» Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:21 am It's finished. Or at least as finished as it's going to get for a few weeks (barring any issues).
I've gone through 90% of the wasteland locations (inside and outside, wastes and downtown) and added dozens or hundreds of extra traps (mostly frag mines, but also tripwires and baby carriage traps). But in the spirit of randomness and increasing replay value, only 30% of traps will appear in a given game. This does not affect existing traps, only the additional traps that have been hand placed in devious (and sometimes obvious) locations across the wastes. For example:
- Roughly 30 additional baby carriage traps were added. But untrapped baby carriages were also added across the wastes. And a small handful of the normally not dangerous baby carriages may now spawn with a frag mine nestled inside.
- About 80-90 tripwire traps were added, with grenade clusters. These were harder to place because the tripwire is of a particular length (my kingdom for a 150% length tripwire, or even a 2x longer version) and the wire that holds the grenade is over a meter long and very visible. So there were places where I wanted to put a grenade cluster, but couldn't because the hanging string would end up looking like an antennae sticking through a thin roof. I decided not to place additional shotgun or kinetic traps as they really don't scare me. If I had a grenade cluster model without the long wire, I could easily find another few dozen places. (I tried a bunch of different solutions, and decided to shelve it until New Vegas.)
- The vast majority of the new traps are frag mines. Over 260 new mines at current count (compared to 340 in the base game). These nasty little things tend to be placed in groups of 2-4 at a location, and they can be placed just about anywhere. So the total quantity rose quickly as I worked my way across the wastes. And I still have a few dozen locations that need attention (but won't get it for a few weeks). 95% of them are easily seen, as long as you are looking. They are out in the open, and not hidden inside clumps of grass. A few, however, are hidden from view (I can think of 3 where I was super sneaky and covered it with another Havoc object). That doesn't count the mines placed in plain sight pretending to be normal disarmed "loot" mines that you see on shelves and tables. Sometimes they get mixed in with normal inactive "loot" mines (maybe they turned themselves on in the decades that they've been laying there).
(Hopefully we'll see new "things that go boom" in New Vegas as well as new types of triggers. Or maybe I'll have figured out Blender and NIF by then.)
The general effect on performance is absolutely minimal. The objects, when they load for the first time, calculate a random number and then either stay in place or disable/markfordelete themselves. Worst case, you'll hit a cell where I added a dozen entities. But it should not be noticeable at all. Loading the new area from disk as you move across the wastes probably introduces more lag then such minimal scripting on a few dozen objects. At least, I hope not. Testing seems to indicate that all is well, however.
Its effect on your gameplay... may be a bit profound. Especially if you use "Deadlier Explosive Traps" along side it (or some other realism mod). With traps appearing in new locations, you can't trust your memory any longer. If you haven't visited an area yet in this play after installing the mod, there's a good chance that a nasty surprise might be waiting for you. You're going to have to treat every doorway, every narrow passage, and every suspicious looking setup as potentially deadly. Those mines on the shelf over there? Yeah, you might want to turn off the Pipboy light and see if any lights are glowing. That baby carriage? Give it a wide berth until you can check inside.
Running through Dupont Circle? Only if you're suicidal. The raiders now have extra toys and they won't be blown up by their own mines any more.
Not to mention all the additional toys that Reilly's Rangers left behind...
Save early, save often, and watch where you put your feet.
But my character is level 13 or so, and is wearing the Regulator's leather duster so she doesn't have a lot of DR yet. It's just not possible to run away from the frag mine fast enough to survive with Deadlier Explosive Traps installed. :dead: With a bit more DR and health, it'll be survivable, but will still take a big chunk of health away. So it's a very evil pair of mods when combined.
