I realize this is still the very early stages of New Vegas development (and though I've purchased the game, I haven't even started it yet), but having been a huge fan of Fallout 3 and ESPECIALLY all the absolutely amazing mods people came up with for it, I figured I'd drop by here and see if anyone else liked this one mod in particular enough to try to recreate it for NV. So I'm here to voice my hopes that someone will come up with a NV version of my favorite mod from Fallout 3, Enclave Commander - it can still be found at http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1410 .

If you are not familiar with it, this mod basically lets you call in reinforcements at a moment's notice. Installing it provides you with a radio which, when used, allows you to summon up half a dozen or so (don't remember the exact number per call, though you can make many calls if you want) soldiers that are at your beck and call - they can be told to follow you around and fight with you, to go out in all directions and secure the area (engaging any enemies, etc), and so on.

What impressed me the most about this mod is how incredibly detailed the presentation was. These soldiers don't just pop into existence after you summon them, oh no - at first, you use the radio and just select a spot on the ground, but nothing happens immediately. Then in a few seconds, you hear the sound of a verticopter getting louder and louder, before it touches down at the spot you selected and the soldiers disembark. And they're not just any generic clones! You get to not only pick beforehand which faction you wish to summon the soldiers from (In Fallout 3, it was stuff like the Enclave, the Brotherhood of Steel, etc), but you get to pick what KIND of soldiers you want, from heavy weapons, to infantry, and so on, each with their own weapon loadout. Additionally, as I mentioned above, you could summon MULTIPLE groups of help, one after another, to get even MORE soldiers if one group wasn't enough or you had a large area to cover. There was even all sorts of extra functionality that I never got around to using, like being able to tell the soldiers to capture enemies instead of killing them, calling up air strikes, and others. It seemed, all in all, very professionally designed.

Now while this amount of firepower is certainly not conducive to maintaining the balance of the game, keeping in character and not "cheating," I certainly had a hell of a lot of fun with it - which is my goal in a game, in any case. Since I spend tons of time wandering around in a game like Fallout, finding every little secret, exploring every location, and clearing out every infestation of nasties, I often found myself in places where my first thought would be, "Oh no, I really don't want to go in there alone," often due to the presence of ghouls With Enclave Commander, however, it was no problem! Spawn myself an escort and I've got all the moral (and fire) support I'll ever need. Really horrible place (I'm looking at you, Dunwich Building)? Summon up my army, zone into the building in question, and tell them to secure the area - done and done. Instead of getting scared half to death by even the awful SOUNDS the ghouls make, I get to be escorted around their steaming corpses.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black night with Deathclaws aprowl? Instant bodyguards so I can relax. Incredibly well fortified military base against little old me? No, it's against little old me and my 2 dozen heavily armed and armored friends! Have no idea what terrible horrors are lurking in that forboding town I just stumbled across? LOCK AND LOAD my armored pals, you've got patrolling to do! Suddenly feel the urge to declare war on an entire city? Form up behind me boys, WE'RE GOING TO WAR! (P.S. I do realize most of these are based around me being too scared to go in some place alone, but what can I say, these atmospheric games get to me!)

All in all, through the dozens and dozens of hours I spent playing Fallout 3, I came across many situations where I could use extra firepower, or at least some peace of mind, and Enclave Commander provided not only in spades, but in style. For me, and the others out there that I am sure also found much to love about this mod, I dearly hope someone will deign to create something like it for New Vegas - maybe even something better!

Indeed, an Enclave Commander style mod and a Robco Certified type mod (or anything that lets me have Securitron followers) are something I hope we get to see eventually.

Edit: Actually, it shouldn't be all that hard to do really. There's already an item in game that you can get from the NCR if you have good enough rep with them, that lets you call in support (regular trooper or ranger). It's limited to one use per 24 hours, and I think you can only have one out at a time. I imagine someone with enough skill could work with that easily.

As I said, I have yet to play New Vegas, so I was unaware of this item, but you're right, that's great news for people hoping for a remake of Enclave Commander (or that Robco certified one you mentioned - I thought that was excellent as well). Using a system actually integrated into and developed with the game as a prototype for a mod seems like an excellent way to minimize the amount of work required.

I looked into it a little further and the item is apparently called an "NCR Emergency Radio" and can be used to summon one of either two soldiers or a supply drop. At the moment, as you said, there do appear to be a number of limitations to the current implementation - beyond the one use per 24 hours and only having one soldier out at a time, it doesn't appear that you are able to control them at all - they just follow you around and kill hostile things. There's further information about it at http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/NCR_Emergency_Radio .

Whether or not this could be used as a jumping off point for more involved "reinforcement mods" is a modding one that I don't know enough to answer, but it looks promising in terms of already doing much of what we are looking for.

Well at least there is a vertibird in game, I don't know if the attack animations are still there thought.

Honestly, I never even used the whole "attack run" thing that was in the original Enclave Commander mod - to me, it just seemed kind of bolted on and very awkward to target and use. I personally wouldn't even notice if the option wasn't there, so the lack of any vertibird attack animations in New Vegas would be no major loss in my mind.

That being said, if the animations ARE present and it is possible, I think you could do some really sweet things with a vertibird beyond transporting soldiers. I doubt it could be done, but imagine if you could radio in for a vertibird to follow you around from the air and take out your enemies? According to the wiki, "Their weapons include a nose-mounted Gatling laser, a pair of missile launchers, and a bomb rack that can drop mini nukes," so seeing them unleashing that on hostiles around you would be beyond awesome. I know I'd love something to call in even heavier artillery if the soldiers aren't enough!

In any case, if just having one fly in and drop off the soldiers is all that is possible, that'd be enough for me - I never got tired of one flying in and dropping off the reinforcements I had requested