REQUIRES DAWNGUARD AND AETHERNAUTICS - A SPACE TRAVEL MOD

Aethernautics by Trainwiz

I loved Trainwiz's project "Aethernautics - A Space Travel Mod" the instant I saw it on the front page of the Nexus,
and only loved it more as I went through the awesome quest he had laid out.
The only gripe I had was in the functionality of the harquebuses themselves:
they overlapped the crosshair slightly in first person view,
the blast sound was incredibly loud,
and the damage was ridiculously high (for myself).
Part of this is because the original Dwemer Rifle author Mahty also had these problems.

[FUTURE PLANS]
I'm currently working on a mod (just in the planning stages at the moment) to expand upon the story and faction in Aethernautics with a new questline.
Part 1 of this will deal with first being hunted by the Cronographers, then eventually joining their ranks.
The end of this quest will give the player access to a few new types of rifles and be left open for further missions with the Cronographers through time.
Planned features [need permissions for some of these to happen]:

-> 5+ new harquebuses (Corrosive [Poisonous] and Ruinous [Sniper/Stealth] completed so far)
-> Possibly 1 or 2 weaker semi-auto rifles (based off of the Semi-Auto Crossbow mod)
-> A few pairs of pistols (based off of the 1-handed Crossbow mod)
-> Bullets, varying types (may use another author's bullets, may make my own)
-> Cronographer fortress on Sotha Sil (mission hub for further expansions)
-> Scripted quest (much like the original Aethernautics, maybe some voiceacting)

Again, I'm new to modding so figuring how to do all this myself (and actually doing it) could take quite a while, so if there are any modders out there with experience with any of the above, please feel free to help out if you feel like being generous.

[0.3b Heavy Harquebus Alternate]
Adding an optional file for a new Heavy Harquebus mesh tweak.
Brings the Centurion-core sphere back so it appears as if it rests in the player's hand,
and isn't floating in the middle of the rifle.
(It looks like it would be very hard to hold it very up with a bunch of weight towards the front of the gun)
Top and bottom struts brought back slightly to flow with changes to sphere.
Sorry, just can't help messing with the rifles when I get an idea,
thats why this is just an optional file right now
I'll have a screen shot up soon. If enough people ask me to, I'll include this variant in the next full update.
[0.3a HOTFIX]
Removes the "Charge bar" from the Ohmic and Magmatic Harquebuses.
In 0.3 release the enchantments continued to work without charges (as intended in the original Aethernautics),
but both rifles still had a charge bar which was unnecessary.
Neither Ohmic or Magmatic are enchantable a second time, though the Heavy Harquebus is
(since it's effect merely increases stagger chance,
instead of having an actual enchantment assigned to it)

[VERSION 0.3]
Tweaked a few meshes to reduce hand clipping,
reduced the volume of the main gunshot (not the Aetherial zap) a bit more,
and fixed the missing enchantment on the Magmatic Harquebus.
[NOTE: In this version both Ohmic and Magmatic rifles have a charge bar, use 0.3a HOTFIX to remove these]

WHAT THIS MOD DOES:
This mod has done 3 things:
Reworked the models on the rifles to make them shorter as well as re-positioning some elements,
reduced the volume of the blast/zap of firing,
and lowered the base damage of each harquebus
(they are all stronger than Dwarven Crossbows by 6-10 points, making them not so OP at high level/with other mods)

Most of the new harquebuses have been redesigned (no new elements, just moved around)
and all of them have had the barrels adjusted back so they no longer overlap the crosshair.
According to Trainwiz, harquebuses are supposed to have extremely long barrels,
but I felt that the functionality and looks of the rifles should be more important
than having them perfectly represent a certain type of rifle from our own history.
In the future I may include a version that purely re-adjusts the barrels with no other changes to Trainwiz's original designs.

There is a full version which includes the ESP (for damage adjustments) as well as the new designs and sounds.
Once installed, you may want to make sure there is a folder called "aether" in both your Meshes and Sound\fx folders containing relevant files.

If you don't want all 3 adjustments,
each one has been split into it's own file which you must manually download and install into your main Skyrim directory.
(For example, if you wanted just the rifle redesigns and the sound adjustment,
download the meshes and the sounds and not the ESP.
The ESP is the file that contains the damage information.)

Concerning the damage adjustment:
I do play with both SkyRe and Deadly Dragons on
(which, at the moment, both contribute a significant amount to archery dmg% from armor and perks),
but the base damage increase from Dwarven Crossbow --> Harquebus (basic) was 2x as much (22 to 44),
leading to a significant gap in damage once the boosts were applied.
For example, my Dwarven Recurve Crossbow (Flawless) was doing 89 damage, while my basic Harquebus (Flawless) did ~180 damage.
I just felt the damage difference was too high, and decided to adjust it down on my own.
If you don't like this change, then just install only the meshes and sounds from the optional files.

INSTALL:

NMM:
Just click the button, activate the mod in the Mods tab.
Manual:
Open the RAR file, place the "Data" folder into your main Skyrim directory (the one with the Data folder and Skyrim.exe).
If updating, replace the files.

If you chose a version with the damage adjustments, make sure the Aethernautics Weaponry Tweaks.esp is active
and loaded AFTER the original Aethernautics.esp.

To uninstall, remove the Aethernautics Weaponry Tweaks.esp file
and the "aether" folder from the "Meshes" and "Sound/fx" folders (found within Skyrim\Data), respectively.

PERMISSIONS:
Anyone can edit/add-on to this mod as long as they include me in the credits if they have worked off of my mod.

THANK YOU:
Trainwiz:
For the Aethernautics mod which includes all of the original harquebus designs,
based off of mahty's, which I have modified for personal preference

Mahty:
For the original Dwemer Rifle design.
If you read this, know that much of this work would be impossible without the work you've done.

Bethesda:
For creating an incredible world which is just open-ended enough
so that people can take on their own interpretations of it and create such wonderful mods as these.