Different weapons for ED-E?

[PlatinumShad0w]

How difficult would it be to make mods that modify ED-E's base zapper weapon to act like different weapons for different player builds and roleplay? Since ED-E has no default Melee weapon I have long thought that it would fit a more brutal player for their ED-E to be equipped with a Buzzsaw with it getting right up in the enemy's face and slicing them up (think Phantasm). We already have a base template in the form of Mr. Handy's buzzsaw weapon.

 

Or a pyro player having their ED-E equipped with a flamethrower instead of a laser. I tried going through the records for ED-E's default zapper and changing everything like sound, impact data, projectile etc over to a flamethrower like the Mr. Gutsy flamethrower weapon but, weirdly, in game ED-E's weapon makes the sound of a flamer but there is no visible flame and it did not seem to do any damage to enemies.

 

I also thought of a less "sciencey" feel for certain kinds of characters where ED-E is equipped with a machine-gun of some sort and I did the same thing I did with the flamer to change sound, impact data, projectile records over to a machine gun based off the various robot examples like Securitrons and Sentrybots, and in game this ED-E would shoot and kill enemies but I could not for the life of me get this gunfire to be automatic (despite having the IsAutomatic flag checked and making sure that the fire-rate and attack shots/sec records were were multiplied accordingly).

 

Is this just more complicated to do than I first assumed or am I missing something obvious? I am pretty good with FNVEdit but don't have any knowledge of animation or writing new scripts so that's why I was trying to keep the implementation as simple as possible. Everything I tried there I did using FNVEdit rather than going into the GECK. Is that my problem? Do these kinds of changes require using the GECK in order to take effect properly?

 

Thank you for any help you can provide since, as of right now, I'm not sure what else to try in order to make it work.

[devinpatterson]

OK, I'm a bit rusty (but trying to get back into modding), but I think I can help with a few of your questions.

How difficult would it be to make mods that modify ED-E's base zapper weapon to act like different weapons for different player builds and roleplay?

The model/visual aspec;

idea #1;
Make some Ed-E models that have the zap gun replaced with the appropriate weapons models (these are separate nifs) and use SetModelPathEx to change them out.

if that doesn't work;

idea #2
Use NiVisControllers. I know a bit aobut this because I was doing some preliminary research for a mod idea I had. I call it "schroder's sidearm". Essentially it's a wand of wonder for FONV. It will randomly morphs into various side arms, revolver, auto loader what have you....it's a quantum indeterminacy thing. If you have wild wasteland it will also have crazy effects (fireballs, lightning etc).
The way I was thinking of doing this would be how I would set up the ED-E weapon change. All of the visual models would be on ED-E's skeleton, so niVisControllers could be enabled (these are "played" as an animation to make them visible). One would be selected to correspond to the currently equipped weapon.

For the weapon specs/stats (projectiles, damage etc);

idea #1
Make several ED-E specific weapons and see if EquipItem or EquipItem2 will allow them to be swapped out

if that doesn't work;

Use all the NVSE setWeapon functions to change ED-E's zapgun (ie setWeaponProjectile to change the projectile to the appropriate weapon).

Since ED-E has no default Melee weapon I have long thought that it would fit a more brutal player for their ED-E to be equipped with a Buzzsaw

I don't think there are any eye-bot animations for melee. I looked in the geck (but haven't checked the new eyebot(s) in lonesome road) and there is only 1hp (one handed pistol).
So long story short I don't think you can do any type of melee without an animator making new animations or ????

I'v gotta jet, but I'll try and address some of your other questions/points soon

[devinpatterson]

It might also be possible to put a weapon node in the eyebot skeleton, but I'v only seen them in humanoid creatures (humans, SMs) so I don't know how that would function with a non biped....and if the equipItem function would work.

[PlatinumShad0w]

@devinpatterson I figured making ED-E use melee was basically impossible without modding something more complex like you described here involving new animations and textures. But damn if a buzzsaw ED-E wouldn't be wicked.

 

But the edits I attempted above did successfully make ED-E appear to shoot bullets instead of lasers using her default Zapper, for example, but I could not for the life of me get her to shoot them at automatic speed despite checking all the relevant flags and everything like IsAutomatic, fire rate and attack shots/sec. Do you have any ideas on that?

 

Also for the flamer option, what is weird is I got ED-E to make the noise of a flamer and even shoot it for long automatic bursts with her Zapper but the flame was invisible and did no damage to enemies, despite making sure that the projectile records were set to relevant flamer ones. Any ideas why that didn't work?

 

Thank you for take the time to reply and showing an interest.

[devinpatterson]

sorry just have a sec, but I think the issue with automatic fire is linked to the 1hp (one handed pistol) animation, and the lack of an attack loop for an automatic fire. I'll try and muck around with the flamer when I get some free time.

[devinpatterson]

OK, no issues with the flamer;

 

I'll try and check out the other points in your post soon

[PlatinumShad0w]

Cool. Of course I'll want to know how to got the flames to be visible there. Thanks for continuing to help with this.

[devinpatterson]

Cool. Of course I'll want to know how to got the flames to be visible there.

Here is the edits I made;

 

 

 

 

 

and the esp

 

Right now I'm just working with vanilla geck, and need to reinstall all my tools. When I have blender, and nvse up and running, I can play around a bit with the other aspects I mentioned in my first post

 

Thanks for continuing to help with this.

No problem, it ties in with some work I needed to do anyway (for a rootin tooting sarsaparilla cowgirl eyebot, K8-E).

[PlatinumShad0w]

So cool! So do you think if I used your esp as a template, I could mess around with the settings and get ED-E to look like she's shooting bullets like a machine gun? I guess I should just try it and see but you mentioned before that might not be possible due to the limitations of her attack animation, but yet she can shoot flamer projectiles with an automatic fire rate so it seems promising?

[PlatinumShad0w]

I've noticed something interesting while playing around with the record values for the esp in xEdit to get the weapon's behavior closer to a flamer. Namely, that I can can change the SNAM - Shoot 3D record from ED-E's default laser rifle sound to WPNFlamerFire3DLPM [sOUN:00050F8E] so that it sounds like a flamer. But this has the unfortunate side-effect of making that sound loop forever even when ED-E is not shooting it. If I try to put that sound in the NAM7 - Sound - Gun - Shoot 3D Looping field instead, this fixes the issue so that ED-E only makes the flamer sound when actually firing but it makes the flame projectile invisible again.