Droids of the Commonwealth - the Re-redux ?

[Trykz]

 

So it's been a long two years for me, but I'm back home in Florida and at the moment, I'm pretty well inundated with work.

 

While not a bad thing, it's pretty much eliminated my modding time, while also cutting my time in general for pretty much everything.

Since I haven't even touched FO4 since going to New York two years ago, I'm in the process of attempting to pick up where I left off

with Droids development. Looking around the forum, I see much has changed, but the basics are still pretty much the same. That said, I'll

be looking into bringing Droids up to the latest versions of whatever is necessary over the coming days. There were a number of

minor issues with the mod that I'll be cleaning up, as well as a few things I'll be working to improve and streamline.

 

While I have most of the main systems of the mod in place and set up the way I want them, I'm going to be looking into

refining things a bit more. Droids power management will be getting a much needed "recycler" component, which will allow

your droid to recycle certain power sources directly to the power core. Ammo, mines, mini-nukes, etc.. However, there's a

catch..... your droid MUST "tether" to a robot actually equipped with the recycler unit, which you feed sources into, so the

robot can transfer the raw power into your power core. There's a bunch of stuff like that I want to add and refine, and I'll

address them as things progress over the coming weeks.

 

Finally, for those wondering about the future of my A.S.I.A. mod, wonder no more:

A.S.I.A. is now defunct, obsolete, and now, officially replaced by Droids. That said, I'll be

doing a few familiar things from A.S.I.A. through Droids. Such as the captive bots and

roaming bot squads that criss-cross the map stirring shit up ?

 

So anyway, I'm back and eager to get started. So let's do this.....

 

Trykz?

[Olmech]

Welcome back

[dinorunn]

Just when I returned to fallout after so long. Welcome back. I'm looking forward to the re-redux.

[Nuka Cherry]

Oh awesome. Welcome back.

 

I have saved your original droids and ASIA, but could no longer use them due to either Fusion Girl reaching 1.80 or other conflicts. That is great - playing as a droid is such a fun and thematic thing to do. Hmm... now to reinstall lots of droid-esque elements again!

[Trykz]

 

Your droid starts with the ability to hack into nearly ANY robot. Once hacked, a number

of options become available to you:

 

 

such as draining the robot of all it's internal power, and

setting it to self-destruct. As you can see, the robot's

onboard recycler system also comes available. At the

moment, there are two recyclers for power and coolant

sources. These systems do not add things like fusion cores

or the like. The recyclers do just that. They recycle.

 

 

Since doing away with the fusion cores, I've created this and one other

method for keeping your droid powered up:

 

The charging station.....

 

 

Charging stations are only available on the ships.

Oh, wait.... did I not mention the ships?

 

The U.S.N.S. Charlton:

 

 

And the U.S.N.S. Watson:

 

 

More on the ships later. I'll break them out into more detail

in future posts. Suffice to say, they're massive. The Charlton is

a straight-up personnel and armament deployment vessel.

The Watson is much more "special". It's capabilities are quite

extensive, and if all goes as planned, can even house a rather

large number of civilian settlers (still working on this).

 

Finally, I'm ready to announce (but not quite ready to show),

The Orbital Station.

 

Okay, maybe just ONE shot:

 

 

This will be an update all to itself. It's structurally complete, but

seriously understaffed and mostly unfurnished at the moment ?

 

I also need to work out it's perpetual night cycle to simulate

floating in space. I suspect I'll need to place it into it's own

worldspace so it doesn't affect the entire Commonwealth.

 

More to come.....

[dinorunn]

All looks absolutely amazing really looking forward to it. quick question will it require a whole new game or just a save that hasn't touched it or its predecessors.

[King of tentacle]

glad to have you back trykz!

knew you'd return when the stars where right

[Oldwolf58]

Welcome Back @Trykz ! ?

[Trykz]

12 hours ago, dinorunn said:

All looks absolutely amazing really looking forward to it. quick question will it require a whole new game or just a save that hasn't touched it or its predecessors.

 

Any character that has never been a droid, or had any of this mod's previous iterations in it's load order will be able to become a droid.

 

But again, and I cannot stress this enough.... this mod MUST be played in Survival Mode. Survival is the only mode with a game timer

low enough to keep power levels reasonably manageable. Very Hard mode "was" doable, but likely won't be any longer under the new

power management mechanics. Manipulating the game's various timers across difficulty modes simply isn't possible. Power management

is a core feature of this mod. As is temperature, processor, and firewall management. These 4 components have been painstakingly adjusted

and tested for hundreds of gameplay hours to work harmoniously with each other. Responsible power management makes the others a

breeze to manage.

 

That said, if Survival Mode "isn't for you", then neither is this mod. I know of at least TWO survival mode mods that turn specific survival

mode features on or off for better customization. Use the one that serves your preferred gameplay best.

 

So maybe we should start there for the newcomers:

 

The Power System

 

Power is the key to droid functionality. No machine can function without it. Power is an "actor value". Just like every other "SPECIAL" ability.

Such as Endurance, Agility, Intelligence, Strength, etc.. The difference here, is that Power also manipulates TWO other actor values: Firewall

and SPU (synthetic processing unit). All three are on the game engine's timer, BUT, Power halts the timer for Firewall, which in turn halts the

timer for SPU. Think of it this way:

 

Power manages your Firewall, which is under constant attack. With adequate power, your Firewall is impenetrable. Your Firewall protects

your SPU (your brain), which governs all other functions. If your SPU is breached, your chassis self-destructs. I'll get into more detail about

Firewall, SPU, and Temperature later. The droid controls it's own onboard functions via holotape program. Every function consumes power.

Even your armor, which is equipped and removed with the same holotape program. In other words, if you're not fighting, you should

not load in your combat gear or any support programs. You wouldn't walk around at noon with night vision on, right?

 

Adequate Power = fully powered Firewall = fully protected SPU + low Temperature = an efficient and effective killing machine ??

 

Temperature will get it's own post later. It's just as important as power, but only indirectly related.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Trykz

[dinorunn]

2 hours ago, Trykz said:

 

Any character that has never been a droid, or had any of this mod's previous iterations in it's load order will be able to become a droid.

 

But again, and I cannot stress this enough.... this mod MUST be played in Survival Mode. Survival is the only mode with a game timer

low enough to keep power levels reasonably manageable. Very Hard mode "was" doable, but likely won't be any longer under the new

power management mechanics. Manipulating the game's various timers across difficulty modes simply isn't possible. Power management

is a core feature of this mod. As is temperature, processor, and firewall management. These 4 components have been painstakingly adjusted

and tested for hundreds of gameplay hours to work harmoniously with each other. Responsible power management makes the others a

breeze to manage.

 

That said, if Survival Mode "isn't for you", then neither is this mod. I know of at least TWO survival mode mods that turn specific survival

mode features on or off for better customization. Use the one that serves your preferred gameplay best.

 

So maybe we should start there for the newcomers:

 

The Power System

 

Power is the key to droid functionality. No machine can function without it. Power is an "actor value". Just like every other "SPECIAL" ability.

Such as Endurance, Agility, Intelligence, Strength, etc.. The difference here, is that Power also manipulates TWO other actor values: Firewall

and SPU (synthetic processing unit). All three are on the game engine's timer, BUT, Power halts the timer for Firewall, which in turn halts the

timer for SPU. Think of it this way:

 

Power manages your Firewall, which is under constant attack. With adequate power, your Firewall is impenetrable. Your Firewall protects

your SPU (your brain), which governs all other functions. If your SPU is breached, your chassis self-destructs. I'll get into more detail about

Firewall, SPU, and Temperature later. The droid controls it's own onboard functions via holotape program. Every function consumes power.

Even your armor, which is equipped and removed with the same holotape program. In other words, if you're not fighting, you should

not load in your combat gear or any support programs. You wouldn't walk around at noon with night vision on, right?

 

Adequate Power = fully powered Firewall = fully protected SPU + low Temperature = an efficient and effective killing machine ??

 

Temperature will get it's own post later. It's just as important as power, but only indirectly related.

Thanks for the answer i will probably start a new playthrough then.

[Trykz]

1 hour ago, dinorunn said:

Thanks for the answer i will probably start a new playthrough then.

 

Though many times not necessary, that's usually for the best. Even simple minor adjustments to

a less than critical script can corrupt a save file. The base mod is largely unchanged. I made a few

minor adjustments to Thermal Edition. Nothing major. It's the yet unreleased Naval Edition that I'm

making the most critical changes in.

 

Naval Edition adds a new "relay" system, which allows you to quickly move around, but utilizes a

LOT of power. The Spire (the new space station) is currently housed in Naval Edition. I'm working

on moving it to it's own plug-in so I can re-upload the base mod, Thermal Edition, and Naval Edition

as soon as Naval Edition is finished. Naval Edition comes with a number of droid NPCs on both ships.

 

The Spire is where the A.S.I.A. style roamers and captive NPCs will come in.

 

The Spire's roamers will be far more refined than A.S.I.A.'s. As will their pathing and AI packaging.

I'll also be including "rogue" style NPCs, set hostile to the player. Call them "jealous peers" for

not being quite as advanced as you. I've already gamed out a number of capabilities that the player

will need to learn and adapt to. Like a "remote hacking" ability. If you don't find and kill the hacker

in a group quickly, they might just power you down so their friends can strip you for parts ?

[ussr1]

Does anyone have or would the author be willing to upload the ASIA mod until this one is in its release phase?

[Trykz]

So I managed to move The Spire to it's own plugin. I also managed

to work out it's perpetual night as I was testing it. Just in case you're

wondering: "how do we get to it if it's in space?", well, it's quite

simple actually. You use the new "relay system" subroutine that

will show up in your Pip with the Naval Edition add-on:

 

 

The relay system allows you to quickly move around the Commonwealth.

But it's VERY power hungry. 75 power gets you to any of the

Commonwealth refrigerated trailers, 100 power for a trip to the

Nuka World or Far Harbor trailers, 150 power to either of the ships,

and 200 power to The Spire (when it becomes available).

 

Needless to say, it will require seriously responsible management.

Irresponsible use may just strand you somewhere slowly waiting for

your firewall to drop, exposing your SPU to the persistent hack

that's constantly attacking it, insuring a one way trip back to

the production floor. In testing, I make sure to keep at least 50

or so fusion or gamma cells in my inventory for those times

when I'm not quite sure I'll make it back from wherever I

wandered off to. Finally, the relay system functions on a

60 second delay. So forget about using it as a

"quick escape" should you charge into a fight you

can't handle.

 

Which brings me to your "onboard recycler":

 

The onboard recycler is a very small unit built into your

chassis, that allows you to recycle very small power sources

without the aid of a robot. Things like the aforementioned

fusion and gamma cells. It can also recycle coolant items

and a couple of bio items as well. It's only capable of recycling

10 cells at a time at a 1:1 ratio. 1 cell = 1 power, whereas

a robot with a fitted unit can recycle 100 at a time.

 

Anyway, with The Spire moved, I'm polishing up Naval

Edition's features. I still have to build the final system, which

is the "Profile System". Profiles allow you to set up your droid

for any situation quickly and most efficiently, by adjusting

your SPECIAL stats, and equipping ONLY that which is

necessary to minimize power consumption, and maximize

efficiency while the profile is loaded. The profile system

will require that your droid is running NO programs, and

has NONE of the armor pieces equipped, except for the

subsystems docking module (the spine).

 

The chosen profile will first adjust your SPECIAL's, and

then equip you with preselected armor components to best

compliment the profile. It does NOT prevent you from wearing

additional components from other armor/clothing mods.

There will be 3 profiles to choose from, and I'm currently

entertaining ideas for more:

 

The Social Profile:

+5 Charisma / +3 Intelligence / 0 armor components

 

The Stealth Profile

+5 Agility / +3 Endurance / 0 armor components

 

The Tank Profile

+7 Endurance / +5 Strength / All armor components (except rebreather)

 

More to come.....

[jaeos]

And for those of us that have the last version before delete.. and forgot where the start of it is.. it's in the south boston checkpoint and NOT between trinity tower and Hubris comics like the russian translation for this mod  says. 

[badboy64]

Looking forward to the new release of your mod.??

[Trykz]

18 hours ago, jaeos said:

And for those of us that have the last version before delete.. and forgot where the start of it is.. it's in the south boston checkpoint and NOT between trinity tower and Hubris comics like the russian translation for this mod  says. 

 

Correct.

 

The theater location was in the very first iteration of the mod. The theater location was deleted for the new factory beneath the checkpoint in the second iteration of the mod.

Though I think I forgot to remove some elements of it. I'll take a look through the ESM and see if I can get rid of any residual changes to that location before the next release.

 

Depending on what mods are in your load order, the Gunners posted at the checkpoint may or may not be hostile. It's a bit hit or miss, but I can't account for all potential load orders.

I've considered moving it's entrance to outside of the nearby Red Rocket to avoid any issues. CK fixes enables the editing of ESMs directly as I recall. So I may move the terminal that

activates Thermal Edition as well.

[Sirianis]

Oooh, looking forward to this!

[jaeos]

7 hours ago, Trykz said:

 

Correct.

 

The theater location was in the very first iteration of the mod. The theater location was deleted for the new factory beneath the checkpoint in the second iteration of the mod.

Though I think I forgot to remove some elements of it. I'll take a look through the ESM and see if I can get rid of any residual changes to that location before the next release.

 

Depending on what mods are in your load order, the Gunners posted at the checkpoint may or may not be hostile. It's a bit hit or miss, but I can't account for all potential load orders.

I've considered moving it's entrance to outside of the nearby Red Rocket to avoid any issues. CK fixes enables the editing of ESMs directly as I recall. So I may move the terminal that

activates Thermal Edition as well.

Yeah i killed everything that moved within those 3 blocks looking for a damn door. i made a new game then COC to the weapons factory then exited.. yeah... She was crispy critter in about 10 seconds 

Yeah my mod list redoes the south boston checkpoint.. with i think 7-8 gunners.. Now i can't remeber what i did in def-ui to see the settings i need to see, (battery percents, temp, firewall percent, etc, I have it working on another MO2 instance, but not this one. so i always assume i am about to run out of power and snuggle up to some radioactive barrels while i get the spine dock out and get at least one fusion core installed, so far i have only destructed once doing it that way, i sat around in the control room to long and wasn't paying attention to messages until it told me 50% downloaded, then it's just a few seconds to try and correct it, i have never been able to stop a destruct sequence onece it gets to 50% virus download. So I don't even try to deploy the spine dock and insert a core. Just wave bye to ivy while i blow up and re-spawn in  the weapons factory.

On a side note- what was the decision to put it all the way down there with no-fast travel in survival mode? to gain levels before you become a gynoid?

Edited May 9, 2022 by jaeos

[Trykz]

On 5/8/2022 at 9:07 PM, jaeos said:

On a side note- what was the decision to put it all the way down there with no-fast travel in survival mode? to gain levels before you become a gynoid?

 

You're definitely using the very first version of the mod. The issues you describe were corrected in the second version.

 

The display levels for Power, Firewall, and SPU are from another mod, but it sounds like a resolution issue, or you're not running

the mod that displays actor values in the Pip Boy in the second instance of MO (I don't use MO so really can't say for sure).

 

But to answer your question, yes.

 

I put the factory in the southern part of the map so the player could level up a bit by playing the game normally before being

inundated with a TON of new stuff to figure out. The relay mechanic I built into the new version lets you move around a bit more

easily, but without trivializing the game to the extent the non-survival modes do. I'm also adding another way to become a droid

into the mix in this version. I'm adding a sort of "advertisement" holotape to carefully selected leveled lists. It will be an extremely

rare loot drop, or found in a select few containers around the world. The weapons factory entrance has been moved to the side of

the Red Rocket next door, so is much easier to exit for those lucky enough to find a holotape, because it drops you directly

into the vat inside the factory.

 

After creating a new test character, Thermal Edition kicked in automatically. So I'm leaving the terminal where it is for now.

 

Basically, from my testing sessions, the mod still works as it originally did. However, it's very cumbersome aspects are greatly

alleviated once you upgrade aboard the Charlton. Be warned, upgrading BEGINS on the Charlton, but COMPLETES aboard the

Watson..... FAR to the north. But no worries. The relay system is part of the upgrade.

 

And it's WELL worth it. Upgrading removes a LOT of the "system reboot sequences", and speeds up equipping the armor pieces

by equipping TWO pieces at a time without rebooting. It also streamlines the holotape system while adding new functionality.

Be sure to study the ENTIRE upgrade procedure before attempting it (more detail on this later).

 

Finally, I'm also looking at fiddling around with weapon damage types, and how they might affect your droid. Energy weapons

especially. Ill be adding a few NEW weapons with VERY specific damage types, and distributing them to the hostile roamers you

will inevitably encounter around the game worlds. ONE of these weapons will be capable of shutting you down in just a few

shots. It will be carried a single, but easily identifiable member of every roaming group. Killing THAT member FIRST, will be

essential to defeating the entire squad before they irreparably damage you.

 

More to come...

[jaeos]

2 hours ago, Trykz said:

 

You're definitely using the very first version of the mod. The issues you describe were corrected in the second version.

 

The display levels for Power, Firewall, and SPU are from another mod, but it sounds like a resolution issue, or you're not running

the mod that displays actor values in the Pip Boy in the second instance of MO (I don't use MO so really can't say for sure).

 

But to answer your question, yes.

 

I put the factory in the southern part of the map so the player could level up a bit by playing the game normally before being

inundated with a TON of new stuff to figure out. The relay mechanic I built into the new version lets you move around a bit more

easily, but without trivializing the game to the extent the non-survival modes do. I'm also adding another way to become a droid

into the mix in this version. I'm adding a sort of "advertisement" holotape to carefully selected leveled lists. It will be an extremely

rare loot drop, or found in a select few containers around the world. The weapons factory entrance has been moved to the side of

the Red Rocket next door, so is much easier to exit for those lucky enough to find a holotape, because it drops you directly

into the vat inside the factory.

 

After creating a new test character, Thermal Edition kicked in automatically. So I'm leaving the terminal where it is for now.

 

Basically, from my testing sessions, the mod still works as it originally did. However, it's very cumbersome aspects are greatly

alleviated once you upgrade aboard the Charlton. Be warned, upgrading BEGINS on the Charlton, but COMPLETES aboard the

Watson..... FAR to the north. But no worries. The relay system is part of the upgrade.

 

And it's WELL worth it. Upgrading removes a LOT of the "system reboot sequences", and speeds up equipping the armor pieces

by equipping TWO pieces at a time without rebooting. It also streamlines the holotape system while adding new functionality.

Be sure to study the ENTIRE upgrade procedure before attempting it (more detail on this later).

 

Finally, I'm also looking at fiddling around with weapon damage types, and how they might affect your droid. Energy weapons

especially. Ill be adding a few NEW weapons with VERY specific damage types, and distributing them to the hostile roamers you

will inevitably encounter around the game worlds. ONE of these weapons will be capable of shutting you down in just a few

shots. It will be carried a single, but easily identifiable member of every roaming group. Killing THAT member FIRST, will be

essential to defeating the entire squad before they irreparably damage you.

 

More to come...

Probably because I grabbed it within the first 3 days it was up. I don't remember which mod does the actor values, i know it's in the first one, droids has been in it's list since i got it. So i would have gotten anything you said to get in the posts, but now i don't remember even when i got it, i know i should have the mod in my download list on nexus, i'll look for it.

[Trykz]

So I finally fleshed out the weapons system for the wandering rogue droids

you'll encounter from time to time. The weapons work using an enchantment

placed directly on them which reduces the firewall in increments of 5 per hit:

 

 

Using a placed rogue android for testing purposes, I started

this fight with my SPU and Firewall at 150 fully armored.

 

Obviously I allowed him multiple shots at my test character to get

a feel for how tough a group of them might be. He dropped my firewall into

the negatives quite handily. These guys also heal themselves. At one point I

had him at about 40% health. Within a few seconds he had healed himself

back to full using the same robot repair kits that you use yourself.

 

I dropped his aggro so I could heal myself and repair my firewall

using the power diverter ability on the holotape program:

 

 

The weapon NEGATES the armor firewall/SPU buff that each piece grants

once you get below 0% firewall. The SPU is considered exposed, triggering

the persistent hack to attack the SPU until the firewall is restored to a

level above 10%. Mind you, this is the capability of just ONE of these guys.

 

Repairing the firewall during combat won't be an option, as I've added the

system reboot back into the power diverter subroutine with a 5 second timer.

So you either finish the fight, or you run. Oh, NONE of the roamers will affect

your stealth meter either. So you better keep your head on a swivel ?

 

I'll be testing squad size in my next testing session. I'm thinking 6. but I

may go as high as 8 depending on how difficult the fights are. The roamers

will wander the map along criss-crossing, preset paths with locations along

their routes where they'll hang around for a bit just sandboxing. Though

likely a rare occurrence, it WILL be possible for you to end up in a battle

with TWO squads. Meaning TWO rogues for you to contend with.

 

All roaming squads will be set "protected", and killable only by the player.

 

The current weapon the rogues will use is a modified gamma gun.

Squad members will get their own special weapon as well. Their

weapon will be a modified laser rifle which will chip off small bits

of your power level. ALL added weapons have had their vanilla

damage values lowered to compensate for the additional

capabilities, and do not affect their vanilla counterparts in any way.

They use vanilla models, so will take advantage of any replacer you

might wish to use. HOWEVER:

 

They are UNPLAYABLE, and ONLY work for NPCs.

So don't expect one to drop for you ?

 

I'm also adding a scrap requirement to requisitioning

robot repair kits from the mainframe. So no more freebies.

 

Creating NPC roamers will take a while. My plan is to create

as many as 10 squads to criss-cross the maps. Their sandboxing

locations will be scattered across the maps of ALL THREE

worldspaces. They will be set friendly to the dominant local

factions along their paths, so they don't end up killing everything

in your game. 6 squads in the Commonwealth, 2 in Nuka

World, and 2 in Far Harbor. They will wander to their sandbox,

hang around for a while, and then move to the next.

 

When they reach their final destination, they will return

to their origin location along the most direct route to restart

their pathing package. "As the crow flies" so to speak.

 

Stay tuned.....

[King of tentacle]

wow I must say this sounds amazing and i'm super excited to see the new droids in action 

btw considering the advanced tech and scifi themes do you have any plans to incorporate project zeta or fallout who regenerated down the line?

[badboy64]

Looking really awesome and can't wait until it gets released.?

[MattTheRagdoll]

Super psyched for this release!

[CV666]

On 4/28/2022 at 1:19 PM, Trykz said:

 

So it's been a long two years for me, but I'm back home in Florida and at the moment, I'm pretty well inundated with work.

 

While not a bad thing, it's pretty much eliminated my modding time, while also cutting my time in general for pretty much everything.

Since I haven't even touched FO4 since going to New York two years ago, I'm in the process of attempting to pick up where I left off

with Droids development. Looking around the forum, I see much has changed, but the basics are still pretty much the same. That said, I'll

be looking into bringing Droids up to the latest versions of whatever is necessary over the coming days. There were a number of

minor issues with the mod that I'll be cleaning up, as well as a few things I'll be working to improve and streamline.

 

While I have most of the main systems of the mod in place and set up the way I want them, I'm going to be looking into

refining things a bit more. Droids power management will be getting a much needed "recycler" component, which will allow

your droid to recycle certain power sources directly to the power core. Ammo, mines, mini-nukes, etc.. However, there's a

catch..... your droid MUST "tether" to a robot actually equipped with the recycler unit, which you feed sources into, so the

robot can transfer the raw power into your power core. There's a bunch of stuff like that I want to add and refine, and I'll

address them as things progress over the coming weeks.

 

Finally, for those wondering about the future of my A.S.I.A. mod, wonder no more:

A.S.I.A. is now defunct, obsolete, and now, officially replaced by Droids. That said, I'll be

doing a few familiar things from A.S.I.A. through Droids. Such as the captive bots and

roaming bot squads that criss-cross the map stirring shit up ?

 

So anyway, I'm back and eager to get started. So let's do this.....

 

Trykz?

Where does one download the latest and greatest necessary files?