Oh man, so many rights and wrongs here!
I really like the way you are going. The progress already done is huge and you did what you could with avaliable assets and arts. I just feel like I must let you know that I greatly enjoy what is already done so the following does not let you down or make you think I am a hater
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Now onto the part why I wanted to post this after I played around with the mod.
I find early tech tree quite... Arbitrary? For example, why is hunting so much later than animal domestication or labor? I mean it's more logical that people start to peek their nose out to scavenge, then try to hunt small or not-so-mean critters like molerats and brahmin, and only then try to tame them. Also ability to keep said animals (like brahmin) requires a knowledge about getting some food to feed animals (since you cannot keep them in the open with all the nightstalkers and big molerats running around, you need to grow or store food to feed animals, otherwise it's counter-productive). Thus making animal domestication branch off from gathering->gardening-> makes more sense than from trapping. Hunting on the other hand could be a tech following trapping, and big game hunting could be advanced version of that to be able to secure areas and take down meanies like big insects and deathclaws.
Another issue is with techs like "barricade". At first, barricade grants a HUGE amount of defense. With inability to capture cities it's not that important (enemies will pillage your land and not capture cities, but it's another issue). What I wanted to say is that it's logical to have barricading as a very early tech. I mean, you gather a group, you find a building/camp to live in. What is the first logical course of action? Right, barricade entrances, put up simple defenses and a watchtower. You won't be building workshops if radscorpions are stinging your butt.
There are a lot of issues like this with the current tech tree.
What I wanted to ask, are you open to ideas and do you consider to change tech tree in the future? I like the overall progression and the idea of being unable to capture cities early. I also love the Hidden Nationality system playing a big role in the game. However I really feel like redesigning the tech tree is a big step which should be taken step by step and implemented to make this mod smoother. Not so many techs are needed (currently there's 6 techs per EVERY tier, is it done just to make the tree feel big?), and overall tech tree progression (survival era -> rebuild era -> superpower era -> tech era) should be changed.
Don't mind era names, they are just placeholders. Let me explain my thoughts about eras.
1) Survival era. This is when all the confused and lost folks try to put their sh*t together just not to die. Their single goal is to form some kind of basic society and repel wildlife attacks while being able to find something to eat and cure many diseases.
2) Rebuild era. People start to peek their nose out of their borders, try to re-establish pre-war industries like old mines or weapon factories. Resource wars become a possibility, since now people need more than just food and shelter.
3) Superpower era. Governments appear and start to unite multiple cities/tribes under their hood (you build settlers, you conquer neighbours). A few big brothers arise and fight each other over control of smaller groups (vassals).
4) Tech era. People fully understand and utilize pre-war tech. Military uses mobile armour and powerarmor troops, energy weapons and robots.
There's a possibility of the "fall" era when overuse of technology and advanced weapons may bring appearance of nastier wildlife (barbarian mutants), increase pollution and fallout (global warming-style) and possible appearance of end-game civs (FFH2-style). Of course it's something which should not be done until at least 2 first eras are fleshed out.
I've been thinking about making a small postapocalyptic mod based on "stripped mod" myself and doodled tech tree and possible units, but then I remembered about your project, and voila, it's alive! So I thought that maybe you are open to new ideas and could embrace my thoughts. Of course I can understand if you answer "I have my own vision, no thanks" and I will be totally okay with it, it's your mod, but it never hurts to try!
In any case I am happy this is alive and you work on it.
P.S. Another grumble. I don't really like current unit strength progression. Jumping from str. 2 to 60 is something too extreme for my opinion. Also having a "crossbowman" unit which is the ONLY unit of Archer unit class is weird. The archer model could be an early hunter instead (trapper?). Okay, let me stop here, I have too many my own ideas which I should not pour all over you, sorry
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P.P.S. Cool to see some of my poorly made art assets like deathclaws and Brotherhood leader put to some use
. I thought I did it for nothing.
