Introduction
In the unmodded game there are 4 damage types and 4 respective damage resistances that match those damage types- physical, energy, radiation, and poison. For some reason the physical damage type is calculated differently with physical resistance than all of the other damage types are calculated with their respective damage resistance. It also behaves differently with perks, crits, and sneak attacks. If you want to read about it, you can do so here.

In addition to physical damage having these exclusive benefits, multiple perks and effects did not work at all with non-physical damage types - which only made the problem worse.

Because of these differences, the end result is that physical damage is much stronger than any other damage type, especially as you progress into the game. The difference is so extreme that enemy resistance values start to be less important than they should, almost meaningless. If an enemy has high physical resistance but lower energy resistance, you would likely still be better off using physical damage against it.

This mod embraces the fact that damage types are just different and adds additional changes. It also adjusts various difficulty settings for a more a more complete experience because they play a large role in final damage output.

WARNING: This mod is very new and should be considered in testing phase only. Because of this, you are likely to experience unforeseen problems and balance issues when using the mod. Back up your save games before installing, and preferably start a new character.

Do not get too attached to any save game with this mod installed until I am confident it is free of bugs and properly balanced, and certainly do not uninstall the mod mid-playthrough.

When finely tuned I believe the changes included in this mod will help offset many scaling issues in the game, but it will require future adjustments and tweaks after testing different playstyles.



Requirements and Compatibility
This mod requires the following DLC:

 Automatron
 Nuka World
 Far Harbor
 Contraptions
 Wasteland Workshop
 Vault-Tec Workshop


Compatibility with other mods is extremely poor and will most likely require patching due to the amount of records changed.
Currently, this mod edits the following record types:

Races - All of them. In the future I may look into editing races via script for greatly increased compatibility. 
Actors
Armor
Weapons
Perks 
Magic Effects
Object Mods
Game Settings



My Other Mods
I have made two other mods that pair well with this one for a more completely rebalance of the game.

Fallout 4 Balance Patch - Load Damage Adjustments after the balance patch. Many small changes.
Upgradable Clothing - Load Damage Adjustments after upgradable clothing. Rebalances all clothing and allows upgrades.



List of Changes
Below is a list of all changes included in this mod. Some things are listed as (no change) just for the sake of comparison.
This list is relevant to the most recent version of the mod, which is currently 1.0. To see changes made in previous versions, see the change log tab.


Physical Damage
• Physical damage gains bonus armor penetration for every damage modifier the subject has. This means that sneak attacks and critical hits effectively ignore armor, and armor becomes less effective as you get damage increasing perks, magazines, and use chems. (No change)

• Ballistic weapons do 50% reduced damage when shooting outside of their range. (No change)



Energy Damage
• Energy damage gains bonus damage depending on the NPC's level. Damage increases by 1% per level, up to level 100. Currently this effect is likely too weak and will require further adjustments. Eventually once I find the sweet spot for this I believe it will work well. (New - See images)

• Laser weapons do 40% reduced damage when shooting outside of their range. (Changed)

• Various energy weapon base damage have been increased. For a more complete experience use Fallout 4 Balance Patch as well.  (Changed)


Radiation Damage
• Radiation damage has been increased throughout the game, usually doubled from enemies or hazards. (Changed)

• Power armor radiation resist reduced. (Changed)


Explosives
•Energy or radiation damage from explosives now increase with demolition expert perk. (New)



Armor Penetration Effects
• Armor penetrating effects from armor piercing mods and the penetrating legendary effect now shred armor with each shot. (Changed)

• Rifleman now applies bonus damage from rifles depending on how much armor the target has. (Changed)

• Penetrator perk now applies bonus damage from guns and melee attacks depending on how much armor the target has. (Changed)



NPC's
• Following races have slightly increased base health:
Deathclaws
Ghouls
Vertibirds



Difficulty Settings
• Survival mode now provides same XP as any other difficulty (x1.00) (Changed)

• All difficulties now spawn legendary enemies at the same rate as normal difficulty (x1.00) (Changed)

• The survival mode hidden perk that handles damage has been disabled in favor of the global variables. (Changed)

• Adrenaline is removed in survival mode. (Changed)

• Base player output damage in survival mode increased from 0.75x to 0.85x (Changed)

• All difficulty settings now gradually scale incoming depending on the players level, up to level 15. (New - See chart below)


Incoming Damage:

Vanilla                           Damage Adjustments

All levels                             (Level 1   -    Level 15)


Very Easy                     Very Easy
0.50x              (0.58x        -       0.68x)

Easy                 Easy   
0.75x              (0.82x        -       0.97x)

Normal                                 Normal 
1.00x                      (1.06x       -       1.25x)

Hard                                     Hard
1.50x                      (1.54x       -       1.82x)

Very Hard                            Very Hard    
2.00x               (2.02x       -       2.39x)

Survival                               Survival  
4.00x                      (3.84x       -       4.56x)