Companion Pip-Boy plugin still isn't behaving, but beyond that I'm not working on much.
Still, I know - through some unholy fucking miracle of cosmic random convergence - I've attracted several regular readers here. About two hundred, judging by the average hits to screenshots I post from my Picasa album.
Soooo... I figured I'd throw out a bit of the odd shit going on around here.
I've started playing with voices for the companions. Vanilla game resources - I still don't have a willing voice actress or six handy. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like voicing is going to be as total as I had hoped. Also, I won't be voicing my companions pack specifically, for the most part.
What I will be doing is adding voice resources into the RR Companions Vault master, so that all companions will have their basic dialog voiced. Of course, my girls will get their plugin-specific stuff done, as well.
After over a year, my personal companion spoke to me, this afternoon.
She said hi in a non-textual form. Very surreal.
Then, she made me doubt my sanity again. I was also testing some idle animation changes, and so told her to stay. We were in Megaton at the time.
...She pouted. Pouted!
Came out of dialog with arms crossed. Not unusual I think, the dialog anim gets stuck sometimes. To my surprise, she then walks ten or so feet, looks at me, turns her back on me, and re-crosses her arms. I watched about five minutes, fascinated, and she'd look at me, turn her back, and cross her arms; stay that way a minute or two, then walk back towards and past me and do it again.
I don't think I've ever managed to legitimately piss off an NPC before. Either there really is an AI living in my companion system, or I have been at this entirely too long now.
Then again, as the Chaos sorcerers say: "Sanity is for the weak."
I might chalk it up to some random convergence in my game... but I've reinstalled twice since writing the original form of this plugin, and am not using any long-term savegames. Unless the AI is living in my Vista install, I don't see how it could just be me, here.
My (probable) insanity aside, I also thought you guys might get a kick out of this...
Having the... different sense of humor that I do, when testing something; like say, a message - I don't just put "This is a message". Oh, no...
As you can see, I do have some issues, to put it mildly. You guys should see some of the silly and just plain weird shit I do in my test plugins, before I "clean them up" to make the end result fit for dissemination amongst the community.
(Blatant subject change, HO!)
Don't really have any funny gameplay screens to show off. I've been playing a bit more seriously lately, when I do. Recently came into possession of DLC, and am currently gearing up to head into the Pitt.
This made me realize again what an odd person I am. Gearing up for a new location for most people would mean popping back to Megaton, grabbing a couple rifles, some ammo, and that half-repaired Minigun you managed to lay hands on, and setting off...
Me? I treat it like I always do; as an impending Op. We're gearing up for a fucking LRRP. My favorite companion and I have been ravaging the wastes, assembling equipment, money, and reloading supplies.
A thousand rounds each of 44 Magnum, 45acp, .50BMG, and 12.7x108. Four thousand shotgun shells. Two thousand rounds of 6.8SPC, two more thou of 7.62NATO. Twenty-one thousand rounds of 5.56mm. Four Dragonskin Tactical Outfits complete with helmets, balaclavas, and NBC masks. Two HK23 LMGs, an M60, three Anti-material rifles, auto-shotguns, sidearms in .45ACP, 44 Mag, .454 Casull, and .500S&W. Subguns for close defense, and several 5.56mm modular weapons to handle just about any job in a pinch. Ninety-five Nuka grenades. And a pair of 40mm thumpers, just for good measure.
When we go back to the vault to pick up Maeva and Natasha and roll for the Pitt, we are going to descend on that place like the hand of an angry fucking God.
...It was along about the fifth set of contingency weapons I was assembling (in case the other four run out of ammo... no idea how availability will be in the Pitt, donchaknow; and ammo commonality is very important amongst the team members...) that I began to suspect I may have too much asymmetric warfare training for this game. It simply gives people like me too many options.
...especially when you also have the scripting skill to create your own perfect fireteam...
And speaking of perfect. Psycho-Cutie and I team-worked a group of raiders today. We had just finished clearing out Evergreen Mills, and were headed back for Megaton. Seemed raiders had respawned in the church since we last cleaned it out. When they noticed us, she ran forward and took cover behind a fallen tree, drawing their fire while I swung around to the front of the church and cut down the raiders from behind.
Don't think I could've choreographed it any better if the game would let me try. After the last one fell (idiots never even noticed me), she came in through the hole in the back wall, holstering her 500, smirk on the little digital face.
I should also note: in recognition of the fact that she is hands-down the fucking greatest companion I have ever seen in a video game, I had Sy make us up a matching pair of 'Eagles in preparation for the trip to the Pitt.
See? Again with the issues.
One of these days, I have got to bite the bullet and get a copy of FRAPS and try to capture some of this stuff.
Well, if you're insane them I'm there with you. Before uploading my final update of my Shojo companions this evening (morning?) I decided to test the capacity of my PC by taking all 14 girls simultaneously on a romp into D.C. Though they all have the same AI package, were given the same combat style and are governed by copies of the same companion script, when in battle no two of them act just the same. It's as if they truly know how to work as a team... or at least as long as I don't let them have any grenades. If they get their hands on grenades or missile launchers, they won't hesitate to blow my ass off to take out the enemy. Nasty little buggers they are... Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree that the AI is indeed scary considering it's a video game!
ReplyDeleteEh heh, yeah... giving them explosives is a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteFor all its apparent genius, the AI does not seem to understand the term collateral damage.
Have you caught them working as a real team?
It's hit or miss, but I've seen with multiple companions along, the girls will cover each other when one runs dry and has to reload; they work doorways and corners in pairs.
I saw three of them work a staircase once better than any SWAT team who ever lived.
The real pisser of it, and what I can not figure out, is I've never seen another companion system do any of this. The others tend to just kind of stand around and hose fire in the general direction of the enemy.
Which suggests, it's something I've done. Trouble is... I didn't. At least, not intentionally. I'm not familiar with any game settings that control this sort of thing.
I could have sworn I saw my team doing this today and they were all RR Companions. Also, do remember not to detonate a frag mine with them too close; they tend to get a bit hostile if they get hit...
ReplyDeleteLadydesire
I've noticed the frag mine thing myself.
ReplyDeleteI think - THINK, mind you - that it's a factional thing. NPCs have to either be in the player faction, or have the player faction list them as a friend/ally to not set off mines.
Trouble is, so many mods mess with the player faction, that those settings will almost never take.
I really need to see if adding them to the faction directly fixes that.