Fallout 3
0 of 0

File information

Last updated

Original upload

Created by

M2RH

Uploaded by

M2RH

Virus scan

Safe to use

About this mod

Some upgrades and new features for J3Xs classic Pilotable Vertibird mod. New - Sound system, Companion friendly interior, Linked storage access to Megaton home or Tenpenny apt., VTOL flight, Three new main guns, ... and more.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Why I Made this:
  • To pursue a more stable and robust flight experience and add features that I wanted and/or were requested in comments I read from other Vertibird mods. And... primarily because of J3Xs request in LICENSING "If you create an modification to this mod please release it."

What/Features:
  • Interior with seating for eight, most I ever had inside was six (with Fawkes being one of the six). Depends on how (well?) followers are coded. Vanilla followers seem like stone statues that block everyone from moving about.

  • Working VATS in 1st person (main gun only not missiles), pseudo VATS and weapons in 3rd (better to use 1st in most cases).

  • Local storage (exterior and interior access) and Shared storage (accessed from interior pilot seat if player owns Megaton home or Tenpenney apt.).

  • On-board night vision with three active levels and OFF, rotating on one hokey (default hotkey NUM+).

  • Utility seat with crafting kit/s, deploy/retract functional naval cot, and hotkey remapping. Player can use cot up or down, NPCs can generally only use it down.

  • Weapons: Minigun, Gatling Laser, Tesla Cannon, and Heavy Incinerator (on individual hotkeys, defaults NUM1, NUM2, NUM3, NUM4)

  • VTOL control: fly up - press Jump (default Space), fly down - press Crouch+Jump (default Left-Ctrl+Space). Pure vertical flight control not directly dependent on main flight controls.

  • Follower control: From vertibird interior press follower control hotkey to add NPCs in the interior to the combat roster (default NUM5). From outside vertibird interior, press follower control hotkey and NPCs that are on the roster AND still inside the vertibird will transport to player. Intended for use with teammates that do not have any warping or teleport type functions of their own (i.e. vanilla). Can clash/conflict when used with teammates that do have these advanced features.

  • Transport teammates to a DLC in the interior of the vertibird (unless the game forcibly removes them by a script when you enter the DLC). Can also use the follower control hotkey feature to transport teammates to the DLC directly without calling in a vertibird.

  • Functional sound system in flight and on ground, not perfect - functional.

  • Auto Pilot function: The auto pilot key is the same key assigned to auto-move for the player character (q key by default). Press it once in flight to start auto-move/auto pilot. Press it again - or alternately any of the direction controls except Forward (Left, Right, Backward) to end the auto-move/auto pilot function.

  • Armor, helmet and weapon are restored when exiting vertibird (if they are coded "normally" in the GECK... even some vanilla assets are not).

  • Missile Fire mode control, rotates through five options (and OFF) on one hotkey (default NUM6):

1. OFF,
2. one per left attack,
3. continuous fire on attack held,
4. one per left double attack,
5. one per center mouse button,
6. one per right mouse button.




How to begin:
  • The remote to call a vertibird will be given to the player upon completing The Waters of Life quest (unless they have found one before then). There are two other ways to get the remote listed as spoilers in my sticky post in the comments section, so in total three ways to get the remote.
  • It will appear in the Aid tab of the PipBoy Menu, from exterior location equip it to call a bird. When the bird lands approach it until a menu appears with the options to fly, access local storage, dismiss, enter interior, or do nothing. Sometimes it is necessary to move the target crosshair off the vertibird then back on to get menu to appear (generic game behavior not unique to this mod).

Controls (default):
  • Exit Flight Mode - Activate+Jump (e key+space key) get out of a flying Vertibird
  • VTOL fly up - Jump (space key)
  • VTOL fly down - Crouch+Jump (left Ctrl+space key)
  • Normal fly up and down - roughly follows mouse look, look at ground to fly down, sky to fly up, use in combination with VTOL control
  • Speed up - Forward (w key)
  • Slow down - Backward key (s key)
  • Left - Left (a key) 1st person only
  • Right - Right (d key) 1st person only
  • Select main gun - NUM1-NUM4
  • Follower control - NUM5
  • Missile fire mode - NUM6 (rotates through options)
  • Night Vision - NUM+ (rotates through options)
  • Panic controls reset - delete key held for 1+ seconds (absolute last ditch option)
  • TogglePOV key control to switch between 1st and 3rd person (f key)
  • TogglePOV mouse control to set chase cam distance in 3rd person (mouse wheel)
  • Auto Pilot - Auto-Move (q key) toggles ON and OFF

Known Issues:
  • This mod is not compatible with most other J3X variations (even the original) so they can not be loaded at the same time. Although it may appear to work, it will likely cause odd views and behavior in places.

  • During a flight if the level up screen appears, the stats on the level up screen will be incorrect as some of them are forced during flight for low level players to fly effectively. I can not predict how this will impact others systems but on mine it made no difference, I could level up as I wanted and everything would be back to correct (with new restored/adjusted levels) when I landed and disembarked. Still best to avoid this situation if possible.

  • As much as it is good practice to not make a save while flying, or even with a vertibird active (not dismissed), I have tested lots of combinations and while some were glitched, it was usually never more than just landing, dismissing, and calling in a new bird to solve the issues. Still it is best not to tempt fate unless you are crazy... sadly I strongly suspect you are all actually a bit crazy :)

  • Check the Bugs section for other known issues and possible solutions or workarounds for them.


Something went wrong what can I do?
  • If your controls somehow get permanently messed up, look at the Bugs section to see how to reset them. 
  • If vertibird stalls in mid flight (usually from running into solid object or being hit by explosives), keep throttle pressed (forward) and bird should self recover in a second or so, enough to fly and land anyway if not completely.
  • If that fails use VTOL controls to land, exit, and start over.
  • Penultimate option, if you can exit bird but not move, press and hold Delete key for 1+ seconds, a message saying controls were restored should appear in upper left corner. If you had custom controls set they might need to be restored at this point.
  • None of the above work, the game has actually crashed (but you do not know it yet). Nothing to do but quit game and restart (usually with another stable save if this one got saved in crashed state). Reloading will not help and can actually hurt if a save is made in this state as saving will make crashed state permanent in new save.





Required:
  • Broken Steel
  • FOSE for FO3 (NVSE for TTW)

Install:
Two files, a BSA and and ESP, use mod manager or copy to Data folder and activate.

 *** (Do NOT download or install the optional file unless you know what a TTW ESP is for and what to do with it, anyone who does need it will not need instructions).

Uninstall:
No compromises here, not following directions WILL screw up your save.

  • Gather up any follower/s from vertibird interior.
  • Recover any local storage (Cargo Hold).
  • Dismiss bird/s (if you spawned a bunch, dismiss the ones you can but do not worry TOO much about getting them all).
  • From an interior cell (NOT vertibird!) make a hard save (a vanilla cell preferable). Hard save meaning a full save from console or main menu, not quick save.
  • Disable/Deactivate/Delete this mod per your preference/mod managers method.
  • Load interior hard save from step 4. and make new hard save.
  • Load new hard save form step 6. (optional but good idea, disable/delete save made in step 4.)
  • Proceed.




Notes:
  • My vision (and preference) was to have a pure transport chopper with only a LMG but I saw lots of requests for guns. Even without guns I think it is overpowered in the early game (and a borderline cheat with guns) but not everyone plays the same style game so I am leaving it for now. However as it is a powerful item, the remote control to call the vertibird is not given to the player until The Waters of Life quest is completed, but the player has the option of finding one before then (or adding one by console). A few are scattered around, all in plain sight (not in an NPCs inventory or inside some sort of container) in places I though were logical (supposed to be a hint as to where).

  • Camera, I leave it to the player to select the camera they want (with mods hosted here or by setting their own preferences). I made some alternate flight combat cameras and in my opinion having full view and targeting capability ruins the fun. It becomes trivial to kill everything from above with impunity regardless of level. My second point is that awkward clunky cameras are a legacy of FO3 gameplay and after testing quite a bit I actually came to PREFER that FO3 bad cameras feeling in the mod.

  • Vanity cams/Kill cams. Technically every camera change like this (even VATS cams) kill the flight system which I then try to recover, so best not to have them enabled for flying as it is courting trouble. Even without flying they seem pretty buggy (I have mostly never had them enabled till now). As a side note I almost never use VATS either (the exception being to frenzy fire ants) so if it is not working as it should, I would not know. The parts I tested seemed to work as I expected... for the most part.

  • I had to make some design choices as to who can fly it and when, in the end I chose anyone at any time. This was based on the fact that by default, the player will not have access until after The Waters of Life quest. If a player goes out of their way (or just falls into it) to get access before then, I assume they do want to be able to fly it immediately as well.

  • Vertibird armor and health: in my game at higher levels I could not fly without being shot out of the air every few seconds so I upped both health and armor, but at lower levels this feels a bit too tough, so this is a compromise. If it is a very serious problem you may have to fire up xEdit (FO3Edit) to change the AR/DT and Health values.

  • Use the TogglePOV key (f key default) to switch between 1st and 3rd person, use the mouse wheel in 3rd person to set the chase camera distance. Mouse Wheel TogglePOV switching is disabled in 1st person (will just cause the view to jitter and shake wildly).

  • Because the Jump control (space key by default) is used in multiple ways, there is a 300 mSec delay on it for all functions except exit flight. So if you press Jump then 600 mSec later press Activate (e key by default) you will jump out of a flying plane, maybe to your death. Either be faster or press the alternate key first, i.e. press Activate+Jump rather than Jump+Activate.

Credits From Original File:
  • SaidenStorm for his Akatosh Mount mod to Oblivion.
  • The reset.kf animation is from Drayk_Cannon's The Groovatron mod, I'm not sure who have created it. Please let me know so I can give credits to you.
  • Backsteppo for creating driving animation for my Motorcycle mod, this mod shares the same driving animation.
  • Anything else is created by me, J3X, drop me a message at jex_ mus [at] hotmail [dot] com if you want anything.

Credits/Tools:
  • Audacity
  • TTW crew - conversion tools, development tools

LICENSING:
  • Carried forward with same provisions as J3X origninal file.