Agent Idea Thread

[zippy57]

To avoid confusion I've removed "Sexout" from the title of the plugin. While the mod will still have sexual content, it is not the focus but rather one of many elements.

 

Basically, the PC is given a mission to complete (retrieve item A, kill person B, infiltrate location C, etc.) for which they (usually) have the option of using one of three main tactics: Stealth, Sex, or Slaughter.

 

Now, you may be wondering why I keep using stupidly short paragraphs. It's because I'm weird like that, leave me alone. You may also be wondering why I'm a little sparse on the details...and also the downloads. You see, I have a basic storyline planned out, but I only have the first mission, the last mission of Act I, and the final mission planned out. I NEED PADDING! And so I'm enlisting help.

 

I'm not exactly an expert on the FNV world. I've beaten the game three times and I'm still finding quests and locations I haven't been to. So while I have some plans, I need help to fill in the blanks and note opportunities. And of course it doesn't have to be with existing characters or locales.

 

What I need:

• The stated objective for the PC
• Any imposed limitations for this mission
• Which of the three Ss (that's so weird to type!) are valid, and how the player goes about them
• Consequences for breaking an imposed limitation (if possible)
• The surprise obstacle that stops this from being as simple as it appears
• Anything else regarding the mission that might be relevant

IMPORTANT! Every Tiered mission comes from the same questgiver. The questgiver is not a member of any existing Fallout organization. Keep that in mind while suggesting quests. I will not turn down concepts that don't fit into the questgiver's goals, but I may either change them drastically, relegate them to a side mission, or both. If your concept needs to be given by an existing NPC or organization to make sense, consider setting it up so that it may work as a random side mission the player can stumble across instead of a Tiered mission.

 

A note regarding breaking imposed limitations: While this can change from mission to mission, the general idea is that breaking them will result in no direct reward from the questgiver. So you fail the mission and get no XP, no caps, no nothing (unless it's a story mission, in which case Bad Things will happen). But you will still keep things you get from the mission. And it will sometimes be worth it to break them and sometimes not. The questgiver might tell you not to talk to a certain person, but doing so might bring rewards or even a subquest. You might be told not to shoot anyone, but there might be enough enemies to net you a couple hundred XP. And the loot! Or it could blow up in your face. Sometimes literally.

But anyway, that's the current plan for that. If given a really good alternative, I'll change it.

 

Now I don't need all of those for every idea, I can probably fill them in myself given enough information. And I probably will. I don't want anyone to know exactly what's supposed to happen (except me, of course ) so it's likely no idea will be exactly as originally pitched. Oh, and I probably won't tell you I'm using your idea. Because I'm mean.

 

So if anyone has any suggestions or any questions, please post them.

 

(By the way, this plugin is why SexoutStore is becoming an .esm in the future.)

 

Your employer, who shall hereafter be referred to by his name, Bryce, won't immediately give you the hardest jobs. This results in a Tier system, where completing a certain number of missions in one Tier allows you to start on missions in the next Tier. I would prefer to have at minimum three missions in each Tier if possible. To give you a basic idea of the Tier structure...

 

Tiers 1 and 2 are reserved for missions that are essentially fetch quests. Tier 3 is the start of missions whose primary target is an individual rather than an item. Tier 6 is the start of missions involving the Minor factions (the Followers, Kings, Khans, etc.). Tier 8 is the start of both missions where you may end up working with a partner and missions involving the Families. Tier 11 is the start of missions involving the Major factions (NCR and Legion). Tier 16 is the start of missions where precision starts being a necessity.

 

Tiers 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 are Story Mission-only Tiers and have only one mission.

 

Below is where I'm going to list suggested quests as I slot them in.

 

TIER 0 Story Tier (1/1)

The Key to Success

 

TIER 1 (3/3)

Road Stop Blues (Jexsam)

Special Delivery (Woohoo)

Shaken, Not Stirred (ChancellorKremlin)

 

TIER 2 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 3 (2/3)

Naked Under Cover (Jexsam)

--SubQuest: Top Secret

Thieves In the Night (ChancellorKremlin)

Where Evil Resides (a Story Quest; does not count towards the three-quest goal)

 

TIER 4 (1/3)

Lockup (Blargh!)

 

TIER 5 Story Tier (1/1)

???

 

TIER 6 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 7 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 8 (2/3)

Knowing Is Half the Battle

United We Stand

 

TIER 9 (2/3)

Dances with Rogues

--SubQuest: Treasure Hunting

Shooting Things Is the Other Half

 

TIER 10 Story Tier (1/1)

Lockdown

 

TIER 11 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 12 (1/3)

Umbrella Clause (DoctaSax)

 

TIER 13 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 14 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 15 Story Tier (1/1)

A Study of Scarlet

 

TIER 16 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 17 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 18 (0/3)

Nothing

 

TIER 19 (1/3)

Divided We Fall

 

TIER 20 Story Tier (1/1)

And Then There Were None

 

EXTRA

Tech Break-In (prideslayer)

Twenty Bare Asses

 

BONUS

How do you unlock these story missions? :shh: It's a secret!

Almost Like A Dream

Blameless

Hell Hath No Fury

Here There Be Monsters

The Last Temptation

The Sodden Pasture Lane

Twist and Shout

 

Since I've been so sparse on the details it's likely most suggestions won't quite fit the intended format. But yet I don't want to deny any worthwile suggestion, hence the Extra mission Tier. I prefer to have all missions be completable by both male and female players, and via all three of the Ss. BUT I don't want that to influence any input from anyone. If you have a female-only, sex-only idea tell me anyway! I'll try to come up with male paths and female Stealth and Slaughter paths. If I can't, I'll slot it into the Extra Tier.

 

Example: prideslayer's idea. Not only is it a nice concept but very easy to implement. Unfortunately, Bryce can't give you that mission so there's no way to slot it into the Tier structure. But there's no reason not to implement it anyway so it's in the Extra Tier. You just have to trigger it somewhere in the world, instead of going to the standard questgiver. No hints!

 

SEMI-INCOMPATIBILITIES

This is a list of plugins that are (or will be) partially incompatible with SexoutAgent. This means that the plugins in question are fine simply sitting in your load order and only become incompatible if you perform certain in-game actions.

• SexoutBreeder, following the currently planned Deathclaw path. Two reasons: 1) Takeover of Novac will cause so many issues both in-general and specifically that I'm not going to begin to put them here. Luckily (or not, depending on your point-of-view) that issue is made moot due to 2) Bryce is an Intelligence agent with extensive monitoring resources, taking over Ranger Station Echo is not something he wouldn't notice. Such an action will cause you to be marked as an enemy.
• SexoutAssassin adds the chance that NPCs that would normally be hostile will instead think you're a prostitute and approach you. During some missions this behavior would break the mission structure and/or introduce a plot hole. To avoid this, in certain situations SexoutAgent has to ensure NPCs are hostile via StartCombat calls. In other words, having SexoutAssassin active will prevent you from taking Stealth paths in quite a few scenarios. I strongly recommend deactivate SexoutAssassin when playing SexoutAgent, and I will not provide support for an issue if it is in your load order; you must be able to reproduce the issue without it.

COMPATIBILITY PATCHES

• SexoutWorkingGirl. A Tier 9 quest (and likely some as-of-yet unplanned quest(S)) will allow the player to work as a prostitute. A compatibility patch will be available to switch from the system I provide in Agent to a system using WorkingGirl's functions and variables.
• SexoutAffairs. The presence of Inga causes a plot hole in a Tier 1 quest. A compatibility patch will be available to add interactions with Inga designed to fill the plot hole.

BEING MARKED AS AN ENEMY

Certain actions will cause you to be marked as an enemy. In its most basic sense, this means RS officers will be hostile to you on sight. Depending on how far into the Tiers you are when you are marked as an enemy, your travel to/from various areas may be made more difficult, and in some cases armed patrols may be specifically sent out after you.

 

ABOUT SEXOUTAGENT AND SEXOUTSTORE

SexoutStore by itself is simply a store resource. When SexoutAgent is active, SexoutStore is changed. It can still be used as a store resource, but it is heavily altered to fit the various aspects of SexoutAgent. If you make the RS officers go hostile to you, they will no longer be willing to let you into their Bunker to buy things.

 

DESIGN INFORMATION

I'd like people to come up with quests. I haven't had any suggestions for quite some time. I'm thinking it might be because I keep telling people their ideas won't work. So what I'm doing is putting up my design documents. This is so people can know what will work and what won't, what basic ideas have already been done, and the characters and organizatons that are available to work with.

 

Needless to say, the following section will contain large amounts of spoilers, up to and including plot twists, endings, and other things that you're supposed to learn during the course of playing the mod. No complaints about being spoiled, and no re-posting or talking about anything contained within unless you keep it in spoiler tags of your own.

[prideslayer]

I am Prideslayer and I approve this message. You will have a PM once I have a little time to think up a mission, or even a mission arc!

[Jexsam]

A thread openly accepting idea generation with the honest-to-goodness intent to utilize it?

 

THERE IS A GOD!

 

You can look forward to a PM from me as well. I just can't pass up an opportunity to skew a mod towards my taste, and by extension making me more likely to play it. <_<

[KainsChylde]

Sounds awesome! Of course the only contribution I can think of right now is the obvious "Agent 69", but if I come up with anything better I'll deffinitely chip in too.

[Jexsam]

XD

 

Y'know I poked your Breeder thread just to see what's what. Nice to know someone else is openly taking suggestions.

 

I'd offer one myself, except there's one thing stopping me. That being, I'm largely disgusted by the very premise of your mod. <_< I don't even find regular pregnancy particularly sexy. Grotesquely inflated monster pregnancies are just way more than I can handle. XD

 

That said, it sounds fantastic from a technical standpoint, and I do wish you continued luck with it. I just won't use it. Ever.

 

 

@thread: PM sent as of last night. Hope it isn't too long-winded. The scenarios themselves would be over in a few minutes each, but to present all the relevant information took a surprising number of paragraphs...

[DoctaSax]

Nothing can bring an army to its knees than an outbreak of some crippling disease, so:

 

Mission: spread an STD in an NCR or Legion camp (depending on questgiver)

Limitation: don't get found out

SSS: sex = slaughter, stealth also possible (nobody says you actually have to infect yourself & fuck everybody, it's just a possibility)

Consequences for getting found out: quarantine, and you obviously can't bribe-sex your way out until you're cured somehow

Surprise: you actually like one of your victims, and set out to find a cure

Anything else: big bonus if you can infect Caesar or Crocker

 

This somewhat vague post will self-destruct in 10, 9, 8, ...

[wampa]

i for some reason always like the missions that you have everything taken away and you need to use whatever you can scavenge at the time so perhaps a mission that you are taken prisoner for whatever reason and you can either sneak out of the prison and retrieve your stuff, have sex with the guards for your freedom and eventually your stuff, or you can just escape and start beating people down and start taking their weapons until you find your own.

[zippy57]

Updated the first post with a explanation of the quest structure and to add a list of quests so people can see where new ones are needed (which at the moment, is EVERYWHERE!).

[Jexsam]

In hindsight I really should have been more considerate of making the quests gender-neutral. Though in my defense, the occasional unique mission based on things like gender can add to replayability.

 

Road Stop Blues should be piss-easy to switch from gender-specific to gender-neutral. I'm curious how you'll accomplish this for Naked Under Cover, though. I'm also willing to bet I can list most of the parts of Naked Under Cover you're planning to remove or change.

 

Definitely will continue keeping an eye on this. Might even be enough to make me download all the requirements for SexoutStore. XD

[zippy57]

Yep, Road Stop Blues will be really easy to make gender-neutral. It's also a very minor change to add a full-on Stealth option. As for Naked Under Cover, I'm planning on taking your original pitch and making it the female-sex method, then building other options around that. If you want to know what changes I'm making, I'd be happy to tell you via PM. Or you may want to be surprised. And that goes for everybody submitting ideas, I'll tell you what changes I'm making if you want to know.

 

Regarding SexoutStore, you won't need all the requirements unless walking past a ! just drives you crazy. While parts of SexoutAgent will occasionally take place in SexoutStore cells, and will occasionally utilize SexoutStore NPCs, I'll make sure all major characters and locations are using either vanilla resources or resources I provide in the SexoutAgent download.

 

And as for replayability, I really don't think that'll be a problem in this plugin.

[zippy57]

All right, so I'm doing the first quest and I've already hit a quandry of sorts that will have repurcussions on the entirety of the plugin.

 

The questions is: How to deal with mission-specific items/NPCs before the mission is started and after it is completed?

 

The general plan at the moment is to only enable mission-specific items/NPCs when you are given the quest officially. This is to stop you from accidentally grabbing the item or killing an NPC before I'm ready for you to do so. Which means it's really to stop me from having to deal with all the contingencies those bring. I don't want to have to make this conversation tree:

 

"So, Courier. I have three missions for you. I need you to get a key from-"

"Have it."

"Oh. Okay. Well then, I'd like you to get some documents for-"

"Got them."

"Okay, then how about a set of-"

"Right here."

"Um... I have another mission where you'll go undercover with-"

"Killed them last week."

"... How about these two visitors to the-"

"Killed them Thursday."

"There's a guy-"

"Five minutes ago."

"Wow... Um... That's all the missions I had for you."

"Cool. Do I get paid?"

"Uh..."

 

While the original game can work by letting you do this, this mod can't. It relies on things being done in a certain order and I don't want to have to make all these dialogue conditions in case the player manages to pre-empt me. So that's already decided; except in odd circumstances the NPCs and items will be disabled until needed.

 

I have a deck of Marked Cards I found in one of the desks in the Aerotech Office Park. When I picked it up I was told to return to someone or other. But I hadn't found the questgiver and so hadn't started that quest. This is what I'd like to avoid doing.

 

The real question is what to do with them afterwards. First, NPCs:

 

Example:

OBJECTIVE: Player needs to get a key to a room.

IDEA: When they get the key, disable the NPCs.

PROBLEM: One of the ways to get the key is to offer sex to the NPC.

QUESTION: Will the Player expect to be able to have sex with the NPC even though their mission is already completed? What if they want to turn in the key and then return? Why did the employers want the key? What are they doing with it? Will it cause the NPC to become suspicious of the Player? Will they attack the Player on sight? What if the Player doesn't go back to have sex with the NPC? How will the NPC react? Should the Player be allowed to "make it up to them"? What if they don't go back AGAIN?

 

The reason I want to disable the NPCs is because it's (hopefully) going to be a big plugin and I don't want to have to right after-mission dialogue for all of them. But there are a few scenarios where I'm afraid disabling NPCs too soon will confuse the player, so the question is when/if I should do it.

 

Regarding items, most (if not all) of them are going to be quest items. While this is unlikely to be an issue when there is only one target item, some quests will have multiple copies of the item for multiple paths. If the player somehow stumbles upon another copy of the item, now it's cluttering their inventory for the rest of the game (unless they remove it with the console).

 

Thoughts?

[KainsChylde]

In regard to items and NPCs, there are a few mods that handle this. I've encountered several but the only one that comes immediately to mind is Willow. She has quests to retrieve items from people, and those people don't show up until you get the quests (I loaded a save before meeting her and tried to go find the items first, and none of the items or NPCs were there). Tales of the Burning Sands, by the creator of the Puce Moose Tweak and Rebalance series, has something similar as well. How they do it, dunno. But they prove it is doable.

[zippy57]

Making them appear when the mission starts is as easy as having the quest stage enable them. The difficult part is deciding what to do with them when the quest is over...

[KainsChylde]

Well, with Willow the Big Guy and the female ghoul who's name I can't remember move to the Atomic Wrangler after you complete the quest requiring them. Maybe move unneeded NPCs to an unused cell once you're done with them? Leave a note behind maybe, explaining that they moved on for some reason.

[DoctaSax]

Making them appear when the mission starts is as easy as having the quest stage enable them. The difficult part is deciding what to do with them when the quest is over...

 

If there's no need for them to be in the game anymore, you can just quietly kill 'em in the background.

 

Something like:

ref.kill
if ref.getdead == 1 ; getdead will not register after kill in same frame, so it's best in spell or quest script
ref.disable
ref.markfordelete
endif

 

Doesn't actually have to happen in front of the player. And you can spin it like they moved to Canada or something.

[prideslayer]

Doesn't actually have to happen in front of the player. And you can spin it like they moved to Canada or something.

 

Friggin draft dodgers!

[DoctaSax]

Well, who wants a part of that NCR/Legion civil war BS anyway?

Especially if you could be a lumberjack instead

[Guest]

What about posing as a slave in order to complete a quest with a chance of being caught out and being punished or ending up having no choice but to have sex in order to maintain you're cover. This could work with requiem for the capital wasteland and the Pitt and maby leigion slavery.

[astymma]

Well' date=' with Willow the Big Guy and the female ghoul who's name I can't remember move to the Atomic Wrangler after you complete the quest requiring them. Maybe move unneeded NPCs to an unused cell once you're done with them? Leave a note behind maybe, explaining that they moved on for some reason.

[/quote']

 

Hmm, not to be off-topic but in my install they go hang out at the Mojave Outpost.

 

To answer the question though, there are many ways to handle having your quest NPCs, items, even locations only appear at specific times.

 

The first solution is to simply write your plot so that these things are transitory. Using Willow as an example, her and the guys who steal her rifle and teddy bear were just travelling through when they swiped her stuff. The good thing about encountering her for the first time is you can solve it two very different ways. You can try the running gun battle approach and track them down immediately or just wait and do your own thing and the quest tells you when they've reached the camp by Novac. That's a great example of transitory plot that caters to multiple playstyles.

 

The second solution is to use transitory locations such as abandoned buildings, bars, casinos, stores... places people go to but don't stay at and live. It's much easier to just have them there on Tuesday but gone by Wednesday. You can easily accomplish this by markers, quest stages, triggers and such that advances them through travel ai packages alternating with some camping/hanging around packages. It's much more realistic if your NPCs have a life too.

 

The third option is to just blunt force it. At each applicable quest stage, enable and disable the elements you need or don't need as necessary and clean them up when you're done.

 

My advice is find a way to incorporate all three of those solutions (like Willow does).

[zippy57]

What about posing as a slave in order to complete a quest with a chance of being caught out and being punished or ending up having no choice but to have sex in order to maintain you're cover. This could work with requiem for the capital wasteland and the Pitt and maby leigion slavery.

You've actually hit on an idea already in the planning stages. One of the Story Tiers will have the player going undercover as either a slaver or a slave (player's choice). The slave route will focus on the stealth and sex options, while the slaver route will have a lot of speech checks, shooting, and moral dilemmas for good characters. Evil characters will have a much easier time taking that route.

[sen4mi]

I think I have some ideas, which if I can turn into something coherent and comprehensible, I will try to PM you. Or, maybe I have one idea that fits your pattern (and maybe another for user, but that almost-an-idea needs new monsters (which would mean needing new animations, and stuff... ick)).

 

So, anyways, I also have a suggestion which does not fit your pattern: filling in SexoutStore.

 

SexoutStore seems to be awkwardly placed, for its business model. It's selling armor, but not to the people building armies. It's selling sex toys, but not to the people in the big city. It's selling health services, but it's out in the middle of nowhere and right next to a doctor that can patch up holes in the head. Maybe he's not such a great gynecologist, but Goodsprings just is not that big of a place.

 

And, yes, this used to be on a major trading route, but that's been shut down by the deathclaws.

 

So... I have been thinking of various approaches to "make the store fit".

 

One approach would be to make it be a mostly abandoned shell, with one guy just passing through reminiscing about the good-old-days, and if you are clever enough you can bring things back. But this does not satisfy one of the basic premises of the store (it's a one-stop-stop for just getting over some of the dreary details of day-to-day life in the post-apocalypse). And, of course, "the good old days" were never really all that good. But you can make them good!

 

So another approach might have the esm be the minimal shell and the shopkeepers (or collections of the shopkeepers) could be plugins.

 

Meanwhile, if you want motivation for quests, a store like this could have all sorts of motivations. Like:

 

Clear out those deathclaws

 

Then go to each of the trade caravans and convince them that now is the time to open up the old trade routes.

 

And, after the Legion/NCR conflict has been cleared up, maybe it's time to open up long distance trading (this could get really incredibly ambitious, and might involve things like honest hearts and a mod with new territory past the south east ncr checkpoint... for example). So ... maybe this one should be out of bounds until other things are working right.

 

Also, if anyone wants to take a "female only" mission and turn it into a "male also" mission, you could create some female NPC who the male player character must coax through enough of the hard parts of the mission to allow the rest of the thing to be satisfied. Male only missions might offer a similar approach for females.

 

Also, for roleplaying purposes, the ideal mission would not be 'sex only' or 'stealth only' or 'combat only' but would allow for all three (and perhaps having stages where you once you've advanced far enough you must use another approach to escape and/or to proceed). But those kinds of fine-tuning can happen after a mission has been implemented. People can play it and tell you "when I got here I really wanted to be able to ____".

 

Also, for a store quest, perhaps some buying and selling would be appropriate? You do not necessarily have to go all out and build up a deep system of economic risk, where the player has to properly guess about how to invest properly or he risks losing his shirt. But a few risky get-rich-quick schemes might still fit in? (There are some interesting trading games out there, though, if anyone wants ideas of how this might work -- Space Trader and Recettear come to mind -- both are designed to be "easier than real life" but that's not entirely a bad thing.)

[ChancellorKremlin]

I like your ideas Sen4mi, I've always thought of a "post game end" mod where the mojave resumes back to normal. Really, when you clear out the deathclaws, caravans should start going down that road again. Like lots of them. They could then be attacked by PG's, or not depending on whether you sorted them out earlier too.

 

There are a lot of actions in the game that sadly don't lead to consequences, and I think there should be a plugin out there for that. Sorry for the hijack Zippy, I'll PM you some of my ideas.

[Blargh!]

I sent you a PM, hope you like it

[zippy57]

sen4mi:

I'll start this reply off with a quote from the file I jot ideas for quests down in. It's the top line: "DON'T TOUCH THE VENDORS!!!" Even with the addition of quests, I can't ignore the original idea: a convenient method of obtaining most SCR items. Convenience requires: Close to Goodsprings and only one plugin. No one has taken me up on the offer, but there's always been the option: Someone (other than me) designs a specific vendor and vending space for their items, and now that it's an .esm, that can always be done without me as a middleman. For the first several sentences in this paragraph I put in a colon: Now I'm just doing it because it amuses me.

 

But getting back to the original point, the vendors are the most important thing in SexoutStore. Nothing can block the player's access to them (except for very short periods of time; all quests, like the new one, that prevent the player's access will be very short) and the rewards for quests are vendor discounts (and of course the XP associated with completing quests).

 

Here's another line from my design doc: "...the store does not exist as shown in-game." The store is not really all that lore-friendly nor is it as sensical as I'd like. Much as it tends to aggravate me at times. For example, the guard shouldn't be the one you ask to have vendors added or removed. But the NPC you SHOULD be asking wouldn't be standing around in the store. So I went with the most convenient option that allowed all the people to be in the right spots. That line at the start of the paragraph refers to how characters will talk about the store: How it should be, not how it is.

 

Regarding male/female only: The idea is that there is no mission that cannot be completed by any player for any reason. I generally would prefer near-identical paths for both, mainly because the more different they are the longer it takes to create (like making two whole quests) and test (though I probably wouldn't do that anyway ).

 

Regarding roleplaying purposes: The intention is and always has been to allow the player to choose from one of the three options, not limit them to one or the other.

 

Regarding buying and selling: The answer to that is more complex than you would think, and it would require me to go into detail regarding several elements of the background to fully explain. But here's the short version: All the vendors are independent both of each other (at the moment) and the organization that actually operates the Bunker.

 

However, both these ideas and the trading quests could work, and I'd set things up to integrate them properly, as long as someone else makes them. I'm focusing on SexoutAgent at the moment.

 

ChancellorKremlin:

It's funny, there's actually several quests and associated scripts for endgame content. But they're just frameworks, no one ever bothered to finish them. One even has a comment that says something to the effect of "the quest designer needs to tell us what these variables are supposed to be".

[sen4mi]

sen4mi:

I'll start this reply off with a quote from the file I jot ideas for quests down in. It's the top line: "DON'T TOUCH THE VENDORS!!!"

 

Yes, I apologize. I do think I have some ideas that can fit your quest system, and I apologize for hijacking your thread for unrelated suggestions.

 

I will try to turn my half ideas into real ideas for you.