How about at the last stage you become a ranked officer(Lieutenant, Captain, etc.) and can put up to four Talon Co. mercs under your command by paying their payroll/recruiting them(they should be moderately skilled, and relatively costly being somewhere in the range of 200-700 caps depending on skill/gear). That way you still get the followers but you also have to pay for them.

Also, to be perfectly honest I wouldn't want to be able to join Talon Co. as a "good" karma person simply because it would make it too advantageous to be evil(since Talon wouldn't hunt one of them down then an easy way to stop lag/random encounters would be to ). I personally would love to see Talon Co be the evil side(think Dark Brotherhood or thieves guild, was really hard to just have high fame in those guilds) and then have a new group to join(or existing one, flesh out the Regulators or the Contract Killers to be actual factions instead of just a cash reward perk, then there is Reilly's Rangers or the family, pretty sure there are others as well).

I'm very happy since I just figured out I can make the player dialogue as long as I want. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to write it the way I wanted due to the character limit. That's no longer a problem.

I'm so excited for this. The Blackwood Company was well-needed and an excellent mod all-around. I was just thinking the other day that what I miss most from Oblivion was factions. There are "factions" by definition in FO3, but they don't have tons of quests, levels and ranks, tiered rewards, well-developed plot, backstory, and interactions... I was actually thinking of "Choices and Consequences," "The Lost Spires," and "The Blackwood Company" (and maybe something like Enhanced Quest Roleplaying).

Holy crap, I have to change my own train of thought because I just realized that you're in charge of 80% of that! (5% for the nifty LS AI ) Well, I just have to say that I'm *so* glad you're making your way over here with FO3, and the future's looking good. Choices and Consequences is probably my favorite mod for Oblivion. :bowdown:

Lingwei, although I worship the threads in which you post, I have to agree that being able to join the Talon Company as a good Karma character would be very corney, and would kind of mess up the whole feel of the faction as a bunch of ruthless bastards trying to make a decent living in any way possible. Neutral characters... well, I could deal with that.

I'm glad you are looking forward to it. I completed the Blackwood Company as my final Oblivion mod and was a bit burned out while doing it. Now I can start afresh on Fallout 3 with all the experience I gained before. Hopefully it will be the best mod I've done yet.



One thing I learned from the Blackwood Company is that people prefer to play mods witht he characters they have. Even though I was originally planning on making it only available for characters that hadn't joined the Fighters Guild yet I got enough requests that I ended up chaging it to allow you to join at the lastest possible point in the Fighters Guild questline. So I'm just going to go ahead and do it straight off for this one. It also isn't actually 'opposite' what the Talon Company stand for. They don't care if you are a goodie or a baddie, all they care about is that you get results. Those results are generally not what goody characters usually do, but if you prepared to do it (and pay them off before hand so they don't keep trying to cash in on a contract on you) then they will let you.

I also appreciate the support you give, but you can tone down the hero worship a little bit. I don't want to get an ego already larger than what it is .

I've gotten the paying off the bounty part done now. On to the first quest. I'm going to lay it out here to see how people think of it, enough choices, use of skills etc.

Part A

Join the company. You speak with a recruitment officer, who I'll place in several places and join the company. No join up fee required. You'll be directed to Fort Bannister and told to collect your arms and ammo, armour, and supplemental aid before meeting with your captain and the other mercenaries who will be joining you on your mission. While the total bounty is worth 600 caps you will all only get one third if all of you survive, a half if there are two, and the full bounty if the other two are killed.

Part B

You go out to deal with the target.

Choice - kill target, or don't kill target. If you don't kill the target it is because you were able to extract the funds needed to pay off his bounty.
---
If you kill the target you are turned on by your two team mates. Their rationale is that if the get rid of you they get more reward.

Choice - kill team mates, don't kill team mates.
---
If you kill your team mates when you get back you will be faced with a speech check. If you pass (convince the captain they were killed by the target) you get the full pay off. If you fail, he realises you killed them you only get a third pay of, however you can explain they turned on you to avoid further reprisals.

If you don't kill your team mates you can convince them that killing you will cause repercussions when they return back to base. Or you can convince one of them to turn against the other by convincing him that the other team mate will turn on him once you have been killed. Depending upon whether the one you caused to ally with you was killed or not (betrayed by you or beaten by the other team mate) you will face the same speech check and get either a full bounty, half bounty, or third bounty.

Choice - allow team mates to kill target or convince them to spare him
---
If you don't kill the target you then have to either convince your allies to let him go as well, or allow them to kill him.

If you allow them to kill him they both get the reward for killing the target, while you get nothing and have to bribe your way into 'completing' the mission.

If you convince them to not kill the target you then need to convince the captain that allowing the target to live was the best idea. A failed speech check will result in the same outcome as if you allowed them to kill him.

Part C

You'll have to deal with the corrupt quartermaster who attempts to rip you off by claiming a 'tax'.

Resolve the issue either through an intelligence check, a charisma check, a speech check, a perception check, or just get taken advantage of and have him skim part of your reward (dumb characters will only be able to get taken advantage of).

Consequences
----------------

Kill target - target is dead, can have no further impact on you.
Don't kill target - I'll integrate the target into a later quest in some way (just don't know how yet)

Don't kill target and fail to convince of why should be allowed - need to use money to grease the wheels of promotion
Don't kill target and convince of why should be allowed - get labelled as a diplomatic kind of guy, changes some reactions in later quests

Kill team mates - you get labelled a dangerous guy, changes some NPC reactions in later quests
Don't kill team mates - changes some NPC reactions in later quests, team mates involved some way in later quest

Like the ideas.

some more brain stimulation stuff.

Part A: recruitment.
Rather than have several different NPC's
how about one travelling NPC using the scripts of the Travelling merchants in game but with unique dialogue.

Part B First Target.
I like the idea of having two mercs acompanying you.
perhap as follows.
1) older experienced Talon Merc close to retirement. sent to evaluate your abilities in the field.
also explains rules of talon company and what is expected of the PLayer.
2) another recruit. inexperienced wanting to join the talon company and is also being assessed by the more expreienced merc. (potential for comedy failure character???)

all option as previously dealt with by self in post. if they survive. talon merc will give captain assessment. and will both be available for further dialogue as you go through the missions... (advice a la the darkbrotherhood members?)

Part C Corrupt Quatermaster.
again awesome idea, small request. method to deal with this person without fighting. perhaps framing them or blackmailing them?

So what changes will you make to Fort Bannister?

So what will you do to Fort Bannister?

What will I do, well I'm glad you asked...

I'll clean up the interiors first of all. If they are going to use it as a base then I'm pretty sure the first thing they would have done is to clean up all the paper and rubble lying around. I'll be using a duplication method to avoid any incompatibility problems. What that means is that I duplicate the cells and then put a couple of doors infront of the ones leading to the original cells. This also means that there will only be the npcs I want there. There will be new named NPCs there instead of the generally named Talon Mercs, but they'll all be members of the Talon Company.

Fort Bannister Main - Storage Facility. It will be redesigned to have clear areas for storing arms, armour, ammunition, medical supplies, etc that you will be able to get to help you in your missions.

Commanding Officer's Quarters - The living quarters, bathroom, dining room, and doctors office will be elaborated upon, as well as the quarters of Commander Jabsco who will assign you some tasks.

Fort Bannister Bunker - General area, this will probably have some expansions done since a lot of the current space is just corridors, it will contain some spaces for leisure, others where people will be training, and also the place where you receive and report the success of your contracts.

Outside - I'll be expanded the defenses outside, and have a number of NPCs who reside outdoors as well.

Ah that's sound amazing... Always thought somthinh sgould be done about that place

I only see one "bad" thing to this conclusion for how a high karma character joins Talon Co. and that is the fact that they so wouldn't you have to pay for them to remove that bounty? The problem with this is that being a level 2-5 character with 1000 caps to spare isn't really feasible. The only alternative would be to join Talon then play with the bomb then since you're already a member wouldn't that be sort of a "cheat" mode? You could save the town, then not get the Talon goons on you, then proceed to be as evil as you wanted without being hunted by regulators or talon.

I just see that as highly game breaking since that is one of the things that makes me feel like a hero, is having the hired "evil" mercs chasing me trying to kill me, and the opposite making me feel evil is their antithesis the regulators hounding me when I make the town go boom.

I just can't see this Talon operating as a neutral business when it would Break the outcome of random encounters across the entirety of the game.

Yes, I do know that I don't have to join them on my good character, but who am I going to join on my good character then? There is really isn't anything for good characters to do when it comes to sidequests as most everything in the game is tailored to work with both low karma and high karma characters for just different results or rewards. Besides the perks Contract Killer and Lawbringer there really isn't anything that differentiates between good and bad besides how certain people act and where you live, and I really wish there was.

The script that controls whether Talon Mercs or Regulators appear is independant of what you did in Megaton. Once you are level 6, have karma higher than "good" karma (aka 250) and don't have the contract killer perk then Talons will appear in all the places they appear. If you are level 6, have karma lower than "bad" (-250) karma and don't have the lawbringer perk then you are hunted by Regulators. The Hitmen who pursue you because you disarmed the bomb are a seperate group. I haven't actually found what controls them, although I haven't looked through the Power of the Atom quest that deeply yet either. I'll have to have a closer look at the joining mechanics at a later date, I still haven't even replayed the game yet.

I've been working my way through the first quest so people know that progress has been occuring. It's definitely going to take a lot more time since there are so many different variables I have to account for.

This is a fantastic idea, I love the idea of the Talon company being more than moving practice targets for my characters
I'll be following this, if you're looking for help with anything, then I'll definately volounteer if there's something that suits my skills

Also, I have a tip, if it hasn't been mentioned yet talking to the creator of FOOK may be a nice touch to make these mods compatible. FOOK Overhauls the Talon company and gives them different equipment based on rank and function in a squad, if you haven't seen FOOK yet you really need to check it out

Just a wee bump, just in case this is still in progress.

Yeah, I wonder what happened to Lingwei?

Hmmmmm.

Got my game working again after months and months. Then I had to replay it all again since I'd forgotten most of what there was. Now I've started all over again...

Here's a picture of a small town I've added where a quest will take place. - http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5374/earlytenttown.png

Some of the new Talon Company members who you will be interacting with. - http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/8302/taloncompanyguards.png

I must have missed the earlier activity in this thread, but I must say that I'm excited. The lack of joinable factions in FO3 was one of my biggest disappointments coming from the ES series. Unfortunetly adding a fully functional faction is certainly one of the more time consuming activities!

As a suggestion, it might be worth looking at Khet's alternate start mod (which let's you start as a Talon company member among one of the options). I'm not suggestions that's the only way to join the Talon company, but you might consider how it will work for people using that mod and you're mod. For instance, using the Talon company alt start might let you bypass whatever the "initiation" quest might be for joining the company, and let you get on with the main quests. Just a thought!

I'll keep my eye on this one! Cheers

My idea is... maybe you can create the Talon Company quest line? You know, like you can gain access to their fort and interact with several people in there. And maybe from there we have got some quest givers? Talon main quests and Talon side quests? And maybe, some unmarked quests?

I've been waiting for this for a long time! there is next to nothing for Talon mercs in terms of new places etc.. will this be compatible with FOOK2 btw ?

This is my dream-mod! Please finish it... It's a year ago since you started, so have you gotten far?

Please continue doing your fantastic work, Lingwei!

Btw, you should make a similar post like this on http://thenexusforums.com! I think there's more people there...

Lingwei probably quit working on this a long time ago Armageddon.. this thread and possibly even the mod is dead.

Actually...

It isn't. I've had setbacks and had to restart the mod several times since Fallout 3 doesn't like updates and causes the game to crash whenever you try and fast travel or save or blow your nose with the older versions of the mod. But it is lurching along. Since the final update the current version hasn't had any crashes so far, so I'm hoping that this is going to be the final time I have to start from scratch.

The current version has been worked on since the last day of last year. I was going to wait until I had completed the current quest that I am working on until I posted any updates since it's better that way to give an update on progress but since there is someone asking about it I'll put some screenshots up. I've been adding in my own new locations and cells which is actually a big departure from my earlier mods where I just made use of vanilla cells. It is making the mod take a lot longer since it takes a while to get a dungeon looking good. The current quest has also been taking a long time due to the sheer complexity of it. There are a multitude of choices and paths through the quest which makes it extremely difficult to wrap my head around and make sure that I am linking everything up properly, which is why progress on it is going slowly (chuck in requirements for work and study on top of that and you can see why it is taking a while).

Anyway, here are some screenshots of the current quest. You'll need to click the part that says 'here' to get to the actual picture.

http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/BeasleysEncampmentFromAbove.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/TalonCoIntroScreen2.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/DarkCave1.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/DarkCave2.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/DarkCave3.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/DarkCave4.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/DarkCave5.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/AttackScreen1.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/AttackSceen2.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/AttackScreen3.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/AttackScreen4.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/AttackScreen5.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/AttackScreen6.bmp?attredirects=0

And a couple of others:

http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/CowleeFromAbove.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/RadscorpCaveHall.bmp?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures/TalonCoIntroScreen2.bmp?attredirects=0

You can also find some more including shots illustrating dialogue (although it contains more spoilers) at the site below. I'll update it with more pictures as they come.

http://sites.google.com/site/taloncompanymod/pictures

So glad that this isn't dead! big fan of Talon company here

Post any progression please!