GAMEPLAY CHANGES
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Ver 1.0
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You can check the seperate wordpad document for a full list of the gamesettings i have changed but i want to briefly outline how this mod will affect your gameplay experience.

First and foremost - I love the 'VATS' combat system that Bethesda has introduced but i was not happy with the pathetic accuracy range of some of the rifles and so called ' long range ' weapons when using VATS.

This has now been fixed and you will find as your skill points increase (small guns, energy weapons etc) that the accuracy range of your rifles will greatly increase and will rival that of manually aiming yourself in real time.

Medium (assault rifles etc) and short range (shotguns etc) only increase a little over the default or vanilla settings as i think these are working okay. The exception here is the scoped .44 handgun which does have a longer range now (and slight damage boost) because it is scoped and uses magnum shells.

You should also note that this will mean that enemies using rifles will be much more accurate both in VATS and in real time. This has proved to be a good thing as a lot of people (me included) have come to realise that the game can be a bit easy (even on the harder difficulties) once you get to grips with the gameplay mechanics.

Now you will have a real challenge on your hands and my advice to you is to fully use the environment for protective cover during shoot outs and also have a friend along to distract the enemies (i love Dogmeat myself as he isn't too overpowered but can take a lot of damage)

My personal preference is to make my companions ' essential ' or unkillable and then i just restrict myself to one follower at a time. This mod does not alter the state of your followers in any way.
You will have to use the console commands during gameplay to manually set a companion as ' essential ' or not. Info on how to do this is readilly available on the internet and i can't go int it in this article.

The ' mysterious stranger ' perk was a good idea but he didn't really turn up enough to warrent the skill point investment. He now will turn up to lend a hand during VATS combat a lot more often.

You will now receive damage during VATS combat. A much needed change as you were virtually invincible during VATS mode and could survive a mini nuke with no worries. Now be careful - an enemy is not really the problem with this change - it is more to do with your own explosive weapons and grenades - so be careful how close you use them.

Weapon condition will also now affect accuracy with the greatest penalties if the weapon is really damaged (below 25%) Above 50% you really don't have to worry.

Weapon and Armour degradation has been slowed down greatly in my mod and now all weapons and armour will degrade 75% slower. So once you have paid out to repair something - it will stay healthy a lot longer. I found the constant degradation very annoying in the vanilla game but i didn't want to remove it completely and so this is the compromise.

Shooting an enemies leg or legs will now greatly reduce there movement speed. They have only 50% movement speed with one leg crippled and only 25% of there max movement speed with both legs crippled. A big increase over the original settings.

All laser weapons have had there damage output improved slightly to make them more fun to use and compete with the very powerfull ballistic weapons. Plasma has not been touched as they are already quite good in my opinion.

Everyone agrees that you level up way too quick in the vanilla game and so i have doubled the XP needed to reach your next level up.

Your carrying weight limit has been greatly increased and is now more dependant on your Strength stat. If you invest the max point in Strength you will have a 520 carrying limit. This is really needed for 'pack rats' like me who have to pick every little bit of debris up - LOL.


VER 1.01 Update
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Skill Point Reduction
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On further extensive playtesting i have found that your character gets far too many skill points over the course of the game - especially if you factor in all the many skill point books dotted around the world.
I have already slightly slowed down your progression towards level up and this is working fine but now we need to tone down the amount of skill points we are awarded at level up.

The skill points have been reduced by 5.(not too drastic but really helps tactical play)

So - if you had a full ' intelligence ' stat of 10 - you would normally get 20 skill points at level up (in the vanilla game) or 23 skill points if you invest in the extra skill points perk later (which most of us are going to do)

Now with this 1.01 update you will get 15 skill points (or 18 with the skill point perk) This works well with the normal level cap of 20 and also a level uncapper of 30 (which i use)


Improved Silenced 9 mm Handgun
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The vanilla silenced 9 mm handgun was completely rubbish compared to the normal 9 mm handgun.
It had greatly reduced durability, less accuracy and cost more action points to use - in other words - useless.

Since it is the only silenced ballistic weapon in the game and i really like to have the option to be stealthy now and again - I decided to upgrade the silenced 9 mm to make it a viable weapon for stealth attacks.

The silenced 9 mm now does slightly more damage then the normal 9 mm and has exactly the same stats for everything else.

It may not be entirely realistic but this is just to make the game more fun and give you a viable stealth ballistic gun (I know you have knives and the dart gun but they don't feel the same). I love this weapon now and usually use it to take out sleeping enemies (or anyone that i manage to sneak up on)


Bigger Moon
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Simple cosmetic adjustment that gives you a larger moon at night (obviously) and looks pretty good when there is a full moon and no cloud cover.

Note - can also be used in conjunction with a seperate HI - Res moon mod if you wish (that's what i do)


Less penalty for stealing
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You now only receive a fifth of the penalty (karma loss) for stealing as most people agree that you shouldn't get such a big karma loss for just taking the odd items here and there.

Basically you can steal 5 items at the same cost as stealing 1 in the original game.


Grenades don't bounce!
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No more bouncy grenades - well - they bounce a bit but no where near as much as before. Now when you throw your grenade it will stop where you aim (still dependant on your skills and perks though)


Better ' evil bonus ' for slave abuse - LOL
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Just a simple change so that you your evil bonus matches the good bonus for freeing any slaves.

You used to get +100 for being good (freeing the slave) and -10 for leaving them to rot.

Now you get -100 for your evilness - MWAHHAAAHA.


Big BIG Exlosions!
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Many of the explosions in this game are very impressive and look amazing - unfortunately there bark doesn't match there bite!
The exposive damage of a car nuke exposion etc was even less then some grenades and made the tactics of leading enemies into a car trap a waste of time - NO MORE!

NOW - WATCH OUT!

No more will enemies be left virtually unharmed if a vehicle blows up. Make sure you get yourself out of the blast radius as well.
If a car is set on fire - RUN!

You have been warned!

Same goes for missile and grenade explosions etc.

This improves the missile launcher damage which again most people agree was a bit under powered. Watch out if you are on the receiving end!


More items are weightless
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Just some much needed additions to the weightless lists.

Ammo already weighs zero and also stim packs etc and other health items.

I think that grenades and mines should also be zero so that you are not constantly worrying about how many you are carrying or have picked up and to make the gameplay more exciting and action packed.

Also bottled water should have been zero as this is something that is a health supplement and you will probably be carrying a lot throughout the game.


VER 1.02 Update
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The Railway Rifle
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The lovely Railway Rifle - what a dissapointment in the original game.

You run around collecting all the ingredients listed in the schematic and end up with a rather useless new weapon!

Not Anymore!

It's damage has been doubled but the AP (action point) cost has also increased to compensate. It is now an effective medium range weapon with high damage but only 2 shots while in VATS.

The clip size has also been toned down from 8 to 4 to prevent the weapon from being overpowered in real time.

A good use for this weapon is to use your powerful 2 shot capacity in VATS mode to take out an enemies legs or mobility etc then switch to a more rapid fire weapon or the shotgun. Might even blow there legs off if they are a weak enemy.

I hope you like what i have done to try and make this weapon effective again.

A good medium range addition to your weapon collection.



OKAY!

I think i have covered most of the changes and i hope you agree with most of the settings. Obviously if something really bugs you about any part of this mod and you are quite good with modding - then you are welcome to just go ahead and alter it yourself using the excellent FO3Edit utility. You will then also notice how clean this mod is with all changes being shown as ' green ' (standard overide changes to the vanilla files).


CONFLICTS WITH OTHER MODS ETC
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This mod includes many changes from many other mini mods out there and is therefore designed to be used as your main and only gameplay mod.

If you know a bit about modding then you can easily check yourself for any conflicts before using other mods with mine.

I have given you a seperate file with a full list of all my changes and so as long as another mod doesn't change the same variables you can use my mod with any other mods you like.

I currently use two other mods with mine - a higher level uncapper (level 30) and a brighter Pip Boy light.