Fallout Civs and some more stuff

[davidlallen]

But if you don't think that any of my ideas are compatible with your vision (slightly longer tech tree and longer pre-vehicles/firearms early game, differentiation between tech salvaging factions vs build-from-scratch factions, more in the way of unit variety and faction diversity), obviously I can respect that.

If you can give me some idea of the way you would prefer the mod to go, I can see if I have any ideas that might help that.

The key inspirations for Fury Road were Mad Max and Fallout, but I would say the game is 90% Mad Max and 10% Fallout. This thread, which is certainly worthwhile, is mostly about how to get to 90% Fallout and 10% Mad Max.

There is a third major inspiration which I was keeping in the back of my mind, which is Terminator. Who did actually fire all those nukes, and what happens when civilization recovers to the point that it is visible from satellites, for example with city lights? There is a whole late game section around this that I wanted to add.

Tank girl is horribly unbalanced and tends to break the game; commando and march and no fuel and massive strength? She is able to constantly drive around assassinating the out-of-fuel enemy units that they leave around and getting back to friendly territory.

I agree. There are 4-5 top "bugs" I would like to fix if I release another version, and this is on the list. The solution is to only allow her to spawn if there are players on the map who have rebuilt tanks. It is a few more lines of python.

 

[Ahriman]

The key inspirations for Fury Road were Mad Max and Fallout, but I would say the game is 90% Mad Max and 10% Fallout. This thread, which is certainly worthwhile, is mostly about how to get to 90% Fallout and 10% Mad Max.

Fair enough. I'm definitely much more of a Fallout fan than a Mad Max fan, and all my ideas go in that direction.
But I'd still suggest for Mad Max that a slightly longer early-game feel would be appropriate.
Survivors are immediately outclassed by crossbows and utes, lancers don't really make an appearance because no-one actually gets the horse resource, and then its on to guardians and the firearms era. The pre-guns era doesn't really last long enough for some expansion and a good war, and the units are all made obsolete too easily.


Maybe some of the ideas can be incorporated in a Fallout-themed modmod.

 

[Nameless One]

Basically, it seems you either disagree with or "really hate" every design decision I have made. Thank you for providing honest feedback. I may come back to this mod and tweak it with a longer tech tree and some other small changes. But I do not plan to do a total redesign myself, at this point.

Keep in mind that we are trying to make a Fallout modmod for your mod. Some things simply have to be quite different between Fallout North America and your Australia. If we absolutely hated every design decision you made about Fury Road we probably would have been more attracted to making a completely new mod than a modmod for Fury Road.

 

[davidlallen]

Spreading out the tech tree would definitely allow survivors and lancers to have a longer lifespan. That is a bigger design/balance project.

 

[Nameless One]

I'd keep really high-tech stuff as scavenged only.
So you're never going to be able to manufacture power armor or energy weapons; but you might get a few of them from a Vault.
However, you could eventually get enough manufacturing back up to be producing vehicles and fuel trucks and the like. Basically; 20th century tech, producible. 21st century tech, should remain salvaged only.
My impression is that davidlallen doesn't want the mod to get back to a real civ even in the late-game where you can produce everything, as that detracts from the post-apocalyptic feel. A mainstay of the postapocalyptic genre is that you can never get back to where humanity was before the Fall.

That largely depends on a tech tree. David doesn't have to adopt a single idea we propose. I think a good Fury Road mod with a good Fallout modmod is the way to go. My original idea when starting this topic wasn't to force Fallout feel on Fury Road but simply to create a modmod for people who want to play with more Fallout feel or simply try something else.

But resources that random disappear are insanely frustrating for the players, and lie outside their control. There is nothing more frustrating for a strategy gamer than major-game-impacting things happening that they can't really plan for or optimize around.
Its also likely to create a slippery slope problem; a large empire that is already winning is more likely to have 2+ copies of a resource, and so be less screwed when they disappear.

If the only resources that disappear are those that spawn units, then that would probably be ok.

Well, that was my idea from the start. At certain point, the post-apocalyptic world has to move on from scavenging to production because there is no way scavenging can be a long lasting source of finished products like tanks and airplanes. I'm ok with Scrap Metal not being depletable.

Reavers? Aren't reavers the technology worshipping cult that hordes energy weapons? This should be a Beastlords thing and maybe tribalists.

A mistake. I'm sorry. I was thinking about the Beastlords. I'm still unsatisfied with the lack of information about Beastlords, Reavers and other FoT factions. For example, who would be heroes for those factions? We need some creative effort if those civs are to make it into the modmod.

d) maybe they could get trade bonuses on rivers?

Speaking of rivers, did you notice that David made grain resources in Fury Road not spawn on river banks? This is a great idea because rivers would carry highly irradiated water in post-nuclear world. For the same reason, I think rivers should give not commerce bonus and sea tiles should have quite low yield.

Hmm. Might work. There's room for a lot of flavor in the explorable dungeons.
However, part of my idea was to get away from just ruined cities as potential places for scavenging; there are plenty of industrial, technological or whatever facilities that need not be located in the clustered ruined cities.

True. That's not much of a problem. If ruins are made similar to FfH dungeons then I don't see a problem with more features like dungeons that are not part of the clustered ruins. It only needs a nice addition to David's map script so that those other features are placed outside the clustered ruins.

I disagree. You didn't have horses in any of the games, but then you don't have horses in almost any fantasy games because they're such a giant PITA to implement. Baldur's Gate-type games (or Neverwinter Nights, etc) never had any horses, but that didn't mean that there weren't cavalry there in the world.

It makes no sense that no horses would survive, and horses would be *massively* useful afterwards, for agriculture and warfare.
In particular tribal-types that are the residue of rural socities that lived a long way from the cities would have still had horses, and would have used them extensively.

Horses also fit very nicely into the "wild west" theme that so much of Fallout is emulating.

And they're pretty common in a lot of post apocalyptic stuff anyway.

Well, if horses were left out of Fallout games for implementation purposes they at least would have been mentioned somewhere. I think the idea was to have horses as a species that didn't survive the apocalypse. Even the brahmin as greatly mutated cows.

Here's a wikia article about horses: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Horse

I'm ok with horses in Fury Road, but if we are making Fallout modmod then let it be Fallout flavour.

btw, Ossian did implement horses in Wyvern Crown of Cormyr mod for NWN

Re: religions and corporations
I think a lot of these are unncessary. Part of why this mod works is that the original design is pretty simple. Don't just make this into another FFH clone.

I really like using the religion system as representing "influence". You get some of the feel of vault city/NCR/new reno vying for influence over the various towns.

Of course, not all the religions have to be represented as I suggested, but I think there should be some of them. I'm not all for copying FfH but it is the most popular Civ4 mod and they do have some really nice features that are usable in many other mods with completely different flavour. Religions, in one shape or another, are part of almost every mod. Guilds/Corporations are a very nice way to represent some more profit-oriented factions from Fallout setting that simply can't be considered civs.

 

[Ahriman]

I think a good Fury Road mod with a good Fallout modmod is the way to go.

Fair enough, this sounds like it will please all parties better; a separately developed modmod that doesn't treat on anyone's toes.

Imagine 4 tiers based on the rough tech levels I posted earlier.

I think a good design would be "tier3" salvagables (tanks, arty etc) eventually running out but becoming constructible in tier4, and then tier4 getting its own set of spawnables (power armor, robots, energy weapon troops) that spawn from Vaults, that are revealed with an initial tier4 tech.

This could also lead to an interesting dynamic over time; civs that grabbed lots of city ruins in tier2/3 would have big bonuses and big armies there, but then the Vaults that are the spawners for tier4 things would pop up elsewhere on the map, and civs that controlled more of the general countryside would be more likely to have more Vaults.

For example, who would be heroes for those factions? We need some creative effort if those civs are to make it into the modmod.

From memory Beastlords and Reavers basically only really appear in Fallout Tactics, in 2-3 missions each. Beastlords appear in http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Quincy_(location) and in
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mardin
Seems like they have some telepathic powers, as well as animal control.

Reavers appear in http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Junction_City
and in http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Newton , which has some named characters.

Speaking of rivers, did you notice that David made grain resources in Fury Road not spawn on river banks? This is a great idea because rivers would carry highly irradiated water in post-nuclear world. For the same reason, I think rivers should give not commerce bonus and sea tiles should have quite low yield.

This actually doesn't really make sense. Rivers that are actually decent flowing bodies of water wouldn't stay irradiated; the water flows away and is replaced by rainwater. Fast-flowing water would carry away any irradiated water or soil in a few years, let alone many decades.
And the ocean is just too huge to be able to irradiate significantly; if the ocean were still significantly irradiated, then the land surface would be uninhabitable.

Basically, by the time of Fallout, the surface is mostly habitable radiationwise, except for some hotspots.
Radiation levels should also fall over time as stuff decays. A cool mechanic would be for the map to start with more fallout tiles, but have them slowly degrade (by randomly disappearing).

The Potomac is irradiated in Fallout3, but its basically a tidal estuary at this point (I should know; I live in DC). Really wide, very slow moving. Its basically just a big irradiated puddle in FO3.

And as far as gameplay goes; you still need rivers or lakes to provide water to build farms, so its not like you're not using the water. I'd be fine with putting trade on rivers back in, but I don't feel strongly about it.

It only needs a nice addition to David's map script so that those other features are placed outside the clustered ruins.

Agreed. Exploring the dungeon could lead to bandit or animal spawns, caravans with loot, turn the tile into a resource, or turn the tile into some new/interesting improvement (power plant, factory, etc) or any of a bunch of other things.

I think the idea was to have horses as a species that didn't survive the apocalypse.

I still think that horses (or some type of mutated counterpart that could perform a similar role if that is more canon - hell, make them mutant zebras) would make a ton of sense in this mod. Basically, you need a mobile, fuelless unit type for the non-scavengers to make use of. It just feels wrong for tribals to be driving around in jeeps or utes, whereas it feels totally in "feel" of fallout (and the general Western cowboys and indians feel) to have mounted units with spears charging light infantry with shotguns and bolt-action rifles, and to have carbine and pistol wielding cavalry against infantry with semi-automatics and the occasional machine gun.

btw, Ossian did implement horses in Wyvern Crown of Cormyr mod for NWN

And did he manage to get mounted combat to work? Or did you just ride up to them and then start swinging in melee?
The Total War games are the only PC games that have ever really got across the "feel" of cavalry.

Religions, in one shape or another, are part of almost every mod.

Well, they're already part of this mod using the diplomacy/influence system. Do you want to drop that?
A way of getting in something like Talon Company woudl be to have a wonder (or national wonder) that let you hire mercenaries, as in FFH. Basically, any units in the city gain a "high mercenary" button, if you press it they spawn a mercenary unit and deduct X gold from your treasury.
Mercs could easily have a chance of going barbarian each turn, have a higher gold upkeep cost, or have a chance of going barb or dying after each combat they are in, all of which would make them different from ordinary units. (Using FFH tools anyway).

I think "profit-seeking trade" factions are generally better modeled by giving bonuses to trade route income, bonus trade routes, and maybe bonuses to merchant or great merchant citizens. That way it actually changes their playstyle; merchants want to keep open borders with as many factions as possible to take advantage of big trade route yields.

Corporations are a mechanism for rewarding control of multiples of a resource. We already have that here, since controlling more oil/depot/airstrip/Vault will increase your chance of unit spawns. And health/happy/strategic resources are otherwise very rare, and you won't have many, so we don't need to be rewarding people for their third grain or their fourth iron.

 

[Nameless One]

Here's my fitst attempt at unit skinning. I've modified the exposed parts of skin for Survivor unit to create a Ghoul version. It was quite a tedious process and I'm sort of disappointed that a lot of detail from the texture is lost in the game. I also have two questions:

1) Why did their bracers turn pink? I saved both the RGB and alpha channels as BMP and then created a DDS DXT3 with DXTBmp. What did I do wrong?

2) This reskin is based on survivor2_diff.dds. Why is survivor3_diff.dds not used by any NIF? It would be nice to have members of a single unit dressed in different manner. For ghous, I would like to have one with green hair, like on the screenshot, one with purple and one with white hair. One of the three could use survivor3_diff.dds clothing. Does someone know how I can change a NIF to use another DDS? I've tried with NIFSkope but there doesn't seem to be an x64 Windows version

btw, you can also see bottlecaps icon instead of gold in this screenie

 

[davidlallen]

1) Why did their bracers turn pink? I saved both the RGB and alpha channels as BMP and then created a DDS DXT3 with DXTBmp. What did I do wrong?

I am certainly no expert in unit art. You may get more guidance by posting in the unit graphics forum. However, I believe the pink is your teamcolor. In the dds, it is transparent. Do you see the same effect when you use the original unit instead of your reskin? Then it is on purpose. There is some philosophical argument about whether teamcolor is good or not; but I bet that is what's happening.

2) This reskin is based on survivor2_diff.dds. Why is survivor3_diff.dds not used by any NIF?

I believe seZereth made the artwork for that one, and he contributed several variants. If you look at the way the settler unitformation is composed of several different units, you can do the same thing with these. He made more variants than I used.

Does someone know how I can change a NIF to use another DDS? I've tried with NIFSkope but there doesn't seem to be an x64 Windows version

Nifskope is the way that I used, for the limited reskinning that I did. Do you mean, nifskope fails to even start up on your system? Or do you mean, it starts, but you can't find the way to change the dds? If nifskope will not start on your system, have you searched in the tutorials forum to see if anyone else has reported this and maybe found a solution? Maybe a post in the unit graphics forum would bring a solution.

 

[Nameless One]

Nifskope is the way that I used, for the limited reskinning that I did. Do you mean, nifskope fails to even start up on your system? Or do you mean, it starts, but you can't find the way to change the dds? If nifskope will not start on your system, have you searched in the tutorials forum to see if anyone else has reported this and maybe found a solution? Maybe a post in the unit graphics forum would bring a solution.

The installer reports an error and I've seen the issue reported before. The download states that it is for i386 arch, not for x64. There is only x64 rpm for linux. I'll just restart my computer in linux if I want to edit a nif

btw, I tried to open a nif as a text file and I noticed a plain text reference to a dds file. I'll try changing it like that and hope it won't break something

Thanks for all the advice. I just checked and the bracers are getting the team colour. Can't say I like this, especially for the pink ghouls and orange slags. I'll try removing the alpha from them.

 

[The_J]

Does someone know how I can change a NIF to use another DDS?

Easier way: Rename the .dds, which you want to use, to the original one, and overwrite the original.

 

[Deon]

I disagree on Neverwinter Nights having no horses. There're nice multiplayer shards where you have good mounts.

Also I think that riders are ok, the WILD horses don't fit in fallout mod, however some early riders could be fine. Also I like the model.

 

[Ahriman]

I would much rather go back to a a standard horse resource with buildable pasture, and make it unlikely to spawn near city ruins tiles. So, cavalry are something that tribalists in the wilderness are more likely to get. Don't care about wild horse units at all, and I don't care if they're horses or yaoi guai (the mutant bear things?).

But we really need some kind of cavalry for tribalists; it will be no fun to play tribals if they are useless in combat, and it will just feel wrong for them to have vehicles and early access to guns.

 

[Nameless One]

How about fast infantry?

 

[Ahriman]

Doesn't really make much sense.
I mean, built in double moves in forest/jungle, maybe, but infantry that can move as fast as vehicles? Not really logical.

I suspect this may be a case where we need gameplay > fluff.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

check out Fury Road LS mod mod to see some of my fallout ideas

 

[Chusquero]

Did someone think about religions? I took a look in this thread and I didn't see anything.

If religions are implemented Children of Atom must be in the list... I relly enjoyed giving them the go to their god That religion may have ICBM bonus when controlling a 'Rebuilt Nuclear Sile', also they should be pleased about 'purifying' enemies using atom blasts... and what about making a 'fanatic religious unit'?

EDITED: I found another religion, that one is for Ghouls... Apostles of the Holy Light. They are clearly against the Children of Atom.

There was any religions in Fallout 1, 2 or Tactics 2??
EDITED: We're plenty of religions. I've been reading some of them and implementing them would make a richer mod. There are a lot of posibilities.

 

[Chusquero]

Tribalist make me remember 'feudalism'... I think tribalist should have lower production (hammers or gold) and higher food income. I think that a tribalist society would run on slavery until middle game.

About fast infantry: I remember with pride how the foes attacked me with close combat weapons in the whole Fallout 3. The fast infantry can be a melee unit, double movement on forest/jungles (like Ahriman says) and bonus against a spicified enemy. That can be the perfect upgrade for survivors and would gives the game more hook.

About religions: I am with those who don't want a 'FfH copy'. But, in that post-apocalyptic 'wild west' the religions would run as the 'dark age' ones... I mean, the religions must be oriented to war (Crusaders, sects like the Assassins [From Assassins's Creed], fanatic, etc.) and with some 'random' components.

For example, the 'Childrens of Atom' can't be rechearched... I gain control of a 'Rebuilt Nuclear Sile' (or whatever is named, I'm abroad and I don't have CivIV for my MacBook Pro) a 'Atom's missionary' can appear in that tile. After that I spread the cult in the 'X' city. X city gains a +1 . If I set the named religion as state's one and I build the typical 'Temple of blablabla' I gain +1 (on top of the named before) and +10%. That type of religions can create the feeling of 'futureless' that I think we're looking for because you don't have a clear bonus from it. Also must be a 'religious unit', or maybe the missionaries themselves can 'carry' nuclear bombs to purify the infidels (like the mythical soviet's nuclear trucks from 'C&C: Red Alert').

 

[Chusquero]

LOL... this thread is a bit frozen... almost 6 months... I really have to start looking at the post's dates!

Can someone update me about what's going on on present month?

 

[Ahriman]

Did someone think about religions? I took a look in this thread and I didn't see anything.

Read the first page of the thread more carefully.
Personally, I think the faction influence (replacnig religions) works fine, and that "religions" aren't really needed.

I think that a tribalist society would run on slavery until middle game.

Fallout tribes from the games do not use slavery. They aren't really feudal socieities; they are tribal clan societies (decisions made by tribal elder council, clan chiefs, etc.).
Whereas feudalism implies a strict hierarchy of overlord, sub-overlord, sub-sub-overlord, etc.
(King > Duke > Earl > Baron > Count), with associated obligations of fealty and protection.

Slavers in Fallout are typically semi-urban gang types, with a dictator leader.

Can someone update me about what's going on on present month?

Nothing. Fury road isn't really in development atm. David is mostly working on Dune Wars.
If you want to make a Fallout modmod, you're probably going to have to do it yourself.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Can someone update me about what's going on on present month?

David just released an updated version of Fury Road not sure if you caught that, that was at the start of Jan. i have just started redoing my 'fallout work' over top of this new version, but I am slow moving, my first step is to 'reskin' the currunt factions into fallout factions, you can see some of the stuff in the LS mod mod section I edited the first post with new info, its a little messy at the minute just trying to think of what I want to put into the thread at this time.