CROSS-CONTENT DISCUSSION: Main Quest

[Copper Hamster]

There have been several 'brilliant plans' put forth in the last decade or so for major rail systems in the US. Many of them involve not entirely far fetched ideas for underground high speed rail.

Such a system could, if located reasonably deep, survive a nuclear bombardment relatively intact. That could be the justification for the train. (Several of the more ambitious proposed systems I've read about involve tunnels 1 or more miles underground, only having surfacing branches for heading to cities, and being designed for trains moving near or above the sound barrier)

My preferred method that would be Lore Friendly would be either a caravan ride (Hey you wants to guard our caravan for the trip west/back east?) You could even give a small reward and treat it as 'no time passed' for all the stuff that ticks along in game, or perhaps a functional vehicle (I'm thinking a motorcycle is about the only thing that would pass for that, in a lot of places the terrain/roads would be impassable to cars).

An 'after finish' subquest could be used in OWB to enable the telethingie to allow you to set a list of destinations; add a few in FNV, and a few in the DC area. Maybe NV<->DC transporting only works after finishing OWB, Mothership Zeta, and doing a subquest which establishes a relay system on the Mothership.

[protectorcrimson]

I was a writer that was recruited by kuro before the mod was unfortunately shut down on the nexus.  He had a plan of a bit of a addon that had several questlines incorporating several mods like dog city, boulder city, and alton il.  He also had made up his own faction called bad company, This also had a quest line. After those quests were dealt with then you would find the devide and then the events of that area would happen. (there has to be a minor rewrite as the evnets of the devide happen while the LW is still in the vault. Either push the date of NV forward or the events of fallout 3 back some. or just ignore it.) The mod  It also would include a development of the CW during the 4 years you traveled to in the west. Depending on some small decisions the CW would have a loose government form ( a hint to the possible future of the CW that mirrors the NCR in the west but backed by a liberal Brotherhood of steel chapter).  

We also had the idea of playing after the NV ending but that was far off (only two endings were really viable to continue. IT was NCR or Yes man as they required the least amount of editing.), This would have a quest line of visiting California. 

 

As for Zeta there is a mod on the Fallout 3 nexus that gives you a faction (the Terran Starship Command) that controls Zeta and has a branching story that you build a under water city out of a alien base.  Then you are attacked by a chapter of the BOS, which leads you to recruiting the RCSN (Reborn coalition of Soviet Nations), which is a post war Russian faction which then gives you Russians power armor.  The mod is still being developed but the main modder is busy but has not abandoned the project.  This mod has dozens of addons as well,  you turn the lincoln memorial into a embasy, it has TSC custom armor, ranging from combat armor to power armor, a secret research base that gives you a alien follower as well as a display model of a cobera tank.  Then their are some Clothing addons that add a verity of clothing for this faction.  The latest ones give you a space station as well which I have not checked out.  THeir mods in plan that expand to the pitt and point lookout as well.  This mod is called Mothership Zeta Crew and would be awesome way to give you to use a zeta teleport which would give a story reason for it as well.  Even mroe their is a New VEgas addon of that puts a TSC embassy on the strip. 

[Ein]

I would imagine everyone going in to a mod like this either has their own story charted out in their head, or they just want to shoot things and become angry when NPCs have the audacity to actually try speaking with them. So any kind of story modding I think possibly falls to the way side of just making it so the mods don't make every single bug in both games a 100% guarantee like the old version does.

[obscurantist]

few points about compatibility:

1)Untouched working underground railroad across the USA? Vertibird will be more realistic.

2)Until getting to Mojave we should have some prequest, like obtaining platinum chip and note to deliver it, Viktor can give it to player at DC, but you'll need some trick with his voiced dialogs not to spoil atmosphere.

3)Also package Lonesome Road was delivered, don't know if we can ignore it, cause after vault break we haven't memory 'white spots'.

[Ein]

It's a gap of at least 2 years between FO3 and NV. The who what when where and why of the lone wanderer aren't that overly important. All that really  needs to be said would already be implied. The Wanderer went West, found work and got shot for his troubles. It's also already implied that it's mostly only the short term memory that the courier lost. He never was from the Mojave in the first place, and they never specify otherwise. He could be from Vault City, NCR Proper, or the Capital Wasteland.

About the only thing the Courier COULDN'T be is an Escaped android from the commonwealth. Because I think Doc Mitchel would have noticed if you had an iPad for a brain.

[ElvenScoundrel]

Vertibirds would be as realistic as underground trains, since Vertibirds are pretty damn rare. In fact, IIRC, only the Enclave and the BoS- assuming the Chosen One grabbing the Vertibird blueprints and giving 'em to the BoS is cannon- are the only ones with them. There's a ton of train wagons in Nevada alone, and the NCR DOES use a train (even if it's for a short distance). Not only that, but there's a shitton of tracks in Nevada as well, and it's not totally unfeasible to think they used these unused tracks to build/repair the underground traintracks that lead to DC. Plus, we gotta remember that FO is in a different, alternate timeline. It's retrofuturism, I'd like to think there were more than a few subways that lead to DC that the NCR or anyone else can fix for access.

[dmcgee627]

Some of the ideas Kuro had about mixing in stuff from Dogtown Denver, Beyond Boulder Dome and Alton, IL seemed neat.

It would probably be hard to get all the rights to use them though, so maybe it would be possible to do that with an optional mod that uses them all as masters?

[obscurantist]

President of NCR Aaron Kimball uses his own vertibird

[Kainschylde]

A random idea I actually had long ago when I first heard of RFCW.

Why not combine some of these ideas? A transcontinental underground rail line. The trains themselves are broken down but the tunnel itself is fairly clear, just exits collapsed. Entrances/exits were opened up at each end to connect Vegas and DC, with expansion-ready exits along the tunnel to provide plugin access to DLC and mods. All that would actually need to be made is a really long tunnel level. Link it to the metros in DC, have it surface somewhere on the eastern edge of NV (There are several closed tunnel entrances along eastern NV that could be used for this purpose).

Alternately, why not make use of Big MT? It was a government research facility, and they have access to transporter tech with the Transportalponder. Why not link that up to some government office in DC?

And as a third option, with Wild Wasteland theres a crashed alien ship outside of Vegas identical to the one that links to Zeta. Similar ship, similar transporter link? After completing Zeta, when Tercorien tells you about the transponder that was dropped where the ship used to be, he could mention that sensors also indicate a second transponder out west.

And I also really love the TSC mod, it is also a good option for connecting the wastelands.

[Wowboy]

I guess this thread is a bit old, but I thought I'd chime in with what I implemented in RFCW and the beta of TTW.

I concur with those who like the idea of the LW being recruited to join the Mojave Express. I also took into account that the Wasteland Survival Guide had to be written before getting the quest. While I completely agree that once the LW sets in motion the events at the Purifier after rescuing Dad, it didn't make much sense to allow the LW to travel across the country to become a mailman. Of course, it also doesn't make much sense to me either that he would stop and help slaves in Pittsburgh, pay the Outcasts a visit and do a VR sim, or take a vacation to Point Lookout for mutant fruit, and the game doesn't block those off, so I just sorta didn't implement any sort of "block" to prevent my quest from being available at various stages of the main quest.

What I did was spawn 3 NPCs at the gate of Megaton that would appear at the conclusion of the Wasteland Survival Guide quest. 2 of the NPCs were just guards for a member of the Mojave Express who have made the perilous journey eastward after accepting a contract from a cowboy faced robot to retrieve a platinum poker that was mistakenly delivered to the RobCo factory in the DC area. The LW then has the option to go to the RobCo factory and find the chip. Upon finding it, the LW exits the building and gets an invitation to travel with them back west, forget the troubles of the highly irradiated and dangerous Capital Wasteland, and work as a courier for the Mojave Express.

When the LW accepts the offer, the Mojave Express rep tells him that it's going to be a long journey, but you'll be burstin' with caps when we get there. From there, I just faded to white and showed the "Three Years Later" bik, and from there, I just started the intro quest at Doc Mitchells, complete with NV intro bik and all. I disabled the Vigor Tester, because it seemed pointless to reallocate SPECIAL points. I went ahead and had the LW/Courier go through the psyche tests, I figured it might be neat to be able to re-select tag skills and traits... especially if you are really RPing, you might want to give your guy some different traits since he's been shot in the head.

From there, you just play the NV side to your hearts content, and when you're ready to venture back east, head over with your preferred method of travel. I confess, I was skeptical of the train method (and still am from a lore perspective,) but the work that has been done on the train is professional quality, comprehensive, and when you use it, it doesn't feel like breaking lore at all. So yeah, I say keep it in. If it remains a problem for some, might I suggest you make it a plug in like the bobblehead perk plug in? 

I would also add that I love your ideas for the updated Vertibird travel method. It did seem a shame to not use those videos that the author of the original mod made, and the concept of flying cross-country in a Vertibird does seem the most lore friendly of all.