Sorry for my slow reply, I've been in the middle of a work related move, and getting my computer hooked up went slow when my monitor fizzled out. lol.
To address the previous:




I was referring to the people of the vault. No one goes into a test tube willingly, particularly in cases as extreme as these. Though they were not told that a fake AI was used, exactly what "bait" was used? The bomb scare? And surely tests are completely pointless if there is no one to collect the data after a certain point.. to observe the effects on the people. Both the people AND the robot would have to be removed by an external force for the test to be complete. (be it a human force or otherwise)

Though the robot undoubtedly could collect some first hand data, there is no telling what is to occur. The robot may not survive the test. ergo, it is also part of the test, and the whole thing must be retrieved, the vault examined etc. However it seems like these people were left to their own devices. Who/what is running this test and why was it not followed through?


On the note of "ghoulish how?"

Perhaps this is a biased of mine actually. I just don't see ghouls, especially ones that spent that much time in such a place, as altogether human. Yes they have a back story, yes they are human in concept, but they've been twisted.. changed. And they've had plenty of time to adjust to it. While they may live in a city, I would think it would have some unique characteristics about it that may not be found in a town like Megaton. Something that jumps out at you and says, "This town is different.. ghoulish even." (besides the ghouls themselves)


Underworld:
In the defense of underworld, it is different, and does have a sort of hanging sense, having been set up (ironically) in a museum of death. It's also a special case. There aren't many down there overall.. they sort of just trickled in and stayed. They also didn't build the place themselves. They have no where else to go, and unlike a full out town like this, can't explore or branch out much. They are like rats trapped in a cage, just scrapping together a life, because there is nothing else to do.

Though they have a few scouts, few leave the area. It's as if it doesn't occur to them that it would do any good. They are more than simply out numbered. To even try would mean getting past the hell of mercs, super mutants and any other wack job they meet.. only to be faced with a human public who looks down on and fears them..


While it is true Underworld prolly has more npc's, your town, "Generation" stands to grow. (in theory) They only fight among themselves and other outcasts like the bandits.. not to mention, they have a keen set up. It would stand to reason this would be reflected by more open expression, and more than a few raider armors and weapons. (they do fight them )

Updated the first post with newer pics.



Thanks. And your being-to-the-point-edness is pretty good too.




Oy, yes, they went into the Vault to find shelter from the bombs and the radiation and all that bad nasty stuff, without knowing that the Overseer was a computer. As for collecting the data, I'm not entirely sure what Vault-Tec had planned on doing to collect the data after the holocaust; that's never been very clear to me. This vault was simply part of their http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vaults like all other vaults.

As for the Fake AI, that was part of the test too, of course. To see if it would make it through the experiment, or whether it would be destroyed by the inhabitants. To that end, its mainframe and wiring was reinforced with damage resistant materials (okay, I don't exactly know what materials they'd use for such an occasion). To the vault dwellers' credit, they managed to destroy a few cameras and cut one group of wires... but that took a while, and they decided it wasn't worth it, especially since the cut wires sparks constantly even today; a danger to anyone who gets near it.



I like the idea; I'm just trying to figure out what, exactly, would make a town feel ghoulish. Death? Cages? Skeletons? I thought about stringing up the dead raiders that they had killed, but that'd make it feel like a raider town, I think. I suppose I'll need to experiment some in the GECK, and see what I come up with. (Now I'm wondering about chains holding skeletons, actually; I'll have to try it out, though)



The total number of NPCs in Generation as of now is 13, I believe; that includes 4 "Generation Residents" that are just there for filler more than anything.

As for the growing of the town, I really don't see how; they've used up or sold most of their scrap pieces to build up the town, and traders visit the place only every great once in a while. Ghouls can't have children either, so any new people would have to come in from the wastes, just like Underworld. Other than that, I'm trying to keep my impact on everything else as small as possible. The town is located in its own worldspace, North of the Wasteland map, and only changes one cell in the Wasteland for the entrance. As for weaponry and armor, they've been able to gather a decent selection; most of it dedicated to the entrance house, where Wanda and Junior can use it against unruly visitors.

A good point there. I had just figured, more out in the open and less threat than underworld would, in theory, make it an ideal time to revive the search parties.. now that they have a town and all. And rather than searching for life, they'd more be searching for raiding parties to jump, new scrap etc. I didn't mean to insinuate that the place needed to expand. I was only saying that, in theory, it could. Basically supporting that ghoulish touches would be fitting. (and I see you like the idea) But you still make a good point, especially considering that to them time is prolly no big deal. And what with the occasional trader, I surmise they have ammo enough to not need to hunt for it too actively.




Noted, and well liked. A world space gives freedom to everyone, and even makes compatibility patches much more possible if ever the need arises.

Thats it. I'm buying Fallout 3 for the PC ASAP...

I'll take that as a compliment

As for progress, I've fixed the entrance Navmesh, added the outhouse, and fixed a few random things that I'd been putting off. I also finished basic NPC AI, which is to say that they eat, sleep, wander around, train, patrol, and other various things that they'll be doing daily. Advanced stuff, like waiting to greet the player for the first time, opening the gate for the player, etc. is still to be scripted in. I'll put up a Beta soon, for anyone wanting just to wander around the town (not that there's anything to do there yet... except maybe kill off everyone ).

Alpha/Beta/Whatever posted up on the first post. http://www.freewebs.com/poha!/Data.rar

The town of Generation lies in the North Westernmost part of the map; a new map marker should be noticed in the region upon loading the mod. Talk to Wanda; she should open the gate for you. If she doesn't, activate the car yourself, and let me know that she didn't do her job; I'll punish her severely later.

There is no quest yet, no spiffy new weapon (only a broken one), only one new piece of dialogue, and nothing too jazzy to get jazzed up about. Yet. So don't download it if that's what you're after. Its just a simple ghoul town, where everybody knows your name,... and they're always rotting away.

Mostly, I'm concerned with any AI strangenesses that might crop up; people not doing what they need to be doing, or trying to do things they can't get to, running in circles... things of that nature.
Post here with any problems/errors/critiques that you may have, or, if you're shy, I accept PMs and IMs too.

Thanks in advance to anyone who is nice enough to test it! Extra thanks to Eyeball and Noirgrim for already testing it.

Enjoy! (and if you don't, then tell me why; so I can fix it)

No one?

I know this feeling .
I made a quick test during a modding break. Its a nice little town with interesting locations and details. The powerplant looks great. The mod gives me the need to see more of their stories.

Now to some technical things.
I use the patch 1.5 version for modding, testing and playing with only body replacers and normaly no other mods. It was a little bit ironic because i had for testing my own mod loaded and two raider slaves with me.

I got an instant CTD as i tried to enter the town and my slaves kept waiting outside and couldnt follow me in the house. So i unloaded my mod and hired charon. He fits better in this environment . But patch 1.5 stopped charon also from entering the house. I didnt look at the esp in the moment. But i think it has todo with the use of the outer boundaries. As i ended Fallout there was another CTD. I am pretty sure this is all patch 1.5 related.

I had not enough time to look at the AI of the NPCs. I know this is horrible, time consuming work to adjust it right. But i noticed one little thing, two generation residents which tried to get in the doctors house, which was locked. So they kept standing at the entrance.

Thats it for the moment. I have to get back now to my own friendly new neighbours.

ghoulscant have babies

so how old are these ghouls in this town?

Thanks much for the feedback guys.



Yea, unfortunately, I can't playtest my mod at all with v1.5 installed. I got CTDs 100% of the time when entering the new worldspace, and the workarounds, especially just for playtesting, weren't a viable option. So I doubt my mod is 1.5 compatible, in any sense of the term.

Its odd that the residents were trying to get into the clinic but couldn't. For one thing, they don't have any AI package that should have made them go in there. For another, the door shouldn't have been locked, IIRC. O.o I'll have to figure that one out...

Send me a PM if you want me to playtest your mod in return.



You're right, they can't. But apparently, they live a long long time. One ghoul in underworld recalls the story of how she was mutated, when the bombs fell, for example; that makes her over 200 years old. The ghouls in Generation aren't nearly that old, though. I haven't worked out all the timeline details at this point (see the earlier discussion on how long cannibalism would have lasted) but they're no older than 100 years old. Probably a lot younger, actually.

no problem

i'm getting fallout3 tomorrow i hope

but whats with this 1.5 update thing?

does that mean that if you dont update you can play the mods?

yeah, basiclly yes. just check the thread.

Very well done little town/vault thingie. I'll be looking forward to the finished product and y'know, actually having stuff to do.

As others have said, all the cluttering was really well done. There's just junk everywhere, and in a way that seems like it was put there to be used, or moved out of the way so another space could be used. I especially liked how a lot of the prexisting statics and things have been reassembled to make new things, like at the power plant especially. Oddly enough, I was most stunned by the pipes moving up and down in the PP; I had to go into GECK to figure out how it was done! Also, the crooked house was neat. A little twist that makes a plain old thing new again.

I didn't encounter any real NPC oddness, but I didn't hang out with them very long after poking around in all of their houses. Anna was asleep in the gate house when I first got there (at night), which didn't seem odd at first until I realized she had her own house in town... Also, are all of the houses supposed to be red (as in, the player is trespassing when he's in them)?

The story of the Vault's test scenario is a good one, I think. It fits in better with the experiments from the first two games better than a lot of the ones in Fallout 3. Seeing how well a computer could manage a confined group of people would generate very useful data when trying to decide how best to reorganize civilization on earth or man a colonizing mission to another planet.

Only thing I thought was really weird was some of the scaling. Some of the areas and thingies seemed a little overbig. Like unreasonably so. The only real specific example I have is the size of the door into the Vault cave. That door is like 12 feet tall! The handle was as big as I was!

Other than that, it's a very well put-together mod and I eagerly await the finished version.

-Pax

Thanks for the testing Paximus. Much appreciated. Thanks for the compliments as well.



I can't seem to reproduce Anna sleeping in the gate house, and nothing in her AI would make her even go in there, under most circumstances. Can you verify that it was indeed Anna and not Wanda? If you still have the save game that you loaded to test with, would you mind sending it to me?



I guess I never paid too much attention to how big the door was compared to the player; thanks for the tip. Was the large chain holding up the ductwork piping another example? I've been borderlining on changing that one for a while now...

hey

I tested your map

I like it it feels
more alive then most other towns do in fall out 3

but the only thing that really bothers me is the little human guy


he is so short that i just want to shoot him
but also when i kill someone in your town
i dont get the whole town after me
they just say things like: O dear, what happend.....
it takes 2 or 3 kills before everybody starts shooting at me
besides the little human.....
who runs away and doenst help his ghoul friends


EDIT:

After trying to kill people a second time
they do indeed turn hostile
maybe no one saw me killing those other persons

Are all these ghouls from the vault?

if so why dont all of them have pipboy's?



I also saw some ghouls spawning on the table after fast waiting or what ever it is called 5 hours (5:43am til 10:43am)
after spawning on the table the ghoul walked off the table and didnt do anything strange after that

I also saw that some of them give me rediation when i'm near them
but of the looks of it it seems that you wanted it like that

I'm afraid I can't test it myself right now, because my computer is all sorts of broken atm, so I have to use a bare bones lap top. But I'm still here, and when I can afford to fix up my computer, I'll be downloading it. Keep up the good work! And I gotta say, I'm excited.. lol, I want to see the town so so much. I can tell a lot of thought went into it.

Just to break into the discussion here but. In modern science it is now possible to take a small piece of meat with living cells and grow it in a nutrient bath so the cells stay alive and continue to grow. So a small piece of living tissue eventually becomes a large piece of living tissue through cell mitosis.

http://www.cellsalive.com/mitosis.htm

With vault technology and the like, perhaps it is possible this was discovered. One pound of human meat could grow to feed a lot of ghouls. Best thing yet, it's still alive and fresh. Perhaps the regular vaults use this to grow animal flesh to eat. I doubt Vault 101 survived for 200 years on dried rations. As Vault 101 and the rest of the Vaults are so small in game, perhaps in the areas you can't get to they have "meat farms" and hydroponics for fresh vegetables.

Maybe they can, after all, in earlier games there were Super Mutants who could breed. To me that means that there's a possiblity of ghouls that can breed too. However, the babies would certainly have faces only a mother could love.

Interesting. That has all sorts of moddable possibility to it. In FO3 though, at least the vanilla, it's pretty apparent they don't have this sort of thing.

Meh. So add it.

hey any updates/new beta mod sinds we can play mods again with 1.6 patch?

Even if ghouls can't have kids, kids can certainly become ghouls.

Yeah ghoul kids would be fun

Ghouls age slower

So maybe make 1 kid 40 years old while the kid is 10 years old.

Hey guys, sorry for not updating this in a while. Work and other things have kept me busy; I really appreciate the discussion that this thread has brought up, and of course, the support too.

I've not had time to even try the 1.6 patch. I assume that it fixes the weirdness-ess that occurred in the 1.5 patch?

It fixes the mod issues from 1.5