Less Custom Weaponry?

[Rneuby]

Is there a mod out there that limits the amount of "custom mods" on npc/loot weapons? It's really minor, but incredibly obnoxious lore-wise to keep rolling "Quick recoil compensated, hardened glow-sighted 10mm pistol" when up until this game, they were known only as "10mm pistol"; and only few existed with custom mods attached. Even assuming weapon mods are unique to The Commonwealth, whats the purpose of looting these incredibly diverse shooters if at lvl.15 every gun you loot is worth the same (and likely has parts you can already make from scratch)? If no mod exists, can someone please make one that edits loot tables NOT to include "recoil compensated blah-blahs" and just to spawn the "Hunting rifle" or ".44 Magnum" which are cohesive to Fallout lore?

Edited October 14, 2019 by Rneuby

[mauvecloud]

As far as I can tell, no such mod currently exists. However, it should be possible to make such a mod, since I found one that does roughly the opposite of what you describe:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/38033

 

Since you asked about the purpose, one possible answer is to strip mods from looted weapons to apply to your own instead of spending perk points early on Gun Nut and Science.

 

I could take a stab at making such a mod myself, but I have a few questions first:

1. How restrictive do you want it to be? My first thought is to just take the templates that normally have randomized mods in some slots and set those slots to use the most basic mods in those slots, but if you want, I could take it further and limit it to the most basic pistol/rifle of each type (even if the npc might otherwise get a sniper rifle or automatic pistol).

2. Do you want DLC weapons to be affected as well?

3. Are there any weapons that should be exceptions to this? (e.g. legendary weapons or maybe pipe weapons - the latter are built pretty much from scratch anyway, and I'm not sure how much Fallout lore there is behind them)

4. Are you currently using any mods that alter weapon records, such as AWKCR, VIS-G Item Sorting, or Realistic Guns and Bullets Overhaul? I'd like to take those into consideration ahead of time to avoid conflicts.

[Rneuby]

Ideally, most weapons (IE: 10mm Pistol, Assault Rifle) would spawn with no mods attached on a settler or found as generic loot; while as you said, legendary variants (and weapons used by legendaries, if possible) would spawn with 50/50 chance of having vanilla, level-based mods, or spawning with none. It would also be cool to have weapon specific variants too, like hunting rifles and SMG's spawning with their full stocks, and having a chance for a randomly leveled scope or a coinflip between the box or drum mag for the latter. In a perfect world, I would have these for the N99, DKS 501, and the R91 mods on Nexus, spawning their alternate Fallout 3 variants (Silenced 10mm, stock sniper w/out being cut down, and the assault rifle in its "Infiltrator" config); but I wouldn't want to push my luck, lol. If you have the patience to incorporate DLC weapons, I would be very grateful... and no, I'm not running any weapon overhaul mods or UI sorting. Thanks so much for considering my little idea :happy:

Edited October 16, 2019 by Rneuby

[mauvecloud]

Okay, after some investigation, it seems I misunderstood what the object templates were really for (I haven't had much luck finding a tutorial that explains them). I thought the "epic" child templates were only for legendaries, but instead there are some globals that affect the chances of said epic templates being used (which in most cases allow for extra variations like different stocks/grips, sights, magazines, etc. though often limiting receivers to either semi-automatic or automatic, or making sure it has some sort of scope (depending on which leveled list was invoked)).

 

I'm attaching a very simple mod that should hopefully prevent mooks from carrying such eclectic weapons (aside from pipe guns - unlike other guns I found, the leveled list that invokes the "random" template for pipe guns actually has some references), while still allowing vendors and bosses the extra variety. Weapons found in containers may also be limited in variety, but if you use this on an existing game, enemies (and containers) that have already spawned probably won't be affected.

 

I think this will also affect DLC weapons, despite the mod not relying on their esm files, and possibly the other weapon mods you mentioned, though that will depend on how those mod authors set up the object templates and leveled lists for their weapons.

 

Edit: I looked further into the references for the "random" template for pipe guns, and it's only used on some specific NPCs: scavengers, mostly in random encounters, but also some dead ones in Hubris Comics. The generic leveled list for pipe guns that chooses from several more-specific leveled lists skips the "random" one.