Better Combat AI, Increased Survival Difficulty Damage, Better Fall Damage, Increased Stealth Detect Distance, Longer Stealth Search Time, Unbroken Stealth Light Level, Increased Walk Speed (Global), Decreased Reload Speed (Global), Reduced Compass Radar Detection, Molotov Cocktails burn ppl to death instead of exploding ppl to death
From the first Arbitration (comment) review by Maleficus04:
I’ve been looking forward to something like this for a while. So far, it’s AMAZING. I got noticed while walking by some enemies and it actually caught me off guard because I was so used to how blind they used to be. With the damage and AI tweaks, the gunfights feel like gunfights and not “stand out in the open and gunning down the idiots.” And the molotovs…. good lord THE MOLOTOVS! They’re soooo much better now. There’s actually a reason to use them even after you buy frags now.
Releases in Pieces (more to come when I’m not out of town):
Molotov Overhaul – KILL IT WITH FIRE
Already part of this mod, obviously, but they’re (just the one for now, actually) there in pieces if you want.
See videos below for in-depth look at features.
Installation
1. Install with a mod manager
2a. Load your game. Save the game. Quit to main menu. Load the game. Save the game.
2b. Or start a new game
2a is required because this modifies a racial ability, and racial abilities require a save and reload to initialize correctly. If you fail to do 2a you will not see reduced reload speed or increased walk speed until your next save/reload. It is not the end of the world.
WARNING: Do not install this, save, then uninstall this and continue playing the save you made with this installed. NPCs will still have slower reloading and faster walking. However, it is not the end of the world.
DIRE WARNING: Do not install this, save, uninstall this, load, save, reinstall this, save, load, and continue playing the last save you made. NPCs will have 2x slower reloading and 2x faster walking. It is the end of the world.
Until I have access to make scripts these warnings will have to do.
Anyone at all is welcome to review this mod. I will gladly post your review on this page.
Features
Made AI (including companions) attack things all the time instead of waiting to be shot half the time (wildlife, power armor, and some special npcs left untouched)
Made ranged AI focus on flanking (companions focus on dueling to protect you)
Ranged AI will flank, circle, and fall back more when in close range. I should note that I have witnessed falling back, but I can’t vouch for the efficacy of adjusting the close range flanking and circling. Things “seem” to be better with these adjusted. Falling back is important as it keeps them from advancing to the point of idiotic suicidal.
Increased odds of strafing for ranged AI
Increased damage to player (*survival difficulty only)
Increased damage to npcs (*survival difficulty only)
Molotov cocktails no longer kill with exploding, they kill with fire (not explicit in video).
Reduced fall damage
Greatly increased fall leg damage
Increased stealth detection range x2
Increased outdoors stealth detection range x4
Increased Hostile/Alert/Lost detection times
Reduced indoors light bonus to match outdoors – more detectable
Decreased base compass detection range – perception bonus still the same (if you can’t find an enemy, eat some mentats, etc.)
Increased walking (and player overburdened) speed by 25% for all NPCs as well as the player
Decreased reloading speed by 30% for all NPCs as well as the player
I was a little intoxicated when I wrote the following description:
So, I says to myself, I says, “Hey, why haven’t I died yet? I’m drunk, and doing stupid things.”
But I hadn’t died yet. At some point I was fucking around and I managed to get offed by someone and I was underwhelmed. That should have happened 20 minutes into the game. I switched to survival difficulty. Apparently survival meant EVERYBODY SURVIVED. It was hard as fuck for anyone to die. I died a little easier than normal, but I basically had to try for it.
So I made some .bat mod that would increase damage done. It wasn’t very complex. I would go on to reduce resistances some, but it scaled like a pregnant yak.
Then, I says to myself, I says, “Hey, why am I reloading the gun like I’m Christian Bale in Equilibrium, if Christian Bale had been hooked on amphetamines in Equilibrium?”
So I nerfed the player (actor value) reload speed in my stupid .bat mod. But then NPCs reloaded faster than I did. They were now Christian Bale in Equilibrium. I was one of those slow motherfuckers he shot in the face. And it was still a .bat file.
Then, I says to myself, I says, “Hey, did I just fucking die jumping 2 and 1/2 floors, landing on my feet? Some motherfucker just shot me 5 times in the chest and I died from a sprained ankle?”
So I used my stupid .bat file to remove some damage from falls. Your legs didn’t get hurt, though.
Then I’m at the beach. I live next to some of the best beaches in the world (PCB), and I don’t really like the beach, but I got nagged into going to the beach, and I mostly played football (‘merican) with my son but I spent a little bit on my phone looking for my mod. I looked up “realistic damage.”
Two other motherfuckers had done my mod (the damage part) 2 days before, as an .esp file.
So, I says to myself, I says, “How the fuck are people making .esp mods already? And why am I too stupid to google this shit properly?”
That got me fired up. I’m Natsu, and there’s a fire in my belly.
So I figured out some .esp goodness.
I figured out how to do the weapon damage – you get shot 5 times in the chest, you’re fucked. You shoot some noob raider a few times in the chest, or some boss 5 times in the chest, they’re fucked. Shit no longer scaled poorly. I went messing around with race abilities (mods are still pretty limited in what they can do) and nerfed reloading for EVERYBODY. Now everyone was some dumb motherfucker that got shot in the face by Christian Bale in Equilibrium.
I figured out how to do the fall damage. You fall from 3 floors or more, your legs are HURT. You start to die at 4 floors or more, but mostly you just break your legs. That’s how it works IRL, fall on your legs and you’re prolly not dead, but your legs are hurt all around – and the game mostly makes you fall on your legs, especially since most of your “falls” are intentional jumps from gunfire – you won’t land on your head, but yeah, your legs fucking take it in the… legs.
So, I play the game with my new stuffs.
And, I says to myself, I says, “Damage is increased for everyone, but I can sneak around and snipe these motherfuckers.”
And, I says to myself, I says, “Damage is increased for everyone, but these motherfuckers won’t fire at me but maybe half as much as they should. Why are they just fucking standing in front of me shooting once every three seconds? What the hell are they dodging? Not my bullets. They’re twitching like Christian Bale in Equilibrium on too many amphetamines.”
Also, and this is almost beside the point, I says to myself, I says, “Why am I so goddamn slow at walking? Hell, why is EVERYONE basically ambling like they ain’t got shit to do? Have you seen this fucking place!? It’s dirty, and everything is in shambles, and you’re walking like you ain’t got shit to do.”
I want to release my awesome mod that will grant me PC Gamer Elvis fame, but my awesome mod is flawed because the game is flawed. TIME TO FIX!
First I fixed the walking. Everyone walks (25%) faster, at least everyone that matters (everyone with legendary item ability, not children or whatever). Most important folks walk like they’re walking to get somewhere. You too. You got too much shit? Well you can’t run from badguys, but you can haul that shit across the map like you’re hauling shit at least. You don’t need more carryweight, you just need patience, and the good sense to drop your extra 12 sawed-off shotguns when some mutant bear decides to come after you. And you don’t need Dalai Lama patience, just normal “I’m carrying extra shit to my house” patience.
So I start playing with combat behaviors. It’s not messing with code, ’cause I can’t, just how the AI uses code. And the code is actually pretty decent! But unfortunately this game shares much of its code with medieval games like Skyrim. In those games, passive defending is a good idea. Swordplay, yo. But in this game, you have a gun and someone else has a gun. How do you defend? BY SHOOTING YOUR FUCKING GUN. And I start messing with behaviors and lo and behold telling people to be 100% attack does not tell them NOT to seek cover. It doesn’t tell them NOT to strafe. It doesn’t tell them NOT to flank. It tells them to shoot at you in 100% of the situations in which shooting at a person is a logical decision when you want them to have bullet holes in them rather than you have bullet holes in you.
Telling people to be 100% defense does not tell them to seek cover. It does not tell them to strafe. It does not tell them to flank. It tells them to wait on you to shoot them. STUPIDITY. A basic child’s understanding of ballistics isn’t rocket science – defending with a gun involves shooting the gun. So I FIXES IT. And I add flanking flags instead of dueling flags (to ranged ppl, not to melee), and I tell them to strafe like they’ve at least played counterstrike once, and I make it to where they don’t stop shooting just because they’re in a large group… that’s the time to unload your clip, not let some other motherfucker have his turn while you wait for yours! Concentrated fire, ppl.
Then there’s still stealth. OMFG stealth. First of all, it is impossible to be detected by people at any halfway decent distance, especially outside. You can have a goddamn pipboy-light-bathed shindig 100 yards from a dude, and so long as you’re in “stealth mode” he can’t even begin to see you. And light! Granted, darkness is lamplight at this point without a graphics overhaul, it’s hard to know how much light you’ve got going on, but inside they have light decreased by 25. You can be in a lit hallway, crouched down, 3 feet from a guy, and he can’t see you. And even if you kill him, his buddies will search for like 20 seconds maybe, then go back to not remembering they had this friend WHO JUST GOT SHOT IN THE FUCKING HEAD right next to them. So I FIXES IT. As much as I can. Sometimes you will still think “I’m totally in the open here.” But you type ‘player.getlightlevel’ without the single quotes in console and you’ve got like 10ish or less light level; they aren’t supposed to see you in this light that the game is passing off as “pitch black.” Lower your gamma, I guess? And if they know you’re there now, welcome to sneaking around for a while waiting for them to forget. It’s gonna be at least over a minute if not more. Oh and p.s., sneaking perks haven’t been adjusted, but with the new game settings they are actually even more important and powerful. So I didn’t fuck up your ninja assassin build! You’re welcome, on accident.
So there it is. I ain’t done, but I’m satisfied this is better than the half-fucked gameplay you’re used to. Enjoy dying, but more importantly, enjoy your well-earned killing.
