Quick update: evil twin is going to take a look at the turret problem with EWE; I asked him to let weijiesen know, so he can (hopefully) fix this in EVE.

I'm running several mods, all of which I've used before and have recently started using FWE. I love it. Has anyone ever had the sound of a woman clearing their throat occur, while they've been sneaking around? It's just happened to me now several times. The first time I nearly jumped out of my skin because it was dark and I was playing with headphones on. I really wasn't sure where to put this, but it seemed likely it came from FWE, as I had run all the others for a while without noticing this.

Are you thirsty? That happens when you haven't drank anything for awhile. Press Enter on the numpad to check your Hunger/Sleep/Thirst levels.

... or use one of the optional files from Nexus
Primary Needs Sound Disabler

Random thoughts about FWE:

I really like FWE and think it's the best mod on thenexus. That being said, I thought there were a few flaws with it that could be improved.

Edit: I put already configurable stuff in spoiler tags. I wish the defaults were harder, but it makes no difference I guess.



Also, perhaps purifying water should be more difficult or less beneficial. I just feel that it's silly how you actually MAKE money by purifying dirty water (barter skill is irrelevant because it affects the radaway cost too). Perhaps the purification process should take much longer than it currently does (30 ingame minutes) making it a chore and something the player needs to continuously check up on.

2) Radiation in the wasteland needs to be more balanced imo. The rads in water are absolutely deadly, and I like it, I actually try to avoid water now. However, radiation from consumables is so miniscule it's pointless. Related to the above: since you need to eat/drink so rarely, you can tuck food away in a safe place along with a radiation suit (so you don't have to carry around a heavy suit thing). Your home works well, or even just your motorcycle saddlebags. Thus you can easily get 65%+ radiation resist whenever you wish to eat. Anyway, the point is that combined with rad resisting items and perks, the rads for water/food are negligible.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that ALL alcohol takes away 20 rads. Even without ANY rad resistance, which is unrealistic, you can MORE than counter any radiation from food/water by downing it by a beer (which costs like what, 2 caps? please). Then sleep for an hour to get rid of the annoying visual effects and you're fine.

I suggest that food/water rads should not be reduced by rad resistance. Sure, you'll lose out on the small bonuses perks give you, but it'll prevent the MUCH higher possible abuse from rad resist armor, which doesn't make any sense either. Or just toss on a much larger rad penalty (or both). Would it svck early game? Sure. But it should, you're an unexperienced teenager (19, right?) thrown out into a literal wasteland. not hard to find beer, or brahmin cheese, either. It'd actually add something to the game if you're so tight on cash you have to decide buying food, or getting yourself healed, or getting your rads taken away.

also it'd be really cool if you integrated the radioactive rain from enhanced weather =D

3) the weapons are not quite balanced. It's not a huge problem and you'll probably think I'm wasting way too much space on this. But I just like to thoroughly support my opinions =)

Pistols all around are too good (besides the 10mm ones). They have ridiculously low min spread, lower than an assault rifle (almost ANY rifle should be more accurate than a pistol. 14mm has like .25 mid spread, a chinese assault rifle with a laser sight only has .3 something... I suppose you're trying to balance for the greater recoil when firing at full auto. Sigh. I wish bethesda had put in a recoil mechanic). The average damage may not seem to be good in comparison, but FWE also favors semiautomatics and singleshot weapons. Bullet time simply does not work well with automatics, perhaps because of how it's scripted, and anyway it's more efficient targetting headshots with bullet time. Automatic weapons, then, aren't really useful except when you run out of AP (that never happens with the 2nd bullet time perk). Also, ammunition is 1) expensive 2) rare and 3) heavy. This means you don't want to be needing lots of it (too much weight) or be needing to replenish lots of it (expensive, and inconvenient midway through any mission). Pistols again win in this category.

My main beef is with the .223 pistol. That is to say, I like it so much it's my #1 weapon but I also feel guilty for using it. There's really no doubt about it, it is the best "all around" small gun weapon. 48 damage, 2x crit chance with 40 crit damage, .3 min spread, 3 shots/second. The 14mm does slightly more damage HOWEVER the 14mm uses a MUCH rare ammunition type. It's even hard to buy 14mm, so many times ammo merchants will respawn with literally only 1 14mm bullet in their inventory (perhaps that needs looking into). Also, the 14mm's crit damage is about the same IIRC and has 1x crit chance. Oh, and 1 more bullet in the clip. If you're comparing both guns I might use the 14mm for tough fights early on, if I can find enough ammo (doubt it) however you'll never need to buy more ammo with the .223 pistol using 5.56 rounds. However, as you level up, the .223 pistol will actually end up doing more damage than the 14mm because of the 2x crit chance. With a high luck and finesse, you can already begin to see the difference. Better criticals tops it all off.

It also has a ridiculously fast firing speed, about as fast as is possible for a single shot it seems. The deagle theoretically has a much higher RoF (at 6 a second) but FO3 seems to limit it somehow (my many ingame tests showed no practical difference) unless it's automatic. The magnum, while dealing more damage and having ammo not as rare as the 14mm, has a substantially slower speed of 2.25 shots a second. It's pretty noticeable, actually. Also, again, crit chance svcks.

I don't mean to say that assault rifles are useless. I just don't use them very often, typically only if I'm fighting multiple enemies in very confined spaces or against very tough enemies (overlords, reavers, and deathclaws are all really). A .223 pistol is enough for me to take out ANY human in at most 2 headshots, 1 if they're low level or if I get a critical. This means I can kill at least 2 enemies within a few seconds (again, consider the .223's fast firing speed, its super low min spread, and bullet time). Sure, the low clip size is annoying, but it isn't much of a limitation considering the low spawns of the default game (MMM fixes that, but well, that's not officially a part of FWE ).

Also, does anyone else feel that the new assault rifle pretty much makes the chinese/regular assault rifles useless? It uses a cheaper, lighter ammo, deals 1 less damage than the chinese for double crit chance, faster firing rate, large clip size, and more accuracy. Why not make one assault rifle excel in accuracy while make another (like the chinese, which seems to be based on the AK) more powerful but less accurate? I sorta feel like it's pointless even having it in the game if it's inferior in pretty much every aspect.

Unique weapons: uhh, it seems like a lot of unique weapons were simply made silenced. Maybe it's just the few I happened to have acquired (xuanlong, ole painless, ultra smg). Sort of makes sense on the first two, but when I hear "ultra smg" I think of something with more power and less stealth. Just a minor thing. But I feel like there was more that could've been done to make unique weapons truly "unique" other than silencing them. Like adding knockdown, or low damage but very high crits, very high damage with very low weapon health, extra damage on certain creatures or karma related. Something like that.

lastly, shotgun shells are a bit too heavy imo. maybe tone it down a bit. Shotguns are already weaker in comparison to how they were in vanilla.

4) skill balance is whack.

I respect what you guys are trying to do with the skills and I think it's a definite improvement over vanilla. However, it's still far from perfect. First of all...

* Tagging skills is counterintuitive if you're trying to optimize your character (and playing a high difficulty mod like this requires some optimization). Naturally, you want to tag skills that you'll use a lot. However, you'll also be putting high points into SPECIAL stats that deal with that skill. Even if it's not to boost that skill, it naturally fits; str increases melee damage as well as melee skill, for example. By tagging a skill that is already higher than average, you don't get as much benefit as you would from tagging something else, like medicine, since skills cap out at 100 unlike the original fallouts. The difference is magnified when you consider perks. You'd think that picking "size matters" for a big guns specializing character that tagged big guns would be a good idea. However, the perk adds a flat bonus of +10, which is the equivalent of 5 skill points. If you had picked a perk for a nontagged skill, you'd get the equivalent of 10 skill points. So a big guns character would actually ideally NOT tag big guns, pump up the corresponding special stat, and take the size matter perks (all 3 ranks) for the mastery bonus.

Suggestion: incorporate skills past 100 and wasteland mastery into FWE. 100 shouldn't even be considered a benchmark, breaking it shouldn't be some sort of special transcendence. Perhaps diminishing returns past 100, as it was sort of done in FO2. Also possibly rework perks to grant more benefits if you've also tagged a skill that the perk increases (nonretroactive of course).

* Skills just aren't balanced in terms of usefulness.
Science and lockpick are both less useful to rank up because of the hackterminal/picklock options that bypass the minigame. Even considering that you don't save/load repeatedly, these methods are still very reliable even with 15 less skill than needed. 20 less is definitely possible, 25 less is risky but not always a bad idea. Furthermore, they're made more useless by the introduction of bypass modules and explosive entry. Sure, both methods are expensive, but they also mean that you don't need to get lockpick/science up to that 100 level to access all the content in the game. Lesko's lab coat weighs 1 lb with +10 to science. With 10 intel you start with 30 science I think (3 per point right) so put 10 points into science and with the coat you can hack all average terminals. Put 15 more points and you can reliably use the hack terminal option. Use bypass modules for the very hard ones (i've actually not encountered a very hard terminal yet despite playign to level 16 without exp exploits.) As for lockpicking, you CAN lose a lot of bobbypins using the pick lock menu option, but bobby pins are still too cheap and you easily recover them with the skillbook perk.

Repair is useful as always. However, upping the repair skill isn't, as much. Wasteland survivor goggles + vault utility jumpsuit + toolkit + workbench = +30 repair skill. (toolkit is easy to make if you know where to search for scissors). Amphetamines cost like what, 20-30 caps for another +15 repair, and naturally repair takes no time so one amphetamines goes for a long way. If you have PL, replace jumpsuit with overalls and now you have a potential +50 repair skill (+55 with bobblehead). That means you only ever need to put 15 points into it to max out your repair (if your intel is below 10, then use mentats to max it out). Is it inconvenient hauling stuff in your motorcyle for a big repair job? Sure, but not that inconvenient. You want to store most of your stuff anyway if you've cleaned out the merchants, which I often do, and also to see what you want to keep and what you don't want to. Fuel is inexpensive, you find TONS of turpentine/flamerfuel/whiskey and detergent only costs 2 caps a box from the merchant guy. Anyway, you'd probably want to boost repair a BIT higher for on-the-fly repair jobs, but boosting it past 75 is plain wasteful (jumpsuit + goggles + amphetamines are only 3-5 lbs in your inventory and will max out your repair. Or carry around a toolkit in your motorcycle for another +10). Furthermore, FWE greatly increases the item health of everything, meaning on the fly repairs are really never needed as long as you pay attention to your stuff. Only reason to repair things on-the-fly is to save weight while looting, really.

Melee: Eh. I feel like this skill is sort of pointless. Even with the very low starting skill level, you still deal enough damage with a chinese officer's sword (easy to get vampire's edge thanks to the lockpicking changes mentioned above) to easily dispatch vermin and ghoul/ghoul roamers. Every character, even without "training" (putting points in the skill) is good enough to 1hk a mole rat for instance. Since vampire's edge/shiskebab swing so fast, it's very easy to take down ghoul roamers (i.e. almost everything in the subways) without getting hurt. I also use it to finish off wounded enemies that I know are hiding around corners or behind cover, even with 25~ in the skill. I just feel like you should need some sort of investment when it has these many uses. On the other hand, melee at higher levels is very difficult simply because of FWE's higher global damage.

Suggestion: ideally lower attacks per second/swing speed (make it feel like you're actually clumsy with the weapon) at low skill levels. probably a pain in the ass to code, so I suggest more extreme damage differences based on your skill level.

Medicine: imo, rad-x scales up too much at 100 med, especially considering the maximum of 95% rad resistance. For only 20 caps a pop, it really takes the danger out of radiation :/. Plus, upping med to 100 also makes radaway remove a ridiculous amount of radiation. Since you never want to get past moderate rad poisoning anyway, doctors become irrelevant (too costly) compared to what a single radaway does for you. Generally, making a game feature obsolete isn't quite ideal .



Sidenote: with the Pitt DLC, .32 ammo is worth "more" than 5.56 with the ammo press. 10 .32 ammo will make more than 10 5.56 ammo, for example. You can make more .308 with .32 than you can with the same of 5.56. But both .32 and 5.56 cost the same amount of caps. And because of the barter system, it's actually not terribly difficult to be able to sell/buy ammo at their actual costs. So it's a bit of a possible abuse, there. Not really sure how you can fix this without changing the ammo press itself.

sidesidenote: the Outcast rewards at Fort Independence are not very consistent. That is to say, the monetary value of getting stimpacks VASTLY outweights the monetary reward of 14mm ammo for example. This was true in vanilla but is made worse since stimpacks are now 35 caps instead of 25 caps. Exchanging technology for anything other than stimpacks is a losing proposition. A rebalance of the rewards would be nice, they don't have to be perfectly equivalent but it's not even really close right now :/.

random suggestion: I think it'd add a lot to the game if SPECIAL caps were removed. Your character could not have a stat that is INHERENTLY above 10, to represent human limitations, but certain perks, drugs, and items would be able to make you temporarily exceed those human limitations. Example: using buffout, or equipping power armor. After all, FWE includes a lot more chems, but I end up not using a lot of them because my stats are capped with only 1 chem or maybe none at all in some cases. Some things might need to be rebalanced (maybe past 10 you don't get skill bonuses, idk) but this is something I'd love to see in game.

Can't think of anythign else at the moment. Sorry for the super long post but I don't like making unfounded comments, so I expand on everything I write. Hope this helps in any way to make FWE better [=

Thank you for the feedback
I will not answer to you in most things- it will be better if Mez or Kai will answer instead.
But it will be better, if you will edit your post and remove all suggestions about configurable things. I understand, defaults can be better, but it is difficult to suite needs of all.


I disagree with you here. Exchange technology was made not for cheating with money, but for survival. And price ratio for outcasts and merchants can be different


It is hard to implement. Your rad resistance affect all.


Well- before they was useless. I'm afraid we will never reach agreement between pistol's funs and automatic's lovers
I, for example, don't like pistols at all. Assault rifle my best choice and it work perfect in Bullet time for me. May be you just do not know how to cook it?


Do you try shotguns with AF mechanism? Trust me- it is only one true weapon against enclaves, robots and Matriarch deathclaws


It is normal with ghouls and molerats. But I hope you will not use such low melee skill against supermutants and even raiders. You will die, my friend


Ammunition will not be rare and expensive, if you will think less about money and more about your needs during business with outcasts

But again- thank to you for the feedback, most appreciated

Woah, Burb! You have thought in quite a lot of detail. I'll let Mez and Kai and the rest make what they will of your input. But, I thought I would add my own reaction to your thoughts:

Many of your complaints about how easy it is to work around the built-in difficulties hinge on being able to identify and locate a small collection of appropriate items, many of which are certainly not available very early in the game (at least not unless you already know where they are and run right to them). I would say, this is therefore a great setup. Learning to game the game is part of rpg playing since forever. Some might call it powergaming. But, figuring out how to up that lockpick skill while saving your actual skillpoints for something else that doesn't necessarily have a workaround? That's just good gaming.

If your suggestions are aimed at taking away all possibility of gaming the game, I'd be against it. I've chosen to play with FWE, and I'm not the most skilled gamer when it comes to fps mechanics. If there's a thinking-man's way around a difficulty, I'll take it. I very much enjoy the added difficulty and challenge of FWE, at least partly because there are so many ways to tackle a problem. Sneak, bullet time, chems, appropriate weapon-choice, sprinting, item-choice... these are all wonderful for a guy like me whose mouse-and-keyboard reflex skills are perhaps below normal.

(And, for the record, I just disable Primary Needs. It's a taste thing. So, team, I really really appreciate how modular you made all this.)

gothemasticator

Good point


For this it was created, it is good you appreciate it

Well, it's true that it wouldn't make sense for the exchange to be exactly equivalent in everything. But I think that the stimpack reward simply is so high that, unless you have a near 0 barter skill, it doesn't make sense to exchange for anything but stimpacks. Stimpacks, after all, are essential in FWE, and they're actually more valuable than in vanilla. I don't know the exact exchange rate for the various pieces of equipment, but I don't think it's really balanced at all. Perhaps you could dig it up for me delamer? =D



Yeah, I realize. Just thought it'd be better and interesting than a straight up rad increase, plus reduce instances of abuse. Idk how else to make rads in food important.



Bullet time perfects precision, which automatic weapons are simply incapable of due to a much higher minimum spread. If you're going to spray and pray, then using bullet time will not give you as much benefit compared to getting 100% headshots with the .223. But mainly my issue is that for some reason, you get an extra delay when firing an automatic weapon in bullet time (like it takes extra time for you to get that first shot off when you're holding down th ebutton and then continue firing) which really bugs me.

Assault rifles are not at all bad though. It makes killing overlords much faster, if not quite as efficient as a pistol.



I do, but the shotgun shell weight/cost is such a deterrent =( ever since I installed FWE I've stayed away from them mostly. And besides, FWE technically shouldn't require WMK to be balanced . But who in their right mind wouldn't use WMK?

Thankfully, the enclave are humans and take heavy damage from headshots. Even high level enclave will fall to 2-3 .223 pistol shots and using psycho (thank god for these super cheap chems! I can't believe psycho is only 20 caps ). Deathclaws... yes they are a pain. And scary as hell. I try to snipe them from a distance usually.

On the subject of robots: sentry robots have hilariously bad turning speed and mobility in general. I kept dying to one when I had a pisspoor save location, then I found out I could just circlestrafe the thing (literally running on it sometimes) while shooting it continuously. Didn't have the shocksword yet, or I could've saved some ammunition. They're not a threat by themselves. Find some cover, wait for them to get close, then just run rings around them. You can even do it in a tight corridor, since you just push them out of the way. Pretty funny really.



Actually, like I said it's pretty effective with jingwei's against low hp raiders/SMs trying to find cover or raiders who aren't expecting you. The only thing keeping me from sneaking up on them is more of an issue with my sneak skill rather than the melee damage. You can take down a raider in 2-3 swings easy, and with jingwei's attack speed that means like within a second. Plenty of time if they are reloading or have their weapon holstered. Okay, yes, jingwei's is the best melee in the game, but this would still hold true for, say, the shiskebab.

Naturally, I'd need to be able to 1hk raiders if I wanted to rely on melee. But my point was that melee is too good for too few skill points. It pretty much becomes a primary weapon in certain sewers/metro stations, the reach of a chinese officer sword (or unique equivalent) allows you to demolish any non-reaver ghoul just by spamming attack. It'd be really nice if swing speed/attack speed were decreased with a bad melee skill to make it hard to use in general rather than decreasing damage. That way melee would be harder to use, not simply less effective. but yeah I think that'd be a PITA to code so w/e.



when I trade in a suit of power armor (800 value at full repair!) for 20ish 14mm rounds, I get pretty depressed. Plasma weapons will get me little more than a clip of 14mm ammo. Ofc I'd get more ammo for like 5.56, but I'd also use it a lot quicker :/.



welllll. I wouldn't say that, exactly. I do in fact know where to get a free rad suit, but you can buy an advanced one from crow for less than 300 caps if I remember right (it'd be 150~ in vanilla but FWE bumped it up). Environment suit is even easier to get from moira. A toolkit is not at all hard to build and you only need to get one of them. The only thing that is hard to find for a toolkit is the scissors, but you'll still find one before you hit level 5 if you look carefully. The water purifier is very cheap, just buy it from moira. Even if you don't know where the bypass module schematics are, if you're doing the WSG (which almost every new person does, I think) you'll find them long before you find any 100 science terminals... did I mention I still haven't found any ? I forgot to mention that amphetamines also give +15 to your science, so levelling it up is even less important... I dunno. Prior game knowledge helps but it's certainly not necessary as long as you keep a sharp eye out and know what you're searching for.



okay I just feel like I'm not playing the true version of FWE if I'm messing with defaults.



Well it's good to have an option, but it's also a bit unfair to people who DON'T power game. If someone legitimately wants to play a super scientist character, then they should have a legitimate advantage over characters who don't specialize in that area. Not as if science was a good skill in vanilla to begin with, but because of bonuses (amphetamines for instance) and the hacking system, putting points in it is even less important. All you'd gain would be a few hundred caps more saved from bypass modules over the course of the entire game. Compare it to medicine, which has a very tangible increase in stimpack/rad-x/radaway effectiveness.

Oh, here's another comment:

can you please remove repair parts and scrap metal from merchant leveled lists? If some merchants start with it in their inventory, at least keep it from respawning in their inventory later. For whatever reason, repair parts only cost like 2-5 caps or something ridiculously low like that. Each repair, however, might increase the value of an item by anywhere from 30 to 100+ caps. Scrap metal, of course, can be used to make repair parts and is similarly abusable. It's more than enough that you can buy junk items to make weapons for net gain. Doesn't seem right to me that you can buy 10% cond hunting rifle and 4 repair parts for <20 caps and then sell it for 70+ at 100% cond. Sort of takes the fun out of the game when making money is that easy . Hunting rifles are actually a very mild example, plasma weapons would go for several hundred, combat armor can hit 600+ with heavy MK II.

You've hit on a particular example that isn't FWE's fault at all. Science is just an underutilized skill. Contrary to what the roleplay crowd desires, Fallout 3 just isn't set up to support a large number of specific imagined characters. Diplomats really aren't playable. Neither really are rogues. I mean, you can steal more often than the average joe, but that's about it. Fallout 3 is about using the available skills to do the things the game presents, which most often is killing enemies. Some players might use sneak more than others, but that doesn't make them a thief character. Some players might prefer energy weapons over standard guns, but that doesn't make you a different character. The science skill has limited usefulness in the game, so using it as a basis for a character simply won't work.

This is one of the reasons I like FWE. It understands quite well what the game is presenting and just expands and improves upon that. It doesn't change the nature of the quests or the NPC dialogue or the storyline-related choices available to the player.

If you really want to play a scientist character, you're going to have to fill in the many gaps with your own imagination, because the game itself doesn't support it.


I'm level four on my new game built around FWE 5.02, and things ain't that cheap for me. I have a barter skill of 7. If you've bumped your own barter skill up to get good prices, I'm not sure you should complain that you get good prices. :shrug:

Plus, your example depends not only on a decent barter skill but also on a decent repair skill - both things you've invested points in. For those that haven't, it's not such an exploit.

gothemasticator

EDIT: I thought I'd clarify why I seem to be arguing with you. It's not that I am against any proposed changes or adjustments to FWE.

It's that you are playing the default settings and proposing making them harder, rather than using the available configurable settings to make your own game harder. From reading your posts, I would venture to say that your skill as a player of Fallout 3 is above average. I'd also guess you have several complete playthroughs under your belt.

I would cast my own "vote" against tailoring FWE's default settings to a player as accomplished as you are.

gtm

Burb, take the plunge. Tweak your FWE game to make it harder on yourself. Feel it is too easy to make money. Enable the Harsher Merchant setting. With a barter skill of 20 a Stimpack will cost you 130 caps or so and if you will it you will get a handfull. Some skills may be useless, but look in Mez's thread about mods that will run perfectly alongside FWE and include them. Robco Certified coupled with Robco Engineer will make Science a very important skill as you will have you own little army of robots.

FWE is perfect, especially not if you want to play with default settings and some of those settings just doesn't agree with you. But FWE is pretty close to being perfect in my opinion, because you can tweak it to your liking without being a modder.

Hi,
I have a question, I've started a new game with this mod so I'm quite new here and I'm beginning to find the features it has.

My character (level 2) has an agility skill of 6, and it runs VERY fast. but it seems TOO fast for me. isn't there a way I could change that? because I don't like the feeling of almost running a marathon all the time.

Thanks

Thanks for your feedback. I will have to respectfully disagree on those points you mentioned though. We've put a lot of thought into the balance on all those points you mentioned and have come to different conclusions.


That is the completely wrong attitude. Even I don't play with the default FWE settings and I'm one of the devs. We put the menu there for a reason, so use it. There is no true version.

For example I prefer more alternative settings

Lucho-Man


If you have some experience with FO3EDIT it will be easy enough for you.
Open FWE.esp, open Game Settings, find here fMoveBaseSpeed setting and correct it with values from 77 (vanilla) to 85 (FWE)

PS Kai- seems to me you was right about speed

This is indeed the reason that convinced me in the end to try FWE and I have adjusted it quite a bit, but now FO3 finally feels mostly the way I want it (although vanilla FO3 was better than vanilla Morrowind or Oblivion IMHO)

However I, too, think that some stuff could be tweaked a little bit here and there, but that's mostly details (14mm ammo IS very rare, Pulse rifle very strong, some armors could probably be adjusted a little bit) and besides the fact that you will never get it right for everyone, I guess balancing can take a while.

I just want to say that I think repair parts and power armor repair parts are overpowered. It makes it too easy to repair rare and powerful equipment imo. Being able to repair a plasma rifle with scrap metal instead of another plasma rifle makes it waaay easier to repair that rare weapon. Same thing with being able to repair power armor with scrap/abraxo/conductor instead of more power armor. I know that these items are more rare than you would need them to do repairs, so that would mean needing to pay for repairs at a vendor. I see how this can be annoying, but it just seems too easy to me to repair my strong equipment at lower levels, which kind of goes against the challenge inherent in FWE imo. Granted, I could just not use them, but I thought I would throw it out there.

I also agree with the poster above who said that the amount of equipment you get from exchanging technology to Cazdin is too high. I feel this way because when I get low on equipment my first thought is heading to Cazdin to exchange tech, no matter where I am on the map. That seems to me like it is too good of a deal.

Anyway, just some food for thought. I'm really loving my current playthrough and can't wait for my next one with version 5. I already thought version 4 was near perfect, so 5 should be awesome.

EDIT: Thought I would mention that I currently have RL-3, as well as Jericho, Malcolm, and Charon all in some form of power armor. Jericho/Malcolm in suits I took off dead BoS and Charon off a Fallen Brother. We make for a pretty strong squad at level 10, though there are still some tense moments for sure. I couldn't imagine playing through the DC area without multiple allies. The place is crawling with baddies.

Repair parts make more sense than just repairing with scrap metal, as you need to have access to a workbench and have high enough repair skill to make them, Power Armor repair kits require parts that aren't that common in most dungeons, and again you need to have access to a workbench to make them. Also power helmets can be repaired with just sensor modules, but again, sensor modules are valuable in other ways too.

And i've had no problem in DC, alone, with a character that dies if you look at her funny. Though i'm sure that'll change when i switch from my stealth character to my tank character, morphine addiction ahoy!

At level 2 walking to Megaton from the Regulator's outpost, I'd never been more thankful than stumbling across Scrapyard.



I'm just now getting into the DC ruins and I'm playing a character that can die in one hit from a sledgehammer, so far very interesting, I'm nearly level 6! muhahahah! :mohawk:

Whoa, lot's of deep discussions

To most of Burb's points, I agree with Kai's remarks: use the config menu and change the settings you're using. As with Kai, I don't use the default settings either. They are the defaults because they are what were either the historic setting or what we felt would appeal to the broadest audience (i.e. a balance between too hard and too easy).

Regardless, the whole conversation speaks to another issue, which gothemasticator raised. And that is, like it or hate it, Fallou3 is really an RPG-"light" game . . . the fundamental mechanics (or quest choices, or dialogue, etc..) just aren't in-place to support more diversified character options. I think many mods go a long way towards rectifying this problem (i.e. Robo Certified making science useful for something other than hacking terminals or a random and inconsequential dialogue choice). But ultimately without reworking every quest/task/component of the game it just isn't possible to make Fallout3 as gritty or harsh as it could (or should) be.

Is there room to continue tweaking FWE and improving it? Certainly. But at the end of the day FWE does have a limited scope in what it can address and it has to work with what it's been given (for the most part) . . . which is a strange game that's neither FPS or RPG, and that has plenty of options but very few outcomes. I guess that means it's all an illusion

Hate to disrupt the current discussion, but I've got a small bug report.

Whenever I try to view the "Shellshocked Combat Armor" in the Pipboy, I get a CTD.
It's almost as if some stat of the armor is broken and causes a crash when displaying it.



I guess it's one of the armors added by the Missing Unique Armors mod.

Nope, works fine. Check if some other mod alters it.

Wouldn't know wich one, apart from FWE none of the other mods in my game should use this armor as it is added by FWE/Missing Uniques.
Just in case I disabled everything else except for FWE and DarnUI, but I still get a CTD everytime I move the mouse over the armor/click on it.
Guess I'll just leave it where I found it.

Thanks for the tip. My former char didn't like the look of it so she just added it to the collection. Trying it out with my new char it is indeed very good. I haven't played Fallout 1 or 2 but it is http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/.223_Pistol on those. I wonder if it is from http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2307? It doesn't look like the one in the screenshots. :unsure:

It's that one but with an updated texture. One of my favourite pistols, though in shootouts with multiple enemies the Deagle and 14mm outperform it.

There's also a unique variant of the pistol in FWE as well which has an entirely unique texture(and is plain badass)

Cool. Thanks.