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|Realistic Shooter Mod|
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1. Overview
2. Compatibility
3. Install/Uninstall Instructions
4. Disclaimer/Permissions
5. Issues
6. Detailed Description of Changes
7. Version History



1. Overview:

What this mod is:
RSM is what started as a compilation of mods, turned into a more all-encompassing mod that aims to make Fallout 3 much more like a reasonably realistic FPS, while still maintaining the RPG feel. I made it for my own purposes, and as such I'm not committing to maintaining it and I can't guarantee/verify compatibilities, but I figured I might as well upload it in case someone likes it.

What this mod is NOT:
A full realism mod. It is specifically a COMBAT realism mod. But feel free to add it to your Basic Needs mods or whatever. It is also not a mod for the casual player, because it makes parts of the game veeeery difficult, particularly anything involving the Enclave or abomination creatures. Enclave tech is supposed to be far superior, and it now shows. Use quicksave.

I've made things as modular as is reasonable, so here's a brief description of each section:

VATS:
It's now a sort of "concentration" ability: it's almost a guaranteed hit, but it will take you several minutes to recharge.

Accuracy:
Crouching, running, and firing repeatedly all affect accuracy. Accuracy is also greatly dependent on weapons skill: coming out of the Vault you are a firearms novice, and will fire erratically, but you can improve your weapons skill pretty quick so don't worry.

Damage and Leveling / Weapon Damage / Power Armour Tweaks:
Weapon damage is CONSTANT and relatively realistic, and HP is NOT related to level. You level to raise skills and get perks, and the game, as always, eases you into tougher enemies based on level. Pistols (all of them) are viable weapons in many situations, lightly armoured enemies (or players :P) will die in a shot or two, and power armoured enemies/players can take some [comparitively] major damage.

Enemy Rebalance:
Many creatures' health is lowered to balance the lack of leveled health/damage. Be warned, however, because larger creatures/mutants are quite mutated, and will take a whole lot of punishment. Let's just say, don't take on a deathclaw unless you have heavy explosives handy :P


Oh, one more thing: This mod encourages two playstyles: Either the sneaky sniper (killing enemies before they get to you), or the tank (loaded with heavy weapons and power armour). You will NOT survive as a melee character. This is a SHOOTER mod. So if you're not prepared to be smart or wear heavy armour, then you've got the wrong mod :P



2. Compatibility:

This mod may work on an existing save, but I recommend against trying. If it does, great, but it was designed from the ground up to be used on a new game. Also, everything has been playtested on Very Hard difficulty. Theoretically bumping it down will make things easier, but I think it would probably only make things stupidly easy.

REQUIRED Mods:
- Mart's Mutant Mod (MMM): The enemy rebalance .esp needs it, and why wouldn't you use it? It is awesome. Things won't be balanced without the enemy rebalance .esp, so MMM is required. RSM has been tested on MMM version RC 4.0, but it should work fine on any MMM version that has the same new creatures.

Mods I can't guarantee things will work / be balanced without: (or: Why Would You Use This Mod Without These Anyway?)
- CombatEnhanced Package: Makes enemies smarter, very good for improving the FPS feel
- Better Headshots: Makes headshots do much more damage, and makes torso shots do more damage than limb shots.
- Fallout Script Extender (FOSE): Only required for the accuracy package (it's used for the rapid-fire inaccuracy script). I've included an .esp that does not have this script, in case you don't want FOSE for some reason, but it's really nice to have so I recommend FOSE.

Compatible DLC's:
- Broken Steel

I do have Point Lookout, but do not have any files for it at this time. I will probably add them once I get around to playing it. Things will run fine with the unsupported DLC's I imagine, but any new creatures will likely be stupidly strong. If you're really ambitious you can open up my rebalance .esp in FO3Edit, get a feel for my HP changes, and balance things yourself. Be sure to submit it here if you do, you will get credit of course.



3. Install Instructions:

1. Download the .zip (plus any .zip files for DLC's you own), and either open it or extract the contents somewhere
2. Copy/extract the required .esp's in the .zip file to your Fallout3/Data folder.
Required .esp's:
- RSM_damage_and_leveling_MMM.esp
- RSM_weapon_damage.esp
- RSM_enemy_rebalance.esp
3. Copy/extract whatever optional .esp's you want to your Fallout3/Data folder. (see the "5. Detailed Description of Changes" section for information on exactly what each .esp does)
Optional .esp's:
- RSM_accuracy.esp
- RSM_VATS.esp
- RSM_armor_tweaks.esp
- RSM_misc_tweaks.esp
4. If you want any of the alternative .esp's (just RSM_accuracy_NoFOSE.esp as of v0.1), browse to the "Alternativess" folder inside the main RSM .zip file, and extract that .esp to your /Data/ instead of the main .esp. (Don't use both an original and alternative .esp at once)
5. Using the Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM), enable all the .esp's you copied over

Uninstall Instructions:

1. Delete all RSM .esp's from your Fallout3/Data folder (either through Windows or inside FOMM by unchecking the .esp's, right-clicking and selecting "delete")



4. Disclaimer/Permissions:

I'm just starting school and so I don't know that I can really maintain this if there are problems or things I missed. So I kind of submit it as YMMV (your mileage may vary), because while I hope to improve it, I won't guarantee anything. Hopefully it works for you as it did for me, and makes FO3 worth playing all over again, repeatedly (again, as it did for me). I do hope to improve it, though, so please mention suggestions or problems and I will try to get to them. I can only playtest so much.

As for permissions, do whatever you want, just toss in a little credit somewhere. I call this RSM and not RRSM ("Rippy's Realistic Shooter Mod") because a bunch of the changes are either based directly on other mods, or offer similar changes. I've given credit in the detailed list of changes everywhere I could. No, I did not ask permission, since this initially was just for my own use anyway. Hopefully it's okay; if not, well, it should be, because this is a place to be sharing and building on ideas and not hoarding them.

So no need to ask permission, just take parts of RSM for your own mod and credit them, or tweak/improve the whole thing and upload your own version. Though I would like to know if anyone likes this enough to do that, so I'd appreciate hearing about it :P



5. Issues:

- The rapid-fire inaccuracy script only seems to work once the mouse click is released, i.e. if you just hold down the trigger you will fire all perfect. If someone could get that fixed, I would be forever grateful
- I tried to get all the creatures in the enemy rebalancing, but I may have missed something. Furthermore, a lot of the changes are so far just quick guesses based on the health of similar creatures, since I have not encountered them yet to playtest, so some creatures may be too powerful or weak.
- I don't know for sure if this mod is dependent on any of my other mods. It'll probably run okay with just MMM and FOSE, but things may not be balanced just right. I'll look into it if there are issues.
- I haven't played through the game as a "heavy" character yet, meaning I haven't really played with the big guns for balance. It may be tough playing as such a character. It may be easy. I'm not sure.
- Sometimes the displayed VATS percentages will be kinda low (75% or worse); if that happens, fire anyway. I changed the VATS spread so that even a "miss" will usually hit the target.



6. Detailed Description of Changes:

MAJOR .ESP'S: (Things won't be balanced if you don't use all these)

Damage and Leveling (RSM_damage_and_leveling_MMM.esp):
- Player and NPCs' health is no longer dependent on their level (!)
- Damage is dependent only on the weapon. Weapon skill and condition do not affect damage.
- On levelup, you will always get 10 skill points. Intelligence does not factor in, so feel free to use the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. on more immediately necessary stats :P
- Tagged skills now have no immediate bonus, but instead gain 2 skill points every time you put 1 into the skill. It might sound crappy to have your tagged skills start as crap, but think about it, you can put 20 points into one every level! It makes "tagged skills" have meaning the whole game, not just when exiting the Vault, and it definitely is a better deal in the long run. (Xodarap777's XFO Skill Point fix)
- Player/NPCs with one leg cripped walk at 2/3 regular speed, 2 legs cripped = 1/3 regular speed
- Chance of dismemberments and explosions greatly reduced. (to 10% each) (Xodarap777's XFO gore fixes)
- Sneak attacks only give a 20% damage bonus
- Critical hits pretty much eliminated (Luck does NOT affect crit chance now, spend your SPECIAL somewhere else). Items/perks can still add to crit chance, if you want that, I guess.

Weapon Damage (RSM_weapon_damage.esp):
- Adjusted nearly all weapons to give them reasonable amounts of damage, and to be more balanced. This affects you too. YOU WILL DIE FASTER.
- Removed the "sticky trigger" effect for most semi-auto weapons, they will now not annoyingly fire sporadically when you're trying to fire at a fixed rate
Overview of changes:
- Pistols: Compared to the 10mm, the .32 pistol is more accurate and quite a bit more powerful, but still has a small magazine. The Chinese pistol is slightly weaker, but shoots faster. ALL of them will kill clothed/lightly armoured NPCs in a shot or two. They are all pretty comparable now.

Enemy Rebalance (RSM_enemy_rebalance.esp):
- The weapons were balanced with respect to damage to NPCs, but many creatures and super mutants are waaay too tough. This evens things out a bit, but higher-level creatures are still forces to be reckoned with. It also changes creature variations' health from being roughly exponential to roughly linear, to take into account the lack of leveled damage. (i.e. a Mirelurk Hunter has 30% more health now, instead of >100% more.)


OPTIONAL .ESP'S:

RSM_accuracy.esp:
- Crouching improves accuracy by 20%, running reduces accuracy by 40%. (Smurf_Impact's Accuracy Tweaks)
- Auto aim is partially disabled, i.e. it will still ensure your bullets hit your crosshair, but it will not annoyingly deflect your shots to people's torsos. (mimezu's No Auto Aim)
- Adjusted a few weird weapon spreads (0.5 on the 10mm pistol? Really?! Nearly better than the hunting rifle... Gave the hunting and plasma rifles a little larger (less accurate) spread but made their min spreads more accurate, (so at low skill they will be less accurate, but at high skill they will be more accurate than vanilla)
- Accuracy now decreases when you fire repeatedly. Significantly. Fire in bursts at faraway targets.
- Accuracy is now GREATLY diminished at low skill levels, such that it is crap when firing from the hip (as it should be). The iron sights are now necessary for for pretty much all aimed shots, until you get to a high skill level. You will find it near impossible to snipe until you are skilled in that weapons skill (again, makes sense), though you do have your VATS concentrate to help you until your skill gets higher.
RSM_accuracy_NoFOSE.esp:
- Same as RSM_accuracy.esp, but without the rapid-fire inaccuracy script, so that it does not require FOSE. Use this if you don't want to use FOSE for whatever reason, or if you just don't want your accuracy to be affected in this way. Choose one .esp.

VATS (RSM_VATS.esp):
- Player has 50% less AP, and AP recharges at 2.5% of the normal rate
- VATS fire is extremely accurate
- VATS is now a sort of "concentration" ability to be used very wisely. It allows you to basically squeeze out a perfect shot, but takes minutes to recharge and only gives you one shot unless you have very high agility. Useful for quickly dispatching someone from afar, or hitting a moving target up close.
- Damage taken in VATS is now 50% (was 10% in vanilla)
- Weapon wear in VATS is now the same as it was normally (was 5x higher for whatever reason)

Armour Tweaks (RSM_armor_tweaks.esp)
- Power armour gives an extra 50 carry capacity when worn
- Power armour DRs are greatly increased to make them the heavy armour they're supposed to be. Total DRs are now: 80 for T45d, 85 for Enclave, 90 for Tesla, and 95 for T51b and Hellfire (Broken Steel only)
- Upped the max DR rating of power armour from 85% to 95%.
- Upped the DRs of several high-end non-power armours (combat armour, recon armour, metal armour etc) to reflect the amount of protection they appear to provide and to make them viable power armour alternatives (i.e. so you don't die as quick in them).

Misc. Tweaks (RSM_misc_tweaks.esp):
- Carry weight changed to a base of 100 and a mult of 10 (so with a STR of 5 you would have 100 + (10 * 5) = 150lbs carry capacity). A step towards realism that understandably may upset some people. If you can't deal with it, use your preferred weight-changing mod to override this one (I recommend Mighty Mouse).
- Weapon degradation greatly reduced, armour degradation slightly reduced. (Xodarap777's XFO degradation fixes)



7. Version History:

Version 0.1 Alpha (05/09/2009):
- First release, basic features are all there but it will definitely need fine-tuning

Version 0.2 Alpha (TBR):
- Planning to fine-tune the enemy rebalance
- Hopefully fix the rapid-fire inaccuracy script so that it works when the mouse is held down (it seems the buttonpress functions only work on the release of the button? Agh)
- Find something for the Explosives skill to do... all the other weapons skills now change accuracy, but that doesn't really work for grenades and mines. However, with all the super-tough creatures, I feel explosives should be encouraged somehow.

- Forgot to change some new sentries in Broken Steel