Incline Fallout 2 Mechanics Overhaul Mod Discussion

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Call me a dumbfuck if I'm wrong, but if your DT acts merely as a threshold and doesn't negate flat damage, then shouldn't the first damage calculation shown in your post be the correct/new value?

I retardedly fucked up the calculation, but other than that it's the right order. Not sure what you mean by negate flat damage, but the first one shows how it works in the vanilla formula: DT gets substracted from damage as a flat value, then DR as a percentage (so in the example, 20-4=16*0.6=9.6); if DT is just a threshold that needs to be passed after which it's ignored, so upper damage ranges of 1-3 (it would be multiplied by some number in practice of course, but just for sake of argument) do 0 damage, after which DT gets ignored, (so the example damage is 20*0.6=12).

 

[dunno lah]

Alright then. I always thought that vanilla DT worked the way you're making it though.

Also, are you gonna bump up the DTs of higher level armors(combat armor and above) so that it would be virtually impossible for JHP pistol rounds to pass through them? That would make AP rounds more relevant.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Also, are you gonna bump up the DTs of higher level armors(combat armor and above) so that it would be virtually impossible for JHP pistol rounds to pass through them? That would make AP rounds more relevant.

That's more or less the plan; it may seem a bit too deterministic for FO, but you'd still be able to do damage with an armor bypassing hit, which'll be less rare in my system - especially against poorly maintained armor, or against poorly protected places like the eyes or groin.

As for the system itself, how about I don't do it on a weapon by weapon basis (would be hard to do in practice anyway), but on an ammo basis: each ammo's DR mod (a value that used to work very strangely) is a value from 0% to 99% (tho never that high in practice). A DR Mod of 46% would pass a DT of under 46 (so DT values get pretty high now), and reduce the armor's DR by 46% (so DR values would have to be raised a lot too). I think this works good because it (a) is easy to see immediately by one value what and by how much you can pierce, (2) you don't have the problem that a powerful round gets reduced by just as much damage percentage wise (and thus much more in absolute terms) as a weak round by weak armor.

So, for instance, you might have a leather jacket at 7 DT and 20% DR, with a 5.56mm FMJ round with a 45% DR Mod: the rifle round easily passes the DT threshold and only gets reduced by (20*0.55)=11%.

Against PA, which might have 50 DT and 110% DR (yes, I'd probably have to go over the top, sue me), the FMJ round would plink, while an AP round of, say, 55% DR Mod would get reduced by (110*0.45)=50%.

Also, how is Power Armor going to be represented in this system? Power Armor getting pierced, then the DT ignored seems unrealistic, considering it would take off the energy of most non-gauss, non-plasma/pulse attacks, penetration or not.

Yeah, that's why the DR values have be real big (see above), which I don't mind.

BTW, if you're already in the bussiness of changing armor values, please make laser resistance and DT values across all armours less insane. Vanilla Fallout values are simply horrible and make lasers mostly useless, especially the laser pistol, which inanely is always inferior to the .233.

I'll see what I can do.

 

[dunno lah]

If you can make a charged laser shot that does 3/2 dmg but eats x2 ammo and +1AP I think it could solve the high laser DT/DR thing...

 

[Kaucukovnik]

I like these propositions. I see one possible problem:
-PA becomes invincible against most attacks
-this calls for severe clunkiness disadvantage
-which turns it into a god mode vs weak foes, but meh against challenging ones

And an idea: the two power armors could be made significantly different, T51 being sort of Combat Armor +, and MKII the usual walking fortress.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I like these propositions. I see one possible problem:
-PA becomes invincible against most attacks

Yes and no. Bypassing attacks (-4/5th of DT&DR) will almost never occur against the torso (especially with a non-crit build), but against the arms or legs (medium bypass chance), head or groin (high bypass chance), or eyes (huge bypass chance; tho practically impossible), this changes. So a good marksman can still score some good hits regularly with weak ammo. Spray and prayers will need good ammo tho.

-this calls for severe clunkiness disadvantage

Still true, yeah.

-which turns it into a god mode vs weak foes, but meh against challenging ones

Like I said, not god mode, and these challenging foes will 9/10 face the same clunkiness disadvantage.

And an idea: the two power armors could be made significantly different, T51 being sort of Combat Armor +, and MKII the usual walking fortress.

Not sure about that; I like the huge qualitative difference between regular armors and power armor and I think most people expect it to be that way.

 

[Sevenfm]

Still there are a lot of people who prefer combat armor or even leather jacket Probably it's a good idea to allow some way of using other types of armor even late in game.
Stealth, high mobility and such. As it's roleplaying game, not everyone wants to play a walking fortress, buzzing with it's servo-motors.

 

[DraQ]

Could you by the way explain more fully what you were thinking about stopping power? You were saying something about narrow range, what's this based on? Why would light, fast ammo like 5.56 have a wider damage range?

Ok, so weapon damage generally depends on three factors:

1. Penetration. Weapon which penetrates poorly, will generally not reach vital organs. Other than some cases with armour involved (because I don't think we can vary damage and modifiers with range?), we can assume penetration to be adequate in case of weapons designed to kill a human.
2. Wound diameter. The larger the wound, the smaller the change that the projectile will just slip by the important stuff, leaving just a hole (prone to infections and death by bleeding). Wound diameter depends on caliber, although it can be influenced to a large degree by projectile deformation and tumbling (for example 5.56 should actually do decent damage as it tends to tumble and fragment inside the body). However, even small diameter wound will fuck you up if it goes through something important (although wound diameter will again determine how much).
   
3. Somewhat controversial remote wounding through hydrostatic shock - shockwaves propagating through fluid filled cavities like large blood vessels. This depends on how much energy does the round leave in target and how is this energy distributed - it's the hard part, although I see you've started some research on your own.

Now, we can count on anti-personnel weapon to be capable of killing a man, however, different ammunition types can do so with differing reliability.
This means that a low reliability ammo will have broad damage range - it may kill or wound you severely (max damage), but it will likely not (low min damage). OTOH highly reliable ammo will have narrow damage range to reflect that it does what it's supposed to reliably.

As for the problem with DT and this interpretation of damage range, it stems from too much abstraction.
In this case we have single number range reflecting both ammunition's ability to brute-force armor and its ability to kill people.
I'm not sure what to do with it other than trying to work around it with modifiers.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

(because I don't think we can vary damage and modifiers with range?)

We can, but I think the weapon ranges in FO2 are generally small enough (max 50 hexes), to be more of an effective range (e.g. still enough velocity for a rifle round to fragment if it hits bone or whatever) than a range before bullet drop.

This means that a low reliability ammo will have broad damage range - it may kill or wound you severely (max damage), but it will likely not (low min damage). OTOH highly reliable ammo will have narrow damage range to reflect that it does what it's supposed to reliably.

What do you mean exactly by reliability? And I'm still not sure whether or not you agree with the general scheme I've been working with, namely stopping power denoting lower range and velocity upper. The idea is, like you said, that a lighter round (high velocity, low stopping power) has a lot of different factors determining what kind of damage it does: it can tumble, fragment upon hitting bone, pierce a vital organ, or it can do close to no damage as it wizzes through an extremity: so wide range. Heavy rounds (high stopping power, low velocity), have fewer factors involved: they're not (relatively) built for precision, tumbling or fragmenting, but "reliable" (is that what you meant?) wound diameters and quick mushrooming if JHP or softpointed (that's why I want to change the way JHP from the way it works in most games, namely a multiplier, into one that doesn't just roughly raise, but also narrows the damage range).

As for the problem with DT and this interpretation of damage range, it stems from too much abstraction.
In this case we have single number range reflecting both ammunition's ability to brute-force armor and its ability to kill people.
I'm not sure what to do with it other than trying to work around it with modifiers.

Exactly, which is why I think decoupling DT from damage is already a step in the right direction.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

One more thing: I implemented a new system for the Guns & Ammo magazines a while ago, which I shouldn't have done because it was crap. So, I have to replace it with something, and I think I've finally found an alternative.

Guns and ammo magazines will add to your "gun knowledge", or whatever, stat. This, in combination with your repair skill, determines how well you can modify weapons (gun shops can do the same thing they always do, and Algernon gives you a big repair bonus).

Next thing I do is make 10 or 20 "default" weapons that are blank slates; if you want to add extra magazine size to an smg (any smg), or add a scope to a rifle, then whether that's possible gets determined based on repair/gun knowledge/gun cost. It also cost some cash for materials (and the gun won't increase in value). One of the default weapons then gets all the stats of the modified weapon, with the extra ammo capacity or whatever included.

Just one problem (though I don't really mind it) with this approach:

For the new gun to get the right animation and inventory picture, the game has to refresh its graphics after the script that assigns the stats has done its magic, which I can only do in one of two ways: either have an unwield-wield routine at map entry, or a fast forced inven open and close routine. Some might find that obnoxious.

I like this approach because I've already added a couple of guns to the game, which reduces the value of the modifications already there, and being able to (in theory) modify every weapon in the game might make for a nice change of pace. What do you think, The Brazilian Slaughter, or, oh, let's say, Clockwork Knight? (Yeah, Brazil, it's a new feature, but I already stupidly implemented a large part of that stupid version of the guns and ammo replacement, so I have to switch it with something else anyway B)).

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Inventory open and close should be alright, it's not like you're modifying weapons often enough for it to become annoying.

At first I wondered why the gun wouldn't increase in value, but that might be way too hard to implement for a minor gain in immershun and would likely induce OCD behavior where people feel tempted to improve the guns before selling them for maximum profit.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Inventory open and close should be alright, it's not like you're modifying weapons often enough for it to become annoying.

It happens every map entry/game reload, not just once after modifying (the script has to reset the data everytime the game tries to open the default data, which is when you enter a new map). Of course, if you're not the one carrying a modified weapon in your active hand, nothing will happen.

At first I wondered why the gun wouldn't increase in value, but that might be way too hard to implement for a minor gain in immershun and would likely induce OCD behavior where people feel tempted to improve the guns before selling them for maximum profit.[/quote]

Pretty much.

Anyway, here's what I could do if I go through with this:

Shotguns:
- Increased choke (less spread on buckshot/flechettes)

Machine guns:
- Rod & Spring (higher burst amount)

Revolvers:
- Speed loader (no reloading penalty)

Rifles:
- Scope (less of a range THC penalty when aiming, but +1 AP to aim)
- Reflex Sight (less THC penalty from target movement)
- Night Sight (less range THC penalty during low light situations)

SMG's:
-Foregrip (decreases recoil when using two handed)

Magazine fed guns:
- increased magazine size

All guns:
- Rechambering (changing caliber - mostly to put all my nifty new calculations to work)

Energy weapons:
- Overcharging (higher damage, but double the energy cost)
- Extra capacity

Laser weapons:
- "magnetic field targeting system" (whatever that means; higher armor penetration and wider damage range)

 

[DraQ]

What do you mean exactly by reliability?

How good given round is at incapacitating a determined human.

Pretty much any round will instakill you if it manages to punch through your brainstem, but other than that it varies and has been the prime move behind development of many types of ammo.

And I'm still not sure whether or not you agree with the general scheme I've been working with, namely stopping power denoting lower range and velocity upper. The idea is, like you said, that a lighter round (high velocity, low stopping power) has a lot of different factors determining what kind of damage it does: it can tumble, fragment upon hitting bone, pierce a vital organ, or it can do close to no damage as it wizzes through an extremity: so wide range. Heavy rounds (high stopping power, low velocity), have fewer factors involved: they're not (relatively) built for precision, tumbling or fragmenting, but "reliable" (is that what you meant?) wound diameters and quick mushrooming if JHP or softpointed (that's why I want to change the way JHP from the way it works in most games, namely a multiplier, into one that doesn't just roughly raise, but also narrows the damage range).

The problem here is that we don't really know what exactly is stopping power in terms of ballistics.

Effective caliber (after accounting for expansion) and total energy transferred seem to both play part in it, OTOH total energy transferred is not the same as total kinetic energy and so on.

I'd probably use the kinetic energy mass, caliber and terminal balistics as guidelines - for example if weapons effectiveness is dependent on fragmentation or tumbling and bouncing, then, like you said, variable range, if it it's a simple, large bore round that mushrooms, then narrow range, but actual stopping power, AKA where to put this range can be tricky.

Exactly, which is why I think decoupling DT from damage is already a step in the right direction.

Indeed.

Edit:
A good place to start, though you've probably read those already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopping_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_ballistics

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

After a brief hiatus I've picked this up again, and finally, finally finished the new gear generation and the entire new economic system. Merchants now also have generated starting wares (rather than merely the randomized amounts they had in vanilla), and use cash you pay them to buy new goods, which I think is pretty cool (in vanilla they'd just automatically restock what they already had every now and then).

Going to start with all the combat changes I've been talking about now, and in order to find some use for the new burst cone I've decided to add a 3-round burst mode to all burst capable weapons other than miniguns. What this means is that you press a key, and then the regular burst (or, rather, full-auto) mode becomes the three-round burst (displays simply as another single fire mode, because I sadly can't change the text in the attack box). The 3-round mode costs the old 2 AP more than a single shot, while full-auto now costs 3 AP more than single shot. You can now, however, change the amount of shots fired with full auto from 4 to the entire magazine. Note that this also means that the 3-round bursts can be aimed: unlike with most bullets in full-auto each shot can hit a specific bodypart and have accompanying effects. One thing I can't avoid with the new three round burst mode is that it uses the single shot animation (though I will have it use the burst sound at least); on the other hand this does allow you to keep track of when someone is using it. I think I'll have the AI treat full auto as more of a last resort type deal.

 

[hexer]

Also you should get your stuff to hexer so he can tinker with your mod and maybe make a different, better balanced Van Buren.

Yeah, we already agreed to use Jim's mods. We'll gladly test and implement anything that makes the game more fun.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

@SwordOfJustice

What's he doing?

Is it convenient and easy to select the different burst modes?

Can't make it much more convenient than a key-binding which switches full auto for 3-round burst. Ideally I'd make some interface changes like the Nevada guys did, but that's probably something for way later.

Did you give the aimable burst a penalty to hit? Because bursts-to-the-eye sound like the most ridiculous-tastic cheesy thing ever.

They have the same recoil issues as all guns (every subsequent round drops in THC, especially if you're weak and the weapon generates a lot of recoil), so you can burst for the eyes all you want, even an expert shot'll probably hit the head on the first shot and miss the rest. You're probably best off bursting for the torso.

How's the AI doing with these new bursts?

They'll use them more than full auto; I think full auto will more be the option if (a) the AI's low on health, and (b) there's hostiles close.

Full Auto is a nice idea, Miniguns are going to get SCARY AS FUCK with Full Auto Fire. I can definitively see a use even while I see the risk. Can all weapons do full auto?

Yeah, though spraying an entire magazine, especially with heavy rounds (like, say, the FN FAL), will be pretty pointless as you'll miss almost everything, if not everything, unless you're insanely strong.

Any improvements to Unarmed?

Still going to implement the blocking/counter attacking stuff, so should be a lot more interesting.

Repair is still serving as a defensive skill against armor penetration crits? Those are THE scariest thing in Fallout 2, our last (ultra-munchkin) Fallout 2 LP had a ultra-munchkin character that avoided anything even remotely capabled of giving him Armor Penetration Crits like the plague, chiefly amongst them those damn turrets at the Oil Rig. That said, it does seem to make Repair still remain a weak skill in the early game - My original character was made using repair to get me some armor bonuses in order to remain a nimble, fast leather armored dodger with enough resistance not to easily die.

Yeah, armor bypassing resistance is still in, and also doing upgrades, but that's something you can probably do with Algernon, so that's not that much of a boost.

How much you could say you've completed and what is your launch milestone? This update is going to be GIGANTIC!

I've completed most of it by now, the economy stuff turned out to be insanely complex, and the custom burst cone too, so with that behind me I'm mostly just looking at some combat stuff. After that, it's going through all my old scripts and incorporating the new data, so that shouldn't be that much work. I'll try and put the update out late January, but don't hold me to that.

I think your mod needs a manual. Any help you can ask me.

I think the .ini combined with the readme makes for enough info (it's already a pretty huge slog to go through both of them), but I'm probably wrong on that.

By the way, did Timeslip or someone else ever make some progress with the "Control Party Members" setting?

She put it back into sfall recently, but I think she's not working on it anymore, so don't count on it.

 

[DraQ]

Can't make it much more convenient than a key-binding which switches full auto for 3-round burst.

(...)

spraying an entire magazine, especially with heavy rounds (like, say, the FN FAL), will be pretty pointless as you'll miss almost everything, if not everything, unless you're insanely strong.

Wouldn't that call for making full auto unavailable on lighter weapons?

I know they technically can shoot full auto, but you'll practically always fire them in either single or short bursts, and I have intense dislike for features depending on undocumented (in GUI) hotkeys.

Alternatively you said you can now allocate the amount of rounds fired in auto - maybe it would call for unifying firing mechanics, with all shots being aimed bursts with amount of rounds fired being adjustable between min and max for given weapon?
How does this allocation work and does it scale AP requirement appropriately? It would be nice to be able to fire heavy automatic weapon for entire turn if it has enough ammo.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Wouldn't that call for making full auto unavailable on lighter weapons?

I know they technically can shoot full auto, but you'll practically always fire them in either single or short bursts, and I have intense dislike for features depending on undocumented (in GUI) hotkeys.

Me too, but (a) I try to never remove features from the game, so if a gun could previously shoot 8 rounds in a "burst", it should do now as well, (b) you can adjust the amount of rounds in full auto downwards, so that even a regular strength character can make use of it, and (c) like you said, it wouldn't make a lot of sense (as far as I can tell the only weapon that ever intentionally removed full auto in favor of 3-round burst mode was the m1a2, to avoid spray and pray, but I like spray and pray being an option at least).

Best I can do is look into the custom interface thing again, see if I can do it that way.

Alternatively you said you can now allocate the amount of rounds fired in auto - maybe it would call for unifying firing mechanics, with all shots being aimed bursts with amount of rounds fired being adjustable between min and max for given weapon?

The reason I don't like this has a partly graphical, partly performance related reason. (1) I can't (for now), make the burst animation play when doing my own bullet trajectory calculations, which I'm fine with in the case of a 2-3 round burst, but full-auto's stretching it, (b) calculating the trajectories/damages of every round in a minigun mag is going to be pretty taxing if not done through the game's own workaround burst system (not that I mind the occassional slow down now and then, but every time you fire a minigun might get annoying).

How does this allocation work and does it scale AP requirement appropriately? It would be nice to be able to fire heavy automatic weapon for entire turn if it has enough ammo.

At the moment it doesn't affect AP at all: it's always just 1 AP more than the 3-round burst regardless of whether it's 10 rounds or 100 rounds. I actually think that makes sense because I don't think there's a lot of difference in time spent between these two scenarios (like you said yourself, ideally shooting would take minimal AP and most of it would be spent on aiming, JA2-style). Whether you choose to braaaap 200 rounds or 20 with your minigun takes about the same time, especially when you have such a hefty abstraction as 1-10 AP.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Spent way too long dealing the problem with DT as a pure threshold, which is that it of course makes for some very sharp divisions (if APA has a DT of 60, then the difference between an ammo with an armor mod of 60 and 61 is too huge). The answer I've finally sperged up with is to make armor bypassing a lot more fluid. In the original you'd have an armor bypass only with some crits (ones with huge multipliers, making almost always for insta-kills), and only for a reduction of 4/5th of DT and DR. What I'm going to do is have use the following lovely curve:

Ignoring the numbers, y-axis is chance and x-axis is percentage of penetration (so in the example there's 5% of having more than 70% penetration). Bodypart hit moves the curve vertically (representing how many "gaps" there are on that location: it'd be the highest for the eyes where there's always a big chance of total penetration, and none at all for the torso), level of armor maintenance moves the curve sideways (so poorly maintained armor will rarely or even never protect 100% to the armor's potential), and luck, finally, adjusts the curvature (maintenance and bodypart alter the potential penetration, while luck affects the actual outcome: in the image you can see the outcome for minimal luck, while the curve flattens out the higher luck is, making for more evened out chances of hitting either low or high bypasses).

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Just a short update to convince myself people that I'm still hard at work on this. Damage calculations are almost complete, just have to do a long list of minor-medium changes still. Also, to avoid the endless amount of annoying key-bindings that are stacking up, I've copied the added interface options of the Fallout of Nevada mod and will assign my own stuff to them if the FoN team lets me (temporarily) use their icons.

After a long time of not really being sure what to do with hth defense outside of the abstract (dodging/blocking and counterattacking), I've finally reached what I think is a happy place. I'm bringing back the skill based defence The Brazilian Slaughter liked, and to avoid the problem of how to deal with ranged weapons in this context, I've changed the combat skills (again) a bit so that instead of light melee and heavy melee, it's one-handed melee (so knives and clubs) and two-handed melee (spears and sledges). What this allows me to do is neatly couple them to the ranged skills:

Defending with pistol or smg: defense bonus based on one-handed melee skill.
Defending with rifle: defense bonus based on two-handed melee skill.
Defending with big gun: no defense bonus.

This also means the handedness switching thing is definitely out of the window (one exception is through weapon modifications: turning a shotgun into a sawed-off makes it one-handed).

You can then either try to block, which adds DR based on ST relative to enemy ST (mainly to hopefully allow high ST, low AG melee builds), or try to dodge an enemy attack (AG-based). The enemy can then use his skill to bypass your defence; in the case of dodge the way that's done is obvious enough (the higher the enemy's skill is than yours, the higher his THC is), and in the case of a block, the higher an enemy's skill is than yours, the more chance he has of bypassing your block and doing full damage.

You can also sacrifice half of your skill-based defense bonus to prepare for a counter-attack: if your block or dodge succeeds, you perform a counter-attack (if you counter-attack with a ranged weapon, you do that based on the associated melee skills I just listed; not sure yet what damage ranges they'll get, but might be fun to do something like a bayonet attachment in the future to increase it).

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

One thing I forgot about melee defense is that PE also plays a role in the form of a defense bonus based on unspent action points: if you are facing your opponent (you can now change your facing direction at the cost of 1 AP), every unspent AP functions as the "Evaluate" action in GURPS, with you trying to figure out your opponent's next move. This then adds to either the quality of your block or dodge.

Hopefully this'll also make a high PE melee build viable, primarily as a counter-attacker (as long as enemies aren't crowding you that is).

 

[dunno lah]

Are there actions which take up more APs than what a (hypothetically) low-AG character might have?

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Are there actions which take up more APs than what a (hypothetically) low-AG character might have?

The highest costing melee action would be 6 AP for aimed + two handed, so that'd require 2 AG.

edit: there's some ranged actions that'd require more (aimed bursts with 2-handed at 8, so 6 AG, and full auto 2 handed at 7 so 4 AG). It's for this reason that I don't really like the current AG=AP system, but giving everyone 10 AP at start seems a bit lame.

 

[dunno lah]

Are there actions which take up more APs than what a (hypothetically) low-AG character might have?

The highest costing melee action would be 6 AP for aimed + two handed, so that'd require 2 AG.

edit: there's some ranged actions that'd require more (aimed bursts with 2-handed at 8, so 6 AG, and full auto 2 handed at 7 so 4 AG). It's for this reason that I don't really like the current AG=AP system, but giving everyone 10 AP at start seems a bit lame.

How about going over the max AP limit? Like being able to perform a 7AP action with a 6AP character but the next turn you'd only have 5AP to spend...

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Are there actions which take up more APs than what a (hypothetically) low-AG character might have?

The highest costing melee action would be 6 AP for aimed + two handed, so that'd require 2 AG.

edit: there's some ranged actions that'd require more (aimed bursts with 2-handed at 8, so 6 AG, and full auto 2 handed at 7 so 4 AG). It's for this reason that I don't really like the current AG=AP system, but giving everyone 10 AP at start seems a bit lame.

How about going over the max AP limit? Like being able to perform a 7AP action with a 6AP character but the next turn you'd only have 5AP to spend...

Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I'll see if I can get that working somehow.