FO2 Mechanics Overhaul Mod

[Sduibek]

Jim is there a way to override explosives script? The tiny amount of damage they do is stupid. I would love to be able to link a custom script to them that causes an explosion whose damage values are directly based on Traps skill level.

I can code such functions easily, but I don't know how to make them replace the current one.

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

You mean dynamite etc? To have that change depending on traps skill, you'd have to use the hs_combatdamage script, but I'm not even sure if that gets called by it. I can try it out.

 

[Sduibek]

You mean dynamite etc? To have that change depending on traps skill, you'd have to use the hs_combatdamage script, but I'm not even sure if that gets called by it. I can try it out.

If you could that would be excellent.

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Explosives have always been stupid and near-worthless in Fallout. This is because explosives skill, as far as I can tell, makes no difference on damage dealt, and damage dealt isn't enough to kill more than like 10% of creatures. Which of course is fucking retarded because it's DYNAMITE and/or PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES. They should be doing massive catastrophic damage to all but the strongest wasteland critters, not doing so little damage that it takes three to kill a guy in combat armor.

So they can be used in a few quests and to blow up doors. Or plant three to five and run off the map if you want to actually kill something. Weeeeeeee.

Don't get me wrong I love explosives I just know they are nowhere close to what they could and should be.

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What would be really cool is if we could make them a Misc Item AND combat weapon, like in Wasteland. But I don't think that can be done in Fallout. You've played Wasteland yeah? They can be used to blow open walls and such, but also thrown at enemies like a grenade.

 

[QuFu]

What makes you think that? Also, snapshots and critical failures have nothing to do with each other, a lower chance to hit no longer results in a higher critical failure chance (it's just about skill and luck now).

Oops... that explains something. I looked up the LK values for Vic(5) and Cassidy(9). I had about 5 to 10 encounters with them in party. Vic destroyed his weapon 3 times and ammo 2 times. I could say, i wasn't very pleased... After that, Cassidy destroys his FN FAL. Ok... maybe that was only bad luck. But isn't it a bit too much?

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

You can change the values governing it in the .ini. You're right, but the problem isn't so much the luck, but the skill involved: they have relatively low skills for maintaining (repair) and handling their weapons, so they critically fail a lot. Later in the game this'll even out.

But I'll have to seriously change the system, because as you said it's too extreme in the beginning.

 

[QuFu]

But I'll have to seriously change the system, because as you said it's too extreme in the beginning.

I looked into ini settings, so this could be solved by adding a lower limit to the AG+skill check. I think the formula isn't that bad in general.

For the LK check, i am wondering a bit about the luckImportance n. Raising n in 99-(n*(10-LK)) only make things for bad LK values worse. Is it intended?

I didn't find something about the maintainance(repair). How is that involved?

And now something important... Your heavy armor penalty code might have a bug. When i wear metal armor, the game doesn't update the AG value when taking drugs like buffout.

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

For the LK check, i am wondering a bit about the luckImportance n. Raising n in 99-(n*(10-LK)) only make things for bad LK values worse. Is it intended?

Yeah, higher the value, the more important luck is: luckier ones get more advantage, unlucky ones more of a disadvantage.

I didn't find something about the maintainance(repair). How is that involved?

That's also in the skill importance value. For unarmed and melee it's all about combat skill and agility, with guns repair factors in, and with energy weapons also science.

And now something important... Your heavy armor penalty code might have a bug. When i wear metal armor, the game doesn't update the AG value when taking drugs like buffout.

Thanks for the heads up! Makes perfect sense actually, will have it fixed.

 

[QuFu]

For the LK check, i am wondering a bit about the luckImportance n. Raising n in 99-(n*(10-LK)) only make things for bad LK values worse. Is it intended?

Yeah, higher the value, the more important luck is: luckier ones get more advantage, unlucky ones more of a disadvantage.

If LK=10 then n will always be 0. So raising/lowering n in this case causes no (dis)advantage.
Maybe something like 75+n(LK-5) fits better because then LK=5 will neutralize n. In this case, n should not exceed 4, which means you only get the best luckiness(95%) when you have LK=10 and set the importance factor to very high.

I didn't find something about the maintainance(repair). How is that involved?

That's also in the skill importance value. For unarmed and melee it's all about combat skill and agility, with guns repair factors in, and with energy weapons also science.

That's really nice. But does this apply to all critters or PC only? Because i don't know if NPC sometimes have bad repair/science skills and maybe bad Luck, so they tend to critfail more often than they should.

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

If LK=10 then n will always be 0. So raising/lowering n in this case causes no (dis)advantage.

It causes a relative advantage of course, though I admit it does feel a bit counter-intuitive. You make a good point about 5 needing to be the base line, I'll see what I can do, thanks!

That's really nice. But does this apply to all critters or PC only? Because i don't know if NPC sometimes have bad repair/science skills and maybe bad Luck, so they tend to critfail more often than they should.

Applies to all critters; also you can change how much repair, science etc. critters get based on their stats (in vanilla FO2 these skills of course didn't get any attention).

 

[QuFu]

If i drop companions of, they are getting back their base HP value regardless of their level.

I noticed, the HP of level 1 companions are lower than in vanilla. Also Kaga gets this downgrade. He should have over 300 HP, as i remember from last RP playtrough.

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

If i drop companions of, they are getting back their base HP value regardless of their level.

I noticed, the HP of level 1 companions are lower than in vanilla. Also Kaga gets this downgrade. He should have over 300 HP, as i remember from last RP playtrough.

If you want to jettison fixed HP, then it probably makes sense to disable the stat changes as well as these cause things like Kaga no longer having that insane amount of HP. Also would "fix" your NPC issue (I exempt them from the stat formula only as long as they're in your party).

I'm also completely changing around the npc leveling system (which, again, will only work properly with fixed HP enabled unfortunately).

 

[QuFu]

I'm also completely changing around the npc leveling system (which, again, will only work properly with fixed HP enabled unfortunately).

Could you give a short explanation? In my opinion, companions HP raising per level is the only way to counter their dumbness.

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

The explanation's the same as I gave for fixed HP before: there's just no reason for HP bloat in FO2. To the degree that the game was balanced at all, it has to have been done with freak crits in mind, because based on base damage alone it makes no sense (and given that I'll do my best to restrict freak crits to a minimum, that's what I'll have to base my own balancing on).

It's pretty interesting how FO2 weapons don't rise that much in terms of base damage: weakest firearm is 5-12, while strongest one is 30-75. So damage output rises 6* during the whole span of the game, while armor protection rises even faster than that. The only way hp bloat would make sense is if everybody remained unarmored throughout the game, or if you were doing 60% crits with 3 shots a round by the endgame.

 

[Sduibek]

Any word on explosives?

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

damn, knew I forgot to do something. I just tested it, and as I expected it doesn't fire the damage hookscript. However, because the player will be the only one ever using explosives anyway, I could make a script for you that sets the proto damage of explosives based on traps skill. If you want that, just let me know what values you want.

edit: or... don't they have damage ratings because their not weapons? damn, should've thought this through. Maybe the whole thing is hard coded, that'd make it all impossible.

 

[Sduibek]

damn, knew I forgot to do something. I just tested it, and as I expected it doesn't fire the damage hookscript. However, because the player will be the only one ever using explosives anyway, I could make a script for you that sets the proto damage of explosives based on traps skill. If you want that, just let me know what values you want.

edit: or... don't they have damage ratings because their not weapons? damn, should've thought this through. Maybe the whole thing is hard coded, that'd make it all impossible.

Well hopefully it's not hardcoded in Fallout 2 engine Probably hardcoded in Fallout 1 engine.

Let's see.... we can check if item dropped (but can we check if removed from player's inventory? like when using steal/plant) so when dropped we could say something like:

script_override;
DAMAGE := (  (traps_skill / 50) * (default_damage_amount)  );
explosion(DAMAGE_TYPE, DAMAGE);

No idea if that would work though because I forget if they're actually using conventional scripts. I can try when I get home.

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

I've been going through some ideas for what to do with melee/hth, and this is what I'm currently planning. The following is a cross post from the Codex, so that explains some quirks:

The melee damage stat would be ST/3 (tracks decimals), but it'd work differently based on the weapon type. For blunt weapons/unarmed it's a multiplier, for the rest the same flat bonus it always was. So, at ST 12 a sledge or punch gets its damage multiplied by 4, and a knife gets 4 damage added to it. This of course necessitates dropping the damages on most blunt weapons significantly. E.g. super sledges'll probably end up around 5-11 or something (so at ST 12 that'd be 20-44, at ST 1 1-2, instead of the original ranges of 25-43 and 19-37 respectively). Regular punches seem okay enough, though might need to raise them (at ST 12 that'd be 4-12, at ST 1 0-1, instead of the original ranges of 8-10 and 1-3 respectively).

So the net effect'd hopefully be that the difference between a total weakling wielding a sledge and Thor'll no longer be negligible in terms of damage, and that different melee builds might actually make sense now (and the different builds themselves would make sense: high AG for knives, high ST for sledges, instead of high AG for everything).

As to the whole backsliding thing: I'm considering having it only occur when it's "functional", in the sense that it causes either a knockdown (loss of a couple of AP for enemy) or knockout (loss of turn or turns). The regular backslides were, as Clockwork Knight said, almost purely a disadvantage. There should also be a way to avoid backslides altogether: for unarmed blunt attacks that's kicks, for melee "thrusts". All in all, this'd be the difference between blunt and non-blunt melee/hth:

blunt:
-melee damage is multiplier
-causes high exhaustion
-high chance of knockdowns and knockouts
-low chance of damage multipliers (only when causing lots of internal damage)
-low chance of armor penetration (medium with "thrusts").

non-blunt:
-melee damage is flat bonus
-causes low exhaustion
-low chance of knockdowns and knockouts
-high chance of damage multipliers (piercing arteries and squishy organs)
-low chance of armor penetration (medium with thrusts).

Sound good?

 

[QuFu]

That sounds impressive!

But as the luck for critFails i would take ST=5 as base (5 is always good for base SPECIAL values ).

And i think, the damage for a melee/hth PCshould be better distributed. The original martial art system goes a bit that way. But melee isn't nice. There only three stages of weapons (s.spear/c.knife -> louisville slugger -> ripper/s.sledge). Maybe melee damage could also depend of melee skill?

 

[JimTheDinosaur]

But as the luck for critFails i would take ST=5 as base (5 is always good for base SPECIAL values ).

I already agreed with you on that mang

And i think, the damage for a melee/hth PCshould be better distributed. The original martial art system goes a bit that way. But melee isn't nice. There only three stages of weapons (s.spear/c.knife -> louisville slugger -> ripper/s.sledge). Maybe melee damage could also depend of melee skill?

Nah, skills and atts affecting different mechanics was a really good move (that way you don't have the problem you have in D&D where initial stat allocation becomes gradually insignificant as you level up).

As to stages, I think the problem's more related to weapon distribution in vanilla: lot's of potentially useful melee weapons appear too late (switchblades, cattle prods, etc.). Gear randomization should fix that in part.

 

[QuFu]

But as the luck for critFails i would take ST=5 as base (5 is always good for base SPECIAL values ).

I already agreed with you on that mang

Sry, wasn't clear...

So, did you find a solution to the fastshot/bonus rate thing?