Settlements Expanded Project

[fakisona]

Totally agree with you guys, it is quite disappointing that the towns in Fallout 3 are so small, and too little quests with them. Have been thinking about expansion, and it is good to know here's a thread I can share my thought.

 

Megaton - Best town so far, but could still add more townsmen/volunteer guardmen and houses/shops (especially pawn shops or gun stores, as the tileset just fits the atmosphere), quests including something like fighting crimes with Lucas? Helping Moriarty seize power would be nice and full of fun, but requires lots of work I speculate.

Maybe some farmland beside the entrance? I wonder why there's only one farmer and one brahmin in the town.

 

Arefu - Need more houses, settlers, and quests, of course. Newly built shacks and some farms beside the entrance to the "upper town", after settling the family problem.

 

Girdershade - I would say it should be left as it is. Considering its location, and the nature of the residents (Sierra stays because of her Nuka-Cola collection and Ronald because of Sierra). Maybe a quest like destroying/stealing the collection from Sierra, given by Ronald, to give him an excuse to leave with her. Once abandoned, it would become a raider town (maybe Lug-Nut would be looking for Sierra there).

 

Big Town - quests to help the Big Little Lamplighters expand their town by building more defenses (I like the idea of making roofs accessible by stacking junks and planks as ladder, with some sandbags on the roof to serve as a lookout post), making agreements with some gun runnners/other cities to supply them with firearms, attracting wastelanders and scavengers to settle down, etc. The planked shacks would be reopened for residents, and farms and a ranch would appear beside the town. Of course, the result depends on your action. You might have to destroy Paradise Falls to achieve the best result.

 

Tenpenny Tower - the barrack should be moved inside to the first floor as it is "not very nice for your eyes", along with a armory and a general office (I wonder why there is no workers to do the maintenances). More accessible floors with more residents (for your stealing fun, and some minor quests). The penthouses should be converted into serveral duplex/triplex suites. Mr. Burke and Mr. Tenpenny should have some daily routines instead staying at the rooftop forever. More quests given by them after blowing up Megaton.

Expanded basement for shooting range and storage.

Expanded outerwalls with some crude watch towers with guards stationed in them. A courtyard, like the one in Vault City, houses wastelanders who want to stay away from dangers, but turned into serfs to provide food and cheap labour to the tower. (A bartender there is going to join you!)

 

Canterbury Commons - supposed to be a trading post and a caravan depot, but only five residents, three brahmins and two superheroes? It should have more shops, an large inn for caravans, some local farmers and mercenaries looking for jobs like caravan runs and brahmin runs, which you could join.

Maybe a quest to help Scott a.k.a The Mechanist tidy up the factory after solving the superhero problem with Scott survives the event?

 

Rivet City - a aircraft carrier is huge, and it deserves more in everything. Quests that lead to occupation of the broken bow perhaps?

 

Oasis - it is too empty, even for a small settlement. And it is supposed to be special, in the vanilla version it is just another place with lots of trees and treehuggers wearing branches.

 

Underworld - Minor quests of helping wasteland ghouls reach Underworld to expand its population, and finally lead to openig of collapsed parts and cleaning out the feral ghouls to make space (you might say ghouls don't kill their kins, but considering feral ghouls as retards who would steal food for hunger and break stuff for no reason, I dare say that they would be treated as raiders if necessary).

A guard post in the foyer, manned by volunteer ghouls?

 

After thoughts - Andale might need some changes, Republic of Dave is good enough, and how about a small scavenger town in the Washington D.C.?

[Jacen007]

Big Town - quests to help the Big Little Lamplighters expand their town by building more defenses (I like the idea of making roofs accessible by stacking junks and planks as ladder, with some sandbags on the roof to serve as a lookout post), making agreements with some gun runnners/other cities to supply them with firearms, attracting wastelanders and scavengers to settle down, etc. The planked shacks would be reopened for residents, and farms and a ranch would appear beside the town. Of course, the result depends on your action. You might have to destroy Paradise Falls to achieve the best result.

I suppose you'll have to eradicate the super mutants in German town too ;)

 

I actually expected that some of these things would happen when I played the game for the first time... It was a bit disappointing to find out Beth didn't incorporate changing circumstances depending on how you handled a situation.

[DDigit]

Hey doodle, sounds pretty good! I think I'd like to play such a mod although you would have to be carefull not to add too many new npcs and stuff (or you might end up screwing up immersion rather than enhancing it), but you seem to be aware of that danger..

 

My main worry with this mod is that it may not be compatible wit the Living Wastelands Mod I want to create. You can check the topic on settlement fortifications here.

 

Living Wastelands - Setllements and proper defenses

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=86747&st=0

 

The outside entrance to megaton and Rivet City (where the caravans stand) will most certainly be fortified/modified (and get one or two new raidable traders). What i'd like to request for at least megaton and rivet city is that you dont change anything to these outside "reception" areas (this is where the first planned raids should take place). Vice versa I won't change anything to the inside of megaton or the ship itsself (or if i do later i'll make it modular). This way our mods should be compatible.

 

Now if you'd be a real chum (and read all the Living wasteland posts :P) and agree with me on the raids and the needed extra security nearly everywhere, you'd give all the towns you mentioned the neccesary beefed up security (guards/turrets/robots/mines/sandbags etc) so they'd work well with the Living wastelands mods' dynamic raids. I could even put your modified settlements on the raiding parties' routes to let them be part of the raiding action. You'd save me tons of work and I'd put some more life into your towns ;).

 

How fun would that be?

[SpeedyB64]

Unlike Oblivion mods I think that Fallout mods should be as modular as possible. That way mods can be easily mixed and matched. I think managing compatibility in this game will be more difficult than previous games.

 

Anyone who mods Rivet city should do something with the flight deck, you would think there would be people living or farming up there.

[Doedel]

@DDigit: That sounds pretty cool. I didn't really have any plans to change Megaton at all, inside or out, nor the outside of Rivet City; Megaton is pretty much perfect as is: it's got enough of a population and is fairly well built that it establishes itself as a moderately important town well enough. The changes to Rivet City will only be to the inside, in basically adding more decks, NPC homes/quarters, and NPCs. Nothing to the outside.

 

We could definately make our two respective projects "co-existent". I really haven't planned on expanding quests or activities at this stage -- my main focus has been on simply enlarging towns and adding rather generic, plotless NPCs to fill up the spaces and make these settlements more believable -- while, yes, being very careful not to ruin immersion, atmosphere, style (in essence, I want to make it seem as if these expanded settlements are perfectly natural and how it should have been in the first place.

 

Here's a simplistic list of what I'm hoping to accomplish with my initial efforts:

 

Arefu: Increase number of residential buildings; add a shop; expand some parts of the town to the underside of the overpass (for artistic purposes); add a bar/canteen/tavern ("The Underbar"? LOL)

 

Big Town: "Open up" many of the houses and homes (only 4 are actually used iirc?), perhaps replacing several of the single-story homes with two-story houses. I may add a "shopkeeper" but they will have essentially nothing to sell (maybe a box of detergent and some scrap metal) and have few bottlecaps to barter with (maybe 20). This really serves no purpose other than to make the initial framework for possible future enhancements -- it also keeps in line with the Guard saying that everything has been dragged off from Big Town.

 

Megaton: No changes planned.

 

Tenpenny Tower: No changes planned.

 

Underworld: Add more living space inside the main hall; additional doors leading to additional living areas. Perhaps erecting a small refugee tent city to the currently-empty Entranceway area.

 

Citadel: Adding more space inside the Pentagon itself; more office buildings housing more BoC members, more room for archives, computers, etc.

 

Rivet City: Adding more decks to the main hull, with more living spaces, storage rooms, power generator rooms; more NPCs.

 

Greyditch: Open up more of the buildings; add dead and scorched bodies. (Likely future expansion will include ability for Greyditch to become repopulated after the menace threatening it is destroyed)

 

Canterbury Commons: Opening up more of the structures, adding more living space and more NPCs.

 

As I said, the initial idea right now is simply to design superficial expansions to these settlements. Afterwards, once that is complete, is when I will look into adding quests. However, DDigit, if you'd like to conspire and essentially "merge" our mods I think we'd both have something to gain. It'd allow me to focus primarily on simply adding more stuff, enlarging the settlements for you to add your defensive "spark" to. Ultimately I think the most beneficial plan would be for two (or more) modular parts, one with the basic settlement expansion, the other including the expansion + the defensive stuff (would there be any need for defensive stuff without settlement expansion?)

 

Urrggh, I can't wait for the G.E.C.K. to come out!

[Doedel]

With the release of the GECK I've begun preliminary work on Arefu's expansion. Here's some screenshots:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/SpikedHelmet/WIP1-2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/SpikedHelmet/WIP2-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/SpikedHelmet/WIP3.jpg

 

I somewhat like the design. It's not too heavy (as promised) but still gives the sense that Arefu is actually an inhabited place rather than a camping ground for a couple of forlorn families.

 

Note the crows nest; I didnt even notice it when I saved. I didnt plan on including a lookout but now that I see it, I think a lookout might be warrented, even if only a small one ontop of a house. Something that lets defenders see down to the bottom of the overpass (which you can't see due to the curve of the overpass from eye-level near the houses).

[Doedel]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/SpikedHelmet/ArefuWIP4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/SpikedHelmet/ArefuWIP5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/SpikedHelmet/ArefuWIP6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/SpikedHelmet/ArefuWIP7.jpg

[Triumph675]

Nice, have you thought about adding quest npcs to it? The underneath finishes the town off.

[Jacen007]

Great job Doedel, it seems to fit right in, like it's been there from the start ;)

[Starch]

Nice job!

 

What are you going to name your mod and which selection would it been in?

 

Some suggestions:

 

I notice lack of hangman posts and graveyards in Fallout 3. You could added some to Megaton and other towns.