made to withstand a direct nuclear hit. Seal off part of it and everyone thinks it's gone/inaccessible. A small tunnel from the lucky 38 to a lower level and he has a whole vault to himself without anyone the wiser. Of course we'll have to figure out how the player learns of this. We'd originally thought of a ghoulified Anthony House being the key to Robert's location based on knowledge of Robert's pre-war property holdings/locations. But clues could be in notes, terminals etc. Or maybe Anthony has been in the shadows for two centuries watching his brother and knows more about him than anyone else.

[peadar1987]

Nooooo! Please don't make the reactor explode, nuclear reactors don't do that! (Or at least make it a little realistic, so instead of "overloading the reactor", you could create a hydrogen explosion, or just blow the lid off the pressure vessel and fill the Lucky 38 with scalding radioactive steam)