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"Strafing Run" Project Overview

Engine: Creation Kit

Game: Fallout 4

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"Strafing Run" is a single player DLC mission for Fallout 4 in a pre-war fort. The quest involves the player joining the Minutemen in fighting off Super Mutants from an old Airbase, eventually manning a turret in a Vertibird against a Super Mutant Behemoth. The quest primarily encourages ranged gameplay, but there are also opportunities for melee and stealth combat as well as skills like lockpicking and hacking.

Design Goals

Clear Conveyance

Cinematic Combat

Efficient Scripting

I wanted the players to see where they needed to go at every stage of the quest even without using the quest objective markers.

I wanted the player to experience a really cool, exciting moment that they would not normally experience in Fallout 4 gameplay.

I wanted my scripting to be more efficient and less likely to break during play; mostly, I wanted it to be more centralized.

Clear Conveyance

  • I want the players to see what their objectives are as they play, even without using the objective markers. Doing this meant framing objectives, setting up contrasts of light and darkness or in colors, and using leading lines to draw the eye to goals.

  • A few times early on, I had too many potential objectives highlighted by framing and open lines of sight.

  • I placed items and decorations in the way of the lines of sight to either block them or create leading lines away from them.

DFS_Conveyance1.jpg
DFS_Conveyance3.jpg

Cinematic Combat

DFS_Combat.jpg

  • I wanted the player to experience an incredible moment of power by riding in a Vertibird and manning a minigun against a Super Mutant Behemoth. This required use of a scene, packages, and path nodes for the Vertibird to follow.

  • Several times, the Vertibird would go under the map during the scene, breaking the quest.

  • I realized that I had moved some of the path nodes but had not reset the links between them or the packages. Once doing so, the Vertibird flew where I wanted it to.

Efficient Scripting

  • I wanted to improve on my previous work by using fewer scripts and more efficient packages, so that they wouldn't break as often during play.

  • Some of the scripts I wrote did only a single thing, such as setting a quest stage, and wound up breaking the quest when pulling everything together in later milestones.

  • I went back over every actor in the quest and made sure that the scripts were as centralized as possible to the quest itself rather than spread out over disparate actors in the scene.

DFS_Scripting.png

Post Mortem

What Went Well?

  • Cinematic Combat wound up working well; it was a good wow moment.

  • Conveyance elements were effective - multiple techniques combined well.

What Went Wrong?

  • The Vertibird kept going under the ground, rendering the mission unfinishable.

  • Some of the quest stages advanced before they should have, which could break the combat section.​

What I Learned / How I Fixed It?

  • I had to reconnect the path nodes and packages for the Vertibird to fly correctly.

  • I removed scripts from individual actors and centralized them on the quest itself.

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