Eastern Promises

[peadar1987]

I have an idea for a mod that would utilise the territory east of the Colorado that was never used in the vanilla game:

 

Essentially, you get tasked by an NCR agent at the Mojave outpost to deliver a package to the Bullheads; a tribe on the eastern bank of the Colorado who control one of the only harbours in the area, and so are of huge strategic importance to both sides. The legion have been too occupied with the NCR to assimilate the Bullheads, and now the NCR are trying to buy their favour with supplies and medicine.

 

You arrive in the village, the leader is grateful, but asks a favour of you while you're in the area, check on a logging camp who have been silent for a few days.

 

You go and do this, and encounter a legion patrol, who capture you, and take you to the town of Tarquinia, just south of the Legate's Camp, and at the end of the "Via Appia", the road to Flagstaff, and an important trade hub. Here you meet a legion officer, who wants you for a very specific mission.

 

There is a vault on the border of legion territory. It is presumably filled with supplies and technology, but has never been opened. It requires a pip-boy to access the door controls. He wants you to open the vault so Caesar can strip it of anything useful, enslave or absorb the inhabitants, and bury it in rubble. Meanwhile, the Bullheads are after pretty much the same thing.

 

You open the vault, and find it's full of inhabitants who haven't changed their outlook since before the war, a complete success of propaganda and conditioning. Half believe that America must have won the war, and it should be safe to come out, half believe you're almost definitely a communist and shouldn't be trusted. It's up to you to decide the fate of the vault dwellers: kill them, sell them into slavery, negotiate and escort them to relative safety further east, or simply seal themselves back in the vault, until a less scary time on the surface.

 

In the meantime, you're getting missions from either the NCR and the Legion, striking at supply lines, ambushing important figures, and sabotaging critical infrastructure. Or you can side with the Bullheads, who want chaos in both camps, and massive casualties at Hoover Dam so they can retain their independence in the face of the two superpowers.

 

Eventually, things come to a head, and you can either join the legion as they assault the Bullhead capital, the NCR as they try and secure the river crossing, the Bullheads as they try and fend off the attacks, or else negotiate a peaceful solution with either side.

 

 

At the moment, I've just been tinkering with the worldspace, and it's looking like a lot of work, but by no means impossible.

 

 

The main collaboration I'd need would be with designing locations. Currently I've got:

 

Legion Territory

Should be peaceful and ordered, small farms and ranches, with slaves tending the crops, legionaries on patrol, no wildlife, few places to hide, hostile, if you're not with the Legion.

 

-Tarquinia: a bustling town near the Legate's fort, full of legion soldiers, traders, and civilians under legion command. It's peaceful and safe, unless you step out of line.

 

-Tarquinian Aquifer: An underground cave from where Tarquinia draws its water.

 

-Bonell Bay: a harbour on the shores of Lake Mead, into which supplies for the Legion assault are pouring.

 

-Supply dump: just south of Bonell Bay, where supplies are stockpiled.

 

-Temple Bar: Another legion harbour on Lake Mead, this one more peaceful and trade-orientated.

 

-Temple Bar airport: an abandoned airport just south of Temple Bar.

 

-Gateway Cove

 

-Meadview Hotel: a trading post along the Via Appia

 

-Dolan Springs: a trading town along the Via Appia, a day's travel east of Tarquinia, on the edge of the map

 

-The Mercury Trading Company: The headquarters of the Legion territory's biggest trade outfit. Lots of Brahmin, lots of traders, lots of legionaries escorting everything.

 

Bullhead Territory

A lot wilder, roaming geckos, bighorners, cazadors, Bullhead hunting parties, and legion raiders. Covers the area south of the northernmost end of Deathclaw Promontory

 

Arizona Trading Post: Abandoned trading centre with stuff to loot

 

NCR Safe House: A staging post for covert operations against the legion to the north

 

Chloride: An abandoned mining/hippie town, infested with radscorpions and maybe hippie, drugged-up ghouls.

 

Mount Tipton: The highest peak in the area

 

Mount Tipton Forest: dense woodland south of Mount Tipton, ideal for ambushes.

 

Bullhead Fishing Village: A fishing village on the banks of the Colorado, a key strategic location for the NCR and the Legion.

 

Bullhead Town: A town on the clifftop above the fishing village, with water, supplies and a market.

 

Bullhead farms: Scrappy and disorganised tribal farms near the Bullhead Town

 

Kingman: The Bullhead capital, in the decayed remains of a pre-war town, supplemented by post-apocalyptic shacks. Busy, chaotic, and amazingly, still functioning.

 

Kingman State Prison: Where the Bullheads keep prisoners of war, planning a mission where you can maybe get captured, and either help prisoners escape, or else instigate a prison riot between NCR and Legion prisoners.

 

Vault 24

A vault full of paranoid, patriotic, distrustful people struggling to come to terms with the fact that

 

 

 

If anybody would like to be involved with the project, reply in-thread or drop me a PM. I've got a rough idea of most of the main quests, but what would be great would be:

 

-More ideas for covert missions, ideally simple to put together. A few examples I have are: Killing engineers fixing a bridge over Crescent Canyon, taking out a convoy at Ivanpah Lake, freeing legion prisoners from a camp, poisoning the Tarquinian aquifer, sinking a legion supply ship in Lake Mead, bombing the Legion supply dump at Bonell Bay, assassinating legionary commanders, dropping supplies to Frumentarii and so on.

 

-Ideas for more interesting locations to add flavour to the Arizona side of the river, and give the player something to explore.

 

-Ideas for interesting side quests that could be undertaken. One I had was to have an NCR and legion defector both living in one of the Bullhead villages, and having become best friends without revealing their pasts. A sneaky character can play them off against each other out of badness, or to steal their gear, or you can help them come to terms with each others pasts and remain friends. Another one was to have a legionary sent to "keep an eye on you" when going to the vault, and you can eventually find out his past, make him a companion, and either talk him out of being a legionary, or make him one of their greatest warriors (I want to include at least three possible companions for this mod, so other back-stories would be more than welcome!)

 

-Volunteers to help design all of the locations (locations are my weak point!), and if you're feeling really generous, to help navmesh the huge worldspace (I reckon it'll take about 6 or 7 hours in total to do the whole thing using the automatic tool cell-by-cell, so if there are 10 people doing it it makes it a lot easier!)

 

 

 

 

tl;dr: Thinking of a mod, have a story, need help!

[Jordrz400]

Sounds awesome, except I can't make mods :D.

[peadar1987]

Haha, well any suggestions for storylines are also very welcome.

[Jordrz400]

Haha, well any suggestions for storylines are also very welcome.

Tbh, you got it spot on for me lol.

[SonofSparda13]

One idea I for a mission I would love if siding with the NCR is sneaking into a Legion camp and planting chems/alcohol/some other banned items in a high ranking commander's quarters/on him, (using reverse pickpocketing), so that he gets crucified by his own men (obvious it would require high stealth). I just love the idea of weakening the legion by tricking it into turning on its own leaders.

[peadar1987]

One idea I for a mission I would love if siding with the NCR is sneaking into a Legion camp and planting chems/alcohol/some other banned items in a high ranking commander's quarters/on him, (using reverse pickpocketing), so that he gets crucified by his own men (obvious it would require high stealth). I just love the idea of weakening the legion by tricking it into turning on its own leaders.

 

I actually love this idea, straight into the NCR quest line (although it will probably be more like "wipe out X leader", and you have a number of ways of doing it, with the planting chems route giving the best rewards)