Description
Ever since release Nuka-World has been a divisive DLC, but even though I've heard endless discussions about the plot, retcons, and lack of a good karma plot, I've seen very little mention of how a leather vest is the strongest chestplate in the game beating out Marine Armor.

So I decided to take up the challenge myself and go through every weapon, armor, creature, and recipe in Nuka-World and rebalance them to be more in line with what you could realistically expect from their appearances. The original DLC was clearly intended to be a late / post game environment so that Bethesda could market content to players who had already finished the game, but this lead to a tonne of immersion problems where the new best equipment in the game all came from salvaged and makeshift raider gear such as a simple wrench and hammer holster being stronger than sturdy combat armor! Making Nuka-World an end game DLC also meant players who wanted to have a raider playthrough had to spend 30 levels being a nice person in the Commonwealth before they were allowed to snap, instead of flying out of the vault kicking. 

This mod should fix all of that! Now the Nuka-World radio signal is discoverable from the moment you exit the vault along with the recommended level being changed from 30 to 15 in line with Far Harbor. Does this mean Nuka-World will be a cake walk now? Certainly not! While it is possible for a level 1 character to survive the gauntlet, Colter will still be one hell of a fight at such a low level and there are still plenty of areas to the park that make sense to be above your abilities such as Galactic Zone, Kiddie Kingdom, and Safari Adventure.

The main take away is that you'll no longer be running into rats who can chew through power armor, raiders who can out perform military gear, and paddle balls that require ridiculously difficult to obtain ammo. For a full list of changes see below but Nuka-World should feel much more sensible with this mod installed and much more accessible to all players instead of only the most seasoned survivors.

Changelog
Apparel:

• Nerf Nuka-World raider gear including Gage, Operator, Disciple, and Pack armors - All armor pieces have been adjusted to be in line with similar vanilla game items.
  This change was made for two reasons: to make Nuka-World raider armors consistent with their vanilla counterparts where their appearance matches their expected resistances, and to prevent Nuka-World raiders from being on par with factions such as the Brotherhood of Steel.
• Nerf Raider Overboss Power Armor - Armor values adjusted to match welded Raider Power Armor.
  Funnily enough this item is actually listed as 'T51Raider' in the Creation Kit which makes me wonder if this was originally envisioned as an Ashur style power armor instead of what we got. We'll never know though as what we got was an upgraded raider power armor and as such the stats really shouldn't have been as high as they were.
• Nerf Spacesuit Costume - Armor values removed
  Since this outfit is a retexture of the vanilla game hazmat suit with some missing pipes it doesn't make sense for this suit to outperform the original hazmat suit especially as it is just a costume. With that in mind its stats have been adjusted to match the hazmat suit minus the radiation resistance due to the missing tubing.
• Nerf Nuka-World clothing and western outfits - Armor values removed
  These are light and simple clothing items, there is no reason for them to offer any protection to the wearer especially with ballistic weave as an option.

Weapons:

• Buff Acid Soaker - Acid damage increased
  The original acid soaker despite it's incredibly high ammo cost did not do nearly enough damage to feel like you were spitting acid at enemies like a mirelurk queen. The original weakening effect is still present but this change should allow the weapon to stand on it's own as a viable weapon as well.
• Nerf Handmade Rifle - Weapon spread and recoil increased
  The handmade rifle became the defacto meta weapon for any and all gun build characters due to it's high damage and furious legendary variant. This change is an attempt to keep the high damage that made the weapon so popular but introduce more unreliability to the weapon to match its handmade nature. This will also prevent the legendary variants from being as powerful as shots are more likely to miss on average size targets.
• Buff Paddle Ball - Ammo requirement removed
  The ammo requirement for the paddle ball was extremely short sighted given the exclusivity of the ammo to the Nuka-cade and it's incredibly low damage. Removing the ammo requirement allows the weapon to fulfill its intended role as a low damage melee weapon with the ability to be modified into a more formidable one. While elemental variants of the weapon would make sense to use the ammo associated with their effect this idea was abandoned to keep the weapon in line with other elemental melee weapons such as the shishkebab and electrified assaultron blade. Paddle ball string will still appear as a prize in the Nuka-cade but is no longer usable and fills the roll of "dummy prize".
• Nerf Western Revolver - Damage lowered to match vanilla .44 pistol
  As the western revolver is just a reskin of the vanilla game's .44 pistol, and uses the same ammo type, it does not make a lot of sense for this weapon to exceed the originals stats by such a large margin. As such it has been lowered to be as it appears, a reskin of the .44 pistol.

Creatures:

• Rework Gatorclaw - Armor increased, damage decreased
  Gatorclaws were fairly indistinguishable from deathclaws besides being a small amount stronger. To better differentiate the two species I increased the armor of the gatorclaws (due to aligators having tougher skin than chameleons) and lowered their damage (due to their smaller talons).
• Buff Albino Gatorclaw - Stats buffed
  The albino gatorclaw is nowhere near as buffed from its regular counterpart as the albino deathclaw is from a regular deathclaw. This change simply brings them more in line with vanilla trend of Albino Deathclaws.
• Nerf Cave Crickets - All stats lowered to make them slightly stronger than stingwings
  Cave crickets were far too strong cutting even late game characters in full power armor to shreds in moments. Their stats have been heavily lowered to bring them more in line with other mutated insects throughout the Commonwealth.
• Nerf Ants - All stats lowered to bring them in line with giant ants in previous Fallout titles
  The ants in Nuka-World appeared much stronger than they were in previous games, similar to cave crickets they were simply out performing what seemed realistic for their size, especially considering their performance in other games. As such they have been rebalanced to be a reasonable amount stronger than radroaches.
• Nerf Rad-rats - All stats lowered to bring them in line with mole-rats
  Need I say anything about this one? In Nuka-World a single rad-rat can be the end of a late game fully power armored character in mere seconds. I used to call these things rat-tanks between friends with how ridiculous they were! They've now been nerfed down to where they should be in line with their appearance in Fallout: New Vegas. Their stats are similar to mole-rats however the mangy variants are now weaker instead of stronger than the regular variant with the infected / plagued variants being even weaker but making up for it by dealing poison damage.
• Nerf Painted Ghouls - Stats and names adjusted to match their appearance
  Painted ghouls were using stat templates from ghoul variants far above their visual appearance (regular ghouls were using stalker ghoul stats, and rotting ghouls were using charred ghoul stats and name). All painted ghouls have been adjusted to use the stats and names of their unpainted versions.
• Rework All Creatures Listed Above - XP gain adjusted to match new stats
  Just a simple change to account for both their new stats and how Bethesda blanket applied XP to all creatures in Nuka-World with very little generosity.

Ammo:

• Nerf Weaponized Nuka-Cola Ammo - Weight increased to 1 pound
  Since the weaponized nuka-cola ammo is made from an entire bottle of nuka-cola it did not make sense for it to preserve it's volume (as seen in the thirst zapper reload) but drop to a tenth of its original weight. As such the weight all weaponized nuka-cola ammo has been raised to match the consumable version.

Crafting:

• Buff Acid Soaker - Ammo recipe now produces 20 rounds instead of 1 and now requires: 2 glass, 10 acid, 1 purified water, 2 adhesive, and 1 cork
  The original ammo recipe was incredibly unforgiving on the player's resources and didn't really make a lot of sense. The ammo is listed as "Acid concentrate" despite essentially just being a bottle full of the same acid you use everywhere with some adhesive to make it stick. The glass requirement also seemed unnecessarily high as the glass is the same size as most bottles in the Commonwealth with no extra thickness. In an attempt to make the recipe more realistic and more importantly viable I incorporated the method for making purified hydrochloric acid (which uses distilled water). I'm not a chemist and my 5 minutes of googling has probably brought me to the completely wrong conclusion here but at least this way the player is doing something to the acid while also cutting down on the resource cost. The cork was just a sticking point as the bottle produced clearly has a cork in the end that the recipe didn't include.
• Nerf Acid Soaker - Ammo now requires 'Science!' rank 1 to produce
  Since the acid soaker requires concentrated acid it didn't seem like something anybody could create without some scientific knowledge. It's not as complex as other 'Science!' based craftables however so rank 1 seems appropriate.
• Rework Nuka-Quantum Grenade - 3 Grenades are produced per recipe instead of 1 All ingredients have been multiplied by 3 except for the Nuka Cola Quantum bottle
  The nuka-quantum grenades are powerful but their radius is small making it easy to miss targets out in the open, being able to craft 3 grenades per bottle of nuka-cola quantum doesn't punish the player as harshly for missing as less quantum is used per grenade. The weight of a quantum bottle is also not preserved in the original recipe, going from 1 to 0.5 weight. In the new recipe 0.33 of the bottles weight goes into each grenade with the remaining 0.17 weight coming from the grenade itself, better explaining the small blast radius due to only a third of the quantum being used.
• Rework Weaponized Nuka-Cola Ammo - Ammo now requires 'Science!' perk rank 2, 3, and 4 to make nuka-cola, nuka-cherry, and nuka-quantum ammo respectively
  Each weapon mod that makes use of this ammo requires a rank in 'Science!' along with their associated skill perk. To streamline this I instead moved the perk requirement to the ammo production where a scientific mind would more be required. Making these ammo types staggered also gives a reason for players to make use of the nuka-cola and nuka-cherry ammo which is normally overlooked as it may be all they can make until they unlock higher ranks of 'Science!'.
• Nerf Nuka-cola variants of the thirst zapper and paddle ball - Rank 3 of 'Gun Nut' and 'Blacksmith' are now required for each weapon respectively
  The staggered 'Gun Nut' and 'Blacksmith' didn't make a whole lot of sense given the function of the weapon remained the same. An argument could be made that more volatile recipes of nuka-cola require more precise timings and higher resources however the method of creating these mods does not change between variants, just the quantities and quality of work.

Progression:

• Rework All Creatures Excluding Robots, Nuka-Lurks, and Albino Gatorclaws - Level requirement lowered making them appear at lower levels
  This was done to reflect how most creatures have been heavily nerfed compared to the original design and no longer require being locked behind a high player level. Stronger enemies such as the ones above remain the same.
• Rework Nuka World Radio and Intro Quest - Monorail radio and quest are available immediately after leaving vault 111 for the first time
  With Nuka-World becoming a more realistic location post rebalance there is no longer a need to lock the DLC behind a level 30 requirement. The player will still be advised that the DLC is recommended for level 15 players but will be made aware of it immediately to help facilitate easier raider playthroughs.

Conflicts
Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch - While not detectable on all playthroughs, conflicts exist which prevent the initial Nuka-World quest from firing upon exiting the vault, a patch provided by BenRierimanu will resolve this issue and can be downloaded here until integrated in an update.

Power Armor Stats Patch - Both mods edit the Overboss Power Armor in the same way, however the stats patch includes lowered radiation resistances to keep the armor in line with other changes in that mod. Make sure to load the stat patch AFTER this mod and you should have no issue.

Recommended Mods
Nuka-World Ants in the Commonwealth - If you want giant ants to start appearing in the main game then the nerf I gave to their stats should prevent them from being the surprise early game power houses they originally were in this mod.

Nuka World Open Season Extended II - Assignable Factions - Recruitable NPCS - Seeing as the balancing of Nuka World is being adjusted and improved here I recommend getting a mod to also improve the lack luster good karma ending of the DLC.

Installation
Simply install using your mod manager or choice or by dropping the .esp into your Data folder. This mod may work best with new playthoughs as players who have already generated enemy level lists may not see the changes to creatures without using the recycleactor console command. Or it might be perfectly fine, level lists are weird sometimes.