Need help creating a simple mod.

[Obituary]

Well, that sounds stupid. Thing is, I'm new to modding so this would be my first.

 

To the point. I'm thinking of making a mod that makes the pre-war weapons (much) less common(ly found in loot chests and on npc's) so the pipe weapons have more meaning. I would think that after 200 years of scavenging and looting people started creating these things because the pre-war stuff became so scarse.

 

Someone also mentioned regular ammo becoming scarse probably much quicker. This is a real good point but would need an ammo crafting bench mod first. Which there already is if I'm not mistaken.

 

What would I need to do to realise this;

- What would need to be edited?

- Would I need to clean it afterwards and how?

- How to deal with compatibility issues with eg http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/7556/?

- Would I face any issues with future game updates?

- Did I forget something here?

 

Any help/tips would be much appreciated.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Obituary

[tartarsauce2]

depends - I'm gonna give you leveled lists method explanation first, then the actual changing of what ammo guns use and (drop on user's death - they have clips/magazines with some ammo in them sometimes it's a neat system) - you're going to be going through two types of files here, "Leveled item" (level lists) and "Weapons" (weapons duh)

okay, so what you'll be doing is changing level lists possibly
now, you gotta watch out because of how over-rides work, if any mod also does it and the two aren't merged then it doesn't do a game good, if you do your good work and then another mod comes along and has its own thing then your mod just gets lmao nope'd by the game itself
using FO4Edit here but basically go to Fallout4.esm ---- >scroll down to "Leveled Item"

alternatively, find Form ID 's - this is how the program actually indexes and sees when trying to find stuff
you can find them for the actual names of things here if the lists (which are pretty freaking long) get confusing (look up a bullet type on wiki, type in its form ID in the editor to find it right away)
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_weapons

but basically sort through via names (alphabetical basically) and look for "LL_Ammo_5mm" and "LL_Ammo_5mm_Bulk" as examples of what you should find
also LLS_Perk_Scrounger_ShotgunShell
LLS_Perk_Scrounger_PlasmaCartridge
LLS_Perk_Scrounger_FusionCell
LLS_perk_Scrounger_2mmEC
LLS_perk_Scrounger_44
LLS_perk_Scrounger_10mm
LLS_perk_Scrounger_38Caliber
LLS_perk_Scrounger_308Caliber
LLS_perk_Scrounger_50Cal
LLS_perk_Scrounger_556mm
LLS_perk_Scrounger_5mm
LLS_perk_Scrounger_45Caliber


more relevant Data - on all the level lists there's a thing called "LVLD - Chance None" - basically this is the percent chance you won't get anything on the list
each list when referenced comes up, and one of the items is selected and then implemented, so if a level list had 3 entries, a 1 bullet, 2 bullet and 3 bullet option, then there's a 1/3 chance to get 1, 2, or 3 bullets
if you put 4 entries in, 1bullet, 2bullet, 3 and 3 bullet then there'd be a 50% chacne for 3 bullets basically, 25% for 2 or 25% for 1 bullet
the baseline for scrounger is 25 chance none
if I had a 25% chance none, then I had a 1 bullet, 2 bullet, 3 bullet and 3 bullet entry, then there's a 75% chance of picking one of those 4 entries, so 75/4 whatever that is, like, 21%?22%?
chance none and altering the amount dropped when things do drop is a great way to alter how the gameplay feels, you could have a 90% chance none to get 10 caps, or 0% chance none with 1 cap as amount, or a 50% chance with 3 and 2 amounts and it all leads to the same average - on average 10 caps for every 10 kills - but the 90% chance none to get 10 caps is more rewarding in a sense, while the 50% chance none with 3 and 2 as amounts (two entries of the exact same reference, one's amount is 3 the other's is 2) allows for a more consistent believable/immersive sort of looting situation

now, with the AMMO level lists aspect explained (because there's not too many leveled lists that involve them so it's easy enough to do it this way), we come to weapons, BASICALLY it's the same damn prospect, although you could also just REMOVE weapons from level lists - or chance-none configure so that where they would just automatically exist there's a chance they wouldn't (what I suggest - edit prewar guns to have a chance none of like 70% or something crazy like 90% (which surprisingly isn't that crazy I've found out)

all actual entries in level lists will have a certain output
Leveled List Entry
|_LVLO - Base Data
__|_Level (this basically just says when they start appearing so you could have mini nukes drop off of radroaches but only starting at level 50 if you put a 50 into this)
__|_Reference - an example LL_Pipegun_Rifle_SemiAuto[LVLI:00023791]
__|_Count - if I put 1 then a single one will spawn when all of the conditions for it to pop up, if I put 5 then 5 will spawn - THIS is how you make it so you can get more .38 bullets when they drop really easily and add a chance-none to the other bullet lists in combination with everything else I've mentioned (making everything else rarer)

in level lists involving the weapons there's 3 basic "types" there's "a list that's just got items in it" there's "a list of lists" and then there's like, vendor lists
Vendor list - means vendors will pop up with them
LL_Vendor_Grenades [LVLI:00245F18]

Lists that just have items
LL_AlienBlaster [LVLI:00188A6D]
LL_44_Pistol_VeryShort [LVLI:0017412D]
LL_44_Pistol_Simple [LVLI:001ACFB9]

lists of lists (these two examples reference the vendor_grenades level item list btw) basically these are how they do so much mix and matching randomness with what vendors have - there's lists for medical and chem stuff too - med and chem vendor stuff, and med and chem box lists too - you can literally alter all variations of game balance in supply management (bullets and stimpacks etc) like this
VL_Vendor_General [LVLI:00075789]
VL_Vendor_Weapon [LVLI:00240104]
this one references... well, it's a list of lists of ammo types
LLI_Loot_Ammo_AllRarities [LVLI:0024627F]

now as for how to mod the pipes - Fallout4.esm --> Weapons
Form ID - Editor ID - Name

0014831B - PipeRevolver - Pipe Revolver
0014831A - PipeBoltAction - Pipe Bolt-Action
00024F55 - PipeGun - Pipe

once actually into those weapons files go to the bottom section DNAM - Data
Ammo45Caliber ".45 Round" [AMMO:0001F66A] - should be what the revolver says
Ammo308Caliber ".308 Round" [AMMO:0001F66B] - should be what the bolt-action says
change those to
Ammo38Caliber ".38 Round" [AMMO:0004CE87]

you will PROBABLY want to tweak their damage slightly
also, LNAM should be changed as well - similar process but DNAM is what they use to fire, LNAM is what their magazine drops, or what ammo is relevant, if you leave this then your .38 pipe revolver will drop .45 ammo bits from the clip/magazine WHICH IS A BIT SILLY BUT LOL

Personal Mod philosophy on level lists
------------
I've personally changed all ammo types to be a lot rarer, with .38 caliber being the second most common (5mm is slightly more common but all guns I've made sure do less damage per hit with it - I've also used the throwing weapons mod to pollute level lists so that I don't need as much ammo to get through, as well as more melee/less gun users mod)
ANYWAYS.... point is I changed the pipe guns to use .38, made all ammo much more rare, upped the standard .38 pistol/rifle's damage a little bit (like 2-3 damage extra) - while the bolt-action is less than the hunting rifle by an amount, and pipe revolver is less than the .44 magnum by an amount

Edited May 4, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[tartarsauce2]

anyways, with exception to the perk_scrounger thing which has them all, all of my things are sample examples not the full list of things, you're going to have to go through all the weapons stuff and do that
you can either remove those things from entries within "lists of lists" of certain things, or you could chance-none the basic level list with just items in it themselves for the prewar guns
that's what I suggest, by doing a "chance none" change, you keep it real simple, and it affects every, absolutely every single event where it'd spawn
anything at all that spawns it will be affected by that chance none change
if you want to remove it from PARTICULAR things mostly, for a more specific change, like say, making raiders unable to use assault rifles(I think at level 15 they can or something but that might be one of the mods doing that so don't take me on my word but basically this works for anything so pretend they do for a second), then you'd have to go through the raider auto level list and remove any assault rifle entries etc from it

if you want safes to not drop 10mm pistols, then you'd go through those and remove "Reference Entries" involving it - but if safes are dropping 10mm pistols because one of it's level list entries is referencing a different level list thing, then you'd have to find out which one is doing it and go into that and remove the entry
BECAUSE, YOU CAN HAVE LEVEL LISTS REFERENCING LEVEL LISTS REFERENCING LEVEL LISTS ETC INTO INFINITY IF YOU JUST HAD THE TIME TO DO SO, but theory aside they generally end in a level list with just items
but in practice, it's about 1->2->3 at most so don't panic

also be careful about removing things, if you right click on the Levelled list entries row, instead of the Levelled List Entry and then say "remove" then you'll remove every entry lmao
luckily if you're keeping it simple you can ALSO happen to click and drag the files (this is all in FO4Edit) from the original fallout4.esm into the over-ride and you're back to square one instead of with absolutely nothing
clicking and dragging is a real life saver just be careful about where you're clicking to replace stuff, if you replace "the entirety" of a thing, that's usually not gonna finesse things, you can also add an entry by right clicking on the Levelled list entries row
if you do the adding on the levelled list entry row, then, I dunno it just adds I dunno lol, conditions or something, conditions are weird, I don't play/tinker/change them really

Edited May 4, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[seekingthesun]

The levels lists that spawn items based on probability have a condition section attached to them (at least in fo4edit) what are all formatted the same. They are:

Greaterthan

Getrandompercent

(Percent goes here)

-1

 

The percentile that you put in is what is being compared. For example if I say get random percent greater than .25 that means that there is a 75% chance that the conditions will be met. Now when you do these conditions you might have to troubleshoot and do trial and error because I have found that sometimes they inexplicably just fail. Basically the game calculates a random number between .001 and one and those conditions calculate based on that.

 

If you'd like a guide on this there are already a few leveled item list that are set up this way. I know there's onea for readers that have 25% and 75% chances of drop

[Obituary]

Wow. That's a really long story. I didn't think there was so much to it. Thanks man (both of you). I'll head in to it when I find some spare time. (Unless someone else thinks he/she can do it before I do) Edited May 5, 2016 by Obituary

[jc9542]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I had figured out little bit of how the leveled lists worked by looking over some of the new lists mods added, but I hadn't figured out the syntax for the percentage stuff yet.