Fallout 2 mod Fallout 2: Weapons Redone v2.3

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.

 

Whoaaaaaaaa wait a minute.

In the original game, 14mm AP is a HANDGUN cartridge, which NV shows us that the same weapon (12.7mm pistol) fires presumably a smaller version of the round.

Its not a 14.5mm anti materiel round at all.

 

IMO changing Bozar to use 14mm AP is more or less a compromise if modder doesn't want to make/add a new type of ammo in the game but still want to keep Bozar from getting its ammo too easily.

 

A compromise, sure, but it's silly to go 'I made a giant rifle use X ammo, ergo the handgun must be MONSTROUS'.

 

I took a quick look at this mod. Overall it feels much more balanced than the economy balance mod. Does ths one include barter changes as well like the economy rebalance mod?

Are you supposed to use the default FO2 damage formulae in ddraw.ini btw?

Some thoughts :

-The installer cant seem to detect the latest version of sfall and thinks its out of date, so it wants to install 3.6 over the newer version of sfall instead.

-Theres a mod that changes grenades so that they are unaffected by enemy AC since grenades are being thrown at the ground. I think thats a better solution than giving grenades weapon accurate...the two of them combined are definately overkill. With only 60% throwing skill and no weapon accurate perks, it is still very easy to get a high hit % with grenades.

-Not sure why you made JHP do a high damage multiplier + add lots of DR. Was it so that targets with high DR would eventually take 0 damage from JHP? It just makes it hard to calculate the expected damage from using JHP due to the damage multiplier.

-Was it really necessary to buff the hunting rifle? I think it was pretty balanced as it is. It now averages 15 damage, negates leather DR, has a half range penalty AND a -10% AC mod on top of it. It basically never misses and hits very hard for early game when you are only wearing leather.

-The 14mm pistol is extremely OP for how early it shows up. It averages 18 damage, has a +20% chance to hit, the ammo has a -30% AC modifier and negates power armor DR. The combination of never missing + near full damage makes it an uber hunting rifle, and it starts showing up around vault city/gecko IIRC.

-.44 magnum JHP has a 46% DR modifier instead of 47%, is that a typo?

-Shotguns are extremely underwhelming. The pancor jackhammer shows up around broken hills->NCR, but only averages 23 damage per shot...against wild dogs with 20% DR, it does roughly the same amount of damage as a 14mm pistol, except the 14mm pistol is much better against metal armor of better DR. Even assault rifles with JHP rounds would average 13 damage against wild dogs, with the advantage of being able to switch to AP rounds.

-The FN FAL is rendered obsolete by assault rifles with AP ammo. The 7.62mm round is basically a weaker version of the 5mm AP round and they do nearly the same amount of damage.

-G11Es doing a 7 round burst with a 50 round magazine seems kind of...odd. Grease gun doing an 8 round burst with a 30 round magazine also feels odd.

-The red ryder LE BB gun seems pretty underpowered now. By the time you can get it, there are much better weapons that are at 5 action points. Similarly, sniper rifles are pretty underwhelming at 6 AP per shot.

-The .44 magnum revolver is IMHO superior to the desert eagle...the 1 less AP to fire it makes a massive difference. With 10 APs, you can fire twice and reload, rendering the lower ammo capacity moot. The extra range is also largely a non-factor.

-Im confused as to why the HN Needler AP ammo is superior to the regular needler AP ammo and what the role of the needler pistol is now...its got this weird "enhanced knockout" perk instead of weapon penetrate. Its stilll a very rare gun and has one of the rarest ammo types, but its much worse than earlier guns.

-All the -AC modifiers on AP ammo, while making sense, makes AC even less important than before. It allows players to get away with a lot fewer points in weapon skills.

-Laser rifles averaging 45 damage per shot are overkill given the lower laser resistances IMHO.

-Pulse rifles/guns do far too much damage IMHO. They have the best damage type as it is, their damage should be toned down since they can kill most late game enemies in 1-2 hits.

 

When I said it negates leather armor, i meant the 20% DR which is the biggest effect. Averaging 15 damage per shot, the hunting rifle drops to 13 damage per shot vs leather armor, which is the best the player will have when enemies with hunting rifles show up. Thats still a bit too high IMHO. DT mainly affects low damage, high fire rate weapons, while DR mainly affects high damage per shot weapons. The hunting rifle does still have the long range perk.

Not sure how the formulae works though, is DT subtracted before or after the damage modifier? It seems to be before, which makes it pretty ineffective. 10mm pistols with JHP is very effective against tyler's gang which seems weird. It was doing about 10 damage per shot to them which seems far too high. I ran the maths and it should be averaging about 6 damage per hit, assuming DT is subtracted after the damage modifier.

Im confused about the taser thing, because the graphic, descriptions and name of the needler pistol is still unchanged. Why not rename it as Taser or something?

You 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

 

Thanks, if im reading it correctly...

-There are 3 levels of light penalties...what level of light do you get if you have night vision?

-I dont see anything in the code that explains how much % one hex is worth, distance wise.

Code:

  if (dist >= 0) { if (attacker_eye_damage) dist*=-12; else dist*=-4;}
  else dist*=-4;

At this point with 8 perception and a normal weapon, i got dist = 48.

Code:

  if (!(attack_with_norange_argument && (dist<=0))) tohit+=dist;

Im not sure what this part is...if im reading it correctly, it means that for ranged weapons, at a distance of 0, you get a to hit bonus = "dist" which means 48 in this scenario. That is massive. With just 100% guns you can easily max out hit % at point blank range.

Code:

if (-2*perception > dist) dist = -2*perception;

This part seems to cap the bonus from weapon long range to -2*perception, or -16 with 8 perception.

So with the bonus from weapon long range, the bonus to hit at distance 0 would be 64.

But what is the distance modifier per hex beyond 0? That's the important part.

Edit : Also apparently the AI is not affected by light levels?

 

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.

 

The .223 pistol thing isnt about money...its about getting access to one of the best pistols in the game at modoc. Its a progression issue, it becomes available too early. You also said that you wanted to make it unique, but its obviously not unique if you can farm multiple copies of it and have multiple party members with .223 pistols in the early game. Why not just edit the willy encounter so that they still have 9mm mausers?

The JHP issue is basically two fold :

1. It makes the early game too easy since you do too more damage in certain encounters.

2. There is no reason to use certain AP rounds since the guns using them become obsolete by the time you run into enemies that actually require AP rounds. .44 FMJ is a good example, you wont be needing them at all because by the time you want to kill wanamingos, centaurs, floaters, etc, you will have much better weapons. You can rush wanamingos early on, but thats like rushing navarro to get the advanced power armor.

Im not sure what would be a good solution to the JHP issue. Possibly reducing the damage bonus vs leather armor and below.

Im looking in your randomencounters.txt file :


[Encounter: RED_Bootlegger]
type_00=pid:16777450, Item:6(wielded), Item2-7)159, Item0-20)41, Script:1116 ; Magnus: Bootlegger male w/ Super Sledgehammer, and tons of molotovs
type_02=ratio:25%, pid:16777450, Item:385(wielded), Item1-2)159, Item0-20)41, Script:505 ; Magnus: Bootlegger male w/ Sawed-Off and molotovs, NOT Pancor Jackhammer


Male bootleggers dont have pistol animations so cant use the sawed off.

Some of the weird encounters arent from your mod though. Im looking at the RP's worldmap.txt and this is the bootlegger part :

[Encounter: RED_Bootlegger]
type_00=pid:16777450, Item:6(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:1116 ; Bootlegger male w/ Super Sledgehammer
type_01=ratio:25%, pid:16777450, Item:6(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:505 ; Bootlegger male w/ Sledgehammer
type_02=ratio:25%, pid:16777450, Item:354(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:505 ; Bootlegger male w/ Pancor Jackhammer
type_03=ratio:25%, pid:16777451, Item:332(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:505 ; Bootlegger female w/ Grease Gun
type_04=ratio:25%, pid:16777451, Item:22(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:505 ; Bootlegger female w/ 14mm
type_05=pid:33555432, Distance:14, If (Rand(10%)) ; Still
position=huddle, spacing:2

Im very confused as to why the RP would have this. I doubt this was part of the unmodded game. I dont recall seeing bootleggers with super sledge hammers in the unmodded game either.

And these are the san francisco mercenaries :


[Encounter: FRAN_Mercenaries]
type_01=ratio:25%, pid:16777470, Item:353(wielded), Item0-50)41, Script:486 ; Magnus: Mercenary male w/ XL70E3
type_02=ratio:25%, pid:16777471, Item8-16)26(wielded), Item0-50)41, Script:486 ; Magnus: Merceneary female w/ many, many Plasma Grenades
ADDtype_04=pid:16777470, Item:500(wielded), Item0-50)41, Script:486, If(Rand(30%)) ; Magnus: Merceneary male w/ FN FAL HPFA


The male mercs dont have rifle animations, the female mercs dont have grenade animations.

Edit : According to http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/WORLDMAP.TXT, the base game does have that weird bootlegger encounter with supersledge, grease gun and 14mm. I guess the devs just goofed on that one.

 

[Encounter: RED_Homesteaders]
type_00=ratio:25%, pid:16777436, Item:8(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:786 ; Homesteader male w/ 10MM Pistol
type_01=ratio:25%, pid:16777436, Item:160(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:786 ; Homesteader male w/ Cattle Prod
type_02=ratio:25%, pid:16777437, Item:9(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:787 ; Homesteader female w/ SMG
type_03=ratio:25%, pid:16777437, Item:22(wielded), Item0-20)41, Script:787 ; Magnus: Homesteader female with... what the fuck, H&K G11? Nope, Scoped Hunting Rifle.
type_04=pid:16777269, Script:788 ; Homesteader child - female
type_05=pid:16777268, Script:788 ; Homesteader child - male

position=huddle, spacing:2

The female homesteader cant equip the scoped hunting rifle, but can equip SMGs.

 

Some suggestions.

Add an LMG version of G11 using this inventory sprite.



Make G11E have night vision perk from the FAL Night Vision, as it has a NV scope.