to cut to the chase I want to know how do others feel about a mod that is more geared towards exploring and back story than fighting?

This mod I am working on currently I might release it if others have a interest in a story more than fighting. My idea is that this under ground bunker is purely for exploration, finding notes, figuring out what happened, ect. It will basically tell a story that I envision but will not have enemies within the base due to the story line.

Basically besides exploration there will be required skills to access some areas that are cut off that lockpicking wont resolve. Other areas will have multiple access points, one of which will be easier than the other but at the same time harder to randomly come across. There will also be some loot in some form.

So in closing how do others feel about mods that are more driven towards a backstory of what happened some place than fighting it out with enemies?

Likewise those that think there should be enemies to attack you, what kind of enemies would you prefered. Personally the closest enemy that has a chance of being put in would be bugs, most likely radroaches on the lower most levels but I am open to hearing opinions on prefered enemies.

sounds pretty cool, I'm looking forward to it!

to answer your question about enemies, I like ghouls. But since you didn't want this mod to focus too much on fightin', maybe you can make two versions: one with bugs and one with ghouls?
hope this helps!

That is what I was thinking. If it comes down to it, I could make two versions one with enemies to fight with a slightly altered back story to explain the enemies and the orignal story that I came up with.

The ghouls would be fairly easy to explain by adding some radiation, could be anything from a reactor room malfunction leaking radiation on that level down to having an alternative surface access that was damaged releasing radiation in some areas of the "facility".

I dont want to really say much about the idea story wise for fear of spoiling it or the simple fact that I might have to change some things due to limits of what can and cant be done. So far I got the first section pretty much completed construction wise on 3 levels. Currently I am moving things around trying to get a more natural planned design than just randomness. For instance putting restrooms near the diner/break room instead of putting them one level below.

I'm always a fan of anything that's not a brain dead dungeon crawl. I don't hate hostile NPCs/creatures, I just hate how they are handled in most games. You have three options:
avoid, kill, sneak past in most games and that is just like a major immersion breaking type thing for me. It removes the fact that they are a living being, or a living creature, or a working machine; and instead it turns them into nothing more than an obstacle.

Granted things like crippling body parts, frenzying, ways to weaken them, etc. are all good ways of making it less generic and boring, but I like a little something extra too. Like being able to make enemies surrender, negotiating with them, throwing meat at a rabid animal to get it to leave you alone, etc.

That bit put aside... so long as there is a reason for it to be empty, I have no problem if there's no enemies (like if it's a mine that got caved in 50 years ago, and you have to blow something up to get in)... But if it's just like a wide open cave with nothing stopping people/things from getting in then there should probably be enemies in there because it wouldn't make sense that no one or nothing would take shelter there.