Here is what I am thinking,

on entering niptons Town hall a quest triggers encourging you to send a distress signal from a netowrked computer.
That computer would be the mayors computer.
Upon activating it a new option is listed. Send distress signal.
This triggers a couple variables. One capturing the current day. The other starts a timer that in 3 days time will activate a faction to reclaim nipton. A third variable is a random number assigned to various factions 1 - ncr, 2 - legion, 3 - Gun Runners - 4 Enclave and etc

Each faction that can spawn has one special unit. A commander, whose death will force that random faction number to draw again, excluding the current faction (Cant have ncr taking over ncr for example).

How easy would the above be to implement? I am messing around with quests now, however my experience with it is rather limited. I am thinking the above could be accomplished with 2-3 stage quest. Although, I wonder if using a quest even the best way to accomplish it. if I had to guess the hardest part would be disabling/re enabling the various items littered about the town. No Crosses in NCR town for example.

End goal is having a town whose ownership can change hands, either by your hand, or by creatures assaulting the commander and doing a little regime change. It'd also allow modders to have a place to plant down custom merchants, by using the file as a master. Want a fiend drug dealer? Easy check faction variable and if its true spawn in nipton general shop!

1: Enclave not in Vegas.

2: Gun Runners small in Vegas.

3: A better option would be to make Nipton a "PC Town," and have the player invest money, time and resources into it to turn it into a major town.

I quite like this idea, legion/ncr/power gangers might be enough, but any is good.
It wouldn't even be too hard to enable two factions at once, have them fight it out, then a few days later enable another random faction or two. I think it's unlikely people would want to use it as a resource (if you want to add a fiend drug dealer, you probably don't want them to only appear once every 5-6 days), but it'd be a fun place to visit.

That said rebuilding it as a player town would be interesting too, so...

*cough* Wrong. Enclave is in Vegas. They just are not given a large presence. Sure they only have a few npcs and sets of power armor. But all the assets are already in game to create a robust faction.

True- but Arcade's Remnants aren't true Enclave anymore.

Nelson would also make a good PC Town- if player retakes it from the Legion.

Could always revive the Enclave, we only meet five but its arguable that quite a few went underground. If the mod didn't implement until after endgame and only if you finish Arcade's quest, you could have a resurgence. Just imply that all of the underground Remnants heard about their members in the final battle and decided to rise up and join them. Could make for an interesting continuation done correctly.

I actually like the idea of a player town better. Something like a combination of Kvatch Rebuilt for Oblivion and Real Time Settler for Fallout 3. You take control, get some travelers to settle down and the place gradually turns into a respectable town.

Interesting interesting...

I like the idea of player town as well. Hopefully it can be exicuted well.

I personally like the idea of having different ways to fund the town.
Maybe you choose to have the town rely on trade, which would open up some caravan pit stops and a great market around the main road going through town.
Maybe open up a casino/pleasure town for those not rich enough to get into the strip. This would convert the main road into a "mini strip", adding neon signs and some casinos, bars and such.
You could have to contact the Crimson Caravan to make a deal to set up an outpost of theirs in your town if you're going for trade, and maybe convince one of the big casinos on the strip that opening up a smaller casino in your town could earn them a lot of caps if you're going for pleasure.

Maybe the option to either unite with a faction for protection or train your own guarding force? With a few options to fund better equipment and allowing you to train your guards as your own combat skills gets better.
If you align with a faction they agree to send troops to protect your town and they set up an office or camp in your area with a some kind of negative effect as well. NCR might want some tax, the Legion might want a slave a week (:P) no idea really.

The more cuztimisation the better really.

For Fallout 3 I worked out a vault management idea, which involved restoring a collapsed vault so that it could be lived in again, with the player as the Overseer, confronted with all sorts of decisions. Then upgrades could make people happier, or the vault safer, or offer other bonuses.

I started working on the mod but the scope was a bit too large so I lost interest. Still, I think I can scale it down a bit and apply some of it to Nipton. A player owned town could be interesting.

El Di4blo, some of your suggestions are similar to what I came up with.

First of all, the town would have to be cleaned up. Maybe you can hire a couple of people to help. Then after a few game days, the town is a bit less of a mess. Maybe some buildings could be repaired.

After that, you start out with 2 basics choices: Become the owner of the town and continue fleshing it out, or handing it over to the NCR for an instant reward, a couple more follow up quests/things, but other than that losing control of the town. There might be another faction you could hand it over to as well.

If you become the owner of the town, there's a lot that needs to be done. A few buildings need to be repaired so people can live there. Caravan groups could be talked to so that they put Nipton on their route. Trade agreements could be made with Novac and Primm. The town needs its defenses upgraded to protect it from hostile factions trying to take it over.

Once you've got the basic living conditions down, there should be more customizable elements again. Like, what kind of town is it going to be. Will it be a tourist attraction with a casino, maybe a trading town, or maybe it could start producing something like ammo/weapons?

My idea is to have two factors to take into account: Happiness and Security. Happiness would be increased by improving living conditions, making sure there's enough food, drink and medical supplies available (Which you'd get from trade, from other means of making caps, or by producing it yourself). Or by providing luxury items, like radios for every household. Security could be improved by hiring guards, getting them better weapons, etc, perhaps reducing the chance of a random attack on the town (when you're away).

(The happiness/security thing might be a bit too complicated, but we'll see)

So you can base your decisions of what you want to build/arrange, and in what order, based on how the town is doing.

It would be nice to have an 'evil' way of raising the town too. What if you turn the town into a small factory of some sorts, and have slaves working in it (think a smaller scale The Pitt)? Instead of happiness, you'd have to use fear to keep the population under control. Guards could start watching citizens instead of on the town surroundings. The town borders are closed off with large fences. Still in order to not anger other factions this should probably remain a secret somehow, I still need to think that through. I don't think the NCR would like slavery, so that would cut off most possibilities to arrange dealings with them.

An unhappy population might choose to kick you off the Mayor's seat, or in the case of slavery revolt if the Fear level isn't high enough.

Of course, Vulpes and his gang would have to be wiped out.

What would happen to Boxcars and Oliver Swanwick?

If my logic was used, or something like it, vulpes could walk away in one piece. Boxcar and etc could be thrown into a cell. If a person doesn't want to create one in that town, there are other ncr controlled areas which do have cells. Prisoner transfer and all that jazz.

A PC town for Nipton would be cool. Hope someone does it in the future.

These are my ideas for the player town variations so far:

-NCR base, if the player hands over control completely. *yawn*

-Trading/Farming
-Casino/entertainment
-Slavery/Small Industry


Most of the town specific stuff will be placed in the town hall. The top floor will be for you (and your advisor guy, who carries out your decisions for the town), but the other floors could be turned into a casino, or some sort of workplace for slaves, and maybe a meeting spot for traders. Though those traders will probably be staying at the caravan park, near the store. I'd have to think of a different use for the place then.

Most of the generic Nipton houses will be a place to live for the new Nipton inhabitants.

The Nipton Hotel might turn into a jail. What's up with that place anyway? It's a tiny house with one floor, which has a couple of chairs in a row, a counter with a telephone and a cash register, and a tiny back room. So visitors can check in there, and then what? There's no place to sleep anywhere.

I've got the idea worked out pretty well but suggestions/ideas are always nice.

As for the happiness/fear/security thing, I think I'm not going to use them as things that may have consequences if they get too low, but instead making it so that lacking happiness/fear/security limits your building choices. For example, you can't build a casino without decent security looking after the place. And there may be some unpopular decisions that are necessary, so that would require that the people aren't angry at you already before you can make them.

I might get rid of fear too and just use one general 'satisfaction' variable, and security. And maybe something else like welfare or something, but that too could be included in satisfaction. No point in making things too complicated.

This sounds neat. Trying my own idea as well. I think they might actually even be compatible. What I am considering is having an option to clean up the various corpses and fires. Add in a few ncr patrols in the extrior cell. Perhaps take over one of the smaller buildings as a merchant/ncr recruitment building.

What buildings if any are you not planning on altering? I really love your idea of a casino moving in!

Oh also, what are the benefits of owning the casino? To much of a cap infusion to the player would prove somewhat unbalancing, even if it comes with an outrageous cash outlay. Oh and heres an idea, a motiff option. Have all your guards/etc wear certain outfits. Pre-war, Legion slave camp (prosttutes dressed as legion slaves?, guards in legion armor?)

edit: How are you going to allow the player to select the various options? Through the mayors computer or maby a hacked secrutron(vegas guard robot) assistant?

I′m not sure if they′ll be compatible. But go ahead!

If I figure out a good way to have some sort of slavery going on (as an alternative to a casino town, or a trading town) then it would be strange if there were NCR troopers patrolling around.

There′ll probably be the option to change one of the generic Nipton houses into a medical center and another one into a jail, and maybe some other things. The other generic houses probably won′t be altered much (most of them aren't damaged on the inside) but will be used by NPCs to live in. The Nipton General Store will be renovated.

One of the first steps to be done when the quest starts would be to arrange that the mess in the exterior cells gets cleaned up. And there will be some sort of defense upgrades if necessary. I don't think much else will be added to the exterior (except for NPCs), most of the changes are indoors.


Every day some caps will probably be added to the ′Mayor's reward chest′ or whatever I end up calling it. Still, it won′t be a whole lot as I don′t want to unbalance the game. The whole town basically owns the casino so you can imagine they all get a share.

There should be some kind of advantage for having a town that earns good money, other than a caps reward. I′m still thinking about that.

There will be one 'advisor' character found in the Town Hall somewhere. Possibly an assistant of the old mayor. Most of it will go through him.

A little bump so that the forum monsters don't eat the topic. I've made a little progress and now I'm setting up the first choices with the advisor character.

Perhaps the first floor of the town-hall would become a hotel/motel with bar/restaurant for a trader town.

Other advantages of a trader town would be multiple merchants setting up shop (perhaps stalls by the road).
The trailer park, might make a good space for a farm (or more).

Would be nice to see some quests about problems the town is facing, once it has been implemented.

All in all, I'm liking this idea.

EDIT: In terms of quests, it might be interesting to go out in the world and draw in shops/people for your town through negotiation and being able use a variety of skills for it.
For example; You wish to draw the Gun Runners to your town. You can use barter, speech or guns checks to accomplish this, offer money or preform some task for them (getting a gun schematic).