Armor Options and Updates

Post by **darthbdaman** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:58 am

For the 3.0 release we are planning on having a variety of new optional features. One of these is the Additional Armors option, which adds many new armors to the different factions around the Capital Wasteland, and will be controlled through the TTW MCM. This will be an overly long explanation for how the Additional Armors option works and some of the others changes that had to be made to accommodate that in 3.0. Enjoy :)

As most of you know, TTW has added modified Remnants Power Armor to the Enclave for a long time, as well as combat armor to the Talon Company and the Regulators. This has been argued about before, as it was original content that probably outside the scope of the core feature set and design goals. The statistics of armor in FO3 has also been a contentious issue. Fallout 3 is balanced very differently than NV. This presents many problems, some of which can't be solved, like the Vault Security uniform, and others which can be solved, but in different ways, which brings us to the many changes and new features in 3.0.

In 3.0, no new armors are added to the game, unless the Additional Armors option is enabled. When enabled, the Additional Armors option gives alternate armor lists to the BoS, Outcasts, Enclave, Regulators, Talon Company, and Raiders. These lists distribute new armors, in addition to existing armors, in a manner consistent with the leveled NPC tiers. I’ll briefly list the modified armor tiers below (these are subject to some change).

-BoS: Recon Armor, T-45d, T-51b

-Outcasts: Recon Armor, T-45d, T-51b

-Enclave: Mk1 Power & Tesla, Mk2 Power & Tesla, Hellfire Armor

-Regulators: Regulator Duster, Combat Armor, Combat Reinforced, Combat Reinforced Mk2

-Talon Company: Combat Armor, Combat Reinforced, Combat Reinforced Mk2

-Raiders: Raider Armor, Pitt Armor, Metal Armor, Gamma Armor

The armor stats line up pretty well for every faction except the Enclave. The current stats for Enclave armor were not very good. They were designed around the stats of Fallout 3, and not those of New Vegas, and they were dramatically underpowered compared to their historic versions. After a bit of back and forth, and a lot of research into the classic games, and the new games, we came to many different conclusions, and I won't share all of them here with you. I'll only list the most important information that informed our decisions.

-Protector Casdin confirms that Enclave Power Armor in Fallout 3 is the Advanced Power Armor Mk2 in Fallout 2. He also confirms that Tesla Armor existed in Fallout 2 (though this is also confirmed by the Gannon Family Armor in NV)

-Advanced Power Armor Mk2 is better than Advanced Power Armor, which is better than T-51b. This confirmed by Fallout 2, and reinforced in NV

-Hellfire Armor is better than Advanced Power Armor Mk2, and is the most advanced armor made by the Enclave. This confirmed by NV

-Tesla Armor has a lower weight and armor class, at the cost of lower DT. This was confirmed by Josh Sawyer

Using that information we decided that the Enclave Power Armor MkII and Enclave Tesla Armor MkII (as they are now called) must be stronger than the remnants power armor, and that the Enclave Hellfire Armor must be stronger than them. This is a large change that many argued against, but is fundamentally necessary to maintain any semblance of continuity.

Naturally balance issues arise from this, as all of the Enclave’s armors are the best in the game now. However, thanks to the Faction Armor system, balance can be maintained. Josh Sawyer had intended to make the Remnants armor in NV act like the Auditore cape from Assassin's Creed 2, that is to make the player hostile to everyone in the game. While it will not be quite that extreme, wearing Enclave armor is deliberately designed to cripple gameplay, discouraging its use. This has many positive effects, namely making the Enclave extremely powerful without transferring that power to the player. This makes the Enclave far more threatening than in Fallout 3, and more comparable to the threats seen in New Vegas.

These are just a few of the many great changes that will work together in 3.0 to make gameplay more consistent, and far more in line with the improvements made in New Vegas. Thanks for reading all of that, I hope you are as excited as we are.

Post by **catcameback** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 5:51 am

Poor Enclave, they just want to make America great, and everyone hates them for it.

Post by **H1ms3lf** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:59 am

Thanks darth and TTW team!! That sounds awesome =]

PA and the power scale it adds to the game always bugs me, seems this change accommodates it somewhat better.

Lets see if I can interest (you or) somebody of sufficient modding skill to further develop PA system changes, which could incorporate a future TTW mod/improvement, this would also (hopefully) remove the necessity of Enclave armor crippling gameplay: https://taleoftwowastelands.com/content/power-armors-ppa-mod-ttw-armors-etc

Post by **TAWM** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:25 am

This optional is definitely something I will use. I almost always play the villain in TTW blowing up megaton and usually the citadel as well after broken steel. Doing this in decked out hellfire armor which has the rest of the game world hate me more than usually is something I will enjoy tremendously. I'm assuming that this gameplay crippling effect is also present on the New Vegas side as well?

On another note just out of curiousity how many options are we up to now? I know we will have more recipes, xp reduction, bobbleheads rebalanced, fallout 3 repair system, weapons that ignore DT/DR, Point Lookout Damage Boost on/off, perk per 1 or 2 levels, No Karma DC followers, and fallout 3 skill books. That's 9 so far with the upcoming options plugin for TTW 3.0 did I miss any or is that what it will be?

Post by **RoyBatty** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:36 pm

Switching Supermutant, Mirelurk, Albino Radscorpion DT on/off, F3 style VATS settings. Reputations, Speech Checks, Anchorage Options, Outcast Trading.

We hope to also have, Fallout 3 player voice, Fallout 3 quest and level up sounds, Fallout 3 weapon sounds, .32/Silenced 10mm restoration, Cut Equipment

Wild Wasteland will be redone a bit and included later.

In the future: Leveled List Overhaul (no title yet) that rebalances both wastelands leveled lists to support up to Level 50 like Lonesome Road does, Unique Uniques, maybe Loading Screen stats, Fallout 3 hud graphics/loading wheel.

Post by **TAWM** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:57 pm

Sounds cool.

Down the road will the other optional plugins be merged together so Speech Checks, Outcast Trading, Anchorage Options, Reputations, etc. is toggleable on/off in one single plugin with the rest of the options?

Post by **darthbdaman** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 5:10 pm

No, that wouldn't work

Post by **EnderDragonFire** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 5:49 pm

"In 3.0, no new armors are added to the game, unless the Additional Armors option is enabled. When enabled, the Additional Armors option gives alternate armor lists to the BoS, Outcasts, Enclave, Regulators, Talon Company, and Raiders. "

Thank goodness. I never liked having West Coast enclave armor in Fallout 3. Or the East Coast BoS having T-51 armor. If I am reading this correctly, I no longer have to worry about that, right? I can turn off these armor and have Fallout 3 factions wearing only native Fallout 3 armor?

Post by **darthbdaman** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 6:33 pm

Post by **EnderDragonFire** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 6:55 pm

Thank you! TTW 3.0 just keeps getting better and better!