Crazy Earl’s Weapon Mods
Status
This mod is work-in-progress. I would even call it “proof of concept”, beacuse things can change based on feedback. Currently this mod affects only 10mm Pistol, Pipe-Bolt Action guns and Hunting Rifle.
Short Decription
This mod expands mod selection for weapons without introducing new models. Caliber conversions are made into separate mod category. Heavy and light frames were made also as sepate category “Material”. The only modded vanilla category are receivers. Some changes were made to streamline the progression and new mods fill the gaps.
Story of the Mod
During Christmas I started investigating the possibilities of weapon mods modding, because I noticed that many weapon lack choices in Gun Nut 3 receiver and often have no selection of Gun Nut 4 receivers. I started with Hunting Rifle – created damage mod for GN4. Then I created Calibrated damage receivers (e.g. Calibrated Advanced receiver for GN4). When I started to apply this to .50/.38 receivers, the number of receivers grew quite a lot. So I started to investigate how to make custom category. This resulted in “Caliber” weapon mods, which change the caliber and characteristics of the weapon. When I had this done, I created a category for “Material”, because I wanted to make Light/Heavy modification relevant and creating combinations with recievers (e.g. Heavy Advanced Receiver) would clutter the selection again. In Material mods I crated 5 mods (GN0-GN4) for both Heavy and Light mods with linear progression. I applied similar changes to 10mm and Pipe-Bolt Action, where for 10mm I created new .38 and .45 receivers.
Long Description
A) Calibers
Weapon Calibers were made into separate category instead of being receivers (one could say that barrels and magazine also have to change for new ammo type). These typically change damage, rate of fire, recoil, action point cost and/or range. For now, all three weapons have “fast fire, low damage” caliber at GN2 (.38) and “slow fire, more damage” caliber at GN3 (.50/.45).
I am not against making even more choices for these weapons, for example I contemplated adding .50 for 10mm pistols, but the ingame .50 is rifle caliber (like .50 BMG) and such modification would make the gun into different weapon. Really, just look how the .50 looks on the ammo box. You want to fit this into a pistol?
Calibers are also used in the weapon name alongside used receiver, so don’t worry about not knowing the caliber at first glance. Too ease the confusion for 10mm pistol – when converted, it states only the new caliber. So you will see “.45 Pistol” or “.38 Pistol”.
B) Material
This is category that came from the desire to make something usefull with Light Frame and Heavy Frame receivers. I guess noone was using them, so I made this new category of mods. Now all weapons changed in this mod can use Material alongside Caliber and vanilla categories including receivers. Because I am not gun nut (pun intended!) and I am even not sure about all that parts in english (Receiver, Frame, is that the same thing?), I named this Material. There are two main Material kinds, (surprise!) Light and Heavy:
Light Material – lowered Damage in exchange for lower weight, lower recoil, lower action point cost and lower sighted transition.
Heavy Material – increased Damage for the cost of higher weight, worse recoil, worse action point cost and slower sighter transition.
If you compare this to changes listed as typical for Calibers, you see that they are similar. This is intentional and allows to further tune the characteristics of the weapon. Example:
You have Hunting Rifle converted to .50 Caliber. Would you like to compensate the increased recoil and action point cost with Light Material (but lower the damage bonus from the Caliber) or do you want just to go for damage with Heavy Material and make the recoil and action point cost that big? Choices, choices…
That’s not all. Simply having two mods in Material didn’t feel that exciting for me (while the same applies for Calibers, the ammo change is the big feature of Calibers), so I created a progression for this category. One variant for each Gun Nut level:
GN0 – Crude (Material)
GN1 – (Material)
GN2 – Improved (Material)
GN3 – Advanced (Material)
GN4 – Superior (Material)
The progression of these variants is linear, so GN1 variant has doubled effects compared to GN0 variant, while GH4 variant has five-times larger effects than GN0.
C) Receivers
Receivers were changed/expanded so their progression is more or less unified across all bullet weapons (all the weapon this mod changes, to be precise). The reason was Advanced receiver – some guns have it at GN2, some at GN3, some at GN4 and some don’t have it at all. So I created a base “framework” of MoreDamage receivers. Advanced reciever (MoreDamage3 internally) was put at GN3 and other MoreDamage receivers were shifted if needed. This means that I had to create a new MoreDamage0 (Sturdy) and MoreDamage4 (Robust) receivers. The basic progression is this (with some other effects alongside damage for some weapons):
GN0 – MoreDamage0 – Sturdy Receiver +12.5% dmg
GN1 – MoreDamage1 – Hardened Receiver +25% dmg
GN2 – MoreDamage2 – Powerful Receiver +50% dmg
GN3 – MoreDamage3 – Advanced Receiver +75% dmg
GN4 – MoreDamage4 – Robust Receiver +100% dmg
Automatic receivers have slightly altered progression. They don’t have Sturdy receiver, because having both simply Automatic and Study Automatic at same GN rank doesn’t make sense – noone would pick just Automatic. Also, with just -25% malus on Automatic, the gun would be just slightly less powerful on GN4 compated to non-auto (200% dmg Robust vs. 175% dmg Robust Auto – not even couting Calibers and Materials). So the bonus per MoreDamage level is just 15% now:
GN0 – Auto – Automatic Receiver -25% dmg (unchanged)
GN1 – Auto MoreDamage1 – Hardened Automatic Receiver -10% dmg
GN2 – Auto MoreDamage2 – Powerful Automatic Receiver +5% dmg
GN3 – Auto MoreDamage3 – Advanced Automatic Receiver +20% dmg
GN4 – Auto MoreDamage4 – Robust Automatic Receiver +35% dmg
Alongside with this progression, some changes can be made. I based this on existing Calibrated Powerful receiver as combination of Powerful and Calibrated receivers, but needing higher GN perk. So there is now progression of Calibrated MoreDamage receivers (added Critical dmg) and applied the same for progression of Tuned receivers (improved rate of fire) and ArmorPiercing receivers (eeeeh, makes armor go poof or something?) for some weapons. The way these combined receivers are created can be imagined as a “budget”:
Ranks in GN are total budget
MoreDamageX take X from budget
Calibrated, Tuned and ArmorPiercing take 1 from budget and can be used only in cases where vanilla had them (e.g. AP only on Automatic, 10mm doesn’t have Tuned, etc…)
Automatic takes 0 from budget (again, vanilla limitations apply, so no Automatic Hunting Rifle)
Rapid Automatic takes 2 from budget (again, see above)
Because caliber conversion receivers and Light/Heavy Frame receivers were made into separate category, I had to do something with their original receiver mods. Since I couldn’t ignore them (weapon has to have a receiver, otherwise part of the model is missing), I replaced them with some of the new mods. E.g. .50 Receivers are now Advanced receivers or Heavy Frame receivers are now Sturdy recivers. I state it here, so you don’t wonder where did those come from.
List of mods
Following lists contain the mods added by this mod. Most of them are new, some are replacers. I don’t list mods that only have their GN requirements changed – see the section about receivers.
Universal – Material
Standard Material (GN0)
Sturdy Light Material (GN0)
Sturdy Heavy Material (GN0)
Light Material (GN1)
Heavy Material (GN1)
Improved Light Material (GN2)
Improved Heavy Material (GN2)
Advanced Light Material (GN3)
Advanced Heavy Material (GN3)
Superior Light Material (GN4)
Superior Heavy Material (GN4)
10mm – Calibers
Standard Caliber (GN0)
.38 Caliber (GN2)
.45 Caliber (GN3)
10mm – Receivers
[Balance] Automatic receivers only receive +15% dmg per MoreDamage mod instead of +25%
[Balance] Rapid Automatic receivers are now even faster to reflect starting at GN2
Sturdy Receiver (GN0) – replaces Heavy Frame
Calibrated Sturdy Receiver (GN1) – replaces Light Frame
Calibrated Hardened Receiver (GN2)
Calibrated Advanced Receiver (GN4)
Robust Receiver (GN4)
Powerful Piercing Auto Receiver (GN3)
Advanced Automatic Receiver (GN3)
Advanced Piercing Auto Receiver (GN4)
Robust Automatic Receiver (GN4)
Armor Piercing Rapid Receiver (GN3)
Hardened Rapid Receiver (GN3)
Hardened Piercing Rapid Receiver (GN4)
Powerful Rapid Receiver (GN4)
Hunting Rifle – Calibers
Standard Caliber (GN0)
.38 Caliber (GN2)
.50 Caliber (GN3)
Hunting Rifle – Receivers
Sturdy Receiver (GN0) – replaces Heavy Frame
Calibrated Sturdy Receiver (GN1) – replaces Light Frame
Tuned Sturdy Reciever (GN1)
Calibrated Hardened Receiver (GN2)
Tuned Hardened Receiver (GN2)
Tuned Powerful Receiver (GN3) – replaces .38 Receiver
Advanced Receiver (GN3) – replaces .50 Receiver
Calibrated Advanced Receiver (GN4)
Tuned Advanced Receiver (GN4)
Robust Receiver (GN4)
Pipe Bolt-Action – Calibers
Standard Caliber (GN0)
.38 Caliber (GN2)
.50 Caliber (GN3)
Pipe Bolt-Action – Receivers
Sturdy Receiver (GN0) – replaces Heavy Frame
Calibrated Sturdy Receiver (GN1) – replaces Light Frame
Tuned Sturdy Reciever (GN1)
Calibrated Hardened Receiver (GN2) – replaces .38 Receiver
Tuned Hardened Receiver (GN2)
Tuned Powerful Receiver (GN3)
Advanced Receiver (GN3) – replaces .50 Receiver
Calibrated Advanced Receiver (GN4)
Tuned Advanced Receiver (GN4)
Robust Receiver (GN4)
Known issues
If you had a weapon with .38/.50 conversion receiver prior to installing this, the weapon will have the receiver (seemingly) replaced with another one with base caliber. I couldn’t change current coversion receivers into Caliber mods, because that would mean that converted weapons would be missing receivers after mod installation. And because receivers create part of weapon model, the part of weapon model or even whole model could disappear.
Weapons existing prior to installation will have no Caliber and Material mods installed. This is because those weapons spawned without these new mod types and cannot be simply retrospectively added (at least without scripting). But this is no big issue. Standard Caliber and Standard Material have no effects on the weapon and therefore having no mod for Caliber/Material is the same as having Standard variant. Any new spawned weapons will have Standard or even random Caliber/Material assigned.
Compatibility
If any other mod changes Weapon records and is loaded after CEWM, you’ll lose access to Material and Calibers.
If any other mod modifies conversion (.50/.38) receivers and is loaded after CEWM, it would undo my replacements.
If any other mod modifies crafting (Constructible Object) records and is loaded after CEWM, some of my changes for mod progression can be lost.
If any other mod modifies modcol OMODs and is loaded after CEWM, newly spawned weapons wouldn’t use my mods in randomization
If any other mod modifies Leveled Lists with mods and is loaded after CEWM, something strange could happen (I don’t know their use, but I guess they do something)
If any other mod modifies weapon naming and is loaded after CEWM, weapons won’t get named according to new mods
Basically, mods that modify weapons or add new weapon mods can break this mod or shatter its system. But I guess it wouldn’t lead to crashes. In general, I am not opposed to creating compatibility patches on request.
Compatibility patches
Weapon Balance Overhaul v1.4.1
Notes for modders
I found several interesting facts that could be usefull for other modders trying to work on weapon mods:
While OMOD records offer 3 operations for changing stats – Add, Multiply, Set, it seems that all of them are basically addition. Multiply function doesn’t multiply the base value, it adds multiplier of base value. So Multiply 0.25% means “Base + 0.25% Base”. I am not so sure how Set works, but I definitely know that using Set and Multiply doesn’t first set new base value and then uses Multiply. It seems like Set behaves like “Add diference from base value (thus bypassing Multiply, which is another addition)”.
Ordering of mods in crafting menu is done based on the value of mod item – Misc. Item (MISC) in FO4Edit.
Once you have mod item in your inventory, you can apply this mod no matter how strict are the restriction on crafting that. I have tried using ModdedWeaponHasKeyword funtion in crafting conditions so that .45 Caliber can be used only with Automatic receivers. It seemed fine at first – when non-auto receiver is used, it didn’t even show the caliber for crafting. But when I crafted .45 Caliber, switched back to 10mm and crafted a non-auto receiver, I could see and attach .45 Caliber. It just seems hardcoded that when you have a mod item, it can be applied and bypasses all restriction (not only perk requirements)
If you wondered how the Instance Naming Rules works – Each Naming Rule section can be a part of the weapon name. First Name in each Naming Rule that matches the Keywords gets applied (that’s why Calibrated Powerful has to be above Powerful). The name can even be empty. This is easy to figure. For me, it took some time to figure where the rules take the base name of the weapon. If you search carefully, you will find Name with Label “*” and no Keywords (typically last Name in second-to-last Naming Rule). This basically means “copy the name of weapon here”. This Name can also be skipped when some Name above it applies. For example – 10mm pistol is named only “10mm” and this 10mm string got copied to weapon name and Pistol or Auto Pistol gets attached as last part of the name. I have changed the rules so that it skips * for 10mm pistol and in previous rule I determine wheter the pistol is base 10mm caliber or modified caliber. And now I can have .38 Pistol 🙂
Permissions
Don’t copy this file to any other site. If you want to create a translation or compatibility patch or patch that changes some values to your liking, be my guest. Just credit me please (DrZelenka or Mirra).
Crazy Earl
I am not Crazy Earl. This comes from my previous mod Crazy Earl’s Scrapyard, where I used this Borderlands reference as a joke about scrapping. Well, now I decided to give my mods (even future ones) some identity and prefix them with “Crazy Earl’s”. This also means I don’t have to come up with unique name and can definitely avoid some words I hate in mod names – Realistic and Immersive. So, if you all managed to read all down here, thanks for your attention and see you all in the Wasteland!
