Fallout 4: How it should've been.

[dainsgames]

I just want to throw my voice in with the crowd that dislikes weapon and armor degradation. It's my #1 hated functionality in FNV and to me the implementation feels really unimmersive and unrealistic. I mean, aren't guns supposed to be able to fire bullets without breaking ALL of the time? In addition it seems to only add tedium, rather than excitement or thought.

 

However I would fully support a "condition" state of the weapon, gradually increasing the risk of jamming (adjusted by luck factor). Some cleaning, oiling and changing of springs or gear (aka maintenance kit perhaps?), a gun should be good to go again. There could be two levels of jamming, one "soft" requiring a reload, and a "hard" requiring a full cleaning (and thus not something you can do in combat). How quickly the condition would deteriorate could be dependent on the quality of the gun (pipe/military/experimental, low/mid/high), etc.

 

For Armor I think the degradation/deterioration makes a lot more sense, but on the other hand it's a much less enticing gameplay mechanic to me. I'm trying to come up with a scenario where I would like it, and I just can't. Maybe if it also had a chance to break rather than gradual degradation, and I could bring repair kits. Maybe if the enemy could score critical hits on you (as they ought to be able to), and the armor had a certain amount of criticals it could block before "breaking" and not being able to block any more criticals until reparied.

 

On the notion of Power Armors, I don't see why so many feel the need to nerf them or their gameplay value. It's the equivalent of a personalized tank. OF COURSE it should be AWESOME to be in a tank rather than just your own fleshy self. Going up against someone in a Power Armor should be terrifying and deadly. I absolutely cannot see why it's an issue that it's the nr #1 choice of protection and constant companion. If you're going into a ghoul-infested subway, a power armor and flame thrower ought to be your best bet.

The only downside I think befits a power armor should be stealth and maneuverability. Someone going clonking through downtown in a suit of armor should be heard miles away. Removing stealth opportunities, sneak attacks, and surprises should be detrimental enough for people who prefer that kind of gameplay to opt out. Slower movement means you can't dodge that grenade or missile launcher as quickly. Unfortunately the AI isn't good enough to perform coordinated ambushes on you, but a guy in a suit should attract all kinds of unwanted attention. That would be drawback enough for me.

 

 

Anyways, I wish you the best of luck with the project and I'm *really* looking forward to it

 

Hmm, + support for all of these suggestions as well, except for the following two. I would retain armor repair (because getting shot should necessitate some degree of repair for the armor that just literally took bullets for you) and retain risk of health damage / death in power armor.

 

PA is not actually a tank with all welded seams, it's a suit of armor with flexible exposed joints. Think a suit of plate armor with chainmail seams, and think about facing pikers, swordsmen and archers. Yeah, the armored dude is much better protected, but still vulnerable through joints and repeated hits to the same area.

[tartarsauce2]

I like the idea of "weapon degradation lite" I've never played FO3 or NV so I don't know how they handle it there
where the usefulness of the weapon is what degrades, I had an idea for skyrim to do this, where it'd be like negative levels of upgrades (you know how you upgrade based on smith skill etc) but it could be quickly brought back into line with the proper materials, all the way back up to top quality
but it'd be like, a single level of degradation tops, the idea is that for the BONUS you'd want it - elsewise it's like a standard armament (that said, FO4's system probably makes degradation superior)

I like the return to FO1-2 bullets too
is there anything in the mix for throwing weapons?
I actually tried just today to figure out a way to make throwing weapons into actual weapons (for use in VATS, higher usability in fast paced gameplay in general) but couldn't pull it off - even going so far as to make an ammo file and try to get the cards to use that (using throwing cards as my test file)
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/8794/?

seems like a number of people have had ideas for total conversion/complete overhaul mods actually, I've been tinkering like crazy on my own mod setup, altering how mods operate just to get the interesting balance
for now, I think I've just plain given up on most throwing items though, so I'll be pretending most of them don't exist (just to keep the game balance/interesting'ness good) - BUT the dream lives on, FO1-2 were pretty neat, also how's this going to relate to FROST by any chance?
is it possible you could talk to buddy who's making it and see about making some stuff that with relatively minor tweaks (maybe made on his part and as a separate thing) your system could be useable with his?

also, a potential way to balance power armours is to have them add DT and for this to be the primary method DT comes into the game

(my own mod setup has raider armours terrible in DR/ER (I do have dreadnaught armor mods from raider overhaul though so this matters) with the highest DT as a set ingame I did this partially to force balance so that raider armour is pretty desirable earlier but also to balance against automatic weapons to give them a LITTLE bit of a fighting chance until heavy/powerful weapons mods started being available after all DT doesn't scale so it's a great stop-gap for problematic points in game balance but also gives a special feel to things - with institute adding highest DT, metal adding roughly equivalent to combat and for DR/ER values to make metal anti-phys, leather anti-energy but worse in general for protection but best for sneak, combat for general purpose but not in a really great way DR/ER but its DT sorta makes up for it, instead of 85-90% as good as metal/institute for DR/ER it's more like 65-75% as good the point of it is it's good in any situation, and institute is basically an upgraded protection-wise but heavier and therefore worse for stealth version of leather armour with the 2nd highest DT in game as it's hard laminate - and due to the number of physical weapons in the game including heavy rifles (at least with my mod setup) the DT isn't overpowered because institute has higher ER and physical weapons are more common

I also added bleed and poison to pipeguns so I *think* raiders will still attack me, and if they do, they'll hurt me anyways (also makes rapid fire pipe guns not SO terrible, while keeping things about where they belong with the things, and even letting them be useful in their own, quirky way into lategame) - I also made normal pipeguns use railroad nails, while using craftable ammo/plus and LOADS of ammo mods, I like the pipegun balance, they're pretty weak actually, but if you keep shooting into something the bleed will stack and even if you don't the poison + bleed aspect keeps it "okayish" and the damage over time aspects make the whole thing about shooting and moving for cover and keeping at it guerilla style more important - although it can be spammed for bleedstack on big big enemies, which is what you'd expect immersively - pipeguns as an intelligently crafted DIRTY weapon, literally, gives you "disease aka poison" and rips your flesh "bleed"

the way I see it, railroad nails are just neater for some reason, the bolt action and revolver should obviously use .38 and I made them ghetto versions of their counterparts but that use cheaper ammo, the pipegun railroad thing makes it easier to make ammo for, but it should require like, 25 steel for 5 rounds or even more punishing, just to keep things in line because of the other changes one could use with them (bleed and poison) which are a sort of "de facto" armour pierce

this will allow SOME balanced survivability to exist outside of power armour even in combat, but if you want to go the open combat route of loud and heavy then the lessening of plink shots on you is important, basically you trade stealth for more likelyhood of getting shot and therefore hit, and you trade healing items usage for repairing (except maybe its similar overall healing costs because you're getting shot more - but this could be balanced by not focusing on sneaking perks therefore things and such like balance) - keeping a bit of DR/ER on it is also a good idea, to be used with unnaked power armour mod
the idea here is simply that even in a walking tank, heavy one hitter weapons are still frightening (the DT doesn't scale so you don't need to worry so much about altering balance values for DR/ER so much etc and can keep things mostly in line and "within reasonable bounds of each other") because after all, those are the types that are usually made precisely for piercing armour

I found personally that getting too far along in certain ways with the power armour stuff led to some really nasty gameplay imba so I found reducing DR/ER values and using DT helped, it also keeps power armour in line with the "fear me I am the ironman you puny mortals" thing, and if that pipegun thing I mentioned works, then you'll still be hurt when shot so the situation will arise where desperate puny raiders will fight back and even hurt you (albeit not a ton) but maybe the melee ones will run away or something (unless you mod those to also do bleed damage lol btw bleed stacks so it can be deadly to anyone even you in PA)

Edited May 6, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[dainsgames]

 

Im no modder but i do enjoy using them, especially ones that make the game more immersive and realistic. You mentioned ammo types, please include rounds like .357 mag and .38 specials, 5.56 and .223 etc. I just think it adds a more real feel to the gun. They way it is now just bothers me, .45 round? would it have killed them to write .45acp.... I just like these little things that when all added together just add a more in depth and immersive experience.

 

also no 45-70? where's my ranger sequoia?

 

Good luck and I will be following this one for sure.

 

Cheers.

You're in luck, Idle. Just finished the framework for the ammo list doc. It has all the base ammo types feature in New Vegas along with the specialty ammo types. Fallout 4's ammo got the same treatment, with Flares, Cannonballs, 2mm EC, etc, getting special variants as well.

 

The complete list can be found at [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y-8ZHyljIpcnTfzc9OiDI0CNh2VWSRBDj4ENkTzdJbM] but I haven't finished coming up with the recipies.

 

 

Please, allow me to suggest changing the pipe weapons to at least be on the EDGE of feasibility for makeshift weapons? I have a mod request in for that and detail the features here: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3995875-retitle-pipe-weapons-to-low-tech-so-they-dont-sound-so-stupid/

 

I think the implementation would be to change the names of the weapons and components, remove the .50 cal options, revise the .308 to .357 and remove the repeating receivers from that caliber.

 

That would debuff this class of weapons enough to make them plausible as makeshift weapons owned for defensive purposes or as intimidation weapons by Raiders, and imo that's all they should be. All higher-level ballistic weapons should be machined weapons, whether antique or produced by organizations which can support the level of science needed to manufacture them.

 

Just a suggestion of mine, hope it finds some approval!

[dainsgames]

Hmm, another request / suggestion comes to mind after reading your Tweaks notes.

 

I RP that my char cannot craft stations unless they have the perks to craft the things the stations make (and I have a "no stations" mod in which removes all of the stations pre-placed in abandoned locations so you have to build your own). And I require Blacksmith (which should be Machinist, this isn't Skyrim lol) first of all, since that's the base skillset for all of this station-building. Then I put on Science for anything science-based like the Chemistry and PA stations, and only after do i go to the specific building perks.

 

I'd like to suggest a feature where you can select the perks required to create stations and items, or at least select whether the basic perks need to apply before you can build stations to build items.

 

Thanks again for taking this initiative!

[RogueMatriarch]

Hey, everyone, just posting a quick update on what's been going on with the mod. I've seen and read your comments I will reply to them when I have time tomorrow as it's getting rather late now.

 

Several developments have occurred that will no doubt excite you guys.

• A whole horde of new crafting materials, or components as they're called in the GECK, have been introduced. They include Primers, Powders, Casings, and more for ammo crafting, a handful of nuclear isotopes for creating Mini Nukes and new Fusion Cores, and depleted variants of the aforementioned isotopes along with Energy Weapon ammo like Microfusion Cells, Plasma Cartridges, and Cyro Cells.
• Ammo recipes are a WIP, using New Vegas' as a base.
• The creation of the Cybernetics Table, Science Lab, and Reloading Bench has begun; each embodying a specific concept involved with gameplay. Guess which one is for what!
• The swing speed and stagger effect for several melee weapons have been adjusted. Now you can hit your enemies even faster with that spiked Baseball Bat!
• Ammo now has a damage multiplier, either increasing or decreasing damage dealt depending on the type used.

More updates to come in the future but for now, everyone have a good time!

Edited May 7, 2016 by Mavrickhunter2

[dainsgames]

Hey, everyone, just posting a quick update on what's been going on with the mod. I've seen and read your comments I will reply to them when I have time tomorrow as it's getting rather late now.

 

Several developments have occurred that will no doubt excite you guys.

• A whole horde of new crafting materials, or components as they're called in the GECK, have been introduced. They include Primers, Powders, Casings, and more for ammo crafting, a handful of nuclear isotopes for creating Mini Nukes and new Fusion Cores, and depleted variants of the aforementioned isotopes along with Energy Weapon ammo like Microfusion Cells, Plasma Cartridges, and Cyro Cells.
• Ammo recipes are a WIP, using New Vegas' as a base.
• The creation of the Cybernetics Table, Science Lab, and Reloading Bench has begun; each embodying a specific concept involved with gameplay. Guess which one is for what!
• The swing speed and stagger effect for several melee weapons have been adjusted. Now you can hit your enemies even faster with that spiked Baseball Bat!
• Ammo now has a damage multiplier, either increasing or decreasing damage dealt depending on the type used.

More updates to come in the future but for now, everyone have a good time!

 

Nice! Good to hear Stagger is being adjusted, I can't stand auto-stagger for interrupting my attacks in mid-swing.

[JarinArenos]

 

• A whole horde of new crafting materials, or components as they're called in the GECK, have been introduced. They include Primers, Powders, Casings, and more for ammo crafting, a handful of nuclear isotopes for creating Mini Nukes and new Fusion Cores, and depleted variants of the aforementioned isotopes along with Energy Weapon ammo like Microfusion Cells, Plasma Cartridges, and Cyro Cells.

 

Sounds like fun... but also a huge potential headache. Some kind of inventory management improvements are going to be completely required to play once all those are added. Include some form of assistance here, maybe?

[RogueMatriarch]

 

 

• A whole horde of new crafting materials, or components as they're called in the GECK, have been introduced. They include Primers, Powders, Casings, and more for ammo crafting, a handful of nuclear isotopes for creating Mini Nukes and new Fusion Cores, and depleted variants of the aforementioned isotopes along with Energy Weapon ammo like Microfusion Cells, Plasma Cartridges, and Cyro Cells.

 

Sounds like fun... but also a huge potential headache. Some kind of inventory management improvements are going to be completely required to play once all those are added. Include some form of assistance here, maybe?

 

 

I'm planning on redoing the whole "Junk" section on the Pipboy and maybe adding a few sections as well. If I can find out how, I'm going to take the Keyring from New Vegas and see if I can't implement it in Fallout 4. That way, you will not only have a way to check which keys you have but act as a inventory sorter as I'll repurpose it as a way to sort other items as well such as Casings, Powders, etc.

 

I've also been making good progress on other matters, I'll post a changelog/progress report later in the day!

[JarinArenos]

 

I'm planning on redoing the whole "Junk" section on the Pipboy and maybe adding a few sections as well. If I can find out how, I'm going to take the Keyring from New Vegas and see if I can't implement it in Fallout 4. That way, you will not only have a way to check which keys you have but act as a inventory sorter as I'll repurpose it as a way to sort other items as well such as Casings, Powders, etc.

 

I've also been making good progress on other matters, I'll post a changelog/progress report later in the day!

 

 

Awesome! Glad to see this is still moving along. What do you think of the GECK so far?

[RogueMatriarch]

 

 

I'm planning on redoing the whole "Junk" section on the Pipboy and maybe adding a few sections as well. If I can find out how, I'm going to take the Keyring from New Vegas and see if I can't implement it in Fallout 4. That way, you will not only have a way to check which keys you have but act as a inventory sorter as I'll repurpose it as a way to sort other items as well such as Casings, Powders, etc.

 

I've also been making good progress on other matters, I'll post a changelog/progress report later in the day!

 

 

Awesome! Glad to see this is still moving along. What do you think of the GECK so far?

 

Sorry for the late response, got distracted and/or busy with a few things. As for the GECK, it's a lot more complicated than New Vegas' and Fallout 3's. Pretty similar in some aspects and basic layout but it's more akin to Skyrim's Creation Kit now. Unfortunately, I never learned my way around Skyrim's CK as I didn't find it as fun to mod so I'm pretty much learning how to use it all over again. Figured out a few things, like how to mass duplicate and rename (extremely useful since it allows me to make copies of whatever and be able to distinguish them from their vanilla counterparts pretty easily), adjusting projectile properties, making workstations, mods, stuff like that but nothing too advanced.

 

But here's what you guys have been waiting for: a progress report! No major changes so far but that's due to me trying to focus on a few things at a time.

 

General Changes

These have been partially implemented and will be a WIP until further notice.

• Attack speed and stagger for melee and unarmed weapons have been adjusted appropriately. Only the Sledge Hammer has a swing speed of "Slow" while a majority of melee/unarmed weapons are either "Medium" and "Fast". The Mr. Handy Sawblade and Ripper remain the only weapons with "Very Fast" as their attack speed. Smaller weapons such as the Knuckles and knives have "Fast" while larger ones like the Baseball Bat and Power Fist are "Medium". Depending on further changes, these may be altered.
• The Hunting Rifle and Sniper Rifle have been divided into two separate weapons. Hunting Rifle can accept .30-06 Springfield and .300 Winchester while the Sniper Rifle uses .308 Winchestor and .338 Lapua.
• Weapons have been renamed to their fictional/actual titles. IE: The Hunting Rifle = Remington Model 700, 10mm Pistol = N99 10mm Pistol, the .44 Revolver = Smith and Wesson Model 29, etc.
• Weapon weight and mods that affect weight has been adjusted accordingly. Even fully-loaded and decked-out, no shotgun or rifle should weigh anywhere close to 30 pounds. Most weapons will weigh less than 10 pounds and stay blow/around that number even with mods applied.
• Heavy Weapons actually do their name good, weighing well past 30+ pounds and typically requiring the use of Power Armor in order to use. However, damage has been increased for some so they remain useful. (Hoping to actually make them similar to PA by having them being unstorable, as in you can only pick them up or drop them instead of storing them in your inventory.)
• Laser Weapons have no recoil. Why? Because light's mass is so minute that there's no plausible way for it to actually cause recoil.
• Non-Pipe mods, which have been renamed to makeshift, cannot be crafted and instead have to be found. On the flipside, Makeshift Mods can be applied to practically every weapon and some non-Makeshift mods can be combined with various materials to create new mods.

 

Armor Stat Changes

Key

• BR = Ballistic Resistance
• ER = Energy Resistance
• RR = Radiation Resistance

 

Leather Armor

• Left Arm: 3 Ballistic Resistance, no Energy Resistance, weight of 1.6
  Right Arm: 3 Ballistic Resistance, no Energy Resistance, weight of 1.6
  Left Leg: 2 Ballistic Resistance, no Energy Resistance, weight of 2.3
  Right Leg: 2 Ballistic Resistance, no Energy Resistance, weight of 2.3
  Torso: 5 Ballistic Resistance, no Energy Resistance, weight of 5

Metal Armor

• Left Arm: 4 Ballistic Resistance, 3 Energy Resistance, weight of 3.1
  Right Arm: 4 Ballistic Resistance, 3 Energy Resistance, weight of 3.1
  Left Leg: 4 Ballistic Resistance, 3 Energy Resistance, weight of 3.7
  Right Leg: 4 Ballistic Resistance, 3 Energy Resistance, weight of 3.7
  Torso: 10 Ballistic Resistance, 5 Energy Resistance, weight of 8.7
  Helmet: 5 Ballistic Resistance, 4 Energy Resistance, weight of 4.7

Combat Armor

• Left Arm: 8 Ballistic Resistance, 8 Energy Resistance, weight of 2.7
  Right Arm: 8 Ballistic Resistance, 8 Energy Resistance, weight of 2.7
  Left Leg: 8 Ballistic Resistance, 8 Energy Resistance, weight of 3.3
  Right Leg: 8 Ballistic Resistance, 8 Energy Resistance, weight of 3.3
  Torso: 15 Ballistic Resistance, 15 Energy Resistance, weight of 7.5
  Helmet: 10 Ballistic Resistance, 10 Energy Resistance, weight of 5.4

 

Robot Armor

• Left Arm: 6 BR, 4 ER, 4.3 pounds
  Right Arm: 6 BR, 4 ER, 4.5 pounds
  Left Leg: 9 BR, 7 ER, 6.5 pounds
  Right Leg: 9 BR, 7 ER, 6.4 pounds
  Chest: 13 BR, 11 ER, 10.6 pounds
• Eyebot Helmet: 7 BR, 5 ER, 7.1 pounds
  Assaultron Helmet: 8 BR, 6 ER, 5.4 pounds
  Sentry Bot Helmet: 9 BR, 7 ER, 6.7 pounds

Marine Armor

• Left Arm: 17 BR, 17 ER, 8.5 pounds
  Right Arm: 17 BR, 17 ER, 8.5 pounds
  Left Leg: 20 BR, 20 ER, 11.2 pounds
  Right Leg: 20 BR, 20 ER, 11.2 pounds
  Chest: 13 BR, 11 ER, 10.6 pounds
• Wetsuit Helmet (Formerly Marine Tactical Helmet): 4 BR, 4 ER, 6RR, 2.4 pounds
  Wetsuit: 6 BR, 6 ER, 6 RR, 5.1 pounds

Armor Set Notes

• Yes, Leather Armor doesn't have energy resistance anymore but has a minor increase in ballistic resistance to compensate. Lasers are high-energy beams that could easily melt through some hide.
• Metal Armor is more protective compared to vanilla MA but weighs more as well to reflect the materials it's made out of.
• Combat Armor remains the same more or less, with balanced BR and ER. Weight has been adjusted appropriately.
• Robot Armor has improved stats all-around for the most part, comparable to basic Combat Armor without any mods. However, modded Combat Armor easily outperforms it in terms of defense. Robot Armor makes up for this by being highly customizable, using robot mods to provide unique bonuses and abilities that non-PA sets can't provide.
• Marine Armor is still the most weighty and protective out of all non-PA sets and its design has been expanded upon in terms of abilities and mods. Wearing the torso and legs increases maximum carrying capacity while the legs themselves reduce 50% fall damage with both neutralizing it completely. Armor mods primarily focus on plating, weight, and performance.
• The Combat Armor Helmet, Marine Helmet, and various other headgear sporting non-functional headlamps have had that problem corrected.