GUNNERS OVERHAUL - INITIALLY FRIENDLY GUNNERS!
The Faction Mod You Never Knew You Needed

by BangBangYouAreDead

----- What's new? -----

Version 1.1 is out! Here's what's new:

- After literally hours and hours of trying to figure out how to make it work, I've finally been able to add Gunner Contractors. If you rack up a bounty with the Gunners, just visit one of these friendly chaps in either The Third Rail, Bunker Hill, or the Dugout Inn to get it cleared. (Note: If you talk to them without having a bounty, they will mention working for the Gunners. This is a base for future radiant quests, but I haven't written them yet, so don't keep talking to them expecting a quest!)

- Voice acting for male Gunners added thanks to the smooth talent of SkyBlu17 (Still to voice act: Quartermasters, Contractors, and females)

- Fixed the pre-combined mesh data issue (this also took bloody ages), many thanks to Jebbalon and Elys for help with this

- Minor changes to some locks on doors

----- What is this mod, and why does it exist? -----

Essentially this mod makes the Gunners friendly to the player at the start of the game. It also makes all containers and useful items in Gunner areas belong to the Gunner faction, which means you have to steal it from them.

There's a lot of things I don't like about Fallout 4 compared to previous Fallout games, but most of these things come down to a single aspect: the loss of player choice. Factions are one such instance of this. The Gunners are supposed to be a mercenary group, so I was looking forward to a Talon Company / Fighter's Guild-style quest with some lawful evil stuff going on. Instead, the Gunners are just reskinned Raiders. Not only is this boring and more in keeping with the FPS-style of FO4, it completely destroys the player's opportunity to make choices about how he or she will interact with that faction. I found that sad and un-immersive, so I made this mod to fix it.

----- What exactly does it do? -----

The main difference is that I added a crime faction for the Gunners which is initially friendly to the player. This means Gunners will no longer shoot you on sight, but they will attack you if you attack them, or if you steal from them (they will first try to take the item back). To make this more playable, I also added Gunner ownership to pretty much all the containers, loose items, beds, and some terminals, in the following locations:

- Vault 75
- Vault 95
- Quincy Ruins
- Greenetech Genetics
- HalluciGen Inc.
- Mass Bay Medical Centre
- Gunners Plaza
- Mass Pike Interchange
- Postal Square
- Hub City Auto Wreckers

I also added a few more locks onto things in these areas, making it more difficult for you to loot the place. A happy side effect is that there are finally some places where you can actually sneak and be a thief with a purpose.

To ensure these areas didn't become boring or pointless, I also added a few lines of dialogue to the Gunners (currently not voice acted - see 'Next Steps' below for more detail), as well as a Quartermaster who will buy and sell weapons, armour, chems, and so on. This makes large areas like Quincy, Vault 75, and the Gunners Plaza feel a little more like towns or cities, which are sorely missing from Fallout 4 due to the settlement system.

Of course, if you want, you can still blast all these suckers to hell - but at least now it's your choice to do so. You can also pay off your bounty and become friends with the Gunners again by speaking to a Gunner Contractor.

----- Installation & Updating -----

Install with NMM or manually. If updating, overwrite old files.

To install manually:
1. Download and unzip
2. Place 'GunnersOverhaul.esp' into the steamapps/common/Fallout 4/Data folder
3. Place the Voice folder in steamapps/common/Fallout 4/Data/sound
4. Place the Fragments folder in steamapps/common/Fallout 4/Data/Scripts

----- Compatibility -----

Only requires Fallout.esm.

Will conflict with anything that changes the Gunner faction, the base actors for most of the Gunners, and the containers / items / terminals in the areas mentioned above. Otherwise should be fine.

If fully compatible with the fabulous Wasteland Grunts, as it only changes textures. Highly recommended!

----- Next Steps -----

This is only the first version of this mod, and I plan to make a number of improvements:

- Voice acting for the new dialogue (thanks to everyone that has offered to help with this! could still do with some more female voices if possible!)
- Different types of vendor, particularly for Quincy
- Radiant quests
- A larger-scale quest based around Quincy
- The ability to buy back your neutrality with the Gunners if you commit crimes against them
- Potentially Gunners vs. Minutemen 'civil-war-style' quest

----- Bugs -----

All currently known bugs fixed, please let me know if you find any, providing as much detail as possible.

It would be helpful if you could playtest and get back to me on:

- Whether the mod works well with captured settlers
- Whether it messes up the Hunter / Hunted quest

In theory, both of these things should be fine, but I haven't had time to playtest these myself so I'd be interested to know how the mod holds up.

----- FAQ -----

Your mod broke everything!

I find that highly unlikely considering how small it is, but explain your issue in the comments and I'll do what I can.

How often will you update this mod?

I hope to have a new update in a month or so.

Wait, so did you, like, manually change the ownership on hundreds of items?

Yes. If there is a way to add ownership to multiple items at once, don't tell me. It's already too late.

----- Credits -----

Bethesda
FO4Edit team
SkyBlu17 (for voice acting)
Jebbalon and Elys for bug fix help
Mattiewagg for scripting help