Guns & Receivers

The initial inspiration for this mod was to make the gun-play have a realistic feel based upon real life ballistic data. After researching each ammunition type, a formula was carefully crafted to calculate what damage, bleed amount, and armor penetration each bullet type should have based upon the health and armor system in the game. After several trials, the final version, which is implemented in the mod, may be seen below:

The same formula is used to calculate the Base Damage and Armor Penetration across the board. With no prior expectation that this idea would work well for a RPG like experience, the real life values of Bullet Weight and Muzzle Velocity provided great parameters for the player decision process.

If a player wants to have lighter weapons, the trade off is using the less powerful pistol and pellet sized rounds. If a player wants more punch with the larger pistol and rifle rounds, the trade off is then carry weight. Even the bullets themselves have their weight accurately modded to be that of real life bullets (except with their casings). Ammunition in the chart above that have a positive Armor Penetration value actually increase the targets armor stat, making smaller pistol rounds and shotgun pellets less effective against targets wearing lots of armor or power armor. Negative Armor Penetration means the armor stat of the target is reduced, making the largest pistol and rifle rounds effective against targets with stronger armor or power armor. This effectively gives players more options when considering what weapons to carry, and when to use them based upon their target.

Below are the bleed types that correspond with the different ammunition categories, as seen in the chart above:

The True Bleed is how much a target will bleed, regardless of any resistance they gain from their armor. This is to represent the ammunition type's ability to penetrate past the target's armor. Poison Bleed, a value which is represented by a liquid drop symbol in game, is a bleed that gets reduced based upon the targets resistance stat given by the armor that they have equipped. Poison was used for two reason: It can be monitored in game unlike other damage type bleeds, and poison resistance seemed to have been disregarded entirely by the armor system. Now players can armor up to defend against the poison effects of enemies, which was never an option before.

The receivers of ballistic weapons have been trimmed down to come in up to four different categories: Compromised, Hardened, Faster Fire-rate, and Ammunition Conversions. Compromised receivers represent a gun that has been worn down due to years of neglect and having endured a post-apocalyptic event. A weapon's receiver must be upgraded to not have the -20% damage reduction that these receivers suffer from. The best way to do so is to make a Hardened receiver. Faster fire rate receivers suffer -10% damage as a trade off to their higher damage per second potential. Lastly, most ballistic weapons will have receiver options to house different types of ammunition, which will change the effectiveness of the weapon entirely. Shotguns will even have the option to shoot a single slug, rather than a buck-shot round that shoots 8 separate pellets. All pipe guns suffer an addition -10% damage to reflect the the fact that they have been produced in a less than professional manner. Many of the guns have had their names and stock ammunition changed to better fit the role that they play in the game.

Assault rifles are now called the "LMG", due to their visual similarity to WWI and WWII LMGs, and shoot 5mm rounds. Combat rifles now serve as "Carbines" and shoot 5.56 rifle rounds and are lighter in weight, rather than shooting pistol rounds like a sub-machine gun would. The Sub-machine gun now shoots a variety of pistol rounds, in dedication to its role. The Deliverer is now a common "Small Arm" pistol which shoots smaller caliber pistol rounds, and can be found in Vault 111 rather than its larger counterpart. The 10mm pistol has been renamed "Service Pistol", and shoots the higher caliber pistol rounds. The 10mm round, a less common ammunition caliber, was replaced by the better fit .40 caliber round.

All laser weapons have had their base damage increased to complement the ballistic damage changes, seen below:

Energy weapons still get larger bonuses to their damage from a variety of their attachments, unlike the ballistic weapons, and will have much higher damage in game with their mods. Energy weapons essentially inflict all their damage on contact, where ballistic weapons will cause their opponents to bleed for more than just the initial damage. This works really well considering that most weaker enemies carry ballistic weapons, and higher level enemies carry energy weapons. This is important to consider, especially because stimpaks, the commonly used healing item in the game, remove poison bleeding from the player. This gives the player a better chance at recovering from bullets than laser beams, which is rather logical.