Fallout New Vegas
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drg6520

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drg6525

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About this mod

Tired of the NCR\'s aggressive expansion in the Mojave? Wish your pals wouldn\'t wimp out at the idea of helping the Legion? Melissa the Great Khan scout would be happy to throw in with you once you\'ve helped her out at Quarry Junction.

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Permissions and credits
If you enjoyed this mod, please show your appreciation with a comment and/or endorsement. Voice splicing is painstakingly tedious process, and knowing there's an audience that appreciates that work motivates me to add more features.

Latest Update:

- Fixed a couple of dialogue related bugs.
- Added on a few new lines, mostly pertaining to combat situations.
- A few new idles; relaxing on a bed instead of sleeping if she's in her "go sit down" behavior.



Tired of the NCR's aggressive expansion in the Mojave? Wish your pals wouldn't wimp out at the idea of helping the Legion? Melissa the Great Khan scout would be happy to throw in with you once you've helped her out at Quarry Junction.

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|TABLE OF CONTENTS |
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1. Description & Features
2. Installation
3. Compatibility Concerns
4. FAQ
5. Known Issues
6. Version History
7. Uninstallation
8. Contact Info
9. Credits
10. Disclaimers / Usage
11. Other Mods By Me


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| 1 | Description & Features
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In a nutshell, this companion mod features:

- Fully voiced and lip-synced dialogue.

- Full companion wheel integration, in addition to the standard stealthing/overburdened comments, etc.

- Optional sandbox mode waiting.

- Toggleable unlimited ammo and upgradeable* default weapon (just place the appropriate hunting rifle mods in her inventory).

- Provides the Khan Survivalist perk when hired, reducing the rads in edible items and providing additional poison resistance.

- Can be sent back to Red Rock Canyon, the Lucky 38 Suite, or any custom home of your choosing.

- Can be given one of 12 different hairstyles in-game via dialogue without the need to use the G.E.C.K. (20 with the optional Lings add-on).

- Reactive features; sits when you do, draws her gun when you do, strips down when swimming, and fidgets while standing around.

- Actively comments on the locations you visit, some of your actions, and some of the items you give her.

- NPC interaction; she'll flip off and cuss out NCR troops, some generic NPC's react to her presence, and she can banter with Veronica or Cass.

- A radio to summon her should she get lost.

- Out-of-the-box compatibility with NV:Redesigned and other mods that change the original Melissa's appearance, though with some exceptions.



Melissa is my second companion mod for Fallout New Vegas, and my third for Fallout in general. Admittedly my decision to companion-ize her wasn't so much about her personality like it was with Sydney, but do I like her voice and wanted to help balance out the NCR-to-Legion follower ratio.

Based on feedback from my Sydney Follower mod, the most popular aspects were adherence to character and idle dialogue that she initiated on her own, so that's what I sought to focus on. I'm a big fan of Cass's commenting on the locations you visit, and so I decided to try and replicate that. Although, I wasn't too fond of how the script filters made her speak the same 7 out of 100ish lines 90% of the time, so Melissa's chatter uses tighter conditions (no generic lines indoors for one) to fix the redundancy. Should you grow tired of hearing her, a handy option exists to turn the feature off. Unfortunately, Zoë Bell's accent isn't wholly consistent across the multiple characters I drew voiceovers from, so there are moments where Melissa slips in-and-out of a thick New Zealand accent (mostly in the idle dialogue). This was unavoidable if I wanted to create anything substantial, but I tried to minimize the amount of jarring this creates. You can easily tell it's the same voice actress at any rate.

She'll support you through all main story paths. She definitely hates the NCR, but the only restriction is that she will leave if your reputation with the Great Khans becomes villified. This way, it's still possible for her to be with you on a pro-NCR playthrough, as the result of what you need to do to keep your Khan rep up in that questline will handily address any issues of her working for them.


* By default, weapon mods don't work for companions, so this is a rather significant feature if you actually want to see extended mags, a scope, etc. on her weapon.


Future Plans:
- More NPC interaction
- More reacts, particularly for items in her inventory.
- Possible (repeatable) mini-quests to help her in drug runs, rendezvous with runners for vital info, and overall contribute to the Great Khan cause.
- Rework the hiring sequence with a longer dialogue and more options.


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| 2 | Installation
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1. Extract the contents of this archive. Copy the sound folder, meshes folder, and "drgNV - Melissa Companion.esm" from the Data folder into (install directory)\fallout new vegas\Data. If it prompts you to overrite any files, do so.

2. Browse the Optional Files folder and see if there's anything you want to add. Chances are you'll want to install the Recruitment Fix if you've already finished Melissa's quest and can't find her for some odd reason. To add an optional plugin, just copy it directly into your Fallout New Vegas data folder.

3. Start FOMM, place a checkmark beside the "drgNV - Melissa Companion.esm", as well as any optional plugins.

3. Travel to the Great Khan encampment that overlooks Quarry Junction (be warned, there ARE deathclaws on the way there). Complete Melissa's vanilla quest "Don't Make a Beggar Out of Me" and then new options will appear for you to recruit her. You either need a REALLY good rep with the Great Khans, one of the women seduction perks, or a high speech skill.


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| 3 | Compatibility Concerns
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The Melissa that you have traveling with you is NOT the same one you meet in Quarry Junction, technically. This is to ensure compatibility with mods such as New Vegas Redesigned. As such, if you want to change her face, modify the original Melissa (QJMelissa).

There is one caveat I should mention. Any mods that change Melissa's race from HispanicRaider to something else will NOT be compatible, and any changes to the HispanicRaider race (besides simple texture/model changes without an *.esp) will NOT show up. This is because of the way that the hairstyle feature works -- it's 12 duplicates of the original race, just with different hairstyle properties. If you're experienced with the G.E.C.K. then feel free to modify her custom races to match your mod changes, but I warn you that it's a tedious process.


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| 4 | F.A.Q.
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I'll fill this up with more later, depending on what kind of feedback I get from the mod.


Q: Where is Melissa? I've never met her before...

A: Melissa is located in the Great Khan Encampment that overlooks Quarry Junction. It's a bit tricky, so I recommend consulting the wiki (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Khan_encampment) to find it. Be warned; most of the routes contain deathclaws. Once you're there, Melissa will give you a quest "Don't Make a Beggar Out of Me" if you aren't hated by the Great Khans. Complete it by giving her the chemicals and new dialogue options will show up to recruit her.


Q: I can't find Melissa, and I did the quest ages ago. What gives?

A: I don't know, to be honest. She could be dead, simply missing, or out taking a Sarsaparilla break for all we know. At any rate, install the option "drgNV - Melissa Companion (Recruitment Fix).esp" from the optional plugins folder. It will automatically run once you boot up the game and fix all of those nasty problems you could be having.


Q: The dialogue to hire her won't show up, but I've completed the quest.

A: Do note that you're not supposed to screw her over in that quest if you want to score. You MUST give her the chems. If for some reason you did not but still want to try her out, try the same recruitment fix I posted above to fix that detail (in her mind, at least).


Q: Where do I find Melissa's radio?

A: Ask her about it in dialogue -- it's under the "I wanted to talk to you about something." menu. Afterwards, you can find it in your inventory under apparel, where you equip it and exit the Pipboy menu to activate. (You can also hotkey it if you like).


Q: Melissa's stuck with a permanent O-face after smoking.

A: It's a bug with the original game. Fixing it, oddly enough, is as simply as dropping into sneak mode with her; that fixes any odd face-freezing problems resulting.


Q: Why did you make it so that she leaves?!

A: Would you want to hang out with someone who you knew to be hostile towards your family and closest friends, going as far as to sabotage the businesses they need to scrape by and even KILLING them? If you want someone who mindlessly follows you without question, please look elsewhere. I make my companions with a specific vision in mind, and that entails a somewhat responsible character. Besides, if you hate the Great Khans so much, why are you willing to travel with one?


Q: She responds to guys AND girls? Wow, never seen THAT before... ::eyeroll::

A: It's not about my personal preferences, but about expanding the options at the player's disposal. It's a mod, and both the perk and the dialogue are optional. Making her receptive to both sexes is almost no extra work on my part and broadens the appeal.


Q: Your mod sucks. I could never imagine Melissa joining the Courier in such a contrived fashion and there's no way she'd ever act like that!

A: Sorry you feel that way (though I honestly think her joining you is no more contrived than Veronica, Boone, Lily, and Arcade suddenly dropping what they're doing to help you out). I make every effort possible to adhere to the original character and make hiring them a bit of a challenge (hence why you need to gain her trust by helping her fulfill her job, then convince her), but that doesn't always work out when I'm constrained by what I can find in the original voice acting. If there's something that REALLY bothers you about the content I've put into this, feel free to say something and I'll try to address it.


Q: Melissa is ugly. Please change her face to make her look human/smexy/hawt/realistic/etc.

A: No, because that would entail modifying the original Melissa, and that's a strict no-no in my design goal. Besides which, I haven't actually decided on how I want my version of her to look yet; once I'm satisfied I might upload it. If you hate her default face, I suggest you try using New Vegas Redesigned. Otherwise, feel free to open the G.E.C.K. and change the face yourself. Just load up FalloutNV.esm and find the character QJMelissa. Also, an optional Lings hairstyle plugin is included should you want to pair those with the face of your choosing.


Q: You think Melissa is ugly!

A: Not really, I'm just trying to cover my bases with the above response. I actually don't have much of a problem with her default appearance, but I know many would, and I really don't want to deal with the annoying requests to beautify her and such.


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| 5 | Technical Issues
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Currently Known Issues:

- Everything that can be observed in the default companions.
- She's not integrated into any vanilla scripts for compatibility reasons, so you'll run into issues where she keeps her weapons in casinos, can go into Caesar's tent, etc.
- Sometimes she looks a bit awkward when walking, due to some of the idle animations she randomly cycles through.
- If you interrupt her smoking habits with dialogue, she can get stuck with a permanent o-face. To fix this, drop into sneak mode with her, and it's instantly fixed.


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| 6 | Version History
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0.70 (1/16/2011)
- Initial Release

0.72 (1/20/2011)
- Added the recruitment fix as an optional download.
- Added a new greeting to pre-recruitment Melissa to squash a potential source of conflict.
- Slightly adjusted the frequency of her holster-weapon and sit-down comments.
- Fixed an issue where she would still have her weapon drawn when fired.
- Fixed an issue where she'd still respond amiably after leaving you because of your Great Khan reputation.
- Added support for the Ferocious Loyalty perk.
- Added a few more reaction lines to her dialogue.

0.86 (2/3/2011)
- Started adding Cass banter.
- Added many more lines to her idle chatter line-up.
- Changed the Strip lines to work inside the Tops and Gomorrah casinos.
- Added Freeside, Novac, Jacobstown, and Quarry Junction idle chatter components.
- More inventory reaction dialogue and a few potential vanilla follower reactions.
- She now smokes if you have any cigarettes in her inventory.
- Added a few more idle animations, tweaked their frequency to be slightly less often.
- She no longer treats binoculars and cameras as weapons for the purposes of dialogue and drawing her own weapon.
- Switched the conditions on her swimming behavior to fix a few potential bugs.
- Now drops a lootable Hunting Rifle and all used upgrades upon death.


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| 7 | Uninstallation
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1. Delete ‘drgNV - Melissa Companion.esm’ from your \fallout new vegas\Data\ folder.
2. Delete the 'drgNV - Melissa Companion.esm' FOLDER from your \fallout new vegas\Data\Sound\Voice\ folder.
3. Delete the 'drgNV\Melissa\' FOLDER from your \fallout new vegas\Data\Meshes\ folder.


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| 8 | Contact Info
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You can reach me via PM on Fallout3/Dragon Age/TES/New Vegas Nexus via the username "drg6525". I also go by "drg6520" on the Official Bethsoft forums, but I rarely visit there these days, so Nexus is your best bet.


+===+===========================+
| 9 | Credits|
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DRG6520 ............... For the concept, scripting, voiceover editing, and dialogue.

Zoë Bell............... For voicing Melissa.

Bethesda ...............For creating the all-powerful G.E.C.K.

Obsidian............... For creating New Vegas, actually caring about companions, and the character of Melissa.

New Vegas Nexus ...............For hosting this mod, and making all management and downloading of mods simple and convenient.

The Mod Users............... For enjoying my work and giving me the motivation to continue modding.


+===+===========================+
| 10| Disclaimers / Usage|
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I do not claim to own Obsidian, Bethesda, Fallout: New Vegas, or the character of Melissa.

You may do as you like with this mod. I'm not very strict about its usage, though if you plan on copying features, dialogue, or any other content from this mod I would at least like to be credited for what you used. You are NOT required to contact me for permission -- I'll say yes anyway, so just go ahead and do whatever. I won't get mad.


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| 11|Other Mods By Me|
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If you have enjoyed my work, then you might consider trying my other mods:

[For Fallout 3]

SYDNEY FOLLOWER
"Continue your partnership with Sydney the Relic Hunter past the end of "Stealing Independence." Features new dialogue, mini-quests, and a detailed companion ready to tear up the Wasteland with you. Lore-friendly, fully voiced and lip synced, with over 420 lines of dialogue added."
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9320

[For Fallout: New Vegas]

MARCUS COMPANION
"Fallout 2's Marcus makes a return as a full-fledged companion, ready to assist the Courier in taking down the forces of Caesar's Legion and changing the face of New Vegas for years to come."
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37376