Tuesday, March 1, 2011

NCCS - Beta 0.6, Upcoming

As I've noted before, we're running out of stuff to add that's actually useful and not gimmicky.

You can thank Herculine for this one. Awhile back, she requested a new feature: the ability to have companions carry stuff, but not be able to actually equip it.

Other systems have used FOSE or the like in a convoluted manner to flag certain items as unequippable or such. I took an easier route of setting up a secondary container. An "invisible backpack", if you will.

In the future, I may approach Bunsaki for permission to use the Blackwolf backpacks for the mod. These are the ones used by Jessi and Kelsey. They're also the ones I use in my personal (non-uploaded) mods. These would ideally be equippable on command, like the collars, pip-boys, and such already in the equipment menu.

I haven't decided yet whether or not it's worth the trouble.

Either way; less rambling, more showy-telly.



There are now two inventory options under the equipment dialog menu. 'Personal' and 'Backpack'. Personal inventory is stuff the companion can use; things that are "on them". Items put in that container can be equipped, ammunition and weapons will be used, stims will be used, et cetera. The backpack is the storage container. Items in it are not directly accessible by the companion. They can't use armor/clothing, won't be able to equip weapons or use ammunition; won't use any chems that are in this container.



You can see here, Carrie's normal inventory. Notice the equipped dots next to some items.

Now observe the backpack contents:



Despite everything being equippable, nothing has been. This allows safe storage for important items; weapons you don't want knocked out of hands or ammunition used up. Outfits that don't fit in with the style you want the companion to have.

At present, on removing the companion from the party (through stay, go home, fire, or dead companion) the contents of the backpack are automatically dumped directly into the player's inventory. It's a bit counter-intuitive; most people would expect the items to go into the NPC inventory directly. Unfortunately, depending on what's in their "personal" inventory; this can very easily go over their carry capacity. This can cause problems here and there; risking even item loss, according to what I've read.

Since I didn't want the items to be unavailable until you hire on another companion to fill that slot; and since moving is still possible even for an overloaded player, going direct-to-you seemed to be the best option.

At present, the containers do not have a weight limit, nor a physical location you can reach to manually retrieve items. I'm considering changing tactics, to institute a weight limit, but I haven't been able to decide what manner. Should it be a straight limit (the aforementioned Blackwolf packs come in versions that allow extra carry capacity of 25 to 70 pounds, depending on which you equip); or a percentage of the companion's overall capacity; or even a match to their capacity - in effect doubling the amount they can carry?

The realism crowd is sure to bitch no matter how I do it; so I'm leaning towards a simple matching of capacity. Something to keep the container from being used as a bag of holding for thousands of items at a time.

If you've got an opinion on the carry weight restrictions, feel free to weigh in here.

9 comments:

  1. This is all sounding pretty good to me so far.

    Just be careful... eventually it's going to be like the patches the devs release and it'll be Beta v0.6.3.1.3.2.5.8.... :)

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  2. I've already resisted the urge to start going with more incremental version numbers, thank you very much Ms. Nekomimi.

    It would add a bit of professional feeling to the whole thing though; to use a seventeen decimal version number.

    ...Of course, to complete the image I'd also have to stop releasing new versions of the mod that work... so I'm not sure it's worth it.

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  3. LOL

    Yeah, I see your point. To be like the pros you'd have to release nine versions that break more than they fix per every one version that actually contained improvements.

    The way you've been doing it is juuust fiiine...

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  4. "The way you've been doing it is juuust fiiine.."

    Yeah, that's what my owner says, but how would you know about that...?

    ...Oh, we're talking about modding, aren't we?

    Right. I knew that. Also I'm totally not striking a triumphant pose right now or anything.

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  5. oh gods no, not numbers like 6.5.3.1.4 - I'm having MIB table flashbacks from work, having to fix what incompetent predecessors did. :|

    I've been personally going insane trying to grok the code in general, to figure out how I can eradicate the "put on your pipboy" (hate those things, <3 Readius) and change the target of "put on a collar" to equip a leather collar instead.

    DS is not fond of real coding. :P

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  6. and oh yeah "nekomimi mode" :P

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  7. Note to self: leave beta; skip versions 1 and 2 totally, make next release v3.1.4.1.5.9.2.6.5.

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  8. As for the other part...

    You want the quest 'NCCSCompanionQuest'. The dialog topic 'NCCSEquipment'; and remove the choice 'NCCSPipboy'. That will remove the pip-boy option from the dialog.

    For the collar, in the same quest, look up 'NCCSEquipmentCollar'; and change the resultscript. Look for the Additem and EquipItem commands, and replace the slave collar item with the ObjectID of the new item you want them to equip instead.

    Nekomimi-mode isn't addable to the mod. I tried for months to get the items to add correctly to various FO3 mods; and the ears/horns always appear on the side of the head, no matter how many times I update model availability or re-copy the egm files. My advice: if you want kitty-ears for companions, download this mod and put them in their inventory in-game.

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  9. awesome, thanks for tips. I mental blocked on the usage of the "quest" things in the game.

    As for nekomimi mode, it just triggered a flashback to an anime show I watched couple years ago that amused me. Fortunately I don't have any cat-dog-whatever girl fetishes, closest I have is an affection for the Playboy Bunny outfit look.

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