You're welcome! It *is* a fantastic game, and I want to make it the best it can be by improving the feel of the combat without changing it too much. I think I've mostly succeeded, but there's always things that can be done better.Nice ! I'll wait for it before starting my game.
Thank you for your great work on this fantastic game.
Is the .223 'smaller' than the 14mm pistol though?
Artwise its just Deckards gun, but the .223 is a cut down 5.56 rifle in lore.
14mm handgun rounds (possibly subcaliber) might not be as powerful as a massively too short 5.56 rifle.
I say they are. I visualize the 14mmAP rounds as anti-material "tank openers", hence their increased weight and armor penetration, and why the Bozar uses them. Putting them in a handgun is only possible because this is a videogame, and I wish I could make that handgun have the ST req to match that, but as I said, that would make things very hard for ST<5 chars.
You can check the pseudocode of to-hit calculation by Atom: https://pastebin.com/5BL19FcZYou mentioned that the long range perk was giving a PE dependant bonus to hit? How does that work? The wiki only says it reduces the range penalty by half and doesnt mention anything about giving it a bonus to hit directly.
You can check the pseudocode of to-hit calculation by Atom: https://pastebin.com/5BL19FcZ
if (dist >= 0) { if (attacker_eye_damage) dist*=-12; else dist*=-4;}
else dist*=-4;
if (!(attack_with_norange_argument && (dist<=0))) tohit+=dist;
if (-2*perception > dist) dist = -2*perception;
I haven't changed caravan encounters at all, because I wasn't familiar with them at that point and the way they're coded isn't exactly intuitive. I agree they shouldn't be that well armed at that point in the game, what you're describing sounds more like a San Fran encounter. Where did you take the caravan from?Okay, did some more testing. JHP does do slightly more than half of the base damage vs metal armor. The problem is one of progression...enemies with metal armor and up (stats wise) mainly show up late game. While 10mm AP would be better...the only people who would be using 10mm ap late game would probably be finess characters with a p90c since thats the best one handed burst weapon they can get hold of.
The player gets the 10mm pistol in klamath and gets 10mm smgs, desert eagles/magnum revolvers and hunting rifles around the den. The only reason to use 10mm AP at this stage is for the fight with Tyler's gang, but the player probably doesn't have any at this point. No reason whatsoever to use .44 FMJ at this point as JHP is strictly better.
With the hunting rifle, I think the main problem is the long range perk because that makes it insanely accurate even with a low guns skill. With 77% guns i can get 95% accuracy shooting off screen vs radscorpions. Other than that, it does mediocre damage because JHP is strictly better vs all enemies at this point. The magnum revolver just completely blows its competition out of the water at this stage of the game, being able to fire twice in one turn is a massive difference, and the low ammo capacity isnt a big problem really. Because of that, there is no reason whatsoever to upgrade the desert eagle, a 12 round capacity is overkill.
Early guns having their damage buffed is problematic...i think most of the early guns are pretty balanced. 10mm pistols going from 5-12 damage to 7-13 does too much damage against early enemies with the JHP change...it is extremely easy to kill melee enemies before they can hurt you. The desert eagle/magnum revolver with JHP rounds just turns the early game into a complete cakewalk because of how much damage you are doing.
I think it would work out better if their damage was changed back to the default values. I am still doing way more damage with the JHP modifiers than in the base game. I think weapon long range should be moved to the scoped hunting rifle, but that makes the normal hunting rifle rather mediocre at this stage.
Maybe a way to make DT more relevant vs JHP would be to have DT be subtracted before the damage multiplier is applied, is there a way to do that?
Im not sure if this was a change you did, but i took the caravan to new reno and ran into some bootleggers. They have no armor, average 50 hp or so, but have late game weapons like super sledges, pancor jackhammers and powerfists. Getting these late game weapons so early in the game breaks progression. They shouldnt be so easy to acquire just by killing some easy enemies.
I took the redding->new reno caravan. Bootleggers had super sledges, power fists and pancor jackhammers. I thinnk they were bootleggers at least, they were unarmored. Maybe some of your random encounter changes affected caravan encounters too?
Some of your random encounter changes have bugs...you gave san francisco mercenaries FN FALs, XL70e3s and plasma grenades. Unfortunately they cant use them because they dont have the animation frames for them. The leather jacket thug with blue jeans cant use rifle animations and the female marauder with metal armor (same as the ones that spawn in marauder encounters around the NCR) only have knife/spear animation frames IIRC.
Another bugged encounter ,"bootleggers" near redding. The females with yellow blouses (same as Maida Buckner) have 14mm pistols and grease guns, but no animations so cant use them. Black male with red shirt has a sawed off shotgun, but no pistol animation so cant use it.
I think you made an unintended change with the 9mm mauser -> .223 pistol switch. Trader Willy north of modoc, in the "a trader with guards" encounter has guards with .223 pistols now, which are too powerful at this stage of the game when you just reached Modoc. Its not unique either since you can get an infinite supply by constantly killing his guards everytime you get the encounter.
In my last post i agreed that the hunting rifle doesnt do too much damage, the issue is more that it is nearly impossible to miss with it since you can easily shoot off screen with a low guns skill, but that might be an issue with how powerful the long range perk is. There is basically no reason to use anything other than JHP in the early game because of how much damage it does. Burst weapon balance is very problematic due to the way it is balanced...it is basically a instant win button vs melee enemies and even the oil rig is a cake walk if you just stand behind a corner with a burst weapon. The enclave soldiers will run around the corner like lemmings and die in one burst volley. Im focusing on single shot balance atm.
I had issues with Vic missing with a desert eagle as well, but I gave him the free shotgun in redding and that problem got solved.
Sure, guns > melee realistically, the problem is one of balance. I walked into a cave full of lesser/immature deathclaws at a low level and easily gunned them down with shotguns and a magnum revolver. All the encounters vs melee enemies are so easy now, and they werent exactly hard to begin with. Sulik does do a lot of damage, but he has the advantage of having way higher hp, better armor and stimpacks.