I’m wondering what sort of plans there are for the refugee center development. While the back room quest does mention reclaiming the room, and the RTG quest implies that they have some plans for development, those are really the only hints that exist as to what is intended there. So was the evac merchant questline intended to vear into establishing trade routes, maybe with another quest or two interacting with the Ranch? Or were there plans to eventually allow the merchant guy to actually say yes when the player asks to join, if they do enough favours? Was there a plan for the basement? With the back bay cleared, would they eventually accept new people, potentially allowing a new NPC or two to be placed?
I ask because I have a some ideas on what to do with the refugee center merchant questline, and want to make sure that they fit with what is intended there. Or if perhaps they might work better if I made them missions for a different character or something.
a quest for a concrete mixer, so they can expand the refugee center a bit. Adding a new room or two, or an outer wall at the entrance
a quest for a pair of inactive turrets to guard the entrance, which would be placed as active but friendly turrets at the doors
quest to retrieve a trade agreement from the ranch settlement (similar to prospectus quest)
Some quest to get a bunch of building materials to convert the back bay into a more livable area (wall off beds to create simple individual rooms or something like that, as if they aren’t going to take more people, may as well use the space for a more comfortable living space)
Another idea I had was about the one guard who you can ask about missions but never has any. Maybe give him a mission to gather 200 cigarettes or something. Have him be a smoker who is having difficulty getting his fix with the cataclysm and all that.
Do these ideas fit with what was planned for this location? Also, if they do not, does anyone have any ideas for the evac center quests and/or construction?
Whatever plans were once made for the refugee center have long been abandoned.
That said, i-am-erk has been busy populating it with NPCs, so I think he has some current plans. I know that Jenny Follete is going to be expanded to provide additional security for the center, in the form of makeshift turrets and such.
I intend to add a facilities manager who goes around and repairs damage to the evac center (and another for the Tacoma Commune and others for any other factions that gets bases). The code support is not quite there, but I’ve gone from “boy that would be interesting if it worked” to having all the major pieces in place and now needing to do a lot of work to hook them together.
If you want to co-ordinate with i-am-erk, I’m sure he’d be happy to have another person writing NPCs for the refugee center.
If you don’t, I think your ideas are pretty good. Unless you’re really attached to the Free Merchants, you might want to write your own faction with their own base. There’s a list of proposed factions on github, or you could come up with your own entirely. CDDA has languished for years with only the Free Merchants and the Old Guard as factions, but that’s never been intentional.
obligatory link to the Guide for 1st time contributors (it’s been nearly a day since I last posted it). Pay attention to the newly introduced update_mapgen functionality, because that means you can implement your own mission start (and mission end, and mission fail) functions in JSON. Take a look at data/json/npcs/missiondef_free_merchants.json : all of the Free Merchants mission starts and ends are now in JSON instead of C++. It’s a huge increase in functionality for JSON only contributors.
I’m working on the beggars right now. When they’re done, Jenny Forcette will get you to help her make turrets, and the Borichenko family and Aleesha Seward will be able to build a wall of old cars around the place. The other refugees have various other jobs they can do with your scavenging assistance.
I haven’t done much with the free merchant faction itself. I do have some ideas for how to improve their dialogue and quests but I haven’t delved into it yet.
No faction stronger than the Old Guard or the Hell’s Raiders.
No cartoon evil or cartoon good factions - everyone is just trying to get by after the end of the world.
Factions can aid the player, but there should never be the sense of “why aren’t these guys taking over the world?”
Factions can provide unique benefits, like Robofac is planned for having the ability to perform full body cyborg conversions (though obviously the code isn’t there yet).
Factions that are opposed to the Old Guard and/or the Free Merchants without being “evil” are encouraged.
Factions or static NPCs that do the kind of things that players do (live in caves, in sewers, in fire house, etc) are encourage.
The suggested factions all pretty much fit those guidelines. But almost all of them are also pretty rudimentary and obvious sketches, so feel free to go where you want with them.
Sounds like you’ve got the turret idea covered with Jenny. How far out did you plan to put the outer car-wall? I doubt my plans will conflict with it, but it would be nice to confirm that.
I still haven’t entirely figured out if I can do it the way I want, and before I get to the refugees quests I plan to do the beggars, rebuild faction camp maps, and add NPC holdouts in roughly that order. So it will be a little while
