The Introduction:

Underground City is still a WIP. The ending remains unfinished and there are many areas that will appear to make no sense or be under cluttered. My main reason for releasing it now was to invite testing, comments and suggestions for new content. I have been working on this mod for 8 months and my creative juices have dried up a bit. Hopefully some of you will chime in with some brilliant ideas to get me going again so I may finish it off. All of the cells are there. Some of the NPCs even have voice acting, but even that may have to be redone.

The File Download Page and Other Links:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11018

http://s779.photobucket.com/albums/yy80/HupOranje/UC%20Intro/?action=view¤t=042f36e8.pbw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8TBc5L_f0s

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/readmes/Underground%20City_readme.txt

The premise:

A group of military engineers survived the war in their underground research facility. Over time, their descendants dug out and built an underground city who's inhabitants today know very little of the old base lost somewhere within the tunnels that lead from the city. What remains of the base is a population of robots and synthetic humans who don't know that the war has ended. Ultimately, an epic battle between the Lone Wanderer and the remaining base forces will occur. This is the part that is mostly unfinished. The story line is fairly solid up until this point with many side quests and lore available to the player. It should take you many hours of game play to get that far into the story, though. So there is still quite a bit a fun to be had until that point. My main focus was to make this mod more like the older Fallout games in that it is much more difficult. You may not be hand-held to your next task, you will find ammo much harder to come by, the creatures hard-to-kill, the use of chems becomes imperative, and you might just get yourself killed a few times unless you are very cautious and know when to retreat.

I have focused on making many traps, tricks and puzzles to solve. There may be times that you find yourself "stuck". But I assure you there is a way to move on.


The Request:

If you find yourself brave enough to invest the time to download Underground City and play through it, I welcome any and all constructive comments and especially, suggestions for new content or missing content.

I apologize in advance for its incompleteness and give thanks for any forthcoming advice...

pkleiss

Do you have a recomended level to try this at or can it be done right out of the vault?

I'm up for any mod that adds new areas! :tops:

I have a lot more details about the mod on the Nexus page, but yea. It is intended to be played right out of vault 101 and its preferable to be level 5 or below when you start out. Just be sure to post your comments and suggestions some where (here or on the nexus) when you get the chance as I really want the feedback.

It would be really helpful to put all the info from the nexus here to save people having to go to-and-fro just to see screenshots or whatever.

Sounds really interesting.

As requested, links to the sceenshot slideshow, video clip and ReadMe have been added to the intro post.

I like your fire trap screen capture image. That is a unique use of the 'FireWeapon' command. (I am guessing)
The train arriving was nice also, you scripted that very well. Have you thought about making the control panel a ticket selling machine instead? So you buy a ticket from a terminal and then the train arrives? It would also be a good use for those 'metro ticket' objects laying all over the wasteland.

Anyway, it looks good. :thumbsup:

Yes WillieSea. That is the fireweapon out of tiny cue balls. And the control panel is simply for testing the script as I was writing it. The monorail is actually a SCOL of two monorail engines back to back then I made two dupes. One for translating and another as a misc item to activate. I don''t know if you noticed in that video, but there is a ticket selling robot that walks by on the lower level. He has a ticket booth as well and in the final version, the player will have to purchase a ticket from him to get the monorail to appear.

Looks awesome pkleiss!

I'll check it out and give you some feedback, I agree with WillieSea that the monorail was really well done!

Cheers,

Miax

I saw the robot down below but didnt realise its function. That is very nice!

I have a 'cleaned' monorail texture, not sure if you want to use it. I made if for my Vault 64 v1 mod which I will probably not be using. I noticed the station looked in good repair, but was not sure if that was something you wanted.

Good luck on the mod, it looks pretty good so far. I don't really have time to test with the three mods I am working on. I figure well wishes are good to have as well though.

@Miaximus - Thanks man. Its still a WIP, so there's still lots missing, but after 8 months I though I'd put it out there and see what sticks and what doesn't.

@WillieSea - Hey NP about testing it. There are plenty of non-modding players out there. I think the file size has attracted alot of attention for the mod as the page has been busy with downloads. I had to make a second page as the first one would not allow comments. By the time I deleted that one, I had already had 141 downloads of it in about 12 hours. I figure it'll take a few days to play through and then I should start to get some feedback (both positive :thumbsup: and negative :thumbsdown: ). I put the video of the monorail in there because of its relative uniqueness, but the entire cell is in its infancy. I could have made a clean monorail (I actually tried it out), but I fugued even a pristine station and train would have some rust/decay after 200 years of neglect. When completed, the monorail system is how the player will get from the "new" section of Underground City to the "old" section where the base is.

Thanks to you both for the positive comments.

Update:

I have completed the monorail section of the mod. So now, not only can you watch it pull into the station, but you can ride it to the next station as well. I have also made a few minor bug fixes with the quest line and corrected an issue where my ACE Power Armor was getting clobbered by other mods. All of this will be available in the next update which should be released in a week or so.

Version 1.02 Released today in an update file.
(see the top of this thread for the link)

With the update, UC now has a fully functional monorail and a new training encounter for the main base (a sort of mini-game). Plus a few other small additions.
Several bugs were corrected as well.

I am still looking for some feedback from some of you good folks, especially for the ending of the mod.

Thanks again.

pkleiss,

I just completed my first run-through of Underground City and wanted to congratulate you on the fine work! I can tell you have put alot of time into it so far, and it has a ton of potential - I especially liked the monorail too - very cool! Very few other mods are this large and deep, and I look forward to playing through the completed version fully as you finish it up. :tops:

Now for the feedback I think you were looking for, much of it calculated against the intent of the mod according to your ReadMe - as a low-level adventure intended as an alternate place to go after coming out of Vault 101. In that light, here are some observations that may help. First the issues I found:

1. There are too many Average locked doors for low-level players, I recommend you convert nearly all of them to Easy or Very Easy - as most people < level 10 do not have Average skill, fewer yet have High skill (and there were many High doors in the city).

2. Some of the monster encounters are incredibly dense, at least 12-18 raiders at the entrance, some cases have huge numbers of Giant Ants and/or Fire Ants in one spot. To me these are very hard to kill for low-level players, especially the ants (which is why I think they were largely limited to Grayditch in groups). These seemed a bit intense, but may be fine if your looking for the really high difficulty for newer players. Now for reference I am running MMM and FWE, maybe that changed some of the monsters (I'm not sure), but the fire-ants and Yao Gui grouped-up like that take a high-level char IMHO.

3. The monster areas are too diverse, and in a dozen places I found monsters fighting monsters instead of me. Ants on Radroaches, Ghouls on Raiders, Ants on Ghouls, etc. My 1st recommendation is to reduce the diversity in the areas and go more thematic for each cell, having mostly (or all) ghouls in one area, all raiders in another, all ants in another, so that they don't go into battle with one another and so the area seems more natural. Right now its like a free-for-all almost everywhere you go, and it gets confusing. For a few places having Mob on Mob is good or intentional, but I don't think you intended it this way in most of the cells.

4. In one of the cave cells I could hear explsions in the distance, indicating that you have monsters setting off traps somewhere. Might want to sand-box or protect the trap areas from monsters straying in and spoiling the surprise for the player!

5. The city and most of the cells need clutter, which you clearly state in the post. It can be very time consuming, but with good object palettes and something decent on the tube, it can be fairly smoothly. If you need any clutter palettes, let me know. I think cluttering the areas will add alot of atmosphere to the city as well as loot.

6. I think the game-flow through the cells and quests could be improved with more signage, especially in the city. Signs are a big deal to helping players find their way around areas by presenting land-marks and direction. The signs don't have to say anything, sometimes just an arrow with some scribbles (like the GNR arrows) will do, but their presence can greatly improve a players experience and improve the atmosphere. Signs in the city especially, and these aren't too hard to make as you can re-tex an existing sign and never both with Nifskope or modeling.

7. I couldn't find lamps/bulbs/light figures in the city but did see the lights - I assume those are going in with the clutter.

8. This may just be personal preference, but I found the auto-closing doors to be very annoying for a few reasons. For one I often saw them close when doubling back in an area, and closing without a person/NPC doing it seemed odd. Also I often use the doors as markers of where I have been (closed doors yet to be explored), and the auto-closing doors kept leaving me with the impression that I had missed a place - only to find that I hadn't. Perhaps increase the delay significantly on the auto-close?

9. Once the city has been conquered of bad-guys and the primary adventure is done, the city will then need a more direct access-route for the player if you want them to return in the future. Its buried pretty deep in there now, I recommend opening a back-way out at the end thats close to a well-established route near Megaton. The players may return more often then.


Some high-points:

1. I LOVED the clutter-box wall you made in front of the Underground City door the most of all - very elegant, I didn't even see the door the first time I tore the wall down, I just enjoyed tearing it up and searching through the mess! :goodjob: This was classy!

2. As mentioned the monorail is a first-rate job on the scripting and details - worthy of game companies IMHO. These kinds of mechanisations are sure to win favor among the players.

3. The cluttering on the book-shelves in the city is very nice also, obviously took some time but it looks "preserved".

4. The City had guards that patrolled correctly, NPCs that acted naturally and moved around per a set schedule like RC or Megaton, and the full assortment of shops and encounters was to be had - Very nicely done for a town, your doing great in getting all the right details in for a city.

5. The traps... yes this was indeed a high point! You did very well with these, most especially with the tire/wood/mine trap that basically removes any doubt about the outcome (lol). Right down to the assortment of bear-traps everywhere, I though you did especially well with the traps.

6. The size is great - as mentioned by others, its quite large and can easily burn as many hours as a DLC to complete end-to-end. The combination of Quests, side quests and adventure/combat in cells was a balanced mixture of things to do, and with some additional clutter, loot and detailing, it will really be awesome.

Thats all for my first run-through, again my congratulations on building a Great mod! :goodjob:

Good lucking finishing it up, and let me know if there is anything you need.

Cheers,

Miax

Damn, it looks interesting, and the monorail seems to be a really sweet detail (watched the vid with it). One of these days I need to find some time to play some mods, darn it! >.<

Wow, excellent feedback Miax! I haven't played through the latest update, but I did play the first version and wanted to take a moment to echo Miax's feedback points 5 and 6. I think the city is great and am going to start playing through the update today, but definitely agree that thorough cluttering will help tremendously with the atmosphere of this mod and the city and also signage within the city. If every shop could have its own signage like the cafe, and then also signs that denote which area of the city you're heading into (apartments, adminstration, shopping, etc.).

@Miaximus - Thanks so much for the feedback. That is really the best response I have had so far outside of the three beta testers I have had run through the mod over the past few months. Now to respond to your points.

1) I have always had criticism for the number of locks that I placed and have removed many of them prior to release. I shall do a bit more. I had thought that there were no locks above Easy prior to the player actually being at level 10 along the main quest line. In the cases where there were, there is either an alternative way past (for locks at Hard or above), or they are "reward" rooms/containers for those with high lock-picking skills. I shall do another thorough run through myself before the next update to ensure this is the case. As for the Hard doors in the city, they were on the residents apartments, which I did not want players going into. There is a way to unlock all of them with a terminal somewhere on the level. I had planned to make a scenario where if the player went into the private apartments, security would come by and arrest the trespasser. But currently, that is not coded.

2&3) I don't play with MMM or FWE, so I cannot say how that affects the mod either. But you are right. I had noticed some mobs attacking other mobs and I will fix that either by making them share a faction or reducing the numbers. But I think the numbers of enemies you saw are increased by MMM. For example, I only placed 12 total raiders in the whole raider cell and only 6 near the entrance. Plus I made the mod hard to begin with, so I can only assume that adding FWE & MMM would make it next to impossible. I assure you that I can play through it without getting killed (mostly, lol), in its native, non MMM & FWE form. I don't want to reduce the numbers of enemies too much, because if someone plays through the mod without MMM, it will seem a bit vacant and too easy.

4) WRT Enemies setting off mines in the distance. Okay, I'll check that out and correct for it.

5) About clutter... What can I say, you are totally right on here. I have been making mental notes of objects I want to clutter with and will be going over the whole mod, cluttering it before final release. I just find that part of level design the most un-fun, so I put it off until the end or do bits and pieces here and there.

6) Signage - Ya. I want to add them, I just don't know how to make my own that don't look like crap. I guess I need a good tutorial on the subject. The two things that stop me are the ability to remove the lettering from an existing sign and the ability to add lettering that looks appropriate. I am also going to make another dialogue pass with the mod and fill out all the NPCs dialogue, so that may help the flow as well.

7) Lighting - Yup, there are no fixtures in many parts of the mod. They will be added. Fortunately, I am now adding fixtures with the light objects in the new areas.

8) I don't know how to respond to the auto-closing doors. I was trying to emulate how any regular shop door closes behind the customer in our real world. Would you think that adding shop signs might help to alleviate the issue of using opened doors as places you have already been?

9) There actually is a "back door" already. When you first enter the sewer pipe entrance in the Springvale gas station, there is a door on the right that you can't pick, but once you get to the city cell, you can use it. In the city, it is one of the doors in the lower hallway behind the diner - where you first entered the city and where you went to get to the "storeroom" cell.

As for the high points, Let me just say thanks for all of them. You may have liked the tire/plank trap and the door-hidden-by crates the best, but my favorite was the HMA construct device. The one that yielded the water breathing chem.





I know what you mean Tarrant. My playing days are ever so limited as I spend all my free time making this mod.



One of the downsides to adventure mod updating is the playability. Most of the mod is identical to the original and only a few rooms have been updated, and those rooms are in the "end" cells. I'm not sure how many people want to play through several hours of a mod they have already done to get to the few minutes of new content. But that is the price I pay for making an "adventure" mod.
I have responded to your other comments with respect to Miax's items #5 & #6 above.

dude, i freakin love this mod, better then the pitt and achorage any day, deff one of my favorites, so much content, so much awesomeness, i have gotten at least 5 hours of play time out of it :intergalactic: :thumbsup: :celebration: :foodndrink: :fallout:

just one thing to say tho - MORE LIGHTING PLEASE OH PLEASE ADD IN SOME LIGHTING, I'm tired of using my pip-boy light all the time

yet another edit : adding MMM with increased spawns makes it REALLY hard, i accidently tried it with INCREASED INCREASED, and i got swarmed so badly by ghouls and stuff it wasn't even funny.

@Adrolak - Hey man thank! Its compliments like these that keep me going when I just want to bash my computer. Adding more lights affects the performance (FPS lag) but I can modify the image space to make some cells just brighter. And I think I have to add a note that the mod is difficult on its own, so MMM and FWE can make it downright next to impossible.

You should be Very encouraged, it's a fantastic mod and is going to be one of the biggest, functional world-additions made for Fallout 3! I know I will fully play it out as a player when your done, which is why I intentionally did Not go through the quests or dialogue yet - I want to save that for game day.

I hope the note didn't come across crass or insensitive, I did point out alot of things. I just wanted to give you feedback that you could really use, not just the usual "this is cool". I really do like the mod, I and look forward to its release!

Luck,

Miax

Not at all. What you wrote is what I wanted when I pre-released it. You are one the most dedicated contributors to this forum, and I certainly appreciate your feedback. I only hope my responses didn't come across like I was upset, because I am not. I am actually quite giddy with excitement at the moment and ever so grateful for the time you put in to both test and report your findings.

Its the mutual appreciation club. :foodndrink:

Cool thanks. When you didn't respond for a while I was worried that I had touched a nerve - I do tend to over-worry about these things.

Well great then! Back to making signs!

(I've also got a clutter object palette that I've been building and tweaking for a Year now, when it comes time to clutter, let me know).

About that. The thread had been dead for 10 days, so I sorta stopped looking at it regularly. When I finally looked and saw new posts, I responded immediately.

Just a note to let you all know that a new update is forthcoming within a week or so. The update should complete the Base Level 1. This update should add at least an hour to the overall game play time. There will be three taining rooms, an auto-doc, a couple of medium sized battles and a bit more trickery.

I just uploaded the latest update and main file for Underground City (see the top of this thread for links). The current version (1.03) will add another 2 hours of game play to the mod bringing the total to around 13 hours to complete what I have done so far. This version adds:

* Two more training encounters
* A massive scripted battle with 40+ enemies in and around the base
* The Photo-Kinetic Gauss Gun (a wicked little toy)
* 28 bug fixes / clean ups that span the entire mod

Its really coming together now and I have only 1 more cell to work on before the grand finale.

I am still looking for suggestions for content for the ending. Things are getting tougher as I want to add bigger and better content than I have done before.

when are u going to do a walk thru?