Have you ever tried to apply logic to Fusion cells, only to end up accepting how they seemed to work?

This mod aims to convert all energy cells to act more closely to batteries in a similar way to fusion cores, where you can get only so many shots out of each cell.  Different guns and barrels can affect how many shots you get out of each cell aka energy efficiency.  Note that in the following description as well as in-game with the mod, ammo capacity will refer to how many shots are given per loaded cell, aka shot capacity.


Lite version uses vanilla numbers and touches only a few things for compatibility and for balance matching vanilla.  It features:

• Cells will have a certain charge that determines the number of shots given per cell, and is affected by barrel and receiver type.  This number conforms to vanilla ammo capacity in this version.  So a standard laser pistol will shoot 30 shots before the loaded cell is drained and will need reloading, while a standard laser rifle will shoot 27 times before needing to reload.
• This affects Fusion Cells, Cryo Cells, Gamma Cells, Alien Blaster Cells and Plasma Cartridges.
• Because of the unique way Laser Muskets work, they're able to generate their own energy source (essentially infinite ammo.) and ammo capacity still matches vanilla.
• In addition, with the way the Legendary Module "Unlimited Ammo" interacts with ammunition with battery function (allowing the weapon to never consume ammunition to fire), weapons with this combination have a x0.75 damage modifier applied by perk.
• This also fixes the ammo capacity in the Alien Blaster when using Fusion Cells (reduces ammo capacity to half instead of +50%) without editing the weapon or its mods.
• All affected cells won't display their stored charge like fusion cores do (its a feature unique to being a power armor battery) but know that the cell with the highest charge will always be loaded when equipping an energy weapon.
• Level lists for the affected ammo has been reduced to usually one cell of ammo.
• So overall, this only edits the mentioned ammo, their leveled lists, and the laser musket's stocks.  So compatibility is high.
  

With Automatron DLC version of Lite:

• Tesla Rifle is patched to use vanilla ammo capacity.
• Salvaged Assaultron Head generates its own energy like the laser musket.
• Because of the increased value in Fusion Cells, the Robot Repair Kit recipe is modified to require only 1 cell, twice as much materials, and produces 4 repair kits.
  

Full version rebalances the barrels and receivers of all the energy weapons to utilize the new mechanic into its balance. It features the above but rebalanced in the following way:

• Mod descriptions have been edited to change "ammo capacity" to "shot capacity" for all energy modules.  I also threw in some more detailed descriptions for some aspects.
• Fusion Cells are renamed to Microfusion Cells for both lore and so you will stop confusing Fusion Cores with them.  Also Alien Blaster Cells are now Alien Power Cells.  Many battery munition are rebalanced in price and survival weight, including the Fusion Core which has a price hike (it's still very price efficient in terms of damage output per unit of ammo).
• Receivers plays a bigger role in energy efficiency, with Boosted, Maximized, and Overcharged receivers having increasing damage as well as decreasing shot capacity.  While the Photon and Beta/Gamma Wave Capacitors will consistantly improve shot capacity.
• Using the Laser Pistol as the standard, increased damage of longer barrels overall, but shot capacity is lowered in compensation.  The automatic barrel possesses low damage, but higher shot capacity, while the charging barrel features more efficient energy use for those with trigger-discipline.
• Institute laser weapons are now more energy efficient then the above pre-war laser weapons, but at the cost of damage, which is slightly improved compared to vanilla.
• Gatling Laser's shot capacity can now vary depending on the barrel and receivers like the above guns.  Standard Barrel will still provide 500 shots, but the charging barrel will only provide 200 shots with the same standard receiver, but does 3x damage so it's more efficient in energy usage.
• Laser Musket still generate their own energy source like the Lite version, but charge capacity is increased by three times and the damage divided three-folds.  So you will have to really crank your weapon a lot to reach the same power output compared to vanilla.  In my personal opinion, this makes the weapon a lot more fun to use.  If you don't believe me, give it a try.
• Plasma Gun have been adjusted with a little more umph to them and a base shot capacity of 20.
• Alien Blasters is more devastating when powered by Alien Power Cells, and when set to use fusion cells will retain half of it's power but with a lot less shot capacity than in Lite.
• Cryolator now has twice as much shot capacity when using the standard "ice-thrower" barrel.
• You can now adjust whether Microfusion Cells drop with a partial charge.  This is done through a basic MCM menu currently.
• The perk Nuclear Physicist can now affect all battery ammo as well as fusion cores, but its effect on fusion cores has been lowered when in weapons. Power armor bonuses remains the same.
• Repair Bobblehead perk now improves shot capacity of any weapon that uses fusion cores, and not just the Gatling Laser.
• Overall, in addition to the edits found in Lite, this makes edits to the weapon's barrels and receivers as well as a handful of other entries like a couple of perks and . This doesn't edit the weapons themselves, giving some leeway for compatibility.
  

With Automatron DLC version of Full:

• The Tesla Rifle has been readjusted in damage and shot capacity and with most configurations, both are better than vanilla.  The lobber now has a detailed explanation of how it works.
• Salvaged Assaultron Head has had its charge capacity greatly increased by six-fold with proportionally lowered damage to simulate the slow charging of a real assaultron head.  Reload sounds are also adjusted to be more distinct when reaching closer to full charge capacity.
  

IDontEvenKnow has released a version of his Gatling Laser and Fusion Core Ammo Fix to work with this mod so you don't have to worry about all those partly drained fusion cores and microfusion cells spamming your inventory that you may inevitably end up with during the heat of combat.

Somewhat Drained Batteries
Because the cells currently lack a charge display like fusion cores in-game, I've made all affected cells in the above versions to be found at full power to prevent confusion.  This however makes ammo for energy weapons more obtainable in quantities compared to vanilla.  This optional file will change the level lists for fusion cells to possibly be dropped in varying charges, usually between half and full charge, but again it's going to be hard to tell what these charges are when you pick them up and view them (Pretty similar to real life now that I think about it).

This optional feature is now implemented in the Full version and can be adjusted with many types of partially charged cell drops with MCM.

Reduced Ammo - Quest Rewards and World Loot
This optional file reduces the amount of energy cells one can acquire from two types of instances: Being rewarded ammo from a quest, and finding them laying in the world.  This optional feature is already included with the Full Version.

The following quests would hand out 25-50 MF cells, which is a bit much especially since most are early to access quests, and reduced to 3/5 cells.

• Main Quest: "Out of Time"
• BoS: "Call to Arms"
• Institute: "Synth Retention"
  

These changes required editing a single fragment script in their respective quest.

There are a half dozen locations where MF cells can be found laying in the world, including those found in front of the Museum of Freedom.  All of these are located next to where Laser Muskets are found, so I've removed the majority of them, especially if they were relatively easy to obtain.

Contrary to other patches, I recommend this patch to go high in your load order to let other mods overwrite this plug-in if necessary.





I have released a dedicated mod page where I will publish most patches for other mods.  The patches below are older and may not work correctly anymore.


Nexus Weapon Patches
The following mods have patches to utilize FCaB's function better.
Accelerator Plasma Weapon, Version 3 (needs an update to works with Version 5)
Cross_BreakActionLaser, Version 091b3
Institute Turboplasma Rifle, Version 1.0
LAER, version 1.02 (Outdated, but updated patch can be found on Official Patch page)
Officer's Revolver, Version 1.2.2 (Competely redone on the Official Patch page)
Plasma Cycler, Version 1.7
Union Blaster, Version 1.0
Wattz Laser Gun, Version 1.3.1

Darkbeetlebot has also released a set of patches for several weapons here.

Overhaul Patches
The following mods have a patch available found under the optional downloads.
Loads of Ammo - Switchable Ammo Types, Version 1.51
AmmoTweaks - A Weapon Overhaul (has now been hidden/no longer downloadable)

Loads of Ammo Patch notes:
One important thing that needs to be noted is that with the way both these mods behave together, the process for switching between ammo types unfortunately has an extra step. When switching ammo types, first switch to your preferred ammo type and then you must go to your pip-boy to unequip your weapon and reequip it. If you don't do this, the game will state that you have no ammo for your weapon even when you do. I'm fairly sure there's no way to fix this as of the timing of this text.

AmmoTweak Patch notes:

Q: I have mods that edit the Laser Gun or Institute Laser and their mods, does this conflict?

A: Both versions make no direct edits to the weapons themselves, so it's compatible by default with mods that do edit these. However, if that mod changes the ammo capacity of the weapon to below the number of shots that the cell provides, you will only shoot the shots that are in the ammo capacity and then load in a fresh battery even though there were still some charges in that battery you took out.  (Thus cluttering your inventory with half-charged cells)  This will require some adjustment with a patch to fix.

Q: How does this work for standalone weapon mods that uses Fusion Cells?

A: Any new weapons that uses the ammunition I edit will need to have a patch to work as intended, otherwise it defaults to 101 shots per cell.

Q: You mentioned that Fusion Cells will lack a charge display. Why?

A: Because this UI display is connected with the keyword "isPowerArmorBattery". If I were to place this keyword on Fusion Cells, you could see the charge display, but then you'd be able to stick them in Power Armor and cause a lot of weird behaviors, and that's not what I wanted for this mod. Plus it would probably involve a lot of rescripting that might not play well with other power-armor mods.

Q: Can we have a chart or something on your balancing changes to weapons?

A: Check out the Readme.

Q: Does this work with existing saves?

A: It does, but you've likely acquired a large amount of fusion cells unless you use them frequently, so the only real consequence is that this will technically multiply the number of rounds you may have, since each fusion cell will now contain about 24-30 shots per cell.

Q: My laser musket won't load any ammo.

A: Find a Chem Station for a recipe to "jump start" your Laser Musket.




Just download to NMM with the big green button and install through that. Place the esp at the very end of the load order for maximum effect/minimum conflict issues.  If you downloaded "Somewhat Drained Batteries" as well, then place this after FCaB.




Currently, any new weapons that uses fusion cells, cryo cells, gamma cells, or alien blaster cells (and Plasma Cartridges with the addon) will need to be patched to have variable energy efficiency (numbers of shots per cell won't go up or down depending on the barrel/receiver).  Without a patch, cells will default to 30 or so shots.  I may decide to patch some weapons myself, but I encourage the weapon maker to make the patch and post it in their mod.  See below as well as the article for how to assemble the patch, which is basically making a perk and giving it to the player.




This is done by giving health to the cells, like whats already done on fusion cores, and using the effect "Mod Ammo Health Mult" found in the perks section, which are already utilized by the perks "Nuclear Physicist" and the Repair Bobblehead perk.  I then defined the keywords from the weapons mods that would affect ammo capacity and tweaked each one to my liking all inside a single perk. This is what sets the ammo capacity per weapon and module.  If you want to make a compatibility patch yourself, then I suggest you make a new perk after you load up your weapon mod in the CK (you don't need to have this as a master to the patch, you only need access to the keywords the new weapon uses) and use the perk "FCaB_EnergyEfficiency" as an example to how I used keywords to determine ammo capacity.  Its also a good idea to increase the ammo capacity of your weapon to at least 100 so that all shots provided by the cell won't get cut off by ammo capacity.   Once you make the perk, you need to assign it to the player through a quest or something.  Check out my quest "FCaBAddPerk" for an example, though it uses a small script to add the perk through the player's alias.  Making it a weapon enchantment will work, but can lead to a visual bug.  If you still need help, you can PM me with your question(s), and I can try to help.