Oldy Overhaul for Fallout 4


Author: gh0stwizard
Version: 0.2.3
URL: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/47234


---------------------------------------
Description
---------------------

Yet another balance overhaul with a common sense in mind.

Status: work in progress.


---------------------------------------
Goals
---------------------

Originally, the mod was inspired by the Unbogus Fallout Overhaul mod.
However, I've decided to create my own overhaul with the next goals:

* Created for Survival mode only
* Compatibility with other mods as much as possible
* Absolutely unlevelled everything
* Add minimum of new game play mechanics as much as possible
* Focus on loot as much as possible
* Being closer to original Fallout 1/2, Fallout New Vegas
* Keeping original Fallout 4 unique features

In the end, this mod in many aspects is closer to all Fallout games,
but also removes all things that most of us hate in Fallout 4
(e.g. bloating HP of NPCs, legendary items spawned in molerats, etc).


---------------------------------------
Features
---------------------

While it's hard to describe all changes here, most notable things are:

* Removed leveled health system (static HP for all)
* Reworked almost all Perks (including magazine's perks)
* Rebalanced Radiation
* Rebalanced Chems & Food
* Combat system focused on critical hits
* Experience system: base = 25, level bump = 25, XP for kills is heavyly lowered
* No picklocking minigames
* Smart hacking minigames (use Hacking Perk or raise INT to disable minigames)

See details in F.A.Q. below for a specific question.


---------------------------------------
Updating
---------------------

Just overwrite files and continue to play.


Note: please read upgrade notes in Docs directory.


---------------------------------------
Compatibility
---------------------

The mod incorporates changes from other mods:
* HomePlate Connected
* Survival Mode Console Enabler
* Crimsomrider's Sorted Keys
* Companion Fall Damage Immunity
* Never Go Full Automatic

100% compatable:
* Drop Quest Items (currently, the mod includes only some of its changes)
* Start Me Up - Alternate Start and Dialogue Overhaul
* Everyone's Best Friend
* Worthwhile Caps Stashes (recommended)
* SKK Combat Stalkers
* Lore Friendly Zombie Apocalypse Mod (not tested, but looks OK)
* VATS Freeze Fix

Patch required:
* Any mod that changing HC_Manager (merging esp's should be enough)
* Any Terminal at Any Height
* Any mod that changing Fahrenheit
* The Running Dead - Customisable Zombie Apocalypse Mod
(without a patch zombies would be strong)

Partially compatable:
* Immersive Burning Molotovs and Flamers
* Warlike - The Great War of 2287 (a small patch would be perfect)

Incompatable:
* Any "unlevelling" mod
* Boss Chests Contain Legendaries (included and improved)
* Never Go Full Automatic (already included and improved)
* War Of The Commonwealth - Spawns (Oldy does not support DLCs)

Mods that add new weapons, armor, clothes must be compatible.
Mods that changes weather, interriors must be compatible.

Mods that changing how to unlock containers/terminals should be compatible,
see Oldy's Settings holotape in the game for workarounds.


---------------------------------------
Credits
---------------------

* Cateye in the Commonwealth by elezraita
* Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch by Unofficial Patch Project Team
* Glowing Animals Emit Light by mm137


---------------------------------------
Installation
---------------------

Start a new game. Select Survival difficulty.

There is no DLCs support at the moment and I did not test the mod
with DLCs even enabled.

To be comfortable with autosaves add this to your fallout4custom.ini:

[SaveGame]
iAutoSaveCount=10


---------------------------------------
F.A.Q.
---------------------

Q. Why did you changed this (your topic) in such a way?
A. Most things were changed with common sense.

Radiation
~~~~~~~~~

Yes, over 200 years there a lot of radiation left, but food and water
should not kill after 30 days. Their dosage must be less than 0.000001
and such a value has no sense in the game.

To compensate these changes, player character has increased chance to
get a desease. Swimming in dirty waters causes deseases. Don't rush
telling that this is pointless, because antibiotics are very rare now.
Plus, almost all prewar food also may be a cause of deseases.

Shipments
~~~~~~~~~

People who sell to you things are not factories!

Addictol
~~~~~~~~

Based on what tells you Cate there should not be a thing as it was done
in the vanilla game. Yes, you will have to return back to doctors.
Too bad that the machine is not working for you (good idea for a mod, eh?).

To satisfy your curiosity, now addictol gives you a temporary cure of all
addictions for a limited period of time. Using any chem under addictol
would break its effect.

Stimpacks
~~~~~~~~~

Stimpack heals over time (as expected). NPCs heals themselves with Stimpack
also over time.

You heal your companions on the ground up to maximum. This is vanilla scripted
event, which hard for any changes.

Med-X and Psycho
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Psycho effect has been changed according to original Fallout 1 canon.
See details here https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Psycho_(Fallout)

Med-X is working like a bandage than a chem. Probably it should
heal broken limbs for a limited amount of time, but technically, it's hard
to implement without breaking something else. Perhaps, I will change it later.

Level system
~~~~~~~~~~~~

If your combat skills are very high, then, probably, the confortable level
would be around 30-50.

With unlevelled everything system, you will see all types of enemies and all
equipment starting right from the begining. It would be a normal to run or
avoid encounters until the moment when you would felt that your rambo has born.

Health
~~~~~~

Player character (human race): 40 (race) + 40 (base) + 5 * END.
Life Giver Perk: 2 * 20 HP.

Human NPCs have Health around 80-130 HP, some bosses around 180 HP
(like under Buffout).

Ghouls have additional +40 HP race bonus, e.g. 120-170 HP.
Behemoths (including Swan) ~ 750 HP.
SuperMutants ~ 160-300HP.
Deathclaws ~ 500-650 HP.
Vertibirds ~1000-2000 HP.

So, while this mod is using unlevelled everything system you must expect to meet
such enemies at any level at any time. See also next question.

Critical Hits
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Critical hits work outside VATS and normal shots inside VATS also do critical hits.
Player character have 1% * Luck bonus instantly. Plus, there are perks to improve it.
Also, the mod expects that you will pay attention to critical damage bonus.

There are no plans to add critical hits to NPCs at the moment.

Body Parts
~~~~~~~~~~

No changes to Body Parts at the moment.

Sometimes I want to increase headshot bonus, but there are critical hits...
I still in doubt.

Stealth
~~~~~~~

Currently, stealth system is like as in the vanilla game. I did not nerfed
"running while sneaking" perk, except this perk is last now (5th of 5).

Still you can install any stealth overhaul mod for your taste.

Weapons
~~~~~~~

Weapons with explosion effect are changed to be more deadly, like it was
done in Fallout 1/2.

Damage of Energy weapons buffed up according to Fallout 1/2 canon.

Alien Blaster now only one and unique weapon with Electrical type of damage
as it was done in Fallout 1.

There are also minor fixes of Shishkebab and Railway Rifle.

There are no double damage Perks at all and you should pay attention to
3rd party mods, because some of them are excepting that all weapons deal
2x base damage like in the vanilla game.

Explosions
~~~~~~~~~~

As said above the damage from explosions buffed up. Meanwhile, the armor mods
(Padded and Dense) also changed for you, so you could survive.

Cryo & Fire
~~~~~~~~~~~

Flamer and Cryolator (also in hands Police Protectrons) are deadly weapons,
because there almost no Cryo (Fire) resistances. Power Armor have 50%
protection against Cryo & Fire damages silently for you and NPCs.

Also, Fire & Cryo damages do not working against robots.

Molotov's coctails may cause fear on foes. Asbestos Lining armor mod provides
defense against them.

Minigames
~~~~~~~~~

Do you tired from Bethesda's mini-games? I do. There is no minigames for
Lockpicking (except one case). Terminal minigames are smart to give a purpose
for Mentats and other +INT items (there are 3 checks against INT: 3+, 6+ and 9+).

Auto-unlocking for locks and terminals based on skills (AGI, INT, LUCK) and
takes into account perks (Hacker, Locksmith) + perks from companions (Valentine)
+ read magazines.

Auto-unlocking terminal does not cause terminal lock off, because this function
is hidden and hardcoded. May be I'll made some workaround for it.

You may disable auto-unlocking via Settings holotape at any time. Be ware that
minigames have been changed to be harder and a patch required to turn them back
as they done in the vanilla game.

Legendary Items
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Legendary item spawn rate has been greatly descreased. Instead of changing spawn
rate of legendary enemies, Oldy contains changes when (and what kind of)
an legendary item could be spawned. Only creatures that logically could handle
legendary items will have them. Doing this the spawn rate descreased about 80%,
so you will be glad to see any legendary item at all.

Currently, only a human could have any kind of legendary item.
There are restrictions for Aliens, SuperMutants and Synths.

To compensate this, a legendary item could be spawned in boss containers.
The chance is very low and it depends on your Luck and Scrounger Perk.

Food & Water
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Radiation from almost all food was removed, but most food cause diseases now.
Only cooked and preserved packaged food are considered safe.

All drinks quenches thirsty, even alcohol. Steaks are increasing carry
weight, meantime, soups are increasing action point recovery speed.

Some sorts of alcohol are increasing Health. This was done for those of us,
who avoid using any chems (there are a few situations where your Health is
not enough no matter how fast you shooting).

Starting as 0.1.2 you can wash food from flora at any cooking station
(no water needed). To reverse, just drop a food on the ground.

Difficulty
~~~~~~~~~~

The mod was not intended to be a very hard or difficult. It could be difficult
only in the begining. Actually, in some moments it even easer than you might
think.

More than that, top tier weapons are considered be normal neither most
people think about when talking about the vanilla game. For instance, Gatling
Laser is not just OP: meanwhile it is OP in your hands, it is also OP to killing
you. This is the difference between Oldy and the vanilla game.

The general advice for dogfights is using all available equipment when getting
trouble. It could be grenades, heavy weapons, chems, booze, mines. These items
intended to be used, neither sold or puted in and being forgotten in your house.

Economic & Loot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amount of most loot decreased. Loot of some quests were also changed.
Amount of food & water increased (due the fact that Raiders are also humans).

Prices of most items (except food) were not affected. Some overhauls are intended
to limit you being welth. On other hand, the main goal in Oldy is allow you to
spend caps on everything. Probably, you will find for yourself that you will buying
items that you have never bought previously.

Loot in safes now meaningful. Again, it allows you spend caps and also prevents
wasting your time on scavenging junk. Another plus of such decision, it will be
more attractive to explore world for looking these safes.

Bad side of Oldy in this question, it is limiting of getting good items. Everything
is a random (this is intended, if something is not like described it will be fixed
soon). All items in shops now random. Amount of weapons, ammo and armors also have
been decreased.

Perks
~~~~~

First thing first, there are no double damage perks. The mod balanced for base
weapon damages and you should pay attention for 3rd party mods, because some of
them were intended to be used with 2x damage of weapons as it done in the
vanilla game.

Almost all perks were remade and Oldy trying to avoid repeating perks with
similar effects (e.g. +5% stagger, +10% stagger, etc) as much as it possible.

Some perks were significally buffed up, for instance, Intimidation now works
100% of time (no random checks). Such changes usually made for perks with
very high requirements. While you may think you can spam it and the game became
very easy, don't. Due the fact that you have much less HP, you would probably
die before than you would try to use the perk again, while being attacked by
multiple foes.

Also, the mod was inspired by Fallout 1/2 and Fallout New Vegas perks. Some of
them are done in the form of magazine perks, for instance, Rad Child.

Perk effects of Compainions were nerfed down. There is no need to rush doing
compainion's quests to gain them as was done in the vanilla game.


Q. The game is too hard!
A. There are few tips:
1) improve Endurance + use Life Giver perk
2) wear a good armor and a power armor
3) use chems and booze
4) use Missle Launcher and Fatman
5) keep attention to your Luck
6) run and find cover


Q. I'm very reach in the begining. This is absolutely unbalanced mod!
A. Yes, you can be reach easly until you start building your country with
Minutemen. Eventually, you will find how to spend caps.


Q. How to pass the Glowing Sea?
A. Please, listen what people tell you in the game!
Damaged Hazard Suits are intended to explore (speedrun) the Glowing Sea.
There is only one place with (undamaged) Hazard Suits. And yes, the place in
the Glowing Sea. Another option is to wear the best power armor.


Q. I'm a nerd. What are the best stats?
A. Your character must focus on Endurance and Luck.
180HP and ~65 damage/energy resist should be enough for most situations.


Q. Is there some kind of auto-heal system?
A. Yes, you're remarkably correct. There is auto recover of Radiation and Health
(when Health >= 95% and Rads <= 25), but only out of combat and the rate
is very low.


---------------------------------------
Uninstalling
---------------------

You can't uninstall the mod in the middle of the game!

While physically you can do this, keep in mind that changes of Health for unique
NPCs will be kept forever.