Yes what you wrote is correct. I ran across this problem last year, sadly this is the way how the game handles multi-projectile weapons. You don't even need to attach scripts directly to the weapons, it's enough if the game has to do a lot of additional on hit calculations because of certain perks etc...

It was really obvious back when we temporarily had FWE shotguns fire 15 projectiles

Thanks Kai!

I was just trying to figure out what was causing this, as my Gunshot script is pretty simple and I couldn't see how that could be causing any noticeable delay.
My projectile count for shotguns was increased by 30 to 50% over default, so I'm sure that's the problem. I'll set those back to default and balance damage out to compensate.

Povuholo, Thanks for pointing this out . . . it will be fixed in version 4.9.

I'm currently using http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2072, which adds armor and clothing to the wasteland that were in the GECK originally, but were never added to the game. So far I haven't found any, but I was wondering if you also balanced the 'enchantments' of those armor/clothing items that aren't in the game, like you did with the rest?

Hi Arwen, I had a chance to play some FO3 again over the weekend, so I started a new game with your updated tweaks (all three modules) and most of the mods recommended on your website. It's been great! Your encumbrance module adds both strategy and realism, to be honest I never expected it to add so much, but it does. I am a big fan of it. The recent changes you've made to the weapon effects are also an improvement. The BLTC compatability patch is a very nice addition too. All in all, things seem to be balanced nicely with a couple exceptions.

First, with the increased ammo dropped by enemies, I find myself swimming in ammo, periodically dumping it in trash cans because I can't carry it all (my character has 5 strength and 4 luck). I liked how in the old version of your tweaks I was using I'd have to periodically switch to a melee weapon in order to conserve ammo. .308 rounds are still hard to find lying around, but they're cheap and vendors seem to have lots of them.

Second, and I think I've harped on this a bit before, my character is level 4 and I haven't used the repair skill yet (except to disarm traps, my character has ~30 repair). And I don't see why I ever would since enemy loot is in such good condition and vendors will repair anything to such a high level. While caps aren't abundant, there are enough to pay vendors to keep all my equipment in top shape. But maybe this will change when I find some unique weapons that are too expensive for vendor repairs? Right now I'm mostly using the 10mm pistol and an assault rifle, both of which are cheap, as well as a sniper rifle, which is expensive but not used so often. I was using a hunting rifle for a while too, and any time it would get damaged I'd go kill a super mutant and take his, which would almost always be in very good condition.

Those are minor quibbles though. Thanks again for everything you've added to this game!

How about a quick fix like i mentioned in that post. A perk if you have intelligence 6+ you can tag a profession (Security, Barter, Speech, Repair, Science, Medicine) or something along those lines.

My current character is absolutely horrible at bartering and has a low charisma, I get 1/10 of what an item is worth when I sell it. So I've pretty much given up on picking up tons of stuff to sell with this guy, because most of it isn't worth more than a bottlecap anyway.

He also can't repair anything.

I'm pretty much spending all my money on ammo and repairs, so I don't think this guy will become rich any time soon. Especially when house upgrades such as the infirmary cost 2000 bottlecaps each...

It's pretty interesting, I have to rely much more on stealing stuff. It's also more about stealing stuff that I actually want to use, instead of just grabbing everything that's worth something, selling it all for a handful of caps, and buying what I need. Other deals like trading scrap metal for stimpaks have also become more important, as have any quests that offer pure caps as a reward. It's a nice change from the usual 'grab as much loot as you can without becoming overencumbered and then sell it all'. So I'm not planning on raising my barter skill.

I'm using the "Missing Unique Armor and Clothing" mod in my own game. It comes with several different esp, and if you use the MissingUniqueArmorClothing-Base.esp, the only comflict is with "The Devil's Pigtails" helmet, and that is very minor. Just load my Realism Tweaks last.

Thanks so much for the feedback . . . and you're very welcome.

I'm aware of these issues and am hoping to have both better balanced in version 4.9.

Personally I feel that my character should find more ammo on opponents that I kill in combat, since it doesn't make sense the NPCs should have unlimited ammo, and then only find 1 or 2 bullets on them. What I plan to do is reduced the amount of ammo loot that is not on NPCs. I've already made it so merchants have a lot more ammo for sale, so you should still be able to buy enough . . . if you have the caps. I'm also trying to scrip another loot change . . . but haven't been able to do what I hoped . . . yet (if I manage to get my script working, I'll give the details about it).

The repair problem is a bit more complicated. When the NPCs have armor and weapons that are in poor condition, they are too easy to kill in combat. So, now that they are more of a challenge, you gain a greater benefit from killing them. What I need to do is figure out a way to damage the NPC's armor and weapons upon their death. I haven't attemped to do this yet, so I have no idea how doable it might be.

BTW: I'm assuming that you are not using any other mods that increase the DAM of weapons, or that alter armor (or that alter Barter or Repair). If so, that might be a big part of your game play issues, as it would really mess up the game balance.


That might mess up my mod's game balance, as I've worked to make it more difficult to gain skills . . . and you already have Swift Learner and Intense Training (both of which require 6 INT, and make it possible to gain skill points faster). But I am working on a minor overhaul of my perk changes, so I will look into doing something . . . I may be able to change Intense Training to do something like this.

After reading your informative post from 4.0 to current. I think I will grab the newer version ^_^

I don't suppose the Stutter Remover mod would affect yours now will it? Having read the shotgun deally....I don't use shotguns, but still curious.

sounds good.

I think you'll be surprised at the difference between v.4.0 and 4.82 . . . hopefully in a good way.

I use the Stutter Remover and a little program called Smart Ram . . . plus I have a pretty good graphics card (EV3A GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked 896MB), and I really haven't noticed much of a delay in firing shotguns . . . but I have reset the shotguns' projectile count back to default (and made some other adjustments), for users who are having the delay issues.

Oh, thats good to know. My rig is a medium, so it takes like 10 mins to load a save game. Testing is a little harsh....so that shotgun change is already uploaded on the nexus? I ask because I literally just downloaded it as I'm reading what you wrote, a sec ago.

Well, no . . . I've only updated my own 4.9 beta version . . . but it will be part of my version 4.9 update. Releasing an update for an overhaul mod is a LOT of work . . . but I'm averaging an update every 2 to 3 weeks. If you get the delay, just open up my Realism_Core esp with the GECK, or FOwEdit, go to weapons and find the combat shotgun and the sawed off shotgun (not the ones used by followers), and the change the projectile count to 9. Save and you should be good (it won't have the balance changes that I just added, but the delay should be gone).

Roger, roger.....thanks for the info. Saves me time wondering if I screwed up something =)

I agree, this change makes a lot of sense. Also because why would there be all these ammo clips lying around everywhere? You'd think a scavenger or raider or whoever would have picked them up by now. Personally, I'd consider also reducing the amount of ammo found on NPCs by a little bit, and increasing the price of ammo from vendors, but I'm not sure if everyone else's experiences match mine. But maybe your script will fix this anyway... I am intrigued.


I hope you can do this, it would be an ideal solution I think.


And I am not using any mods affecting Barter or Repair. The only other weapon mods I'm using are EVE and Weapon Mod Kits (both loaded before ART). I made an armor mod on my own to add variety to armor subtypes (e.g. make Raider Badlands have less weight and DR than Raider Sadist) and remove some things from the repair lists, but the changes are minor so I don't think it would significantly affect balance. The "value" of the armor matches ART. My character tries to be sneaky anyways, so I'm using light armor for everything.

You don't actually need to change shotguns damage necessarily. All multi projectile weapons(that includes tribeam laser etc..) work in a very stupid way, let me explain:
Let's say you have a shotgun that does 90 damage and shoots 9 projectiles.
In this case each pellet will do 10 points of damage (10x9=90). If you change the projectile count to 12 for example, the normal overall damage won't change, it will still do 90 damage, but each pellet in this case will only do 7,5 damage (7,5*12=90). The more projectiles a weapon fire, the less damage each projectile does.

But there is an exception and here is where it gets stupid:
Each projectile fired from the shotgun has a chance to crit. But the crit damage isn't divided through the pellets. Instead the crit damage will be added to every single pellet! So increasing a shotguns projectile count doesn't actually increase it's regular damage, but it increases it's crit damage dramatically. This causes shotguns in general to be horribly overpowered in the hands of a character with a high crit chance.

To balance that I drastically lowered the crit damage. My rule is that I take a shotguns base damage, divide it through the number of projectiles, and put that number as crit damage. So with my shotgun from above which does 90 damage and fires 9 projectiles, I would set the crit damage to 10. That way this shotgun would have the chance to do up to double damage (if every pellet hits and crits), which I found to be very balanced.

I think I get what you are saying. But heres another perspective on the pellets. If one pellet hits your heart and all the others scratch your skin. Wouldn't this be logical that it hitting a critical area, that it would do a huge amount of damage? Whole point of a shotgun is huge damage at a close range. =)

That's about the way Kai's method works out. Any individual projectile that critical hits does double it's normal damage. You wouldn't expect a single shotgun pellet to damage an organ as much as an entire bullet.

Thanks for the GREAT explanation on how shotgun pellet damage works . . . I was aware of the damage per pellet = DAM/#pellets part . . . but the critical damage per pellet part was a real eye opener. THANKS! Now I understand why I was having such a difficult time balancing out the shotgun damages.

My comment about balancing damages in my previous post was meant to include my current efforts to better balance many of the weapons in version 4.9, which I'm nearly done with. This needed doing for two reasons:

1.) I've just completed a minor rebalance ?of the (Damage) Skill Bonus formula, so that lower weapon skills result in a bit more DAM.
For example: in v.4.8, using a 10mm pistol (9DAM) in perfect condition with a skill of 10 SmallGuns, resulted in 6 DAM/bullet; in v.4.9, the same weapon would result in 8 DAM.
(At 100 skill, you will still be limited to the same maximum weapon 3x DAM multiplier that is in v.4.8.)

2.) ?In v.4.9, the condition of the gun will have more effect on how much damage it will do (but the actor’s small gun skill is still a much greater factor).
Example: At 10% condition (90% damaged),a 10mm (9 DAM): default=6 DAM; v.4.8=8 DAM; v.4.9=4 DAM (these values are before factoring in the player's Skill Bonus).
This change has the greatest effect when weapons are damaged below 70% (at 80% all 3 will result in 8 DAM)

This was done to make repair more important, since your weapon had to be damaged pretty badly in my previous versions for the decrease in weapon DAM to be noticed.

It wasn't easy, but I did manage to write a script that damages your victim's equipped weapon and armor after they die. :celebration:
My script seems to work really well on armor, but the NPC often drops their weapon when they die (which often removes the weapon from the weapon slot).
And my script works on ALL armor and weapons . . . even ones that are added by other mods.

I'm in the process of updating to the most recent release of Arwen's Realism Tweaks in preparation for finally creating an ART/Powered Power Armor compatibility patch. I realize my mod doesn't exactly share the same spirit of harshness, but my entire reason for beginning the project was to soften your encumbrance effects a bit in a way that didn't offend my sense of realism. Once upgraded, power armor provides a significant carryweight boost, so a portion of your load is taken off of your shoulders. What I've done is calculate what portion of the player's inventory weight is carried by the player himself - my patch will alter ART's strain calculation so that it uses my calculated percent encumbrance when power armor is worn. I'll also be using this calculated encumbrance to determine how many calories the player consumes in IMCN, rather than just cutting back to resting calorie burn rates whenever power armor is worn.


I've also added in an adjustable "Strength Amplification Factor" to one of my armor upgrades, Thermal Regulation Override. When toggled on, TRO lets you ignore power armor's thermal governor to gain large performance boosts - you can run faster (also adjustable), jump higher, and carry more weight. The trade off is that the heavier your load, and the faster you run, the hotter your armor will get, so if you're not paying attention you'll cook yourself. The TRO carryweight boost is essentially open ended - I've set it high enough that you'll start overheating long before you've reached maximum capacity. By adjusting the Strength Amplification Factor, you can tune how much weight is carried by the player, and how much by the armor, in order to find a balance between strain and overheating that provides maximum mobility.

I was wondering if you'd taken a look at PPA, and if you had any suggestions as to how I could tweak it to achieve a better balance with Arwen's Realism Tweaks. I think the high price of the upgrades will make obtaining them enough of a challenge to offset their stat boosts, though I could reduce the bonuses. Upgrades can also be found on power armor equipped NPC's, but I might tweak their rarity in the ART compatibility patch, and also introduce some situations where the upgrades are rendered unrecoverable during combat. Any feedback you can provide would be appreciated.

One thing ive noticed is that many if not all the DLC weapons cant be repaired with weapons from vanilla fallout ( I.E Tribeam laser rifles and regular laser rifles)

A strange thing happened today. I was hitting a Radscorpion with a super sledge, and at some point it was nearly dead and knocked out. I did one more power attack to the head, and it died. But right as I hit it, I get the 'whacked' visuals and if I look in the pipboy it says that I got the Arwen Whack effect.

It was definitely my hit to the scorpion that caused the whack. I reloaded to a few seconds before, and I didn't have the whack effect active. I was fighting one radscorpion, nothing else. It didn't manage to hit me. It didn't happen with every attempt, but most of the times when I delivered a (killing) blow while it was unconscious I got the whack effect applied to me.

Looks like something is accidentally applying the effect to me instead of the unconscious radscorpion?

hi arwen

i am trying to install your mod (which looks very nice btw and i am looking forward to it). However, I cannot get my strain gauge to appear.

I have copied "hud_main_menu.xml" to data\menus\main - but i had to create the folder "main" because it did not exist.
I have checked to make sure the line referring to "Strain_HUD.xml" is at the end of the file.
I have left "Strain_HUD.xml" in its location: data\menus\prefabs\arwen

According to the instructions I'm doing everything right, but the game crashes every time on load.

I'm using very limited number of mods - list and load order shown below:

00 Fallout3.esm
02 10mmreplacer.esp
01 RH_IRONSIGHTS.esm
03 RH_Ironsights_Basic_vanillateplugin.esp
04 Arwen_Realism_Core.esp
05 Arwen_Hard-Core.esp
06 Arwen_Encumberance


Thanks in advance for any help.
Duck Dodgers

I don't think you are doing anything wrong. The problem seems to be the fact that you do not have DarN's UI installed.

My mod does not require DarN's UI, but you would have to have an existing menu/main folder with hud_main_menu.xml to add my final line to.

Apparently the hud_main_menu.xml that I provide also requires DarN. Sorry about that.

I just extracted the original hud_main_menu.xml for the Fallout misc BSA, and added my final line to the end.
This is now available with my http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7565, under Files / Miscellaneous / Arwen_hud_main_menu_Non-DarN

Just unzip this into your Fallout 3 Data folder. Hopefully that will solve the Strain UI problem for you.

This seems to be a scripting quirk, and I see no way to prevent it. My guess is that the Whack effect is being applied at the exact same time that you kill your victim . . . OR just as you whacked a dead victim. The Whack spell does not get cast until after the victim is revived, and it will not be cast on dead victims . . . so I'm guessing that it ends up jumping to the nearest available live actor . . . the person doing the whacking. I think that the only time this will actually happen is when both your own fatigue and health are low . . . as this is the only time that Whack can be applied (based on the scripting conditional statements).