DO NOT USE THIS MOD WITHOUT READING THE SECTION MARKED "IMPORTANT" FIRST

Overview

Freeside Open is an attempt to overhaul and restore the Freeside worldspace in Fallout: New Vegas to what was the developer's original intent; a sprawling, densely populated area full of danger and unexpected events. It's clear from even a cursory look at the game's files that the Freeside worldspace(s) in the shipped game is nowhere near as interesting as the original plan for the area, with huge amounts of content culled, and numerous bugs and oversights meaning large parts of content that did ship and were enabled simply don't work. The reason for the drastic downsizing of Freeside and the curbing of ambition of what would occur there is simple - technical difficulties. A fully populated Freeside will cause even mid range PCs to struggle at times, and the extra strain on the notoriously unstable Gamebryo engine increases the likelihood of crashes. Couple this with having to work on increasingly dated game console hardware, and there was no way what was planned was going to be feasible.

This mod, heavily based on Razorwire's excellent modders resource Open Freeside (http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/45030) merges the two different worldspaces back into one single worldspace, and also makes the Mormon fort part of the same persistant area as was originally intended. It also extensively overhauls the area, readding the significant cut content, fixing many of the glaring bugs in the area, and adding new original elements to make the town more interesting.
These enhancements come at a cost - this mod is vastly more demanding than the neutered vanilla version of the area, but I feel the possible instability is more than balanced out by a hugely more interesting and invigorated area.

Mod Features Include:

- Freeside is now one coherent world space. NPCs can now go everywhere in the city with obvious dramatic improvements to gameplay/immersion.

- Restored: Gamblers will now constantly stream into Freeside on their way to the Strip and its casinos (some will also stop off at the Atomic Wrangler) as they were always meant to. They are of course easy picking for thugs or even the player, so some have hired bodyguards to protect them.

- More bodyguards. Now the Gamblers are restored these characters actually make sense again. They will hawk their services to passing Gamblers and the player. With the increased danger of thugs in this mod they may also be a viable option for low level players.

- Restored around 100 lines of dialogue. All the lines of dialogue for locals were broken due to missing faction conditions. These are restored, along with dialogue for drunks, squatters, gossipers, and pickpockets. These characters were either removed, or had their dialogue conditions completely botched.

- New kinds of NPCs. Freeside is supposed to be verging on civil war due to the tension between the huge numbers of NCR squatters that have settled in the area and worried locals. In the Vanilla game there are NO squatters on the streets at all. Now there are around twenty, with the three main squatter camps restored, as well as two more camps that were obviously intended to be next to the strip gate. There are also a lot more locals who have much to say for themselves. Furthermore, there are also now Local gossips, a subset of Locals, who have amusing takes on current events sprinkled in with their dialogue. They have a random chance of spawning instead of a regular local, but there are also pairs of pre-placed ones around talking. Ghouls now make up some of the local people - there were full voice recordings for both male and female ghouls who lived in the area, but their references were never created. You will also find drunks staggering about the place puking up and begging for caps. These now have the correct drunk faction applied so they stagger appropriately.

- Squatters will occasionally try and rush the strip gates to get in, with predictable consequences. These are now correctly randomised from the pool Obsidian setup but never used. The first rusher you see when you talk to Old Ben will also be randomised now, instead of the weird looking pasty man it wrongly spawned.

- Restored cut scenes and quests. Rotface's previously cut quest can now be completed, and some existing quests have new ways to resolve them. Some important NPCs now also have restored dialogue and new roles to play in the game.

- Warning! Pickpockets operate in this area. Check your valuables!

What's New

V 0.7


- Freeside's lights will now stay on all night if you route power here during 'That Lucky Old Sun'. I've also tweaked the thug code so that this will also lesson the chance of thugs spawning at night time if you do this as a more concrete reward (muggers prefer darkness!)

- Added debug options. These can be accessed from the new computer console found outside Freeside's East Gate.

Debug Menu options are as follows:
Disable (and re-enable) the pickpocket
Disable all random travellers heading to the strip. (The significance of this is that the triggers used to spawn them may cause significant slowdown and stuttering on some computers, and I believe they may also be linked to crashes in the area due to their memory usage. This option turns them off entirely, which may improve performance for some players. Gate rushing NPCs and some random Kings/locals will also be disabled by this option)
Change number of rat chasing children. This cycles between 1 - 3.
Enable Securitron Trigger - There is seemingly a bug with the Securitron gate aggro trigger that causes it to stop working in some games. I've had some success re-enabling the trigger (confusingly there are two of them in the game) to get it working again. Use this if you end up with squatters standing in the gate area and not getting shot.
Reset Securitron Trigger - as above, only this resets all the variables to do with the above trigger. Try this if the above does not fix.

By Default the new computer console is disabled. To enable it just download and install the optional add-on file 'Freeside Open Debug Enabler' This will make it appear. If you don't want the console anymore, just bring up the in-game console (~ key), click on the debug console object, and type in 'disable'.

- Probably a few very minor bugs I can't remember fixed.

Installation

Simply extract all files from this archive to your FalloutNV/Data/ directory. Enable the file FreesideOpenPatch.esp in either the game loader's data file option, or preferably Fallout Mod Manager. If you're using a mod that changes the FreesideWorld area (e.g. NVInteriors), put FreesideOpen.esm BEFORE that mod (which is to say, give it a lower mod index number). In general however, FreesideOpen.esm should be the LAST .esm loaded if possible (which is to say it should have the highest mod index of any .esm file). Mods that change FreesideNorthWorld or FreesideFortWorld will NOT work with this mod, sorry.

To avoid other mods breaking this one, ensure FreesideOpenPatch.esp is at the end of your load order after any other mods (which is to say, ensure it has a higher mod index number than any other).

IMPORTANT

Although there is provision to install and enjoy this mod at any point in the game, it is HIGHLY recommended you do so only from completely new games. Using this mod on a game in progress WILL have negative effects, varying from missing fluff NPCs (e.g. the sleeping gamblers in the Mormon Fort) to potentially more serious effects. Using the mod on a game in progress is completely unsupported.

This mod also CANNOT currently be uninstalled from a saved game that uses it. If you save the game, remove the mod, and then go back to a game that was saved with this mod enabled, strange things will happen, mainly important NPCs will be missing. Think carefully before committing to a long term new game with this mod.

Do Not use this mod wth the mods New Vegas Uncut 1: Rotface to Riches, New Vegas Uncut 3: A Van Graff Scorned, or New Vegas Uncut 7: Pacers Gambit, as these three mods are ALREADY integrated into this mod. using the old versions will break those quests.

It is MANDATORY you use this mod with a 4GB address space enabler patch. You WILL get frequent crashes without (and sadly probably a few even with..).


Known Issues/Bugs

- The extra stress this mod puts on the engine may lead to more crashes/game instability.

- Some of the new fluff NPCs may get stuck at their destinations instead of disappearing.

- Due to the way the game engine handles placeatme items, some NPCs will immediately appear/disappear rather than fade in and out as if transitioning.

- The Rotface tip count vanilla game bug/oversight still exists in this mod. This occurs if you use this mod on a game already in progress and have bought at least one tip off Rotface. If you have bought more than ten tips from Rotface before using the mod his quest will unfortunately be broken, but if you have spoken to him and bought FEWER than ten tips you can fix his quest by downloading the optional "count fix" add on from the New Vegas Uncut 1: Rotface to Riches mod.

- The dead courier in the quest 'I Could make you care' won't appear on games already in progress before installing this mod. If you go to where his body should be (the wrecked building opposite Mick & Ralph's) you will still hit the triggers that complete the quest.

Version History

V 0.61

- Gave Grecks a sandbox package so he will no longer just stand on the spot, and will return to the correct area if he gets into combat.

- Redid some ESM changes to hopefully stop some crashes.

V 0.6

- Redid parts of the Pickpocket's behaviour code so they should no longer long range pickpocket, nor stand still in the street after stealing.

- Changed dialogue conditions for Emily's cut greeting once she returns to the Mormon Fort. This will let you talk to her again normally if you are using my Outside Bets mod (this content is impossible to see in the vanilla game).

- Worked around bizarre problem where people leaving the Silver Rush instantly teleport inside a wall by the Kings School. This still isn't ideal.

- Kings gang members will now respawn if they are killed. This should stop them getting whittled down by the increased number of thugs.

- You will no longer lose karma for pickpocketing your caps back off a pickpocket. Note this will NOT take effect immediately if you already have a pickpocket character active in your game. You will have to kill them and let them respawn to have a correctly aligned new pickpocket NPC spawn.

- Cleaned up ESM to remove some old legacy stuff from Razowire's mod. Hopefully should improve compatibility and reduce some rare crashes.

- Fixed vanilla game bug where the Kings reputation guy would always spawn instead of only two days after his last appearance.

- Some Rotface changes/fixes. Some of these came from AncestralGhost:

- Rotface should now always charge the correct number of caps for info regardless of dialogue path taken

- The correct number of caps should now be checked every time the player buys info now (previously it was possible to buy info you couldn't actually afford)

- Rotface now has a .44 Magnum handgun rather than a 9mm pistol.

- Some fixes/improvements to the killer sequence.

- Optimised Rotface's dialogue tree, removing the need for an extra external voice sample.


V 0.5

- Fixed vanilla game oversight that let anyone trigger the granny gang wild wasteland encounter instead of just the player (before there were no NPCs there to do it!).

- Random traveller bodyguards will now start combat with the player if their customers are hurt by the player.

- Smoothed over the ugly lump in the road where the bus door used to be.

- Re-enabled the inexplicably disabled smoke trails on half the burning barrels in the area.

- Resized The King's Suite open door trigger. Should work a bit better now (e.g. if the player is not in interior when he moves there).

- Pickpocket voices! These characters now have full dialogue thanks to some very talented voice actors. As such they can now also be "activated", which to those not in the know means you talk to them (whereupon they will tell you to get lost), and more importantly they can now be pickpocketed back.

- Made some more improvements to Rotface.

- Once G.I. Blues is complete, the Ruined Store in Freeside will now be empty of food items as script notes show these are supposed to have been seized by the Kings.


V 0.4

- Readded the cut fourth granny gang member.

- Fixed bug where the Pickpocket could steal from the player when dead.

- Fixed bug that caused "zombie" pickpockets.

- Pickpockets will now ignore the player if the player has hired a bodyguard, has a very bad Freeside rep (inline with thugs ignoring the player), or is an honorary King.

- Ported over a couple of Rotface fixes.

- Changed how Van Graff extra door guard is setup - will actually work now..

- Uncommented vanilla lines on alley thug script to make extra thugs attack if the player just shoots them before triggering the trap proper.

- Map optimisations: added a great number of occlusion planes to applicable areas, and hid the contents of the Mormon Fort using multibounds. This should hopefully result in greater frame rates/overall performance.

- Cleaned up dirty edits in mod files.

V0.3

- Fixed vanilla game navmesh issue in the King's school that meant the King and groupies scene would not play properly if the king was already in his suite when the player entered the building. This also means the Redhead groupie now sandboxes properly unlike in the vanilla game.

- Added new AI package for Rex during the above scene to make it less creepy if he is still around.

- Fixed bug with being unable to talk to Beatrix about working at the Atomic Wrangler during Wang Dang Atomic Tango quest.

- Overhauled the pickpocket to hopefully fix behaviour once and for all.

- Prevented Pickpocket from stealing if the player waits in Freeside.

- The Pickpocket will now steal from the player again when they next enter Freeside if they did not catch and kill them previously.

- Added Grecks, Santiago, and NCR Missionaries to fix script for late game usage.

- Added code to move VMS49 dead Courier if the mod is used on a game already in progress, but for complex reasons this still doesn't work properly. The marker should point to the right place now though, and the quest should still be totally finishable.

- Added clean up code for Freeside thugs to stop their increased number from reducing frame rate/increasing save size.

- Added a few new patroling NPCs.

- The Silver Rush will now have a second guard on the door one day after Gloria tells the player she has a replacement.

- Tweaked navmesh so travellers should no longer get stuck walking against the concrete blocks on the main drag.


V0.2
- Restored cut scene involving The King and his groupies if the player enters his bedroom while he is sitting there.

- Pickpocket fixes. Should no longer be able to long range pickpocket, and stopped from entering buildings if the player waits in one.

- Re-enabled all disabled Kings in King's School.

- Re-enabled all rat-chasing children.

- Fixed dialogue on the gamblers with the "Tourist" name.

- Gave Dixon and his thugs ammo for their guns. They still don't use them however, as their combat knives have better DPS.

- Added extra condition to one of the King's groupies dialogue lines so she won't complain he isn't there when he is in the room with her.

V0.1

- First Release

- Restored all incoming random NPCs - Gamblers, rushers, bodyguards, etc.

- Readded squatters and sorted out dialogues for locals etc.

- Re-enabled all disabled vanilla game NPCs in Freeside save the rat chasing children.

- Removed NPCs from random NPC pools if they lacked correct voice type for that role. Particularly drunks are affected - if you are playing from an old game these will have already been set premod, so some can have no voiced lines and deliver the dreaded "what do you need?" instead of correct dialogue. You can fix this by killing them and waiting for them to respawn on cell reset.

- Moved bodyguards from East gate to North gate. The second bodyguard will spawn once Orris is dead and the scene with his customer plays, and the third bodyguard will randomly change between two others when the player enters Freeside.

- Added a cooldown timer on bodyguard touting lines.

- Readded random Local/squatter NPCs who leave Freeside.

- Added new random NPCs, including Gamblers leaving the Atomic Wrangler for the Strip, and Kings coming and going from the Wrangler.

- Restored Orris customer extra scene if Orris is peacefully exposed in G.I Blues.

- The squatters in the ruined shop now queue up for goods and leave instead of standing around.

- Renamed the "Freeside ruined house key" to "Freeside ruined shop key".

- Fixed wrongly sized room bound in the Silver Rush that made the bomb debris invisible.

- You can now directly ask the King to help you gain access to the Strip if prior to meeting him you have heard he has the power to do so either by asking Ralph about his services, or by hearing the rumour from Rotface.

- You can now ask Pacer about himself and Freeside. This option becomes available once he sits down next to the King after the player has exposed Orris and thus proven themself to the Kings.

- Restored extra scene with Pacer during King's Gambit if the player asks for Hsu's help. It is now possible to talk Pacer down once he attempts a coup.

- Once the Kings are wiped out, there will no longer be any Kings gang members patrolling the streets.

- Prevented Kings good reputation benefit guy from appearing if the player has a good reputation but has wiped out the Kings gang.

- Sergio is now a member of the Kings gang (!).

- New Vegas Uncut: Rotface to Riches integrated in this mod.

- New Vegas Uncut: A Van Graf Scorned integrated in this mod.

- Alley ambush now involves five thugs as originally intended. New code prevents thugs backing down once a tipping point is reached.

- Readded Dixon's Thugs and gave more appropriate AI packages.

- Gate rushers randomly draw from the pool of predetermined NPCs properly now. They also now have clean up scripts to stop saved game bloat, and also to stop the gate area looking like some horrific mass grave.

- Increased thug spawns. A minimum of two thugs will always be spawned now instead of one. It now makes sense why the Kings are so well regarded.

- Fixed VMS49 Max barks.

Reporting Bugs

Please post bugs in the Freeside Open discussion topic on the Nexus forums. Please note that little attention will be spent on fixing bugs that occur from using the mod halfway through a game underway, or from upgrading from a previous version of Freeside Open. You should ideally use this mod only on a new game.


Credits

Mod by MoBurma
Based on the Open Freeside modders resource by Razorwire
A few errors/missing content brought to my attention by Bnxus and his NPC Project - Freeside mod