[WIP] Weapon Addition and Replacement Suite (WARS)

[Moldy]

So,my understandng;

-Commando: Submachine guns and pistol calibre longarms.

-Rifleman: Longarms with intermediate-to-large calibres,likely with 5.56mm as the bottom limit.

-Gunslinger: Sidearms,likely ballistic only,regardless of calibre.

-Heavy Gunner: Big stonking guns.

-Science!: Energy weapons,including plasma,regardless of configuration.

 

A chance to set enemies on fire is redundant,as every single "standard" energy weapon option has an entire third of their capacitor options being guaranteed ignition options. And then there's the Flamer,a BFG that,in-engine,deals energy damage,so it'd be effected by Science!,and is all about lighting things on fire. It can also be modded to the maximum without any investment in perks,at all. Which is kinda-sorta shenanigans,as flamethrowers are actually impressively complicated pieces of hardware with multiple synchronized valves across three pressurized lines.

 

Maybe,instead,a chance to knock enemies over for a moment(Referenced in-engine as a paralysis effect,I'd imagine),as you're either blinding them,forcing muscle convulsions,or bathing them in napalm? Commando gets stagger,Rifleman gets crippling,Gunslinger gets disarming AND crippling. These are all effects that aren't inherent to any of the parts available to the effected weapons. Your proposed chance of ignition,meanwhile,is baked into a full third of all capacitor options among laser and plasma weapons.

[antistar]

HI Antistar I've been following your mod for a while now and I was wondering if you have an eta or % completed for us?

Re: the ETA; please see the FAQ in the second post.

 

Any percentage I could give would just be a made-up number and not all that useful. Basically though, what's left is AmmoTweaks integration (pending the AmmoTweaks update), testing, documentation, and a closed beta.

 

 

I do like the science idea for energy weapons. So commando/rifleman would then essentially be separated by bullet type, excluding normal pistols for gunslinger. I think that's a good line to draw, but what about coverage again? Are there enough stock attachments for the various pistols to bring the amount of guns up? I guess there are always pipe guns, which would be predominantly pistol caliber.

 

Maybe adding in short-barreled carbine-style variants of rifles could help it a bit, as they're closer to SMGs in usage. But, that might give commando weapons with enough range to make rifleman semi-useless except for sniper playstyles. And there's the consistency issue of having a carbine that you have lots of knowledge about how to use, putting a longer barrel on, and suddenly that goes away.

I did consider having Commando cover carbines generally, but kind of like you're saying there, I think the delineation between "carbines" and "rifles" is somewhat muddy in FO4 and probably unintuitive to many people. "SMGs and any other pistol calibre weapons with shoulder stocks" is more straightforward.

 

I forgot to include the Pipe Revolver in my previous list, so to update it (also removing laser weapons), Commando would then cover:

 

 

- Glock pistols (with stocks)

- Pipe Gun (with stocks)

- Pipe Revolver (with stocks)

- Skorpion

- Thompson SMG

 

So not a whole lot, but I'm hopeful that more SMGs will be included over time - either in WARS itself or via patches. The M3 Grease Gun, MAC-10, MP5, UMP45, P90 - stuff like that.

 

I think something like this probably is preferable to having the applicable weapon skill perk change when you change fire-modes.

 

 

So,my understandng;

 

-Commando: Submachine guns and pistol calibre longarms.

-Rifleman: Longarms with intermediate-to-large calibres,likely with 5.56mm as the bottom limit.

-Gunslinger: Sidearms,likely ballistic only,regardless of calibre.

-Heavy Gunner: Big stonking guns.

-Science!: Energy weapons,including plasma,regardless of configuration.

 

A chance to set enemies on fire is redundant,as every single "standard" energy weapon option has an entire third of their capacitor options being guaranteed ignition options. And then there's the Flamer,a BFG that,in-engine,deals energy damage,so it'd be effected by Science!,and is all about lighting things on fire. It can also be modded to the maximum without any investment in perks,at all. Which is kinda-sorta shenanigans,as flamethrowers are actually impressively complicated pieces of hardware with multiple synchronized valves across three pressurized lines.

 

Maybe,instead,a chance to knock enemies over for a moment(Referenced in-engine as a paralysis effect,I'd imagine),as you're either blinding them,forcing muscle convulsions,or bathing them in napalm? Commando gets stagger,Rifleman gets crippling,Gunslinger gets disarming AND crippling. These are all effects that aren't inherent to any of the parts available to the effected weapons. Your proposed chance of ignition,meanwhile,is baked into a full third of all capacitor options among laser and plasma weapons.

That's a good point and this is something I'm thinking about. I've changed a few things in WARS that make this somewhat less of an issue though (if I do end up going with "chance for fire damage with Energy weapons" as part of the Science! perk):

 

The Flamer is classed as a Heavy weapon rather than an Energy weapon - and actually that's not a change, that's something I'd leave as-is. (I did introduce some perk requirements to its omod crafting recipes though, since you mention that.)

 

Since receiver (and capacitor) omods are for general weapon condition in WARS, I moved the fire damage on the AER and IEW laser weapons to muzzle omods (replacing the recoil reduction muzzle omods since laser weapons have no recoil in WARS). This means the MPL plasma weapon actually lost its fire-damage from omods since it has no muzzle omods. That only leaves the AER and IEW potentially doing fire damage. (Oh, barring the flamer barrel on the MPL, I suppose.)

 

But yeah, I am still thinking about all this. "Paralysis" is another effect I'm considering. If there was a "blindness" effect, that would seem a good fit. That'd require new animations and behaviours to do, though (across all creature types that could be affected by it).

[Nihilisaurus]

Another possibility is that you could separate commando/rifleman along the lines of the weapon's action/operating mechanism, with gunslinger being pistols of all kinds, commando affecting automatic and semiautomatic weapons and rifleman affecting manually operated weapons. This would also give the opportunity for rifleman to boost the ROF of these weapons - giving a little bit of a boost to weapons that generally lack DPM.

 

It would make Commando a little broad though, so maybe it's not better than what you've already got going on.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Lt Albrecht

[passinglurker]

On the topic of commando why not just make it "non-sidearm ballistic with a short barrel"? for example this would make the sawn off double barrel shotgun a commando weapon. A lot of weapons that straddle the line like the pipeguns are still a bit to big to be considered pistols anyway.

[antistar]

Another possibility is that you could separate commando/rifleman along the lines of the weapon's action/operating mechanism, with gunslinger being pistols of all kinds, commando affecting automatic and semiautomatic weapons and rifleman affecting manually operated weapons. This would also give the opportunity for rifleman to boost the ROF of these weapons - giving a little bit of a boost to weapons that generally lack DPM.

 

It would make Commando a little broad though, so maybe it's not better than what you've already got going on.

You know what, I like this idea a lot. It makes for an easy to understand categorisation, and seems obvious now that you've said it; semi/burst/auto and manually operated weapons respectively do have a pretty different "feel" to them. I like the idea of Rifleman increasing fire-rate for those weapons too; seems useful, makes sense.

 

I don't think it would make Commando too broad - especially with Energy weapons being split off to the Science! perk. A rough count in my head puts Commando at around ten weapons like that, with Rifleman at around seven or eight. (With WARS.)

 

 

On the topic of commando why not just make it "non-sidearm ballistic with a short barrel"? for example this would make the sawn off double barrel shotgun a commando weapon. A lot of weapons that straddle the line like the pipeguns are still a bit to big to be considered pistols anyway.

Also a possibility, but it would have the problem kuzi127 mentioned:

 

... And there's the consistency issue of having a carbine that you have lots of knowledge about how to use, putting a longer barrel on, and suddenly that goes away.

Semi/burst/auto vs. manually operated weapons are different enough that that shouldn't be a conceptual issue.

[bludmarine]

I agree that separating by action, in general, makes a lot of sense. Just a thought on this though, what if you include pump shotguns in the list of supported rifleman weapons? These and lever action weapons seem to make the most sense in this category, to me at least.

[antistar]

Yes, definitely. Rifleman would be for bolt/break/lever/pump-action ballistic rifles/long-arms. Basically anything that isn't semi/burst/full-auto, a pistol, an Energy weapon or a Heavy weapon. (Or a melee/unarmed weapon of course.)

 

So the Gauss Rifle would be covered (as in vanilla), but the M79 and China Lake grenade launchers wouldn't - despite being break-action and pump-action respectively - since they're Heavy weapons.

[ShanaMetalGoddess1991]

Semi, burst, fully automatic and pistols does make more sense to be governed by the Commando perk. A thought I had following this topic though, do you know if the Cowboy perk is in fallout 4 Antistar? I can't remember if it is or not, I seem to recall that revolvers and lever actions were governed by the Cowboy perk in New Vegas, possibly break actions too.

[ShanaMetalGoddess1991]

The M79 and China Lake may be break action and pump action respectively, but they deal with explosive ordinance not conventional ballistics, so I would agree either Heavy Weapons or even Explosives perks.

[Nihilisaurus]

Semi, burst, fully automatic and pistols does make more sense to be governed by the Commando perk. A thought I had following this topic though, do you know if the Cowboy perk is in fallout 4 Antistar? I can't remember if it is or not, I seem to recall that revolvers and lever actions were governed by the Cowboy perk in New Vegas, possibly break actions too.

No Cowboy in FO4. Also, pistols would still be under gunslinger, as they're pistols.