Hi All,

This is so serendipitous it's not funny. Just caught the trailer for Vegas, already drooling over the possibilities. Been playing Fallout 3 for my 6th time through now, and still loving it, but something was kicking around my head this morning that I was thinking I'd love to see in a Fallout 4, and now Vegas if you can swing it.

Fallout 3, epic game, epic win... loving the discussion on the posts so far but needed to throw this in a new thread for people to kick around. Really needing to see a destructible environment, or at least a semi destructible environment. I don't know how many times I'd go for a guy behind a tree, or soft wooden wall and I couldn't get penetration (yeah, go for the jokes now, got penetration problems). I also get that it might be a hard overhaul if you are using the engine in the game, though I would think that there could be some program and special specs done for wood and cement with a destruction point vs. HP and Damage Resistance, attributes already programmed into the game.

To share some of my frustration, would hate when there was a Super Mutant out of reach and I couldn't blow through the wall that he was hiding behind on the top of a building. Or in the Operation Anchorage Add-On, where there were mutants upstairs and couldn't get there because there were objects in the way that I couldn't blow through to get to the stairs so I could pick up gear (granted, blowing off a toe and looting the toe is cool and funny, but pretty ridiculous). Exploding cars are pimp, big love for that, but I would love to level a building with the Fatman just cause.

Thanks All, keep up the good stuff. Already looking forward to taking my next vacation in Vegas, 2077+.
~EO

While I agree that this would be a most splendid addition to the game, it will never happen. It's an enormous project implementing stuff like destructible objects, if we're talking about stuff bigger than barrels and cars. There are some excellent developer videos from the team that made Red Faction: Guerilla that you might want to watch:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2008-red-faction/36475

Not exactly done on a whim!

Completely understand that this is a rough one to throw out there... but man it would be sixy. So, if it can't drop now, in a larger game later, would be fantastic. Perhaps there are just specific points that can have it? Wooden fences, boards, trees, bushes, etc. Something though to give the feel that the shots are doing damage to the environment.

It would be sweet to have, too bad it would probably be too much trouble to implement. At least semi-destruction would be nice though, things on the level of Red Faction: Guerrilla aren't really needed for Fallout.

It would be pretty neat seeing those critical hit kills in slo-mo where your bullets are blasting holes through a wall, dust and splinters flying everywhere, before reaching their intended, hidden target.

The Gamebryo engine that Bethesda uses doesn't have destructible environments. Although it is possible through extensive modding.

At least "penetration" through walls and thin objects and such to kill the other guy on the other side.

Hellllll no, you know how hard that would be to modify the engine? This is BBC2

Be careful what you wish for. It goes both ways. They could lay the smack down on yo ass as well.

Would be great, trying to hide from a pissed-off Behemoth with that kind of engine; "I'll take cover in that old building...what is happening? Oh sh*t!" XD
I agree that some degree of destruction/bullet penetration would be cool, and maybe could be added for the new Fallout-engine (Fallout 5), to soem degree. Destructible buildings is over the top, since you probably would end up creating a huge wasteland everywhere, but bullets that can penetrate/destroy lesser materials like fences, armours, flesh etc. maybe could be an idea?

I don't know about blowing up building or walls but I would like to be able to use explosives to take out wooden doors. Fallout 2 we could do that. I believe they were programmed areas that we could. Blowing up doors or even just kicking them in would be great.

I would like things to able to burn, books, trees, beds, people to the point were they are chard charred to a crisp like fallout one and two.

This would be a huge challenge for quest design. Devs already have problems with players killing quest npcs and loosing quest items. I only see this happening for small things like bashing doors or destroying specific wall sections marked as destructible. For greater things, maybe in another kind of rpg or a Fallout strategy rpg.

Personally i would like to see an rpg being designed from the bases so that you can play the game without worrying if you kill a quest npc or loosing quest item. If someone does a game where, for instance, you can bring down the entrance to a place as a general solution to solve a quest (meaning you can bring down the entrance to ANY underground installation as long as you have the necessary equipment), this would be awesome to play.

Such rpg would very non-linear and without a story focus. The player main goal or goals would have to be an simple objective like bring down the mutant faction and secure the position and power of your vault faction by doing alliances with other factions or weakening potential treats. The way to play would be almost like playing a strategy game where quests are not mandatory story paths but just instruments for an end. This would be almost like a strategy game where the player could wreak havoc as he pleases without breaking the game.

It does not have to be a huge challenge to have destructible enviroments. There can be areas scripted to be destroyed. I only want doors made of wood to be destructible, by kicking them in or blowing them up.

For buring thing just program the items to become black and charred. It does not have to burn to ashes or have the whole building catch fire (that would be cool) but it can just burn. Set fire to a bed and it comes black and smoking.

Anyways I am not a programmer so I could be way wrong on this.

It would be nice if there was some kind of bullet penetration to the level of Modern Warfare. You can kind of kill enemies through a wall, and can only toss stuff around but not destroy it. It might work pretty well with the engine they have in place.

That's hard work. They don't have the time for that nor the budget or the engine.

The game world is too big.

BBC2?
You mean BattleField Bad Company 2?
It's BFBC2 then.

This is exactly the scenario I was thinking about. Behemoth's would actually be badass not like today where you can hide and kill them no problem. Unfortunately, we are a long ways away from that type of carnage capabilities.

I guess it depends on what do you mean by "destructible environment" and what exactly is it that you want to see happening when such environment destructs. As it is now, for things like plank barricades, the only thing the objects would need is a collision node in the mesh so you could move them around. For heavier objects like walls, which you would destroy with dynamite, or a sledge hammer, or a rocket, a cloud of smoke could be used to mask disabling the whole mesh and enabling the "hole in the wall" mesh ( although enabling-disabling show pretty fast in-game ).

The thing about kicking doors open, lock-picking is an NPC skill and part of the perk system. In real life, you'd be able to kick a wooden door open (or kick a hole in the door), pry open a cabinet or cash register, etc. if you implement that, the skill and perks related to lock-picking would have to be removed... which now that I type it, doesn't seem like a bad idea after all ...

... actually, keep lock-picking skills and perks, but give an option to the player to kick doors open or pry open containers, implementing a damaged limb system for failed attempts or attempts in general at kicking doors open or prying open containers, depending on strength and lock-picking skill level... that wouldn't be hard to implement...

A lot of a destruction engine doesn't seem to fit in Fallout. I just can't see a destruction engine in Fallout.

This would be best in the http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1081898-what-do-you-want-in-new-vegas/ topic. Thanks.