Monday, August 1, 2011

Interesting

Since playing FNV again, I've ended up thinking again about the need for a proper complex for housing myself and my companions.

To that end, I loaded up the NVGECK again this morning; in order to see if the new versions of engine and construction set would allow me to load the 'Lucky38 World' to copy and replicate the rooms with views.

It crashed, again. To be fair, I was expecting this, and so barely looked away from my DVD when the program shit itself and returned to the desktop.

Thinking on why the NVGECK would load other cells fine -- even inordinately large worldspaces like the wasteland -- but not anything to do with the Lucky38's replicated wasteland, the thought occurred to me that it might be a graphical issue; something in the worldspace that my video card or DX environ didn't care for.

I switched off all non-essential objects in the viewer: sound markers, collision planes, occlusion planes, trees, grass -- everything but lights and normal markers.

Tried loading the worldspace again, and this time was rewarded with it loading normally. I return to my DVD.

About ten minutes later, I glance back to the GECK, and see that the items-to-be-loaded counts haven't dropped by even one. I look closer, and see that Windows' "working" cursor has stopped moving. Great; the numbers aren't going down because it locked the system up. Another fine Bethsoft job, I see.

Ctrl+Alt+Del wouldn't bring up the windows manager either -- it was a legitimate hard lock.

Based on the symptoms, and the fact that Herculine can load the Lucky38 world for editing where I can't, I'm now inclined to believe the issue isn't so much that the GECK itself is crashing on the one world and no others -- I think it's a resource issue. There's something in that worldspace that's such a resource whore that it's more than the entire wasteland's system drain; it's just flat more than my little PC here can handle rendering.

What is it? Your guess is as good as mine. The wasteland copy is supposed to be empty; and only stretch as far as you can see from the windows. That said, as anyone who's modded a Gamebryo title before can tell you, "supposed to be" rarely coincides with "is".

So, this pretty much puts the kibosh on my tower in FNV. I'm back to working with standard interiors; and that being the case I'm far more likely to go underground than above -- maybe create some Bond-villain-esque underwater complex in Lake Mead or some such.

All that said, I have something I want to ask you guys. Bearing in mind that "underwater" does not have to equal Lake Mead (I can just as easily claim it's an underground aquifer as I did with the Vault 1 Remodel) where would you want to see player housing?

As I was playing through this new game, the thought occurred to me that if I did place the complex at the lake, I wouldn't be able to access it until at least level six; often closer to ten, for the simple fact that Obsidian railroaded us so hard that you can't go straight to the lake from Goodsprings. Short of installing some lame-o teleporting device or transport service, there's no way to go direct without it being tantamount to suicide. You pretty much have to take the long way south and around past Nipton.

While I realize that Goodsprings -- much like Springvale in FO3 -- is far and away overcrowded with house mods because it's the starting location, I'm nonetheless wondering if somewhere nearer there wouldn't be better for earlier access.

At the same time, though, easy(er) access to New Vegas and its surrounding areas would also be nice, since there's fuckall for merchants and amenities in the Goodsprings area.

With so much free space north of the Strip, it would be pretty easy to pull a Resident Evil, and claim that the NosCo Evil Corporate Headquarters are secreted beneath some farmhouse and fields.

Of course, there is also the lake. It would be equally easy to say the scavenger's platform is chained out there in the middle as a cover to keep anyone from noticing an observation bubble from the underground complex.

Decisions, decisions.

Although as I'm playing a more survival-oriented character in this game (and hardcore mode), I keep thinking it would be nice to have a hydroponic garden in the complex, as well as a water purifier of some sort.

21 comments:

  1. Ooh! Ooh! I've got it!

    An aircraft carrier suspended a mile above the desert by a fleet of vertibirds!

    Since you're making it not for public redistribution, just port the content over from the other game!

    It'll be the only one in the desert!

    Stop laughing!

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  2. Well, I did like Crimson Skies; and watched a fair bit of Tailspin back before Disney went totally to shit... so I confess a sky-carrier would be kind of cool.

    Seems like the commute would be a bit of a bitch, though.

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  3. I feel I should also note that this is not a "I want your input on a personal mod you'll never see" situation -- assuming I ever actually embark seriously on the project, it would be with the aim of eventually sharing it when the place was ready.

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  4. That's uncanny...

    ...Don Karnage was exactly who I was thinking of...

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  5. Oh come on.

    How many TV shows and games have included flying aircraft carriers over the years? More so ones that were held in the air via helicopter rotors. It's pretty much Tailspin and Crimson Skies, like I said; and Crimson Skies was never that wildly popular that I know of.

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  6. What about SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WINGS OF TOMORROW or whatever it was called?

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  7. The name sounds familiar, but I can't place any images to it in my memory; so I must not have been that much of a fan.

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  8. It had Jude Law in it I think, and I think Angelina Jolie was the captain of the Sky Fortress.

    But nevermind that now; there's something I want you to do for me, just once to see how it feels to you...

    I want you to go to the nearest doorway, dramatically leap through it as if you're wielding a cutlass and shout:

    "It is I: Nos Karnage!"

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  9. ...

    Damn it. I can't decide whether to laugh; to do it; or to threaten you with bodily harm...

    Although I should warn you regardless: I really can't mimic that particular accent.

    Also: I remember Sky Captain whatever, now that you mention it. I didn't make it all the way through the movie, which is why I didn't recall any details initially.

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  10. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow wasn't my "cup of tea", but I did manage to sit through the whole thing. There wasn't anything else handy to watch at the time...

    If you want to stick with the "aircraft carrier in the sky" idea, you could always use the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier from Marvel Comics. I think it appeared in the Avengers titles mostly. Having said that, I don't think that there have been many underwater player homes made public. There was one for FO3 that I downloaded and installed recently. While well done, I found it too small and not really companion friendly. I think it was called Alpha c e v.

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  11. I meant to say you could use the hellicarrier as a referrence, not transfer it completely >.<

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  12. Underwater homes? True, there haven't been too many, but I will mention that Morrowind has The Pearl Palace and Oblivion has the Bravil Sea Domes.

    (Sorry there are no links; I still haven't figured out how to accomplish that in this tiny white window...)

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  13. And yeah, I had totally forgotten about Nick Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier! Excellent example!

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  14. "(Sorry there are no links; I still haven't figured out how to accomplish that in this tiny white window...) "

    You've gotta go 1999 old school to link in comments.

    [A HREF="linkurl"]Link Text[/A]

    Except obviously with the proper greater than/less than brackets rather than the square ones.

    Here, have an html code listing. Typing it all by hand is a pain, but you get used to it.

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  15. Also: there is an underwater home for FNV, but it's very not me.

    It's less Bond Villain and more converted research lab.

    Looks like less than idea lighting, there are only spare bedrooms for the base game companions, it has "capturable animals" for some reason...

    And a Helicarrier would be great and all... but I'm not aware of any existing models that could be used. Even Rivet City strung up by a fleet of vertibirds is dicey -- I'd wager the thing isn't fully modeled below the water line.

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  16. I think I saw that particular home mod yesterday while wandering through the NV Nexus. My first thought was "maybe I should mention this one?" The one for FO3 had either no or almost no spare beds for companions to use. That was the major turn off for me. The lighting was, in my mind, rather unique, but also not something that endeared the mod to me, although I can tell a lot of work went into it and it seemed to be well done.

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  17. Well, were I going to just live there; the dim lighting doesn't bother me... but as a companion creator who sees the value of screenshots, I like being able to enable better lighting to get good shots; even if the lighting isn't the standard.

    So, I'm not going to knock it -- like you said, it's certainly had a lot of effort put in and would be great if you're into that sort of thing. I'm just not into that sort of thing.

    I remember the one for FO3, too; but like you I passed on it quickly when I saw it wasn't friendly to bunking companions. I know trying to sleep two dozen in one cell is a problem for all but the stoutest computers, but I'd still like to be able to at least take three or four in there with me.

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  18. Hey Nos! I found a mod you might be interested in, given your interest in a Lucky 38 room with a view. I found one posted on the NV Nexus and thought I would share. It might not be exactly what you are looking for, but I thought it would be worth a peek.

    http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=43275

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  19. Interesting, thanks.

    I was going for something completely independent of the Lucky 38 and Strip, though. I guess just adding another level onto the existing one would be one solution, though.

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  20. You're welcome. As soon as I saw it, I remembered that you originally wanted to build your own suite at the Lucky 38, or at least expand upon the one that was there, and all the problems you where having with the GECK trying to do so. I figured you could expand upon this mod, assuming that it interested you and wasn't to glitchy.

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  21. Actually, my original intention was to copy the Lucky 38 suite; reproduce it in another tower, in another area of the wasteland. To get the view without having to have anything to do with the Strip or House.

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