[WIP] The Strip Open

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:17 am

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38056

I NEED YOUR HELP!!
I am slowly adding more NPCs to the Strip, but I have a problem. My computer is high-end, and I cannot reliably test whether the amount of NPCs I am adding are too much. So I need to hear from people if they are experiencing heavy lag and if so where on the Strip they are experiencing this.
The most common place I expect to hear about lag is when moving south towards the Tops sign. It is because the NPCs are densely populated in the Gomorrah area when the drunk NCR troopers are moving south from there. This is a scripted scene. The other scripted scene I am interested in is the one with NCR trooper women dancing in the Ultra-Luxe fountain. Those are the two with the most NPCs involved. Let me know if one of those scenes is in progress when you experience lag. There are maybe 5 other scenes though, so let me know if you think one is playing if you get lag.
I know that I won't be able to make the Strip run as smoothly as it did in 3 pieces, but I want to make it playable for as many people as possible.

INSTALL NOTES:
Do not install this on a savegame inside the Strip worldspace, as this causes strange behavior like all the NPCs spawning with nothing equipped.
If you are installing onto a savegame that has already visited the Strip you may need to walk the full length of the Strip once before all NPCs spawn correctly.

Known Issues:
Upgrading the Securitrons to Mark II sometimes breaks the triggers that move NPCs, or at least appears to move them to random places on the Strip.
During combat only 4 Securitrons are active. The rest either disappear or do not respawn. NCR troops are only active if they spawned before player begins combat in the area.
NPCs regularly disappear in the middle of the street near the location of the old gates.

In-Progress:
Adding persistent NPCs to the middle area of the Strip to make the area feel more populated.
New NPC paths to prevent NPCs from disappearing in the middle of the road.

Alpha.v5:
Added a noticeable amount of NPCs (5-7) to the center area of the Strip between the Tops, LVB Station, and the Ulta-Luxe. For the moment they are only sand-boxed (idle movement, sitting, smoking, walking in small circles, etc.) because they are for testing purposes.

Alpha.v4:
Fixed issues with Securitrons. They should populate the area correctly now. I hope.

Note: The triggers are smaller between areas of the strip now. I shrink them when testing things and just remembered that I didn't enlarge them again. Will appear to cause problems if you don't like running on the actual street.

Alpha.v3:
Fixes a few minor problems that were causing a few of the scripted scenes to not appear properly.
Removed the moveTo tags associated with Securitrons during combat. They should no longer teleport at seemingly random times while moving through the Strip.
Securitrons now should be spread out more appropriately through the Strip. There should be 8 total, 4-5 of them should move as you do.
Fixed a few overlooked scripts that would cause quest NPCs to disappear as the player moved to the North or South areas of the Strip.

Alpha.v2:
Fixes the South Area activator so that players actually will trigger the NPCs to be moved correctly.

Alpha.v1
Using Tarrant's The Strip Open - Modder's Resource I made as few changes as possible to get it in a workable state.

Modified and tacked the gate scripts onto cubic activators
- This moves the NPCs around as you move through the Strip to populate the areas as they (almost) normally would be.
Enabled a few quest NPCs like Billy Knight
- This is in an effort to make sure it is in fact usable, even if my triggered scripts don't work correctly for some reason.
Moved a few things that didn't look quite correct
- Most notably the wrecked bus to the left when you enter the Strip area
That's pretty much it...


Although the most recent release is mainly to begin testing the limit of how many NPCs I can safely add I don't have a lot of time to play the game right now, so please let me know if anything seems screwed up. I probably wouldn't find out any other way. My personal testing ability is almost limited to a single run from one end of the Strip to the other.

An undocumented change that some people here might like to know about; I commented out some lines in the scripts that disable unnecessary NPCs as the player moves through the areas of the Strip. For instance, the dancing hokers in front of Gomorrah will not be disabled as you move towards the Tops/Ultra-Luxe. As far as I have seen, they don't get used elsewhere so I just left them enabled as a small step to this stress test that was easier than dropping more new NPCs in. So if you see one of the hokers out of place let me know. I'm planning on pulling them from the area scripts (for the most part) as they are, to me, the most obvious of the visual NPC spawns, and I would hate to have them start disappearing after I do that.
User avatar
James Hate
 
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Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2007 5:55 am

Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:11 pm

I hope you are still on this project, because its a must have mod imo. The strip with all those loadzones are more of a pain than entertainment.

I have no issues with the latest release. Performance seems smooth and everything looks as it should.

Keep up the good work, and I'd love to see you extend the "opening up" to freeside as well. Opening the whole city up (and putting it in the exterior cell) would be the best (I'm pretty sure modern PCs could handle it, since open cities mods for oblivion worked just fine), but at least an open freeside and the strip (separately) should be achievable with any PC in mind.
Those small loadspaces were obviously designed with console limitations in mind, and take away a lot from the immersion.


Oh, and one suggestion: You should add at least one map markeron the strip.. somewhere in the middle or at the lucky38 just for the convenience.
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Queen
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:29 am

1. The few issues you got with this mod, will they be fixed or is it something that can't be fixed?

2. Is it a safe mod to use?, if I want to uninstall the mod due to what ever reason...will the saves be OK?
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Rudi Carter
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:16 am

Curious, too. Most of the open Strip mods have issues. This one sounds promising.
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Eric Hayes
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:16 am

I have been using this mod for a little while now. I do like it, and it really does improve the strip greatly, it does however, leave a pretty big footprint. Even on my GTX 470, my framerates take a pretty big hit.

IMO this mod wouldn't be the best choice for someone who doesn't have a very powerful system.

In some ways, this mod reminds me of Bananasplit's Better Cities for Oblivion , great mod, but a hard hitter on framerates.
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Andrea P
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:53 am

I have been using this mod for a little while now. I do like it, and it really does improve the strip greatly, it does however, leave a pretty big footprint. Even on my GTX 470, my framerates take a pretty big hit.

IMO this mod wouldn't be the best choice for someone who doesn't have a very powerful system.

In some ways, this mod reminds me of Bananasplit's Better Cities for Oblivion , great mod, but a hard hitter on framerates.

Agree. My ATI 5770 slows done some. But, it is still playable. Recommend even in its unfinished state.
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Benji
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:29 am

Well i have tested the mod and don't get any slowdowns what so ever, the game flows on as usual. What i want to know is if it's a safe mod to use?, if I want to uninstall the mod due to what ever reason...will the saves be OK?
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Kelsey Hall
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:10 am

Well i have tested the mod and don't get any slowdowns what so ever, the game flows on as usual. What i want to know is if it's a safe mod to use?, if I want to uninstall the mod due to what ever reason...will the saves be OK?

Try it out. Let us know. I don't think that I will be uninstalling. Seems like a must have mod to me.
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Kayla Keizer
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:19 pm

Well i have tested the mod and don't get any slowdowns what so ever, the game flows on as usual. What i want to know is if it's a safe mod to use?, if I want to uninstall the mod due to what ever reason...will the saves be OK?


Well i cant tell that i have thoroughly tested every aspect of the mod, but i could do the main quest fine, and the talent pool quest worked fine as well. Didn't try to uninstall it though.

barrettsfloyd: Must be an issue on your end... I get no performance hit with an ati 5770. Maybe its related to CPU power? (I got an intel i5 750)
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Alycia Leann grace
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:18 pm

barrettsfloyd: Must be an issue on your end... I get no performance hit with an ati 5770. Maybe its related to CPU power? (I got an intel i5 750)

failed to mention that I currently have over 80 plugins for NV, including IWS, as well as a few texture replacers.

CPU is a quad core q9650. that shouldn't really be a problem. As a whole, NV runs far better than Oblivion or FO3 ever did.

I still get framerates in the mid 20's to low 30's in spots on the strip, as opposed to in the 50's prior to the addition of mods.
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Skivs
 
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