"A Trail of Crumbs�" ~ A fun, exciting and challenging quest featuring 10 forgotten locations and nearly 4 hours of game play**!

Version: 1.0
DATE: 2-16-10
AUTHOR: Balok, aka Mike Hancho

http://ypdesign.com/fo3/crumbs/index.htm

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11283

DESCRIPTION
Have you ever remembered a certain place that you may have only visited a time or two and then simply forgot about? There are quite a few places in the game that have little reason to visit other than exploration. For example, how many times have you been to Mama Dolce's or the Chryslus Building? How about Fort Bannister or the Red Racer Factory? If you are like me, you may not have visited those places very often or maybe not al all!

"A Trail of Crumbs" is an exciting, challenging and most of all FUN quest that seeks to guide the player to these and other locations. The quest encompasses 10 separate locations to explore where you will find a hidden key and a modest amount of loot. Once you find the key, you will receive the coordinates to the next location to explore to find the next key and so on etc. Each of these places have lots of loot and there are plenty of enemies in each of them so you can collect quite a bit of spoils along the way if you wish! The player receives a nice reward for completing the quest. (see below)

GAMEPLAY
To start the quest make your way to the little patio area behind the Chryslus Building. You will find an hornery Talon Merc named Bubba who will help you on your way after you dispose of him and search his body.

Do NOT let the simplicity of the design fool you! The quest is designed to get increasingly more difficult as you progress, and the final 3 or 4 stages should produce some of the best battles in the game. (At least this author feels it does!) If I have been successful, it should offer a nice, fun challenge for players of all skill levels.

NOTE: I recommend making the quest active in your Quests screen of the Pipboy to help guide you along. Each stage is marked with quest markers for where you need to go next.

NOTE: While not necessary to do so, it is recommended that this quest be started with a lower level (around 5 or so) or even a brand new character for the best gameplay and most fun experience. If you are a level 30 character with all the overpowered perks you can get from Point Lookout and the rest of the game in general, NOTHING is much of a challenge at that point.

** In my non-cheating-while-playtesting walkthroughs, it took me actually OVER 4 hours to play the entire quest from start to finish. I took my time while inside each location, searched for loot, and really took in the experience. I did use fast travel at times to leave the locations when I finished that stage, but most of the locations I walked to from the Super-Duper Mart or Arefu areas. This quest, like the rest of the game is best enjoyed by savoring the moment, not running through it as quickly as you can. Take your time and enjoy the journey!


REWARD
The reward for completing the quest includes a hidden bunker with basic features, a small supply of weapons and ammo, as well as some medical supplies. Also, in the bunker you will find a new suit of combat armor and combat helmet you can try out. The armor provides the player with a nice little perk and uses the Rivet City Security Armor as a base, so it does not require any additional downloads! See the Bunker page for more details and pics!

NOTE ABOUT PERKS: I was initially going to add the perk to the player upon completion of the quest, but it was pointed out to me that doing so would cause problems for players who decided to play the quest and then remove the mod from their game. I didn't want any headaches for them (or myself!) so I decided on the compromise of adding the perk to the armor instead. This way, all players have a choice whether to take advantage of it or not.

CONFLICTS/KNOWN ISSUES
This mod does NOT change anything in the game other than adding the locked safes you must find and it adds a sewer grate entrance to the backside of the CO House at Fort Constantine. Any mod that alters the area around the house at the Fort should be checked for compatibility. I cannot think of anything else that might be affected, but if you find something, please let me know on the forums.

NOTE: This mod should work especially well with some of the increased spawns type mods for those looking for a hardcoe experience!


REQUIREMENTS
If you can play Fallout 3 you are good to go! All vanilla assets used.

Step 1 - Download and unzip the zip file. Find A Trail of Crumbs.esp. Cut, or Copy and Paste file into your �\Fallout3\Data folder, or just extract it straight to that directory with your compression utility.

Step 2 - Check the tick box for A Trail of Crumbs.esp. in whatever you use to launch the game and launch the game!

Step 3 - Have FUN!!!


CREDITS & THANKS
>>> Bethesda - for the incredibly talented people who built this "behemoth" (pun intended!) and for allowing the incredibly talented people in the community (and even noob hax like me) to tinker with their game and share what we come up with.
>>> THANK YOU to the folks who contributed and participated in my WIP thread at the Bethesda Forums. You guys really gave me a lot of great ideas, and this final version would not have been possible without your help!
http://ypdesign.com/fo3/crumbs/index.htm

Sounds cool. I always hate feeling like I may have missed exploring something. Bookmarked and will check it out once I get FO3 up and running again.

Great idea, I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Downloading!

Needed something to do on my next playthrough!

:thumbsup:

Downloading, sounds good

Cool, 'tis released

Thanks Balok, I'll download now and give it a whirl

Got it. Will check it out as soon as I can in game. I remember the discussion thread and thought this was a fantastic idea. Glad to see it bear fruit so quickly and kudos for having the idea and following it through.

Thanks everybody! I hope you have fun with it!

I thought that this issue was resolved in 1.7, such that FO3 automatically ignored (removed?) references to non-existant perks.

Either way, personally this is pretty disappointing, as now the benefit(s) go from "universally beneficial" to "conditionally beneficial".

That is to say, a character that I already know is going to be "working towards" wearing the best power armor he can get his hands on, won't have much incentive here. Likewise the character that wants to wear the chinese stealth suit as a default won't have much incentive to go to the areas that would normally be ignored anyhow.

On the flipside, an honest to goodness perk, could be of benefit to any character design (depending on the perk benefits) --- the character I'm playing right now will go to pretty much any lengths to increase his DR, carry capacity, or max hit points. Other characters of mine will do anything to increase their crit chance, or stealth abilities, etc.

So I guess for myself, the irony is that the change that was made to make it easier for someone who wants to try the mod and then uninstall it... makes me much more likely to try it and uninstall it -- rather than make it a more permanent member of my load list.

(Just my personal take on the matter -- I still applaud the idea behind this mod, and am glad to see it was made - we need more "playable content" and quest mods, so even though the final product is less to my play style than I was originally hoping, you still gets kudos from me!)

That bug is fixed, whoever told Balok that it still exists is just clueless

So go ahead and add a perk Balok, there's nothing wrong with that(except for people still playing on some old ass patch version)

There is a perk, I saw it when I leveled. Doesn't really tell you anything, though. Just says you're badass.

I'm sorry for your disappointment, and I did really, really try to take everyone into consideration. But as I said in the read me, I was told I would have to rig some sort of uninstall script and all kinds of stuff if I added a perk. Here is the thread: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1075924

If anyone would be willing to simply help me add it, I would gladly do so. But I just didn't get anyone to help me, see below. (Do I have BO or something? LOL!)




Huh? I don't see how that is possible as I removed the addperk from the result script. I'll have to check that when I get home from work.

And another BIG reason (maybe the BIGGEST!) the perk is not added is that I am so new to modding that I don't know exactly how to add it and get it to work properly, and I got little to no help from the thread I started asking for help. I even put up screen shots of what I had, but no one seemed interested in trying to help me, so I scrapped it for something I KNEW how to do. There ain't no instruction manual, and I basically have to learn how to do everything I do as I do it. It can be really, really frustrating sometimes. I must have worked for 8 hours trying to figure it out to no avail.

Yeah, it was level one and I think it was called "Badass". The description was just something like "You're a badass because you're following a trail of crumbs!"

Read my above post. This info:

That's [censored] and doesn't apply anymore, this bug has been fixed a long while now, the info he gave you is completely outdated. There's no need for uninstall scripts like that.

You know, that is interesting. If you look at the pics I posted it says level 1. None of the toons I playtested it with were at level 1. I think one was at level 12 and the other at 4 or 5 to start. I guess you were still in the vault?

LOL, this is the kind of stuff that makes me pull my hair out with trying to understand how the hell all of this stuff works. :banghead:

Kai, could you look at these captures and see if you see what I didn't have set correctly?

http://ypdesign.com/fo3/crumbs/perk.htm

Don't set it as "Playable", that's the flag that makes it appear in the level up list.

OK, so if I just untick that flag, when the player triggers the last stage to complete the quest, the perk should be added? I'll try it as soon as I get home. I wonder why pkleiss asked if "playable" was ticked, and "hidden" unticked?

Once again.... :banghead:

Thank you!

No no no, the minimum level for the perk was 1. My character was level 8 or 9.

'Hidden' only has to be unticked so it shows in the inventory screen. If 'Hidden' is ticked, the perk will still be there and work but not visible to the player.

Ah, OK. So the number in that setting determines the minimum level the player has to be at before he can receive the perk? Man, where's the dang instructions!!!???

Sounds fun. grabbing

OK, thanks to Kai Hohiro, I got the perk and message working finally. (Thank you Kai!) :foodndrink:

If you already started the quest it still should be OK to just overwrite the old file with the new one. But, I would back up the first one just in case. New version is at my website or the Nexus.
http://ypdesign.com/fo3/crumbs/


2-17-10: Added Badass Perk (+50 lbs carryweight, +1 Endurance, + 5 Critical Chance)
It was brought to my attention that the requirement to include a perk uninstallation fix was not needed since the version 1.5 patch for users who decided to remove the mod after they got the perk. So I put the perk back in. The player recieves the perk upon entering the bunker and completing the quest. Added perk note to bunker.

2-17-10: Changed Badass Armor Stats (Perk: +1 Agl, +1 Luck, +5 Sneak)
As a result of adding the perk, I had to alter the Armor Stats. I added a little note about the armor just to give it a little story.

Thanks everybody!

I applaud you for making a quest mod, and I'll be sure to test it once FWE updates. B)


http://geck.gamesas.com/
Of course the Perk entry doesn't mention playable or hidden flags...

LOL, you call those instructions? :banghead: :ahhh:

Thanks for checking out the quest and let me know what you think!