Fallout: Nicaragua

[TrooperScooperMKII]

A spin off of the eariler extant Hawaii thread, reflecting "recent developments" so to speak.

 

I've broken this down into various ideas, sections, etc. Right now the whole shebang is just a very fertile concept cluster and a partial zeppelin model. :pirate:

 

The general train of thought that led me here/there, and where it's going:

 

 

IRL Nicaragua managed to "beat" the cold war by throwing off its local dictatorship and thwarting US "intervention" under Reagan- despite being the second poorest nation on earth, it's got a high literacy rate and a stable democracy, and elected the first Female Head of State of the Americas... so it's something of a "happy" ending for them.

 

Fallout version is basically the inverse- they maintained "independence" from the two great powers, but under a pro-corporate dictatorship-empire spanning a good part of Central America. They built a canal linking LakeNicaragua to the Pacific and Caribbean Seas, basically being a second Panama.

 

I'd aim for an Aztec-2.0 feeling- the island in the center would be sort of like Tenochtitlan, expanded greatly (some floating platforms and a cruise ship or two "incorporated" into it a la rivet city) and the player and a crashed squad of Enclave fugitives playing the unwitting role of COrtez (they're fleeing west to Hawaii, get shot down by the BOomers and land for repairs in Searchight- the PC gets the Boomers to repair the ship- so they decide to make a detour far to the south to avoid the NCR and Baja California... thus entering the New Mexica's (New Aztec? Hispanic Empire?) airspace and getting shot down) in the dispute between the "primitive" native tribes and the city/empire in the lake.

 

The Hawaiian empire shows up only by proxy, limited to an an embassy and small coast guard type fleet/militia sent there to "keep the peace" and back up their erstwhile imperial allies (and guarantee the tribute is being paid- their "colonies" are basically a tribute system whereby they support local despots in exchange for goods or labor) but the commander has a grudge against slavery (he started out as a white knight type leader, was forced to put down a "terrorist rebellion" in Africa by slaughtering civilians at the whims of an a**hole patrician slavedriver accompanying him, and eventually kills the evil bastard and does a double coverup of the slave operations and the bugger's death...) and thus has mixed feelings on the whole thing- he might swing either way, reluctantly supporting the ruling class or "having other matters to attend to" and withdrawing his fleet/soldiers just before the rebellion starts.

 

Oh yeah, look at Granadas history- if/when this gets off the ground, I'd definitely like to make a "pirate mod" in the Caribbean, basically operating like Oregon Trail, where you plan an expedition at Home Base by balancing equipment, experience, skills, personalities, etc. of your potential crew members and procure a ship and equipment before sailing out and adventuring... it would be "pirate" themed in the same way that New Vegas proper has a Western theme.

 

 

 

 

As to locales:

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/2713/googleearths.png

overview in Google Earth.

 

There are two lakes, Managua in the north and Nicaragua in the south, and a small river (tipitapa) linking them; the capital, Managua, is located on the southern bank of lake Managua, a good bit west of the river. Bull sharks are known to traverse the river at times, like salmon...

my "game plan" is that the north lake and/or city are FEV infested "funhouses" with the lake and surrounding area subsumed by jungle/tropical climate/disease/flora/fauna etc. corporate research facilities etc. pre-war and things... getting out... afterwards. Plenty of medicines and mutated creatures to go around.

There WILL be sharks with laser beams, saw-sharks with chainsaw mouths, and as many monster plants, birds and bugs as humanly possible. It has to happen. All it takes is ONE bored scientist or vacationing US admiral, and you've got your fun house horrors.

 

http://www.sanjuanriorelief.org/images/where_we_work_map.gif

This is the Rio San Juan, connecting Lake Nicaragua to the Caribbean Sea.

 

 

 

On the banks of the river near a set of rapids is the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception on the Rio San Juan. It has a bit of a story to it, involving one Rafaela Herrera, the 19 year old daughter of the fort's commanding Lieutenant Colonel who died of old age/disease right before a joint native/British attack in 1762. As in, he dies and 11 days later the Brits and their native allies (~2000 total soldiers and fifty boats) appear and demand surrender. She refuses- her father raised her... in a rather unorthodox fashion- takes command of the fort's artillery and three barrages later kills the brits' CO, also tells the garrison to send alcohol soaked rags downriver at nightfall, a rather ironic echo of the Spanish Armada's defeat. Heh.

 

Anyway she obviously went down as a National hero for them, and you can bet that the current regime props her up as an "example to all loyal daughters of the Empire" on resistance to the end etc...

and it's a cool story besides, and a nifty little fort to match.

 

 

 

There are a LOT of volcanoes.

 

 

first, Momotombo at the "top" of Lake Managua. IT's a strato-volcano eg. the kind that go KABLLOOOOOM and shatters the earth in a year without a summer...

 

Another one, Apoyeque, is Pyroclastic Shield volcano (seriously, who named these things? Dr Evil?) which basically did the Krakatoa BOOM and collapsed in on itself back in 50 BC in one of the largest explosions in history.

Oh yeah, and it's now a 100 Meter deep lake, in a peninsula jutting out into lake Managua within the districts of the city.

Basically all of the lakes in the area are volcanoes. HEh.

 

On Lake Nicaragua is Conception characterized by at least 25 eruptions since 1883, characterized by frequent and moderate explosions...

and there's the inactive Maderas to the south (another island, this one has a lake in the middle! a lake within a volcano within an island within a bigger lake within a jungle between two oceans!!!!) with the isle of Ometepe having "well known species" of monkeys, mountain crabs and butterflies (mutate or die!!!!), and Masaya on the little strip of land between Lake Nicaragua and the pacific, a large set of calderas and craters constantly spewing sulfur gas, occasionally exploding (mildly) and having underground lava tubes with bats and glowing lava flows.

 

 

 

A general story outline: don't read ("spoil") it on a whim, I fancy myself a good writer. :tongue:

 

 

 

Sometime after completing the Boomers' questline, there's a scripted series of "fireworks" over Nellis: an ENclave vertibird tried to land there and got flak for their trouble. One of the engines is knocked out, so they land at searchlight to effect repairs; the player learns of this either by chance (down there) or by asking Pearl what happened.

Anyway, long story short, the player gets the Boomers to fix the engine, rides the VB from Searchlight to Nellis and is- grudgingly- offered a seat on board. They are planning to reach Hawaii, by virture of being "an Eden far away from this s***hole" but their run in with the BOomers speaks against flying over NCR territory or the Baja. THey're/you're forced further south due to continuing mechanical problems (cabin depressurization or something?) and a storm out in the pacific leading the squad leader to suggest a pit stop somewhere. They're in the middle of discussing this when they/you are attacked by UAVS out of Nicaragua, and finally downed by "lightning" striking down nearby (a near miss by killsat balloons, as you eventually find out) and you bail over the FEV jungle.

The pilot is the last to jump, and you don't meet up with him (or know for sure if he made it out) until a lot further on, basically I'm picturing him riding a hacked UAV down after in Strangelove style.

THe first priority for the player and his "group" is to get to the crash site, which is also in the general directon of Lake Managua. After trekking across the jungle (it wouldn't have any fast travel markers and such, basically all terrain and critters, with a few tribal villages thrown in for good measure) and reaching the crash site they find a message from the pilot and grab some gear, making their way down Lake Managua.

 

Managua is a s***hole; polluted by FEV and rads, it was an isolated "research" station for the local empire's navy (old US equipment) plus a few other "military" targets.

 

The highlight is basically about a "cloning" facility that the player encounters. One big mindscrew, it starts out as an unnervingly pristine (so white it glows on the inside) set of sterile hallways, beds made etc. basically looking like it's just been deserted... eventually the player encounters the "infected" which are silent and scarred (no clothes/armor, custom skin textures) and carrying "dirty syringes" or scalpels etc. as weapons- quite weak with a mild poison effect, the main part of it being the natural fear of needles. SOme of them are "dressed" in the patient gown from OWB; some of these have suicide vests/collars, and will drop live grenades upon death (and/or charge the player and explode) the only way to tell for sure is that they wouldn't have a weapon in hand.

 

IF possible I'd like for the player to be cloned, and kill said clone in an arena or something. It would be utterly ambiguous whether or not you're playing the "original" and perhaps a perk (cogito ergo sum?) would back that up. Anyway, you steal a barge and take a ride down Tipitapa river, dodgingBull sharks (sharks with lasers? It must be so!) all the way. Speaking of which IRL these bull sharks can jump the rapids of the San Juan River like salmon o_O and thus get to/from the Caribbean to Lake Nicaragua....

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the aforementioned zeppelin model, the only tangible progress on this whole charade of madness. :P

 

 

 

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/9716/zeppelinl.png

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/938/zeppelinsmooth.png

 

 

[darkus37]

Hey TrooperScooperMKII, several things:

 

While I'm not inherently against visiting other places, even on the same continent, I would be remiss if I didn't suggest sticking to mainland United States territory. I say this mostly due to the fact that the games takes place there (most likely due to cultural bias) and it would fit with the other games in the series better.

 

Perhaps you should move the location to the Texas area. Now, I never played Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (heard it was horrible), and have unfortunately never been myself, but it seems like a really cool area to explore. I can suggest using a Vault City template, where say, Dallas, is a fortified city, clean and a shining beacon in the wasteland, that hides the corruption and decay hidden within. You can have tribals forced to live in the wasteland who make sporadic raids on this city. Unlike other cities of the wasteland, this one is basically pristine, protected by a defensive system not unlike the type the Lucky 38 had but hugely inflated and over-powered due to pork-barrel military projects. Zeppelins fly around like the retro-futuristic style of 1950's sci-fi. Legion attacks are also a possibility since they should be somewhere around there.

 

If you like, you can eventually arrange for a convoy to eventually being going from the Texas Territory to the Mojave (probably connected to the destroyed bridge over Crescent Canyon East).

 

 

If, on the other hand, you are set on Fallout: Nicaragua, what is your overarching plot point? Is the Enclave the big bad, or are the Nicaraguans? Why are you going there?

 

Oh, just a suggestion: if you've ever seen Judge Dredd (the one with Sylvester Stallone), there's a scene towards the end where a cloning facility has been re-activated to make new Judges (a new breed of cop in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is judge, jury, and executioner) from a specially modified DNA sample. Now, you don't have to follow the exact same plot, but you could find out that your PC has been cloned, for whatever reason, and you would have to fight imperfect versions of yourself.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

The enclave don't appear at all- it's just a squad of survivors fleeing into the wind and which you hitchhike with.

Again this is all concepts, right now I have two possible "ways" to get there, either by crashing into the jungle or by getting intercepted out at sea by a Hawaiian carrier/cutter on its way there.

THe latter would give an "inside" look so to speak, and I'm waving towards it, mainly because it lets me more easily convey the state of the empire (afraid of rebellions/Caesars taking over) and all the infighting and backstabbing that hurts their hand.

 

Sorry if I sound confused.

A quick question: should I attempt a static shark model or leave that for later? I can export it to an OBJ and from there to blender/nifscope but as I have absolutely no idea how animations/creatures are handled, I'm wondering how it would have to be modified/fit to skeletons/animations etc.

SO in general how do you go about creating new creatures?

[DizzasterJuice]

Fallout has always favored desert, barren landscape over jungle like conditions (other than a small patch of short growth jungle outside of vault 22) for good reason; high poly count jungles eat up memory like a molerat in a tub full of sugarbombs.

General rule of thumb is to avoid foliage at eye level...with low-poly models, it looks terrible. To make a jungle look realistic you would have to have a lot of foliage at eye level. You could work around by making restricted paths through the jungle but then that would take away from the free roaming aspect of all Bethesda games.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

Dense jungle are hell to get through, visibility would be atrocious at ground level, and with perpetual darkness etc.

Jungle wouldn't be the only area, maybe limit it to the river(s) mentioned ie a scripted river cruise.

Besides why stick with the formula in its entirety? You're not going to wander the jungle from sea to sea, you're staying around the lake and for good reason. Post-war jungle would be a nightmare.

 

I'd like to have "hellcaves" in that volcano complex mentioned, all indoors and caverns (with lava and bats heh) which in theory sound relatively simple; the "urban jungle" of a pompeii-type FEV Managua being another possibility.

THe big draw to the setting being the various possibilities for radically different environments, for instance the whole thing could have blown halfway to hell in volcanic eruptions during the Great War or something.

 

anyway, I started a shark model.

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/4329/sharkl.png

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/4652/sidep.png

 

Not sure how this would turn out if/when it comes to animation...

[TrooperScooperMKII]

Two words that sum up the concept: colonies and pirates.

 

The Spanish Empire is more or less the model here.

From my understanding of history, Spain's conquests were divided up into more or less autonomous subdivisions- viceroyalties split into audencias- which were a concern for the crown; each vicroyalty ruling a colony the size of Spain itself! Hence the concern for rebellions and/or thoughts of setting up an independent kingdom...

 

there was little thought to local industry, with the colonies leeched of wealth for the motherland- a parasitic relationship. Britain (among others) leeched off of Spain in turn, via "free trade" loans and basically dominating spanish industries at home and abroad; also during wars privateers would steal and/or disrupt trade with the colonies.

 

Overall it was a very "free range" frontier and thematically similar to the Wild West: distant and none-too-powerful government, get rich quick schemes and gold rushes (along with the inevitable ghost towns at the end of it) natives and foreigners being variously allies or enemies, raucous parties and "sinful" extravagance/worldliness, etc.

I can imagine a grittier "pirate expedition" version of Oregon Trail eg. for raiding and such... or so on.

[devinpatterson]

Re: the jungle. If you were to have several restricted paths through it (which are really no different in practice to the high box canyons in FONV) you could put a lot of foliage in the foreground. Then place simple flat meshes behind the trees with an alpha and a s-load of foliage as a texture painted on it. Ie. essentially a mural. You'd have to play around with how much jungle you have in front to make it look realistic, but it would really knock out a lot of processing (at least regarding the poly's).

 

In re: to the rest of teh mod a lot of interesting stuff to dig into as soon as I have a little free time.

[DizzasterJuice]

Re: the jungle. If you were to have several restricted paths through it (which are really no different in practice to the high box canyons in FONV) you could put a lot of foliage in the foreground. Then place simple flat meshes behind the trees with an alpha and a s-load of foliage as a texture painted on it. Ie. essentially a mural. You'd have to play around with how much jungle you have in front to make it look realistic, but it would really knock out a lot of processing (at least regarding the poly's).

 

In re: to the rest of teh mod a lot of interesting stuff to dig into as soon as I have a little free time.

That sounds like it would work. Another option is like how Moonpath to Elsweyr for Skyrim was made. There is a restricted path through the jungle and the foliage was set higher up on the edge of the creekbed.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

THe shark is starting to shape up.

 

 

 

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/8028/cones.png

 

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/8672/sharky.png

 

 

I'm thinking of starting a Coast Guard Cutter Model. I also need to do more work on the totem pole (added in the eyes and a bit more, nothing worth posting, really) for the SS thread.

Yes it's a lot, but I think I work better (or at least more constantly) with a few things at once.

[greenknightfury]

Love this idea as I've said when you posted it in other threads.

 

To address some of the negative comments: The reason that Fallout is set in the continental US is because that is what the makers are familiar with and the lore covers, there is nothing preventing someone familiar with, or that made themselves familiar with, another part of the world adding it as a mod.

 

Jungles might have high render demands...but you are only rendering what is visible from your location at any time(somewhat further or less far than that depending on how open it is and the LOD of the worldspace), so a dense jungle would limit your rendering needs sharply, particularly with the methods they discussed after the comment of making it set paths through the jungle with backdrop statics making up all but your immediate area.