The broken download sounds strange. I just tested the link on the front page (with my phone, even), and it worked. Do you still have the problem, Panzer?
Ocelot said:
The 14mm Pistol does 15-21 damage.
Disagree. The only modification should be normalizing the DMG MOD to 1/1. The DR MOD of -50 is already appropriate. The weapon costs $1100 and is available early, so its base damage shouldn't be boosted at all IMO.
I made it this strong because there are a lot of enemies that use this against you. The Slavers in NCR come to mind, there's a tough guy there with one of these, but there are also enemies in random encounters that use it. It's one of the few weapons that you still fear with combat armor on, so I want it as powerful as possible. By the time you get it (Modoc I think) it is likely your best single-shot weapon, but then there's the Assault Rifle from Vegeir, and encounters near VC where you find HK CAWSes, an FN FAL in Gecko, loads of Grenades in VC... Basically, when the groovy burst/AOE weapons show up I for one tend to ditch the powerful single shooters and give them to NPCs.
Ocelot said:
The Needler Pistol does 12-18 damage, has a range of 20 and an AP cost of 4. It also has a base price of 1300 instead of 2200.
Disagree. Since the gun originally costs 2200, becomes available somewhat late, and is rare, it should be a good weapon. Its combat value should reflect the fact that it costs twice as much as the 14mm Pistol. Its base damage of 12-24, as well as the range of 24, should be kept intact. The weapon has Weapon Penetrate and a good magazine capacity. These factors, coupled with your modifications to the ammunition types, make the weapon's combat value correctly reflect the pricetag of $2200.
I agree with you on this, but I have one problem with the gun being as good as it is in vanilla FO2: It feels
wrong on so many levels. Here you have a tiny plastic gun that shoots tiny plastic darts with a tiny plastic sound, yet it manages to insta-kill a metal-armored goon? No. NO!
And I have a wacky, but strangely appealing idea for it. At first I thought I had finally gone insane, but I just can't get the idea out of my head. Please tell me what you think of this:
The Needler pistol is now a Taser.
It has an updated item description for the weapon and ammo. It does 12-24 Electrical damage and has a range of 15. Its default ammo (Taser Darts) has no modifiers, and its AP ammo (High-Voltage Taser Darts) has a 1.25 Damage mod, but none of the ammos reduce Electrical DR. Think about it. It's carried ingame by a sheriff, and tasers are usually used by law enforcement. And there are very few Electrical weapons in the game, and only two of them have the awesome crit death animation. Imagine the rays from the setting sun reflecting off your Redding Sheriff's badge as you blast a dart into a perp's eyes and watch as he disintegrates into dust. Now that's some fine policework.
Ocelot said:
The Desert Eagle and the .44 Magnum do 12-17 and 13-19 damage, respectively.
These weapons originally cost $800 and $600 respectively, and they are available very early, so their stats need no boosting. Furthermore, the Magnum's AP cost should be increased to 5. It is, by default, way too powerful both for its low price and early availability. That is what needs fixing, the weapon is too good. Correcting .44 JHP's overly favorable modifiers (which you have done) and normalizing the pistol's AP cost would fix this sufficiently.
One of the first things I did in F2WR, way back in '08 I think, was increase the Magnum's cost to 5AP. It made sense on paper. It made sense in my head. The numbers added up.
It was absolute shite.
The gun lost all its appeal compared to the Deagle, which had longer range, more ammo and cost less to buy. One of the most awesome guns in Fallout 2, described as "the most powerful handgun in the world", was now a paperweight. I had unwittingly managed to break the entire game, by trying to fix it. I hurried up and put it back to its 4AP cost, and then the game was good again. I increased both of the guns' damage to make FMJ outperform JHP against Metal and Combat Armor (armor-piercing doesn't do much if the gun's damage is very low, because it doesn't break the DT. Case in point, the Minigun).
So, since the Magnum is so good, why use the Deagle? The answer is, you don't.
Enemies do. It is one of the most common weapons you will find pointed at you, and I plan on making its default ammo be the FMJ. This means that enemies with Deagles in random encounters will now use FMJ ammo against you, while enemies in game maps still use whatever they have now. Since FMJ is effective on Metal armor, this means you can't really relax until you have at least Combat armor, and I have further plans for also introducing late-game threats to Combat armor...
Ocelot said:
Putting a speed loader on the .44 Magnum no longer increases its range from 15 to 20. Instead, both versions of the weapon have a range of 20.
The weapon's monetary value is very low. Thus the gun shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt but vice versa. Therefore both the unmodded and modded Magnum should have the same short range of 15, IMO.
Eesh... I dunno. 15 is really not much. It would make the gun nearly useless for NPCs unless they have the Charge! setting on (they'd miss with it a lot). The upgraded Magnum has an extremely high Proto ID number, which suggests it was added into the game very late, and so I assumed Black Isle had decided to give the Magnum a range of 20 after some playtesting, but forgot to change the un-upgraded gun.
Ocelot said:
The 10mm Pistol does 7-13 damage and has an AP cost of 4.
It should be the crappiest pistol in the game, judging from its immediate availability in Fallout1 and its low price. The stats should be kept intact, just with the ammo modifiers corrected (which you did).
Prices in the game are absolutely no indicator of how good a gun should be. If they were, Jonny's BB Gun should be better than the 10mm pistol. If the gun wasn't so common I would have changed it to cost even more, but it's a fact that you never buy this gun, and sell it by the dozens, so I can't do that.
Again, this is a case of changing a gun to make enemies more challenging. Think about Metzger's gang. They all use this. But now they get TWO shots per round instead of one, so they are now very scary. You ditch this gun as soon as you reach the Den because it's still the crappiest one in the game, but the enemies are stuck with them, and I want Metzger to be a REAL challenge. I increased its damage to make it outperform JHP against Metal and Combat armor when loaded with AP ammo (see the note about FMJ vs JHP for the Deagle/Magnum). I believe Tyler has one of these loaded with AP, and he fights Lana who has Metal armor, so now he might even win if you don't stop him, whereas before he would always lose.
Ocelot said:
The 9mm Mauser now has a damage of 10-16 and a range of 25. It still has an accuracy bonus of 20% and an AP cost of 4.
The .223 Pistol has been swapped with the Mauser, meaning you will only find one .223 and many Mausers.
Nice work!
Thanks! Honestly the Mauser now does a bit more damage than it should compared to the 10mm pistol, but you encounter it on mobsters around New Reno, and I want them to at least be able to hurt you at that point (you likely have Metal Mk 2/Combat armor). It does fit in nicely with the Grease/Tommy guns however, and it is realistic that it would have good range and accuracy with some armor penetration, because 9mm Parabellum is one hell of a round.
Ocelot said:
The Assault Rifle and its upgrade have a hit bonus of 20% instead of 40%, and their single shot range is reduced to 40. They also have a burst range of 35.
The Assault Rifle and its upgrade fire 9 bullets per burst instead of 8.
The Assault Rifle now has a capacity of 27, which gives three bursts per reload. Putting an extended magazine on it yields a capacity of 90 and ten bursts per reload.
Hmmm...I guess the really long range was a bit weird. But generally I think this is an unnecessary change -- fixing the ammo would have been enough. Your choices for 5mm ammo modifiers were good tho!
There are many weapons that have weird ranges at the moment (I don't know what I was smoking when I gave the Bozar such a short one), I plan on making them a bit more consistent in the next version.
Ocelot said:
The Hunting Rifle and its upgrade do 10-20 damage. The Hunting Rifle also has a hit bonus of 20% instead of 40%.
A minor and unnecessary change imo. It wasn't broke.
Not in the vanilla game, but it just felt a bit lackluster compared to the now dangerous Deagles and downright murderous 10mm SMGs after I introduced the JHP/AP ammo changes. The small damage boost puts it back in business, and the reduced hit bonus was to make the scoped one and the Sniper Rifle more of a step-up (the Sniper has 40% and the scoped HR has I think 60% but gets worse when you're closer).
Ocelot said:
The FN FAL fires 11 bullets per burst, with or without a night sight. The HPFA does 14-22 damage up from 11-22. It fires 18 bullets per burst, which is less than its default 20, but the HPFA now has a 20% bonus to hit that the other FN FALs do not.
The FN FAL has a capacity of 33, with or without a night sight. The HPFA has a capacity of 36.
I don't agree that these weapons needed fixing. The ammo modification was ok tho.
I think I made the FN FAL stronger because its ammo is more rare than the Assault Rifle's, and you find it later (Gecko vs Modoc), so I wanted a bit more incentive to using it over the AR. But you could be right, I'll have to play with it a bit and see if it's not too overpowered now.
The HPFA is now basically an M60 with less damage per shot but 50% more bullets, and one of the highest damaging weapons for Small Guns users. It doesn't quite have the armor piercing to take on Navarro patrols (only the Gauss weapons and HK G11E do in the Small Guns tree), and you still won't have enough ammo to use it as much as you'd like, but it will obliterate everything but the Enclave in a metal storm.
Ocelot said:
The Combat Shotgun, H&K CAWS and Pancor Jackhammer now have burst ranges of 18, 23 and 26.
The Combat Shotgun, H&K CAWS and Pancor Jackhammer now fire 4, 6 and 8 shots per burst.
The HK CAWS and Pancor Jackhammer now carry 12 and 18 shots, and weigh 12 and 15 pounds.
The Shotgun does 15-22 damage and its range is now 18.
The Sawnoff Shotgun does 19-24 damage, uses the Pistol animation, has a 20% hit bonus like all other shotguns and its range is now 9.
The Combat Shotgun's single shot range is now 20.
The HK CAWS now does 16-27 damage.
The Shotgun should be left intact IMO. It's not supposed to be very good at 800 bucks of value. The Sawed-Off Shotgun, being of the same monetary value but having only half the range, should indeed have a more significant damage edge than it does by default. I'd say 15-25 for the Sawed-Off Shotgun (same damage as the Combat Shotgun). Making it a one-handed weapon is cool.
Good work on the high-tech shotguns. They were underpowered for their price in the original.
I really don't pay attention to the price when I edit the weapons. I only think about when and where they are acquired, what types of enemies use them, and what sort of gear you normally have access to when you get one. Then when I'm done and the weapon feels right, I set a price on it that is usually in line with what similarly powered weapons cost, or leave it as it is if it doesn't look wrong.
The Shotgun falls in roughly the same category as the Deagle, in that there are tons of enemies that use it against you, but normally you sell it or give it to Vic rather than use it yourself (because you have the Magnum when you first find one). I found that these enemies would always do less damage to me than the ones with Hunting rifles or Deagles, so I gave it a bit more damage to compensate for its lack of armor penetration. This also makes it more attractive in case I do feel like using it myself, because it's rather unwieldy due to the constant reloading and very short range.
Ocelot said:
The 10mmSMG does 7-13 damage.
Disagree. No need for a change beyond fixing the ammo (which was well done IMO).
On the contrary, this change was necessary in order for AP ammo to outperform JHP against Metal armor and above. At 5-12 damage, AP ammo barely does any more damage than JHP against Metal armor, and I want the difference to be more pronounced. The biggest issue with this gun is in fact that no enemies have it loaded with AP ammo, but I plan on changing that in a few maps in the next version.
Ocelot said:
The HK P90c does 9-14 damage.
It costs 2.75 times the price of the 10mm SMG. I agree with this change, but only if the 10mm SMG's base damage is the original 5-12, so that the difference reflects the price difference. The weapon did need some downgrading, it was way too powerful for its price in the original. So the general direction of this change is good.
Again, screw the price, but look at the damage. The gun was quite good in vanilla FO2, but when I changed AP ammo to make it functional this became like a pocket-sized Bozar. It would obliterate anything short of Enclave guards, and with JHP it would do several hundred points of damage against leather armor, not to mention unarmored targets. It's still powerful, and usually my end gun for Sulik. With AP ammo it's my weapon of choice for clearing out the Military Base, since the mutants there now have stats equal to Combat armor. Wanamingos in Redding also melt like butter against it, but the 10mm smg usually suffices for those.
Ocelot said:
The Tommy Gun does 8-18 damage instead of 3-20, as I cannot imagine how a firearm could do 3 damage unless it just clipped your toenail or something. It also has a burst range of 25 instead of 16.
.45 caliber "man-stopper" bullets doing 3 hp of damage is ridiculous, but game logic is game logic. This weapon is slightly less expensive than the Assault Rifle, and so should be only slightly worse. I think your change makes it too powerful. The weapon already has a huge magazine and shoots 2 more rounds a burst than the Assault Rifle. I think its stats should be kept intact, aside from the ammo improvement. Or, at the most, keep the average damage the same (11,5) but reduce its massive spread. To 8-15, for instance.
The Tommy Gun looks powerful in theory, but its only ammo has awful armor penetration, so by the time you're up against it you will likely take much more damage from Sniper Rifles and Combat Shotguns. I've made the ammo clips 3 times larger (used to be 10, now 30) so that you can actually find enough of it in shops. Therefore, if you want you can use the Tommy or the Grease Gun to terrorize the unarmored townspeople as a Made Man, however it performs worse than the Assault Rifle against even Leather armor and is practically useless against Metal, where the AR really shines even with JHP ammo.
Ocelot said:
Gauss ammo (2mmEC) no longer increases the weapon's base damage, but its DR modifier has been increased to a muscular -50.
Excellent! That's exactly how I would have done it, and was in fact thinking not long before stumbling upon this thread that this would be the perfect way to amend the Gauss Weapons' excessive dominance while having them remain top-notch Small Guns with all the qualities touted in the in-game description still intact. Good work!
Thanks! People have complained that this means Navarro is practically unassailable with only Small Guns unless you have the Sniper perk, but I actually think that's a good thing! You should benefit from investing in Big Guns or Energy Weapons (or even Throwing, since EMP grenades now affect Power Armor and Plasma Grenades are ultra-mighty), rather than relying on just one combat skill and having the others just for fun. If you do, you at least need specialized perks for Small Guns.
Here's how the combat skills work at the moment:
Small Guns - Kicks ass through most of the game, slightly underpowered at the end.
Melee Weapons - Makes the early game very easy, the late game quite a bit harder.
Unarmed - Requires heavy skill point and perk investment, but potentially better than Melee Weapons.
Big Guns - Useless at first, awesome in the end.
Energy Weapons - See Big Guns.
Throwing - Requires heavy investment to be used as primary weapon skill, but is devastating as a support skill with grenades.
Ocelot said:
The Minigun and the Avenger have one more point of maximum damage. The Avenger now also has a 40% bonus to hit like the Minigun.
Ok, but they'll still do no damage against Advanced Power Armor or better. AP ammo or not. I guess this is because we can't have a DT MOD like New Vegas does.
That, and if I had made the Avenger capable of piercing APA it would effectively have become the best gun in the game because of its plentiful ammo, long range, bonus to hit and insane fire rate. It can already pierce Power Armor, which is worn by a few Enclave soldiers, a few Deathclaws (Gruthar) and I believe Melchor the Magnificent.
Ocelot said:
The M60 now has a single-shot mode that costs 5AP and has a range of 40. Its ammo capacity is increased to 60, and it fires 12 bullets per burst instead of 10.
I like the single shot, but otherwise I think this weapon's stats should have been left alone. At 3500 bucks, it's supposed to be the weakest machine gun, and that's what it is in the original.
It's still the weakest Big Gun. It's hard to find (only prospector encounters around Redding have it) and requires becoming a Made Man to buy, hard to get enough ammo for and quite inaccurate (no hit bonus) for a starting Big Gun user, plus it has less range and damage than the Light Support Weapon. It does have 5 bursts per reload compared to the LSW which has only 3, but as long as you position yourself right you shouldn't need to reload before everyone's dead anyway. I increased its stats only so that it would feel "big" compared to the FN FAL and Assault Rifle.
If you're crazy about Big Guns this will probably be your first one. You can hover around Redding until you find it, and there's ammo to buy for it in Gecko.
The LSW on the other hand requires a trip to New Reno for the Electronic Lockpick, and then repairing the generator in the Toxic Caves to defeat the rocketbot. However, neither of these do anything against Horrigan, so it's likely you'll pick up the Bozar and definitely the Rocket Launcher before heading off to the Enclave.
Ocelot said:
The Bozar is now single shot only, uses 14mmAP ammo, has a range of 36 and sounds like a Sniper Rifle. It does 38-76 damage, has a capacity of 10 and a 40% bonus to hit. Its AP cost is still 6.
Good call making it use the biggest caliber in the game, that makes a world of sense. I initially thought the gun should average 70 to 80 hitpoints of damage to make it relevant compared to the Gauss Rifle, but since the latter's damage was already toned down with the change to 2mm EC's modifiers, this is no longer necessary. 38-76 is fine, though reducing the random variation to 48-66 would be preferable in my opinion, since high-end guns tend to perform consistently rather than displaying extreme variation between one round and the next. The only real issue I have is with the range. As someone already aptly pointed out, the kind of real-world weapons the Bozar was clearly inspired by have extremely long ranges, from 2km upwards. The range should absolutely not be anything less than the maximum seen in the game (50 hexes). These weapons are heavy and cumbersome. Their selling point is the range, accuracy, and ability to pierce armor. With the range appropriately increased, it would be pretty much perfect.
Yeah, I have no clue why the Bozar has that range. I must have been on mushrooms when I made it. I'll give it a more appropriate one when I go over the ranges for all the weapons, and probably increase its damage a bit as well. It has to be the king of Big Guns, otherwise it just won't feel right.
Ocelot said:
As for the weakness of laser weapons in Fallout2, I think changing armor stats is enough, and that changing weapon stats is unneeded. The Laser Pistol, at $1400, was evidently not intended as a very powerful weapon. In Fallout1 it averages one point less of damage per attack than the .14mm Pistol, which costs $1100, but vastly outperforms it in range and magazine capacity. This is entirely consistent with its monetary value, so the weapon doesn't need fixing. What needs fixing is all the disproportionately laser-resistant armor found in the game. The same goes for the Laser Rifle. No changes needed, except to various types of armor.
Armor stat fixes go a long way to make the Salvatores more fearsome. Giving Magneto-Lasers to most of the gang finishes the job IMO. If it's deemed necessary that the gang members be able to fire two shots per turn, then changing the weapon stats isn't the solution, but one should rather give the gangsters one more action point, so that weapon balance is not affected.
Navarro patrols also use Laser Pistols, so I thought I'd catch two flies in one swat by speeding up the pistol. Remember, critters would need an AG of 10 in order to get two shots with a 5AP weapon, which might be okay for top-trained soldiers but a bit unrealistic for every drunk slaver and thug who joins up with Metzger/Salvatore. 1400 is still 200 more than a Combat Shotgun, and is actually quite expensive for a pistol, I believe I even reduced the price. Right now the weapon performs roughly like a 4AP version of the 14mm Pistol but with more range, and I quite like it that way. Its contender is the Plasma Pistol, which does much more damage at the cost of much shorter range.
Ocelot said:
I think the Plasma Rifle's original stats should be kept intact. With a pricetag of $4000, it was clearly not intended as a super energy weapon, but a competitor to the Laser Rifle.
I agree with reducing the AP cost of the Turbo Plasma Rifle. It is consistent with the weapon's very high price. However, the change creates a game balance problem. Since the first Plasma Rifle is available mid-game (in Sierra Army Depot), that means the Turbo Plasma Rifle is obtainable just as early (through Algernon). Thus, changing the AP cost the way you did would equip the player with a veritable super weapon at way too early a stage -- much like the Bozar in unmodded Fallout2. So, the modder faces a choice: whether to honor consistency&continuity between FO1 and FO2 as well as the pricing (and give the TPR the AP cost reduction) or put game balance before consistency and keep the TPR at 5 AP a shot. Ultimately, game balance should be the higher priority. However, I would suggest sidestepping the issue altogether by simply replacing the Plasma Rifle in Sierra Army Depot with a Laser Rifle. That way, the TPR can keep its low AP cost, and game balance is not compromised.
Now, the reason why I did this is partly because of the item description (the only change mentioned in the Turbo Plasma Rifle is that it's
faster, not more powerful), but also because Super Mutants in the Master's Army encounters carry Plasma Rifles. Since the rifles are now more powerful, those mutants are now more dangerous! Remember, the game can
never get too hard!
.
