Fallout 4: How it should've been.

[RogueMatriarch]

I've been making general weapon tweaks today, adjusting fire rates, melee speed and stagger, etc. Among these tweaks are the renaming of Pipe Weapons to Makeshift Weapons (finally) and there change to .32 ACP. With the exception of the Revolver, which can be upgraded to fire .38 ACP and perhaps .45 ACP too, none of the Makeshift weapons will be able to fire a caliber higher than .32 ACP. However, they can be converted to .22LR for increased ammo capacity but decreased damage. As previously stated, Makeshift firearms are getting a debuff because they're far more useful than they actually should be. None of them will be able to fire full-auto and will be generally inferior to pretty much any manufactured gun you can find in-game with Project Phoenix.

 

Tomorrow, I'll post a more comprehensive update about the change I've made. Until then, see you guys then!

[Zaklex55]

The biggest drawbacks to this mod that I can see are the following: changing of the vanilla games ID's for weapons, armor, etc.,. Granted, it's ambitious and sounds wonderful, but when you're in alternate universe/timeline there's no reason to have weapons/ammo named after real world counterparts or even disbelieve that pipe weapons could be durable and automatic(of course, this would be more believable if they didn't break down into steel, but some other material that we've never heard of, say a pipe made of titanium). The changes to PA, it's already stated in game that T-60 PA was prevalent as that is what the military units controlling the riots had. Hopefully you take this as just a comment and not a criticism of your work, I do have to say you're taking on a lot...it's just something that doesn't sound like it would appeal to me personally, but then again, not everything does. Good luck with the project.

 

P.S...what I'd really like to do, and I do plan on tackling it when I can double my HD/SSD space is to rewrite the ending(s) with the destruction of the Institute...there's no way in hell I'd blow up that reactor, but I certainly might destroy the Synth making process.

[RogueMatriarch]

Sorry for the silence, everyone, but Steam kept making Fallout 4 unplayable (and thus unmoddable) which got me miffed and ended up doing other things instead. However, now that the issue has been solved progress has resumed!

 

No major breakthroughs or changes quite yet as I'm still hard at work adding new ammo subtypes and figuring out how to make it so weapons can use different ammo types. At the moment, I'm looking into how the Syringer operates and seeing if I can mimic that with other weapons. It's proving to be a bit tricky due to Bethesda's horrible naming system and the organization of the GECK (a constant source of irritation in itself as I'm having to pretty much rename everything so I can find it easier) but I think it won't take long to figure out.

 

However, let's talk about something else: future features! Here's some of the things I have planned currently:

• New crafting materials! Wooden panels and boards, metal piping, duct tape ( as in not breaking it down to make adhesive), aircraft-grade aluminum, and various others will go a long ways to making your crafting experiences more enjoyable and immersive as well.
• Craftable weapons! Yes, now you can build Gamma Guns, Syringers, Junk Jets, Broadsiders, Shishkabobs, and more provided you have the proper know-how along with the schematics. Some schematics you can buy or find, while others may require you to actually disassemble them in order to acquire said schematics. Various perks will be needed for either process, some brand-new, along with a Crafting Workbench.
• New and Expired Chems! Chems from previous titles will be brought back so you can fill yourself with even more chemicals, though Expired variants will be less potent and worth less as well. After all, medicine does weaken as it ages but not by a whole lot so that Expired Stimpack could still save your life!
• Injectables! Haven't quite figured out how these would work from a technical standpoint, but basically you can take nearly any kind of chem and inject it into your potentially-unaware target. Think of them as a point-blank Syringer that allows you to knock-out, poison, or paralyze them.
• Live Dismemberment! This one is obviously inspired by the mod of the same name which recently gained attention on the Nexus. Basically, crippling limbs have a chance for them to be dismembered without killing the one who just lost said limbs. I'm going to poke around the mod and see how it works, though I believe Ghouls already have this applied to them by default so it shouldn't be too hard to make it apply to all entities (including the player).
• Quick Trade! Another idea taken from a mod that's gotten popular on the Nexus, this would allow you to trade with merchants and companions with a touch of a key so you don't have to deal with annoying dialogue. If possible, the Companion Wheel will have this incorporated so you can either talk to them or just open up the wheel to do whatever it is you need with said companion.
• Sensible Crafting Requirements! Adhesive doesn't belong anywhere near a gun or armor, much less inside its components so many recipes won't require it anymore. This should making crafting much easier and more enjoyable as well. However, that's not all! Visible materials will be incorporated into the crafting recipe while nonsensical or illogical ones will be removed entirely. (I'm looking at you .44 Revolver receiver mods, using Crystal of all things to make.)
• Energy Ammo Charges! Instead of depleting one Microfusion Cell per shot, each Microfusion Cell will provide enough power for X amount of shots depending on energy consumption. This is similar to how the Fusion Cores operate for the Gatling Laser and should make using Energy Weapons much more viable as you're not eating ammo like a forever-hungry scavenger.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Mavrickhunter2

[dainsgames]

The biggest drawbacks to this mod that I can see are the following: changing of the vanilla games ID's for weapons, armor, etc.,. Granted, it's ambitious and sounds wonderful, but when you're in alternate universe/timeline there's no reason to have weapons/ammo named after real world counterparts or even disbelieve that pipe weapons could be durable and automatic(of course, this would be more believable if they didn't break down into steel, but some other material that we've never heard of, say a pipe made of titanium). The changes to PA, it's already stated in game that T-60 PA was prevalent as that is what the military units controlling the riots had. Hopefully you take this as just a comment and not a criticism of your work, I do have to say you're taking on a lot...it's just something that doesn't sound like it would appeal to me personally, but then again, not everything does. Good luck with the project.

 

P.S...what I'd really like to do, and I do plan on tackling it when I can double my HD/SSD space is to rewrite the ending(s) with the destruction of the Institute...there's no way in hell I'd blow up that reactor, but I certainly might destroy the Synth making process.

 

Just a comment on this, everyone enjoys what they like and have their reasons. Mine are different from yours in that the whole alternate universe etc. "I should just believe it" thing just doesn't work for me, when what's presented is supposedly based on facts we know today. Supermutants? No problem, that's science fantasy. High-powered pipe weapons? ....no effing way, it takes actual metallurgical knowledge combined with engineering and manufacturing to make a LOW-power gun that doesn't blow up in your face.

 

One of the biggest problems is that this is just not necessary. There is a steelworks facility IN THE GAME, and that means the capacity to produce high-quality receiver and barrel blanks exists. Why not simply work that in as a necessity for the improvised weapons?

 

Also, why do pipe guns have to be competitive with actual high-powered guns made with vastly superior technology? Why aren't these improvised weapons filling the exact role they would in that situation - emergency defense weapons for people who don't have access to better, or thug weapons used to terrorize helpless victims by criminals whos lawless status prevents them from getting better (unless they steal them)? This works perfectly as you will absolutely get access to manufactured weapons fairly soon, and good ones at that.

 

The answers lie in the mindset of the makers of the game. IMO, they were focusing on all the rest of the work. As far as items and loot, they just piled in a bunch of stuff and said "eh, that's enough work, making the weapons / loot make sense isn't worth the extra effort". One mod maker even describes the loot system as "phoned in" and lacking the data necessary to put loot where it makes sense, so we're stuck with getting forks and knives out of filing cabinets (uggh).

 

To sum up, this is why I support mods like this. I am trying to enjoy the adventure, but the more immersion-breakers are thrown at me, the less I enjoy it. So the more of those that can be fixed, the more I'll enjoy the game.

[RogueMatriarch]

 

One of the biggest problems is that this is just not necessary. There is a steelworks facility IN THE GAME, and that means the capacity to produce high-quality receiver and barrel blanks exists. Why not simply work that in as a necessity for the improvised weapons?

Also, why do pipe guns have to be competitive with actual high-powered guns made with vastly superior technology? Why aren't these improvised weapons filling the exact role they would in that situation - emergency defense weapons for people who don't have access to better, or thug weapons used to terrorize helpless victims by criminals whos lawless status prevents them from getting better (unless they steal them)? This works perfectly as you will absolutely get access to manufactured weapons fairly soon, and good ones at that.

 

The answers lie in the mindset of the makers of the game. IMO, they were focusing on all the rest of the work. As far as items and loot, they just piled in a bunch of stuff and said "eh, that's enough work, making the weapons / loot make sense isn't worth the extra effort". One mod maker even describes the loot system as "phoned in" and lacking the data necessary to put loot where it makes sense, so we're stuck with getting forks and knives out of filing cabinets (uggh).

 

To sum up, this is why I support mods like this. I am trying to enjoy the adventure, but the more immersion-breakers are thrown at me, the less I enjoy it. So the more of those that can be fixed, the more I'll enjoy the game.

 

 

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one whose experiences in Fallout 4 have been ruined or at least crippled by Bethesda's half-baked loot system and rather-crappy weapons, the sheer ridiculousness of the Pipe Weapons aside.

 

With the upcoming Nuka World DLC and the ability to join Raider factions, along with invading settlements, it would be interested to see if I could find a way to incorporate Sagus Ironworks into the crafting system as you could use it to manufacture parts for weapons, armor, and potentially more as well.

 

Going back to the Pipe Weapons and nonsensical loot lists, I've made some minor progress with the former and the last is soon to happen once I uniformly edit the in-game weapons. This means redoing the crafting recipies, with HC mode getting its own variants, the effects and stats of the mods, the weapon stats themselves, the various ammo types that will be available for it, and the aim models for said weapons.

 

So far, I've heavily-edited the Deliverer (made a non-unique variant of it), the 10mm Pistol, the Gauss Rifle, and the Gatling Laser. I'm current working on the Flamer and figuring out how the various ammo types (Napalm, Flamer Fuel, and the different sizes) would be switched between.

 

Progress is slow but steady at least. Doing my best to work at least an hour-to-two-hours a day. Once I'm satisfied with the changes I've made and made sure they function properly, I may publish the first iteration of Project Phoenix by the end of the year.

 

Oh, and quick thing I wanted to add: I've figured out how to make units of Energy Weapon ammo fire more than one shot before reloading! This means your Gauss Rifle, Plasma, Laser and Flamer weapons will be a lot more useful in terms of how many shots you can get off before needing to reload.

[Zaklex55]

 

The biggest drawbacks to this mod that I can see are the following: changing of the vanilla games ID's for weapons, armor, etc.,. Granted, it's ambitious and sounds wonderful, but when you're in alternate universe/timeline there's no reason to have weapons/ammo named after real world counterparts or even disbelieve that pipe weapons could be durable and automatic(of course, this would be more believable if they didn't break down into steel, but some other material that we've never heard of, say a pipe made of titanium). The changes to PA, it's already stated in game that T-60 PA was prevalent as that is what the military units controlling the riots had. Hopefully you take this as just a comment and not a criticism of your work, I do have to say you're taking on a lot...it's just something that doesn't sound like it would appeal to me personally, but then again, not everything does(nor should it). Good luck with the project.

 

P.S...what I'd really like to do, and I do plan on tackling it when I can double my HD/SSD space is to rewrite the ending(s) with the destruction of the Institute...there's no way in hell I'd blow up that reactor, but I certainly might destroy the Synth making process.

 

Just a comment on this, everyone enjoys what they like and have their reasons. Mine are different from yours in that the whole alternate universe etc. "I should just believe it" thing just doesn't work for me, when what's presented is supposedly based on facts we know today. Supermutants? No problem, that's science fantasy. High-powered pipe weapons? ....no effing way, it takes actual metallurgical knowledge combined with engineering and manufacturing to make a LOW-power gun that doesn't blow up in your face.

 

One of the biggest problems is that this is just not necessary. There is a steelworks facility IN THE GAME, and that means the capacity to produce high-quality receiver and barrel blanks exists. Why not simply work that in as a necessity for the improvised weapons?

 

Also, why do pipe guns have to be competitive with actual high-powered guns made with vastly superior technology? Why aren't these improvised weapons filling the exact role they would in that situation - emergency defense weapons for people who don't have access to better, or thug weapons used to terrorize helpless victims by criminals whos lawless status prevents them from getting better (unless they steal them)? This works perfectly as you will absolutely get access to manufactured weapons fairly soon, and good ones at that.

 

The answers lie in the mindset of the makers of the game. IMO, they were focusing on all the rest of the work. As far as items and loot, they just piled in a bunch of stuff and said "eh, that's enough work, making the weapons / loot make sense isn't worth the extra effort". One mod maker even describes the loot system as "phoned in" and lacking the data necessary to put loot where it makes sense, so we're stuck with getting forks and knives out of filing cabinets (uggh).

 

To sum up, this is why I support mods like this. I am trying to enjoy the adventure, but the more immersion-breakers are thrown at me, the less I enjoy it. So the more of those that can be fixed, the more I'll enjoy the game.

 

I get it, and I said as much in my original post, but I don't think anything presented in the Fallout world is based on facts we know today...just look at the environment itself, if it was based on facts we know today the surrounding land would be lush and overrun with wild life(and not necessarily mutated wild life at that).

 

As for the loot system...since when has any game had a loot system that made any sense? I've yet to play one that makes complete sense as to what gets dropped by enemies or you find in containers. Finding forks and knives in filing cabinets is actually not far fetched at all...have you ever looked in a filing cabinet? I can guarantee I've seen stranger things than forks and knives in filing cabinets before, usually left by someone that got distracted and forgot what they had with them, but again, that's a personal like/dislike and I've not trying to say my way or your way is better, just that it's not impossible.

 

Ah, Saugus Iron Works...that place has perplexed me since I first ran into it...you've got a complete working mini-mill in the Commonwealth, and who controls it...Raiders. I would think that by now(in-game time) someone(or a bunch of people) would have taken out the Raiders and tried to get the mill back up an running, even if in a rudimentary way. I don't think you'd be able to forge precision parts for weapons, as most of the old world way of working things has been lost, but you could forge basic components. Personally that's what I want to do with the asset, if not make another mill in another location that's working producing basic materials to build better and stronger settlements, the same with Echo Lake Lumber in Far Harbor...the only thing missing is a way to produce cement, and that's not so hard when all you need to do is crush the existing concrete rubble and mix it with new sand and water(that's how they do it today and I'm sure it would happen by accident with heavy rains and crushed cement laying around). Then you'd have the building blocks of decent settlements.

 

As for the pipe weapons, I've never considered them to be anything but emergency use items(I actually never use them in game myself though), and I've never seen them as being that extremely over powered or dangerous, at least not that I've noticed, but then I don't really pay that much attention to how effective they are when I'm just trying to defend myself and have to kill first or be killed.

 

I think it's great this person is taking on this much work and I did wish him luck, but we all are entitled to our opinions...your's is just as valid as mine and as valid as someone else's but that's no reason we can't have civil discussions about it.

[tartarsauce2]

the loot system in fallout 4 is pretty crazy lol
fixing that's gonna require more OCD than fixing the armour/damage system lol!

I've already asked the guy who made horizon: survival something or other (another overhaul) but, if you find it hard to balance power armour as per vanilla, what you could do is do what you can, and then make an optional patch for unnaked power armour mod users where the PA pieces themselves mostly are just adding a little bit of DR/ER and the upgrades mostly just add extra durability with a tiny bit of DR/ER per upgrade (really small amounts here)
the reason for this is because unnaked makes it so that when wearing PA, your normal armour values also count towards your score/armor values, so that when you're wearing it, it's just an extra flat boost, and then it's not OP, and the fusion cores are justified in being reasonably easy to get ahold of (even if they're nerfed a bit)
it helps avoid the disparity of OP or meh power armours if that's an issue

the amount of work would be something like, knocking off 80%-90% of PA values and then making durability go up per rank of mod by about 20%-50% more than it already does (ABCDEF)
this makes it so that PA is literally a boost but not a godsend, at the cost of using fusion core juice, and picked as a boost for known combat situations without stealth ability, or for people who just prefer to go in guns blazing anyways, but isn't the difference between night and day for game balance reasons - PA now becomes just another layer of armour instead of a replacement you have to balance everything for in frustratingly insane and eldritch ways

this is the mod
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/6977/?

Edited August 28, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[dainsgames]

the loot system in fallout 4 is pretty crazy lol

fixing that's gonna require more OCD than fixing the armour/damage system lol!

 

I've already asked the guy who made horizon: survival something or other (another overhaul) but, if you find it hard to balance power armour as per vanilla, what you could do is do what you can, and then make an optional patch for unnaked power armour mod users where the PA pieces themselves mostly are just adding a little bit of DR/ER and the upgrades mostly just add extra durability with a tiny bit of DR/ER per upgrade (really small amounts here)

the reason for this is because unnaked makes it so that when wearing PA, your normal armour values also count towards your score/armor values, so that when you're wearing it, it's just an extra flat boost, and then it's not OP, and the fusion cores are justified in being reasonably easy to get ahold of (even if they're nerfed a bit)

it helps avoid the disparity of OP or meh power armours if that's an issue

 

the amount of work would be something like, knocking off 80%-90% of PA values and then making durability go up per rank of mod by about 20%-50% more than it already does (ABCDEF)

this makes it so that PA is literally a boost but not a godsend, at the cost of using fusion core juice, and picked as a boost for known combat situations without stealth ability, or for people who just prefer to go in guns blazing anyways, but isn't the difference between night and day for game balance reasons - PA now becomes just another layer of armour instead of a replacement you have to balance everything for in frustratingly insane and eldritch ways

 

this is the mod

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/6977/?

 

That....is a seriously good idea. I do think that PA should have a default level of armor though, a person who is in regular clothes in the PA wouldn't have much protection otherwise, if I'm reading this correctly. Nice workaround!

[MioneRCP]

How much of this has been tested so far? do we have any earliy frameworks that are being worked on?

 

I know how big of a project this is but I'd like to know if anything has been implimented even if it was just a test/trail run.

[tartarsauce2]

I've also got another idea that might help with armour balancing, which is a bit wonky tbh
now the key here is that I noticed that armours in this game are completely out of whack, it's either a godsend all across the board or it's meh and useless almost, and it's basically an extension of my previous PA idea
this idea is about being able to give contextual usefulness to the different types of armour so that they all have tradeoffs

maximum damage resistance possible by armour
I'm not sure if there's a value for it or if it's hardcoded, but if it's not then you can set the maximum damage resistance value to something like say 30-40%
perhaps have PA and/or a perk add to it by 10-20% each (PA 20%, perk 10% probably, stick it in endurance somewhere if you're reworking perks)
the idea here is that by having a % damage reduction that isn't 80% or something large, heavy armour hits over that mark for light weapons, as does medium armour, and maybe even light armour with particularly fast but weak weapons

but what good is heavy armour then? the answer is simple, heavy armour is for dealing with heavy weapons, medium armour is good for minimizing damage from standard arms fire
this way heavy armour can have extreme values but will be only contextually useful for its weight when dealing with weapons that can already punch through the majority of damage resistance on other armours
PA of course adds to this which makes it useful more and more against lighter arms fire, which means that heavy weapons are then relatively better against said PA
which makes sense, RPG's and anti-materiel rifles, anti-tank rifles, landmines and demolition charges aren't made to take out fleshbags, they're made for hard armoured targets and the minigun can still spam-chew through PA damage resistance via this with a small boost to say 12-14 even

I came up with this idea when I was pondering how to deal with an issue where I had been playing an anti-sponge game but then got a railroad jacket because of war of the commonwealth spawning a railroad guy I just took the armour off of pre-maturely to when I'd normally get it, and found myself being pretty OP and bored for a bit (until I levelled enough to get harder enemies with better weapons)

also, perhaps dense and super-dense if they're in the game, could add 1 and 2% increased maximum damage reduction per piece from armours, this makes this really good for medium armours against small arms fire, and really good for heavy armours against explosives and other single hit hard punching weapons

the tradeoff of course is that heavy armours are heavy so best for extreme combat, so that medium armours are the "for standard use when out and about for maximum protection" thing, and light is the best for sneaking, and of course the minigun then becomes a lot better at shredding lightly armoured targets even with it's ludicrously low damage

but now, with these in mind, one can balance for these kinds of effects without having to worry so much about every armour being pure upgrades or downgrades with no differences really beyond that, and of course things like hunting rifles thus become good against medium armours relative to other weapons, but heavy armours provide some protection

TLDR: with this method weapon damages, armour types start making sense like in real life again and you'll find yourself using them in ways that are similar to how one might in real life, even if some of the technical game balance aspects aren't "realistic" IE: the minigun will still be good against armoured targets by virtue of the fact that it'll at least do 40% damage and fires so fast while the rocket launcher will still do well by virtue of it doing so much damage to begin with, and all the other weapons will have their own more nuanced justification

Edited September 29, 2016 by tartarsauce2