I know I'm a little behind on the whole Modding NV-scene, but I figured I'd look into converting one of my unfinished-FO3 Mods over to NV. Why was it unfinished on FO3? Well, because the way it was structured/idea was a bit glitchy, and it made Ghouls almost impossible to beat-- I wanted a challenge, but not THAT much of a Challenge...

So, what is Ghoul Rising?

Well, it's a Ghoul Enhancement Mod-- it uses NVSE to affect all NPC Ghouls, both Ferals and NPCs/Non-Ferals. It is designed to make Ghouls a little more of a challenge-- after all, they are basically the Fallout Universe's equivelant of Zombies. Although it contradicts the Lore slightly, Ghouls can now only be permanently put-down by destroying their heads. You can still "kill" Ghouls by shooting them elsewhere, but as long as the head is intact, they will revive after a short time, and come after you again. You have enough time between stopping them and their resurrection to put a few rounds in their heads, and finish them off for good.

(Now, doesn't that sound vaguely familiar? Yep-- it was the Dead Money Ghosts who inspired the change: in the original FO3 version of Ghoul Rising, I had it set so that ONLY Head damage counted, with all other damage being negated-- this is why it became so difficult. Having seen the Ghosts, I decided to incorporate their rise-back-up aspect).

Ghouls also receive several additional benefits:
- Increased Health
- Increased Damage Resistance
- Steady Healing Factor

They can also gain bonus stats that make them tougher again (only 2 so far, but hopefully more)
- Boosted Health (+200 Health)
- Boosted Damage Threshold

Current Progress:
- Ghouls Die Correctly when their Head is destroyed
- Ghouls Resurrect if their Head is not destroyed
- New XP Calculations
- Pre-Dead Ghouls Unaffected
- Ghouls Receive Bonuses

Current Issues:
- Old XP still Awarded
- Ghouls Receive all Bonuses, for some reason

Further Aims:
- Additional Bonuses
- More Ghoul Spawns
- New Ghoul Types
- Player Perks

Ghouls are not zombies... Ghouls = living mutated humans, zombies = undead/reanimated corpses.

"...contradicts the Lore slightly", talk about an understatement!

Excellent, one of the features of MMM i hoped would make it to NV. Now all i need is Feral Ghoul Rampage ^_^

Oh no, you're not one of those Ghoul-Rights people, are you? [Laughs -- Yes, I'm joking ]. Seriously, though, you're right, I could have worded that better-- what I kind of meant is that they're "Zombies" in so far as they're rotting should-be-dead-but-aren't-things, with the Ferals in particular being mindless and hostile

Some minor progress/update:
- Turns out they're not becoming immortal with my Bonuses It's just that their increased Health isn't reflected on the Health Bar... So if they have 100 Health normally, and I give them 100 more so they have 200, their Health bar is still registering 100, and the first 100 you take off doesn't show... No idea why that is, but it's only minor if they actually are taking damage.

- Spawning works: so far, each Ghoul has a 25% chance 4 times over to spawn another Ghoul. So one Ghoul can spawn upto four, potentially. Spawned Ghouls CANNOT Spawn more Ghouls (for obvious reasons), and NPCs do not Spawn Ghouls.

ToJKa, could you tell me more about MMM's Ghoul stuff? I never used it myself (I couldn't really get into FO3 too much, so stuck to the base game mostly)-- did MMM do something very similar, or just tough in general?

MMM had a ghoul rise option very similar to what you are planning. If a ghoul's legs (technical limitation) or head was left undamaged there was a change (percentage you could set yourself) for the ghouls to rise.

Feral Ghoul Rampage multiplied the number of basic Feral Ghouls but also made them very weak. This resulted in some of the more populated metro tunnels having hundreds of ghouls :bolt:

Mart also made Glowing Ones explode and spread radiation when killed, and had a new tough but slow Rambler ghoul.

Good times ^_^

Interesting...

Well, this has no percentage-- it's guarenteed, so that's a difference at least (obviously that's because of my personal idea when I was working on GR:FO)

Spawning is here, too-- but not on that scale; although, I suspect it would not be too difficult to add a flag that could be set to make more of them, and add a hidden perk to the PC if I wanted to take that route

Making them explode-- that was something I wanted, but could never get working I wanted "Suicide-Ghouls"-- they run at you, freeze, shake violently, and then explode-- you;'d have a second or two to get away from them; as I say, I could never get it to work properly, so WD to MMM for pulling something similar off

I may have a slow Ghoul-- I've already been thinking of a Fast Ghoul type (weak, but much quicker).

Edit:
OK, well, I wasn't planning to do any more today, but gave it a go anyhow--
I've added 3 commands (via console)
- One lets you determine the maximum number of Spawns (4 is Default; It doesn't seem to spawn more than 30, even set to 100; I recommend about 10 at most)
- One lets you set the Spawn Chance (25% by Default)
- One lets you add a Damage Boost agaisnt Ghouls (20X Damage on Feral Ghouls -- It's meant to be used with a high Spawn number/Percentage combo)

Just a small update, y'all-- I've hit a bizzare issue Somehow, my Mod is deactivating the collision on all the floor meshes... i.e., you can still use doors and terminals, et cetera, but the floor is no longer solid :S I have no idea why this has happened, and it's set me back a fair bit, since I have no idea how to resolve it just now... :S

Try checking the changes included (in FNVedit or something) and see if you've accidentally deleted something?

How are you getting around the issue that players may explode the ghoul's legs, only to have it get up and attack again? I imagine this is the issue that that Martigen ran into, and why he set MMM ghouls to die on head or leg.

Nothing that shouldn't be altered has been I've re-made the Mod from scratch, and it SEEMS to have resolved the no-collision floor-- but I'm still getting an issue with resurrection now (specifically, Ghouls sink through the floor, apparently because they resurrect part-way through the collision...) and sometimes FLOAT!! Gah! I have no idea about why that is, but have a possible solution, so fingers crossed

@willburr
Right now, nothing-- but what I'll probably do is make their legs indestructable. It's too bad there's no way to make them crawl-- now that would be terrifying: you blow its legs off, but it comes dragging itself along! Unfortunately, indestructable legs may be a little un-immersive, but I think it's better than just having them float on invisible legs...

Another small update, y'all : the main Mod is working perfeclty right now, it seems However, the balance is an issue...
Arriving at the Rocket Base, I ended up being confronted by 30!! Ghouls (approx. 25. Feral/Roamer, 5 Glowing Ones) -- their original Resistance and Health boosts were way too high, making them almost impossible to kill. I've toned them back down to normal, and for the most part that seems OK -- still quite challenging in large numbers, but not too bad, overall.

Edit:
Now added- "New Ghoul" variants
Ghouls can spawn with one of 21 different Ghoul Types, spread over several categories
- Feral Ghoul
- Feral Ghoul Roamer
- Glowing One
- Feral Ghoul Reaver
- Feral Ghoul Runner -- Fast but weak
- Feral Ghoul Skirmisher - Larger, Stronger
- Abomination - Sturdy but weak