Weapons and Game Balancing.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Okay I'm fishing for ideas, personally I'm getting fed up starting with really crap weapons for no good reason other than to make the game a tad harder at the beginning. Surely there are other ways of marking progression through the game? If it's part of the plot that you start out with the bottom of the barrel then fine but too many games I've played recently seem to do it for the sake of game balance without any nod to realism.

Other games like the Delta Force series and, to some extent, Deus Ex give you either most of the weapons at the begining of the game or don't limit choice just quantity and these games are just as much fun to play IMHO. Having new and more powerful weapons come available as you progress through the game just turns the game into a treasure hunt where you spend most of your time looting everything in the hopes of finding a better weapon. In many ways (even though it doesn't belong it the FO universe) starting FOT with the MP5 was a nice change, I've played through the campaign several times now and I tend to keep at least two of my squad with MP5s along with a couple of heavy gunners/grenadiers and two snipers. If I keep all the JHP ammo I can beg, borrow or steal for when I go up against the SM's and AP ammo for at least the first Robot mission then the gun stays useful for a fair portion of the game, unlike other weapons like the AK47 which are soon discarded so that I can save the 7.62 ammo for the sniper rifles and miniguns.

So what would you guys prefer?

• a) to start out with no weapons but with a good reason plot wise for doing so.
  
  b) to start out with crap weapons, but to be able to find better weapons as the game progresses.
  
  c) to have a limited amount of weapons in the game, most of them available from the start with a few special weapons either mission specific, or as a reward for completing a certain portion or extremely difficult part of the plot.

Also I'm kind of tired of the search everything and load up to the max before leaving the map, so you can trade everything in for money style of gameplay. If most hostiles were to carry unlootable weapons and ammo with only a few having something worth looting, and having most of the stuff that you can find being either worthless junk (as in just window dressing i.e. food, cats paw/naked moose magazines etc) or quest items. How would you guys feel about playing that sort of game? If the squad was part of a military organisation they would be issued equipment and ammo for each mission, the more mission objectives successfully completed in previous missions the more items available from the Quarter Master. If they were independant adventurers then you'd do quests for monetary gain which could be used to re-equip the party.

[PaladinHeart]

Well the most common and easiest way to explain poor equipment is to start the player off under one of the following conditions:

1. You were captured and all your equipment was taken away.

2. You're a new recruit for such and such. New recruits always get crappy equipment.

3. You've changed somehow and must again develop your abilities/find new equipment/ etc.. Like someone powerful dying and being reborn as a vampire or such. Usually your stuff was looted upon death.

Those are the most common reasons. Although "Send Mr. Nobody on his new quest!" Would be #4, I think it fits with #2 pretty easily.

I've never minded hunting for better stuff myself. FOT doesn't seem like the type of game where you wouldn't have to do that. Who isn't going to search those dead bodies? That's more of a Rainbow Six type game. If you're going that route you should have all enemy items unlootable (as they typically are in such games), and give the player all the items & ammo they need at the base before each mission. Possibly using the weight limit as a limitation.

Edit: Also, if you wanted to give the players more equipment after each mission, then you could have a box of equipment for each mission and a corresponding key for each box. You would have to give the player the keys, of course, somehow. Or even just set up scripts to unlock the doors after each mission is completed.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I've got plenty of ideas why people should start out with nowt, I was moaning that most games don't seem to use common sense or give a reason as to why they do so.

For instance in JA2 you're a bunch of rough tough mercs who make a helicopter insertion into a hostile country armed with pistols (and if you chose the more expensive mercs maybe a shotgun or smg). If instead of the helicopter entrance they had started you off at the airport in civilian clothing (unarmed to get past airport security) and then made so that you'd have to meet up with the Rebels to obtain your weapons. I think that would of explained very easily why you start off so poorly armed.

I'm definately thinking about going with the pre-equipped mission specific approach. I think I'll make the player's weapons vauleless so that they can just get them from the Quarter Master before each mission. As for the enemy I've already made most of them unlootable, mainly because there's no sprites available for the weapons or ammo I want to use. Certain missions that'll go over more than one map you'll be able to loot some weapons and ammo from the enemy because when you get to the exit grid you'll go straight to the next local map rather than being allowed to return to your base via the world map and rather than supply enough ammo to last the entire mission I think it'll work better to allow the player to use the enemy's weapons.

[M92FS]

hi !

i edited all the enemies weapons , starting from mission 1 , still in progress... give a random real pistol for every raider in mission 1 , random smg.
random auto rifle from mission 2 ( for every raider which was equipped with Ak-47 ) boss no changes.

Edited all auto. rifle range( single mode ) to long instead of the original short. increased the range for mos of the auto. rifle when firing on single mode. reduce the range of pistols/revolver to 15.

mission 1 onwards
pistol/revolver random table ( throw a 10 sided dice )
1.beretta pistol
2. browing p.
3.casull
4.colt
5desert eagle
6.Sig/Sauer
7.Smith n Wesson
8. beretta ( repeat )
9. browning ( r )
10. Sig/sauer ( r )

smg random table ( throw a 8 sided dice )
1. mp38
2.mp5
3 sten gun
4. uzi
5. mpl
6 mp5 ( repeat )
7. uzi (r )
8. mp5 ( r )

auto. rifle random table ( throw a 12 sided dice )
1.steyr aug
2. ak-47
3.bar
4.fn fal
5.m-14
6. m-16
7. ruger ac556f
8.m-16 ( repeat )
9.m-14 ( r )
10. ruger ac556f ( r )
11. ak-47 ( r )
12 m-16 ( r )

[Sirgalahadwizard]

A good idea i've tried to work into my mod:

The seriously good equipment is needed elsewhere for the bigger war - and the characters you run into are minor scumbags so they dont have anything too impressive.

Likewise, because they're minor scumbags, they aren't worth risking a supply of heavy weapons for (considering that they may successfully ambush a strike force and end up looting them).



One good way of making crappy weapons better is to supply more powerful ammo for them later on. FOT did it kinda well to begin with, but I think they failed to make it work well for all the weapons.

I've got 3 classes: JHP, Talon, Explosive.
*JHP does normal damage (yes... I said normal).
*Talon bullets do JHP modifier (1.6x dmg, 0.9x pen)... as in, black talons.
*Explosive does Refined (1.4x dmg, 1.5x pen)... and it does explosive damage too (that way guys blow up when you kill em).

And this makes it to where a Scorpio SMG using explosive tipped ammo could actually do damage to robots, and seriously smack mutants around. Thankfully, you wouldn't get very much of either Talon or EXP tips earlier on in the game, because it'd make things just a little too sick.


...Giving weapons like that at random isn't too good an idea. You should take into consideration that raiders are poor, and they're a minor bug on an ass compared to the BOS. The BOS is in open war with the mutants, so the only threat that raiders pose is to make occupation more difficult - which is why your strike team ends up doing political objectives at first (most notably the brahmin wood elder and the Quincy standoff).

The BOS needs recruits, and by satifying political leaders they can both get rid of the resistance to their occupation and get a larger standing army.

Any raiders that have any serious equipment (like grenade launchers, or assault rifles) are going to be the bosses or overseers, since they're a bunch of greedy bastards. They may also be wearing Brotherhood-level armor too, scavenged from formerly ambushed BOS squads.

You should also make bosses bad-ass too. Make them at least level 12, and you could modify their actual entity file (in the entities\special\mission# directory) to give them better skills / toughness, etc. Make sure that their XP reward matches their toughness too.

Ammo is scarce in the wasteland. There needs to be more people using good melee weapons - swords, pikes, good knives or things that hurt really bad.

Essentially, melee weapons should be a little more rewarding to use than they were in FOT.

Long objects like clubs and pipes that you swing should get a healthy attack bonus (say, 15% or so). Objects that get thrusted should get bonuses to critical hits (10% is usually good enough).

And there are some nifty tricks you can pull with the "ammo variant" too - bludgeoning weapons get Armor Piercing (can pound things even if armored), bladed weapons get JHP (designed to cut flesh... antipersonnel effect).

And there are some nifty things you can do with damage too. Particularly the range... increase the minimum value on something to make it more lethal, that way it always seems pretty reliable. I do this alot with melee weapons (something like 1-9 for a normal knife, but 8-11 for a really good knife). Another example being an M1 rifle verses a Hunting rifle... 18-25 verses 8-25.

[nastgargoyle]

I went the other extreme in my games and figured out a logical damage and range table based on cartridge caliber and weapon type. All .45's do 20-28 points of damage and have a range of 24and so on. After all to my reasoning it doesnt matter if the slug comes from a pistol or an SMG, there's not going to be that dramatic a change in the amounts of damage or range. The weapons might have differing magazine capacities, or range factors, or ap use points but it creates a believable situation where a point blank burst from any 9mm SMG is as likely to be fatal as a point blank burst from another 9mm SMG.

To keep it from feeling like a 'treasure hunt' I pretty much make all the calibers and basic weapon types available after the 3rd mission. I don't try to limit the equipment I have available or the computer has available, becuase it's a tactical game, I want to be able to 'think' my way through the fight, not overwhelm my opponent with Normandy beach firepower.
In order to keep from building a small arsenal of weapons to early in the game I have the 'junk weapon'. This is a trick that I use is creating three of the entities for the more common weapon types. ie browningM2lootable, browningM2unlootable, browningM2nonfuctional. In my entities I created 4 of the heavy mutants that carry the browning's, 3 carry a non lootable browning for combat and a 'junk' gun in the inventory that has a discription of damaged in combat and a value of maybe 50 bucks for parts. Since I have an equal chance to get any of the 4 and only 1 has a good weapon, it sort of dampens the need to try and strip every corpse of everything on it.

I figure that even though your average raider hasn't had the training that a BOS recruit has, this guy still uses his weapons to shop for groceries. That would indicate that he's as likely to realize that a .30-06 rifle is gonna be more likely to punch a hole through someone than 5.56mm round. If he was smart enough to survive, then he's now got his choice of weapons, and you can bet that he'd hold onto the better of the two. :badgrin: A boss raider or one of his luetenants got that way by being the baddest guy around the last time the position came open, or made the position open up himself. He didn't get voted in. If there's a weapon in the compound that gives him an 'edge' in a fight, then you can bet its going to be on his hip. I've always thought that a boss with a standard hunting rifle is a let down to the game.

As far as the types of ammunition go, I wish I knew where to find lots of sprites, lol. I've made just about one of each type of ammunition type for each caliber then made them start becoming available at thought out points of the game (ie you don't need AP rounds to fight raiders, and ball ammo doesnt do you much good against a behemoth). Since all my .45 ammo and 7.62mm NATO uses the same sprite file sometimes it gets confusing if there's more than one ammo type in my inventory.

I also drastically limit the amount of ammo in my game and make what the QM sells out ungodly exspensive, since everything in the FoT game indicates they arent producing their own ammo but scavanging and hoarding caches and stockpiles of the stuff as they find it. Its not uncommon for me to find myself with my team packing enough armament to fight a small war in the middle of a map, but being down to loose 9mm rounds,boom bugs, and lead pipes becuase I'm out of everything else.

When I have ammo for my weapons, in random encounters, if I think I can take out my armed and shooting opponents with clubs I go that route to save the shells and then dope my injured list up with "ye' olde village shamans patented dreamy dust" rather than waste precious stimpacks.

In the worldscape as its painted in FoT, he without a weapon is a meal, so I believe everything in the game should be armed somehow. Since ammo is gold in my game, I tend to end up in lots of melee and a unarmed combat. When I found a sprite for a sword I was overjoyed , becuase it gave me a little variety from machetes and axe handles. And the more decent sprites I can dig up for primitive melee, unarmed, and distance weapons the less ammo I'm going to laying on the map, making it that much tougher.
This actually 'makes' me use those melee and combat skills that I would otherwise probably never sink any points in if I had lots of big guns and limitless ammo to settle arguments with.

Finally, after I play through a map (usually), I look back at whatever methods I used to overcome, overwhelm, or slip around and win that fight, then go in and make one or two little changes that will keep me from being able to do it that way the next time I play that map. Maybe an additional guard post or maybe just removing a string of sandbags that I used to sneak in close enough for a kill shot. Since I have access to 'most' of the weapons and equipment in the game by the 3rd or fourth mission, and so do the opponents, this makes it more of a tactical challange than a 'kill the monster loot the teasure' type thing.

Hope something in this small novel helps you out Starfury.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I went the other extreme in my games and figured out a logical damage and range table based on cartridge caliber and weapon type. All .45's do 20-28 points of damage and have a range of 24and so on. After all to my reasoning it doesnt matter if the slug comes from a pistol or an SMG, there's not going to be that dramatic a change in the amounts of damage or range. The weapons might have differing magazine capacities, or range factors, or ap use points but it creates a believable situation where a point blank burst from any 9mm SMG is as likely to be fatal as a point blank burst from another 9mm SMG. .

I'm not actually modding the weapons, yet, but I did have a similar idea, where damage was based on the ammo and the only difference between, pistols and smgs that use the same ammo was ap's, range, capacity and burst fire. I decided eventually that rather than altering the guns I'd cut down the number available to two of each ammo type, so you have a .45 pistol, and a .45 smg, a 9mm pistol and a 9mm smg, a 5.56mm rifle and a 5.56mm LMG or SAW, etc etc.

To keep it from feeling like a 'treasure hunt' I pretty much make all the calibers and basic weapon types available after the 3rd mission. I don't try to limit the equipment I have available or the computer has available, becuase it's a tactical game, I want to be able to 'think' my way through the fight, not overwhelm my opponent with Normandy beach firepower.
In order to keep from building a small arsenal of weapons to early in the game I have the 'junk weapon'. This is a trick that I use is creating three of the entities for the more common weapon types. ie browningM2lootable, browningM2unlootable, browningM2nonfuctional. In my entities I created 4 of the heavy mutants that carry the browning's, 3 carry a non lootable browning for combat and a 'junk' gun in the inventory that has a discription of damaged in combat and a value of maybe 50 bucks for parts. Since I have an equal chance to get any of the 4 and only 1 has a good weapon, it sort of dampens the need to try and strip every corpse of everything on it.

I've got a couple of projects in the planning stage and one map I've started tiling (in addition to Melee Meltdown which is ready for playtesting) one of the projects is a partial conversion to the real world (sort of) where you will be issued with you equipment and weapons before each mission, it's basically a re-working of some of the missions from the Delta Force games (with some JA2 thrown in for luck), since there where several DF missions I would of liked to played as a squad based top down isometric game, rather than an FPS. For some of the missions you'll not find much of anything worth looting from your enemies, but for other missions you'll go straight on to the next map rather than heading back to the bunker so you'll need to loot the enemies otherwise you won't have enough ammo to last. How have you set up the junk weapons? I thought about doing the same, in fact for an (unreleased) mod of the main campaign I gave the raiders new weapons like pipe rifles in their inventory but to avoid editing the maps I changed the existing weapons to unlootable and altered their stats etc, that way I didn't need to go into every map and replace each and every gun, though after the first mission the overide function is not used as much as I thought it would of been, which is why there are so many AK 47s etc in the game.

I figure that even though your average raider hasn't had the training that a BOS recruit has, this guy still uses his weapons to shop for groceries. That would indicate that he's as likely to realize that a .30-06 rifle is gonna be more likely to punch a hole through someone than 5.56mm round. If he was smart enough to survive, then he's now got his choice of weapons, and you can bet that he'd hold onto the better of the two. :badgrin: A boss raider or one of his luetenants got that way by being the baddest guy around the last time the position came open, or made the position open up himself. He didn't get voted in. If there's a weapon in the compound that gives him an 'edge' in a fight, then you can bet its going to be on his hip. I've always thought that a boss with a standard hunting rifle is a let down to the game. .

I've always been partial to raiders having pipe rifles and zip guns, but like you I've reserved the better weapons for the raider bosses. Though I think you don't give the hunting rifle the justice it deserves.

As far as the types of ammunition go, I wish I knew where to find lots of sprites, lol..

There's lots of sprites to be found at JJ86's site or at MV's Map Hub as well as at the NMA download section.

I've made just about one of each type of ammunition type for each caliber then made them start becoming available at thought out points of the game (ie you don't need AP rounds to fight raiders, and ball ammo doesnt do you much good against a behemoth). Since all my .45 ammo and 7.62mm NATO uses the same sprite file sometimes it gets confusing if there's more than one ammo type in my inventory. .

You didn't like the existing .45 ammo sprite?

I also drastically limit the amount of ammo in my game and make what the QM sells out ungodly exspensive, since everything in the FoT game indicates they arent producing their own ammo but scavanging and hoarding caches and stockpiles of the stuff as they find it. Its not uncommon for me to find myself with my team packing enough armament to fight a small war in the middle of a map, but being down to loose 9mm rounds,boom bugs, and lead pipes becuase I'm out of everything else..

The game can't make it's mind up as to whether they are scavengers or have the ability to produce their own equipment and ammo but I agree that there's too much ammo in the game, over a thousand rounds all told in the fist few maps alone. I think the only time I've wished for more ammo was when I decided to take out the turrets in Preoria and could only find a handful of AP ammo.

When I have ammo for my weapons, in random encounters, if I think I can take out my armed and shooting opponents with clubs I go that route to save the shells and then dope my injured list up with "ye' olde village shamans patented dreamy dust" rather than waste precious stimpacks..

Heh I always high tail it out of any RE as fast as possible hopefully avoiding all contact. I also go straight to my next objective and have only hit a maximum of 3 SE's per run though of the campaign. I just don't think they fit with the type of game or story line.

In the worldscape as its painted in FoT, he without a weapon is a meal, so I believe everything in the game should be armed somehow. Since ammo is gold in my game, I tend to end up in lots of melee and a unarmed combat. When I found a sprite for a sword I was overjoyed , becuase it gave me a little variety from machetes and axe handles. And the more decent sprites I can dig up for primitive melee, unarmed, and distance weapons the less ammo I'm going to laying on the map, making it that much tougher.
This actually 'makes' me use those melee and combat skills that I would otherwise probably never sink any points in if I had lots of big guns and limitless ammo to settle arguments with.

Yeah excessive amounts of ammo did make the other skills and weapons kind of redundant, plus the fact they made all these nice unarmed and melee weapons but then made the powerfist available from mission 3.

Finally, after I play through a map (usually), I look back at whatever methods I used to overcome, overwhelm, or slip around and win that fight, then go in and make one or two little changes that will keep me from being able to do it that way the next time I play that map. Maybe an additional guard post or maybe just removing a string of sandbags that I used to sneak in close enough for a kill shot. Since I have access to 'most' of the weapons and equipment in the game by the 3rd or fourth mission, and so do the opponents, this makes it more of a tactical challange than a 'kill the monster loot the teasure' type thing.

Hope something in this small novel helps you out Starfury.

Hmm I'd be more inclinded to put more sandbags in than take them out, in my mind one of the best maps was St Louis for it's use of trenches and bunkers etc. Personally I think they should of made FOT a prequel to Fallout, set before the bombs dropped. Saving all the mutants, ghouls and deathclaws etc for MP, and limiting the combat to US troops vs Chinese troops and Canadian rebels. Set the game near the Bearing Straits and made most of the maps battlefields like St Louis with plenty of trench warfare, fixed gun emplacements and sniper posts. There would of been plenty of opportunity for vehicle combat, especially if instead of the tank bots etc they had made AI controlled enemy vehicles. I don't know what sort of plot this scenario would of had but it would of made the most of what FOT was meant to of been, without the canonical gaffs (hopefully) that FOT is so notorious for.

Well thanks for you comments, I look forward to you releasing your mod.

Cheers

Requiem

[nastgargoyle]

Junk Guns are easy to make and fit into the fights. I came up with the notion becuase I hate searching the body of someone that was just shooting at me and not being able to find the rifle/pistol/whatever.

For an example take the AK-47.

• 1- Open it in the editor, then save the file in the same place as ak47useless.
  2- Under the weapon description mark it as broken.
  3- For value mark it as 15 bucks (now its not even worth packing off the map unless your desperate for cash)
  4- Save the entity and leave editor.
  5- Goto to the items.txt in the local\game folder and make an entry for:
  
  name_ak47useless = {AK-47}
  desc_ak47useless = {This AK-47 was obviously damaged in the firefight and is non-functional, the QM might give you pennies for the parts though.}

Now when they pick it up they get two warnings there that it aint gonna work, first in the item description and second when they put it in a hand slot and it doesnt load automatically. If they force load it, then it jams with the shells and they just lost a full clip :badgrin: (a small fortune in my games).

Getting it into random encounters is a little trickier if you want to do the 3 out of 4 thing, but if you didnt want them picking up any AK's except special ones you had placed in certain areas, you would go back in the editor and make the normal AK non-lootable.
Find the raider entity that's packing the AK, and in his inventory you add the ak47useless.

Now in the game, when he shoots you know he has an AK, you kill him, trot up and search the body and you find his remaining ammo and a damaged rifle that will lock up the ammo if you try to force it to work.

If you 'want' them to pick up 'some' ak47's, then when you open the editor, save the ak47useless, and also save one called ak47loot.

Mark the regular AK as non-lootable, so now you can't pick them up from 'every' raider you shoot. And if there's a map or a crate where you want one, you add the ak47loot to the inventory.

In the item.txt you make the entry for name_ak47loot = {AK 47}, desc_ak47{yutta yutta yutta}.

If you want to keep the quartermaster from building up a stockpile of the things you just go into the campaign file and add in a line for after every mission # to -1000 ak47useless.

All depends on how much effort you want to go into about it. I'm a nit picker about these things, if I know someone was shooting at me, then if I search his body I want to 'see' the rifle there whether it's in working condition or not, I don't want to see a blank spot where the 'weapon fairy' carried it off to that great armory in the sky.

To clear up some of the other stuff, when I was talking about ammo sprites I meant that for instance I made a 9mmFMJ round for my game, but it uses the same sprite as the 9mmBall ammo, I want to make one for it with a blue band that looks like the AP (I'm an old man with weak eyes...I need color coding now lol).
With my ammo I have maybe 2-3 sprites that I can glance at and 'recognize' the caliber and know from the color what 'type' it is.

As to the map editing after a play, sometimes yes I do add sandbags to block a shot angle, or maybe take them out if their what let me sneak in close enough to make a shot undetected, it depends on the map and the situation.

I hadn't actually thought about making a mod for the weapon changes I've made, but considering the number of guns I have added to the game just cuzz I like their looks it would be a huge thing. :idea: I suppose I could make one of the basic guns of the game and then just include a text file laying out the damage and range tables that I figured out for them.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Junk Guns are easy to make and fit into the fights. I came up with the notion becuase I hate searching the body of someone that was just shooting at me and not being able to find the rifle/pistol/whatever.

For an example take the AK-47.

• 1- Open it in the editor, then save the file in the same place as ak47useless.
  2- Under the weapon description mark it as broken.
  3- For value mark it as 15 bucks (now its not even worth packing off the map unless your desperate for cash)
  4- Save the entity and leave editor.
  5- Goto to the items.txt in the local\game folder and make an entry for:
  
  name_ak47useless = {AK-47}
  desc_ak47useless = {This AK-47 was obviously damaged in the firefight and is non-functional, the QM might give you pennies for the parts though.}

Now when they pick it up they get two warnings there that it aint gonna work, first in the item description and second when they put it in a hand slot and it doesnt load automatically. If they force load it, then it jams with the shells and they just lost a full clip :badgrin: (a small fortune in my games).

Yeah I wondered if you had done it that way or not. You do know that if they have a decent repair skill (or 2 super tool kits) they can put the weapon on the ground and repair it, and if successfull they'll get back the ammo as well.

If you don't want the weapon to be used then make a general item entity with the weapon sprite, it can't be loaded but it can't be repaired and used either.

At NMA there were some new 9mm ammo sprites, or you can always change the base colour of the sprite (and move the two bars across) to make different coloured versions of the same sprite.

[OnTheBounce]

2- Under the weapon description mark it as broken.

Are you aware that you can fix broken weapons?

All you have to do is to place the weapon on the ground and have someone use their Repair skill on it. AFAIK there's no minimum skill level, since only 15 HP have to be repaired, and this action does not require a kit (Tool Kit, etc.) to use.

Since the character is repairing 15 HP worth of damage, he/she receives 15 XP.

OTB

[nastgargoyle]

As a PS Statement:
I have nothing but respect for hunting rifles, but I've armed most civilians with the pipe rifles and zip guns, and given most raiders (I have two catagories of raiders and the upper crust uses mil spec gear) hunting rifles and revolvers. All hunting rifles in my game 5.56mm, .308 cal, and .30-06 cal pack enough punch to kill a char with one or two rounds way up into the mission #'s and work in long range like a hunting rifle should.
But I've included several sniper rifles in the game, that work in scoped range, a few flame throwers that are based on small arms skill instead of heavy weapons, a class of light infantry support weapons that didnt exist before and few other things that make the bosses a lot more dangerous to play with than before.

[nastgargoyle]

At NMA there were some new 9mm ammo sprites, or you can always change the base colour of the sprite (and move the two bars across) to make different coloured versions of the same sprite.

I'm still teaching myself about changing/making sprites and zar's with the cheap software I have on this machine, but I'm making progress and thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to try it.

As for the repair skill I never considered it before, but now I'm gonna have to try the generic entity thing to get a handle on that one. Since most of the tool kits that turn up get used to patch and repair existing damage on a vehicle as soon as my nephews find them I never considered them trying to use them on the rifles and I'm suprised they hadnt thought to try it either.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I'm still teaching myself about changing/making sprites and zar's with the cheap software I have on this machine, but I'm making progress and thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to try it.

As for the repair skill I never considered it before, but now I'm gonna have to try the generic entity thing to get a handle on that one. Since most of the tool kits that turn up get used to patch and repair existing damage on a vehicle as soon as my nephews find them I never considered them trying to use them on the rifles and I'm suprised they hadnt thought to try it either.

If you want to make new sprites you'll need photoshop (7 I think) to make the raw files needed to import into spray.

I didn't know about repairing weapons until OTB mentioned it last year, I'd never had a weapon get broken on me and the 'broken' power armour in mission 17 IIRC is a generic entity so it never occured to me either, that repair was useful for anything other than vehicles and the robot squaddie.

[nastgargoyle]

I don't know if you've had this idea before, but it occured to me tonight and I thought I'd mention it.
If you wanted to give players access to most of the weaponry available from the beginning of the game, is there a way that you could make all your weapons have a value of one, and then provide the player with script (or poker chips) to use as equipment chits? If you could find a way to make the QM accept it as a one on one trade consistantly.
If so they could 'check out' an mp5 from the armory if they wanted that for one mission, return it afterwards and get their 'chit' back and use it to check out a sniper rifle for the next mission if they wanted that? Anything that didnt come from the armory wouldnt have a value there, so wouldnt be worth trying to gather up, unless they were 'securing supplies on-site' as it use to be referred to, tounge in cheek, becuase they ran out of ammo or whatever.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I don't know if you've had this idea before, but it occured to me tonight and I thought I'd mention it.
If you wanted to give players access to most of the weaponry available from the beginning of the game, is there a way that you could make all your weapons have a value of one, and then provide the player with script (or poker chips) to use as equipment chits? If you could find a way to make the QM accept it as a one on one trade consistantly.
If so they could 'check out' an mp5 from the armory if they wanted that for one mission, return it afterwards and get their 'chit' back and use it to check out a sniper rifle for the next mission if they wanted that? Anything that didnt come from the armory wouldnt have a value there, so wouldnt be worth trying to gather up, unless they were 'securing supplies on-site' as it use to be referred to, tounge in cheek, becuase they ran out of ammo or whatever.

I did toy with the idea of having zero value weapons and ammo available from the QM but, other than ammo for your standard issue sidearm, I decided to go with having your weapons and ammo waiting for you (either in a vehicle or in a container next to a tile of a helicopter or dinghy) before you get into the map proper. That way I can use the remove on exit option to prevent the player from taking weapons to the next mission that might give them an advantage I don't want them to have.

It's a pity that they didn't have an option to assign entities a value in one or the other available currencies. Rather than a generic value give an item a value in rp but 0 in BOS scrip, that way you could have items that a merchant might want to buy but the Brotherhood would have no value for. You can give items and weapons a negative value though but that will stop anyone from buying it.

[Sirgalahadwizard]

The problem with basing damage off of weapon calibre alone is that you're ignoring barrel length. And it also poses the problem of "why use these better items when I can still do the job with this one". Most combat situations IMO in FOT occur at ranges less than 15 tiles, so accuracy usually isn't a problem (unless you do called shots).

Plus there's the philospohy of gaming - it isn't real, people play games to get away from reality, and so reality can/should be fudged.

In my campaign, the damage done by 5mm rifle weapons varies from somewhere around 8-18 to 15-25. I base it primarily on quality and barrel length. So a 5mm Tactical Sniper Pistol doesnt do as much as a bolt action hunting rifle or a SAW, which doesnt dont do as much as an AK112. Though the difference is in +1s to the average mostly.

I only make weapons do the same damage if they launch something - like grenades or rockets, where the module itself does all the damage anyway (so a grenade pistol and m-79 launcher do the same... big difference being range, but that's another story), or they're of the same relative quality.

Then again, firearms are less prevalent in my campaign, and melee/unarmed attacks are a little more potent than they used to be. The Firearms are also more powerful too, as would normally be expected (the big difference is in Bonus ToHit and Bonus Critical effects though).

However, I ended up including explosives a little earlier in the game. There aren't many shells for them earlier on - and usually the bosses have them... and high small guns skills too (which makes them quite a conundrum to attack - you could die instantly, even if you try to snipe, or even if you attack in full force).



Ammo value should depend on rarity. 9mm shells dont exactly fall under the "rare" spotlight, but 7.62mm and .44mag are a little harder to come by (and the HE / Talon variants are realllly expensive). Rare ammo also influences the weapon's price too. Specially rare 15mm grenades for a big-freaking clip-fed grenade pistol are like buying actual grenade shells (though they're less powerful, the rarity is exquisite, and the gun itself is rare too).


And yes, broken weapons do occur. A robot slashed my character in Great Bend and damaged the M2 Browning he was carrying. Took awhile to figure it out, but I ended up having my tech. repair it (but I used a tool kit).

I need to include those a little more often now that I think about it.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I think that having weapons that use the same caliber do the same damage is quite valid, after all as OTB often likes to point out HPs are more than just the life force of the entity. In a FPS where you've got physics models attempting to accurately recreate the firing of a gun then taking barrel length into account is necessary but in something like FOT I think barrel length doesn't need to affect anything but range if you don't want it to. Having all 9mm weapons do the same damage sure makes having umpteen different 9mm SMGs worthless but I don't think it makes having pistols, SMGs and rifles worthless. Pistols have a multiple value in the game, as a low level starting weapon, as a backup if you run out of ammo for your main weapon or as a backup if you are suffering from the after effects of drugs and can't wield a heavier weapon. SMGs are the next step in the game progression, but still have their uses once you've gotten a rifle, especially if you choose a rifle without burst fire. As to why would people switch to a better weapon if they can still get the job done with what they've got, well I don't see why they should but it ultimately comes down to ammo availability, I once modded the game and took out everything (available to the player) but the mp5. Instead I added more 9mm JHP and AP ammo, I managed to get to Oscella before getting bored.

I usually set my squad up like this, a .45 pistol or .44 pistol, as a backup, and a combat knife for the unlikely event they run out of all ammo in a mission. Then I'll also give them a 9mm SMG or an automatic shotgun as a secondary weapon, and then their main weapon will either be a hunting or sniper rifle, with one guy with the grenades and another with an M2 or minigun. That way they've got a mix of ammo, not just in case they run out but for different foes as well.

[Sirgalahadwizard]

I get your point. Maybe it's just a artistic touch of my own (for the damage range issue)

Pistols have their uses - they're damn good at close range, but they dont pack too much punch. Yes, they are lethal however, but they can't usually punch through armor like a rifle can.

Rifles are good for long range, and usually they always do lots of damage (because rifles are designed to use higher powered cartridges than handguns), but they're not the best for up close and they're a little slow.

SMGs are just an extension off of handguns - incorporating a burst fire mode typically. However, I think the best SMGs are ones that have semi-auto as fast as a pistol, have high burst rate, and use some kind of intermediate cartridge between pistol and rifle.

Any way it gets cut, the game balance needs to preserve that. Otherwise it turely ends up being a question of "why use this thingie anymore?".

Basically, Pistols are good as a subsitute for melee/unarmed weapons (for characters who dont have tags in those). Rifles are a staple weapon, a standard of sorts (but not all-purpose). SMGs are a defensive or close assault weapon and can't be expected to fulfill the exact same role of rifles, perhaps a good replacement for handguns (though i've found that it usually isn't the case).

Heavy weapons and explosives (but not energy weapons) IMO are special-purpose things. Usually to use them right I hafta so eleaborate setups or my team members get hurt too much. The explosives in particular are special purpose since they're slow and expensive.

Most of my weapons have these characteristics:
Pistol - 2 fire modes: Aimed, Snap.
*4AP and 3AP with ranges of 25(Long) and 20(short, +10% tohit) respectivly.

SMG - 3 fire modes: Aimed, Snap, Burst (6-12 shots).
*4AP, 3AP, and 6AP... with ranges of 35(Long), 25(short, +10% tohit), and 25(short) for the burst.

Rifle - 2 fire modes: Aimed, Burst (8-10 shots, if it has it)
*5AP and 6AP, with ranges of 50(Long, +10% tohit) and 35(short) for the burst.

Machineguns - 2 fire modes: Triple (1/3 of a burst), Burst (shot # varies).
Usually both modes are 6AP, but the Triple has much better range (sort of like an aimed attack).

Explosives - only one fire mode. Grenades have less accuracy than rockets, and do less damage too, but the ammo doesn't weigh very much and it usually uses Small Guns skill. Rockets weigh 4lb each, grenades only about 1/2 a lb, and specialized explosive ammo is usually even less.

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I was thinking about modding the weapons like this;

all weapons are 10% of their real world ranges.

all pistols are set to short range.

all SMG's are set to long range.

all rifles are set to scoped.

all Squad support weapons and miniguns are set to onlylong, as they're either meant to be mounted on a vehicle (or tripod) or used in the prone position on a bipod and would (I presume) be difficult to use at close range.

Rocket launchers are set to onlylong as well.

Burst modes will have the same range as single mode but some single shot or scoped weapons have an accuracy bonus in single fire mode, while most burst weapons have a accuracy penalty.

I haven't really given much thought to the APs yet, but I was thinking a revolver would be the slowest firing (correct me if I'm wrong) so would take the highest APs to fire while automatic weapons have a high rate of fire so would use the cheapest AP settings rather than have a seperate 'auto' mode which emptied the magazine.

As I said pistols would primarily be a starting weapon, and then switch to being a backup, ammo would be a lot more limited than in any of the Fallout games so it would pay to carry a backup weapon that uses a different cartridge to your main weapon. Again this would be the factor that would keep weapons in play longer, you might have plenty of ammo for your burst weapons but in might not always be the most effective choice against some foes so switching to a less powerful weapon for which you have appropriate ammo to deal with certain opponents would keep lesser weapons viable.

I was also thinking of making the weapons heavier, probably using their real world weights and limiting humans to a max strength of 6 (maybe 7). With some backpack entities which would give the character the ability to carry another hmm let's say 100 pounds.

[Sirgalahadwizard]

You can mod your campaign any way you wish. Modding is a form of artistic expression, so it's all relative :badgrin:

One helpful hint for carrying weight - ammo is heavy. And simply modify armor suits to make you have a smaller carry weight (say, -50 lb or so)... and then make all humans have a minimum strength of 4 or something (to survive boot camp). That way nobody ends up with a carry weight too low (as in, 0 or negative).

Oh... make stimpacks weigh something, since I noticed I always stockpile the crap outta them (that way someone starts wondering where all the excess weight comes from - then they realize that their 46 stimpacks are eating at least 1/2lb apiece, and then they shit).

You could make big weapons slow people down or something - reduces maximum AP count (with a bare minimum Agility, so that it could be fired in the first place). Particularly useful for an M2 or Minigun.

Im not too familiar with how the type of range increment affects range. Im guessing that Scoped is like Long except you get penalties for being too close, and OnlyLong being a warped, perverted extension of Scoped.

I do know that Short doesn't hold up very well to range, so it works really well in conjunction with bonus ToHit values for short range stuff (like little pocket pistols). That way you get quick little attacks that hit stuff up close pretty good and then lose accuracy like a snowman in hell.

...I'd think that burst weapons take a long time to shoot 'cause of the recovery and setup time involved (ie, bracing yourself, actually shooting, and then recovering from the recoil). As we all know, no weapons in FOT are mounted, and because of this fact, realistic machineguns aren't very possible. Unfortunatly, the assumtion is that heavy weapons in FOT really are shot from the hip (making them good at close range and hideous at long range).

Also, for gameplay balance purposes, I tend to lean towards any burst attack needing at least 6 AP. Otherwise people just end up being too dangerous for their own good. Are there any AP cost types that need 7 AP? I know of one that uses 8... but that's reserved for very specific things (like overcharging a plasma rifle to shoot a big blast).