Hello everyone!

I've been thinking about how the Raiders somehow keep together as a pretty global group, and doesn't squabble an fight amongst themselves. Has anyone made a mod that divides the Raiders into different factions that actually fight each other? I searched the Nexus but couldn't find anything. It makes a lot more sense that they not only fight travellers and other wastelanders but also other "gangs" of Raiders.

This wouldn't make much difference in the vanilla game since Raiders seldom meet other Raiders except for the ones they live with. But in doing this it would be possible to add Raider patrols that wander the world, fighting everyone, even other oppposing Raider groups. It would make for a nice "alternate start" mod to be able to join one of the Raider gangs and work to bring them up to the top of the food chain. And it would make more sense than just "Raiders kill everyone except all other Raiders, even the ones they've never met before".
While at it you might just as well give them different gang names, for example The Jackals, The Vipers and The Khans... And maybe attempt to differentiate the groups visually as well.

At least I like the idea, and I would enjoy playing a gang-war type quest, starting out as a small gang constantly set upon by the larger groups, then working your way up to gain respect and fear among both other Raiders and "civilians". Of course never reaching a "safe position", but at least some small improvements for each step up the ladder.
Embiggening your gangs territory, increasing the number of members in the gang, keeping rebellious members down and fighting the other gangs for supremacy


I don't have time to do something like this so I thought I'd leave the idea here, lets see if there's any interest.

This concept is sorely needed in both Fallout3 and Oblivion really.

Having randomly generated monsters that attack can seem immersive as they often lack intelligence, but this falls down with what are supposed to be intelligent creatures.

So Bethesda put in the game bandits, raiders, marauders, and other scum and also gave the player the option to be as evil as they want to be, yet raiders (or bandits and Marauders) will always unfriendly to the player? Let's not even talk about the lack of smarts that results in bandits in Oblivion trying to rob a walking tank of magical might or raiders attacking a power armored fatman wielding tank.

A truly fleshed out game would have all factions human like joinable and at least a minor story line for each. With oblivion OOO (despite whatever other issues the overhaul might have) fixed the faction relationships so that the player is not the center of the world.

Raiders need their story and place in the sun. They are organized too as evidenced by their activities, but toward what? Could your player organize them?

Then also supermutants - who are supposedly originally humans who are mutated into these yellow green weirdos. They are ravenous to kidnap the humans but not labs or mutation areas are found. No plot as to why they are doing this.
Also are the centaurs what they congregate with? Where are the women supermutants?

Faction overhaul would be great where there is limits to what you can belong to at one time instead of join all and rise to the top of everything - because we're not limiting your character and other bethesda mottoes.

Very true Psymon, the goblin clans in Oblivion are a little more interesting though. They actually have different factions, and they don't like each other very well. The reason for not expanding this into bandits and marauders was probably lack of time, or cash. Of course regarding faction joining and all that they fudged it pretty good in Oblivion, making it possible to become top man of the Thieves guild, Dark brotherhood, Mages guild and Fighters guild is just plain silly. I guess they didn't want to repeat the same mistake and at the same time didn't want to bother with making a proper system for faction joining and therefore just left it all out of Fallout...

Now onto Fallout, about super mutants. You might not have played the original Fallout? They actually have a story there, and it is possible to take that story and apply it to Fallout 3 and "just go with it". The difference being that Fallout 3 supermutants are also superstupid, which the original ones weren't. And they do have a "homebase" of some sort in Fallout 3, maybe we just can't find the door to the lab part of the complex? Centaurs are as far as I can tell simply humans that failed the supermutantification, or possibly other animals that they tried to supermutantify. Female supermutants may simply look exactly like the male supermutants, they are infertile in Fallout 1, maybe they look the same as well?

But of course, these are things that I've pieced together by myself, most likely 80% based on earlier games, other Fallout lore and my own imagination. So your argument is still valid for Fallout 3 itself - There's a bit too few explanations in there, add some and the game would become lots more interesting.

My thought is that really its the functionality and mechanics of factions that needs the overhauled firstly and then adding new content to flesh the factions out.

So like with Oblivion Oscuro's Overhaul really did an amazing job in addressing the factions - when i plugged that in I felt like part of a world and less part of a video game. I was not always the center of attention and people fought each other and sometimes me instead of always me.

Oscuro, I think, works for Bethesda now and is working on Fallout Las Vegas (if I got all that right) still some of his ideas leaked into F3 for sure. I do see factions fight each other but then there still there is nothing to them.

Supermutants kidnap people and handcuff them and put them on their knees (and that is it). Very few unique bosses and certainly not a reason that all raiders look and dress the same. I mean I get that everyone is surviving the wasteland, but they seem more to be roaming than hunkered down in a crappy settlement or joining fascist military extensions. But even as roaming they would likely have regular haunts and places to re-up their supplies and bed down and don't they steal kids too?

Basically as they are now they are just fodder with Supermutants being more dangerous versions.

I've seen disguise mods but then so what are the raiders gonna even talk about if you fool them simply by dressing like them? Nothing.

No I never played the first two - I've seen the repackaged Fallout series but I have trouble going as far back as morrowind with games, so likely I never will.

The supermutants in FO3 are described as being different from the muatants in the west by the brotherhood, guess because they are the results of a different streak of the FEV.
I had the impression that humans are indeed taken to their base, it's only that you never encounter the areas where new mutants are "produced".
As for their motivation in FO3, I somehow thougth that would probably be explained in some DLC or in Fallout (3+x).

What I would have loved is some quest or interaction (except for killing everything) connected to Evergreen Mills.
Just look at this place - it's huge and pretty detailed - much more so than e.g. Canterbury Commons. Yet there is almost nothing you can do there that you couldn't do at every other raider-infested place.
Strangely there doesn't seem to be a mod for that yet either, or I haven't found it.

I agree that it all boils down to factions, and interaction between factions. Or more precisely the lack of interaction between factions. It's a shame that factions are so difficult in regards to mod compatibility, otherwise I think we would've seen more of that. Or it's just a matter of taste, maybe most players like their Raiders as gunfodder?

Evergreen Mills has been on my mind as well! I completely agree with you. I was even convinced up until your post that there was a quest there that I had missed, but I guess I should drop that dream
I would see Evergreen Mills as a gathering point for the Capitol Wasteland Raiders, a "safe haven" where gangs meet to discuss terms of mutual existence and such things, a trading post between gangs, slaves and drugs being the prevalent goods of course. And I too have been searching for mods about the place, but there just doesn't seem to be any interest in fleshing out the Raiders faction, except for giving them new tattoos and equipment, and making them all women and taking their clothes off, and giving you the ability to "join" them without it ever making any difference whatsoever, except making the wasteland a little bit safer, and decreasing your experience gain.

If only I had the time... I might be able to put something together...

As is, I already waste too much time on playing, to start modding myself...
But I think Evergreen Mills has lots of potential!

Your ideas sound really good. Adding a few small quests to Evergreen Mills could be pretty easy I think.
E.g. the token damsel-in-distress quest:
You are hired by some wastelanders/inhabitants of some settlement to bring back some people that have been hijacked by the raiders.
You could then try the diplomatic route (speech), pay some ransom (barter), simply rush in and kill the raiders (kapow), or maybe sneak in and set the Behemoth free to cause some distraction (sneak).
Of course for that to work the Evergreen Mills raiders should be set neutral to the player.

Supermutants, during transformation via FEV all take on the same appearence. A note in Vault 87 describes it as "becoming a clean slate". I hope that helps your confusion.

I'd also like to point out that this would require creating custom NPC's for each Raider gang. In FO3 all Raider and Supermutant NPC's have randomly determined preset appearences and traits, none of them are special. You would have to alter or create new Raider spawnlists for every Raider spawn in the Wasteland to make sure Raiders from different gangs don't spawn in the same base and start killing eachother.

Adjusting their allignment won't do much either, it's the aggresiveness level that determines whether or not NPC's want to kill.

Clean slate - Tabla Rasa ... upon which something is written.

Supermutants are made from kidnapped humans who are made into a clean slate in order to ... make more supermutants?

Their existence then seems even more drab than all the other beings in the game. Have they no higher purpose? Why were they programed thus?

I don't even really play at the moment, I manage to waste my time with other crap...
Well yeah, I didn't think of making quests that doesn't directly involve Raiders, but that would be interesting as well.


I thought I'd seen something like that on the supermutants as well.
And you are right about the Raiders, new references would have to be made, but that wouldn't be all too difficult, just duplicate the current Raider NPCs into the number of Raider factions you'd want, change them around to be slightly different from each other, add them to new spawnlists, and exchange the existing spawnlists at some of the Raider spawn locations. Preferrably making it so that each gang seems to own a territory, the area depending on gang importance. Add some patrols that move around the wasteland, kill squads if you will, that enter nearby gangs territory and try to take over. As well as Raider traders that travel to Evergreen Mills to make deals.

It's timeconsuming, that much I know, but not really that difficult. The difficulty comes in if you want to have them joinable with quests and all that.


Actually I'm not sure they need much else than that. Why do molerats exist? What is there ulterior motive? They live to eat, sleep and reproduce. The supermutants eat flesh, they sleep(?) and they reproduce by supermutantification. They can be considered a beast, living for the sake of living.

They are confirmed as being different from the original mutants, who's ulterior motives was to take over the world, as they considered themselves superior beings. So why not simply being failed mutants that only knows how to make more of themselves and revel in killing and eating other living creatures.

Again, I know what you are getting at, it would be cool if they had a history behind them, someone pulling the strings, but I wouldn't say they really need it.

As a sidenote: How the heck has the mutants not been able to enter Little Lamplight? It's just friggin' silly that the kids would able to fight them off. No gorram way. So maybe they don't like to eat kids? Or kids make no good supermutants, just as with ghouls, who at least tell you that they usually are ignored. Drawing another piece of information from the older games, supermutantification doesn't turn out well if the target has been exposed to too much radiation, the supermutants in Fallout 3 doesn't seeem to make this distinction, which may be why they have no intellect to speak of. And also may be why they have lost their original goal, the stupid ones became to many, they didn't agree with their smarter brothers and drove them away, and soon they didn't know anything except "human turns mutant in this machine", "we like mutants", "let's put humans in here". Most of you know that there is a character in the game who hints at such behaviour.


Hmm, would anyone like to play as a supermutant? It would take twice as much work as the Raider idea, but it should be possible. If anyone wants to spice up the supermutants that is, add some kind of random encounter where you risk being captured, then you would have to try and escape, if you fail, they turn you into a supermutant
I actually thought it might be possible to keep playing after supermutantification in Fallout 1, you don't technically die from it. But alas, I was wrong.