Sunday, December 26, 2010

Frustrations

Had another idea today, to potentially improve companions' combat performance. Unfortunately, it flopped totally.

Not much point going into great detail. Suffice to say that it involved a 'follow' package and a 'combat' package that were scripted to switch out at appropriate times.

Switch worked fine; but it seems that the guard packages don't function the same as they did in FO3. Yet another thing Obsidian fucked up in their mad quest for the "Largest number of flaws in a video game ever" trophy.

Scripting reverted, the damage has been rectified and they operate normally again; so at least I didn't lose ground.

Being back in Fallout after my Dragon Age hiatus is different. I really missed guns. Yeah, being able to cast fireball is neat and all... but it just doesn't compare with shooting someone in the face with a 44 Magnum.

I'd like to see how well one of those damned Revenants stands up to a shotgun barrage, oh yes.

What I didn't miss was the buggy ass companion behavior. They're still freezing up regularly after combat. Compared to DAO where my party did what the hell it was told, it feels like taking a big step back.

Then again, my not having to script in the mutant offspring of C++ buys anything using the Gamebryo engine a lot of leeway with me, so I'm willing to overlook the freezing for the time being.

And they still surprise me. I had ditched my NCCS companions since testing was over with for the time being, and returned to my suite to collect my personal companions. It was after 2200, so I decided to get some sleep and then we'd set out in the morning.

Two of the companions were in bed; with the third roaming the suite.

Flash through twelve hours of sleep. As I get up, so do the two formerly sleeping companions. The third comes in, and climbs into the just-vacated bed.

...They posted a watch for the night...

Testing that the combat behavior was indeed fixed was interesting, as well. Ran through Vault 3, and my girls were looting weapons from Fiends they had killed. [CENSORED] had had her Multiplas damaged beyond use in the fighting outside, and so just randomly decided to loot a laser rifle to supplant the varmint rifle that she apparently really hated using.

I tell ya, Kiddies, if I could just get 'em to do this shit on command instead of on their own whims, my companion system would be the best ever.

Oh, and also? I'm so going to hell:










2 comments:

  1. I apologize if this doesn't make any sense or is totally script-fu ignorant, but for some reason the universe has me up this morning two hours earlier than usual. I have no idea why nor do I understand why I'm not going back to sleep.

    You mentioned some packages not switching out autonomously as they should and a desire to get the companions to do more cool things on command. Some companion systems (none of which I use mind you, so perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about) include a method of giving commands to a party without having to speak to one of them directly, like party commands or combat orders. These commands can be bound to assignable hotkeys. Is it possible to do something like that with the NCCS script? I guess what I'm seeing in my mind is being able during combat to at the touch of a key give orders to the party like "switch to melee" or "give me a stim".

    I think I may have mentioned this before Matt, and you may have told me that it's not possible, I don't know. I'm still getting the first caffeine of the day into my system...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not ignorant at all. Is totally possible, but there are two issues:

    1) even on "hot-key" command, the commands are still script driven. It's the same back-end; just with a different event calling it. I'm not sure it would get a script to process that otherwise wouldn't.

    2) configurable hot-keys require NVSE - which I'm trying really hard to keep away from.

    That all said... you're right. I never have tried it to see if an NVSE-enable hot-key would force a script to run where it won't of its own volition.

    Much as I hate to do it, I'll have to fire up the NVSE editor and see if it helps any.

    As for the "party commands", I'll draft a PM here shortly to explain that one to you in detail. I'm still not feeling generous enough to give pointers to the competition; holiday season or no...

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.