Beginning work on a weapon balance mod, looking for feedback and suggestions.

[Zaayl]

Taking what Ive learned working on my Perk Overhaul Im going to begin work on a weapon balance project. This will encompass all the DLC weapons as well! The big goal is to make the weapons more in the line of "filling roles" rather than being a straight tier list. So while it will be designed to work in tandem with my perk overhaul, but it shouldn't matter overall (Just I wont be nerfing damage to offset how OP vanilla perks are.)

 

Also anyone mod savvy out there, as I see this complaint on many weapon overhaul mods out there, can anyone enlighten me on a way to make a version compatible with AWKCR, and save me the time researching it myself? Otherwise it will be made low-priority and I'll see about making the two work together farther in the future myself. Thanks!

 

Initial Plans

 

• Vanilla Damage of the Alien Blaster set much higher, with the FC conversion dropping its damage considerably to something more comparable to a institute/laser pistol.
• Double Barrel Shotgun = Better Damage. Combat = Better Speed. (No brainer really)
• Find a way to differentiate the Institute and Laser weapons. (Most mods just make the Institute rifle better outright, because its "more advanced" but this makes the laser rifle completely neglected and unused outside legendaries, as you acquire the institute and laser weapons at roughly the same point after meeting Danse. Also IMO the Laser Rifle looks better.) Personally Im thinking I want damage to be the same, as to me damage is too much of a deciding factor for nearly identical weapons. So possibly tweaking accuracy, weight, recoil and fire rate?
• Making the Submachine Gun worthwhile. I almost always upgrade to the Combat Rifle for my .45 usage before bothering to get my Submachine gun modded enough to be useful. Perhaps tweaking it so that its a more damaging machine gun than the combat rifle (but lacking the single-fire DMR capabilities) but also with worse recoil/accuracy? Tommy Gun's in media after all are famous for mobsters doing the old "Spray and Pray"
• Western Revolver/44 Balance. (By default, the western revolver is a big shining apology to how underpowered the .44 was, and such is miles better. Ive already fiddled with this one, making the western revolver shoot faster as much as the animation will allow without breaking, but lowering its damage, and upping the .44 to the western revolvers vanilla damage. The Western Revolver has slightly more damage per second, but the .44 has the better damage per shot and ammo efficiency, but the differences are very minor.)
• Tweaking the heavy weapon ammo weight in survival mode. I want the weights to be comparable to a reasonable quantity of less ammo chugging weapons, in comparable amounts, like 1000 5mm rounds weighing about the same as say, 250 5.56.
• Buff the .50 (it does less damage than the Western Revolver vanilla...absurd.)

There's more ideas in my head, but these are some of the basic ones, I would love to hear some of your thoughts.

 

Also while fiddling with the .44's I noticed a peculiar bug, where hovering over the weapon in the pip-boy shows a dramatically higher damage number than it really has (by over 100 damage), equipping it brings the number back down to the real value, no other weapons in my inventory were doing this, so it has to do with my mod, anyone know what that's about?

[ancientwillow]

I think the .50 cal deals surprisingly low damage because the hunting rifle can be silenced, it enjoys armor reduction from the rifleman perk, it has insane range even when suppressed, and the ammo is super common. Sucks for non-sneak players. The ideal solution would be to have silencers lower damage for all weapons instead of only range. Then you could easily balance non-sneak and sneak damage on a per-weapon basis.

 

As for the .44 pistol / western revolver, I think your differentiation is great. The .44 pistol's DPS is terrible but it's a fantastic weapon in survival mode because a single headshot will kill most humanoids, even when not sneaking, and you can take cover in between shots. Upping the damage will help it fulfill that role better without breaking its DPS. A faster firing western revolver should give it a fanning feel befitting its namesake, but you should probably lower its accuracy a little as well or it'll turn into the new combat rifle.

 

Laser sniper rifles... does anyone use those things? The charging mechanic is so annoying, as it takes so long for a full charge that the temptation is to just spam shots. You can't even see the lights if you have a reflex sight / scope attached. Also, the laser musket quickly goes from being a workhorse weapon to a fusion cell guzzling alpha-strike monster that is too slow to be fun as a main weapon. I always thought from looking at the trailers that it would be the energy weapon's equivalent of the hunting rifle, but no such luck.

[Zaayl]

.50 cal is incredibly under-powered, I buffed the crap out of it. Vanilla, the .50 conversion does LESS damage than the western revolver. As such I made it the most damaging bullet-based weapon in the game, however I nerfed its fire speed a little. The silencing thing however is irrelevant to bethesda's decisions to make it so weak, the Gauss Rifle (the most damaging non-explosive in the game) is also capable of being silenced. .50 isnt a very common ammo type...overall, its more than Fallout gives ammo for every gun away like candy, and I would be damn impressed if someone could make a real dent in their sniper ammo stocks, but thats a problem for a different mod to tackle. (If a .50 Machine Gun, or even semi-auto existed, it would be more noticeable that this ammo is much rarer than it seems)

 

Laser Sniper...yeah, its turd. But at the same time, Fusion Cells are probably the single most common ammo type in the commonwealth, moreso than .38 given the sheer volume of NPC's packing it around. (Institute, Minutemen, BoS, Gunners, Robots.) So I have to kinda take the perspective for many weapons that just because the option exists, doesn't mean that weapon is suited for it.

 

Laser Musket is a weird one, one thing you got to look at is that the distinction between "energy weapons" and "guns" is gone, it uses the same perks the hunting rifle and Gauss rifle do. Its a sniper rifle, through and through, its slow, does a crapload of damage, uses a very very common ammo (but a lot of it per shot) but its still a makeshift rifle you get at the beginning of the game, and even for that it is still a viable option fully modded, but its definitely not a main gun.

 

 

Below this point Ill just drop a dump of my progress/changes done so far:

 

Guns:

• Buffed the Submachine Gun heavily, mostly I buffed its mods, and moved its final receiver mod up to Gun Nut 3, instead of 2, as it brings the gun a couple damage points below a maxed out automatic combat rifle. It still has a higher fire rate, and thus much higher DPS than the combat rifle, and far better magazine capacity. However its range, recoil, and general accuracy is worse than the combat rifles.
• Buffed the .308 conversion on the Combat Rifle, the Radium Rifle did nearly that much damage as a semi-automatic and still used the cheaper and more common .45 rounds. Silly.
• Buffed the Assault Rifle's base damage, modded it still did very very similar damage to the combat rifle despite using rarer ammo. Its now a better automatic than any .45 chugger.
• Buffed the Cryolator's ammo capacity to 100 from 25, the thing ran out of ammo in seconds, and being a icy version of the flamer made that quite annoying.
• Buffed the Junk Jet's Damage by roughly double. Its pathetically weak, and even outside of survival its ammo has weight (Unless you use pre-war money, which would be a very expensive thing to use as ammo) it should do more damage for the amount of inconvenience loading it causes, junk items aren't exactly worthless anymore!
• Buffed the Flamer's damage about 50%, to keep it's DPS more in line with other weapons, especially considering the rate it chews through ammo, and the scarcity of said ammo. (Seriously, running a heavy build between this and the minigun is expensive, why cant we find this ammo anywhere, thank god its cheap)
• Buffed the Minigun damage as well by about the same, despite it being a starting weapon you chew through ammo fast and 5mm is not commonly found in the wastes, so you usually have to buy it after shelving the gun for dozens of hours of gameplay, even at 1 cap per bullet, that's thousands of caps to keep it running, it should do more than tickle things.
• Missile Launcher damage doubled, vanilla its damage was...piddly, many guns do more damage with regular bullets, and in survival its ammo is quite heavy, preventing you from just bringing all 100 missiles you own. Mind you this can result in a very OP weapon if you take both explosives expert and heavy gunner without a mod to fix the fact those combined give it quad damage. I consider this a problem with the perks, not weapon balance, you shouldn't need 9 perks for a gun to be good. (Also *cough* my perk mod fixes that *cough*)
• Fat Man damage increased by 50% for all fire mods, except bowling ball. Similar reasons.
• Institute Laser now is half the base weight it formerly was, its compensating lenses reduce recoil more than previously (And more than the laser rifles do) and the fire rate is reasonably faster, with a slightly lower VATS cost too. And with Institutes current research on efficient forms of power, it has a higher ammo capacity as well. Over engineered for the needs of coursers in the field.
• Laser Rifle still boasts its higher damage, its older, simpler design while it might not absorb recoil as efficiently as a fancy institute weapon, there's nothing getting in the way of raw stopping power, and its ability to shoot in a clean, straight line, as such its "cone of fire" is reduced, making it shoot straighter than the institute rifle. The institute laser is the weapon of a fancy pants courser, this is the weapon of a soldier. (The idea here is the Institute laser is a fast bloody room clearer, and the laser rifle is something for shooting targets down range)
• 10mm buffed to match the deliverer, its now similar to the .44 and western revolver relationship lined out earlier. the 10mm has a small amount more damage, but deliverer is now lighter weight (its physically far, far smaller) and has a slightly higher rate of fire, on top of starting with a very good legendary effect for gunslinger characters. But now if you find a 10mm with a legendary effect you like better, you don't have to feel obligated to stick with the statistically better deliverer. Its still better, but not as severely.
• Alien Blaster has been buffed consideraby (to about 125 damage) however the fusion conversion drops its damage to about...45. The Alien Cells now give you a brief window where the gun is incredibly overpowered, but once you are out, it returns to a very modest and normal damage for a energy pistol.
• Broadsider considerably buffed to be more comparable to the harpoon gun, its a bit lower since it has a little splash damage to it, and can be given a 3 shot chamber, but its not incredibly under powered for a canon with a incredibly rare ammo.
• Assaultron Head doubled in damage, its a weapon that literally hurts you with every shot, and did 1 point of damage more than the laser musket with a similar charging effect. Now its a beast of a cannon, but still...it hurts to use, is slow, and lacks the range/scopes of the musket. Its a nice ice-breaker to the fight, or finisher.
• Lowered the Gauss Rifle ammo capacity to try and nerf it without crippling it.
• Lever Action Rifle long barrel mods now give it +2 max ammunition, to give it 7 rounds.
• Double Barrel Shotgun buffed in damage above the Combat Shotgun for really obvious reasons.
• Radium Rifle damage nerfed very slightly, for a gun augmented with radiation damage on top of regular, it does a lot of damage compared to the combat rifle.
• Hunting Rifle .50 conversion does a lot more damage. A lot. But is also slower to fire.

Ammo:

• Cryo Cells now have a value of 2 caps, instead of 10 caps. This is still double that of the flamer fuel, given you cant loot Cryo ammo outside the rare robot that uses it (even then its like, 14 ammo) and that its a freaking automatic, the only reasonable way to get enough ammo to justify using it is purchasing it, except that its INCREDIBLY expensive. From a lore/realism standpoint this makes sense, but from a game balance/fun standpoint, it doesn't. If they can put X-01 in a PRE WAR DISPLAY CASE in Nuka World, I can have cheaper Cryo Cells. Weight also dropped to be a bit more similar to flamer fuel, that s#*! was heavy yo.
• Flamer Fuel weight decreased to make carrying 800 fuel more practical
• 5mm weight decreased to make carrying 2000 rounds more practical
• Missile weight heavily decreased to make the weapon usable its still heavy, but 1.25 heavy instead of 7. Seriously, this was so poorly balanced it was unbelievable.
• Mini Nuke weight dropped to 3 (Nuka Nuke as well)
• Fusion Core weight dropped to 2
• Cannonball weight dropped to 0.2, to more match harpoons.
• Acid concentrate now way cheaper to craft, the adhesive cost was dropped to 1, and acid cost dropped to 5.

I tried to nerf the Gatling laser's ammo, however I learned a very interesting fact about how Gatling laser and fusion cores work. When you load it, you don't necessarily load a entire core into it. A core by default has 500 charge (the 100/100 value being a percentage) with the repair bobblehead and nuclear physicist perks, that charge is increased to 1100 total. When you reload your Gatling laser, it deducts 500 charge from the core, meaning one core will still feed your laser for multiple reloads. So unless I can find a way to make the Gatling laser use 2 ammo per shot, I cant make it suck down juice faster.

 

All of these are subject to change, while the mod is pretty much is in a mostly completed state I am running a new character with it to more thoroughly test and tweak it to see how it affects the long-term metagame than just shooting super mutant overlords I spawn in with the console. But I feel confident I may have it out in a week or so.