Fallout TV show and RPU update news

Fallout TV show

Many of you have probably already watched or planning to watch the new Fallout TV show. What I have to say about it:

• It's a faithful adaptation of Bethesda's vision/canon of Fallout.
• The show is pretty good, despite some nitpicks about the lore (who cares, anyway, it's Bethesda's canon).
• It's bringing in a LOT of players back into Fallout games... And as happened before with every major release, a tiny percentage of those players trickle down to play the original Fallout.

What to play?

So for anyone looking to scratch that classic Fallout itch, I have recommendations:

• If you want to experience the original story, that started it all, but don't want to deal with Fallout 1 QoL issues or bugs, play Fallout EtTu. It's a high quality unofficial patch/restoration/port of Fallout 1 into Fallout 2 engine. It has proper Fallout 1 world map, those blue caves, "tell me about" button, the whole package. But you also get to use the latest sfall (engine improvements) and various QoL mods that polish the game even further. I played it myself last year and it felt like it's not a mod at all, but an update of the old game from the alternate dimension, where Black Isle gets to support their games long after release...
• If you want to play Fallout 2 for the first time, use Unofficial Patch, Updated. No questionable content from fans, just good old bug fixes and polish.
• But if you have recent memories of the game and want something new, then look no further than Restoration Project, Updated. And then of course you can use EcCo here to improve your experience.

State of the EcCo mod

After hiatus that lasted many years, last year I've released updates 0.9.x with a lot of changes. New economy balance, new damage formula, new game mechanic tweaks, new weapons and traps, new crafting UI, etc. You can find full changelogs here.

Today I have released version 0.9.4. It is almost identical to 0.9.3 from last year, except I updated it for use with the latest release of RPU v29 with Pixote's Updated Maps.

Currently I consider the mod to be in a beta state, simply because I've set to do at least one full thorough playthrough after the big rebalance in 0.9. I'm currently about half-way through (trying to finish almost all side quests available to me) with my Big Guns glass-canon build. However, over the past half a year or so I've seen feedback on various platforms from players enjoying the current version of the mod. There doesn't seem to be any major game-breaking issues so far.

What's next

As always, as I play and read feedback, I have more ideas and plans for changes than time to implement them. But I will try to make sure the core features (like damage formula, economy balance, crafting) are working as intended and there's no huge balance issues.

Future plans (hopes..) are:

• Finish current playthrough, polishing and fixing stuff along the way.
• If able to, restructure how mod project is versioned and compiled, to allow for easier upstream updates as RPU continues to evolve (important, as mod is built on top of RP/RPU).
• Release 1.0 when I feel like I played enough with the mod and liked my experience.
• Continue to improve the game for years to come, as life allows me. 1.0 isn't intended to be the end, but the beginning of new chapter for the mod.
• Port/release the mod to other games on Fallout 2 engine, such as Nevada and Sonora. This will only include select game mechanic changes, obviously. Because 50% of the mod is specific to Fallout 2 content.
• Port the mod to Fallout 2: Community Edition. To be precise, the engine itself will have to be updated (sfall features written into it) to fully support RPU+EcCo.

Switching to Nexus

Because most Fallout-related modding activity surrounds Bethsoft games and happens on Nexus, and ModDb generally looking like it's still 2010, I'm considering moving the mod to NexusMods. Keeping so many platforms up to date on my mod is too much work (github, 2 forum sites, moddb...), so this place will have to be retired. Haven't decided about it yet.