[WIPz] Regulators Refurbished

[the-manta]

Okay, first off; I know that things like this have been done before, some better than others, but none of them seemed quite right to me.

Anyway, basically I intend to create a mod to expand and improve the regulators as, in the vanilla game, they are just endlessly respawning schmoes if you're evil, or a bunch of wierdos who live in a run-down farmhouse buying severed appendages if you're good. I've already begun work on it (begun being the operative word- very early stages) although I may start from scratch.

The plan so far:

- Improve Sonora Cruz: Give her more confidence, so she does not flee across the wasteland at the sight of a bloatfly, make her look a bit cooler, tone down her weapon (it is a 10mm pistol with a DAM of abou 100, she just never uses it because her confidence is 0, and you cant obtain it because she is essential) I'm thinking of replacing it with a scope-free .44 magnum (like Paulson's from Zeta) as this is a bit more cowboy.

- Add services: For instance, regulator medics to heal you up, and a regulator weapons dealer and repairer (who you would have to pay as supplies are hard to come by, so every member has to support the organization)

- Improve the HQ: Either simply refurbishing the existing interior to add real furniture, a workbench and laboratory and other essentials (in vanilla it's just full of junk) and possibly add a bunker/basement below it, or completely replace it with a slightly more impressive and defensible building (although I don't want to give them an impenetrable fortress like they have in many of the similar mods I've seen around- that's more the BoS' thing).

- Add Regulator safehouses/outposts?: they can't all be based out of the one main base, surely, given how widely they operate, they would have smaller bases spread about. These would be handy for the player, as well as just being interesting to have, as they would make a handy pitstop to rest and resupply when out and about.

- Add special contracts: Not so much for existing NPCs (like Tenpenny etc.) as this would probably cause a whole host of incompatibilities (and in the case of Tenpenny- he really doesnt need MORE rewards on his head), but adding new baddies. This would work best, IMO by having a bulletin board in the regulator HQ where special bounty notices like the one for Junders Plunkett found on the dead Reuglator in Arlington Cemetery would be posted periodically. Some of the contracts would be straightforward (go to x location, kill x person), but some might be trickier (find x person, beat another regulator to them, work with other regulators etc.)

I am also thinking that if the Regulators were espanded in this way, their evil counterparts, Littlehorn & Associates would have to be too. I don't know if it would be best to have that in the same mod or in a separate one, your thoughts?

I'll need some help with certain things such as:

- Scripts: how to make the bulletin board work. I'm thinking an ongoing invisible quest which periodically enables an activatable note on the bulletin board, but I'm open to suggestions and don't really know how to do this anyway.

- Quests: Ideas and implementation

- Help with making outposts/safehouses: I'm somewhat loathe to relinquish the opportunity to build little outposts around the Wasteland, but realistically, I can't make every one myself and expect the to be done well and within good time, and it would be good to have other modders, more skillful than myself, to create them.

- Retextures/remodels etc: at present, my FO3 modding is entirely limited ot working in the GECK, I haven't unpacked the meshes or textures and am not familiar with the FO3 retexturing process (probably a lot like Oblivion but meeh). I think it would be good to have a few new outfits, weapons and such for the regulators (such as a unique outfit for Sonora Cruz, "officer" outfits for those in charge of the individual outposts, regulator labcoats for the medics, new weapons as rewards for special bounties)

- Voice acting: although not until everything else is pretty much done; we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I may add to this list as I think of things.

If you have any ideas or opinions, I'd love to hear them.

[vometia]

- Add special contracts: Not so much for existing NPCs (like Tenpenny etc.) as this would probably cause a whole host of incompatibilities (and in the case of Tenpenny- he really doesnt need MORE rewards on his head), but adding new baddies. This would work best, IMO by having a bulletin board in the regulator HQ where special bounty notices like the one for Junders Plunkett found on the dead Reuglator in Arlington Cemetery would be posted periodically. Some of the contracts would be straightforward (go to x location, kill x person), but some might be trickier (find x person, beat another regulator to them, work with other regulators etc.)

This sounds like a great idea! With all those bands of raiders all over the place, pretty much by definition there's going to be a whole bunch of them who are wanted criminals and need to be "dealt with", and this could give a whole new meaning to something that could otherwise be "just another shoot-out". I'm not sure how do-able it is when they're generally created using spawn points, but I'm sure it's possible.

[WillieSea]

I particularly like the 'random contracts' option with the bulleten board. After you have completed all the quests in the game, it gets boring just wandering around killing random mutants, raiders and deathclaws. To have a quest, 'so and so was last seen in the blasted town west of the corvega factory', that would be just too cool. Or, blast the raiders who have been attacking arafu. Yeah, that is what is needed.

[the-manta]

Here's a (very) little bit of progress, Sonora is now looking much more glamorous, but I fear that her new, younger (although her age in the GECK is about the same, 35) may make her look less fitting to be head of an organization that goes by the motto "here in the Wasteland, there's only one brand of justice: the gun"

I'm still somewhat torn between just upgrading the farmhouse HQ and actually replacing it with something a little more... sturdy.

[WillieSea]

I don't see why a beautiful woman cannot also be rough enough to be in charge of the regulators. She would have had to fight extra hard to stay good in the wasteland.

[the-manta]

I don't see why a beautiful woman cannot also be rough enough to be in charge of the regulators. She would have had to fight extra hard to stay good in the wasteland.

I like your way of thinking, sir

[the-manta]

And a little more progress. Here is the new HQ exterior. It needs extra detail, navmeshing, and NPCs (There will be sharpshooters on the lower sections of roof and some regulators patrolling the perimeter). At present I'm struggling to think of an explanation for this large, fancy building in the middle of nowhere not joined to any roads, but I'm sure I'll come up with something

Anyway, let me know what you think.

[greenwarden]

I think it looks quite cool- it's certainly more imposing than their vanilla HQ, which always made me think "I guess the Good Guys are losing the war". This one inspires more confidence.

[the-manta]

Glad to hear it. That poor old farmhouse was not exactly... inspiring