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This mod changes several features in an effort to re-balance Survival mode to be more immersive. Designed to work optimally with my Realistic Weapons Balance Project, but not mandatory.
Health points to only scale based on endurance,
for both the player and NPCs. This part in particular is still a work
in progress because while I prefer levels to have no effect on HP, some
enemies (particularly generic lower level raiders) unfortunately only
have a lowly 40 or so base HP. Higher level humans typically have
150-200 or maybe higher and the player can have between around 90 and
240, depending on endurance and perks.
Hopefully you should notice that enemy armor is very important to
how hard they are to kill, and your own armor is very important to how
hard YOU are to kill. I already think this is a big improvement over
"everyone becomes a 1000hp bullet sponge at high levels".
It also removes the original "betheasda hard" damage multipliers for Survival
(where the player takes 2x damage and does half damage), but keeps the
additional incoming damage bonus for survival mode to balance the
adrenaline perk.
Perks that affect weapon damage are also changed- reduced to a maximum 50% increase in damage, with the same secondary effects. It really makes no sense why someone who is good with rifles will do *more damage* with a single shot... For game balance purposes it's hard to do much more with the limited tools at our disposal as modders.
Settlement features have also been altered to make the Local Leader perk less overpowered: Local leader is now only necessary to set up stores in your settlements. Building workbenches will require the appropriate perks, such as gun nut, armorer, or chemist. Cooking stations require no perk. Local leader 1 is still required for basic stores and rank 2 is required for the higher level stores, but I wanted to make that perk much less "mandatory" for immersion purposes.
The end result is that playing survival mode while using this mod will hopefully feel more balanced across all levels. Early levels won't be as mercilessly unforgiving, however since you won't gain huge amounts of HP as you level up, higher level enemies will become *increasingly* dangerous. In the vanilla game, even in survival mode, at high enough level you can just run around naked and HP-soak with no armor. With this mod, you better get some good armor, and taking endurance, toughness, lifegiver etc. are actually quite valuable.
Health points to only scale based on endurance,
for both the player and NPCs. This part in particular is still a work
in progress because while I prefer levels to have no effect on HP, some
enemies (particularly generic lower level raiders) unfortunately only
have a lowly 40 or so base HP. Higher level humans typically have
150-200 or maybe higher and the player can have between around 90 and
240, depending on endurance and perks.
Hopefully you should notice that enemy armor is very important to
how hard they are to kill, and your own armor is very important to how
hard YOU are to kill. I already think this is a big improvement over
"everyone becomes a 1000hp bullet sponge at high levels".
It also removes the original "betheasda hard" damage multipliers for Survival
(where the player takes 2x damage and does half damage), but keeps the
additional incoming damage bonus for survival mode to balance the
adrenaline perk.
Perks that affect weapon damage are also changed- reduced to a maximum 50% increase in damage, with the same secondary effects. It really makes no sense why someone who is good with rifles will do *more damage* with a single shot... For game balance purposes it's hard to do much more with the limited tools at our disposal as modders.
Settlement features have also been altered to make the Local Leader perk less overpowered: Local leader is now only necessary to set up stores in your settlements. Building workbenches will require the appropriate perks, such as gun nut, armorer, or chemist. Cooking stations require no perk. Local leader 1 is still required for basic stores and rank 2 is required for the higher level stores, but I wanted to make that perk much less "mandatory" for immersion purposes.
The end result is that playing survival mode while using this mod will hopefully feel more balanced across all levels. Early levels won't be as mercilessly unforgiving, however since you won't gain huge amounts of HP as you level up, higher level enemies will become *increasingly* dangerous. In the vanilla game, even in survival mode, at high enough level you can just run around naked and HP-soak with no armor. With this mod, you better get some good armor, and taking endurance, toughness, lifegiver etc. are actually quite valuable.