Okay, now to expand on gameplay. But first, did nobody notice the running gag with the cops' names? Let me know, because it's not supposed to be an extremely subtle joke.
As a quick note, I have SO little time before I need to sleep that I can outright say that this will be a scatterbrained rough draft of an overview rather than an actual overview and we'll get more done with me answering your questions tomorrow than in the initial overview tonight. So... Sorry, this is what I got.
Let's start with the basics. The mod has the same controls as Fallout 4, which I'm going to assume is like New Vegas. If it isn't, I'll change my plans to fit it. The areas outside the cities are a wide open sandbox, but the ruined cities are all metroidvania-type areas, mostly locked when you start but unlocked and expanded as you progress through them, and with multiple pathways opening up really quickly. They also tend to provide items in one section that are useful in other sections, such as providing you a stockpile of antivenom in one area, when another area in the same city has giant spiders. As a general rule, every pathway has something useful in another pathway in that city, and every pathway in a city has items useful for it in another pathway for you to find. And these city sections? They're, like, 90% of the point of playing the game. There's no central plot, instead each area has its own storyline, and the general idea of the game is to just keep making ends meet. And yes, you can get back into Everett eventually and go back to your old apartment, which doesn't have much but has the single best bed (which translates to the best healing while sleeping in it) in the game, you can't buy that for any other home, and it can have any upgrade you could purchase (though not all the ones inherently present) for any other residence.
The combat is rather less straightforward, as enemies get weaker as they get injured in a way that simply didn't happen in vanilla. When a character falls to or below half health, they slow down their movement and all actions to half speed, making them much weaker and more vulnerable as a result. Most NPCs have 20*CON health, so 20-200. You, due to being a tiny child, have 10*CON, so 10-100. Health recovers at a rate equal to your constitution per in-game day. Headshots deal double health damage, leg shots do half and arm shots do 1/4.
Enemies can also be killed with body damage if you aim properly and are prepared to hit them many more times. While crippling their arms only disables that arm (entirely, by the way, to the point where they cannot equip any weapons in it) and crippling their legs only slows them 50% (two legs slows them 75%), crippling their body or head causes instant death. Assuming them to be a medium sized NPC, they have 10 integrity on their arms, 20 on their legs, 30 on their head and 50 on their torso. (I do hope I can keep it constitution-independent. If not, then these values are for 5 CON.) Integrity recovers at a rate equal to constitution per in-game week.
Aim mode (VATS) works totally differently from the vanilla version. You can go into aim mode infinitely, there is no AP cost beyond that which you already consume attacking, so there's no limit. However, in aim mode you take double damage, and aim mode DOES NOT build the critical meter. Instead, the critical meter builds on its own at 5%/second. There's a series of perks to make it build faster, because of course there is, the last making it 25%/second and letting you crit every four seconds. However, taking increased damage in this mode means that it is ill-advised to use it all the time, instead you should reserve aim mode and the critical hits you can make in it to when it will not put you at much risk. As enemies don't have aim mode, their critical hits are random.
Instead of just dealing more damage, critical hits have a special effect. Puncture weapons inflict bleeding (note that bleed is affected by special resistance but NOT damage resistance), edged weapons inflict a weaker version of this effect, blunt weapons deal extra body damage, heat sets enemies on fire for extra damage over time, cold steals AP, electricity knocks enemies down, force causes slow bleeding for a long period of time. A single unmitigated critical hit from a 9mm would deal 160 bleed damage over ten seconds, enough to kill most enemies by itself.
As a quick note, most healing items restore very little and very slowly. You will not be popping thirty boxes of instant potatoes to full heal yourself. Also, food cannot be used in combat. As another quick note, in melee you should be blocking as much as possible as, like in vanilla, blocking stops all damage. Similarly, when faced with explosives you should crouch, which cuts damage in half.
Magic is a big deal in this game. All magic is sorted under either "weapon" or "aid" for the purposes of the game, depending on whether it's cast on others or on the caster. Each spell has a very small number of daily uses and most are relatively powerful. It takes an hour of rest to restore each individual spell. There are four kinds.
Nature magic costs 100 vitae to purchase each spell and takes 10 vitae per cast, is strengthened by charisma and has the "energy resistance", "energy barrier", "physical resistance", "physical barrier", "heal", "cure", "restore", "immunity", "vitriol", "vitriolic burst", "shout" and "sound burst" spells.
Next is divine magic, which costs 1000 vitae to purchase and costs 10 vitae and 100 morale when used, has its strength increased by resolve, and has the "providence", "doom", "sun ray", "sunburst", "divine grace", "comfort", "penance", "retribution", "wrath", "fear", "misery", "despair", "sin", "Hellfire", "Hel's Breath" and "summon" spells.
Next is arcane, which costs 1000 vitae to purchase and costs 10 vitae and 10 stamina when used, has its strength increased by perception and includes the "fire bolt", "fire ball", "heat ray", "heat wave", "freezing bolt", "snow ball", "cold ray", "cold snap", "lightning", "electrostatic field", "impact" and "blast".
Occult magic costs 10,000 vitae to purchase, costs 10 vitae and 10 health, cannot be strengthened by your attributes and includes the spells "magic missile", "disintegration", "wraith's gaze", "vampiric touch" and "reanimate" spells (and mastery is required for the occult enchantment, which is extremely valuable, as well as unlocking the single-use necromantic transformations). These are not complete spell lists, just what I can think of off the top of my head.
There should also be a lot of ritual spells, power-up spells and ritual power-up spells available, of course, but most of them I probably can't include in-game for technical reasons. (Doesn't mean I won't try, mind you.) Which is too bad, because ritual power-up spells were AWESOME. Things like the nature magic spell "Guardian Form", which allowed you to imitate the similar power the Guardians (minor deities, direct commanders of the celestials) have, doubling all of your attributes for a short period. Or alternately, the divine magic spell "Decoy", that summoned an illusory copy of you capable of dealing illusory damage, which you would control from a distance. (Note: Illusory damage is as real as you think it is.)
Despite the prolific nature of magic in the game, conventional weapons are not only not useless, but are actually extremely effective. A 9mm pistol can repeatedly fatally wound a target in a short time period from a considerable distance, and while plenty of enemies are supernaturally durable, this is handled as just extra armour, and if one weapon can't do it, a better better penetrating one might. However, ammo is scarce and expensive, and magic has its advantages, so there's a time and a place for everything.
Melee is also a big part of the mod. Melee weapons do somewhat more damage than ranged weapons, are capable of blocking, can stagger enemies and you can't use guns or spells all the time anyway. So truly, there isn't much reason not to at least keep a melee weapon handy.
Like in Fallout 4, you have a dog available. I can tell you right now that I will make it very much not effective in most combat. The starting dog is particularly useless in battle, dealing no damage and being terrible at holding enemies. On the plus side, they are suspiciously durable and if they die they will somehow manage to return to you in a few days. And this isn't the kind of game where those are just gameplay mechanics, I should note. Something is VERY wrong there. The dog remains with the injured child at all times until they receive their surgeries, and at that point will simply remain with whichever character you're not playing.
Despite the dog, the other child is your most important companion. They are more capable in combat (at least, provided they have weapons and you fix their wounds) and will offer an opinion (read: hints) on every quest in the game. You might also be able to switch to them at will if I can help it. They will also receive any major upgrades you do, and their attributes are synced to yours.
There's also a few transformations that can happen to you in game. You can become a vampire if you wish, which is a substantial power boost but makes you vulnerable to sunlight and makes it impossible to pass the health check to get into a city without cheating (and if you fail, they'll try to kill you because... well, you're a vampire). There's going to be others, but I'm not sure if I'll be allowing a celestial transformation or not.
You can pick up bonus perks during gameplay as well, similar to most Fallout games but also similar to Change. These are granted by completing sidequests, and the better you do the better the effect is.
Another important note is that weather conditions ARE a thing, and will be a huge thing. If it gets too cold, you will slowly begin taking cold damage (heavier apparel, especially non-metallic apparel, will help with this). Fog obscures vision and shortens detection range. If it begins to rain, you will be taking area of effect cold damage at a much higher rate, have fun with that. Hail will cause very minor bludgeon-typed damage in addition to rain's cold damage. Snow causes cold damage, and slows movement. Worst is freezing rain, which causes cold damage, bludgeon damage and slow movement. Freezing rain happens a lot in the winter here, and it IS winter in-game, so it will happen every so often. Weather conditions last for an entire day. The first day of the game will be cold, with fog.
And for one extremely important fact to remember is that firearms are attention grabbers and can easily make problems worse. There's the obvious issue of noise alerting enemies nearby, and even a suppressed pistol being by far louder than a melee weapon, but this also build a hidden "special encounter" meter. Enemy weapons ALSO build this meter, so enemies going loud can cause problems for both of you. This spawns encounters on set increments, and the higher it gets, the stronger the encounters becomes. This is especially bad at night, where enemies like the pale and wendigos are on the list. 1 spawns a pest, 10 spawns a minor enemy, 100 spawns a regular enemy, 1000 spawns a miniboss (NOT always a single enemy), 10,000 spawns a boss (also not always a single enemy) and at 100,000 it summons what either is or may as well be a vengeful deity. The counter resets daily. These encounters are not always hostile, making a lot of noise can actually bring help if you're in friendly territory.
An unsuppressed 9mm pistol is 90 per shot, where a 7.62 rifle is an uncontrollable 260 and a shotgun is 500 points of begging for trouble. Discharging that pistol will only draw a minor enemy, for instance firing it in the woods might draw a curious coyote that you will likely have no issue putting right down. Discharging the rifle or shotgun will draw a regular enemy, like firing it inside a city will bring a beat cop with a pistol. Summoning a miniboss would take only two shotgun blasts, four rifle shots or twelve pistol rounds, such as opening fire on somebody in the woods attracting a wendigo. And if you go so far overboard that you reach 100,000 (remember, that would take two hundred shotgun blasts in a single day, not likely) will usually bring a sentinel, and that is a fight you do NOT want.
Similarly, NPCs in this mod are jumpy as fuck. A character with their weapon drawn will frequently attack noises they can't identify the source of, especially if they have a gun. This goes double if they are in a fight, or were in a fight recently. If somebody who hasn't seen you just shot down a couple risen, DO NOT suddenly open a door next to them. That is how accidents happen, they will fire at the noise before they see it's a child on the other side of it.
The more threatening you are, the more perceptive somebody will have to be to *not* shoot at you the moment they detect you. You are more threatening when standing than crouching, more threatening with your weapon out than with it away, more threatening with a weapon equipped than with your bare hands equipped, more threatening with a larger weapon than a smaller one, more threatening the faster you are moving and more threatening the closer you are to them. If somebody has a gun in their hands and you come barrelling around a corner right next to them with a sledgehammer, they will not take the time to identify you before they pull the trigger, even if they have very high perception. They will only fire very briefly, unless they would have been hostile anyway, but that can easily be enough.
