1) 14mm pistol didn't disappear. It is still one of the best ammo in terms of AP.
IDK, I remember using it before, and not really having an incentive to use it on the playtesting runs because other stuff worked well enough. I'd have to buy it to use it due to low drops and I didn't seem to need to invest in something to get it's functionality. I'm not sure about the numbers on it, but AP shotgun ammo pushes a bunch of other stuff out if it's usable, because shotguns were originally designed to "inherit" ammo along the power progression but be completely useless against armor as a tradeoff.
2) You are saying it like I'm a stubborn asshole that made imbalanced weapon stats and don't want to change them. In fact, I'm open to constructive suggestions. Balance between realism, lore and gameplay was the main goal of my initial mod, so I can fiddle with some weapons if you think they are overpowered to meet some kind of compromise...
You are stubborn, but you're deffinitely not an asshole, and as I said, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't have returned to Fallout 2 or ever modded anything and a lot of that has to do with you being a great guy who made many great things and has been reasonable about a lot of stuff. The problem w guns is that they just look like something that can be fixed in a neat way, but many of their stats were made with flow in mind originally. If you buff M60 enough, for example, there's no "entry level" big gun (used to be M60), because if you make any big gun closely realistic or subjectively appropriately powerful, they're all too good.
I agree about Turbo Plasma Rifle (I thought this was fun idea initially, but now I understand why developers changed it in Fallout 2 in the first place), I should just add damage bonus for it.
As for the rifle itself being too powerful - I only increased it's power by little margin: 40-70, from 30-65 (in Vanilla).
Yeah, just take into account that even people who'll skip sniper and some other silly perks, probably won't skip bonus rate of fire, and while a small increase in power can be fine on a single shot weapon (but be very careful on burst regardless of the formula), when you can fire something 2-3 times in a round it kind of efectively negates the big damage range. And if someone's playing no combat control, a later game no-burst/no AoE weapon is god-given simply because it has a lower chance to kill teammates, so that alone means it will be used if it does any damage at all.
Also, in theory not everyone will get Marcus and Cat Jules, and people play without a useful Miria, but in practice most people will particularly because as opposed to other companions they can use big guns, which makes the "need to skill big guns" as a balancing factor on them not really work (unless the weapon can only burst, and if the player isn't using combat control). Vic also becomes quite good with energy weapons (and probably the best combat companion overall) with levels (that's the joke, he's impossibly bad to start, other critters and even CO make jokes about it, but turns into a bit of a monster), so every big/gun and/or energy weapon will probably be used in every game by a character who's competent with them. This means many of them not appropriate for late game stats or increased functionality because you're kinda guaranteed being able to use them at broken hills or EPA (so generally around New Reno but possibly before you actually fight anything IN New Reno or even the raiders).
Also keep in mind that anyone looking for a way to upgrade stuff, or has just been playing for a long time will either google or know about Algernon, so it's fair to assume that upgraded variants get more play than non-upgraded ones for power fist, laser rifle and the pulse rifle (it was also true for FAL, and since you get a free upgrade in Gecko it's also true for Assault Rifle). Not getting ammo was a good move, but not necessarily enough if you want upgrades for such weapons to be a proper economy and balancing factor. It definitely breaks the basic power fist, as you can get one in BH an upgrade it right next door (and even if you don't get it that way it means you pay for basic power fist and get a free upgrade which messes up the allready tricky melle-unarmed progression).
I know people might grumble about Algernon, but you could still have him able to give you a free upgrade on a small gun, but a well thought out weapon upgrade system would certainly make the late game a lot more interesting. That way you could have somewhat sensible stats on upgreadeable late game stuff, and let the player use resources and put in an effort to make them have the "cool" stats. Added beneifit is that you can make the ugraded stats whatever you want, as it won't affect random enemies (which is why weapon upgrades exist as a mechanic in the first place - it's a way to make common weapons on enemies not be as powerful as what the player can get, or hold more ammo than an enemy needs in an encounter as they generally have fewer targets and/or aren't supposed to burst as often.)
Has to be really well thought out though, but you know how that is with crafting and flow by now.
I think I know what may be the a problem with energy/other guns being too strong. It's in ammo AP stats. I may need to lower them somewhat. I had doubts about them already.
Yeah, most likely.
PS: things I really want to stay more powerful than vanilla (one of the main initial annoyances): laser weapons, shotguns, sniper rifles, grenades, rockets (maybe), any weapon with AP ammo, throwing weapons, wakizashi
Eh, see, that's the problem, most of those things were problematic for power or had very, very precise and specific reasons why they weren't very good and very likely shouldn't be tinkered with. Not all of them, and noone can prevent you from doing what you want but here's a point list of in game common sense supposed to override RL sensibilities/common sense:
- Energy weapons, depending on what you do with the early game armors/general resistances , all have AP/universal ammo by default, good range and their ammo is plentiful once they become available. There's fights where you can't use them by default, but they otherwise destroy stuff. You have a laser weapon - you become the Salvatore everyone's afraid of, but they didn't make that actually work for obvious reasons (as they had too give you tons of energy cells as fuel for the car so ammo is no issue most of the time). And they're ammo efficent by default. And they're sota the best choice on many NPC's because of no burst (and Myron can onyl really use them from all weapons). And they all have free upgrades. So there's a LOT of pro's to them, regarless of the numbers on them, but you've nerfed the laser rifle allready, and with a more sensible weapon upgrade system (only for existing upgrades mind you, and probably only for the late game ones), they'd be better.
- Shotguns are also something with more related factors than it looks. You've nerfed the range allredy, which is good, but the early ones are/were being fired once per round at short range anyway and had to be reloaded practically immediately, so adding burst to them mostly means you've just increased their damage for no apparent downside. The universal ammo made them very obsolete compared to one another by default, and no AP ammo ment that you can put them on enemies and not fear the concequences of giving player ammo after every enemy kill, and no AP also ment they had to have a bit more range than makes RL sense to not make them compare really badly to other options. You've delt with the range, which is good, but AP ammo still made H&K something you can take to the Oil Rig and the early burst just means instagibs if it's working (especially if used against you, technically if all enemies who have shotguns are using it it alone means encounters need adjustments).
- Sniper Rifles... Were allready too useful and a guaranteed find on most playthrughs. They didn't need better bullets, and all that did in effect was to make FAL and M60 compete with it for ammo, and nothing can win that fight, so now everyone who drops FAL ammo (and many raiders did originally) is basically just fueling an army of people with Sniper Rifles. Also, not having burst means it's a default on NPC's, and most NPC's are great with small guns anyway. It has +1 AP cost compared to most things, but that just means bonus rate of fire doesn't contribute to it as much as other things, but it doesn't need to. As for the bozar... well, it was stupidly effective in the burst fire mode incarnation, but at least it couldn't be given to NPCs or they'd wipe the pary. Essentially, sniper rifles are silly due to aimed shots in Fallout, no need to buff them at all.
- Grenade work is good. The player isn't ready to go against grenades before Modoc (and if I tweak it a bit, redding), though, and even later some encounters are really tough with them (as you've effectively given a 2 shot rocket launcher with no reloading to people). It doesn't help that the trade route squares around the den area are putting later game enemies w them in a place where you can only realistically have leather jackets / possibly armor, but I'm working on that, that's vanilla/RP nonsense interfearing . A good thing about your grenade work is that they aren't affected by bonus rate of fire.
- Rockets - well, they're inferior to grenades because of needing a launcher, reloading and ammo being impractically heavy. The only concequences to buffing them is that the random encounters w enemies which have them would probably become instagib reload bait, from what I've seen. They're one of those things that really doesn't work symetrically, they're only good on enemies, and hugely impractical on players. There isn't really a single aspect of it that makes the rocket launcher a significantly better option than anything else, too - grenades are more practical and easy to carry, laser weapons / sniper rifles have enough range, everything else works at close range without blowing anyone up or doesn't need big guns. I've carried a rocket launcher and missiles on Marcus all game, and really tried to make use of them, but it really has too many flaws. Works too well on enemies, though, if you buff it. Good luck with this one.
- AP ammo, well, it's a good thing that it works.
- Throwing weapons (other than grenades) - well, I did a thrower playthrough, and it was quite good, we've talked about it. Big annoyance is stuff getting lost behind scenery, not much you can do about it. And thrown weapons have the same inherent problem as melle/unarmed, which is that they don't spend ammo so if they actually work the game plays completely differently. Still, it's the best that could've been done, I suppose, and I found it enjoyable. Sulik can throw stuff, so you are guaranteed to be able to use them on every playthrough, and I sometimes do.
There's quite a few enemies with spears sharpened poles and rocks in the early game and they don't throw them, Especially in the primitive tribe area. I'm curious if anything should or could be done about that and what the results would look like. I'm considering adding tribal war parties to the den area (retribution for slaving), in place of some unreasonable difficult armed ones, having them throw stuff at you would be quite good.
- Wakazashi blade - was a good idea, melle needed something useful above the spear/combat kinfe. However, i'm not sure Sulik can use it, and he's generally the main mele guy. Not sure how it works out, haven't put in a mainly melle playthrough yet, but when a version truly solves the ammo overabundance, I'll probably use it in a regular playthrough.
3) I'm yet to see when NPCs are favoring combat armor. I tried to reproduce it but failed.
Hmmm, I had every one of them favouring it. Say, could you enable combat control, give yourself the Dodger perk and try then? For science? I'd be glad if that's the reason.
