FO2, combat spread, anyone?

[ufo_hunter]

Is there a way to make you and your NPC buddies begin combat in a little bit more spread out formation, especially in random encounters?

It is quite annoying when you begin a random encounter fight and all your NPCs are right next to you and each other. You know...marcus killing 1-2 of your NPCs with his minigun on the first turn...

Many robbers/riders/slavers/rangers/merchant+guards you meet in the wild are in a somekind of reasonable formation so would it be possible to do the same with PC and NPCs?

 

[Oracle]

Is there a way to make you and your NPC buddies begin combat in a little bit more spread out formation, especially in random encounters?

It is quite annoying when you begin a random encounter fight and all your NPCs are right next to you and each other. You know...marcus killing 1-2 of your NPCs with his minigun on the first turn...

Many robbers/riders/slavers/rangers/merchant+guards you meet in the wild are in a somekind of reasonable formation so would it be possible to do the same with PC and NPCs?

hey That's a pretty nice idea actually. Also alot of enemies have common formations too so those could use work aswell.

aditionally I would like to add (I also brought it up in the past) is to get more vararity in the encounters, making them bigger and smaller in numbers. and maybe more X vs Y encounters

Those two ideas blending together would make the random encounters more "random" doncha think

 

[Rev. Layle]

Can't you tell you NPCs to stand farther away from you when setting up their combat options? That's what I do.

 

[Kanhef]

Encounter data is stored in /data/worldmap.txt. Each enemy grouping has a 'position' setting (values are straight_line, double_line, wedge, cone, huddle, Surrounding), a 'spacing' for how far they are from each other, and optionally a 'distance' for how far they are from the player. There is no encounter group for the player, so this won't help with the party members.

There's a list of possible encounters for each map square. It's not too hard to change them or add new ones. Some possibilities: VC patrol fighting ghoul crazies. Deathclaws fighting Enclave patrol. Fire geckos fighting aliens and/or floaters (for amusement; both are weak to fire damage). NCR rangers fighting slavers.