Rechambering Plus
For me, variety of guns and ammunition in Fallout 4 was basically a downgrade from Fallout: New Vegas. The weapon mod system improves the situation somewhat, but one area in which Bethesda really dropped the ball was in modifying the ammo types that guns can accept. This functionality is available to a certain extent in Fallout 4 in the form of converted receivers, but it is very limiting. This mod aims to improve it.
Rechambering
With this mod, most ballistic guns have an entirely new mod category called “chambering” which allows the player to alter the ammo type of the gun. This means that ammo types are no longer tied to the receiver mod slot, allowing the player to use, for instance, an Automatic .308 Combat Rifle or a Hair-Trigger .45 Pipe Pistol, or even a Powerful .50 Pipe Bolt-Action Pistol.
Altering the ammo type of a gun will change its damage, fire rate, and recoil. The exact values can be seen in the Readme, but the general pattern is that more powerful ammo types have better damage, but worse fire rate and recoil. Some conversions also affect reload speed.
Predictably, Pipe weapons are the most modifiable, and can accept most bullet types. Other guns are generally limited to only using pistol or rifle ammunition, and often only certain kinds.
Additionally, this mod changes the Combat Rifle’s default ammo type to 5.56 caliber, both for realism and to further differentiate it from the Submachine Gun. Accordingly, this mod alters leveled lists to make 5.56 rounds more common.
Of course, the player isn’t the only one with access to new ammo conversions; the denizens of the Commonwealth do too. Raiders, Gunners, settlers, and even Super Mutants will make use of far more varied ammo types.
Rechambering Plus
This mod comes in two flavors: Rechambering Minimum and Rechambering Plus. Both versions include the above changes, but Rechambering Plus goes above and beyond by rebalancing and filling in holes in the existing receiver system. This includes:
The addition of Calibrated Hardened, Hair-Trigger/Tuned Hardened, Hair-Trigger/Tuned Powerful, Hardened Rapid Automatic, and Advanced receivers for the applicable guns.
Rescaling the damage bonus from Hardened/Powerful/Advanced receivers from +25%/+50%/+75% to +25%/+45%/+60% in order to balance against the increased availability of damage from higher-powered ammo.
Removing the increased fire rate and decreased AP cost for Advanced receivers in order to make them less objectively superior to all the other receivers. There is now an opportunity cost for getting maximum damage.
Adding receivers for the .44 Revolver, which previously only had Standard, Hardened, Powerful, and Advanced receivers.
Adding Light and Heavy receivers for the Submachine Gun, and removing the damage penalty from existing SMG receivers.
The Rechambering Minimum mod does not include these changes. I do not recommend the Minimum version. It is intended to make as few changes as is necessary in order to preserve compatibility with other mods. As such, it is very unlikely to be balanced. The Minimum version is intended primarily for compatibility patches with other mods.
As of version 0.6 Beta, the minimum version has been removed due to compatibility issues. It may or may not return at a later date.
Special Thanks
The6thMessenger, author of Pipe Weapon Overhaul, which served as an inspiration and a model for this mod.
Flash_in_the_Flesh, author of Full Weapon Rebalance, whose calculations helped inform some of the balancing for this mod.
And, of course, the folks at FO4Edit, without whom this mod literally would not be possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
(I’m actually just preemptively guessing what kinds of questions folks might ask about this mod)
Q: Why come I can’t rechamber my Deliverer?
A: It didn’t seem to make sense that the Deliverer could be rechambered into a larger caliber (it barely seems large enough to accept 10mm rounds) and I didn’t really see the point in making a .38 caliber rechamber for it. Frankly, this mod makes it so that .45 and .44 caliber rechamberings are usually better than 10mm, so I thought that having a really powerful small-caliber gun was good for balance.
Q: What about the Minigun?
A: The Minigun strikes me as a fairly precision-engineered machine; it didn’t seem likely that it would respond well to being altered to accept a different ammo type. Not to mention that 5mm rounds are the only ones that actually appear to come in belts.
Of course, both are subject to change if there’s a response. This is only the first version.
Q: Why don’t the receiver changes in Rechambering Plus include the Laser and Plasma weapons?
A: I was actually pretty happy with how Bethesda balanced the energy weapons; they didn’t strike me as needing the receiver overhaul that the guns did. Again, this could change in the future, although one could also use a different mod to balance the energy weapons since my mod doesn’t touch them.
Q: This mod is horribly unbalanced.
That’s not actually a question, but yeah, that’s why this mod is in Beta. I haven’t really had much of an opportunity to test it beyond making sure it doesn’t crash, so most of my balances are pretty spitball. Constructive feedback, especially with regards to balancing, is always welcome.
Compatibility
This mod, even the Minimum version, makes a lot of changes to a lot of weapon and weapon mod records. It’s more likely to have conflicts than not. There shouldn’t be anything too game-breaking, but any weapon or weapon-mod mod lower in the load order is likely to be overwritten by this one (or vice-versa). As with all mods, use at your own risk.
As of right now, there’s a Rechambering Plus compatibility patch available for Weapon Balance Overhaul (comes highly recommended, by the way).
The load order for the WBO compatibility version is Weapon Balance Overhaul, then Rechambering Plus, then the patch.
If you’d like to see a compatibility patch for another mod, leave a comment. Patches should be relatively easy, if laborious, to make. Feel free to make and upload a compatibility patch yourself if you’d rather not wait around for me to do it.
Known Issues
Several users have reported CTDs on installing this mod on existing saves. Version 0.6 Beta should fix these issues if it is installed with the instructions below.
Guns that have been placed in the world (i.e. not found inside containers or on NPCs) don’t always have chambering mods. They will use default ammo until a chambering mod is attached.
Installation
The usual. Install with NMM or extract the esp into your data folder and activate it with the plugins.txt file.
I highly recommend using this mod on a new character, but I’ve found that it can be installed on an existing save if you follow these instructions:
Dismiss your companions.
Put all of your guns and loose mods into a container somewhere.
Go into an interior cell, preferably one with no guns in it. The cave under Red Rocket or the surgery center in Diamond City are good choices.
Make a clean save. Install the mod and then load up the save.
Go and retrieve your stuff. Nothing should be broken. If you’re still having issues, try waiting seven or eight in-game days between steps 3 and 4.
If you do this, all of your guns should still work, but they won’t have a chambering mod attached to them. They’ll use their default ammo type until you add a chambering mod at a weapons workbench.
To uninstall, follow the same steps, but make sure to remove any of the receiver mods added by Rechambering Plus before you put your guns away. Also, waiting seven or eight days between steps 3 and 4 is a good idea.
My other mods
Armor Prefix Fix
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