This patch makes the game more difficult by increasing the bonus hit points
(double) for all creatures, and giving all creatures 2 bonus action points.
Fallout 2 Very Difficult Mod 1.1
What it does
This patch makes the game more difficult by increasing the bonus hit points (double) for all creatures, and giving all creatures 2 bonus action points. As a reward for the more difficult fighting, the player gets 150% of the original experience points for each kill. In addition to this major change, the patch also does the following:
- Player starts wearing the vault jump suit
- Player starts with the pipboy
- Player starts with the Awareness perk
- Sulik, Vic, and Cassidy will wear vault jump suits if they join your party
- Party members received the HP and AP increases also
- Includes the random encounter booster patch.
Requirements
This patch is built from the US 1.02D version patch. It will not work with any other version (sorry). This patch actually includes everything in the 1.02d patch (PATCH000.DAT), plus a new rebuild of all of the maps, critter protos, and critter instances on the maps.
How to use
Copy the FO2VDIFF.DAT and FO2VDIFF.EXE to your Fallout2 directory. Click on the FO2VDIFF.EXE to run the game. Warning: Don't forget that you have to run the FO2VDIFF.EXE (NOT FALLOUT2.EXE!) each time you play the game with this patch. You may want to make a shortcut to FO2VDIFF.EXE on your
desktop so you don't forget.
For best results, it is recommended that you do a fresh install of the game before running this patch. If you don't want to do that, make sure that the following is done before playing:
1) Delete all save games from \Fallout2\Data
2) Delete everything from \Fallout2\Data except for the SOUND directory
3) If you have a \Fallout2\dev\proto directory, delete that too
The patch includes a replacemnt of ALL critter prototypes, instances of those critters on the maps, and a rebuild of all maps. It is therefore NOT compatible with old save games. Using this patch with other mods may cause bad results, its not recommended. Use this patch at your own risk. It does not modify the game, so if something screws up, just do a reinstall of Fallout 2.
Questions and Feedback
If you have questions or feedback, you can post them at NMA here:
Or you can send me an email to desolation@cogeco.ca
Please let me know if anything strange happens when you play this patch.
Credits
This patch uses Andy-Spacetrain's FO2LC (Fallout 2 Loader Creator) to patch the Fallout2 executable in memory before running the game. This is how the player gets the pipboy and vault suit, and also how the game loads the FO2VDIFF.DAT patch file. Andy's loader tool is here:
Modguide.nma-fallout.com
The means to update the critter prototypes was inspired by ColJack's Prototype Editing tutorial:
Coljack.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
The patch also includes the Encounter Booster modified worldmap.txt file created by Haris/Miran
Nma-fallout.com
Technical Info: How this was done
To create this patch, the following was done:
1) A directory was created to build the patch contents
2) The entire contents of the \maps directory from the Fallout2
master.dat was extracted into this patch directory
3) The 1.02D PATCH000.DAT was extracted into the patch directory,
overwriting some of the original maps.
4) The artemple.int script was modified to give the player the
awareness perk at the beginning of the game.
5) The fallout mapper tool was used to edit the critter prototypes
and increase the HP, AP, and EXP points. This replaced all of
the \proto\critters and all of the maps.
6) DAT Explorer was used to create a DAT file
7) FO2LC loader creator was used to build the executable FO2VDIFF.EXE
that patches the FALLOUT2.EXE and runs the game, enabling the
pipboy, changing the player appearance to vault suit, and loading
the FO2VDIFF.DAT patch file
Note: My first attempt to increase critter hit points was done using a prototype editor. I discovered that simply changing the protos does not work, because the critter instances are stored inside the map files. I found out (inspired by ColJack), that if I change the mapper2.cfg to include save_text_maps=1, the mapper saves both a normal .map file and a text version. I thought I would have to edit the text version of the maps to rebuild the critter instances (with new values), but it seems
that as long as save_text_maps=1 is configured, the saved .map DOES contain the updated proto values. To be clear, I edited the prototypes by selecting them on "critter" selector bar in the mapper, changed the EXP, HP, and AP for each critter. Then I had to open each map and save it (with the save_text_maps=1) enabled. It takes a long time to save maps this way. It appears that the mapper is frozen (not responding) but this isn't true, you just have to wait. Editing the protos this way
seems to work, as you can see with the awareness perk. The ants in the temple originally had 6 hit points, now they have 12. All critters were changed except for Horrigan, because I don't think its possible to go past 999 HP.
