Did the Zodiac mod go missing?

[migueltorga]

On 6/21/2020 at 9:21 PM, Carabosse said:

 

Yep.

Nice. It would be fun to role-play more like a stripper and be able to gain access to private shows with higher ratings. Just wondering, this mod as alot of potential, were you thinking of making it more akin to an escort/sugar girl theme? I don´t quite  remember, but i think i saw something like "relationships" as a feature back when the housing licences were up 

[Carabosse]

16 hours ago, migueltorga said:

Nice. It would be fun to role-play more like a stripper and be able to gain access to private shows with higher ratings. Just wondering, this mod as alot of potential, were you thinking of making it more akin to an escort/sugar girl theme? I don´t quite  remember, but i think i saw something like "relationships" as a feature back when the housing licences were up 

 

It's not a million miles from where I'm heading. The big new feature coming next is Ecliptic. It sits alongside Zodiac (the network) and Zap in importance. There's also the permit system but at this point its so linked to Ecliptic that when I say Ecliptic I mean both. One doesn't work without the other.

With Ecliptic the properties you'll be able to assign permits to are a lot more open. If you remember the old permit system, before I removed it, it relied on me selecting other mods to work with it and you could only use them. There's no such restriction now. If you have a mod that adds a new home, apartment, whatever. It will automatically work with Ecliptic.

You will be limited by the number of permits you can hold at any one time. This is now determined by the Star Rating system (the new Star Rating system!). There is no Zodiac point cost for permits any more. Permits are assigned on a weekly basis and must be renewed. There's an option for automatic renewal but use with caution. No amount of complaint mails to Merope will get her to allow you to end a contract early.

When you have property permits assigned, Ecliptic allows you to advertise availability at those places, during player specified times. You can also impose other restrictions like client type, services offered, your working rate. Depending on your Star Rating, reputation and other factors like your rates and client restrictions, you'll start to receive booking requests from clients via the Zodiac mail system. These can be accepted or declined. If you accept them, Ecliptic will lock those appointments in and failure to honour them, for any reason, will lead to reputation decline and potentially, agency disciplinary measures (can be toggled on and off in the MCM).

I've changed how client data is handled. They now carry the data with them individually, instead of it being assigned by Zodiac when they were created and only when they were created. This allows them to have a lot more permanence. Most clients will not be very permanent, like before, but the option is now there for that to happen. Whether or not Ecliptic fully takes advantage of that in the first version is unclear atm. But it will lead to repeat clients and the ability to develop relationships, good or bad, with those clients.

There is also a special type of property permit, 'Marquee' permits. I only plan to have one in the next version (more later) and it seems to be unsurprising that I picked Diamond City Expansion first. Special permits work a bit different to normal permits in that they allow Zodiac to make ZAP style deployment changes to those properties. This is so that they can offer more focused activities. As before, Zodiac makes no permanent edits to the base game or other mods. All deployment changes are temporary and reversible. And none of the special permit enabling mods are hard requirements.

Enabling a permit for the Red Seat will allow three new Zodiac activities there. All are advertised and administered via Ecliptic. They include pole dancing, a more traditional activity and a special kind of show. The special show uses a unique (for now) Ecliptic advertisement type called a pledge. You specify a time window during which clients can pledge tokens or caps. You set the pledge amount and window. If the pledge is met, you are then expected to fulfil your end of the deal at the time specified.

 

 

 

 

[migueltorga]

y

On 6/26/2020 at 1:35 PM, Carabosse said:

 

It's not a million miles from where I'm heading. The big new feature coming next is Ecliptic. It sits alongside Zodiac (the network) and Zap in importance. There's also the permit system but at this point its so linked to Ecliptic that when I say Ecliptic I mean both. One doesn't work without the other.

With Ecliptic the properties you'll be able to assign permits to are a lot more open. If you remember the old permit system, before I removed it, it relied on me selecting other mods to work with it and you could only use them. There's no such restriction now. If you have a mod that adds a new home, apartment, whatever. It will automatically work with Ecliptic.

You will be limited by the number of permits you can hold at any one time. This is now determined by the Star Rating system (the new Star Rating system!). There is no Zodiac point cost for permits any more. Permits are assigned on a weekly basis and must be renewed. There's an option for automatic renewal but use with caution. No amount of complaint mails to Merope will get her to allow you to end a contract early.

When you have property permits assigned, Ecliptic allows you to advertise availability at those places, during player specified times. You can also impose other restrictions like client type, services offered, your working rate. Depending on your Star Rating, reputation and other factors like your rates and client restrictions, you'll start to receive booking requests from clients via the Zodiac mail system. These can be accepted or declined. If you accept them, Ecliptic will lock those appointments in and failure to honour them, for any reason, will lead to reputation decline and potentially, agency disciplinary measures (can be toggled on and off in the MCM).

I've changed how client data is handled. They now carry the data with them individually, instead of it being assigned by Zodiac when they were created and only when they were created. This allows them to have a lot more permanence. Most clients will not be very permanent, like before, but the option is now there for that to happen. Whether or not Ecliptic fully takes advantage of that in the first version is unclear atm. But it will lead to repeat clients and the ability to develop relationships, good or bad, with those clients.

There is also a special type of property permit, 'Marquee' permits. I only plan to have one in the next version (more later) and it seems to be unsurprising that I picked Diamond City Expansion first. Special permits work a bit different to normal permits in that they allow Zodiac to make ZAP style deployment changes to those properties. This is so that they can offer more focused activities. As before, Zodiac makes no permanent edits to the base game or other mods. All deployment changes are temporary and reversible. And none of the special permit enabling mods are hard requirements.

Enabling a permit for the Red Seat will allow three new Zodiac activities there. All are advertised and administered via Ecliptic. They include pole dancing, a more traditional activity and a special kind of show. The special show uses a unique (for now) Ecliptic advertisement type called a pledge. You specify a time window during which clients can pledge tokens or caps. You set the pledge amount and window. If the pledge is met, you are then expected to fulfil your end of the deal at the time specified.

 

 

 

 

yeah, almost as soon is I made the question i read what you were going for in your profile page. Can´t wait to try the new changes, literally just keep fallout installed because of your mod at this point

I just wonder, if you are getting rid of all animation requirements, making it so the mod reads whatever animations we have installed, does that mean that it will also read more dance animations we might install?

[Carabosse]

1 hour ago, migueltorga said:

I just wonder, if you are getting rid of all animation requirements, making it so the mod reads whatever animations we have installed, does that mean that it will also read more dance animations we might install?

 

I'm getting rid of XDI (and all existing encounters that relied on it) not animations. HappyHookers/Zodiac never had strict animation requirements. Leito's are supported as a soft requirement, along with AAF, if the player has them installed. This isn't changing. What's changing is that I'm making additional slots for custom animations that the player can organise themselves (and have appear as options via the menus during client encounters). They can be whatever the player wants. You cannot override the pole dancing animation. That's mostly because I'm lazy.

[migueltorga]

Nice, do you have any ETA? 

[Carabosse]

9 hours ago, migueltorga said:

Nice, do you have any ETA? 

 

I have a date that I aspire to, I've had many...

 

But my lips are sealed. I do not wish to incur the wrath of the indignant pitchfork society.

[Flint456]

On 6/28/2020 at 5:53 AM, Carabosse said:

 

I have a date that I aspire to, I've had many...

 

But my lips are sealed. I do not wish to incur the wrath of the indignant pitchfork society.

Is it at least in july? i am so tired of w8ng :((( Sure i am not the only one. You even made me to put my first comment

[elymas2019]

Is there somewhere we can download the current version in the mean time? I lost alll me old files during an upgrade and can find any version. Unless the new is coming out soon enough?

[overspin]

 

18 hours ago, elymas2019 said:

Is there somewhere we can download the current version in the mean time? I lost alll me old files during an upgrade and can find any version. Unless the new is coming out soon enough?

 

Carabosse where nice and made and temporary upload to MEGA. That is the latest release.

 

And Carabosse, we are still waiting with high anticipation for the next release. Your description of the future plans for the next one, It's sound awesome 

Thank you so much for this mod ?

[Carabosse]

On 7/27/2020 at 12:41 PM, overspin said:

 

And Carabosse, we are still waiting with high anticipation for the next release. Your description of the future plans for the next one, It's sound awesome 

Thank you so much for this mod ?

 

The next update is a whopper.

[elymas2019]

So downloaded and reinstalled, new characters and bus stops are just flat out not working. Tried with two characters and multiple bus stops, zap flat-out does not see them and will not let me deploy the proper set up. Never had this issue before and and not using any mods, that im aware of, that would effect the bus stops. Tried force updating the mod and allt the other standard ways to fix things im aware of. Otherwise no issues. Ideas?

[knopp]

37 minutes ago, elymas2019 said:

So downloaded and reinstalled, new characters and bus stops are just flat out not working. Tried with two characters and multiple bus stops, zap flat-out does not see them and will not let me deploy the proper set up. Never had this issue before and and not using any mods, that im aware of, that would effect the bus stops. Tried force updating the mod and allt the other standard ways to fix things im aware of. Otherwise no issues. Ideas?

It's an issue with precombined meshes, somehow only the locator service detects them, so I duplicated all busstops and made them invisible, thus turning them into individual meshes, which Z.A.P. can detect, while not affecting performance a lot. Just throw the .esp below in your data folder and activate it with any mod manager.

 

[Workaround]Zodiac Bus stops.esp

[elymas2019]

Trying this out, will update with results.

[elymas2019]

46 minutes ago, elymas2019 said:

Trying this out, will update with results.

Worked perfectly.

[Carabosse]

On 8/17/2020 at 12:04 AM, knopp said:

It's an issue with precombined meshes, somehow only the locator service detects them, so I duplicated all busstops and made them invisible, thus turning them into individual meshes, which Z.A.P. can detect, while not affecting performance a lot. Just throw the .esp below in your data folder and activate it with any mod manager.

 

[Workaround]Zodiac Bus stops.esp 291.73 kB · 2 downloads

 

That's a very clever and neat workaround. I wouldn't be able to use it because I'm not allowed to make edits to the base game (add new things in cells etc).

 

My workaround was to find the bus stop benches (they are never precombined because they are furniture), then use them as a reference point for Zaps shoot and paint mechanism (similar to how Zap determines landscape level for camp objects and firing solutions for flares) to detect the bus stop shelter. If the detection object appears in the range that you would expect the ceiling of the shelter to appear, it's probably a bus stop shelter!

 

It had some downsides. Though it wasn't very papyrus intensive, it could scale up to 20 or more instances in some locations. So I always limited to one at a time. You would run to a detected stop and only when in deployment range would I actually use the shoot and paint system. That could lead to some silly instances where you could clearly see that there was no shelter but Zap would check any way. I was adding a memory feature for each site to avoid duplication of effort.

 

But then I decided to remove bus stops altogether .

[elymas2019]

So any updates on an ETA etc?

[Carabosse]

21 hours ago, elymas2019 said:

So any updates on an ETA etc?

 

I've done what I said I'd never do again. Making foundational changes to the way the mod operates. It sort of began with Ecliptic which itself wouldn't have been that much of a time sink But then Ecliptic gave me tons of ideas for how I could fix some of the things I really didn't like about the mod. Mostly to do with how I get clients to the player, in an efficient and non repetitive manner.

 

The basecamp will handle all future non-property related 'encounters' which I kind of refer to as advertisements now, as that's what Ecliptic does. It allows you to advertise yourself. What you're willing to do, with whom you're willing to do it, where and what you expect in return etc. The basecamp sets out a deployable area. At it's most basic its a shell that shows where everything will fit. It has poles, canopies, lights, banner boards, Zap ofc. Depending on what you advertise, other modular parts will appear which may be specific to the service offered or reflect restrictions you have placed ("No ghouls or Canadians" signs could appear for example). There are non service deployments too like defence, bombardment, rest, tinkering. I'm even playing around with a sort of overall command deployment that has a sectoral map table, which will indicate worldspace wide areas of high thoroughfare. Lighting up those sectors accordingly. The thing I don't like about this is that it would rely on known worldspaces but my current thinking is for it to just not work for unknown worldspaces. About that.

 

I'm changing how client activity is determined. It started with me wanting to fix those instances where clients sometimes decide to fight each other or the player (you can still attack a client and get a hostile response), so I did that but then I looked again at how it gets clients based on actual npcs nearby and while its cool, it's kind of limiting. Now I've moved to a system where I can do a lot more fun things like having your status within the Zodiac affect activity and client type. The amount of clients that can appear is increased. I can also do things like assign sectors to randomly be hotspots (Merope will probably send out relevant mail notifications(haven't done this yet!)), so it will take a lot longer to burn through client potential at those places. And now that there are two new gangs in addition to Canis Majoris. I think it would be nice to begin a little turf war between them and allow you to play a small part in it (haven't done this either!).

 

A big aim for the basecamp system is to allow so that you don't have to move around so much as before to chase clients. You still can of course but you can also just let them congregate over a longer period of time prior to the times and places that you've notified Ecliptic you will be available. Leaving Zap/basecamp and going off to do other things should feel more normal.

 

I've made big changes to tokens in regards to their value and availability. Outside of properties you'll rarely get tokens. Properties use Ecliptic as well but they're a different style of encounter entirely. Property encounters are more about targeting specific individuals, so I can start getting you doing the Zodiac blood collection stuff. Even though you won't be getting tokens at basecamp encounters, you'll still be able to gain Zodiac points. They'll be applied directly and through vouchers. Tokens story wise were always meant to be little tracking devices that sent information about the holder to the Zodiac. For one when bought they'd be neutral. They'd only show the Zodiac sign after some time. Of course now my tokens track an awful lot more about the poor clients than just their sign.

 

There's so much other stuff that I don't have time to mention. You no longer have the client exhaustion mini game! I took the Ecliptic shaped axe to that too. Like I said before, the next update is a whopper and that's why its taking so long.

[Stormer]

1 hour ago, Carabosse said:

 

I've done what I said I'd never do again. Making foundational changes to the way the mod operates. It sort of began with Ecliptic which itself wouldn't have been that much of a time sink But then Ecliptic gave me tons of ideas for how I could fix some of the things I really didn't like about the mod. Mostly to do with how I get clients to the player, in an efficient and non repetitive manner.

 

The basecamp will handle all future non-property related 'encounters' which I kind of refer to as advertisements now, as that's what Ecliptic does. It allows you to advertise yourself. What you're willing to do, with whom you're willing to do it, where and what you expect in return etc. The basecamp sets out a deployable area. At it's most basic its a shell that shows where everything will fit. It has poles, canopies, lights, banner boards, Zap ofc. Depending on what you advertise, other modular parts will appear which may be specific to the service offered or reflect restrictions you have placed ("No ghouls or Canadians" signs could appear for example). There are non service deployments too like defence, bombardment, rest, tinkering. I'm even playing around with a sort of overall command deployment that has a sectoral map table, which will indicate worldspace wide areas of high thoroughfare. Lighting up those sectors accordingly. The thing I don't like about this is that it would rely on known worldspaces but my current thinking is for it to just not work for unknown worldspaces. About that.

 

I'm changing how client activity is determined. It started with me wanting to fix those instances where clients sometimes decide to fight each other or the player (you can still attack a client and get a hostile response), so I did that but then I looked again at how it gets clients based on actual npcs nearby and while its cool, it's kind of limiting. Now I've moved to a system where I can do a lot more fun things like having your status within the Zodiac affect activity and client type. The amount of clients that can appear is increased. I can also do things like assign sectors to randomly be hotspots (Merope will probably send out relevant mail notifications(haven't done this yet!)), so it will take a lot longer to burn through client potential at those places. And now that there are two new gangs in addition to Canis Majoris. I think it would be nice to begin a little turf war between them and allow you to play a small part in it (haven't done this either!).

 

A big aim for the basecamp system is to allow so that you don't have to move around so much as before to chase clients. You still can of course but you can also just let them congregate over a longer period of time prior to the times and places that you've notified Ecliptic you will be available. Leaving Zap/basecamp and going off to do other things should feel more normal.

 

I've made big changes to tokens in regards to their value and availability. Outside of properties you'll rarely get tokens. Properties use Ecliptic as well but they're a different style of encounter entirely. Property encounters are more about targeting specific individuals, so I can start getting you doing the Zodiac blood collection stuff. Even though you won't be getting tokens at basecamp encounters, you'll still be able to gain Zodiac points. They'll be applied directly and through vouchers. Tokens story wise were always meant to be little tracking devices that sent information about the holder to the Zodiac. For one when bought they'd be neutral. They'd only show the Zodiac sign after some time. Of course now my tokens track an awful lot more about the poor clients than just their sign.

 

There's so much other stuff that I don't have time to mention. You no longer have the client exhaustion mini game! I took the Ecliptic shaped axe to that too. Like I said before, the next update is a whopper and that's why its taking so long.

Just take your time, its your mod after all Glad youre still working on it though and havent given up like many others here on LL.

[elymas2019]

FYI, latest AAF 154 breaks the animations and by extent zodiac. scenes with clients startt and then just wont end. Not sure what changed but they messed it up and the next oldest version that is available to download is version 70 something, 76(?), and is too old. Probalby wait unitl the next update to play again anyway, mods are the old reason left for me to play f4.

[Carabosse]

 

FYI, latest AAF 154 breaks the animations and by extent zodiac. scenes with clients startt and then just wont end. Not sure what changed but they messed it up and the next oldest version that is available to download is version 70 something, 76(?), and is too old. Probalby wait unitl the next update to play again anyway, mods are the old reason left for me to play f4.

I don't think its a problem related to the newest version of AAF. Dagobaking is always good with not breaking existing features. I've seen what you describe before. I'm struggling to remember what the root cause was now but it wasn't related to AAF. Even though it appeared obvious (was my first instinct) that it was.

[elymas2019]

Hmmm. Not sure now. Everything was working earlier in the day. Then I updated AAF and the problems began. Anyone got a clue as to what it might be or is experiencing the same prob? Wondering if reinstaling some things will fix it. Will try later and report back if it works. Side question, you said that the next update would make use of another animation pack but i cant seem to find where you said it and therefore which one, figure i may as well just preinstall it. I think it was savage cabbages(?)

[Carabosse]

On 12/22/2020 at 7:40 PM, elymas2019 said:

Hmmm. Not sure now. Everything was working earlier in the day. Then I updated AAF and the problems began. Anyone got a clue as to what it might be or is experiencing the same prob? Wondering if reinstaling some things will fix it. Will try later and report back if it works. Side question, you said that the next update would make use of another animation pack but i cant seem to find where you said it and therefore which one, figure i may as well just preinstall it. I think it was savage cabbages(?)

 

It's slowly cameback to me. I have definitely experienced the same problem. But it was ages ago.

 

If it really is the same problem, the fix was declaring the aaf api again in the aaf_stop function that I use in my animation script.

 

I can't give you the most up to date animation script for Zodiac as it would break more than it would fix. It would be looking for a lot of things that don't exist in your version.

 

But I extracted and decompiled the 09925 version and recompiled it with the fix. It might not fix it though, it might make your pc explode. 

 

The attached file should go in <Your Fallout 4 Folder>/Data\Scripts\hh123\

 

Extract first!

 

As it's a loose file, it should overwrite the file in the ba2 archive. Just make sure to remove it when the next version of Zodiac is released (I'm going to add a check to warn for this just in case).

 

[Edit]

 

And to answer your side question (sorry I forgot). Expect at least three animation packs to be supported and a mechanism to include others that will require some simple editing on your part (only text files). There's no menu driven selection like in the current version. You plan and advertise routines via Ecliptic.

 

 

hh123_Q02_Anims_SCR.7z

[elymas2019]

I dont have an hh123 folder in data\scripts. Also to more accurately diagnose the problem. I reinstalled and ren several tests, the animations are working up until its time to end the encounter. Stages 1-4 are working, even the swallow/spit if applicable, then the client dresses with the animation still going and then we're stuck in that loop. Just my character and a clothed client sort of going at it. As far as animation pack I'll just do the  "officially" supported ones.

[Carabosse]

7 hours ago, elymas2019 said:

I dont have an hh123 folder in data\scripts. Also to more accurately diagnose the problem. I reinstalled and ren several tests, the animations are working up until its time to end the encounter. Stages 1-4 are working, even the swallow/spit if applicable, then the client dresses with the animation still going and then we're stuck in that loop. Just my character and a clothed client sort of going at it. As far as animation pack I'll just do the  "officially" supported ones.

 

The hh123 folder structure is in the HappyHookersInc (Zodiac) ba2 main archive. But if you recreate the folder structure in your fallout data folder and place the pex file I posted in there, it will override the same pex file in the ba2.

 

The only change is that I added a afi api delaration to the function that I call which stops aaf animating.

 

The folder you'd need to create is data/scripts/hh123

[elymas2019]

Tried and worked perfectly.

 

Thanks