This is a collection of very subtle tweaks for Fallout 3. After loading up the umpteenth install of the excellent Fallout: Wanderer's Edition, I realized that it was too extensive and, at my age, rather exhausted. I've come to believe that vanilla Fallout 3 is actually one of Bethesda's best balanced games, and I found myself craving a return to that. However, as I've played the game many, many times, I thought I might make it a tiny bit more challenging, and even out one or two consistencies. As such, this could hardly qualify as an extensive overhaul, as I think the game is, at its core, reasonably well balanced.

There are four "modules," if you will: one for Creatures, one for Chems, one for the Enclave, and one for the Chinese Pistol.

Each module can be explored in more detail by visiting its relevant section, although I'll give a brief summary here:

Creatures: most creatures can now deal a little more damage. A few - chiefly Super Mutants - have received noticeable health buffs, but nothing overboard. I didn't want to create damage sponges, and in fact debuffed the horribly inconsistent Broken Steel monsters.

Chems: Chems now have weight (not very much). Values have been tweaked (all chems previously had a base value of 20). Healing now happens over time (but not for food; click on spoiler for full explanation).

Enclave: Not much to say here. They're the end game bad guys. They generally pretty tough, but I've fought them a thousand times. Gave them some minor buffs and bumped them up a few levels - they are the most advanced faction in the Wasteland, after all. I recommend coupling this with Impervious Power Armor with the Impervious Threshold and Impervious Damage setting set to 1 (turned on). This can be easily made the default setting by changing the relevant values in the GECK.

Chinese Pistol: It is utterly useless in the base game. Now it has a high crit chance for your Luck builds.

(+) or (-) signs are used to quickly denote in which way the values have been changed for my descriptions. Sorry. Not about to make a whole spreadsheet for a side-project.

A patch has also been provided for Simply Uncut has to bring its Chems up to speed with my changes has been made.


Mutant Animals
Generally speaking, the muted animals of the Capital Wasteland are slightly more deadly. Most can do a little more damage and have seen some very minor health buffs. The Yao Guai, however, is significantly more deadly. It is meant to reflect that this animal is competing for alpha status in the Wasteland with the Deathclaw (note: this is based off no in-game lore, but rather my own logic). The Albino Radscorpion has had its health slashed, but it still remains one of the strongest creatures in the Wasteland.

Dog: Damage (+) changed from 5 to 6.
Vicious Dog: Health (-) changed from 50 to 40. Damage (+) changed from 12 to 15.
Mirelurk Hunter: Health (+) changed from 250 to 260. Damage (+) changed from 50 to 60.
Yao Guai: Health (+) changed from 220 to 400. Damage (+) changed from 75 to 85.
Albino Radscorpion: Health (-) changed from 1500 to 700.
 
Feral Ghouls
Not much has changed here. They're slightly stronger all around, but not by much. A unique Feral has seen a nice damage buff, and the Reaver is no longer comically unbalanced relative to its brethren.

Feral Ghoul: Health (+) changedfrom 25 to 35. Damage (+) changed from 5 to 8.
Feral Ghoul Roamer: Health (+) changed from 80 to 100. Damage (+) changed from 16 to 18.
Feral Ghoul Reaver: Health (-) changed from 1100 to 180. Damage (-) changed from 100 to 40.
Sun of Atom: Health (+) changed from 240 to 320. Damage (+) changed from 32 to 50. Carried over changes from CivisRomanus
Fixes.
 
Super Mutants
Generally tougher to kill all around. Meant to reflect their genetic engineering to be ultra resilient. They're no where near Fallout 1 levels of difficulty, as Fallout 3 had them all over the place and that would be implausible, but they're a fair bit stronger. Should make low-level characters think twice before messing with them again. Overlords are still very strong, but have had their ridiculous health nearly halved.

Super Mutant (Gun): Health (+) changed from 100 to 135.
Super Mutant (Melee): Health (+) changed from 100 to 160. Strength (+) changed from 9 to 10.
Super Mutant Brute (Gun): Health (+) changed from 250 to 275.
Super Mutant Brute (Melee): Health (+) changed from 250 to 300.
Super Mutant Master (Gun): Health (+) changed from 360 to 400.
Super Mutant Master (Melee): Health (+) changed from 360 to 450.
Super Mutant Master (Missile): Health (+) changed from 360 to 380.
Super Mutant Master (Minigun): Health (+) changed from 360 to 425.
Super Mutant Overlord: Health (-) changed from 1250 to 640.
 
Swamp Folk
Generally weaker than before. These guys were really damage-spongey, and I didn't like that. Moreover, most of them had more health than Super Mutants, which didn't check out.

Scrapper: Health (-) changed from 150 to 100.
Brawler: Health (-) changed from 250 to 200.
Creeper: Health (-) changed from 400 to 330.
Scrapper: Health (-) changed from 600 to 380.
Bruiser: Health (-) changed from 700 to 520.
 
Robots
Some of the robots had very wimpy attacks. This has been rectified. They are advanced pieces of machinery, and should be a little tougher to kill.
Protectron: Health (+) changed from 75 to 100. Damage (+) changed from 2 to 10.
Sentry Bot: Damage (+) changed from 22 to 28.
Robobrain: Health (+) changed from 200 to 230. Damage (+) changed from 5 to 18.
 
Zeta
Just a small change to make them less trivial. They're still pretty weak, though. Might revisit these guys, as I don't remember if the game casts them as something particularly deadly.
Abomination: Health (+) changed from 50 to 65. Damage (+) changed from 10 to 12.
 
Trogs
Most aren't as strong as mid-level ghousl in terms of health, but most can deal more damage than your average ghoul, too.
Trog Fledgling: Health (+) changed from 15 to 30. Damage (+) changed from 5 to 12. Carried over changes from CivisRomanus Fixes.
Trog: Health (+) changed from 30 to 40. Damage (+) changed from 16 to 21.
Trog Brute: Health (+) changed from 50 to 65. Damage (+) changed from 32 to 38.
Trog Savage: Health (+) changed from 65 to 80.
 
Deathclaw
They hit harder and they are much tougher to kill. Should make them stay frightening abominations for longer into the game. They are, after all, the deadliest creature in the Wasteland.
Deathclaw: Level (+) changed from 12 to 15. Health changed from 500 to 750. Damage (+) changed from
100 to 140. Strength (+) changed from 6 to 10. Agility (+) changed from 5 to 7.
 
 
 

Basically, I raised the base health of Enclave soldiers, as it was very low - probably to compensate for the fact that they are a power-armored opponent who the main quest requires you to fight - and bumped up their levels to let the auto-calc take care of the rest. Again, I like the vanilla balance, which is why I let auto-calc do most of the work, but I did think that the most advanced faction in the Wasteland should be harder to kill. This should let them put up decent fights into higher levels. I recommend coupling these changes with Impervious Power Armor with the Impervious Threshold and Impervious Damage setting set to 1 (turned on). This can be easily made the default setting by changing the relevant values in the GECK.

Tier 0: Base health (+) raised by 15-20. Level (+) changed from 4 to 6.
Tier 1: Base health (+) raised by 15-20. Level (+) changed from 6 to 12.
Tier 2: Base health (+) raised by 20-25. Level (+) changed from 13 to 16.
Tier 3: Base health (+ )raised by 15. Level (+) changed from 16 to 20.
Tier 4 (Officer): Base health (+) raised by 15. Level (+) changed from 17 to 21.
 

 
 

All chems had the same value before. That has been fixed. Radiation drugs are now among the most expensive in the game, as it is implied that the Capital Wasteland never truly recovered from the fallout, which would make these very valuable. Stimpaks have also seen their value double, and they now heal you over time (6 seconds, and up the vanilla value). My hope is that, besides balancing out spamming insta-heal, players will not have more reason to eat food in game. Food has not been touched, and thus still heals you instantly. Also, due to the higher value of Stimpaks, food will be more available to players, especially at lower levels.

Buffout: Value (+) changed from 20 to 30. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.2.
Jet: Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.2.
Mentats: Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.1.
Grape Mentats: Value (+) changed from 20 to 25. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.1.
Pycho: Value (+) changed from 20 to 35. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.5.
RadAway: Value (+) changed from 20 to 60. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.3.
RadX: Value (+) changed from 20 to 45. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.2.
Med-X: Value (+) changed from 20 to 40. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.1.
First Aid Kit (SU): Value (+) changed to 80. Weight (+) changed from 0 to .5.
Stimpak: Value (+) changed from 20 to 50. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 0.5. Heals to vanilla value
(dependent on Medicine Skill, but base value is always 30), but over the course of 6 seconds.
Super Stimpak (SU): Value (+) to 100. Weight (+) changed from 0 to 1. Heals to vanilla value (dependent
on Medicine Skill, but base value is always 60), but over the course of 6
seconds.
 



There was very little reason to use this gun before, which is a shame,  becasue it's a cool-looking pistol. The 10mm used to beat it in terms of damage output and critical hit chance, and had the same AP cost.  Now, the Chinese Pistol has a lowered AP cost and has a higher crit chance than the 10mm Pistol, which should make it more viable for VATS/Luck builds in the early game.

Damage (+) changed from 4 to 5. Critical damage (+) increased from 4 to 15. Value (+) changed from 190 to
200. Action point (-) cost changed from 17 to 15. Unique variant received the same state changes, and the value (+) has been changed from 290 to 300.