http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3888 the link.and here's a description from the author:



I've tried contacting him to no avail.

It's for those of us who play melee/unarmed at no/less hp increase per level

I haven't used that mod myself, but it sounds like it just alters basic game values, same that exist in new Vegas? Meaning you could just change the parent to new vegas (instead of fallout3) and be good to go.

edit: For example, I use fallout 3's No auto aim: headshot edition, by simply changing it to use new vegas esm.

took a look at it to see if it was something i could do myself but it had scripts too complex for me, perks, quests and whatnot. point is, its not just game setting changes unfortunately.

Yes please! This mod had a permanent place in my Fallout 3 load-order, because it got rid of the ridiculous VATS-faceblasting in melee range. I would be really happy if some kind modder would port it. =)

Well hey, colour me super-surprised to see this thread here, I had no idea anybody actually used that mod. Apologies for not getting back to you, I don't seem to have gotten the message (I've been awol for a fair while). My memory on all this is super-hazy, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Pretty sure it ran via an always-on hidden quest with the main script running as a questscript for that every half-second or something, and using hidden perks and/or spell effects to effect the penalties. So as Mavkiel said, if new vegas runs all those in a pretty similar manner, there's no real reason you couldn't try just calling the esp a new vegas esp and seeing if it works.

One caveat is that the character-detection functions in Fallout 3 (ie GetDetected or whatever) were all a little flaky (to say the least) so some of it was workaround stuff to deal with its foibles. I don't know if New Vegas has fixed that, and I don't know what stage the new vegas version of FOSE is up to now, and whether it has the appropriate functions yet.

Anyway probably worth giving the old esp a try, if it doesn't work I might look into making a new version of it for new vegas but I can't make any promises.

i sent you a message on the nexus not here. anyway, mighty glad to see you as i didnt realize you were on these forums too and all the more that for the possibility of bringing it over to NV.

EDIT: something someone said on the nexus forums made me wonder, can we have an aoe effect cast on any actor fighting unarmed/melee that gives ranged enemies within melee range increased gun spread? this is in case porting it using the same methods dont work because of some differences bet FO3 and NV or NVSE and FOSE

The problem with that, IIRC, is that you'd pretty much have to edit every individual NPC in the world, which is not only impractical but also messy as hell. The way I did it was just by a scan of NPCs in the current and surrounding cells and applying stuff based on that (with FOSE functions). So yeah I guess you could use those same functions to put spell effects on individual actors and run scripts on them individually. Not 100% sure of the pros and cons of such an approach, might even be better (could then potentially work for player-neutral fights as well like NCR vs legion; pretty sure my current script just does NPCs vs player and companions). Potentially a performance hog though, I guess? Detection stuff can be pretty taxing, as I recall. And even incredibly severe accuracy penalties never seemed to have a very noticeable effect on NPC accuracy anyway. Dunno. And I've just remembered the problem wasn't the detection anyway, it was that there was no proper function for determining friend-or-foe that actually worked consistently. I'll look into whether that's been fixed up at all.

Anyway I've looked through the GECK wiki and the NVSE notes and they seem to be pretty much the same as their fallout 3 equivalents so I suspect a straight port would work just fine. I'm at work now but I might give it a bit of a go tonight and see what happens.

EDIT: If anyone tries running the esp in new vegas, I have a feeling it checks for whether you have the appropriate version of FOSE, and given that NVSE is technically in beta then this might cause it to not do anything.
Also I looked at the comments for the mod on the nexus and it seems people wanted an exception for shotguns & flamers. I kind of considered that the exception already was that the spread meant that they were the only weapons where you still had half a chance of hitting stuff as your crosshair flailed around wildly, but I guess I could maybe stick in some additional special exception for them as an optional extra.

this sounds like a great mod. any effect that is universally applied (or gives the AI a slight edge) is perfect in my book.

hope porting this to NV works, as i am already considering a must for my next ninja char

Yeah so I can confirm I've managed to get it working pretty much exactly as implemented in FO3, though I had to change a bunch of stuff under the hood.
And I've stuck in some stuff to make the effect on shotguns and flamers not so heavy (in VATS only).
I'd like to find a way to properly penalise NPCs as well though (they get a huge penalty to weapon skills at the moment and not much else, since I can't give them perks), but I'm not sure how possible it is.
Anyway I guess I can probably throw out an initial release pretty soon, maybe on the weekend.

great news. that was quick

Anyway, since I've gone to the trouble of porting this thing over, I've been looking into improving it a bit at the same time.
So far: the detrimental effects of having a ranged weapon in melee (for the player) are mitigated somewhat by higher levels of melee/unarmed skills (whichever is higher). Still extremely brutal though, especially at low melee/unarmed.
Shotguns/flamers aren't quite so hard-hit in VATS
Better method of increasing AP costs of shooting in melee (more compatible with other mods).
Started rebalancing for the changed accuracy/spread formulas in New Vegas

But it's still proving very difficult to give meaningful penalties to NPCs who are caught in close combat with a ranged weapon, due to certain technical limitations
So I'm looking into taking the road of rewarding the player for using a melee/unarmed weapon against a gun-wielding enemy. Hopefully this should extend to companions when I figure out companion perks. This should effectively simulate the same sort of penalties for NPCs.
Main ideas I'm looking into:
Gun Parry: When carrying a melee or unarmed weapon, any enemy wielding a ranged weapon in melee range (and if possible, limited to those within the front 180 degrees) will miss with n% of shots (where n may or may not vary depending on your melee/unarmed skill and/or whether they're carrying a long or short arm). "Misses" done by a massively increased DT on random % hits. This is my frontrunner since it's pretty directly equivalent to the player's penalty. The only problem is that there will still be some small bleedthrough of damage, no matter how high the DT. Also armour condition damage, but I'm 90% sure this can be overcome.

Some % chance of an effect when you hit an enemy: eg stumble/drop weapon/knockdown. Not 100% sure about this, and not sure it's actually really possible anyway. Yes Super Slam does something very similar, but its effect is remarkably specific and can't really be reworked.

A general-purpose combat bonus for melee/unarmed vs guns: Honestly feels a bit lazy and fudgey
More likely effects - increased critical chance, increased critical damage, resistant to criticals, increased VATS hit chance
Less likely - DT increase, damage increase, attack speed increase

Anyway if anyone has any thoughts on all this, please let me know!


Yeah well it's mostly just lucky timing, since I only just finished New Vegas a few days ago!
It does mean it'll take a while longer to port my spiky hats across though....

spiky hats can wait

i can't wait for this mod. i feel it is a much needed game mechanic. should really help my melee char with my IWS + XFO game.

also, if you are taking suggestions, i think an increased chance to disarm enemies with guns would be very helpful. when dealing with groups of gun-wielding enemies being able to quickly disarm one or two would really even the odds.

Spiky hats are being worked on simultaneously

Yeah I've been playing with XFO myself, and I sort of intend it to be used with that or similar high-damage overhaul mods, where melee and unarmed simply can't compete (because you're so often getting shot to death before you even get close). I gather from the main forum that melee and unarmed are already more powerful than guns in vanilla...so I guess this wouldn't be needed in a vanilla game.


I agree, but I don't know of any way to actually put this in properly with the available tools in the geck. I can think of a really fudgey way to do it, which would add a chance to drop their gun from any hits they take when they're in melee; but it would still apply to any hits that they got from someone else shooting at them as well. Also, I'm kinda wary that it might make looting corpses really annoying since their weapons won't be in their inventories any more. Obviously you'd want to make very sure that companions didn't suffer from this because that would just be all kinds of painful.

id be satisfied with increased gun spread at melee range actually since the FO3 version worked very well for me. im working on something to make close combat better with (tentatively) unarmed more focused on disables (disarming, crippling, knocking out maybe depending on which limb is hit) and melee being the more offensive option (damage, knockdowns)

The problem is that increasing gun spread for NPCs in the same way as for the player isn't really feasible - you can give them gun skill 0 but they'll still hit you overwhelmingly often when you're in melee; and you can't give them extra gun sway/spread since that's only done via a perk entry point or the weapon itself which you can't directly reference. Hence the separate penalties to NPCs.
Anyway I also kinda wanted a bit more carrot for actually going with melee/unarmed, to go with the stick of penalising guns.
I'm probably going to start with just having them "miss" some of their shots and see if that works; and I can always make a lite version as well that's pretty close to the FO3 version.
Anyway I like the sound of your mod! I'm certainly happy to try my best to keep the two compatible.

Don't forget "Killbunny!"

So here's where it stands at the moment:

When player has a ranged weapon out and is under attack by a melee/unarmed assailant:

Loss of guns/energy weapons/explosives skills - based on the highest of the player's (modified) unarmed/melee skills.
With a pistol - 36 points lost from each at unarmed/melee 0, ranging down to 18 at skill 100.
With a rifle/heavy weapon - 72 points lost from each at unarmed/melee 0, ranging down to 36 at skill 100.

Weapon sway - significantly increased, mitigated at higher unarmed/melee skill (again, whichever is higher).
Doubled for rifles compared to pistols

VATS to-hit penalty (over and above those from the above penalties).
Doubled for rifles compared to pistols.
Reduced somewhat for shotguns and flamers.
Less extreme for torso shots, more extreme for limbs/head

Increased AP costs for shots
1.5x for pistols, 2x for rifles

When a player is attacking an enemy in melee range with melee/unarmed and the enemy has a ranged weapon:

Huge loss of guns/energy weapons/explosive skills

Shots hitting the player will have a chance to "miss" - simulating the player's reduced chance to hit (due to the workings of the DT mechanism, the misses will still cause minor damage)
25-50% of shots from a pistol-wielding enemy (based on the player's skill with their equipped weapon type)
50-75% of shots from a rifle-wielding enemy (as above)

When an NPC enemy attacks a follower or vice versa:

Massive loss of weapon skills only
I would like to have the player's bonuses/penalties apply to followers, and I was excited about the new possibilities of companion perks - but the way perk entries work, I'm not sure it's quite possible.

Anyway I've held off from any stagger/disarm effects so far, and I think I might leave it that way. I've found a way I could do it but I'm not sure I want to.
I'm still testing the magnitude of the penalties/bonuses too, they may need some reworking.



http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/9458/screenshot8t.jpg

sounds good. i agree about leaving stagger/disarm alone.

how did you manage the miss chance? is it by a triggered heal? im planning to use such a system to simulate an "evasion" perk for unarmed.

looking forward to this!

Nah nothing that fancy, just a perk with the entry point for "modify damage threshold (defender)" set to add 1000 when certain conditions were met (appropriate weapons/distance/GetRandomPercent). So it still does let a bit of damage through (20% in vanilla), since DT won't completely remove damage by default. I think I know a method to do a triggered heal as well for that little extra bit, and I might actually add that as well to make it all a little neater. Doubt I could get rid of the "hit" visual effects though.
I think that this perk entry point is perhaps just about the only way of recording what/who you've just been hit by; so you could run a separate quest script running every frame that checks for something like actor.getav damagethreshold >= 1000 to add back any change in health suffered that frame (I hope there's some way of returning an actor's DT rather than just legacy DR stuff from FO3 - all the wiki offers is getav DamageResist and GetArmorRating, neither of which fills me with confidence). I might try it when I get home and see if it works.

EDIT: seems that player.getav damagethreshold will do the trick - from http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1144567-getarmorrating-equivalent-for-dt/page__p__16730157__hl__dt__fromsearch__1#entry16730157

doesnt seem like itll work for my dodge concept. wouldnt modifying DT when those conditions are met affect even damage sources outside that range? If the DT is added when say 1) being attacked at melee, 2) by guns, 3) GetRandomPercent success, it seems t me that even shots from beyond melee, or by grenades would be affected by the extra DT.

iit looks like "dodge" would be better simulated by an OnHit effect but im not sure of the best way to do it

Yeah but it's just a DT increase for either the specific attack or (I hope, and think is more likely) for the frame in which the attack dealt its damage. So yeah if it's the latter, if you're hit by two sources in the same frame then it's going to affect them both. But realistically, that's such an incredibly infrequent event that it's not really worth worrying about.
I've been testing it with a bit of debug script that returns any changes in the player's health and the magnitude, and it only affects those attacks from melee-range enemies, even when I'm being attacked by others from long range. Definitely works as advertised.

If you're not fussed about the source of the damage, then just a script monitoring changes in player.getav health from frame to frame would do the job.

Is the GetRandomPercent condition on an EntryPoint calculated per frame? i was going to default to the player.getav health unless i found (or more likely, unless someone told me ) of a better way. im not at all saying the DT method wouldnt work for your Melee mod (will it still have the same name btw?), but i had doped to make dodge success based not just on randompercent but more dynamically on defender skill and stats vis the attacker;s. failing that though, it's as good a method as any.

Yeah that's how it works, sort of. I don't know if the entry point is calculated per frame, or within some subframe unit.
I just used a few entry points that have differing player skill requirements, so one with requirement player.getav meleeweapons < 50 AND getrandompercent <25 AND target's getweaponanimtype < 4 AND target.getdistance player < 250 for example.
If you wanted a more complex formula, you could have a quest script that calculates a percentage dynamically based on skills and whatever other factors you like, and feeds that number to a global
Then call it within the DT increase perk entry point with the condition GetRandomPercent < YourGlobal

i was wondering about the progress of this mod? norbingel's project sounds good, as well. i am really looking forward to both.

melee chars need all the help they can get it in an increased dmg set up.