Thanks and you're most welcome.

I've tried to make it clear that my Realism Tweaks are meant to be used with the other mods in my FO3 mod list, but that it is not dependent on any other mods. My mod list was something that I began way before I began making my own FO3 mods. My thought is that I wanted my mod just to correct things that other mods were not doing (or were not doing in the way that worked with my Tweaks). Take a look at my http://amito.freehostia.com/Fallout/FO-mods-order.htm for the mods that I'm currently using in my own game.

I haven't made any changes to Stimpaks because I wanted my Tweak to be compatible with Real Injuries (and Orfevs' RI patch). If you use RI, and enable its optional Wounds System, you will find that there are no longer too many Stimpaks in the game (and they will also be less powerful).

I use both the AmmoWeight and DAV - Weighted AmmoWeight mods to remedy the default weightless ammo.

I use my own http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7674 (the extreme version), along with my Reduced Quest XPR module (part on my Realism Tweaks), and it takes me a very long time to level up.

Thanks for the quick reply Arwen. That was as I understood. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't mistaken. Again, I really appreciate your work.

On the subject of perks, I'd love to see a balanced perk pack Arwen style for some extra variation.


Also I just realized that the abbreviation for Arwen's Realism Tweaks is ART. In a way, this mod is art.

I've already rebalanced all the default perks and added a few of my own, as part of my skills module (which will be merged into my expanded Less-Is-More module in v.4.2). If you go to the http://amito.freehostia.com/Fallout/Arwens_Skills_Module.htm section on my website, all my perk changes are covered in the last section.

Thanks! ART? Hmm, hadn't really thought of that (I tend to miss that sort of thing due to my language issues), but perhaps I should start using it, as I don't believe there is any other FO3 mod that is referred to as 'ART'.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention that v.4.2 will include perk balances/changes for the DLC perks (as part of my GOTY compatibility patches).

Ammo Weight + http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9930

Works better. Try it arwen =)

Hi arwen,
Just a small question, is your mod compatible with FWE wanderers edition?
it seems like a good mod and I would like to mix both

They're not compatible. FWE and Arwen's mod change the same things in many regards(AI, Item rarity, character stats, etc) and would conflict in every way.
Arwen's Smart AI module for example is integrated in FWE.

Thanks friend

I have a bit of trouble getting your Arwen_Reduced_QuestXPR.esp mod to work. You mention that it should load before any mod that changes the default quests. But I have loaded it as one of the first mods and the script doesn't kick in. If I load it almost last it does work. Now which mods changes the default quests? The Unoffcial Patch? And how will the script handle added new quests from mods? It's the only tweak I use that you have created alongside Arwen_XPR.esp as well. I use FWE and some other questmods. Hope you can assist me a bit with the right loadorder. What could go wrong if I loaded next to last in my loadorder? That the corrections made by other mods to the default quests wouldn't work?

EDIT: It seems to be FWE that interferes with it. I have a few questmods loaded before FWE which doesn't touch default quests as well as UFP. Would that loadorder be allright in your opinion? Thanks for any advice you might be able to provide

My Reduced Quest XPR module should be loaded before any mods that change any the default quests. If you load it after, the other mod's quest changes will be overwritten by my mod.

If you load my Reduced Quest XPR module early, it will still work for any of the default quests that no other mod has altered. I would love to figure out a better way to do this, but the quest XPR points are all awarded within the default quest scripts, so editing the script is the only way I have to reduce the amount. Unfortunately quite a few other mods seem to use the default scripts as a easy way to introduce changes, rather that writing an independent script.

Would it be possible to tweak the frequency of the combat reactions for NPCs? Especially when you're knocked unconscious, they'll say things as if you yielded (I'll let you live this time) often several times in a row. 'where?' is also something they seem to say a lot more with ART active.

For your gender balance, maybe something along to the lines of a small increase in crit% and small action point increase - my thinking is it would demonstrate a slightly higher aggression level? Just a thought.

This really bugs me too, but I don't know any way to alter how often dialog is repeated. I tried to figure this by viewing the Dialog Topic with FO3Edit, but there are like a gazillion topics . . . and I wouldn't even know what to do if I could find the ones that repeat all the time.

My guess is that the game just doesn't handle an unconscious person very well. My mod doesn't alter any dialog in any way, so I'm guessing this is just a game bug (and one that I don't have any clue how to try to fix).

Yeah I guess. Too bad. I know a few things about dialogue so I could have a look but I doubt there's much that can be done in that area.

============


I just played a couple of hours with a new character. There have been quite a few ART (I'm sticking with that abbreviation) releases since the last time I started with a new character, so there were a lot of differences from my previous playthrough.

My character is going to focus on energy weapons, science, sneak and along with that also a bit on medical and repair. She is currently level 2. She has a very low perception, giving her a big problem: She's no good with guns at all. With your skill changes, this is even worse. I think I started with 10 in small guns and energy weapons before I added a few points to energy weapons... Even then it was still very low. In fact, thanks to the latest addition of weapon skill requirements, she is unable to use ANY energy weapons at this point. So she's forced to use regular guns for now.

Because ART reduces the amount of ammo found, she's having difficulties keeping a good ammo supply. This problem would normally be easily solved: Find an assault rifle, and use that. It's powerful, and there are always 5.56mm rounds to be found, so it doesn't matter that she'll miss much because of the low skill. But thanks to ART she was unable to use an assault rifle, because of that untrained small guns skill!

Luckily she found a 10mm SMG as an alternative for a fast firing gun which she could handle. Of course that drains the 10mm ammo rather quickly. So along with her 10mm pistol/ammo she is forced to carry a .32 pistol and ammo, because the 10mm ammo alone is not enough. Especially because she misses so often and enemies are better at seeking cover now! Also, getting a good deal at the merchants is hard so that's not a cheap source of ammo either!

What's nice about this is that I'd normally never bother to use .32 pistols when I already have a 10mm pistol, or a 10mm SMG when I can also use an assault rifle. So now that I'm pretty much forced to do so I'm using a larger variety of weapons than normal.

So what else can she do? Bring a melee weapon to preserve ammo. But once again there's a tactical aspect to it all thanks to ART. Will she use a baseball bat, or a knife? The baseball bat has a larger range, allows her to knock people out and generally does more damage. However, it also slows her down a lot. Knives on the other hand allow her to run at full speed, which is of course very important if you intend to attack someone before he can shoot you full of holes. It does less damage on average and has a shorter range but has a faster attack speed.

On top of all that she also have to worry about having the right items to treat injuries (because being crippled with ART is baaaad....) and have a good supply of food and water, thanks to Real Injuries/Primary Needs. But also not too much, because of ART's reduced carrying capacity. She could buy a backpack, but thanks to those bartering tweaks that's far beyond what she can afford right now, or at any time in the near future! And the reduced carrying capacity also prevents me from coming back to town with tons of equipment to sell. Because caps are much harder to get now this makes the quests that offer caps as a reward suddenly a whole lot more attractive.

The next step will probably to build herself a couple of robots to protect her, with the RobCo Certified and Buildable Bots mod combination.

I'm really enjoying this part of the game, where my character is still so inexperienced, every fight is dangerous (especially without a godmode-like VATS), and my character has to plan a lot of things in order to survive. I'm also using your reduced XP mod to make this last even longer!

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b120/iamerik/Fallout/ScreenShot9.jpg

Goodness Povuholo! I was becoming concerned that you really didn't like my latest version . . . but I'm glad to see that you do indeed seem to be enjoying my Tweaks (I think).


This is exactly the kind of feed back I need, as I've nearly run out of ideas on what else I can add for a male bonus (as the females still have a bit of an advantage with what I have done so far). So I'll see what I can do with to include your suggestion.

This is what I have so far in my gender bonuses/penalties:

- Strength: Male characters gains a 5 pound advantage over female characters for each STR point.
- Endurance: Female characters gains 20 HPs advantage over male characters (for equal END).
- Barter: Female PC has a 20% Barter buy bonus, and a 5 to 10% sell bonus over male characters.
- Weapon bonuses (males have slight advantage):

Female:

• Energy weapons: Pistols require 20, and rifles require 30 EW skill (female bonus)
  
• Two-handed Automatic weapons require 30 SG skill (5 more than for male characters)
  
• Big Guns require 6 END OR 35 BG skill (5 more than for male characters)

Male:

• Energy weapons: Pistols require 25, and rifles require 35 EW skill (5 more than for female characters)
  
• Two-handed Automatic weapons require 25 SG skill (male bonus)
  
• Big Guns require 6 END OR 30 BG skill (male bonus)

So, to balance things out, if I give male a greater critical chance and a larger action point increase, I'll probably give the females a bit of an agility advantage, with a slightly higher jump height/distance.

Arwen, sorry if this has already been mentioned or covered in this thread, but have you considered giving female characters a sneak advantage instead of going for the higher jump height/distance option? It makes sense to me that the female body is more flexible and agile than the male body, thus giving the female body a better frame for stealth. I think it makes more sense than higher jump height, because that relies more on lower body strength.

Just a thought!

Yeah I was having some doubts as to how the post would be interpreted with the way I wrote it. But rest assured that it was an all positive game experience and post!

Last day of my internet service for a long time =(

But thank you arwen for the mods =)

I'll try to log in if I can sometime

Thanks for the chiming in on this. The problem is that I've already done a major overhaul of stealth, including making the player's sneak skill a much greater factor and the way my dynamic stealth script alters detection distance due to lighting conditions (like time of day, and weather conditions). So it would be pretty difficult to also include a gender sneak bonus without messing up the balance, and in the end I really couldn't make much of a difference any way, without messing the whole thing up.

A jump bonus makes sense if you consider that males have a greater carrying capacity, while females are generally lighter and have slightly more endurance. Plus, as you've already stated, "the female body is more flexible and agile than the male body," and flexibility and agility are also factors in jumping. You also have to understand that my jump bonus is going to be fairly minor, with females just having a 10 or 20% increase over males (I haven't had a chance to work out the exact details yet). Plus jumping will still be based more on agility, than on gender (just like all my other gender bonuses/penalties).


Awe . . . what a bummer! I feel really bad for you, and hope that things works out for you soon. And you're most welcome.

I understand. A gender sneak bonus would be hard to include then.

I'm not convinced about the jumping height bonus for the female gender though. The male body is genereally stronger than the female body, and jumping depends a lot on lower body strength. Females should take less damage from falling down because they generally weigh less and are more agile and flexible. I think it would be more realistic that way, but it's just my opinion.

By the way, is it possbile to give a sneak speed bonus for females without comprising your stealth script?

I cannot figure out any easy way to increase critical% (other than in VATS), so what I'm doing is giving males a 2 times bonus in Unarmed damage (females will now be at default).
And females will have a +20% jump height/distance bonus over males (but jumping height/distance is still mostly determined by AGL)

I've decided not to give males an action point bonus (at least not for now), as my gender bonuses now feel pretty evenly balanced.
It would be pretty easy to increase sneak movement speed for females, but I'm not sure I want to do that yet (perhaps with my next update, if I decide to give males an action point bonus).

Now I just have to get my GOTY compatibility patches finished. But I'm not releasing them until after version 4.2 has been out for a while . . . just in case v.4.2 needs a bug fix.

I think with ART the economy is pretty balanced. The only issue I have is when the Waters of Life quest is completed and Enclave soldiers start appearing everywhere. They're pretty hard to kill at first, but once you can do that those energy weapons can be sold for a pretty good price which suddenly makes it easier to get rich.

I don't know if anything could be done about that? If you reduce the energy weapon prices the unintended side effect naturally would be that it makes them cheaper to buy...

Or maybe some merchants could somehow refuse to buy enclave armor...

Hey Povuholo, your timing in posting this was perfect, as I'm currently working on a bit of an overhaul of my mod's Bartering change.

What I have done so far, is decrease the values of items globally, increase the way that the condition of armor/clothing and weapons alters its value, and rebalance the way your Bartering skills affect how much you will receive for all items or have to pay for them. This still needs more play testing, but it looks like this should greatly reduce the speed of quick wealth from selling valuable items. Basically their base value will be half what it was in the default game, while you'll have to pay a heavy markup to purchase goods (never paying less than their default value) and merchants will only be willing to give you a fraction of what an item is worth (you'll never receive more than 50% of their value). This may seem like pretty unbalanced Wasteland econmomics

An example of Wasteland Economics (Default compared with my Bartering Tweaks):

Default game: a laser rifle is valued at 1000 caps (when in perfect condition).

• With a 10% Barter skill the PC will have to pay 1500 caps to purchase one from a merchant (50% markup), and will receive 495 caps when selling one to a merchant (49.5% of item's value).
  
• With a 50% Barter skill the PC will have to pay 1330 caps to purchase one from a merchant (33% markup), and will receive 675 caps when selling one to a merchant (67.5% of item's value).
  
• With a 100% Barter skill the PC will have to pay 1100 caps to purchase one from a merchant (10% markup), and will receive 900 caps when selling one to a merchant (90% of item's value)

With version 4.2 (my current beta) of my Less-Is-More module: the same laser rifle will now only be valued at 500 caps.

• Yet, with a 10% Barter skill, the PC will now have to pay 1700 caps to purchase one from a merchant (240% markup), and will now only receive 45 caps when selling one to a merchant (9% of item's value).
  
• With a 50% Barter skill the PC will have to pay 700 caps to purchase one from a merchant (140% markup), and will receive 125 caps when selling one to a merchant (25% of item's value).
  
• With a 100% Barter skill the PC will have to pay 575 caps to purchase one from a merchant (15% markup), and will receive 225 caps when selling one to a merchant (45% of item's value)

In the above example, you'll notice two major changes:
1.) your Bartering skill is now a MUCH greater factor in what you'll have to pay for items (and what you'll receive).
2.) even at 100 Bartering, you'll never be able to sell any item for more than 50% of its value (for males, this will be 1/4 what you would have received for the same item in the default game).

Note: the above example is for male prices . . . females will pay 10% less than males for all items and will receive 5% more (part of my gender differences script).

Ah, that sounds very good!

Hi Arwen.

Sorry I've not been around much.

I'm twiddling my Thumbs waiting for the Latest FOOK release,which is out now :whistling:

A rare thought crossed my mind.been ages since the last.

Would CASM work with Oblivion?

Lastly. Will your Mod work with the New FOOK 1.1 Patch.

Thank you for your time.

Warmest regards.

James.