Nina

 

Nina is a small quest mod, a pretext to introduce and place in the Mojave a voiced (...barked?) and lip-synced (...muzzle-synced?) female dog companion I created for another mod. The result is a half hour / one hour quest I created following the same rules of freedom and RP I usually adopt, with the exception that this time the goals are marked on the map.

There are a total of 5 new cells and about twenty enemies to kill, but they are quite hard and well equipped. The only real pre-requisite for the player is 25 science (even if there's still a way to avoid that). DUE TO MY INABILITY IN FINDING VOICE ACTORS, THE TWO NPCs YOU WILL HAVE TO TALK WILL NEED SUBTITLES...

It starts near Goodspring, in a shack near the Canyon Wrechage, west of Primm. It can be start by new players, but concerning the difficulty of the enemies it would be better if the player levels a little before going too far in the quest stages (north of the map).

The shack can be used as player home: it has an usable working bench (the wooden table), a working mirror (to change hairstyle), a bedroll, a fireplace and various containers.

The small quest has a precise path of clues, but it can still be done in more ways, the few steps can be faced concerning the NPC attitude and it has no ways to be broken, all the places are accessible since the begin and the player is not forced in the decisions.

The last fight will be quite hard in my opinion: some enemies will heal themselves, other will buff themselves, everyone is well armed.

IN A COUPLE OF STAGES YOU WILL NEED NINA WITH YOU! So don't fire Her even if She's annoying you.

 

 

 

 

 

The dog has some peculiar features, some of them will be unlocked with time (but during the beta they're already active).

If you don't want to read the wall of text, here's a video with some of Nina's features:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbjrrWO2YwM&feature=youtu.be

 

 

- After the recruitment, a new item will be given to the player, under the Help section (as for consumables). Clicking on it and exiting the pipboy will trigger a menu with some choices.

Some will be disabled for testing purposes, other are not for the player... the only two interesting ones for now are the possibility to set the follower as Essential or not (Default is Essential) and the configuration of the whistling key, which is good to do that at start.

After choosing the option for the whistle hotkey, few seconds later a new message box will ask to keep pressed the new hotkey: if the hotkey is already assigned, IT WON'T BE NOTIFIED, but in case of mistakes you just need to repeat the procedure and choose another key.

IN CASE OF DOUBLE CLICK ON THE DOG MENU INSIDE THE PIPBOY, it will disappear. But closing the pipboy after few seconds it will reappear, so... no worries!

 

 

Using the configured hotkey, the player can whistle. If in third person and without a weapon wielded, an animation will occur. The sound of whistles is different between male or female player, and there are 3 different kinds of sound. To whistle, you must keep pressed the hotkey until you will hear the sound. Whistling can't be spammed (it has around 3 seconds of cooldown).

The type of whistle determines the situation when it's used and the consequent dog reactions, you just need to play a little to understand in which way.

Whistling is an important feature which has different effects.

- If the dog is waiting, She will start following you automatically.

- If the dog is fired and near the player, She will Arouuu (She wants to go with the player!)

- If the dog is following or doing something on Her own (see Her behaviours below), She will come back to the player. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: the dog can get stuck because of nav-mesh and the engine, so whistling will force Her to come back and She will unstuck.

- In any cases, after a whistle the dog usually answers with a bark ("Here I am!")

- The whistle can be used as fighting tactic: if the player aims to an enemy and whistle, the Dog will approach it and start a fight when near it. This works even if you are aiming with a scope. If the dog will obey your order, you'll hear Her Grrrrr; if the target is a friend, She won't attack and instead She will Woof-Woof

 

 

THE COMMANDS WILL BE GIVEN BY DIALOGUE. This is because I really don't believe in the companion wheel, I've never seen a dog with some sort of display where I can click to command Her.

- The commands are much or less the sames of the other companions: fighting tactics, wait, follow etc. but when She's puppy She won't understand them.

- SHE WON'T CARRY ANYTHING! Where is She supposed to put all that stuff?!?

- She must eat. After a while She will be hungry and She will need to eat. You can give Her food by dialogue. If She will answer with Grrr, She's not hungry, but if She will Arf-Arf or Arouuu She will need to eat. There are 4 stages of hunger, you should hear that by the way She will answer (if She Arouuu, She's desperate)

She won't die for starvation, but She will suffer a progressive debuff on Her stats. Also, at stage fourth She will start attacking brahmin on sight! Merchants and farmers won't be very happy for that...

- She won't regenerate after combat, as other followers: you can heal Her by dialogue using stimpaks. You won't be able to use super stimpaks until She becomes adult, because She's scared by that big syringue.

- She can get irradiated, this will lead to another debuff or Her stats. You will see that because She will light on as a Xmas tree. You can cure her by dialogue using Rad-Away.

- She can look for food if you ask Her, much or less the same thing Dogmeat was doing in FO3. After She finds something edible, She will bring it to you.

- She can hunt: this is a funny feature in my opinion. She will look for creatures in the nearby cells, all you need to do is following Her. During the hunt it's possible to whistle, to recall Her or manually point Her to a target.

If, after asking to hunt, she will Arouuu, it means there are no creatures nearbie. IF SHE WON'T HUNT OR SHE WON'T AROUUU, WE'RE IN DANGER! See below under Technical.

- Even if Her name is Nina, The Courier doesn't know that. So you can give Her the name you want. You just need to select the right option by dialogue (I think I'll call you...) and then insert the name on the box, after that She will be renamed. You can change the name all the times you want.

- You can set Her a new home location, when She's fired She will go back there. The Default location is the starting shack. If She will be disappointed, She still obey your order. Simply She's making you notice that She doesn't appreciate your choice.

 

 

- Nina hates crows. She will attack them on sight, you can't do anything against this.

- When the time passes, Nina grows. She will pass through 4 different stages (4 ages), you can notice it because... well, She becomes bigger, first, and then She will change the sound of bark, from acute to low. Her stats will change, When She will be big She also will be able to knockdown enemies. PS NINA WON'T GROW IF SHE'S LEFT AT HOME... She must be your companion.

- Nina must... pee. Everyone has to pee from time to time, right? She will look for a tree and She will go there to pee. If there's a combat, first She will fight and then She will pee. On interiors, she won't pee (she's well educated). If you whistle, She won't pee. So, if She gets stuck going to pee, whistle!

- Nina will get stuck. This is because of the engine / navmesh of the game. Whistle to unstuck Her! Fortunally the more She grow, the less these problems will happen.

- When Nina's small, She won't be able to climb over the stairs. Since puppies have serious difficulties in that, I find it quite pretty. Don't worry, because She can warp (see below).

- Warp: if Nina will be too far from you, She will warp automatically behind you. She won't warp if She is going to pee or if you told her to hunt. But since whistling will stop Her current behaviour, She will automatically warp to you.

 

 

 

While during the tests I didn't find peculiar problems, I'm aware to the fact that a heavy modded environment could cause problems to Her hunt script: I tested with many mods and everything was working fine, but then I activated an ENB and it broke the script.

How to understand better if your environment is too "heavy" to be handled: If you tell Her to hunt, She will take 10-15 seconds to decide what to do. In case She can't hunt (no enemies near Her), She will Arouuu. IN CASE SHE NEITHER RUNS TO THE CREATURE NOR AROUUU, THE SCRIPT CAN'T BE HANDLED IN TIME BY YOUR ENVIRONMENT. This is a dangerous situation, it could even lead to bad consequences on new savegames

Anyway, I suggest to not overwrite important saves until She will be out of the beta (next stage will be script optimization)

CAREFUL: the last place (the factory) is heavily cluttered, it could lead to slowdowns on older computers.

TEMPORARY VOICE ISSUE AFTER THE INSTALLATION:

I renamed the file's extension so it wasn't bothering the managers... but this led to break the path for Nina's voice! Two manual solutions:

- Rename the folder under Data\Sound\Voice\Nina.esp in Nina.esm

OR

- Rename Data\Nina.esm file in Nina.esp

I will correct it in a future patch

 

The beta is much or less complete, but the Debug mode will be On: messages will appear on top left of the screen.

Until it's classified as beta, many behaviours of the dog will be already unlocked since the begin, for testing purposes.

FEEDBACKS WILL BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED, better if PM.

 

Unpack manually everything under Data or use FOMM package manager

NVSE REQUIRED!!!

 

There could be problems if Nina is hired at the same time with Lenoire from Beyound Boulder Dome. But I never checked it. It's just a feeling.

 

 

CK for the invaluable help on dialogues and translations

Viktoria K. for the amazing skin of Nina

M. for the music

LoversLab for the host

Beth / Zenimax for the wonderful playground (doghouse, in this case)

No permissions granted until it will be out of beta