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DESCRIPTION
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Backstory - Somewhere in the wastesland, someone has chanced upon an heirloom collection of antique armour. Most of the antique armour is ornate and offers few advantages in an age of power armour. However, among these is a most peculiar set of armour that looks like it was meant for a medieval noble's war-dog...It just might come in handy...

Please help me test and let me know if you find any issues, many thanks!


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FEATURES
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Made Dogmeat a shiny set of platemail with chainmail mesh. The armour gives Dogmeat a damage resistance of 50.


Dogmeat's HP and damage output is scaled. HP starts at 500, and reaches 1000 at level 20. Damage should scale as well, but may still be a bit weak at Hard difficulty. Please let me know.


Implemented dogmeat's Dialogue commands from Fallout. Eg: (I wonder if I can get Dogmeat to follow me differently?) used for distance command.


Extra "Find" commands. Armoured Dogmeat now knows how to find armour and skill books too.


New Combat commands. Accessed by the dialog "You are one meeean-looking dog, aren't you boy?". In Fallout 2, tactics is not accessed via dialog, but when you talk to Dogmeat, you will see ""You see one meeean-looking dog". Options are what's available in Fallout 2's tactics tab. I also thought it would be cool to get different sort of feedback from Dogmeat depending on the commands (both in the dialog box and audibly):

1) Use cowardly tactics. Dogmeat acknowledges with a whine. He will run away to lure enemies off.
2) Use defensive tactics. Dogmeat acknowledges with 1 bark. He will only fight back if attacked. Will retreat if outmatched. Note: even if he is hurt, he will still attack if the enemy is much weaker and Dogmeat is able to win.
3) Use aggressive tactics. Dogmeat acknowledges with 2 barks. He will enage enemies normally, but will retreat as per the defensive tactics.
4) Use berserk tactics. Dogmeat acknowledges with 3 barks. What original Dogmeat does, attack regardless of his chances and never run away.


New Distance commands. Accessed by the dialog "(I wonder if I can get Dogmeat to follow me differently?)". This is how you change Dogmeat's follow distance in Fallout 2. Options are authentic Fallout 2 distance commands too. Feedback is similar to combat options.

1) Stay far away from me. 1 bark
2) Keep a medium distance. 2 barks
3) Stick close to me. 3 barks


A 10% chance of bowling down enemies. (This has been removed due to incorrect implmentation. Base damage and critical chance has been slightly increased to compensate)


Armoured Dogmeat is also essential. Please let me know if any of the options do not work properly under certain situations.



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USING ALTERNATE SKINS FROM OTHER MODS
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Just rename the filenames to armoureddogmeat*.* (keep the 3 letter file extension) and replace the following files:
1) \Data\Textures\creatures\dog\armoureddogmeat.dds
2) \Data\Textures\creatures\dog\armoureddogmeat_n.dds

Some mods may not provide both files, just replace the respective file with the ones they give.

If the mod provide a nif, then just rename the nif to \Data\Meshes\creatures\dog\armoureddogmeat.nif. The dds files need not be renamed, just copied over.

I strongly recommend the leather armour retexture by pintocat here http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4474



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CHANGE LOG
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V 0.50 - Added 3 alternate skins. Added 1 alternate esp without essential or levelling.
V 0.51 - Removed knock down effect. Increased base damage from 2 to 3 points per level and critical chance by 10% compensate.
V 0.52 - Fixed waiting command and errorneous extra dialog option
V 0.60 - Added toggles for Dogmeat's guard AI (under root dialog) and a toggle for his autoheal (selecting the "good boy" dialog activates it, "bad dog" dialog disables it). Also switched archiving program to 7z as winrar kept bugging me on registering. It's free and supports several archival formats including rar.
V 0.61 - Made a minor change to prevent missing parts when using Pintocat's mod



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FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
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1) Replace the current armour with a dirty bashed up version. Option to bring Abraham some scrap metal and abraxo so that he can repair and polish the armour. This will give the pristine armour version. DR for this version will be upgraded to 75%.

Adds immersion, but will almost double the mod size.

2) Option to add helmet, adding the helm would give a DR of 85%. Adds immersion, but will almost triple the mod size.

3) Add a command to tell Dogmeat to sneak. Though by all counts he should be less stealthy in a suit of medieval platemail, so still undecided on that.

4) Enhance fleeing AI when his HP is low. The game engine only compares his combat strength with his current enemy to determine if he should flee. The problem becomes apparent when he is being ganked by several weaker enemies in hard difficulty. He can take them on one by one, but doesn't understand he doesn't stand a chance when he is being attacked simultaneously by many enemies.



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IN-GAME LOCATION
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Bring Dogmeat with you and look for Abraham Washington in his museum within Rivet City. Then ask him about the kennel. You need to accept the Declaration of Independence quest first, because he'll always bring that up. He will explain how he got it and offer to sell it for 1000 caps (unless you make a speech test to get a discount).

If Abraham is not in his museum, you don't see the kennel and can't ask him about it.

There after, you can ask him to add/remove armour on dogmeat as you like. Completely reversible.



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COMPATIBILITY & TECHNICAL STUFF
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Unarmoured Dogmeat does not have the tactics or the search options. I left hime mostly unchanged to prevent conflicts with other mods. So he will have Tarrant's Obedient dogmeat options if you also use that mod. Armoured Dogmeat will not have the obedient Dogmeat options. Let me know if you want new features implemented in unarmoured Dogmeat too.

Basically what is happening is that creatures do not wear armour at the moment. To get around this, what I have done is create a new follower and swap the 2 Dogmeat versions around using Abraham.



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INSTALLATION
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Download the main rar and simply extract the folders and files in the archive into the "data" folder of your fallout 3 directory.

Then download the latest version (version 0.60) and replace the esp file.

There's also a version for those that do not want Dogmeat set to essential or level up.

To install alternate skins, just overwrite the dds files.


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UNINSTALLATION
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Delete the following files:

1) \Data\Meshes\creatures\dog\armoureddogmeat.nif
2) \Data\Textures\creatures\dog\armoureddogmeat.dds
3) \Data\Textures\creatures\dog\armoureddogmeat_n.dds
4) \Data\Shaikujins_Chrome_Dogmeat_Armour.esp
5) \Data\ArmouredDogmeatReadme.txt



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CREDITS
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Tarrant's Obedient Dogmeat mod for the inspiration.