Hello everyone,

To get this out of the way, I am not planning on making an apocalypse mod at this point in time. However, I am very interested in the concept, and I'm hoping that someday I'll have time, or that someone else will take this up in the meantime.

To clarify what this thread is about, I just thought we could have a thread where people can discuss what they would like to see in a survival/apocalypse style mod for Fallout 3. Now, I understand that Fallout 3 already is meant to be an apocalypse/post apocalypse game, but at the moment it really doesn't feel like it at all. Where is the desperate struggle for humanity's survival? Where is that fear of the night, the fear of the wastes? It's one of the things which is really missing from the game, in my eyes at least.

So, I have a few suggestions for little and big mods which could add that survival-against-desperate-odds feel to Fallout. I'll post them here, in the hope that someone will take them up, or that you will post your own opinions on how it all should work.

So, here is my idea for a "Fear the Night" style mod. Something which gives a reason to lock and barricade the doors each night, and to desperately try to reach civilization before the night ends. Absolutely vital for a mod like this is something which dramatically increases the amount of Night Ghouls (from MMMF3) which spawn every night. Perhaps adding a way for them to hunt down anything living would be good as well. However, I think that this wouldn't quite do it, although it would come pretty damn close. Disabling fast travel and making it only accessible at certain points would be great, but a massive undertaking, I know. Adding an ability to barricade doors (as seen in 28 days and a bit, for Oblivion) would be awesome, giving the ghouls the ability to break through non-barricaded doors not located within a settlement. Add a massive fear of flame weapons to the ghouls, a very high perception ad perhaps the ability to call other ghouls which are nearby would be the icing on the cake.

I believe that adding large amounts of night ghouls would be pretty easy, but some of the other parts would take a lot of time and effort. What do you guys all think?

Thanks for your time,
Attentater

I certainly agree that the survival aspect of a post apocalyptic world was missing from Fallout 3, and I like your idea, it has great potencial

I'll also take that to heart with my future mods, especially Rubble once I get the time to resume working on it, I'll definately going for desperation in that city, where water is short and the city is falling apart. Water beggars will be a common sight for example, the equivalent of a modern city bum I'm also planning on having quests related to finding and trading/donating water to the city.

Right now though I need a break from Rubble with the upcoming exams and so on, but a tiny little house mod is on it's way

Just found something called "Feral Ghoul Rampage", an optional add-on for MMMF3 by Martigen. Can't wait to try it out, it looks absolutely perfect!

Awesome idea. I agree, nights should be scary, but they don't feel it in vanilla. Now, add dusty sky, and MMM(Feral Ghoul Rampage doesn't work on Night Ghouls, sadly) with at least IS would make the night something to panic about. Add some more night time spawns(like, say, http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6109), and I'd say that night time is the right time... To run your ass back to the nearest town, or take out your tent and bunker building stuff(and auto turrets for ease of mind). Big town would likely be gone in a few nights, but they could just hide in Reds Basemant, and board up the door at night.

@Attentaters: Also check out http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=989751&st=0. It is a much smaller scale than Ghoul Rampage, but very fun.

I paid almost $3,000 (stupid, I know; I was young) for a sweet a$ gaming rig timed with Oblivion's release in April of 2006. I played Oblivion for months, and I saw elves in my sleep and in the streets.

But, I think the inherent emotion of Fallout 3's canon and worldscape set it apart, for me. I loved Fallout 1 & 2, but I do believe that the first person aspect of Fallout 3, plus the incredible potential of this, our awesome modding community, will in time allow it to transcend the limitations of Bethesda's vision and make it a true, emotional, cathartic RPG experience.

I don't think we need a total conversion, or an overhaul; I think we need to use the GECK like a scalpel, trimming away the fat from Fallout 3 to reveal the stark, hopeless existence that would be reality for most animals (including people) in this setting.

Specifics:

• Development team mentioned The Road several times. I've read it twice and it's simply insane. Can we conjure up that incredible sense of dread experienced when one hears the approaching noise of a heard of cannabilistic hunter-gatherers? The feeling of incredible vulnerability; even if you've got ammo in your gun, you can't take them all down. Better to hide and wait.
  
• The Wastes, as yall've discussed above, must become nightmarish. Cities should be refuges, and Megaton's first appearance on the horizon should flood you with relief, with gratification that tonight, at least, you won't sleep with one eye open and bile in your throat.
  
• Power Armored knights must truly roam the landscape. I'm a writer and a weirdo thinker, and how cool is it to imagine what it would really feel like to be in power armor; the distance, disconnect from the desert around you. Sand skittering across your alloy shoulder...the detachment of looking down in an abandoned house at the gathered bones of some forgotten family. Touching everything through an armored gauntlet.
  
• For everyone else, the wastes should haunt and corrupt you. People who travel the wastes should truly seem as they would be: deranged, heroic, mystics who walk some nightmare landscape for their own purposes

All of these things are becoming real, I think.The Triage mod makes crippled limbs much more debilitating. In your Expanded Caravans thread, Attentater, someone mentioned some really intriguing work they were doing which in affect makes caravans the only source of new materials in the towns they visit.

Mods like those, and like the one you're discussing, are Atmospheric enhancements, and I would love to see a concerted effort to combine the talents and ideas of our modders and create a real Survival package for people who want to roleplay a real hard scrabble existence.

Oblivion was so lush; I got scared, sure, and got into that game, but most of the NPCs with which I interacted seemed to be doing just fine without me. As a result, I felt truly isolated. I stopped playing because it got lonely.

Fallout 3...I play because it makes me feel lonely.

long post, whatever, thanks if you read

u.t.c. i know what you mean, the descripition of fallout essentially makes it a survival rpg, why then is survival so esay? Just the sight of another wanderer should be a welcomed relief. Sorry gone a bit foggy eyed essentially i think the transit from rpg to survial rpg is somewhat already taking place (with reference tro the mods metioned above) and will continue to do so lets hope.

Amen with what u.t.c said.

For me, this game feels like a policed state compared to what it should/could be like. Compared to what has been pointed out above, the wastelands feel safe in a way. You walk, you come across some raiders, you kill them, you come across a guy wandering around on his own collecting junk.

I agree. I like the idea of rushing into a town, yelling at everyone to get into the basemant, and since fast-travel or waiting gets disabled once the sun goes down, you are forced to stay awake as the hordes break into the upper level of the house and try to break into the basemant. Occasionally one or 2 would get in, but you'd have to kill them, before the rest were able to get in as well.

How about the ability to set traps?
How about the ability to dig holes for yourself that you can hid in? I know i'd spend more time searching for a safe hidden nook or cranny in a rock cluster than searching for ammo, or weapons.

I'm just brain storming here, but what if... as a start... all NPC's were gone? You could get quests from still functioning computer terminals, listening to holotapes, or by reading books, journals left behind. There would be no Moira to repair your items, no flak or shrapnel to buy weapons. You only keep what you find, and repair what you can based on what you find.

Completely agree with the threads above. I think that the settlements are part of the reason why Fallout feels 'wrong'. It destroys the feeling of a post-apocalyptic atmosphere when you walk into a town of two people like Girdershade and find out that the inhabitants are more interested in collecting erotic underwear and soda bottles than in surviving. The part of me that is engaged in the game asks, "How would these people ever survive?" "What do they eat?"...These kinds of questions pop up again and again in Fallout, I stopped playing after I ran into Canterbury Commons and the stupid super heroes quest...it was absurd to me that this was in the game.

Megaton is one of the few cities that is remotely immersive...it feels almost possible that it could exist, until you run into Moira that is.

Maybe a mod that removes the stupidity as much as possible? Maybe through beefing up the already existing towns or revamping the NPCs?

I really like the idea of traveling caravans that deliver resources to the towns, perhaps an area that adds a point of origin for the food that all these people are eating? And then caravans from that agricultural vault to a new zone in the wastes? The army did run tests back in the 50's with cows in underground vaults and found out that they did just fine...

Making night deadlier is an interesting idea also, I would be careful of moving too close into the 'zombie infestation' type setting though if you are making a post-nuclear mod. I think aggressive and intelligent humans bent on malice can be just as scary as zombies...perhaps even scarier if done right...

Sorry to resurect this dead thread, but I was going to post one just like this and I though people should see all the great ideas already posted here.

Anyway this is just what I expected when I bought fallout 3, I expected a wasteland, where people fought for food and killed for shelter. Not a humerouse joy ride filled to the brim with inuendos and socialy akward, lifeless civilians.

So I decided to create a (shudders) total conversion that does just that. I will create the heightmap myself, I already started in it, and it should be finished by the end of the month or so. When it is finished I will need a team to help me with my plans, which are as follows,

1. Add the need to eat, sleep and drink.

2. Modify all npcs placed into this new worldspace, so they must also eat, if they don't eat at least once a day, they will die, after a week of starvation. (if possible) and place them on schedules so they eat 3 times a day and buy food at the local market. (oblivion did this)

3.increase the radiation of the default water, so that you must purify it in order to drink. (which leads me to number 4)

4.add portable water purifier, sleeping bag, tent and flint box to start fires and cook food, thus decreasing radiation level of all foods.

5.basicaly add most features from Fwe.

6.add new weapons, bows, more melée weapons, more homemade weapons, and less guns and ammo.

7.remove stimpacks from the game, instead you will have to use less effective more primative ways of treating wounds, such as staplers, splints and Bandages, all these methods will take more than a day to completely take effect, painkillers can be used to heal wounds right away temporarily.

8.any other ideas people may have!

these are my plans for the world space.

1.the world will be huge, as large as I can make it, this will mean you will have to realy plan out your travels and be sure you have enough supplies.

2.no fast travel

3.not as many huge towns, instead it will be many small settlements spread far across the land.

4.weather effects, (if possible) you will have to where sun glasses to prevent the burning of your retinas. Dust storms will decrease your view range and your speed.

5.all interiors will be enterable, so you can scavange for food without dissapointment.

6.again, open to ideas!

so please PM me if you are interested in helping out later!

Alright, I'm having trouble creating a heightmap. Well not realy trouble, it's more of an incompatence thing.
anyway I'm guessing no one wants to create one for me, (right? ) so does anyone know of a mod that adds a blank fallout.esm, only the wasteland and not objects or interiors?

Any help would be greatly apreciated, thanks.

you my friend! you have just made my day by telling me about your plans! it makes me feel the way i felt when i first saw the FO3 trailer. the lone wanderer with only a hunting rifle taking on the world! a wrecked house that [i assumed] he had just finished scavving. but then it got to the points where you had all sorts of high tech stuff and what not.. i mean.. no power source lasts for 200 years like those small E cells and micro fusions did.. so where are they made?

anyhoo away from my tangent there, i will definatly download this when it comes out! it will make me feel more imersed into the game! thanks for answering my prayers!

good luck!

Thankyou for your support,

But I need your opinion on one more thing, should I create a Total Conversion, or just an overhaul? I have been having a little bit of trouble creating the heightmap, but that was realy the highlight if my plan. To trek across a desolate wasteland, no food in sight, and the only spec of civilization being just a prayer in the distance.

I will be able to get the heightmap right, sooner or later. I'm pretty sure it is just a problem caused by the size of the heightmap, so if I tone it down a bit, it should be alright.

Also, the caravans, should be have a large respawn time, so there could be the need to help protect them, without them no stuff, food, etc.
Maybe you can have a job out of this, or at least, sometimes you actively help them.

Caravans should then be bigger, and very well protected, since taking your stuff would be too tempting ?

It would be also nice to actually see the wastelanders search for food and thing.. also the raiders must do this, and there should be much less of them, but in greater packs, and more deadlier.

The mutants, ghouls and such.. dunno what about them ?

I was thinking of completely getting rid if all the mutants, ghouls, etc, it wouldn't be very realistic to think that hundreds of thousands of humans were exposed to high levels of radiation, and they all happened to survive. And just adding more bands of raiders and scavengers.

I was also thinking of making it so Kama actualy effects what happens to you in the wasteland, for example a high amount of good karma would increase you luck and charismatic skills, and a high amount if bad karma would decrease your luck and personality traits. This would cause the player to realy think about there actions.

Also, I have been having problems with TESannwyn, every time I try and open the .exe, it pops up a command prompt and then quickly dissapears, not opening anything else. Solution?

It's a command prompt program.
Put it in your C drive, open cmd.exe and type "cd c".

Refer to the readm, the actual commands are explained there.

I think that if people wanted to do this, they'd have to make it an overhaul, or atleast an overhaul "collection" of mods to be used in tandem. I say this because in order to do as you've all suggested (which I think would be 1000x funner than the vanilla game), the story and setting would have to be changed to say, 5 years after the bombs fell. That being said, removing all settlements and cities would probably be a good start. You mentioned sandstorms? I think maybe like a 20 second warning, like a looping wind sound, should come before hand, so the player has a chance to frantically search for somewhere to hide. The sandstorms should actually do damage IMO, as well as reducing stats like speed and visibility as you suggested.

May I also suggest that you include weapon packs like Clutter Weapons and the Wasteland Melee Mod Pack from the Nexus, with permission from the authors of cour

What I'll probably end up doing is request permission from the creators of FWE and MMM and other great overhauls, to merge there mods into mine. I will create the landscape and the other Geck accessible things.

Great ideas by the way!

Also thankyou for the information on TESannwyn, this will realy speed up production!

UPDATE: I have finished the heightmap! Now I'm just scaling it to the perfered size and smoothing out minor rips and whatnot!
So this is where you guys come in. How large do you think the landscape should be? At the moment, it is only a quarter of the size of D.C, but I can't figure out how to scale it. I have tried increasing the size of the .Raw in Photoshop, but when I import it again, TESannwyn says it only imported 1024 cells, that's the same as the first time. Any thoughts on what might be my problem?

Ok I got It scaled up, but I might of overdone it a bit... The map has over 3000 cells!
so I'll tone it down a bit, just say when...

Oops, more than 30,000 cells!

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13074

I'm not sure if you mean a Zombie apocolypes mod, but we are making on at the moment. In fact we just released our first beta.

Features:

* Alternate Beginning
* Survival (Need to eat, drink, etc...)
* Injury syste, (More realistic)
* New zombie models
* Infection system (NPC's actually get infected)
* You base that YOU control
* Rescue survivors
* New military armor
* New Companions
* Main quest
* Side quests
* More... I have forgotten about LOL

You can find more info here:

http://fallenstarstudios.ning.com/


And if you are interested we REALLY NEED more members, so PLEASE drop your appliction into our "Applications" page in our Forums.

Cheers.

Wow, that sounds amazing! I can't wait for that release!

But my plans are a little different, Im going to create a more realistic apocalypse, one filled with fear and desperate jumps for survival. Picture the Road, or the Book of Eli.