[CONCEPT] FFS - Fallout Food Supply

[Revuu]

FALLOUT FOOD SUPPLY

unlocking delicious potential

MonsterFish's name idea

 

Excess food production is stored in your base for use in times of low production, supplied to other settlements, or potentially traded.

 
 
The creation of an accumulating 'food resource' within a settlement gives potential for other interactions in between settlements and the outside world. It all started when MonsterFish commented that they felt the current system of 'supply lines' between bases was a bit lacklustre, especially in regards to where the food actually goes.
 

"When you send a new caravan out, shouldn't it decrease the settlement your sending it out froms resources? And if the caravan has to travel all the way across the map, why is it instaneous that the receiving settlements supplies go up. What if we could do something like increasing the receiving ends supplies by a certain amount (Choose the amount to send via a terminal?) and then have it tick down every hour or so."

 
So, this made me think. The way the current food system works seems to be if FOOD >= SETTLERS then HAPPY. If you link two settlements with supplies, as far as the game is concerned it then calculates the SUM of food with SUM of settlers in the same way. But there is no storage in this. Food goes direct from the fields to settlers. There is NO benefit to growing more food than your settlers eat, except to buffer for potential new settlers. And that excess food doesn't go anywhere, because the food never WAS anywhere in the first place. PS: Please excuse my mutant pseudo-code.
 

By making FOOD an actual existing resource, it gains modding potential

 
 
 
 

Potential Consequences, Interactions and Mods

 

 

Storage Fridges
Past a certain point, food won't be stored without specific objects being built for it. Food storage would require the building of fridges - household fridges, or even (with Science perks) industrial fridges/freezers found in ruined supermarkets. These fridges will need power to function, meaning that they are an investment - not something that can be plonked down in a settlement's early days. The industrial fridge costs double the resources of the normal fridge to build and requires double the power, but has triple the storage capacity. This means that you can upgrade and replace your fridges as your settlement expands, with larger fridges being more efficient for large settlements.
This also gives potential for settlements with no ability to feed themselves through farms. Instead, they rely on supplies from other settlements and the Survivor to maintain their stocks. Such settlements would likely benefit from large fridges to reduce the necessary frequency of deliveries.
 
 
Settlement Supplies
This links in to the suggestion that started it all. To send supplies to a settlement, you remove food_resource from Settlement A and put it on a Brahmin to Settlement B. This depletes the food in Settlement A, making it worthwhile to have storage there, to allow you to have enough to give to a Brahmin. The caravan then travels to Settlement B and passes on their food supplies there. This also requires Settlement B to have enough storage place for the supplies, or they merely return back to Settlement A with the caravan. Because of this, there is no instant travel - there is a time where the food is out of Set A, but has not yet arrived at Set B.
This would add importance to any mods introducing attacks on caravans, or removing their invulnerability (but making them tougher than normal NPCs, probably). It would also work fabulously if any of those mods allowed you to send security with your caravans.
 
 
Raider Attack Modifier
I don't support the whole, "Enough defenses and raiders will never attack" thing. I'm also not a fan of raider attacks being governed by if {FOOD + WATER =< DEFENCE} then RAIDERS thing, not if there's potential for it to change. Having a high amount of stored food in your settlement would increase your chance of Raider attack. The more food, the greater the motivation for the raiders. Eventually, regardless of your defences, they hear about how much food you have and try to take some of it. A successful raider attack would take as much of your food as they can carry (maybe influenced by how many survivors they have).

Raider thieves may spawn as random events (or not, depending on how Raider Attacks are handled currently) and steal some of your food, although if settlers spot them doing this they will shoot them down. However, I suspect this would be harder to code modifying existing raid events.

 
 
 
 

 

Mechanics

how it might work

 
Accumulation
First, we need to translate the existing mechanics of Food into something useable, and into actual existing objects in the game. Every day the settlement produces a certain amount of food_resource, dictated by the food production level. Every day, your settlers consume a certain amount of food_resource. When the food production and food consumption are equal, you neither gain or lose food_resource. Your settlement can passively store up to twice (or more, configurable) the amount of food required for a day, on top of the passive daily food stocks. Further storage requires the building of specific food storage objects.
A settlement with 5 settlers and a food production of 7 will continue to store an additional 2 food_resource every day, until it reaches the storage cap. If the storage cap is double the population, it will cap out at 10 food_resource in storage (if storage is double the population). It would take the settlement 3 days to reach this cap, as all food is added at once during the day. After this point, additional food will not enter into storage and will basically disappear into the ether like food currently does - the extra 1 food_resource from day 3 will not count.
A settlement with 5 settlers, a food production of 4 and full storage could go for 5 days (losing 1 food_resource from storage per day) before they start being unable to take the required 5 food_resource from the stores to feed everyone.
 
Food Value
A more complex, but probably outright BETTER system than the simplistic system described above. Every food item within the game is assigned a food value. As you may have noticed, different crops in your settlements give more or less food. This would replicate that. The Food Value of a single fruit would be equal to its production value divided by the average harvest quantity, or something. Either way, values of foods are set. This applies to the Storage Fridges, which store up to a set amount of Food Value. This then means that you could then deposit any food you find in the wasteland into Storage Fridges, boosting your settlements food reserves. Wasteland food (ready meals etc) would have a very high food value in comparison to other food resources. Ideally, settlers would also tend to eat these high value foods last.
Additionally, cooked food would provide more value than its constituent parts on their own.
 
Existing Items and Storage
Now comes a potentially awkward part. Does the food_resource actually manifest physically in the world? Do your fridges actually contain food objects from your settlement? I would suggest making it so that food_resource is actually NOT something that spawns items in the food storage containers. This is simply because it's probably a lot easier that way. While I agree having your fridges fill up with tatos would be immersive, it may result in more trouble than it is worth to get it to work that way.
This would also relate to the ability to deposit food into the designated food storage containers. When the items you deposit are consumed (non-physical food_resource is consumed preferentially) in order, starting with the items worth the least Food Value first. Consumed items are deleted from storage. Depositing food into storage yourself would 'live' update the store tally. Removing items from storage would reduce the quantity of stored food.
 
Harvesting
Harvesting from your farms does not affect the food resources at all, the same way it does not affect anything like that in-game currently either. It does, however, mean that you can harvest your plants then deposit your harvest into food storage (if built). On other words, you help around the settlement with the harvest and give them a boost while you're there. Yep, you can visit every single settlement to help with the harvesting to give them all a little boost.

 

Food Trading

So, all your settlements are churning out more food than they can possibly use. This has to be good for something right? Correct! You can trade away this food for caps. This gives long term benefits to building Food Storage within your settlements and producing more than you need, even those settlements aren't supplying other settlements. It probably isn't worth much per settlement, but if every one of your settlement is pumping out produce, the money starts to mount up. Then you can go out and spend it on resource shipments, trader stalls... or weapons for yourself.

To trade, settlers leave with a Brahmin caravan, similar to supply routes, and return with caps. Trading makes your settlers happier, and increases the recruitment boost from the radio beacons. In fact, there might be potential for your caravan to return with additional settlers seeking a new home.

If settler skills are overhauled, it may be that settlers gained in this way have a higher chance of increased skills.

 
Compatibility Potential
As it would likely take its food_resource value directly from the pre-existing food production value in the game, any mods that change the production of your plants would potentially integrate well with the food overhaul.

 

 

 

WIP SETTLEMENT INTERFACE OVERHAUL

 

 

 

Current Issues: I want to be able to show what of your defence is from turrets / guards, although that might not be useful. However, I've had a mental blank for what the icon could be there.

 

I was also contemplating having the top right box logging what settlers were on what... but then I realised there were more than 4 settler roles, and they wouldn't fit in the box. And I'm sure modders will add MORE settler roles, too.

 

 

[Guest]

For the "type of assignation to settlers" on vanilla game I can list more than a dozen different assignations.

And for sure I am missing some of the others I never saw, thought of, discovered, etc.

 

Having it as small preview widget? Not sure, too many icons.

If an icon "type of assignation" will be important for something (get more resources, change the happiness, or whatever you will think of) then having the count can be useful.

 

 

P.S. Than you for using [CONCEPT] as title.

Brainstorming is legit before we get [GE]CK. Asking for mods is not.

 

If you don't mind, let's use always the same "tag" for this type of threads.

The other one you did was called [brainstorming].

 

[Revuu]

P.S. Than you for using [CONCEPT] as title.

Brainstorming is legit before we get [GE]CK. Asking for mods is not.

 

If you don't mind, let's use always the same "tag" for this type of threads.

The other one you did was called [brainstorming].

As I see it, the threads are different. The other thread is a compilation of ideas and suggestions from other people, rather than a full on mod concept. I saw it as a resource for people to dip into if they were ever thinking, "What else do people want in settlements..." This thread, on the other hand, is an idea for a mod.

 

 

For the "type of assignation to settlers" on vanilla game I can list more than a dozen different assignations.

And for sure I am missing some of the others I never saw, thought of, discovered, etc.

 

Having it as small preview widget? Not sure, too many icons.

If an icon "type of assignation" will be important for something (get more resources, change the happiness, or whatever you will think of) then having the count can be useful.

I don't entirely understand what you mean? It's past 1am and my brain is frazzling. As for icon count... Are you talking about the WIP screenshot thingy? Or the idea of... hang on, no. I don't entirely remember what I've typed and where. Brain bluescreened. It's bed time for me.

 

I'm ASSUMING it's to do with the little WIP thingy. I'll get an annotated version of it uploaded to explain what's actually going on there.

[Guest]

Go to sleep, and we will discuss further tomorrow.

[Revuu]

 

 

 

Annotated version, showing what the icons and stuff are for. Also adding to root post.

 

I'd carefully thought through the icons from my point of view, in terms of stuff I'd want to see. But by the time I'd got to the top boxes, I'd sort of run out of stuff to record. I had a few icons that DEFINITELY needed somewhere to go, but not enough for a full box.

 

 

Additional Ramblings:

It might be a better idea to display the 3 icons in top left in a way more similar to the vanilla way? Depending on what I can actually DO with modding (I've never tried), it might be possible for it to auto-populate its icons and slot them into the layout based on the mods installed?

 

So, the CURRENT layout would have the top left 3 icons along the centre, like in vanilla (but prettier).

If you installed a mod that added ONE new icon, your layout would suddenly gain that top-left box and populate it with 4 icons.

But then things get weird if you have 5 icons without a home.

... ooor, disregard the lot of that, and make compatibility patches for those mods.

 

 

EDIT

Added in an idea for Food Trading - trade off excess food in storage for caps! Make those settlements pay you back for all the resources, money and time you spent making them liveable, by giving you money to buy nukes.

[Guest]

Some considerations (and tech background.)

 

The UI icons/text in FO4 (like in Skyrim and all other Beth games) are created using some Flash files.

I think already baked them.

 

They are an overlay that can be added and modified using Papyrus functions. (Of course we cannot compile F4Papyrus yet. But if you look at some examples done for Skyrim, then you will get your idea about how they work.)

 

 

About the "mod logic", I like an overhaul with some extra contents. Better assignations of settlers, better jobs, better balance of resources, etc.

But the logic has to be defined well before the actual modding should start. (Also because we cannot code yet.)

 

And 95% of this "overhaul" will be code based.

[Revuu]

About the "mod logic", I like an overhaul with some extra contents. Better assignations of settlers, better jobs, better balance of resources, etc.

But the logic has to be defined well before the actual modding should start. (Also because we cannot code yet.)

 

And 95% of this "overhaul" will be code based.

 

That was the aim, with it being code based. I'm more familiar with code than I am with making stuff move.

 

As for better settlers, I think that would be better suited for a different mod? Although I was thinking along those lines too, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. I've already got some 'mental images' of what I'd like to do for a Settler overhaul, if I had the skills, and how to integrate it into the game.

 

However, as with this mod idea, it would be almost entirely based around code and adding new UI features / triggers on interracting with certain objects. E.G. sit down at a special desk in your base to assign settlers to their roles through a UI that looks like a paper folder. I had considered an in-game terminal for settler duty assignments, but the terminals are bloody awful and have very limited 'lines' of text. They'd probably stop being useful with more than 8 settlers.

 

I'll probably dump down a load of notes for that soon.

 

Also, is there anywhere I can get free SWF editor / creator software? Just to make the icons.

 

PS: Does it even actually count as an overhaul?

[Revuu]

The 'linked' mod concept for making peasants settlers useful has been spawned here.

[Halstrom]

Don't forget to add the potential for Breast Milk & Cum as food sources

[Revuu]

Don't forget to add the potential for Breast Milk & Cum as food sources

 

Well, if someone wants to mod the Milk of Human Kindness into this or make a plugin or whatever and host it on LL, they're welcome to do so. But I probably wouldn't add that myself, as it makes me uncomfortable. You can't exactly put it up on Nexus as a good immersion mod when there, "ALSO DRINK CUM!" hidden in the small print.

 

Besides, wouldn't cum dehydrate your settlers?

[Halstrom]

 

Don't forget to add the potential for Breast Milk & Cum as food sources

 

Well, if someone wants to mod the Milk of Human Kindness into this or make a plugin or whatever and host it on LL, they're welcome to do so. But I probably wouldn't add that myself, as it makes me uncomfortable. You can't exactly put it up on Nexus as a good immersion mod when there, "ALSO DRINK CUM!" hidden in the small print.

 

Besides, wouldn't cum dehydrate your settlers?

 

Yeah but there are water pumps about to fix that

 

Yeah a plugin would be the way in that case if you want to make it Nexus friendly, ideally it would only be noticeable if SexTech was installed anyway

[Revuu]

Yeah a plugin would be the way in that case if you want to make it Nexus friendly,

 

It's going to have to be. I can't make it on my own, so I'll have to grab help from wherever I can.

[mc.squeezy]

leveled list for all of the bushes/trees/and other things that should be scrapable or settler assigned job for taking care of plants and trees within a settlement.

 

both for food and to keep the settlement looking nice, which should in turn increase happiness and productivity in the settlement.