As far as weapons go, i would really like to see a system that actually involved your character 'learning' how to use the weapon over time and becoming more proficient with use.

Let me explain.

I know we have the FO skills; small guns, big guns, energy weapons, ect. But, if you were to find a M16 in the wastes, you would have no idea how to use it if the only firearm you were ever exposed to was a pipegun.

So to use that M16, you would either have another player who already 'leveled up' thier skill with the M16 show you the basics, learn it from an NPC, or take some time and figure it out yourself (if your small guns and intel are high enough).

Of course, at this point you would only know the basics; just enough to fend off some geckos. But, as you fight the geckos you learn to handle the rifle better (the cap, and the speed of 'leveling' could be determined by your small guns skill). Maybe you didn't feel safe going straight to the wastes with a firearm you aren't familar with, so instead you spent some time shooting some old cans until you felt confident (max at 50% of the overall cap...?) enough with the M16.

Now, over time, you could become quite proficient with the M16, but you're pretty happy when you find an AK47 in a bandit lair because you know the AK47 won't malfunction nearly as much in the harsh conditions of the wastes as the M16. Because you're familar with another weapon which is fairly similar, you might be able to quickly adapt what you know about the M16 from the AK47; maybe you 'level' the weapon faster, or perhaps you start with a 20% bonus to the 'experience' for the AK47. Maybe both.

Other then the obvious level of immersion this would bring to FOOL, this would also provide a system that rewards players who wish to specialize, lets say become an eagle eyes sniper, without overly penalizing those that want to be a more diverse character, perhaps a crazy chemist who can sweet talk his way out of a grave, likes to get high on the jet he makes to watch gecko heads splatter through the scope on his rifle, which he finds hilarious.

Now in PvP, although the sniper is a much better shot than the chemist, there aren't too many situations which the ability of the sniper to clip the wings off a fly at 300 meters will provide any advantage when compared to the chemists ability to hit a cantelope (just enough for a headshot) at the same distance.

You would really see a difference in PvE, however, especially considering that you're really best off shooting a deathclaw in the eye. But thats when the chemist brings some of his jet addicted buddies and pays them some jet if they live through the ordeal.

Although... in this situation you could combine the two aspects (PvP and PvE). Perhaps the deathclaws are in an old church with a bell tower that makes the perfect sniper nest. The sniper could target a few key deathclaws so he can sneak through and reach the tower, and the deathclaws down below (once respawned) could unwittingly act as his first line of defense from anyone who wants to flank him.

With the chemist, his jet freak buddies could turn the church into a temporary base, and act as his first line. Did i mention i dont see any reason why the jet freaks couldn't be other players, or NPCs?

Interesting idea, that your skill with a particular weapon or weapon sub-type would increase through increased use/practice. This could possibly be put into place to provide a secondary layer of specialization over normal skill levels.

I disagree with the notion that a character would need someone (another player or an NPC) to show them the "basics" of a particular weapon/sub-type before being able to use it. I'll not use a realism argument here, because I feel they are tenuous at best when discussing a game world. However I feel it can be reasonably assumed that any character can figure out how to make a rifle/pistol/shoota fire, or a bludgeon/blade well... bludgeon or cut, approximately instantly by fiddling around with the weapon. A Pip-Boy would also be assumed to be a handy-dandy reference for anything the character might encounter. Now I could see an argument for higher chances of minor damage to oneself for a very short period when first using a weapon/sub-type, and/or a relatively slower progression of weapon/sub-type skill with decreased character Intelligence.

You would have to repalce the skillpoint system when leveling up with an experience bar for each skill. If you gain experience using a skill you should decay the skill level if you don't.

You can use books as a first tutor in a particular skill, gun, amrour or healing ways etc. The Pip-Boy could be an archive of what skills you′ve previously learned, not necessarely the skills you use. Maybe even make it possible to download information from terminals or computers if you have high enough skill to do it (not necessarely science or repair) and clearance enough to gain access to the facility.

Whoa, whoa whoa. Because i dont feel like being run off by much of the FO fanbase (myself included ):

I don't think the skill point system should be replaced, only that actions related to the skill be leveled with restrictions based on your number of points in a particular skill, small guns in the above example.

I do like the idea about the books though. I have no doubt if someone had the FM for the M16, that they could figure out how to work it

Sometimes letting go of what we fear to loose the most is the way to go.

To have it both ways could prove tricky.

First off: Point & Shoot when you find that nice new gun; experiment (standard efficiency)
Second: Continuous usage of a weapon type increases efficiency (accuracy not damage) Well I guess we're just a couple of problem solvers

It's hard to point and shoot if you don't know how to load the firearm, or even charge it. If you know anything about firearms, that can seem kindof 'wtf? how do i not know how to load it?' but as anyone who's gone through any type of boot camp or basic training knows; someone who hasn't been exposed to firearms before, is almost definately going to need to be showed how to do the most basic of activities related to firearms.



Personally, i wouldn't be opposed to a slight damage decrease initially to reflect a slightly slower round velocity due to grit in the barrel because you're still learning to clean the weapon. But really, i don't think a 9mm round going at 700 MPH is going to hurt much more the one going 690 MPH.

Although i do agree that it should mostly effect efficiency, i don't think it should be limited to accuracy. Reliablity, rate of wear, reload speed, recoil, ect. can all be governed by it.

I'm not a programmer, so i don't know. But the math of it is actually pretty simple, small guns (for example) could simply control the rate you learn new weapons, provide a soft cap through deminishing returns, increase your chance of being able to use a new firearm when you come across one, and provide a bonus to the inicial 'experience' you have with each weapon in the small guns category.

Using a found weapon which you do not have the skill for should be possible, but it would be comparable to shooting with a weapon which is too much weight for you to wield, and therefor not very accurate.

I think it would be good to have players that can teach you weapon skills, also having them a skill which allows them to teach it to other players, thus the requirements met for the basics that another player can teach you, also gaining exp from that, whether there would be a skill to teach that or not.
From this idea I would expect alot of crafters to be able to do this, because if you would know how to make a weapon, you'd know how it would work. (Or at least the basics)

It would also be nice if there would be players walking around in your guild or in a town you are visiting that can teach you how to use the weaponry you cant use fully yet.

Sorry, meant to respond to your post earlier but i got side tracked.

I do agree with realism being... well, moot in determining how something fuctions in a game. But someone who never saw a magazine fed rifle before would find it difficult, if not impossible to figure out how to make it work. It's kindof hard for us to imagine because we have so many readily available references and the fact that our media is flooded with various movies and TV shows which show, at least in part, the basic operation of an M16, for example.

But, if you've only seen an M16 in the movies, do you know where the selector switch is? The magazine release? Dust cover? How to open the cleaning kit compartment in the butt stock? How to shotgun the weapon? How to perform remedial action? How to even keep the weapon clean enough so that it is in working condition? How often it should be cleaned? How to jimmy rig it so it will work after any damage it sustained in a gunfight? Could you tell the difference between a 5.56 round and a 7.62 round? Would you even know that the M16 uses a 5.56 round as opposed to a 7.62? Do you know how to recognize if the bolt is forward, or back? If it's forward, do you know how to charge it? If it's back, do you know about the bolt catch release? I don't know if you've handled firearms before, but if you haven't i think you can see how an M16 is actually a lot more complex than just 'point and shoot'. If you've never handled firearms before and you're still skeptical, go to your local sporting good's store and ask the guy behind the counter if you can look at an AR15 (the civilian model M16) and ask him to show you how it works. I'm positive you'd learn a lot more then you thought there was to know about an assault rifle.

To further illustrate this, i'll bring my personal experience into the conversation: I've handled various rifles most of my life, and have handled M16/M4s quite extensively. However, when i purchased an AK47 because i found a good deal on one, i found i had a difficult time loading the magazine. Yes, i figured it out pretty quickly, but the problem was that unlike the M16/M4, and various hunting rifles i've handled where the magazine feeds more or less straight into the magazine well, the magazine for the AK47 is actually fed at an angle, with the front of the magazine going into the magazine well before the rear. When it came to adjusting the front site post, however, i needed a hand with that (or some reference material, but it was easier to have someone show me ).

However, after typing all that out, i'm going to risk making every statement i made completely moot in regard to FOOL: i admit, i never thought about pipboys providing a reference for the basic operations of a firearm. And as far as 'realism' goes, it wouldn't be too realistic to leave the security of your vault knowing what the wastes have in store without such reference guides in your pipboy. Although, would the enclave have really wanted the vault residents to have access to that information?

Sorry, meant to respond to your post earlier but i got side tracked.

I do agree with realism being... well, moot in determining how something fuctions in a game. But someone who never saw a magazine fed rifle before would find it difficult, if not impossible to figure out how to make it work. It's kindof hard for us to imagine because we have so many readily available references and the fact that our media is flooded with various movies and TV shows which show, at least in part, the basic operation of an M16, for example.

But, if you've only seen an M16 in the movies, do you know where the selector switch is? The magazine release? Dust cover? How to open the cleaning kit compartment in the butt stock? How to shotgun the weapon? How to perform remedial action? How to even keep the weapon clean enough so that it is in working condition? How often it should be cleaned? How to jimmy rig it so it will work after any damage it sustained in a gunfight? Could you tell the difference between a 5.56 round and a 7.62 round? Would you even know that the M16 uses a 5.56 round as opposed to a 7.62? Do you know how to recognize if the bolt is forward, or back? If it's forward, do you know how to charge it? If it's back, do you know about the bolt catch release? I don't know if you've handled firearms before, but if you haven't i think you can see how an M16 is actually a lot more complex than just 'point and shoot'. If you've never handled firearms before and you're still skeptical, go to your local sporting good's store and ask the guy behind the counter if you can look at an AR15 (the civilian model M16) and ask him to show you how it works. I'm positive you'd learn a lot more then you thought there was to know about an assault rifle (assuming the guy behind the counter actually knows his stuff).

To further illustrate this, i'll bring my personal experience into the conversation: I've handled various rifles most of my life, and have handled M16/M4s quite extensively. However, when i purchased an AK47 because i found a good deal on one, i found i had a difficult time loading the magazine. Yes, i figured it out pretty quickly, but the problem was that unlike the M16/M4, and various hunting rifles i've handled where the magazine feeds more or less straight into the magazine well, the magazine for the AK47 is actually fed at an angle, with the front of the magazine going into the magazine well before the rear. When it came to adjusting the front site post, however, i needed a hand with that (or some reference material, but it was easier to have someone show me ).

However, after typing all that out, i'm going to risk making every statement i made completely moot in regard to FOOL: i admit, i never thought about pipboys providing a reference for the basic operations of a firearm. And as far as 'realism' goes, it wouldn't be too realistic to leave the security of your vault knowing what the wastes have in store without such reference guides in your pipboy. Although, would the enclave have really wanted the vault residents to have access to that information?

Look at the World War II for example, i bet there were alot of guns on the battlefield in various conditions. I have a really hard time accepting that in the time of need any soldier left stranded because his/hers normal gun ran out of ammo, jammed or whatever didn't or couldn't just pick up whatever gun there was and just use it. Not getting to be a master at it but just to use it there and then.


The Enclave was into ethnic cleansing in order to sow the earth with a better seed. Killing vault citizens and getting whatever tech and information they had was not personal just daily business. Question is did they have the locations of all the vaults and blueprints of the vault layouts or not.

Yes, I see your points as valid in that upon picking up a complex weapon, realistically a person would likely not instantly have intimate knowledge of all aspects of its operation. For smoothness of gameplay (i.e. "fun") reasons, I'm opposed to not being able to use a weapon without performing some arbitrary action such as searching out another player or NPC*, that's why I suggested the pipboy-as-reference lampshade mechanic to smooth over the this-is-a-game-and-not-reality fundamental. I like the idea of weapon/sub-type proficiency through use, I just don't like the idea of game mechanics which feel forced and break the flow of gameplay. Other constructs could be used in place of the pipboy-reference as a way of explaining a character's instant-bare-minimum-proficiency with every weapon/sub-type (such as introduction during the tutorial/intro, etc.), the pipboy just seems ideally suited as an acceptable game-reality transition to preserve immersion.

* For some reason, I don't have the same response to inherent limitations of equipment, such as strength or agility requirements. I realise that it's quite a subtle difference and my strong reaction to having to be taught is somewhat ridiculous by comparison, but I still feel that it would interrupt gameflow.

I do agree that the pipboy is essential an 'explanation' to how we are given the slew of information we have in the game, and this fits into it. However, i wouldn't see having to seek out an NPC when you acquire a new weapon you have no familarity with.

In the above example with a pipegun user finding an M16, would you even have enough amunition to make it worth firing in anything but an emergency situation in the first place? If not, then it won't be viable to use the M16 as a replacement for a pipegun until you find a trader who could supply the ammo, and either he or one of his mercenary guards could probably show you the basics for some cash.

It would really only be an interuption of gameplay if you felt the need to imediately return to town so that you could use the weapon. If a weapon was so much better than what you had that you did want to drop everything just so you could use it, wouldn't it probably be rewarded at the end of a boss fight? In other words, it's very likely you'd already be considering heading back to town.

Flow of gameplay = Learning curve.

It′s tricky.

Well, finding someone who can teach you how to shoot or learnign about the weapon yourself is a good idea but what about finding gun magizines with basic operation and the actual operators manuel scattered in a few military out posts and bases. Desmond Lockheart. Proof that good conversation isn't dead.

The best way to avoid a Deathclaw is not to be there in the first place.

the whole having some1 to teach you would be cool if it was taught by an npc.

Marksmanship is a skill that is applicable to all firearms, I understand that no two guns are the same tho.

So I like this idea only in the case that you're specific skill with a weapon represents your familiarity with the weapon and is represented as a onetime bonus achieved overtime and that Marksmenship is a different skill. Your skill with all firearms increase as your marksmanship increases, but being familiar with a weapon gives you an edge, represented by a bonus while using a weapon you're familiar with. I also think it is unrealistic to think that someone wouldn't quickly become familiar with their weapon so I think the bonus for familiar should be achieved rather quickly and easily and shouldn't increase passed the initial familiarity bonus, by the time they're familiar with the weapon the only increase that they will realistically see to someone's effectiveness with the weapon is if their marksmanship increased. So it might just be redundant to have a familiarity bonus at all.

I also think this direction doesn't really work with SPECIAL without some serious tweekage to the skill system. But you never know, It might be a cool feature.. particularly if your familiarity with a weapon was what allowed to you repair and modify it. No having to dump points into repair just to keep your gun up to snuff. Another drunk conquistador conquering the governor's ball...

I like the idea of training, in such as way that if you find a new weapon that you haven't used before, you need some sort of training, by an NPC or a book.
As an example, Shotgun 1 has small arms requirement of 15, then your character needs to have 15 in small arms, but he still needs to visit a gunsmith\gun instructor\read a book to be able to use ("active") the weapon.
If you then later on find Shotgun 13, it requires small arms 100 and strength of 7 (it's a nasty recoil). If your character meets the requirements, he could get the training needed.

Books should have intelligence requirements, since reading a weapons manual and actually using a weapon is 2 different things, gunsmiths can only give you a basic "this is how it works" so they are free, and gun instructors can give you the full rundown for a price (based off how good the weapon is), but it gives you + something while using the weapon. You might also have different levels of training, so that you might be "forced" to travel to different locations to max out your training.

If you find a weapon that is based off something you already know, then you wouldn't need training.

SPECIAL is kinda not fitted to an MMO.. I hope they come out with a functional solution.

I think we should really stay away from level restricted weapons. They just don't feel 'fallouty' to me.

I'm sure SPECIAL can fit into an MMO though. It will probably have to be expanded on a bit, and tweaked heavily for balance purposes, but there's no reason why it shouldn't fit.