Fallout 4

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Project Valkyrie Discord Server

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Thuggysmurf

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About this mod

Tired of hearing the same old lines from companions and settlers? Wish they had more to say? Or gave quests? Now they do.

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"Fallout 4 companions play like a great first effort from a gifted modder."
- llamaRCA, author of the #1 companion mods Willow and Heather.

Let's add some polish.

November 2019 Mod of the Month

What this mod does

1) Reduces or eliminates repetitive companion dialogue.  How many times do you need to hear Cait say "Can't wait to get out of this goddamn heat" at 2 a.m. when it's raining? Now she'll only ever say that line once, and at the right time. Same with comments about looting, crafting, chem use, etc.

2) Adds new situation-appropriate dialogue for companions. They'll have more to say and seem more aware of their surroundings.

3) New dialogue menu options for Cait, Curie, Piper, Valentine, Hancock, Danse, Deacon, and Gage. They all give side quests now, except Curie, who can serve as a vendor and combat medic once she's converted to a synth.

4) Generic vanilla settler dialogue now pulls from a bank of over 150 lines instead of just 21, multiplied by up to 10 different potential voice types for each line.

5) Settlers are aware of your quest progression, and while they still occasionally complain about "my back hurts, my feet hurt...", they display increased awareness of the dangers lurking in the Commonwealth, expressing gratitude for the protection you've provided them, with a more tolerable balance between positive, neutral, negative, and snarky comments. If your settlement happiness is high enough, they will occasionally give you small gifts when expressing their gratitude.

6) Adds additional combat dialogue variety to Raiders and Gunners.

In total, the mod adds over 2,300 voice lines to companions, settlers, and enemies.

How it works

This was accomplished with vanilla dialogue by:

- Incorporating content that was cut from the game
- Editing and splicing existing lines to create new ones
- Re-purposing hidden or rare dialogue to apply to new situations
- Flagging certain annoying/repetitive lines to only be said once (e.g. loot junk comments)
- Adding cool-down timers to other repetitive lines (e.g. combat taunts)


No NPC records were edited - only companion dialogue quest records and the 'DialogueFarmGeneric' quest (for settlers). No vanilla scripts were touched. NPC appearance mods are fully compatible, as are mods that affect NPC stats, NPC leveled lists, and companion affinity.

Companions

Companion dialogue diversity is only as good as the most repeated line. Piper has over two-thousand lines, but you hear only a small fraction of those on a typical play-through. Some of her wittiest lines trigger only if she's with you on a particular quest, while some of her combat lines she says dozens of times.

I've traveled with Piper over 200 hours. Sorting through the raw audio files to make this mod, I was shocked to find hundreds of lines I'd never heard her say before.

A lot of us travel with companions for as long as they're interesting and not annoying. When they start repeating the same lines over and over, we lose interest and dismiss them. With this mod, that happens much later into the game.

The companion dialogue that is added here doesn't change their characters. It's the same companions you're used to, just with more content. Specifically:

- Triple the amount of general combat lines (detect enemy, taunt enemy, victory line) for Cait, Curie, Piper, Valentine, Hancock, Danse, Deacon, and Gage.

- Lots of new random idles, especially in dungeons, and sometimes with a sarcastic slant if it suits the character.

- Certain vanilla random idles that tend to repeat often will now only be said once.

- When you loot, pick a lock, hack a terminal, use a workbench, take drugs, eat a corpse, walk around naked, enter power armor, etc., your companion will comment, but they will never repeat that same comment again.



Settlers

I was trying to figure out why I lost interest in settlement building about 6 months after the game launched. The settlement mods that have released since then are incredible. Why am I not motivated to engage with that part of the game anymore?

Partly because it doesn't feel like my actions matter. Not only does the game not in any way react to the massive colony I've built on Spectacle Island, the settlers there don't care either. They're still complaining about the same old things.

I wanted the game to feel like the settlers were on the same team as me, functioning as more than professional mooches. If I'm General of the Minutemen, call me "General" once in a while, and talk to me about tactical stuff. Acknowledge the threats we face and the things we're doing to solve problems. Or barring that, at least be semi-interesting and make me laugh occasionally.

So that's what I tried to implement via more dialogue lines, much of it conditioned upon what's going on in the game and/or the settlement. The increased variety in settler dialogue only occurs if a settlement's happiness is above 60, and some of the lines won't trigger until happiness is closer to 100.

Raiders and Gunners

Raider and Gunner combat lines have been tweaked to make them sound a little smarter, and to increase variety. This was done by adding lines (over 130) from cut content, DLC, and re-purposing voice files from quests where lines are only said once in specific areas (e.g. Museum of Freedom, Combat Zone, Cabot quest line).

The new lines are general in nature, not location specific, and it's stuff like: "You're goin' nowhere", "C'mon, I got places to be!", "Get it over with and die already!", "God dammit! You're gonna regret ever comin' here!", etc. It sounds indistinguishable from the vanilla combat, there's just more of it.

Also, Raiders won't call you "Rookie" once you're not a rookie anymore, and several of the lines that make Raiders sound comically obtuse have been flagged as "say once": e.g.  "Hiding? From me? Not even possible..."", "What the...!? No, no, it's nothing.." Raiders will still sound dumb, saying lines like "Huh?", Wha?", "What the...", but it won't be quite as over-the-top as it is in the vanilla game.

When stalking Gunners, they'll no longer say a few of the lines that make them sound incompetent: e.g. "Huh?" "Wha?", so it feels more like you're encountering trained mercenaries instead of dumb Raiders.


Quests

Certain companions give repeatable quests now:

- Piper gives you the quests "Anything for a Story" to explore places you haven't cleared yet and "You Can't Stop the Press" to gather supplies for her newspaper business.

- Cait offers a quest "Lookin' for Trouble" to hunt down those Raiders she talks so much about hating.

- Danse assigns you the quest "Outstanding, Soldier!" to eliminate Super Mutants and Feral Ghouls.

- Hancock has a quest "Because I Got High" to track down chem stashes.

- Nick gives the quests "Lost and Found" to track down stolen property for Diamond City residents and "Commonwealth Justice" to complete bounties on behalf of the Diamond City Council.

- Gage gives the quest "Let's Go Kill Some Sh*t" to wipe out rival gangs.

- Deacon also gives a non-repeatable quest called "Coming Clean" once you've maxed his affinity. Ask him "What's News?" and cycle through all the dialogue to start the quest and experience a new chapter of his never-ending stream of B.S.

Radiant quests are lame

Typical BoS/Institute quest: Talk to Quest Giver > Travel to Dungeon > Kill bad guys > Travel to Quest Giver > Talk to Quest Giver.

Typical Preston quest: Talk to Preston > Travel to Settler > Talk to Settler > Travel to Dungeon > Kill bad guys > Travel to Settler > Talk to Settler > Travel to Preston > Talk to Preston.

That's a lot of talking and load screens for not much action. It's more fun when the quest giver travels with you to do the quest: Talk to Companion > Travel to Dungeon > Kill bad guys > Talk to Companion.

These new quests are optional, nothing is forced, and you can cancel the quest by talking to the companion. The side quests are accessed via the 'More Options' dialogue menu. Completing a quest for a companion will raise their affinity ("like" or "love" event), grant a small amount of XP, and yield caps or a custom reward.

This gives you potentially a new way to explore the Commonwealth and discover most locations naturally without needing to do the main quest.

What else?

Beyond quests, this mod didn't fit well into an existing category. It's similar in spirit to Relationship Dialogue Overhaul for Skyrim, but "Overhaul" typically implies something that edits a lot of things and requires a slew of patches. This has a light footprint- shouldn't require any patches. Doesn't add a new companion, or new NPC's, or conflict with any mods that alter companion/NPC appearance or stats.



Load Order and Compatibility

There are various mods that add or edit Fallout 4 dialogue. If you run one of those mods, here's where they go in load order relative to this mod (SCDO) so that it all plays nice together and you receive the benefits of both mods. "Below" means "After", and "Above" means "Before".

Below SCDO in load order

Deeper Thoughts Curie - Adds some additional dialogue to Curie. Mostly redundant with SCDO installed, but will add a little extra variety to idle comments.

Icebreaker Piper - Companion Dialogue Overhaul - Adds more dialogue to Piper. Largely redundant with SCDO unless you would like more Piper responses to specific player actions (e.g. loot junk, swim, eat corpse, pick lock, etc), and some additional greetings.

Nick Valentine Romance -  Allows you to romance Nick Valentine. Load order shouldn't matter, but put it below SCDO to be safe.

No companion junk comments - Companions never comment on looting junk at all (versus in SCDO they'll say it once). Load order shouldn't matter, but place below SCDO just in case.

Above SCDO in load order

Flirty Commonwealth - Edits and adds some flirty some companion idle comments. The Raider taunts it adds play really well with this mod (no overlap).

Immersive Generic Dialogues - Edits some settler idle comments and companion idle comments.

Player Comments and Head Tracking
- Edits some companion idle lines by adding player responses to them. If you place this, or its patch, below SCDO in load order, the repetition that SCDO removes from certain companion comments (e.g. Loot junk, pick lock, eat corpse, walk around naked) and idle comments (e.g. Cait's "we'd move faster if you kept your eyes on the road and off me arse"), will be reintroduced. For best results, do not use the unauthorized SCDO patch available for download on the Player Comments mod page.

Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch
- Fixes typos on companion idle lines, and these fixes have been incorporated into SCDO, without requiring UF4P to be installed (although you should probably have it installed for a plethora of other reasons).

Icebreaker Settlements - Settler Dialogue Overhaul
- Adds more dialogue to settlers via the 'DialogueFarmGeneric' quest. Largely redundant with SCDO. Load order shouldn't matter, but as SCDO has more variety in settler dialogue, place SCDO lower in load order to be safe.

In General

As a starting point, put SCDO below your quest mods.

Except as noted above, place SCDO below anything else editing the companion dialogue quests. (ComPiperTalk, ComCaitTalk, etc). If you screw up, not a big deal, the result is that you may not see 100% of the features from this mod for a particular companion if another mod is overwriting the same dialogue topic.

You can check whether a mod edits a quest by loading all your mods in FO4Edit, clicking on the Quest records in this mod, and seeing whether any other mods edit the same Dialogue Topic within a quest (i.e. look for red and orange records when both mods are loaded in FO4Edit).

Other than that, SCDO should be compatible with everything unless explicitly stated otherwise. 

Compatible with mods that edit NPC appearances, mods that edit leveled lists, mods that affect companion affinity or companion stats, multi-follower mods, Horizon, Sim Settlements/Conqueror, Start Me Up, Better Settlers, No Negative Affinity, Visible Companion Affinity, Full Dialogue Interface, Extended Dialogue Interface, Realistic Conversations, Amazing Follower Tweaks, Unlimited Companion Framework, Combat Zone Restored, Keep Both X6-88 and Porter Gage Plus Deacon, Danse Dialogue Overhaul, and the other 30,000 or so mods for Fallout 4, unless stated otherwise on the mod page.


Requirements and Installation

The base game, Automatron, Nuka World, and Vault-Tec Workshop are required. No other mods are required.

Install like any regular mod. You can use the mod at any point on an existing save game. It also works on a new save game.

Translations

Check the Translation drop down menu at the top of the mod page for an updated list of available translations.

Troubleshooting

- If a companion's buy/sell vendor menu comes up empty the first time, exit the conversation and try again. If Gage isn't selling chems, dismiss him and re-recruit.

- If Gage turns hostile in "Open Season", use the "Make Gage a Companion Again" holotape on the counter in Fizztop Grille to restore him, or craft the holotape at a chem station under "Utility". If you never want Gage to become hostile in the first place during "Open Season", use the mod Keep Both X6-88 and Porter Gage Plus Deacon.

- If a companion gives a quest, but no quest comes up, it's possible you've cleared all the eligible quest locations and may need to wait for them to respawn. Try asking again, and if that doesn't work, fast travel somewhere else, wait a day or so, then ask again.

XBox, PlayStation?


PS4: not possible due to voice files.
XBox: Yes, here.

Additional dialogue for other companions?

Cait, Curie, Piper, Valentine, and Danse were initially chosen for additional dialogue and new content based on a Discord poll asking the question, "Which companions do you still play with for 6 hours or more on a Fallout 4 play-through? (Check all that apply)". There were over 100 responses, and those were the five companions people still actually use long enough for dialogue repetition to matter. And Dogmeat, but he doesn't talk. Hancock was also given additional dialogue because I like Hancock. Same with Gage, Deacon, and MacCready.

As it stands now:

- Companions with additional dialogue and new content: Cait, Curie, Piper, Valentine, Danse, Deacon, Hancock, Gage, and MacCready
- Companions adjusted to avoid/reduce repetitive dialogue: All of the above plus Ada, Preston, Codsworth, X6-88, and Strong.
- Companions for whom no adjustments were made: Dogmeat and Old Longfellow

More Quest Content?

This mod plays nice with the following quest mods if you want another 60+ hours of Fallout 4 content:

Depravity - (August 2019 Mod of the Month)
Project Valkyrie - (August 2018 Mod of the Month)
Outcasts & Remnants - (April 2017 Mod of the Month Runner Up)
Fusion City Rising - (September 2016 Mod of the Month)
Diary of a Madman - (Alternate path to Depravity's evil ending to the vanilla game)


The quest locations in this mod have very little overlap with the locations in the mods above. If you are looking for a workable Fallout 4 mod list based on flexibility, fun, safety, ease of install, and popularity over personal preference, check out Thuggyfied.

Donations?

We do not accept donations, nor is the mod opted in to receive Donation Points from Nexus. However, we'll take endorsements and game-play screenshots if you've got good ones.

Another way to support what we're doing: we have a Discord server where we answer questions about these mods + provide general mod support, help people with making mods, discuss mod ideas, do play-testing and early access to upcoming mods, etc.

It helps us if you boost that server (visit the Discord server, Click on the server in the upper left, then click on 'Server Boost', and then 'Boost This Server'). 

We don't receive any money from that, it all goes to Discord, but it helps us and all the Discord users by allowing access to more Discord features (e.g. uploading larger files, streaming at high resolution directly into the server, better user interface, etc). So huge thanks in advance if you do it!

If you're a Discord Nitro subscriber, they give you 2 free boosts with which you can boost any servers you'd like.


Credits

Project Valkyrie Discord Server for play-testing and feedback. LlamaRCA, Flashy(Joer), Nika Cola for technical help. Sacremas for content help.
Mod page art: @Raikou.ff for Cait, Pain-Art@Tumblr for Curie and Piper, GirlAndGeese for Nick, ItsPreciousTime.Tumblr for Danse, Yuhimebarbara for Hancock, Odme1 for Gage, Bjorn Kissel for settler comic, SMB92 for city skyline.