Objective

The objective of this mod is to take the weapons that are generally bad enough to not be used by almost anyone and overhaul them into powerful tools to fit niche combat roles. I left alone the weapons that were already good and/or popular to leave those options intact, while adding more variety and choices with the weapons you were never going to use anyways.

Each weapon overhaul is aimed towards a particular niche playstyle. From the balls-to-the-wall 'Rambo LMG' or 'Heavy Gunner', to the vanguard's 'Sawed-Off Boomsick' and marksman's 'Triple Tap' battle rifle and 'handcannon' sidearm, each shitty weapon is now a unique asset that can decimate your enemies when played right.

To put it simply... However you play, this mod aims to make you feel like a motherfucking badass. 

Compatibility:

All guns are standalone mods, you can just take the ones you want.

Tested compatible with Balanced Weapons Patch 1.10. Just make sure you put it below any other weapon mods. Each gun will only overwrite itself, and nothing else.

Badass Sidewinder - The Hand Cannon



• Damage up 100% (2x Damage)
• Impact force up 225%
• Fire Rate Down 60%
• Accuracy up 50%
  

Problem:
The Sidewinder seems like a cool idea that took a turn somewhere along the way and just fell flat. It looks cool, but trades power for a high fire rate, which is ridiculous for a gun with only 6 shots and not a lot of backup ammo. As a result I think it gets the same response from a lot of people "Yeah, that looks cool, but it really sucks." 

But what if I told you... it didn't have to?



Solution:
This overhaul turns the sidewinder into the "Hand Cannon" that it just looks like it damn well should be. Roughly doubles it's damage and cuts the fire rate down by about 60%, while increasing accuracy by about 50% and impact force by 225%. This makes it comparable to a Carnifex with a little less power and ammo, but a little more accuracy and impact force. A great sidearm for sharpshooters, or anybody who just wants to be Clint Eastwood.

Badass Ruzad - Double-Barrel Boomstick



• Damage up 350%
• Impact Force up 450%
• Magazine size reduced to 1
• Reload time up 20%
  

Problem:
The Ruzad really was a huge letdown. It looks like a complete badass and hits like the soft touch of kitten fur. It's damage is only ever-so-slightly higher than the freaking Katana, but with a slower fire rate. Add in a clip size of 3 and and a pathetic ammo pool, and you have one of the worst guns in the game.

...Until now.



Solution:
With only a single round and long reload time, but a truly enormous damage output, the new Ruzad is perfect for vanguards who favor the hit-and-run approach, or as a backup "fuck off" weapon against enemies who close to melee. Either way, the Ruzad allows you to minimize your exposure to enemies by doing all your damage fast and up front... just don't miss.

Badass Widow - The Professional

• Magazine size up 100%
• Scope Zoom + 100%
• Effective Range + 500%
• See targets through walls (effective range 250m)
• Penetration Distance 7.5m with no damage loss
  

Problem:
Poor Widow. She used to be the ultimate one-shot/one-kill canon, but those Angaran dickheads went and dethroned her with the Isharay. There's nothing that the Widow can do that the Isharay can't do better. Now the poor Widow sits alone in a room full of old kill trophies and sighs, remembering the days when she was still cool.


Solution:
Without going too far off the rails with the one-shot/one-kill idea, I changed the widow up a bit to fit the idea of the professional sniper. The Widow's scope now has the Recon Visor effect built in, allowing you to see targets through cover up to 250m, 3x the distance of the recon visor power.

The scope also is 2x more powerful than any other sniper rifle, and the effective range 5x as great with a penetration capability of 7.5m that has no damage falloff. Mix it all together and you have a powerful rifle that strikes from far beyond the range of any other rifle, and leaves your enemies with nowhere to hide.

Note:
The game engine is kinda glitchy with bullet penetration. Some obstacles will completely negate the damage of the round, but the enemy will still stagger as if hit, while others pass through with no problem and do full damage. It's really frustrating sometimes, but as of the time of this writing I can't find any way around it, so bear that in mind.

Fuck you Electronic Arts.

Badass Charger - The Elemental Dynamo



• Damage up 150%
• Fire Rate Down 35%
• Accuracy up 25%
• Ammo consumables last for an entire deployment
  

Problem:
While a decent gun in it's own right, the charger has one enormous problem: It's not the Hurricane. It's designed to fill the exact same role as the Hurricane, but inferior in every way. So why would anyone bother?

Solution:
Rather than trying to compete with or surpass the Hurricane, I decided to take a slightly different route with the new Charger. I remade it after the idea of the UMP .45: a compact, accurate SMG firing larger caliber bullets than the competitors, albeit a bit slower.

But the real fun is in it's ability to hold onto an ammo consumable for a full deployment, making it the perfect main weapon for combo builds. Pick fire, frost, or shock and your gun will remember that the whole mission, going away only when you leave the planet or use another consumable to change it. It's like that old coke commercial where lots of sad people get a Coke and suddenly everybody everywhere is really happy... except it's just people blowing up.

You're welcome.

Badass Soned - The Heavy Gunner







Damage up 80%
Rate of fire increases 300% over 4 seconds
Magazine size up 66%
Spare ammo up 60%

Problem:
Is it just me, or is the Soned total shit? It's a super rare, minigun-esque spray-n-pray that can only hit at close range, and there it can be out-DPS'ed by a shotgun... any shotgun. The big ammo capacity gives it some crowd control, but even there it's just too damn weak to be any good at it. 

Well strap on a sandvich and buckle up, buttercup. Time to kick ass.

Solution:
Taking the idea of a heavy gunner, I redesigned the Soned to be a crowd-clearing machine. Damage is roughly 80% higher, clip size is up 66%, and you can carry about 50-70% more ammo. What's better it now also has the same firing speedup as the Rozerad SMG, increasing to 300% over 4 seconds. With the increased ammo capacity you should be able to keep up an enormous volume of fire and not be running to ammo crates every fight. It's still shit at range, but if you don't plan on carrying a backup weapon for long range fights, you can switch it to homing plasma for some decent accuracy.

Badass Avenger - The Trusty Backup



• Damage up 50%
• Magazine size up 33%
• Accuracy up 20%
• Weight Down 50%
  

Problem:
I've always liked the feel of the Avenger, but being the default assault rifle it's just not strong enough in any area to be of much use. Even with a flat damage upgrade to bring it competitive with the big boys, it's still unremarkable. I've wanted to overhaul it for a while, but what could I do that would make anybody want to actually use this thing?

Solution:
I played on the Avenger's strengths and made a featherwight gun that's very accurate (even at longer ranges), has a good sized magazine and damage rougly comparable to most other standard-style ARs. Boosted up with respectable all-around performance, it can find a nice home with any class or build as a relaible backup.

Classes focusing more on powers can have an ultra light all-purpose weapon to fall back on, filling in the gaps between combos and powers with steady, consistant DPS at any range. A vanguard class can have it as a backup to pull out when their shotgun is dry or out of it's effective range. A sniper can lay down some accurate uncscoped fire from long range while repositioning. It's the proverbial "ankle gun" for any class, and provides more DPS than most pistols to boot.

Badass Revenant - Rambo LMG

• Damage up 125%
  

Problem:
I've been in love with the Revenant ever since it's introduction in ME2 as the ultimate soldier weapon. That feeling you get when you mow down dozens of screaming collectors like so much wheat still brings a tear to my eye. They nerfed it a bit in ME3, but it was still the same old Revenant to me. My best pal, laughing right alongside me as I wade chest-deep through the corpses of my enemies.

Then comes Andromeda... where it gets nerfed into the goddamn ground. Inferior stats-wise to even the X-5 ghost, which is essentially just an upjumped Avenger. Oh it's still just as great in multiplayer, but in SP the damn thing might as well shoot out crying goddamn apologies for all the good it does.



Solution:
This mod takes the base damage of the Revenant and increases it to be the hardest-hitting of the full-auto assault rifles, befitting it's status as a highly-prized LMG. With a larger base damage combat builds become viable, as your "+Weapon Damage%" actually has a much more noticeable effect. Hooray!

For comparison, the damage per shot is roughly 125% the damage of a Zalkin, and about 60% that of a Sandstorm of the same level. Powerful, but not an instant-win button. Especially late game.

Badass Incisor - Triple-Tap Battle Rifle

• Delay between shots in the burst reduced by 75%
• Default scope removed
• Damage up 50%
• Fire rate up 50%
• Recoil down 50%
• Magazine size up 100%
• Spare ammo up 100%
  

Problem:
The incisor sucks ass. Three weak shots, one of which might stay on target, and after 5 of those you gotta reload. But it's gotta have a strength in some area, considering all that suckage, right?

Nope, it's just terrible.



Solution:
This game doesn't really have an accurate and powerful burst rifle, I mean.. the Zalkin's garbage and the Sweeper is okay, but not altogether great. The revamped Incisor is a short-to-medium range battle rifle with lightning fast bursts that can be squeezed out as fast as you can pull the trigger. The grouping is really close within the range that most fights take place in, and even stays pretty spot on out to 80-100m, though landing all 3 shots at that range takes some practice.

This gun actually takes a bit of skill to master, but has the potential to be very rewarding, dealing 600 base damage in a snapshot burst. You can keep your bursts really tight with practice, you just have to get a feel for aiming down at the same time you're shooting to counteract the muzzle climb. This gun straddles the line between assault rifle and sniper rifle and would make a good primary weapon for a marksman, with a 30 round standard magazine and lots of spare ammo. 


Badass Venom - Explosive Freedom Dispenser:


• Damage up 60%
• Explosion area of effect up 66%
• Rate of fire up 400%
  

Problem:
Remember how in ME3 the Venom was pretty much a heavy weapon? I could take out abominations in one charge-up cluster shot. But not anymore...the Venom got a huge nerf in ME:A, to the point where it does less than most other shotguns with a much more chaotic cluster of explosions.  Add in the fact that everything from dashing to stepping down a 2 inch curb will cancel your charge, and you have a truly frustrating wreck of a grenade launcher.

So what do we do about it?

Solution:
Not having the ability to keep a charge while you dodge can be fatal, so now you have a second option: grenade spam like a champ. With the fire rate up, you can empty the magazine very quickly, and the reload isn't too long, letting you chain together 5 powerful explosions on the fly, and unleash a staggering clusterfuck if you have the time to charge. The increased damage and explosion area helps mitigate the randomness of the cluster dispersal, and scales great with +weapon damage%. In the right hands, the new changes remake the venom as a powerful weapon against tight groups and big healthbar enemies again.

Freedom isn't free, but you can make the other guy pick up the check.

• Damage up 50%
• Magazine size up 100%
• Spare ammo up 33%
  

Problem:
The only thing really setting the ghost apart was it's unique aiming mechanic. It's a cool idea to have a gun that gets more accurate the longer you fire it. Problem is, it doesn't stand out enough in any area for people to bother using it at all, much less spending time finding a good use for it. For the official rifle of the Andromeda Initiative it seems pretty un-focused, and that's it's biggest drawback.



Solution:
With it's unique mechanic, the new Ghost rewards a "sit and shoot" style that doesn't always get played unless you're a crazy person like me and prefer combat builds. Playing to it's strengths, I redesigned the Ghost to function as a Light Support Weapon similar to a belt-fed  M60. 

The ideal strategy is to keep moving from place to place, setting up behind cover at medium range and hosing down the enemies so your squad can move up and engage. With the reverse recoil mechanic and larger ammo pool, you can keep up a barrage of punishingly accurate fire for a very long time.


Use Frosty Mod Manager, just drop it in the "Mods" folder. Each gun is standalone and should insert itself seamlessly into any other weapon mod you're using.

If you find a bug, please let me know and I'll get it fixed.


If you can read this, you aren't illiterate. Also, why are you reading this? Go home Modder, you're drunk.