Indeed! And as ToJKa said, we already started testing, so it can only take a few more months or so!

Oh and well, normally I don't like to announce ideas or plans unless I'm confident that they will succeed, but I'll make an exception for a new module I've started working on, and of which I'm not sure if it will ever be released. Maybe someone likes the idea and is willing to help me finishing it.
This module is named Encounters, though it could be named Spawns as well. There are already mods like IWS to add spawns you might say, and you are right. But one thing that always bugged me with those mods, even back in Oblivion, was that these spawns were placed and then just stood there waiting for you, and that is just weird. When I'm standing on a mountain and look over the land, I don't want to see it crawling with all kinds of stuff just standing there. So instead of just adding more spawn points, what I would like is add a little more variety to how enemies approach you. New Vegas already has scripted ambushes, but not nearly enough of them.

What's already implemented:
- A generic ambush system. The default ambushes all have unique scripts, so adding more of them would be a huge amount of work. This generic ambush script on the other hand just uses a common set of objects that can be copy&pasted for create a new ambush. It consists of one or more trigger areas, one invisible controller reference and a number of disabled creatures or NPCs. The trigger areas are linked to the controller, whenever the player enters a trigger area, the controller is activated. The spawn references are linked in a chain, and the controller is linked to the first of them. Once activated, it enables all of them and sends them towards the player. Instead of trigger areas, a controller can also be linked to a door, then the ambush is triggered when the player activates that door (leaving a house for example). The system supports some other stuff like chance-based encounters or disabling them once certain actors are dead or objects disabled (allowing to set complex conditions like faction reputation etc). An example for such an ambush is being attacked by bunch of Escaped convicts after crossing then bridge in Primm.
- A generic system for respawn zones. The idea is to create areas where there's a constant danger. Currently the problem is that after clearing an area you can be pretty sure that until it respawns there won't be anything happening there anymore. In respawn zones on the other hand, there's always the danger of more enemies. The way they work is comparable to ambushes. Theres one or more (large) trigger zones. Whenever the player is inside those, every 10 seconds or so theres a X% chance that an enemy is spawned at designated spawn locations. These locations are picked so that they are outside the players vision range. Examples are respawning convicts in Primm, or deathclaws in the quarry. It's not gonna be like in Call of Duty, with waves of enemies, as I said the idea is that there is always the danger of being attacked in these areas, so you cannot let your guard even after you cleared the placed spawns. Like ambushes, its possible to disable these zones once an actor is dead, or set the spawn frequency/chance.
- Sleep ambushes. I don't really like fighting vermin in the open. What I would like, however, is when stuff like giant rats attack me when sleeping/resting outdoors. Might be deathclaws as well The system is pretty basic yet, whenever you're waiting or sleeping outdoors theres a chance that some sneaky creature (based on your level) spawns behind you and attacks. After that a cooldown prevents any attack for the next X minutes.

What I'm still working on:
- Hunters. Imagine walking the wasteland during night, suddenly you hear a terrible roar! Your current location is marked, and from that moment on you have 10 seconds to get as far away from there as you can. If you reach a given distance, you managed to escape, otherwise a deathclaw hunter will spawn behind you. The same could be done for groups of raiders (instead of a roar you hear a voice like "Aha! Got you!").

Additionally, with TheCastle's permission I "salvaged" some things from IWS
- The Civilian Guards, Faction Guards and Faction Patrols. These can be dynamically enabled/disabled in the PN control panel.
- Placed spawns for super mutants and ghouls etc. I removed pretty much all added vermin/animal spawns though, simply because I don't like fighting them, and because of the problems I have with too many placed spawns I described earlier.
- The active spawn system, which is a clever script Castle developed to spawn additional creatures at existing spawn points. This will be the supported method of enabling more spawns. The good thing is that it can be configured at runtime, so you have a menu where you could say "No extra deathclaws" or set a general profile for how many more creatures you want to spawn. I've started to modify this script, shortened it a little and added menu options, but I haven't done much testing yet.

The main reason why I'm not sure if this will ever see the light of day is that while the scripts for ambushes and the like are already done and working, they still have to be placed/created. I've added ~15 ambushes so far, covering the road from Goodsprings to Nipton, Black Mountain and Quarry Junction. There's still a lot more ground to cover, and I just don't know the game very well to be honest I've spent most time modding it instead of playing, so to place ambushes in areas I've never seen means playing them first, then again and again to test how it feels like. I'm just not very well suited for this task, plus I'm not in the mood for playing right now

I like the sound of that! I've been using IWS and it indeed has the problem that it's just more hotspots with more enemies, having the encounters being unpredictable would be a great addition.

sounds awsome

Oh my! I've got a few lovely days off and the new modules are available for testing :biggrin:
Now is time to do as i promised!

@schlangster: that sounds like a great idea! i have the same issues with IWS ( and similar mods for morrowind and oblivion). while i enjoy the extra challenge, i hate seeing tons of enemies standing around in the distance- waiting for me to give their exist meaning by killing them.

An ambush system is a great remedy for that problem. The ambush at the raided farmstead is one of my favorite fights in the game. anything that spices up wondering the wastes is a plus in my book.

also, i think there is a mod for oblivion that does something similar. It creates a team of assassins that, i believe, randomly spawn in the player's vicinity who will track the player, and wait to ambush him at the right moment (like when leaving a cave, sleeping, or even in the middle of a fight). i'll try and find the link and post it here. Maybe it could give you some ideas, and or the author could lend a hand

EDIT: found it, here is the link http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36493. while not the same as your mod, he is trying to do something similar. Hope this usefully. i am not sure how different oblivion and FONV are "under the hood," but i guess they are pretty similar, and this isn't just a meaningless gesture

The Problem with scripted Ambushes however is that no matter how careful and observant you are you end up being forced into close quarter encounters you cannot avoid. There needs to be a way to spot and avoid any potential ambush, otherwise you are just forcing a player into a specific combat mode.

Shortly tested the Chinese Sniper Rifle, looks, sounds and kills great. That is Zealotlee's Dragunov, is it not? If so, could you add his The People's Dragunov as a unique version too?

I just love that name, it's right up there with "Board of Education" and "Plunket's Valid Points" :lmao:

And agreed with above, The Legion assassin ambush is such an event, really bad situation for a sneaky character that dies if you look at her funny. And ambushing the ambushers is always fun. Like the Viper gunslingers past Nipton. Huh, thanks to mods i don't have to call the "Viper tire iron slingers" anymore :lmao:

Well I'm aware of that, but not sure how to address it. In the initial implementation there was a warning displayed when coming close to an ambush marker (I didn't use trigger zones, which made the whole thing much more complicated). The distance when that warning was received was based on perception. But with a trigger-based system that's not so easy anymore, and more importantly, I didn't really like those "You're sensing danger!" messages.

The way I see it... well, taking the bridge in Primm for example. It's a situation well suited for an ambush, and if you're sneaky character has some sense, he/she should be aware that there might be alternative routes. And the whole point of these encounters to me is that you're not always in control like it's the case for placed spawns. I want to find myself in a situation where I must flee, turn around and see that I've been surrounded

And just to be clear, usually these are not the type of ambushes where enemies pop in right in front of you. You still have time to get away. Also, it would easily be possible to factor in sneak somehow.

personally, i never have any problems with the legion assassins, and i always make glass cannon sneaky-type chars. if i recall correctly, i have gotten the jump in them once or twice as well.

if the ambushes are set in the proper areas (areas where, topographically, ambushes could occur: city/farm/town ruins, canyons, and what not) i do not see a problem. if the baddies are set to spawn at a distance outside the player's view then careful monitoring of your pip-boy radar (or whatever lets you "sense" enemies) could give you the few seconds you need to turn the tables- "ambush the ambusher." even if they magically appear near you.

In the goodsprings cave I looted a crowbar from a duffel bag. This crowbars DPS is 46 which I feel is a bit high for the area. I suggest either lowering the DPS or removing it from the loot list.

I don't think it's overpowered at all. The Lead Pipe has 55 DPS and you can get that fairly early too.

Does the crowbar get 45 DPS at the same skill level as the 55 DPS lead pipe?

Would it be possible to remove the sparkle effect from killed creatures while using EM vision, like with Infrared Vision?

Not sure, but to balance it out we've upped the skill req to 50 and the strength req to 6. Damage is still the same.

BTW regarding the Crowbar, very funny T3T :lmao:

The sparkling bright effect should be replaced by a darker one after EM vision has been deactivated and activated again. If I remember correctly that was much more convenient than replacing the effect instantly

I really don't see a diffrence in it between living and dead creatures when watching trough walls. I just toggle trough the vision modes to get an "updated" view.

Also speaking of vision modes, environment in some ligthing conditions (at sunset mostly) shows up red in IR vision. Would it be possible to get rid of that?

it takes a minute for the heat to dissipate from dead creatures.

I was talking about the EM vision. It's easier to see creatures trough walls with it, but not so easy to tell the difference between living and dead creatures trough walls with it.

Why thank you.

Just wondering how you folks are doing/dealing with the new patch, and some of the ultilities such as 3GB enabler, 4GB enabler, and FNVEdit being out of date. Without these working my crashes are returning with a vengence.

The 4GB loader doesn't need to be updated as far as i can tell, at least this one doesn't need to be http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35262 also FNVEdit seems to work just fine as far as I can tell. If you have your load order masterupdated do a masterrestore and all your crashes will go away.

Those seem like some good changes. Silly how it didn't occur to me to point out the skill requirement was zero.

Maybe this was answered somewhere, but I'll ask anyway. With the new repair system--which is awesome in my opinion--it pretty much eliminates the use of Jury Rigging. Are there any plans in enhancing this perk, or are you going with a don't-use-the-module sort of approach?

Also, in regards to being inactive in the test, I'm having odd problems with my OS. Its suddenly putting my computer into sleep mode randomly, and shuts off when I attempt to stop it, so I'm putting a FUBAR label on it right now until I figure it out--its been doing it since Portal 2. (Thought it was nothing because it would stop putting my computer to sleep near the end of the game.) When get this squared away, I'll be active.

I dug up a Wattz Laser Pistol at the burial site next to the Yangtze Memorial. To my dismay I discovered the DPS of this weapon was rather low making it pretty much worthless next to the regular Laser Pistol. The only benefit was the iron sights which my Laser Pistol already had due to an addition of WMX. Considering the popularity of WMX I imagine this would be the case for a lot of people. I would suggest upping the damage of the Wattz Pistol. Maybe it could be a slow fire but high damage type of weapon, although I don't know how that fits with the lore.

I had another minor gripe with the Yangtze Memorial. That awesome looking laser katana told me I needed 8 strength to pick it up so I buffed myself up with some beer and buffout. Only after I met the requirements of the 8 strength was I told I also had to meet another requirement of 75 melee skill. It would be great if it informed you of both requirements at once. The laser katana is also able to be moved from its position by walking into it although you could reasonably expect the player to avoid doing this.

Does the dynamic repair lists option only affect the additional benefits gained with higher repair skill? Repairing stuff with my character of 43 repair skill had a large amount of extra repair options over vanilla. According to the Project Nevada change log I shouldn't have gained any of the extra repair benefits due to my skill level. Were the repair lists changed for a greater range of repair options?