Fallout's Doomsday 2.5.1.2 for Darkest Hour (latest release: 22-04-2023)

[Slaughter]

Hey guys, hope I've not disappeared for too long. I am always eager for more feedback, and I have received many offers of help and love from fans of the mod, not just here but also at Moddb! It really makes me happy. I really need to write up one of those dev diaries I plan to.

I haven't played as anyone so far, since I didn't have time to do so. I was just commenting on what I read in the changelog. However, when I'll have time I'll surely leave a report here.

Hi Maciej! Fantastic! Looking forward to your feedback report! It really helps me with developing!

Hi! I've been a fan of this mod for a long time and I'm so glad you continue to work on it!

Hi Nidoes! So am I a fan of it, heh! Thank you! I hope I can make it far, far better! I want to go further beyond!

Of the little things I've found so far:
1. San Luis Obispo province doesn't have it's name changed (also checked in province_names.csv)
2. Fresno province's graphic is still the Lost Hills bunkers "ill_prov_763.bmp".

Shit you're right. Can't believe I forgot those ones. I feel dumb.

The unification system is great. Played as Enclave, so the first regions to unify were Alaska, Aleutians and Yukon. Aleutians took the longest, but it's fine, considering you have to restore all the fortifications there. Alaska got unified by the time I conquered the whole thing (just because there is nobody to stop you). And Yukon was quite quick to unify. I'd say the changes work quite well.

Glad you liked the Unification System! Everyone seems to have liked it. It only became possible thanks to new triggers in 1.05 (or was it 1.04?) if I remember right, I saw Arcangelus implement some events with them, and just transposed

Quite quick? Hmmm... I better take a look at Yukon. Unifications' offset is 360 days.

Also wanted to ask, do you have any plans on adding brigades for carrier air wing? I know they are in game, but there are no techs to activate them.

Of course. I actually want to add Helicopter, Vertibird, Scrap Plane and Rocket Plane CAGs.

Also, I swear Arcangelus added those. Damn this blasted lousy memory.

As for the techs... well, that's for when I do the tech revamp.

Played the classic 2245 scenario as FUSA, Blue Emu difficulty, Normal aggressiveness, democracies allowed to start wars. A pretty nice run, the hardest part was defeating the Dark Cathedral, after that I took over the East Coast, leading to the endgame war in 2251.

Hi, Illya! Wow you must have taken a lot of East Coast, Warmonger only triggers with 340 VP now. Its not hard to get it in the West but the East doesn't have that many VPs yet.

You might be interested in this list of war declarations (pre-endgame war) I extracted from a save file:

Interesting data...

- Vault City often pounces on Gecko early on.
- Mexican Raiders literally jumping on NROM in like year 2 of the game is a bit surprising, AFAIK they do that in the third year. NROM has a quite bad track record in my current games, being killed by the Mexican Raiders or Mayans. I suspect marauders are causing them a toll.
- Geez those super-early Mexican Raider war declarations versus New Church. That's a tad too aggressive.
- Wow the New Church AI must be suicidally reckless, declaring war against one country while being at war wit htwo already.
- Question: Was NROM already annexed when the Mexican Raiders declared war on the Mayan Empire?
- Hmmmm... 2248 is too early for the Legion to go after the New Church.

- Why is the Zombie Apocalypse even attacking the New Church? Its not even that close to it. Lol.
- Wow Warriors of Ice declared war on the RCC. I'm actually surprised, the Warriors of Ice have super-aggressive AI but seem content to do absolutely nothing for some reason.
- Wow NCR after attacked Necropolis, first time I saw it do that, after I told the AI to do it.
- Enclave declaring war on Broken Hills this early? Weird.
- Looks like I need to dial down the Under-Nation aggression against Broken Hills, or give them multiple date-based AI files.

I'm actually surprised about the New Church tbh.

Its like everyone hates their guts or something. I swear, 9/10 games they get ganged by all their neighboors. I really need to make them some friends not to get murdered by, in the future. I think the only games where they survive, are the ones where they reform.

Bugs and inconsistencies:
- Calgary's units still have Montenegrin names.
- part 3 of McKane's story references year 1937.
- new nations like Quebec, Calgary, Nuka Cola, New Canaan don't seem to have the endgame choice events.
- there seems to be no event for coring Bermuda.

Good catches! Thank you!
- I've noticed similar issues with a few other nations.
- Wow, seems like you found the last reference to the HR calendar! I really gotta rewrite that.
- Yes, that is true. Do list any you find, I have a partial list and want to fix this.

- that reference to the HR calendar seems to be the only one left, perhaps it's time to remove the event about it (#40007).

Or is it? You just found one, I think. Then again, perhaps its time the hunt for the heretical HR calendar is ended.

- make Quebec receive RCC's eastern areas like Labrador upon its release.

Good idea.

- change FUSA's old/new name to "United States" or "USA" instead of "United States Of America".

This one is a bit complicated. I've been thinking about renaming it for a while now, or at least making the FUSA acronym different from "Former USA" - after all, nobody goes around calling themselves "Former". I will have plenty of time to think as I get to the East Coast.

- give Canada and Mexico restoration events similar to FUSA's "American Legacy".

Good idea. Will put it on my notes.

I need to remember to give Mexico events related to reclaiming their old lost territories, too.

- expand the abbreviated names, I'm pretty sure "New California Republic" and "New Republic of Mexico" won't be really weird.

I think its because large names won't shown up in full in some screens.

- convert the unification events to decisions (RP reasons, I released a puppet Mexico but couldn't give them land because the unification event fired too early).

Was it "Sonora, Sinaloa and Nayarit United", or another one? Because I noticed this unification went freakishly fast as well.

I really want to convert unification events to decisions. I have big plans for them, making them more involved and important, especially for certain nations.

- the new unification system is working generally well.

Fantastic!

- there doesn't seem to be any content for the Galapagos Islands (province #551), it's just... sitting there, even though you can gain ownership. Should probably be removed entirely.

Perhaps I shall. Through the Pacific Coast is rather devoid of islands already.

- speaking about Horny and The Warrior leaders, my opinion is that they should be awoken at the end of their respective event chains (the wakeleader command) instead of randomly killing them on a set date if the necessary events haven't fired. If my advice gets implemented, just 2 events would be necessary for them instead of ~160.

2 general events appliable for almost everybody, I assume? Do elaborate.

- I know it's been around for quite a long time, but wouldn't it be better to name the Chosen One's alliance... something other than "Jihad"? I mean, even the ever-so-overused "Crusaders" seems more plausible than a Muslim Arabic term for a holy war.

Its a Dune reference AFAIK.

- sometimes a country may get its provinces occupied by its enemies or marauders, and then a third country defeats the occupiers and takes the provinces. This may even end up in the original country being occupied by another country they're not even at war with, and stuck forever. This could be solved by adding province events (similar to the annexation ones) which check whether the province is owned, not controlled by the owner, and not controlled by an enemy:

This is a new and interesting take. Yes, I have noticed such a thing.

and if all of these are true, unconditionally cede (not just give control of) the province to its owner.

That seems like a reasonable solution.

command = { type = secedeprovince which = -2 value = X when = 2 }

Will this work?

The issue with simply transferring control is that if there're any units present in the province it would get instantly re-occupied (engine shenanigans, don't ask).
- if a country has occupied some Wastelands provinces and not annexed them yet, and gets annexed, the control of said provinces goes back to the Wastelands. Could be solved by adding a regular for-region check of whether Wastelands controls any provinces there:

Hmmmm... good point. AFAIK there's already a event check for wherever any unnocupied Wasteland provinces are left. It then flips all Wasteland provinces to marauders. I think its the "Restless Wastelands" event in 2249 (I think?).
This could be done some time after the Restless Wastelands pops up, in say, 2250 or 2251, ensuring that Wastelands are no longer an issue. Another alternative is to create a version of the Restless Wastelands event which keeps popping up, say, yearly, and stops once it is no longer an issue.

and then giving control of any such provinces to the marauders:

but that needs to be tested, as the command transfers ownership as well and I'm not sure how that would work with the marauders.

Good point.

BTW, as you can see, I know a few things about modding, so I can help you with adding and fixing stuff if you want me to.

Really? That would be fantastic! What are you skilled at?

 

[IllyaTokar]

- Question: Was NROM already annexed when the Mexican Raiders declared war on the Mayan Empire?

Yeah, it was.

Or is it? You just found one, I think. Then again, perhaps its time the hunt for the heretical HR calendar is ended.

Well there's a couple more in db\events\Former_USA.txt, but they're in the comments. The Legion's techteams' start dates are set to 1930, but that's not an issue. And that's all I could find after searching "193" through all the mod files. IMO things which bug you are easier to forget if there's an explanation, and in this case they would stick out more if the event got axed, assuming there are any of them left of course.

This one is a bit complicated. I've been thinking about renaming it for a while now, or at least making the FUSA acronym different from "Former USA" - after all, nobody goes around calling themselves "Former". I will have plenty of time to think as I get to the East Coast.

That makes me wonder what you're working on right now lol

I think its because large names won't shown up in full in some screens.

Well doesn't vanilla get away with "People's Rep. of Poland" etc.?

Was it "Sonora, Sinaloa and Nayarit United", or another one? Because I noticed this unification went freakishly fast as well.

No, I managed to give enough provinces there to Mexico, but then the Yucatan unification event fired.

Perhaps I shall. Through the Pacific Coast is rather devoid of islands already.

Eh, what's the use of them anyway? Even the Caribbeans don't have any actual content.

2 general events appliable for almost everybody, I assume? Do elaborate.

With pleasure.
So firstly we have the scenario file, which includes a list of dormant leaders. We add there all the leader IDs for, say, Horny.
Let's assume the X-Files event chain is completed successfully. The final event would then trigger another event titled "Horny joins you". That event is coded like this:

    #wake leader Horny
    command = { trigger = { country = ALB } type = wakeleader which = 583028 }
    command = { trigger = { country = CAL } type = wakeleader which = 572070 }

So the leader Horny is made active in the country which successfully completed the event chain, but remains dormant for everybody else.

Its a Dune reference AFAIK.

Well, shame on me for not recognizing it then.

Will this work?

It works like a charm! I had to change the POV from owner to occupier, but in the end I made it work. I'm attaching the event file (ignore the name and desc, I modified the gaining control events to make this). BTW changing the POV creates an interesting opportunity I'm describing below.

Hmmmm... good point. AFAIK there's already a event check for wherever any unnocupied Wasteland provinces are left. It then flips all Wasteland provinces to marauders. I think its the "Restless Wastelands" event in 2249 (I think?).
This could be done some time after the Restless Wastelands pops up, in say, 2250 or 2251, ensuring that Wastelands are no longer an issue. Another alternative is to create a version of the Restless Wastelands event which keeps popping up, say, yearly, and stops once it is no longer an issue.

So I tested the solution I suggested (i.e. checking if LUX controls any provinces in North America and ceding them to REB) and found out that the secederegion command actually gives ownership of provinces to REB. I'm not sure how this is possible, but it's true. So one final event which gives ownership of the remaining LUX provinces to REB (which then can't possibly flip back to LUX) will solve the issue, but that also means that every event in Gaining_Control.txt will have to be sumplemented by checking whether a province is owned by REB.
But here's the opportunity I mentioned above: now that the events for annexation and lifting occupation both fire for the controller of a province, it's possible to merge them. Here's an example:

    trigger = {
        control = { province = X }
        NOT = { owned = { province = X } }
    }
    
    action = { # annex a Wasteland province
        trigger = {
            OR = {
                owned = { province = X data = LUX }
                owned = { province = X data = REB }
            }
        }
        name = "Great!"
        command = { type = secedeprovince which = -1 value = X when = 2 }
    }
    
    action = { # return a province to its owner
        trigger = { NOT = { owned = { province = X } data = -2 } }     # won't fire for an occupied enemy province
        name = "Withdraw our troops"
        command = { type = secedeprovince which = -2 value = X when = 2 }
    }

Really? That would be fantastic! What are you skilled at?

I mostly focused on events and scenarios, but I have a general idea of modding pretty much everything moddable in DH Once I even managed to edit a map, though I'm not sure how I did it kek.

 

[RodriguesSting]

Oh damn it is finally out! I will jump into it right now.

Edit: Embargos should be reviewed. Nuka Cola is currently impossible.

 

[Slaughter]

Yeah, it was.

Good indication then, that their AI ins't as aggressive as I feared.

Well there's a couple more in db\events\Former_USA.txt, but they're in the comments. The Legion's techteams' start dates are set to 1930, but that's not an issue. And that's all I could find after searching "193" through all the mod files. IMO things which bug you are easier to forget if there's an explanation, and in this case they would stick out more if the event got axed, assuming there are any of them left of course.

Guess that with that event, then the Hub Reckoning Calendar is eradicated forever. Time for the HRquisition to end.
Hubsters should stick to being Hucksters.

That makes me wonder what you're working on right now lol

For now? Accumulating feedback and doing testing, for Patch 2.4.1. I want to try something new with the way I release versions for FODD. I gotta really write a dev diary to talk in detail about that.

Well doesn't vanilla get away with "People's Rep. of Poland" etc.?

Kinda, yeah. I may be misremembering.

No, I managed to give enough provinces there to Mexico, but then the Yucatan unification event fired.

Yucatan? Nice catch! Guess I forgot another one.

Eh, what's the use of them anyway? Even the Caribbeans don't have any actual content.

True, although I keep them around as useful land to conquer right now, honestly. Kind of a reward for naval-focused players. There's a good chunk of Caribbean not in-game yet, such as Haiti.

With pleasure.
So firstly we have the scenario file, which includes a list of dormant leaders. We add there all the leader IDs for, say, Horny.
Let's assume the X-Files event chain is completed successfully. The final event would then trigger another event titled "Horny joins you". That event is coded like this:

#wake leader Horny
command = { trigger = { country = ALB } type = wakeleader which = 583028 }
command = { trigger = { country = CAL } type = wakeleader which = 572070 }

So the leader Horny is made active in the country which successfully completed the event chain, but remains dormant for everybody else.

Hmmm... lemme see if I understand this. So you're telling me I can use event option triggers so that rather than multiple Horny joining events, we have a single Horny joining event for almost everyone (AKA every single faction that ins't Spiders, Zombies and other obvious 100% hostile groups), but instead each tag gets a different (but only one) event action to press, which awakes the right leader. And with this, because Horny is dormant by default, there's also no more need for the "Never Was" event to make all the possible Horny leaders go asleep.

Did I understand it correctly? Because that's great and efficient as hell! So many old events beautifully cut down!

It works like a charm! I had to change the POV from owner to occupier, but in the end I made it work. I'm attaching the event file (ignore the name and desc, I modified the gaining control events to make this). BTW changing the POV creates an interesting opportunity I'm describing below.

I took a look and yeah, it looks like works perfectly in theory.

So I tested the solution I suggested (i.e. checking if LUX controls any provinces in North America and ceding them to REB) and found out that the secederegion command actually gives ownership of provinces to REB. I'm not sure how this is possible, but it's true. So one final event which gives ownership of the remaining LUX provinces to REB (which then can't possibly flip back to LUX) will solve the issue, but that also means that every event in Gaining_Control.txt will have to be sumplemented by checking whether a province is owned by REB.
But here's the opportunity I mentioned above: now that the events for annexation and lifting occupation both fire for the controller of a province, it's possible to merge them. Here's an example:

Wait a second...

You're telling me that we can now fuse both Gaining and Regaining Control into the same events with minimal fuss? Because that's genius.


It does seem to require the elimination of that line in the Regaining Control where LUX cannot own the province, or the gaining control events will not work early on, when the province is owned by LUX. Which you seem to have done in the second event.

I mostly focused on events and scenarios, but I have a general idea of modding pretty much everything moddable in DH Once I even managed to edit a map, though I'm not sure how I did it kek.

Seems like you are very skilled, then! Welcome aboard!
Perhaps we ought to talk in Discord or something such?

Man, I really ought to take a look at this map editing thing one day. But that will be for later, right now I want to fill out the map, editing the map would require careful study of the local geography, to get the best results.

Edit: Embargos should be reviewed. Nuka Cola is currently impossible.

Hi Rodriges!

I will look into that.

Do you have more feedback?

 

[RodriguesSting]

Feedback? I would like to suggest again the implementation of a "partial tech-team takeover", by making factions acquire some of the weaker techteams of factions they defeat. At first you could only copy past one or two of each faction's weaker techteams, that would already be a huge boost to some of the minor factions if you are successful with them. If you are up to more work, after that, you could personalize these techteams more, as the faction's own research capabilities expanding upon acquiring personnel and equipment from the defeated.

 

[IllyaTokar]

Guess that with that event, then the Hub Reckoning Calendar is eradicated forever. Time for the HRquisition to end.
Hubsters should stick to being Hucksters.

"The Wastelands are changing" (c)

Hmmm... lemme see if I understand this. So you're telling me I can use event option triggers so that rather than multiple Horny joining events, we have a single Horny joining event for almost everyone (AKA every single faction that ins't Spiders, Zombies and other obvious 100% hostile groups), but instead each tag gets a different (but only one) event action to press, which awakes the right leader. And with this, because Horny is dormant by default, there's also no more need for the "Never Was" event to make all the possible Horny leaders go asleep.

Did I understand it correctly? Because that's great and efficient as hell! So many old events beautifully cut down!

Well I thought about using command triggers in a single option, not event option triggers. But the rest is correct.

Wait a second...

You're telling me that we can now fuse both Gaining and Regaining Control into the same events with minimal fuss? Because that's genius.

That's right.

It does seem to require the elimination of that line in the Regaining Control where LUX cannot own the province, or the gaining control events will not work early on, when the province is owned by LUX. Which you seem to have done in the second event.

I actually wrote a small Python script to generate the Regaining Control event file, I suppose it could be used (with slight modifications) to generate those new combined events. It's not like we have to edit the events manually lol. It looks like the event text will have to be rewritten, though.

Seems like you are very skilled, then! Welcome aboard!

Thank you very much!

Perhaps we ought to talk in Discord or something such?

Sure. Advocatus Diaboli#9171

 

[RodriguesSting]

Been playing Vault City on Blue Emu. Manual meticulous control of my trade allowed for relative prosperity, as well selling tech in exchange for cash and supplies. The decision to blow money on tech or infrastructure is nice, although it doesn't compete with other choices in the mod. I used Professional Mercs to build up my forces, alongside Artillery Company brigades with them, in hopes to improve their combat effectiveness *because* of the added manpower. Did it work? Not sure.

Got to 48 doing pretty well, already triggered growth pains after taking the ghouls quite early, as well as the diversity town bellow and just recently, the pioneer alliance. Painful fights these last two, I only won because of my relative manpower superiority. The battles were bitter and had to rebuild my forces at least three times each conflict. Luckily, as professional mercs take little manpower to build, they also take little to reinforce. Do the brigade manpower add "extra health" to the regiment? I don't know. What I do know is, thankfully, they don't need to reinforce.

Despite my relative success so far, I am not particularly optimistic. My next actually viable target will be the rats, who over-expanded on my East by feasting on the mormons, but I am currently terrified of the slaver factions around me. Darkest Hour 2 works best as having the map as a closed environment of resources, at first being in excess to be traded around, and later, as a rare commodity, as industry grows, to be fought over. Manpower though, is a resource that doesn't change much. You gotta make the best use of your homeland's reserves, and then, ideally, of your puppets expeditionary forces. There are decisions and events to increase your manpower pool, but none comes even close of the slave market. In conclusion, I have no hope of overwhelming slave market nations, and I am afraid I will have to resort to tactical nukes to beat their gargantuan garrisons.

 

[Slaughter]

Feedback? I would like to suggest again the implementation of a "partial tech-team takeover", by making factions acquire some of the weaker techteams of factions they defeat. At first you could only copy past one or two of each faction's weaker techteams, that would already be a huge boost to some of the minor factions if you are successful with them. If you are up to more work, after that, you could personalize these techteams more, as the faction's own research capabilities expanding upon acquiring personnel and equipment from the defeated.

You know, I really wish the game allowed us to do something that wans't "all or nothing" with tech-team take over. I mean, WWII gave origin to the space race, which was pretty much two countries going "my nazi rocket scientists are better than yours".

I actually have a similar idea, but its actually kind of the reverse where the teams come from. Stuff for later, through. Right now I would rather supplement some existing ones which are too weak and add more teams suited to these nations' own specialties. Some nations literally don't have enough tech teams.

"The Wastelands are changing" (c)

lol

Well I thought about using command triggers in a single option, not event option triggers. But the rest is correct.

Wait, what do you mean? Multiple "single options" which give control of territory per tag, or a single option which gives control to any tag?

That's right.

That is sensational! Let's do it! Hopefully it will improve the AI's behavior for the better, and help in diminishing all those damn snakes.

I actually wrote a small Python script to generate the Regaining Control event file, I suppose it could be used (with slight modifications) to generate those new combined events. It's not like we have to edit the events manually lol. It looks like the event text will have to be rewritten, though.

A fellow programmer, I see.
Funfact: Having to calculate all those ore mineral porcentages pretty much manually, made me create my own little mineral reserve calculator program, using C#. Who knew modding was good for programming?

Yeah, they need a few modifications. Like the event name not pointing to the event_text file, but other than that and the issue with LUX owning provinces, it should be good to go with a few modifications.
Oh hey, I just remembered a thing! AI Chance! Gotta make sure the AI will always choose to take control of the province, or doesn't have access to the second option.

Thank you very much!

Null sweat! Gotta recognize skill

Sure. Advocatus Diaboli#9171

Excellent, see ya soon then!

Been playing Vault City on Blue Emu. Manual meticulous control of my trade allowed for relative prosperity, as well selling tech in exchange for cash and supplies. The decision to blow money on tech or infrastructure is nice, although it doesn't compete with other choices in the mod. I used Professional Mercs to build up my forces, alongside Artillery Company brigades with them, in hopes to improve their combat effectiveness *because* of the added manpower. Did it work? Not sure.

In my last NCR game I learned a lot about good economic/resource management, too.

I thought paying for infra was lame too, until I recently discovered in this forum that the more infra you have, the faster IC and some other buildings get built up. Tech decision also gets way better once you research one of the three education options, personally I really like the Guilds one. Those decisions are pretty much good if you play a nation raking in money.

Artillery is pretty good I think. AFAIK only Energy Weapons are comparable, but EW is pretty expensive and takes a bit longer to research. I wonder if Merc-EW would result in a firepower-heavy, manpower-light techno-industrial army... I really need to test that one.

Surprised you went with mercs, but not a bad call. I really need to divorce normal mercs from Scum Mercs, would make a merc-only army more interesting. I really need to stop being a lazy ass and get the gfx. Maybe for 2.5.

Got to 48 doing pretty well, already triggered growth pains after taking the ghouls quite early, as well as the diversity town bellow and just recently, the pioneer alliance. Painful fights these last two, I only won because of my relative manpower superiority. The battles were bitter and had to rebuild my forces at least three times each conflict. Luckily, as professional mercs take little manpower to build, they also take little to reinforce. Do the brigade manpower add "extra health" to the regiment? I don't know. What I do know is, thankfully, they don't need to reinforce.

I played with NCR lately and I noticed growing pains quite early. I might increase the VPs required, due to the fact more map resources meant a lot more VPs all around.
Surprised you didn't end up fighting Redding, Pioneer Alliance and Redding often team up.

AFAIK Brigade Manpower doesn't add extra health, but they do use more manpower per reinforcement.

Despite my relative success so far, I am not particularly optimistic. My next actually viable target will be the rats, who over-expanded on my East by feasting on the mormons, but I am currently terrified of the slaver factions around me. Darkest Hour 2 works best as having the map as a closed environment of resources, at first being in excess to be traded around, and later, as a rare commodity, as industry grows, to be fought over. Manpower though, is a resource that doesn't change much. You gotta make the best use of your homeland's reserves, and then, ideally, of your puppets expeditionary forces. There are decisions and events to increase your manpower pool, but none comes even close of the slave market. In conclusion, I have no hope of overwhelming slave market nations, and I am afraid I will have to resort to tactical nukes to beat their gargantuan garrisons.

Its interesting what you said over resources, because that's kinda what I plan for the way I want resources to work.

Your comment reminds me of an old Den game. Its incredible how good Den is for getting large slave armies.
Don't forget slavers get sweet mercs, too. And MP-cheaper units.

Seems like the key here is beat the slavers with tech? At least that's what I usually do.
I did manage to out-grind the Legion with the NCR, but NCR in 2.4 has wonderful manpower growth and the Legion is not going east I plan it to.

 

[IllyaTokar]

Wait, what do you mean? Multiple "single options" which give control of territory per tag, or a single option which gives control to any tag?

We're talking about the leader events lol. Basically it's ought to be a single option with one wakeleader command for each country, like in the example I provided in my first message.

Oh hey, I just remembered a thing! AI Chance! Gotta make sure the AI will always choose to take control of the province, or doesn't have access to the second option.

It's easy to make the options' availability mutually exclusive, so that if one of them is available the other isn't.

Excellent, see ya soon then!

Looking forward to it.

 

[RodriguesSting]

AFAIK Brigade Manpower doesn't add extra health, but they do use more manpower per reinforcement.

Jesus Christ, this game is decades old, why is it so hard for me to get actual reliable information?

Ah, whatever. How about just sharing your design choices regarding different units and brigades, as some sort of mini-manual?

Edit: White Legs got so many raw materials in their territory, and can easily acquire better stocks via their event raiding. I think trade and tech embargos really should be carefully reviewed on a country by country basis.

Edit 2: California Republic's fall of the FUSA event resets all diplomatic relations. Including wars. Which I was about to win against Caesar. That was quite the kick on the nuts. Also gun runners make pointless to produce your own guns and, possibly, a lot of stuff until quite later, so I think they should either be tweaked or removed entirely.

Edit 3: Manpowered brigades, athough show depleted numbers, don't have any reduction on effectiveness (by themselves), and their "reinforcement" is entirely visual, apparently not costing any IC or MP. Take that in consideration for tweaking purposes, that MP is a one-time investment.

 

[Nidoes]

I also noticed, that some nations have too easy of an access to ridiculous amounts of resources now. White Legs, Kurt's Camp and especially the Robot Nation. Previously it was a big obstacle to their development - the lack of rare materials. Despite their large starting IC it was somewhat restricted by the little amount of needed resources. Now, however, all those resources are located in the neighbouring provinces.

 

[crazy12455]

so are the darien tribes not allowed to attack provinces until a certain date? because i'm playing a game as them and can't expand at all.

 

[Slaughter]

Not replying to Illya as we have already spoken in more detail on Discord.

Jesus Christ, this game is decades old, why is it so hard for me to get actual reliable information?

Same, same. I've been trying to figure out how quite a few mechanics work, especially combat. I have had to use ancient HOI2 knowledge to get by, even through that's years out of date.

You know, we should really get an forum-wide effort going to revive the Darkest Hour wiki. It would really help everyone, I believe.

Ah, whatever. How about just sharing your design choices regarding different units and brigades, as some sort of mini-manual?

Reminder that the mod does have an (outdated) manual. Really need to edit it, btw. Maybe for 2.5. There's also the Reference File, which contains all the

Sure.

Spoiler: Simple fast divisions rundown

Human Regulars: Decent all-rounder unit - good offense, good defense. Can take pretty much every non-vehicle land brigade. Better at offensive vulnerability compared to Ghouls. Not good at fighting in unconventional terrain types and and climates. The staple conventional warfare unit.

Ghouls Regulars: Regulars but better at fighting in most terrain. Better at defensive vulnerability than Regulars. A bit more delicate than Regulars (less softness) Non-Ghoul nations can't produce the top two levels of Ghoul units.

Mercenaries: Pretty much Regulars but with more supply costs and less manpower cost.

Note on Scum Mercs: Scum Mercs are weaker but cheaper and cost even less manpower. I plan on turning Scum Mercs into their own division type in the next patches, with terrain modifiers similar to that of Irregulars, althrough I would like to first get graphics and do the combat revamp.

Irregulars: Weaker at straight-out warfare, but great at fighting in difficult terrain. High morale. Cheap. Produces quickly. Can't equip artillery.

Garrison: Superior at defense and supression. Can't move, except by strategic redeployment. Use to get rid of partisans for cheap and create overpowered defenses, or fire-and-forget defense of important locations.

Mutants: Pretty much Irregulars on steroids. Good at fighting in pretty much all terrain types, beefy stats superior even to Regulars. A tad faster than other infantry, too. They are immensely powerful. However, they are manpower-expensive - this is because the creation of Super Mutants is not an easy process - it often kills or turns its victims into failed mutants, and dippings can fail (such as with Dane in FO1). AFAIK for every three or five people dipped, one turns out into a useful Super Mutant, and of these, many turn into idiots, due to the fact FEV causes issues when the subject has already been genetically altered - and every single mainlander outside of a vault is technically a mutant rather than a pure human.

In the next patch they will gain the ability to use two brigade attachments at once (AFAIK Power Armor can already do this, I forgot to include it in the changelog).


Motor Raiders: Goes fast, but somewhat vulnerable. Can't fight well in difficult terrain. Super Mutants have their own beefier variety.

Robot Infantry: Costs no manpower. Good firepower, very tough. Weak at fighting in difficult terrain and climates, because Fallout robots are big ol' dumb clankers who often have issues with adapting to fast-changing situations.

An aside: Some nations can produce "Human Sentry Bots", which are build-able robot units. A bit of a late-game unit for Industry-focused nations, but they spend no manpower.

Armored: Goes fast, shoots hard, tough as hell, is expensive, should't be used in mud or something.. Mutants have their own variety. Robots have armored units as well, but theirs are slower, and focused on slow but massive firepower.

Tracked Robots: Starts slow but become tanks for robots, pretty much. Very hard, strong firepower.

HQ: Its an HQ, it does what HQs do.

Power Armor: Super-infantry that is very tough, but expensive to produce. I think I altered them to use two brigades in the previous version, but forgot to include in the changelog.


Scouts: Paratroopers + Marines + Mountaineers, pretty much. A bit faster than most infantry. Good fighting power in general compared to Regulars. Good at fighting in all terrain. Slow and more expensive to produce. Can airdrop and execute amphibious attacks far better than any other division.

Spoiler: Attachment Brigade Rundown

Artillery: All around good stats, especially soft attack, defensive and offensive vulnerability. Uses manpower to build. Have a +5% bonus vs attacking fort provinces. Better denfeders in plains. Weak in defending jungles and forests. Robots have their own fancy version.

Machineguns: Soft attack, defensive and offensive vulnerability, airdefense (defending against air attacks) and airattacks (hitting air units). They're a good staple brigade, and can fight air units too. They also have a few advantages defending in hills and mountains, but are weaker attacking urban terrain.

Engineers: Good at attacking and defending mountains, hills, ruins, across rivers. They also have an attack bonus against forts. They also move faster in some terrains. They increase the maximum speed of your unit, provide significant defense against air units and some hard attack.

Wasteland Patrols: Supression and organization, mainly. Humans and Ghouls have two varieties, Rangers and Police. Robots and Mutants also have their own special versions

AFAIK Rangers are better and more expensive in many aspects, while police is cheaper but gives better organization bonuses.


Motobikes: Some stat boosts to vehicles. They also boost them in other vehicle-friendly terrains. Uses MP.


Elite Guard: All-around boosts to HQ units. Robots have a special version.

Explosives: Hard attack, defensive and offensive vulnerability are good too. Their main use is to break hard targets. They are also good in some terrain types, such as attacking hills, urban terrain and forts, not so good in defending enclosed terrain.

Transporters: Make your infantry troops go vroom vroom (or "potoc potoc potoc" if you use Wasteland Cavalry). Also, some rather neat bonuses. I really need to try this in a Huns game.

Buggies: Mkaes your attached vehicle divisons tougher and gives them some sweet firepower.

Heavy Robots: Honestly, I never used this. Its a big ol' robot unit boost AFAIK.

Special: Special brigades are well, special. They're special attachments, generally gotten through secret techs and such. Every single one is different, but they are all pretty neat.

Energy Weapons: Versatile, good against both soft and hard targets. Later they become able to attack air units. Good bonuses all around, very killy. Take a while to produce. Pretty expensive to maintain, supply and cell-wise. Energy weapons are more finnicky than guns through, so it gets a penalty in more hostile climates and weather.

Beasts: Attack and softness bonuses, and being very good at supression. But the real power is in the modifiers, they are very good at night fighting, jungles, forests, swamps, etc. There are a few special versions.

Defense Towers: If you want to soup up your garrisons, this is what you want. Big defensive bonuses all around. All of them minus fighting plants take manpower. For when you absolutely do not want the enemy to pass and got IC and MP to spare.

Edit: White Legs got so many raw materials in their territory, and can easily acquire better stocks via their event raiding. I think trade and tech embargos really should be carefully reviewed on a country by country basis.

Perhaps I should. You see any other countries with similar issues?
Do mind that the Leggies are kind of immensely aggressive.

Edit 2: California Republic's fall of the FUSA event resets all diplomatic relations. Including wars. Which I was about to win against Caesar. That was quite the kick on the nuts.

Is this true? Odd. I think its because they get the new alliance leadership. I need to check and test.

Also gun runners make pointless to produce your own guns and, possibly, a lot of stuff until quite later, so I think they should either be tweaked or removed entirely.

Indeed. I really need to take a look at the Gun Runners sometime. With some nations I can literally arm my units in high-powered guns early on.

I also want to find a way to make the AI use them sensibly rather than making it a human-only decision.

Worth noting that Gun Runners don't produce everything. No arty, no police, no Combat Enginners, no vehicle brigades, no energy weapons, no max-level brigades.

(there's also a bug with them, but its already fixed on my end)

I would like some feedback on what you think can be done with them.

Best ideas I got so far is to revise the price (these brigades may be underpriced for their value, I have no idea what calculation Arcangelus did to charge their price) and to make their price time-dependant somehow, so that the stronger weapons cost more the farther one is for the year date of the brigade attachment tech - so a bunch of Avengers cost far more in 2245 than in 2255. Also don't forget opportunity cost - with that money, you could be doing diplomacy, spying (yeah yeah I know) or even spending on improving research or infra.

I think I just had an idea on what to do, but for now I would like to see what you guys suggest.

Edit 3: Manpowered brigades, athough show depleted numbers, don't have any reduction on effectiveness (by themselves), and their "reinforcement" is entirely visual, apparently not costing any IC or MP. Take that in consideration for tweaking purposes, that MP is a one-time investment.

Wait a moment, what?! For real? Where they are getting people to reinforce themselves, space?

I also noticed, that some nations have too easy of an access to ridiculous amounts of resources now. White Legs, Kurt's Camp and especially the Robot Nation. Previously it was a big obstacle to their development - the lack of rare materials. Despite their large starting IC it was somewhat restricted by the little amount of needed resources. Now, however, all those resources are located in the neighbouring provinces.

Yes, this is true. Colorado is especially a bad case, because it was when my sources and my mineral-discovering skill had reached its apex. So there are simply more resources, and honestly, Colorado is VERY mineral rich. And has only one nation right now. So Robot Nation is ultra cheese right now, its only their quite non-aggressive AI preventing it from wiping the floor with anyone not called NCR or Enclave, and the AI would't dare attack them.

This is because I was more focused on putting the resources on the map at the time. Like I said, I am not putting things at random, but using real-world data. And unlike with power plants, I had not found a way to limit/cap these resources at the time. But I have recently found one.

I will get deep into it when I make a dev diary about resources.

so are the darien tribes not allowed to attack provinces until a certain date? because i'm playing a game as them and can't expand at all.

Hi, crazy12355! Haven't seen you around before.

Are you new to the mod?

Nations can't take over provinces that are controlled by Wasteland, only when they are occupied by Marauders. Some marauders spawn early on, but they will generally show up en masse by June. Use that time to get ready, research things, produce units, think your expansion path, etc. You will know it when the events tell you and the game slows down. Black is no, sickly yellow is YEES.

If you can't take provinces even after marauders start taking land, then something else is happening.
What is your checksum - you know, the numbers and letters on top of the main menu screen?

 

[RodriguesSting]

I think scum mercs, bug raiders, and possibly scouts should be able to be sidegraded into other troops in consideraiton of the Barter troops that can become quite relevant in the late game. A bit frustrating to get troops you can't upgrade in any way because you went with Professional Mercs, or have Mutant Raiders, or can't research Scouts.

 

[crazy12455]

Hi, crazy12355! Haven't seen you around before.

Are you new to the mod?

Nations can't take over provinces that are controlled by Wasteland, only when they are occupied by Marauders. Some marauders spawn early on, but they will generally show up en masse by June. Use that time to get ready, research things, produce units, think your expansion path, etc. You will know it when the events tell you and the game slows down. Black is no, sickly yellow is YEES.

If you can't take provinces even after marauders start taking land, then something else is happening.
What is your checksum - you know, the numbers and letters on top of the main menu screen?

my issue is specifically with the darien tribes. everyone else on the map can attack marauders except the darien tribes. they can't for some reason. the checksum is v 1.05.1 IHVL

 

[Slaughter]

I think scum mercs, bug raiders, and possibly scouts should be able to be sidegraded into other troops in consideraiton of the Barter troops that can become quite relevant in the late game. A bit frustrating to get troops you can't upgrade in any way because you went with Professional Mercs, or have Mutant Raiders, or can't research Scouts.

That's a worthy consideration. I have to see how it works, AI-wise.

When I shift Scum Mercs into their own unit type, they will be no longer mutually exclusive with Professionals. It will be more of a "Opportunity Cost" thing, if players want to use both, it will be possible and possibly even tactically advantageous - like using Irregulars and Regulars at once, both with their own niche.

For certain unit types, I might just make the events give the proper equivalents for the right tags and prices. Right now we only have two nations using Mutant Raiders and Nightkin, for example, but soon we will have more.

Question: How often you use mercs?

my issue is specifically with the darien tribes. everyone else on the map can attack marauders except the darien tribes. they can't for some reason. the checksum is v 1.05.1 IHVL

The heck?! Now that is totally weird! That explains so much as to why the Darien Tribes never expand! I will check it as soon as I can.

 

[RodriguesSting]

Question: How often you use mercs?

If manpower is a serious consideration for a reason or another. With mutants, I was spamming Scum because quite frankly, 12+ manpower for a supermutant wasn't cutting it for me, the power projection was nearly zero. Scum could fight decently well (specially supplemented by the similarly cheap and trivial to acquire, dogs, or in the mutant's special case, floaters and centaurs), and had much better territory projection than the handiful of mutants I would get by the same manpower value. Furthermore, every mutant going down would be a huge chunk of manpower to reinforce, which is crippling on the early game in which I will be having to fight, most likely outmatched, marauders. Further, the early merc army I got was great at shutting the Khans down.

With other factions, if I got also poor manpower, but decent industrial resources, I go for professionals. They take more supplies than regular troops, but not as many as scum, and although take longer and cost more to train, their performance is comparable to regulars. So they are a great way of stretching your manpower out. You may want to eventually replace them by regulars, but it is an entirely valid choice to keep them. Scums though, are really not worth their supply upkeep, so I only go for them if I have no other choice. Still, both have their strategic approaches.

 

[Slaughter]

FODD Dev Diary 01 - What's Next?

Is this thing on? *adjusting microphone* Calling Houston.

Wait, I am not using a microphone.

Ahem, hello! I am Slaughter! You may know me from elsewhere in the internet, but here I am know as the current developer for the mod Fallout's Doomsday for Darkest Hour, or FODD! This here is the first Fallout mod for a Paradox game, and is running for over a decade. I don't even know the date of the first release, honestly. 2004? 2005? Geez. I think I first came across it in 2007 or so.

I was meaning to post this early this month, but I got VERY busy.

We had three different lead devs, from Doomtrader to SwordOfJustice to me, and A LOT of marvelous people helping develop the mod in its run, such as Arcangelus, Keynes 2.0, TheConqueror, Messenger, Ghery, Pirate300, Tadziomencel, and many others. I feel proud to stand on the shoulder of giants. If your name is not in the credits list, please tell me so I can add it, I probably forgot.

Anyway, welcome to the first FODD Dev Diary! I never did one of those before, but someone asked me to, so I decided "Why not"? This is my first time, through, so... be gentle.

First of all, I would like to say sorry to the mod's fans. I know I should have updated the mod before. Truth is, I feel the mod is not what it should be, and I blame myself for that. Life has been pretty complicated to me, althrough it has been getting pretty better lately. Excellent, in fact. Furthermore, I am kinda... scatterbrained to be honest. Or was. That said, I have created systems of planning and organization, which allow me to mod better. 2021 me is a lot more of a planner than 2017 me.

Furthermore, we had a wild year. I spent four months without a computer, in the middle of the epidemic. I study and work as a Programmer. Its a recent career change, actually, but I'm happy with my choice. Most of my spare time is devoted to my studies and work. Well, now just the work, but it might as well be the study.

Well, first let me address the obvious question: Why the mod hans't been updated already? Namely, why I took so long to release the previous version?
Its simple: I was not happy with its contents thus far. I wanted to do the resource revamp, but it revealed itself harder than I thought it was going to be at first. I had to create and re-evaluate a lot of ideas on the fly, and honestly there's much to go on in some details. This did made me realize the old way I did things didn't work. So I made a new way, just like that.


I am trying to keep to relatively small and focused updates, in order to keep constant-ish updates. Updates composed of content and revamps in-between patches aiming to fix bugs and such. Its actually akin to what Paradox does with some releases, such as Stellaris. The idea is to have a timetable and a Minimum Viable Product, a term some of you may recognize from programming methodologies. When the timetable is over, release what is finished. Rolling Release, essentially. This way, I want there always to be some new FODD content. Well, I try it at least! I like doing and delivering, not making promises. I prefer under-promising and over-performing.

Now for the second question: What's Next?

Three things, actually.

The first is the 2.4.1 patch AKA Fix-20. It will be a smallish but functional patch. 2.4.1 aims to fix numerous glitches, bugs, lore mismatches, and addresses a few issues. It will also bring a few new features, like an Alaska Resources revamp (and maybe an Oregon one if I can spare the time), an improved Gaining Control system by Illya, new ministers and generals by Pirate300.

The second one is a little neat surprise, I will keep that to myself for now. I think one man knows about it (don't spoil them, man) Its nothing big, but you guys will like it. Keep your ears peeled.

The third one is the 2.5 version. The 2.5 patch aims to add at least one new nation to the mod, the Mutant Remnant. It also aims but is optional (it will depend on time), adding the Great Khans to the mod, setting the threater in California and allowing me to move next towards Baja and Nevada. Then a resource revamp of Oregon and/or Baja California (will depend wherever I manage to revamp Oregon resources for 2.4.1). Another important thing is revamping the combat system, such as that it works better according to the new combat system of DH. Now bear in mind, that's not the only things I intend to add, merely the main things. The MVP if you will.

Later on, the plan is for a 2.5.1 if many bugs remain from 2.5, and then 2.6, which will be focused on revamping the entire tech tree.

Schedule for 2.4.1 is late July until August, with 2.5 coming before end of this year but ideally in September or October.

Simple Version:

2.4.1 - Next few months
Little Extra - After 2.4.1 or alongside 2.5
2.5 - Second Semester, probably by October.
2.5.1 - After 2.5, if it is too buggy.

Keep accompanying those Dev Diaries. They are my way of being transparent with the player base and showing them that I take their feedback in mind and I know the mod's issues and am adressing them.

See you next time, where we will talk about the Systematic Issues of the Mod and how I am adressing them (or trying to). I hope you are there! See ya soon!

 

[deadmanhope]

OH MAN...so cool...ty for your hard work

 

[Maciej-Kamil]

A very informative diary! I liked its honest style, even if it lacked screenshots showing what you want to do.