Fallout 3

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llamaRCA

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llamaRCA

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About this mod

Charon Improved gives Charon more personality and greatly improves the experience of having Charon accompany the player in the Wasteland.

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Current Version: v1.2 Released 10/15/10

This mod is my attempt to improve the experience of having Charon accompany you through the Capital Wasteland. I've gone through the dialogue that his voice actor has done for the other ghoul characters in the game and have used as much as I could to expand Charon's dialogue. He has more Idle Chatter now and more dialogue with the player and will talk to Clover, Jericho and Sydney if they are also following you. He also comments to the occasional NPC in the game. There are two versions. One with his original appearance and one that changes him to have red hair and blue eyes. Each is a complete package so you only need to DL one or the other.

The Basics of Charon Improved:

The CTFTD (The Companion Tracking and Fast Travel Device) is my version of the radio that so many mods have. It isn't a radio, but works to find him and bring him back to you. It can remotely get him out of the Ninth Circle if he's been fired back to there, and as a benefit of that, can take him into Raven Rock and all of the DLCs. It is extremely useful during the game for retrieving him if he wanders off too far, or if you leave him somewhere and don't want to go back to get him. It will also "reset" him if he goes haywire and won't stop doing an action you've asked/ordered him to do. YOU REALLY WANT THIS. So if you activate the mod after hiring him definitely console it in to your game. THE CTFTD item number is XX001C57.

COMBAT STYLE Charon now always fights with his Ranged Weapon only. So, even if he's three feet from a target he will not use his melee weapon. This is his default Combat Style. He still unsheaths his Combat Knife when he is searching for enemies, but even if they appear while his knife is out and they are a few feet away he will put it away and use his ranged weapon. He does have a Combat choice now for using both types of weapons and will then fight using his melee weapon when he is up close to the target. That choice is made in the Tactics menu.

NOT ENGAGING IN COMBAT I've implemented a couple of forms of this. (1) There is an option to put him on a "Wait" where he will stay put in a location and not fight (Tactics Menu). He will try to hide if there is cover very close by. And (2) there is an option to tell him to follow while sneaking and do not engage in combat at all. This is effective all of the time.

FOLLOW He has five follow options. I've added a very short follow option. He's right on the player's tail and tends not to get lost/wander off as often , and two sneak options. The one in which he does not attack at all, and one in which he will attack only once the player has drawn her/his weapon or is in combat.

INDEPENDENT ACTION He has a Sandbox mode, in addition to Wait, but I've also added the ability for him to go off on his own in Megaton and Rivet City. The player has to retrieve him and it's all done in dialogue as a conversation. He will chose randomly from a couple of options what he is interested in doing when asked (including nothing). I've also added the ability to tell him to "take a load off" and find a place to relax. It's a way for you to tell him to find a piece of furniture (he'll use the one he is closest to), or what his AI will identify as furniture, and he'll plant himself there indefinitely (including sleeping if you ask him right next to a bed). Also you can tell him to sit down and have a drink in Moriarty's and The Muddy Rudder. Also, once you have gone to see Three Dog and have gotten the directive to go get the Virgo II Dish, a dialogue option will appear in his menu (where you can tell him to do other things) and you can tell him to go get the Dish for you in the Museum of Technology. He'll run off and return to you some time later with the Dish. It doesn't take him too long and you can watch his progress on your Pipboy map. You can give him a home marker and when left there he'll keep to an activity schedule. In RC, if you send him off to the Muddy Rudder and leave him there long enough, when you go to retrieve him he'll be drunk.

DIALOGUE There is more of it. He has more Idle Chatter when he's walking around. He initiates conversation with you occasionally. You can "earn" a friendly activity/conversation with him that you might discover depending on what you do with him. He talks to a few NPCs in the Wasteland here and there.

CHATTING WITH FELLOW COMPANIONS WHILE FOLLOWING: If you are interested in follower dialogue action I would recommend Sydney, Jericho and Clover as they are the ones I've made dialogue for; be sure to take Charon with you for the entire Stealing Independence Quest. DRG6520's Sydney mod works great with my mod as does ChromeHaster's Clover. What happens between Sydney and Charon isn't much, but was a brilliant idea provided by a fellow forumer at the Bethesda forums, and my tester, ghoulsrpeople2 . If you aren't getting any conversation between them try the following things. Make sure Charon isn't sneaking. He doesn't talk at all when he sneaks. Try calling him to you with the CTFTD. It resets his variables and should get him talking. And if that doesn't keep him talking put him at his longest following distance so he can see the other follower. The scripting requires he see him/her to engage in conversation.

There's more...
-There's the requisite dialogue option to toggle him ESSENTIAL/Unessential (Tactics Menu). His default is Essential. He will NOT die unless the player changes that.
-The PC can trade him for his "personal weapons"; his combat shotty and a new weapon that I've given him. When the PC talks to him about it in the trade menu there is also an option to return the weapon in the menu. This allows him to have unlimited ammo for the weapon even after the PC has removed it. You can also toggle his unlimited ammo on/off in this menu.
-He uses StealthBoys via dialogue. (If you put more than 1 StealthBoy in his inventory he will us them all at once so give them to him via the dialogue option in his Tactics Menu.)
-If you talk to him about it in dialogue he will agree to take a good Energy Weapon and learn to use it.
- There is a dialogue option that pops up when he is injured out of combat that allows the PC to tell him to use a stimpak, which he does, complete with idle animation.
-I've implemented a dialogue option for when he's off chasing enemies, which he has a terrible habit of doing. It calms him down. It doesn't work all the time. If he is too close to the action it just DOES NOT WORK. In order for it to work all the time I'd have to make him cower and flee which is not appropriate to his personality. I mean, he's chasing them down because he is so aggressive, to have him flee suddenly because I've said so makes no sense. If I could make him just walk off I would totally do it. So, I've left it in because sometimes it is really useful and works
-I've added Idle Animations to his Follow packages so that when the player has finished combat, for instance, and turns around and looks at Charon he isn't standing there like a cardboard cutout.
-I've increased his starting health and added a fix so that his weapons stay holstered at all times.
-Because he will sneak and follow at the same time, I made him a Head Wrap that works like the CSA. You will find it in the Ninth Circle after you’ve hired him.
-Charon will use stims during Combat if you talk to him about it in his Tactics menu. He needs stimpaks in his inventory for it to work and it only happens if he gets hurt enough; so if you've got him in PA you won't see it much. There is an issue with the animations for the stimming. Occasionally he will skewer himself with his weapon when he does the animation, or if he's using his combat shotgun, he may wear it like a hat. This problem is most sever when playing with FO3 Reanimated. It's not the usual occurrence, though, and seems to happen the most when fighting is really instense and he's doing a lot of things at once and trying to stim too. Also, you might not see the animation if there's too much going on in the scene at the time.

REQUIREMENTS Broken Steel is required to play this mod.

COMPATIBILITY/LOAD ORDER Charon is compatible with FWE. Charon isn't compatible with Phalanx (or FOOK then). He can't be used with mods that script him, like Companion Behaviour Overhaul and can't be used with SCC. I've played with Better Companions and 0hFollowersHireContinued and he is fine if CharonImproved is lower in the load order. If you play with Followers Relax you will need to put it after my mod for it to be effective with the vanilla followers and it will mess up Charon's wait.

CREDIT bethjunkie for giving me the most excellent idea of having Sydney be involved. Also thanks to Ultrajet for the idea of how to get Charon out of the Muddy Rudder once he's drunk. Thanks.

LICENSING/LEGAL If you want to use some part of this mod, please contact me first and if I don't respond within two weeks, please just give me credit.

CONTACT Please feel free to contact me here at Nexus.

ISSUES: 1. A couple of players have had issues with Charon when he is started up in the middle of an existing game. Go ahead and try playing the mod. If he's too buggy you may have to save the mod until you start a new game. Most problems seem to be due to deactivating a mod he is incompatible with in order to play the mod.
2. If you have Charon go and get the Virgo II Dish you might not want to wait for him in The Mall. The AI doesn't seem to be smart enough to avoid the trenches; or at least I've had bad luck with him getting stuck in there. I've had trouble even waiting inside Underworld. I haven't had problems elsewhere in DC or anywhere else in the gameworld yet.

3.There are permanent ERRORS in FO3Edit for this mod. They are harmless and will not cause crashing. You will see them as "Error: record PACK contains unexpected (or out of order) subrecord." There are a lot of them because I created a few packages for Charon to do some independent activity and FO3Edit is looking for some specific info in those packages that they DO NOT require to function properly so it spits out errors. You shouldn't see other types of errors in this mod because I clean it before release and check for errors myself and resolve anything that may come up.

OPTIONAL FILES
OUTFIT FOR CHARON This was released by tumbajamba on 9/2/10 as part of an esp that is incompatible with Charon Improved. tumbajamba gave me permission to do a release with just the outfit. Here is the link so you can see what it looks like. http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14425 The outfit and hat can be found in an ammo container next to the pedestal in the Ninth Circle where you hire Charon.

ESP FOR FOUR HUMAN VANILLA FOLLOWERS Since I'm including the ability for Charon to chat with Clover and Jericho on the player's travels it makes them a lot more fun to have around, but a lot of things about them in their vanilla state irritates me. I changed some of those things and am putting that esp up here to share.
This is an esp for players who DO NOT USE FWE FOLLOWERS ENHANCED. I use 0hFollowersHireContinued to get around the limit on number of followers hired and to avoid karma hassles.
I've made them all essential, starting HP raised, I made their clothing accessible, including Clover's collar, their melee weapons available and gave them each a sandbox package. I changed some of Jericho's dialogue; removed his karma related complaining and conditioned his cigarette comments so he won't complain if he has them in his inventory. I gave SPC a plasma rifle, Butch a Xuanlong equivalent and Clover a Lincoln's Repeater equivalent; all with infinitite ammo. I also gave Jericho some cigarettes in his initial inventory. I gave them their own CTFTD for calling them back from getting lost and being fired. They wouldn't all fit conveniently on Charon's. I also put a fix onto each of them that prevents them from "unholstering" their weapons all the time. Jericho won't be smoking his cigarettes through his weapon.