I see. (I actually read about that on your site, I just didn't know that was part of it.) It's all good then. Maybe I'll use that module, but I'm still not sure because I don't know how a previous character would transition into it. I get why you would be a bit defensive about it, though. I thought after I posted that you probably get that a lot.

I use all of your tweaks for Fallout 3, that module included. I can't decide to use it or not until I know what you're going to do with it in NV, though (I just like to see the math of what I'm putting into my game, is all).

If I did use that module, though, I'm wondering how I would get my current character in line with it. I think I could use the console to do it. The thing is, I don't want to lose the progress I've made with him. (Excluding levels, of course. Obviously I would lose those.)

As a side note, of course there are differences between the sixes. It's nature at play. I only get up in arms about these things when people talk about how there is no difference between six and gender, and that's only when they completely ignore everything I say, and I'm already having a bad day or something.

I can see why people might not like it, but your explanation for adding the gender differences sound perfectly reasonable to me. It doesn't have to be 100% realistic, it's just another way of adding a little variety to the game and (in this case, very minor) consequences for your character design decisions. That's the whole point of the mod, not 'true' realism.

Just because I balanced my mod for Normal difficulty doesn't mean that you cannot use it with other difficulty settings. But I would suggest that you try it on Normal first and then adjust your difficulty level (and my XPR multiplier) until your find the balance that works for you.

I increased the way your weapon skills affect the amount of damage you can inflict with a particular type of weapon because weapons were generally a bit underpowered, and because weapon skills have so little impact in the default game. This is a MAJOR problem that I have with the default game balance . . . you start out with a character that is above average and then receive a fist full of skill points for perks/traits and a bunch more when you level up. After a few levels all you have to do is get some good armor and a couple of good weapons and you are pretty much invincible. That's not what I want in a RPG.

I've only begun. My Realism Core module is less than half complete in v.1.1 and there are three more modules to add yet. So there's going to be a LOT more coming. If you want a preview, check out my Fallout 3 Realism Tweaks, which my NV Tweaks are based on (there will be the same four modules, but the changes/additions will be pretty different in many areas). My next update (v.1.2) will balance out some of the changes that I've already made. There are quite a variety of tweaks in v.1.2, but my main focus in this update is to balance out Health Points, Localized Damage, and Armor. The player will take quite a bit more damage in version 1.2 . . . so armor is going to be a LOT more important. I needed to beef up the armor a bit before making the player too fragile, or most people would have hated my mod. I've also changed many of the enchantments attached to armor. You will no longer increase your Gun skills just by changing your clothes. And I've also rebalanced the value of ALL the armor, so that its worth is based much more on the amount of protection it provides (but other things like armor health, uniqueness, and other benefits are factored in). Plus armor will weigh less when it is worn than when it is carried (in your inventory).

Ok, I really need to get back to work on v.1.2. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it in a few hours.

So we're good then? I would love to see a RPG hard code in a Gender stat . . . so that characters could be a bit more diversified. I would do this myself, but I'm afraid that it greatly exceeds my modding abilities. After all, in real life our brains are codified if the womb as to where we each end up on the male/female gender slider (from girly-girl to manly-man). I don't want to take this thread off topic, as I have a hard enough time keeping up now. But I do feel like this is something that is missing in RPG character development.

my only real complain about your gender things - looking at the f3 version is the skills, eg women get +5 energy weapons effectively imho, it should be bonuses and the like in less used skills like barter, survival etc.

especially say if you want to play a male energy user and get bonus to say big guns which your not really gonna use, on the other hand if its a bonus to a non-combat skill that +5 medicine could come in handy at some point

Right now the gender differences only work on the player, right?

It would be nice indeed to have hardcoded gender differences in the game. If males then turned out to be slightly stronger on average, you could actually take that into account strategically when a male and female raider come charging at you with baseball bats for example.

Fallout 4, maybe?

Yeah, we're good. That might be interesting, but I'm not sure how popular it would be (people might not play for the same reason they might not use your mod). If such a thing were hard coded into the game, though, I might have a little problem if it were referred to as gender as opposed to six. It's simply a vocabulary choice, however-- Like, I'm fine with people saying my six is female. My gender, however, is not. When it comes to gender, I'm androgynous. I just get tired of the world insisting I'm not.

However, now we're really off-topic. So to bring it back on-topic I'll note that I'm probably going to install your tweaks tonight or tomorrow.

Edit: As it turns out, I'll probably remake my character, too (not yet though, not until the hard-core module). I'm having too much fun thinking about how to effectively distribute my SPECIAL. I just hope I can find a way to bring his face to a different save, though.

Hello, would you please consider releasing plugin that would only reduce those XPR gains but did nothing else? I would like to play vanilla for my first playthrough, but levelling seems too fast, so that is the only thing I would like slowed down. I have not seen standalone mod that would only do that yet (Slower Level Rates is a bit different). Like Reduced XPR for fallout 3. Thank you .

Is 1.2 coming today ? I dont wanna start my new game without it :goodjob:

Gender differences boil down to 'Males on average should have ST 6, END 4, females on average should have ST 4, END 6'. If a male and female have the same ST, they should have the same carry weight and all that.

Meh - I'm not going to use your mod anyways, since there are so many things in it that I disagree with so I don't even know why I'm bothering to respond:/

hopefully *crosses fingers*

Version 1.2 is now available: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34759

Expands my Realism Core module (still not complete, but getting much closer).

IMPORTANT!!! PLEASE follow my installation/update instructions carefully, EVEN if you are updating from v.1.1!
If you do not uninstall correctly or reinstall correctly, you could severely mess up your game.

Here are the major changes in v.1.2
==========================

*** Armor changes:
- Improved Threshold Resistance globally: In the default game, you did a minimum of 20% damage when hitting an armored target, even when the target's DT was greater than your weapon's DAM. I've reduced this to just 10%, which makes armor quite a bit more effective (also affects 'armored' creatures, like Rad Scorpions).
- To balance out the above, I also reduced the Damage Threshold by 10 to 20% for some of the Radscorpions and Deathclaws.
- I went through every single piece of armor and clothing to improve the balance.
- Removed most weapon skill enchantments from clothing (in most cases a different effect was added in place of the removed effect)
- DT was increased for some armor.
- Value of armor is now based much more on its DT (how much it protects you), but I also factored in armor health, uniqueness, and any bonuses it provides.
- New Armor wearing bonus: Power Armor will now weigh only about 25% as much when worn, and most other armor will weigh about 50% as much; plus this applies to most helmets as well (when carried, there is no weight reduction).

*** Localized Damage changes (I balanced some my previous changes out a bit):
- The player now takes quite a bit more damage (Hint: get some decent armor!)
- Most NPCs are now somewhat tougher.
- Dogs (including coyotes and wolves) are now a bit harder to kill.
- RadScorpion's claws and stingers are now a bit less resistant to damage.

*** Class changes (to rebalance my global HP changes for a few types of NPS)
- Reduced the Base Healthfor the White Gloves (they became a bit too tough)
- Increased the Base Health for the Powder Gangers and the NCR Injured Troopers (Camp Forlorn Hope quest)

*** Misc. Changes:
- Shells really do last longer now (there was a second setting that I neglected to increase)
- Fixed a bug in my Backward Running script that resulted in the player's crippled right leg healing on its own.


Installing (and Updating):
=========================
IMPORTANT! If you do not uninstall correctly or reinstall correctly, you will likely severely mess up your game.

Part A.) Prepare your Saved Game & Uninstall Previous version
Note: if you are planning on starting a new game, you only need to do steps 5, 6 & 7, if they apply.
1.) Start the game and load the save you want to continue from.
2.) Unequip ALL clothing, hats, helmets, & eye wear. Ensures that your stats are not being altered by "enchanted" clothing.
3.) Make sure your SPECIALs are not being reduced (-) or increased (+) by any effects. If they are, wait for the effect to wear off.
4.) Save your game to a new save slot (do not overwrite an earlier save) and quit the game.
5.) Delete any previous version of my Realism Tweaks.

Part B.) Installation of my Realism Tweaks:
6.) Unzip my archive file and put the Arwen_NV_Realism_Core.esp in your FO:NV Data directory (default is "C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\fallout new vegas\Data"). And make sure that you activate it (by checking it) before playing the game.
7.) Start the game and load your previous saved game, and continue playing from this point only.

I'll update my original post in this thread as soon as I get a change . . . off to run some errands . . . be back in a bit.

WOO! awesome news!

Is your mod compatible with FOOK?

Congrats on the new release!

Arwen posted this in the last thread:



FOOK on the download page itself is described as a gameplay overhaul. While ART may be a small download it is also a very large gameplay overhaul (or it will be), so it is not compatible with other overhauls that change the same stuff. It looks like the current FOOK release is actually doing more bugfixing than adding new content or overhauling gameplay, but I'm sure that in future versions that will change.

The current FOOK is a bugfix packaged into a cheat mod. I don't think it has anything in it that would directly conflict with Arwen's tweaks, though.

I fooled around a bit with the new version.


My character is wearing reinforced leather armor and a helmet, giving a total DR of 14.0.

I let a group of 5 gun runners (because that was the first group of NPCs I could find) with 9mm pistols and caravan shotguns (which all had around 25% of their health or less) have a go at shooting at me from pretty close up, and it took almost half a minute before they reduced my 200 health to 0. I reloaded and tried it again, only this time with one enemy.

This guy had a badly damaged caravan shotgun, doing 3.8 damage for each of the 7 bullets that come out every shot (according to the stats on the gun when I saved, killed him with the console to check, and then reloaded). So, taking my armor into account, with every shot (from up close, so a fair amount of the projectiles should) he did around 1.5 health damage.

The damage appears to be better balanced when it comes to enemies who are using weapons with a higher DPS, because they manage to break through the armor and do more than 1-5 damage at a time. But with these weaker characters I feel almost invulnerable. None of their shots were able to break through my armor. It sort of makes sense, but it also made combat against these guys rather easy.

Maybe I got lucky and by coincidence ran into a couple of guys who all had weapons that were in bad condition, but were you planning on increasing the condition of the weapons that NPCs use?

The line Never forget the importance of periodic weapon maintenance came to mind.


On the other hand, combat is also a lot more interesting now when I'm fighting back. I really have to pick the right weapon against the right enemy, because a 10mm pistol isn't going to do much against a heavily armored opponent. This is very different from FO3, where even the 10mm pistol was still somewhat useful against armored opponents because it doesn't use the DT system. And all those times I've shot power armored Enclave troops with shotguns... Bad strategy in New Vegas. I like it. :fallout:

Thanks for the great feedback (as always)!

I'm still tying to find the right balance . . . I feel like v.1.2 is closer, but still not quite there yet. The DT is a tricky svcker, and I'm having a difficult time of getting it balanced for the variety of weapons and armor. I'm feeling that what is really going to help is when I add my Hard-Core changes, since that will have a major impact on the player's stats and HPs. Because of this, I've decided that I need to move my focus from completing my Realism Core module to getting some basic changes added through my Hard-Core module. I'll see how much I can do without the NVSE.

Yes I figured that too.

One problem with increasing the weapon conditions could be the weapon prices. I noticed pretty quickly that Obsidian has made weapons very expensive, at least when in good condition. I mean, a fully repaired 10mm pistol is worth 747 caps? I'm not sure what the idea behind that was. :unsure:

Just curious, could you elaborate as far as what the changes are to NPC weapons?

@povuholo: Some of the armor was really overpriced, and other armor was way underpriced. So it doesn't surprise me that the weapons have the same issues. I'll have to see if I can balance them out better. I'm now using an early beta version of what will become my Hard-Core module. So far I have my reduced skill points and my 35 SPECIAL points working. And some Barter changes. My next goal is to reduce the abundance of found loot.

@ JPZ1987: I improved the condition of most of the NPCs armor and weapons . . . generally by about 15 to 25%.

NCR Injured Troopers are still dead in v1.2. Otherwise great mod, keep up a good work.

I'm not very impressed with Obsidian's DT system tbh. I'm all for challenge but sometimes it seems ridiculous and I hope ART addresses these. For instance, even the most basic armor (which isn't really armor at all) is capable of protecting against pretty much any weapon's basic ammunition. A Raider with little more than a couple leather straps protecting his body is somehow reducing the damage my Laser Rifle is doing to his face. A Deathclaw takes up to 10 Gauss Rifle hits to kill, Radscorpions about 5 (how the hell is a Radscorpion protected by such thick armor without weighing several tons?), and most NPC humans take two.

Also, for the love of God please do something about Cazadores. Those things are absolutely slaughtering me. How the hell are they not slaughtering everyone else? I'm Level 19 in full Power Armor gear and if I go up against any more than 2 at a time I just get smashed by them. They're next to impossible to hit outside of VATS, particularly with any sort of ranged weapon, and the advlts can kill in a couple of stings.

Hm, if your raider just wore a body armor and you aimed for his head, shouldnt it have done max. damage?

don't think dt is limited to an area of the body it's just an overall damage reduction regardless where shot (unfortunately)