"The Gunsmith: A Fallout New Vegas Crafting Experience
Brought to you by: GammaGulp! Ghoulishly Crisp Beer.








I.) What is Presenting: "The Gunsmith", exactly?

A.) Presenting: "The Gunsmith" is a mod created with the hopes of -completely- retooling the way that you use the repair and crafting functions of Fallout: New Vegas. The objective of Presenting: The Gunsmith is, first and foremost, to make it possible for the player to disassemble a weapon or reassemble a weapon from parts, as well as using those parts for repairs. As the project proceeds, armors and other sorts of custom-made awesomeness may well be added.

I might even make it possible for 'Unique-to-You' custom equipment to be built, once some of the more amazing textures and models begin hitting the New Vegas scene. Bear in mind that I am a novice modder, at best, however, so much of this will be a learning experience in how to produce a release-quality mod.


II.) Wait, So Now Repair and Crafting is Going to be Complicated?

A.) No! Absolutely not! It is not my intention to interfere with the standard method of repair at all... and, in fact, I intend to be -using- the included crafting system to make this mod possible. Already, I have begun creating comprehensive lists of what sorts of bits and bobs I want to be involved in the process of making a gun. For the time being, (until I can find a soul kind-hearted enough to model me some parts) these bits and bobs will be using the 'Spare Parts' mesh and texture. If, by the time I am ready for the first release of my work for testing, please forgive the crudeness of this.

It is, hopefully, a temporary situation.


III.) Will This be Balanced? Can I Abuse This?

A.) Unfortunately, as with most things, there will be small gaps through which a player can exploit this mod for his own gain. It is my intention to keep this mod as balanced as is fairly possible. Repair skill will play a large part in how I 'balance' this, however... and so the higher your repair skill gets... the more imbalanced the game might seem. At the same time, this is designed to reflect your growth from an inept salvage-junkie to a professional grade mechanic/blacksmith/gunsmith/technician whatever-cha-callit.

So... yes. It will be balanced. But it's balanced in such a way as to benefit most a high-end repair skilled player... while being accessible to anyone who can operate a workbench.


IV:) What Makes you Think you can do This?

A.) I've been wanting this for a long, long time... and now... now I've had the tools put right into my lap. Obsidian has pretty much -begged- for the creation of a mod like this. I feel that, even with my limited skills, this would not only be a fun project but a very completable one. Where as I might have taken on some job far outside my own range of abilities... the most difficult aspect of this mod will be making all of the individual pieces required to make the mod feel authentic.

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End of Obsessively Chipper Sales-Pitch Q&A:
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Right then!

Here it is! The W.I.P. thread for the mod I've been wanting to make since Fallout 3's CRAFT mod came out. Adding the ability to completely construct weapons from scratch, and disassemble old, unwanted, or damaged weapons for their use in repairing other guns... or building new ones.

For any player who invests heavily in the repair skill, this mod will become your best friend. You will find that each of the pieces for a certain firearm will have been added to that given firearm's repair list. In addition, many of the pieces for certain gun types... such as long-barreled rifles... will yield cross-compatible parts. The higher your skill level, the more completely you can dismantle a weapon without losing the smaller bits or rendering pieces useless.


As of this moment, I'm still in the process of creating each of the object id's which will become things like firing pins, screws, lever action mechanisms, spring-action mechanisms, trigger assemblies, and all that other good stuff. Directly below this paragraph, you will find my Request Thread calling for anyone who can make me meshes and textures for some of these pieces.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1131297-to-any-available-modeler/

If I can get these made, and the others which come up as I explore further the inner workings of a weapon (by asking my Gun Nut friend), it would go a long way towards making this mod more enjoyable for the people who decide they'd like to try it.

Right now, each of the pieces will be using the 'Spare Parts' model. As if enough junk in Fallout didn't already do that.

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Questions? Comments? Concerns?
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Okay then! That's the whole enchilada... laid out for you, as best I can, at this early point in the development stretch.

The reason that I have chosen to create this thread so early, is because I want to gauge the community response to the idea. If you like it, pipe up! If you don't, feel free to explain to me why. If you're concerned about anything I have proposed doing here perhaps interfering with something else, just chip in and let me know. As much as I am doing this for myself, to prove that I can actually create and release a somewhat-high quality mod...

... it's far more important that I know the people I am releasing it to are going to enjoy it!

Back to work, for me! I'll be keeping an eye here to see how things go.

Quick Update:


I've added a nice little poll... just to get an initial feel for what people think.

That way, if you're not really wanting to provide an in-depth reply right now... you can just click some buttons and be provide me with useful feedback sans-hassle!

Thanks in advance.

Sound like a winner bro, I'll keep checking back, Also, If you need any audio done/altered..in any way, I'm you man, for example, If you want a gun loading or firing sound to sound better for your new mod, Just give me the files and I can work miracles. Just let me know :wink_smile:

Update:


Good news! So far, things are going just exactly as smoothly as I had hoped they would go. The process of adding in new 'breakdown' recipes has been taking up most of my morning thus far, and the results have made me quite pleased!


I've only got one fully-working recipe done, currently, for the Varmint Rifle. Taking one apart at the work bench will yield several screws (a number of which are stripped), a Rifle Frame, a Rifled Barrel (short), a Bolt Action Mechanism, a Trigger Assembly (rifle), a Wooden Rifle Stock, and some others which I can't seem to currently locate on my list.

So now that I've seen it in action, this is where I begin working on the balancing issues.

I have no idea how the game determines the condition of a crafted object... but I need to figure this out, first and foremost, before I can progress much further. Without finding this setting, I have no idea whether the weapon the player makes will come out completely broken, or in perfect condition! Ideally, I would want the condition to be set by player skill... but I can't even figure out if the game does this by default. Oi... yes. It's going to be fun, rooting about through the GECK!

However! It -is- coming along nicely! Quite nicely!

I'll pop back in once I've made some more progress, though. Right now it's time to work!

Today's Update:



As of this moment, I have officially finished the varying recipes for the deconstruction of a Varmint Rifle... all with considerable success. I must say that I am currently quite proud of this achievement, as it has entirely resolved my first concern: making sure that you can't simply disassemble your gun once it has been destroyed, and rebuild it into a functional model.

Of course, if I could figure out how repairs worked, and how the game decides what condition your crafted items are created in, there wouldn't be a doubt left in my mind. As it stands, however, the player CAN acquire a rather nifty collection of junk metal with different names... though it currently serves no real use, until I figure out this 'condition' problem I've been having.


In more interesting news, I do have a request... if anyone might come along here to read this.

I'd like some help... with a script... which could randomly 'select' which pieces you get 'back' from dismantling a gun. I'd really like for this to run for each of my recipes... with the player having a random chance of receiving broken parts at lower levels of repair, and increasingly higher chances of getting all the parts the closer to 100 repair skill they get.

This would serve to reduce the number of recipes I currently have to make... as it would mean I could add in ONE breakdown recipe for each gun that may yield all the parts in perfect working order, all the parts but with some broken, or even recovering only SOME of the parts... losing a number of the rest due to ineptitude.

As it stands, I am having to make a recipe which manually -accounts- for losing pieces. That is hardly ideal.

Progress Report:


So, the good news is that I've gotten some rather detailed diagrams to help me out with the basics of deciding what parts will be gained from disassembling a firearm, as well as what all will be required to build one. This has resulted in a rather notable increase in the level of complexity involved in the construction of a new firearm. Bend your firing pin during the breakdown process, and you'll need to melt it down and re-shape it or replace it entirely. Lost the grip-screw? You might just have to dig one out of your spare parts (scrap metal).

It's rapidly becoming more in-depth... and far more enjoyable for me to design... now that I've begun getting a real feel for the weapons of Fallout: New Vegas. My only concern is that, when inevitably I begin turning my thoughts to creating clothes or constructing armor... the whole process will end up starting all over again.

Anyhow, the bad news is that I've still got no clue how the damn game determines condition of the crafted item... and I still don't know if there is a way to 'set' how much repair value certain objects are worth. At this point, I don't really care about the first thing, as I'm pretty sure that my skill-based construction/deconstruction recipes will mean that the player has no chance of simply breaking down their gun and completely rebuilding it into a working model at level two. The second part, however, concerns me. While I want the player to be able to repair their gun with parts broken down from similar weapons... I don't want to completely break the repair mechanism by making it entirely too simple, either.

Anyhow, a quick rundown of the system as it currently stands:

With a Repair Skill of 15, the player will strip at least a third of the screws due to complete ineptitude. In addition, springs and other important parts of the working innards of the gun will be damaged or lost. The result is that more than one gun will need to be broken down in order to acquire all of the parts for building a new one.

With a repair skill of 25, the player's ability to adequately disassemble their firearm increases. Now only stripping one or two screws, the player has gotten careful enough to prevent the loss of some of the more vital pieces.

By repair level 50, the player has become proficient. Depending on the recipe used (or until someone can create a script for me, so as to make the damaging of components by poor skill doable with only one recipe), only a few pieces of the weapon will be damaged or lost. At this level, the use of breaking down weapons for the purpose of repairing another weapon using the parts becomes truly viable.

At repair level 75, no further parts are lost, and no pieces are broken. At this point, the player can actually strip down a gun and rebuild it into a -functional- weapon. (I consider this reasonable due to the fact that 75% skill represents the top 25% of all repairmen. The top 25% ought to be the best of the best, as far as I'm concerned.


This is, of course, simply the preliminary system. I will continue to work towards finding someone capable of scripting... and someone capable of giving my 'parts' unique meshes until I meet with success. In addition, future versions will likely begin to include such things as rechambering your weapon, armor construction, making clothes, and various other items.

For now, I'm going to get back to work.

I really want to figure out how the game determines what condition a crafted item will be 'forged' in.

I've put up a new question for the poll, regarding the rechambering of basic guns as an aspect of this mod.

Right now, it's just a possible project... but if there is support for it being included, I will be sure to have it ready by the time I'm prepared for my initial release.

[edit:]

I feel it important that I add that, if rechambering of weapons is made possible, it will be done in such a way so as to be believable. I don't intend to go around shoving random ammunition types into any old gun willy-nilly. I intend to consult as many reputable sources as is possible to determine what would be a realistic alteration of a given weapon's caliber.

I haven't put a whole lot of effort into this possibility, yet. I'll wait for some feedback before I decide for certain.

Right then, just a little notice:

If you like the idea, don't just sit there and do nothing. Pipe up and tell me what you think about how I'm doing things... about how you'd rather see something done. Chat me up about possible things you'd want to see added in besides just breaking down and rebuilding vanilla New Vegas weapons.

This isn't just a project for -my- benefit. If it were, I wouldn't be posting about working on it. Right now, all of two people have said anything!

477 views.
13 of you say you love the idea.
9 Say they like it.
1 Doesn't care.
1 Doesn't like it.

Why? What do you like? What do you love? What do want to see added into the scope of this project? What don't you want? Why?

I put the polls up so that people could have something to weigh in about... but it seems that the only person doing any real speaking around here is me! I don't need to know what I'm thinking! I'm already thinking it! ^_^

Anyhow, that's all for me for now.

I've got a lot of work to do on the mod in the morning, and then I'm going trick or treating to get some awesome candy for my nephew, whose mean mom won't let him have nearly enough as he needs.

I hope to see conversations, when I come back!

I would love it. Personally I think the complexity of creating the weapon should depend on what kind of weapon it is. Something simple, like a bolt-action rifle, break-action shotgun, revolver, etc should be fairly simple to construct. But something like a Plasma Rifle, minigun, etc should be incredibly hard to conjure. Any yahoo with basic plumbing parts and knowledge of how to solder can build a simple gun, after all, but only a true weapons master can create a plasma minigun.

As for rechambering vanilla stuff...hell yeah. I want to rechamber This Machine to use the 30-06 round it should use, not a .308. I want to rechamber the Cowboy Repeater for .44 Magnum. I want to rechamber the 9mm to fire .45ACP. It'd be win. Again I think this should scale based on the complexity of the weapon. Rechambering a revolver is pretty simple. Bore out the bore, cast a new , stronger cylinder, bore that out, done.

Ditto what the guy above me said pretty much. And I think you aren't getting many actual replies because what your doing seems to be overall well-approved of. So that's a good thing, means you hit the nail on the head. ^.^

If you need help with scripting and no one is stepping up, you can always ask over at the GECK help board for NV. ---> http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/forum/111-the-geck-fallout-new-vegas/

Not a sure thing but at least someone with knowledge might be able to step in and give ya a hand.

But kudos on the great idea and hardwork put into this one, I can't wait to see it released.

Well, no one posts here because there is currently nothing to add to your brilliant news updates
Also, my account was suspended until yesterday, so I couldn't post

great work col. :goodjob:

For rechambering, to be believable, a given weapon shouldn't increase it's size more than by one ammo category.


Pistols and pistol ammo firing rifles
.22L --> .357 and 9mm
9mm --> 10mm and .44
.44 --> .45-70

rifles firing rifle rounds
5mm --> 5.56mm (desperately needed cuz mah M4 outta fire a proper round!!)
5.56mm --> .308 and 7.62mm
.308 --> .50cal. (this is a serious stretch)


Anything further and boring the barrel out will remove the rifling, not to mention space requirements for munitions feeds...

As to breaking a weapon down to the actual part.. I dunno. It might overwhelm the average player.. (although I'm all for it in hardcoe mode)
maybe breaking a weapon down into groups
-upper receiver, that contains a receiver assembly, sights, a barrel for blow back weapons, and also a gas delivery tube for gas operated weapons.
-lower receiver with a trigger assembly, a recoil spring and munitions feed (usually a magazine well)

which is all the part groups you'ld need for an M4. Varying conditions to the parts groups indicates the ammount of screws and whatnot lost in translation. The rifle then has an overal condition based on the average of the different grouped parts -and if you want to get fancy you can assign different negative modifiers to the different conditions of the parts.

Barrel or sights in poor condition? -weapon has a larger spread.
Any of the other parts in less then say 50% condition? -stoppages, jams, misfires, no atuomatic fire, etc et cet c.. invent something.

So two created weapons from poorly conditioned group parts can have different negative modifiers assigned to them, creating weapons that are both overal 60% functional, but one is seriously inacurate, and the other jams the whole time.

Fixing both weapons to 100% using weapon repair kits only!! will result in the negative modifiers being lifted.


Real fancy pants modding comes with being able to build the trigger assembly from an assault carbine into a service rifle or the all american, creating a more accurate, selective fire weapon.



/2cts, keep the change cuz you deserve it

/headdesk.


Yeah...

I hadn't even -begun- to think about energy weapons. Ohman... now that's going to be crazy hard to figure out! Anyone taken the time to study the damn things real close-like? I wouldn't mind a list of reasonable parts for a plasma rifle.

Laser Rifles should be easy enough, what with mostly being a metal housing, diode, amplification lens, attenuator crystal, heatsinks, and then the power-control cell and regulator components.

The trick is... I think energy weapons should require a rather sizable science skill to break down and construct.

Would this sound reasonable?

[edit #1:]

Agh! After all that, I forgot to explain how I'm going to make the re-chambering of a weapon work... -hopefully-. It will depend on if this seems reasonable or not.


Basically, it would work like this. Any gun that fires a bullet can be re-chambered -once-... with only having the gun... right from the workbench. This will become available at say... 50 repair skill. Since nobody has made any models and textures for tools yet... we'll just all have to pretend like the workbench comes fully loaded with the materials.

These re-chambered weapons will be, as suggested, small increases in the size of the round... because there's only so much metal you can shave off before you have a problem, and very likely need to replace the barrel and chamber entirely.

If you want anything larger than this base improvement, you're going to have to have a higher-still repair skill, and replacement parts. Again... I'm not going to have the 10mm pistol getting re-chambered for .308 or anything. It'll all be within reason... and I'll even leave it up to you folks to decide what reason is.

I'm not exactly a huge fan of the whole "losing parts" thing. Considering how the player can make ammunition without much trouble at the required levels, why are they suddenly inept when it comes down to stripping a gun? I daresay the idea makes sense, but it would likely be frustrating in the actual game. Personally, I reckon a skill-based disassembly threshold would be a better idea for this sorta thing, and would fit into the vanilla game more.
Making new guns out of old ones sounds nice, though. As does making custom weapons and armour - awesome! Hell, I had an idea like that once! The only problem with it is that I don't really see how you're gonna allow us to make weapons out of a variety or parts without having them all look similar - "Wow, this combination of a 9mm Submachine Gun and a Varmint Rifle looks just like a combination of a 10mm Pistol and a Hunting Rifle!"

And even then, you have the issue of mod compatibility. *shudder*

The problem is, and I haven't addressed it really within the scope of this mod, I think it's ridiculous how easily the player is able to construct ammunition without any real -need- for skill or attribute checks. This is not so much an issue I would take up with -my- mod, as it is an omission which was made by the developer to assist lower-level players in maintaining a steady supply of bullets.

While I understand the reasoning for it, my mod here kind of flies in flagrant disregard of that mentality. At least, it does at its base. I am not a heartless man, however... and it is entirely possible that this will simply be the 'hardcoe' version of my mod... and that once the basic premise is completed, I will make one friendlier to the standard casual player! I could actually do that. Might get more folks interested.

I don't really want to make the game -easier- for the low-level player by handing him the ability to manufacture a massive variety of weapons with two screws and a pack of bubblegum, at this point. Once I've completed the final parts list for the conventional weapons, I'm going to toss it over to a bloke who offered to script the breakdown process for me. That will make it a randomized chance... and -far- more forgiving than forcing the player to CHOOSE what parts he loses/breaks.

As for custom weapons and the like... well... I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I think.

On that front, I have the same glaring concerns as you do. I would definitely need to find a modeler and have some good brainstorming sessions with folks to find out what kind of makeshift crap they'd like to wear and/or kill people with.

[edit:] ( Keep in mind that, for the first release of this mod, I only really intend to have the ability to breakdown and re-build weapons from parts... the ability to find parts in some lists, and buy them from certain shops... and -maybe- the system for re-chambering your weapons, since it seems like a popular enough idea. Custom stuff will come once people have decided whether or not I've done a good enough job on this mod.)

I think you're too focused on realism and not enough on usability. What incentive is there for me to break down a gun and then make a new one if it's more difficult and expensive than just collecting 5 Guns, Selling them, and then buying the gun I want?
I think the best way to go about this is to break every weapon down into 5 components: Stock, Body, Barrel, Loading Port, and Scope.

Example:
Varmint Rifle - Rifle Stock, Rifle Body, Long Barrel, 5.56 Loading Port, Scrap Metal x5 - 40 Repair Requirement
Service Rifle - Rifle Stock, Rifle Body, Long Barrel, 5.56 Loading Port, Scrap Metal x10 - 55 Repair Requirement
Hunting Rifle - Rifle Stock, Rifle Body, Long Barrel, .308 Loading Port, Scrap Metal x15 - 65 Repair Requirement
Minigun - No Stock, Heavy Body, Long Barrel x6, 5mm Loading Port, Scrap Metal x10 - 60 Repair Requirement

Clean and simple. Repair requirement for Guns and Science for Energy Weapons.

The incentive comes from the fact that each of the pieces you get from breaking down a weapon can be used in the repair of another, many pieces will be cross-compatible with the construction of other weapons (no differentiation between screw size or anything here, folks), you will be able to purchase most of the parts from shops... meaning that you can actually build your own weapons from scratch without actually having a version of it, random lists will be included to provide these parts 'out there' in the wasteland believably, and most importantly, it pretty much makes -repairing- your weapons the standard way useless... as you'll only get a -fraction- of the repair value you would get from taking it apart properly at a work bench with a decent repair level.

This is secretly one of my goals, to make the standard repair system useless in anything other than field-work.

I want the standard method of -repair- to be the actual breakdown of the weapon into parts, which can then be used to replace the broken parts of your damaged weapons. The current repair system really makes no sense, because it essentially allows any level of player to perfectly maintain any weapon, given that they have a thousand copies of it to go around. They can apparently dismantle a gun without ANY tools, or the need of a bench, and completely replace everything by hand without ever losing a part or damaging something.

As far as game mechanics go, sure... it's pretty solid... but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you're a hardcoe player looking for the real feel of survival in the wasteland any more than never needing to eat or drink or sleep does. I'll accept it as being a 'hasty' field repair mechanic, and not seek to entirely remove it from the game or something, but my method is intended to yield MUCH higher results... even at the lowest possible skill level for breaking down a weapon.

Like I said, though. I'll probably make a MUCH more simplified version for the standard player... and in fact... I really like your breakdown of it. I might use that as the basis for my Non-hardcoe variant. We'll see. Like I said before, while my goal is first and foremost presenting a mod which provides serious REALISM... I'm not so high and mighty that I'll just alienate everyone who wants something less complex with the same functionality.

When I first played Fallout 3, I had a similar idea for a repair method, based on parts.

What if rather then -losing- the parts you instead just got broken equivalents.


And that might solve your "how does this rebuilding scheme result in the final repair value of the weapon" problem.

Consider a pistol damaged to 50%.

A pistol is constructed of a variety of pieces, lets say the following :

- stock
- trigger
- pin
- screws x 4
- barrel
- chamber
- pistol sights

Now as its damaged to fifty percent, if you have a repair of 100 you would get exactly fifty percent of these objects in their with the "damaged" flag.
So you might get something like this when you break it down :

- stock (damaged)
- trigger
- pin (damaged)
- screws x 1 (damaged)
- screws x 3
- barrel (damaged)
- pistol sights

However, if you have a lower repair rating, you aren't really very good at stripping a weapon down safely. You might break more of the components while disassembling it (a percentage chance? A certain number depending on your repair skill?)

The final repair result of reconstructing a weapon would be :

percentagePerComponent = 100 / TotalNumberOfComponentsfinalRepairValue = http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1131473-wip-presenting-the-gunsmith/NumberOfUndamagedComponents * percentagePerComponent

Which means that while you -can- use a damaged stock or trigger, and the gun will still fire, it will result in a weapon that is more damaged.

Now you could further complicate this by having more gradation in the quality of components (Perfect, Used, Damaged, Broken, for example), or by assigning larger repair values to certain components (stock = 30%, barrel = 30%, screws = 5% each).

How do you fix damaged components? I would do it by having special recipes for the components that take a damaged version of the component plus some appropriate scrap. Such as :

Pistol Stock - Repair 25
Requires:
- pistol stock (broken)
- scrap metal x 1
- super-glue x 1

Or a more complicated component for plasma weaponry.

Plasma Ionization Chamber - Repair 40, Science 60
Requires:
- Plasma Ionization Chamber (broken)
- microfusion cell (depleted) x 2
- scrap electronics x 1


Technically, if I were to use this mod. I would add a mod that checks if you're using hardcoe or not, and if you are, removes the ability to repair normally. It would certainly make weapon maintenance more interesting, and carrying a backup more important.

Jack... you are my hero! Not only do you -get- what it is I am trying to do... but you actually have a better understanding of how to do it than I do!


I could go on and on and on with you for hours about how the system you just described is the way I've always tried to imagine this system working in my head. The only problem I keep running across is that I -really- have no clue how to make any of that stuff happen. In the grand scheme of Modding skill, I'm -just- GECK proficient.

Figuring out a way to actually make the game do what your post describes... homan... it's way over my mathematically challenged head.

I don't suppose you'd like to be my official math guy? I could definitely use one of those...

I'll sign on as your official script guy:) Idea is getting more and more appealing as I think about it.

Oh! You're already here! Well... that makes my message to you a bit pointless then! >.<


Also, I'm taking a look at all the weapons right now... and trying to determine the best way to break them down into parts. I haven't really gotten to play with all of them, yet, in game... so I'm going to make it my goal to do that before I finalize the lists of what parts make up what guns. I would really hate to have a break-action shotgun get caught using a pump-action mechanism as it's "construction" recipe.

That would be embarrassing.

I'm not opposed to helping out, but I'm probably less GECK-proficient then you are. Curse my taking that NifSkope Proficiency when I hit level 4, it doesn't synnergize well with anything except my levels in Maxscript, and thats such a context-dependent skill that it might as well have been rolled into Computer Science for all the use I've been able to make of it.

I can probably help in the 'planning and writing things down' department, but implementation is, for the moment, a bit beyond me.

I love the idea and it shows you have put LOTS of thought in thus far, I would like it to be in-depth but I think most average mod "consumers" won't, but that's entirely up to you. Old_Andy's spot on with the barrel boring but hey this is a game, I also like the idea of not losing parts with a lower repair skill but getting damaged parts instead.

I think crafting plasma or laser weapons should not only depend on your repair and science skill but your intelligence as well, if that's possible :shrug:

Love this to
" As the project proceeds, armors and other sorts of custom-made awesomeness may well be added."


side note I :drool: thinking of Old_Andy's arsenal

What you have here is a golden goose egg my friend take it and run with it :bolt: bro

bigcrazewolf

Planning and writing things down is good! I'm not very good at that, sometimes... and I'm not always sure people can see clearly what I'm imagining. Further, I just sent Retro42 a message asking whether he thought your particular way of setting up the scripting for my breakdown recipes could be done. It would certainly make the issues some folks, like that e39042 fellow, were concerned about disappear.

After all, if the weapon is in perfect shape, the chance of BREAKING it while taking it apart is balanced out by the fact that the script accounts for your base chance of success being 100%. Then you modify that by the player's skill and intelligence, repair and intelligence for conventional weapons... science and intelligence for advanced energy weapons... and it should mean that even at a low level, you still get more bang for your buck than simply wasting the WHOLE gun in vanilla repair mode.

While I am the first to admit to not being an expert at any of this at all.

I just went and looked at the recipes list in the GECK and it looks like its heavily constrained (boo!) but there's an obvious way around it (yay... potentially).

The issue is that the result of any recipe is always the same.

This makes it look like it's impossible to do a breakdown recipe (which, by definition, requires a single object to create objects of varying quality), but that's not quite true.

While you always create the same results, that item can be anything, specifically, that item can be a new custom item that has a script on it.

... and that script can then be used to do the breakdown logic.

Basically, your recipe for breaking down a pistol would give you a new item called say... PistolBreakDownTemporaryObject, which would have a script attached to it that would do all of the breakdown logic (how many components you get, how many are broken etc) and then add all of the break-down components to your inventory. It would then delete itself.

So that should work... in theory.

The trick will be going the other way. You could cheat by creating container objects that, when clicked on, used the internal components to try to recreate the object. For example, you would have say PistolReconstructionKit, and when you put pistol components in the box and clicked on it, the box's OnActivate script would trigger and it would do the reconstruction logic based on your skills etc, and give you the resulting pistol. You could even make it so that the ReconstructionKit objects only worked within a certain proximity of a workbench.

The annoying thing is that they wouldn't be traditional recipes, which bites, but to do traditional recipes, you'd appear to require a separate recipe for every combination of components, as there doesn't seem to be any kind of substitution system. Which would be possible (as you could just make the recipes visible or invisible based on the available components), but would require a whole lot more manual labor on the part of the person making the recipes. And it would become exponentially more complicated if one were to implement a graded scheme of quality for components (as the number of necessary recipes would multiple itself based on the number of grades).



EDIT: Damn, I just realized there's a problem with using my proposed solution for breaking down weapons. There's no way to get access to the weapons quality level through the recipe system, unless you did some kind of complicated shinanigans where you stored the quality level of every object you can break down before using the recipe, and then had the BreakDownTemporaryObject test to see which object was missing... but even then, the crafting system that exists in-game doesn't allow you to pick specific items to craft, as all crafting components are supposed to be generic. It would be very annoying to accidentially break down your good pistol that you currently using to shoot people, rather then the badly damaged one you just picked up from the ground.

It might be better to use containers for both actions. Have a "break down object" box that you put objects in to break down, and a Reconstruct box to rebuild them.

Not elegant perhaps, but substantially less irritating to impliment.