Also, do you think Beth will bring back the Zeta themselves? I personally don't think so, as there are far more interesting DLC to make and MZ wasn't all that popular.

Anyway, if any of you Bethesda guys give me a secret wink or handshake or something, I will tone down my efforts ;p

I doubt that Beth would use anything from MZ in a new DLC. I think its a great idea. If you were to recreate the ship it could be ported legally to any future Fallout games as well, so it would be worth the effort. I could see the Lone Wanderer appearing in his ship filled with cool memorabilia collected from the F3 world. Would be interested in seeing progress pics on this. Good luck. Its a big job

I'm already working on that... recreating the models is a pain, but you only need a few different kits for the interiors. In any case, the ship would be larger than the original, since we only get to see something like 1/3 of it in Fallout 3.

Animation is something I haven't done before, so I'll either learn or someone will do it for me. I'm dreaming of a flying alien craft that the player can ride in, but it remains to be seen whether or not it can be done in the same way as the vertibirds.

Here's some WIP pics:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/images/11671

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/Images/11778

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/images/11755

Looks neat.

I'm pretty sure, from what I've seen of the way they fly and behave, that the vertibirds are creatures based on the dragons in Skyrim. There are/were a few mods for controlling the flight of dragons in Skyrim, so I'm sure the same is possible for vertibirds.

However, there may be issues of the ship being able to fly through buildings. You'll see sometimes in FO4 a vertibird will clip through the top of a very tall building or (for example) the rigging/masts of the USS Constitution. As I understand it, the game includes a lot of data associated with the scenery telling the vertibirds where they can and cannot fly, and if their pathing code can't sort out a correct route over or around, then they just go through. With the player controlling them directly, that may be more of a problem.

Or not, I could be talking complete rubbish .

Alternatively, I'm hoping to make a flyable UFO mod by re-writing my scripts for my dwemer flying machine (link in my signature), and I'd be very happy for you to use it. Or you could have a go at applying the scripts (with any necessary changes) yourself. Lots of comments in the code, but it is pretty involved. I'm hoping to simplify things a bit in a rewrite. There's also a PDF file on my mod's Nexus page which gives information on the machine's NIF structure.

[edit]

I almost forgot - the plus point of my mod is no clipping. Plus heat-seeking missiles for taking down those pesky BOS vertibirds, if you're so inclined . The downside is unresolved bugs .

Just don't do the whole "Oh look it's the lone wanderer", numerous skyrim mods tried to do "Oh look it's a previous protag" and it's just the most facepalmingly annoying thing.

@Andyw. Yeah, I came to the same conclusion about them being creatures. Flying in the UFOs would mostly be quest related, and there would be no reason to make them steerable by the player. Pathing is unpredictable, so it might be necessary to do everything by scripting and/or animation. The game has all sorts of elevators, swaying boats and moving stuff in it, so making people stick to moving objects may be a bit easier than earlier games. The interesting part is when vertibirds dock at the Prydwen, it might be possible in theory to use the same mechanic for UFOs docking with the Mothership, but my animation skills are nonexistent at this time (I'm guessing it's a type of furniture).

I will remember your mod If I ever need to write the code for flying UFOs

@Cider Nah, that was never my intention. I don't want to make any recaps of FO3 events other than what is necessary for the plot - It wouldn't be immediately obvious who the LW is, but it would be hinted at by dialogue. The Sole Survivor of course knows very little about the LW to begin with, as NPCs in FO4 tend to mention FO3 events only in passing. And of course, nobody would call the LW "The Lone Wanderer" it's a ridiculous title and the LW wouldn't be alone in any respect whatsoever


Besides the LW, I would rely heavily on the few NPC's who stayed on board the Zeta, Sally, Elliot Tercorien and Toshiro Kago, plus a few new characters.

On a fun note, have you ever looked at the USS constitution do a move with dead bodies on the deck? None of the items made it to its new home, instead got flung in a mass burial at sea. The reason I bring it up, is because of the weird physics involved. (And its something to note, that the robots and such didnt get thrown off)

@Mavkiel, That actually makes some sense. If I remember correctly though, the robots actually do disappear from deck and reappear once the constitution crashes. I've seen videos of people staying on for the ride, and it isn't the smoothest thing imaginable. The constitution isn't a creature at least, so probably pre-animated.

I felt bad for killing the alien that crashed in the common wealth. Beth could've handled it with a quest to heal him and get his ship fixed so he could return home. The reward could've been the Alien Blaster. But nope, they just said, 'Kill him.'


I think this is a cool concept, OP.

Thanks! The alien ship was barely damaged at all, at least not on the outside, so it could have been fixed.

I still have a lot of work to do on the plot, but diplomacy with aliens is definitely going to be involved.

Star trek level of diplomacy, Star wars, or Babylon 5? Anyhow that whole alien crash reminded me of the movie enemy mine. The plot of the movie were two races at war crash land on a planet. Both of them have to work together to survive. Not sure why it reminded me of the movie, because the in game event quickly turned into a kill and loot event.