Crafting & Survival Basics, Balanced - 1.00 (Nov 2010)
by Wuphon's Reach ([email protected])
for Fallout New Vegas

Goals:

- Balance hardcore mode so that it has more of an impact on gameplay,
without being tedious. Mostly, this involves changing the SLP/FOD/H2O
rates so that you have to eat/drink/sleep more often combined with
adjusting food/water values.

- Modified the timescale so that days and nights take 2x longer. This has
a side-effect (a useful one) that you consume 1/2 the amount of food /
water / sleep debt while using the "wait or sleep" menu.

- Adjust item weights related to crafting/survival recipes. Raw items
generally weigh more and have less beneficial effect then prepared items.
Radiation counts are generally higher across the board, but lower in
prepared foods.

- Item effects have been adjusted so that pristine or prepared items are
more valuable, while old pre-war food or dirty water is less valuable.
Some pre-war food has a much higher RAD count in addition to less satiation
then before. Weights have been adjusted across the board.

- Adjust recipes for survival so that they make more sense. Higher level
mobs require higher level recipes to cook. Add a few extra recipes such as
additional tanned hide recipes for dog/coyote.

- Previously weightless chems now have weight. Enough that you won't want
to be carrying around 50 doses of RadAway or dozens of doses of the
addictive chems.

- Poisons weigh about 1/10th their previous weight. Recipes make 5x as
many doses and require slightly less ingredients in most cases.

- Ideally, NCR bills and Legion coins would have weight, but they are
special items in Fallout New Vegas and can't be adjusted that way. Pre-war
money, OTOH, now weighs 0.10 (the assumption is that a single bill is
1/454th of a pound and there are about 50 notes in a bundle).

- Skill Magazines now have a small bit of weight (0.10).

- TODO: SLP/FOD/H2O deprivation does not set in until you reach a deficit
of 400, making the dimmed markers on the HUD more useful as a warning.

- TODO: Adjustments to drinking out of toilets or non-sterile sources.
Possibly resulting in disease or worsening of your condition.

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Hydration, Starvation, Sleep Deprivation, Timescale Rates:

fHCDeydrationRate - defaults to 10, modded to 7
fHCStarvationRate - defaults to 25, modded to 18
fHCSleepDeprivationRate - defaults to 50, modded to 24
fHCSleepRestorationMod - defaults to 60, modded to 50
Timescale - defaults to 30, modded to 15

Lower numbers result in faster loss of function in-game. By default, you
divide the above numbers into 100 to gain an approximate estimate of how
fast it grows per hour. But only if the timescale stays at 30. The
Fallout New Vegas wiki lists the numbers as ~12/h for H2O, ~4/h for FOD and
~2/h for SLP. Sleep restores in the default at a rate of about 60 units
per hour slept.

In a realistic desert environment, you would need to drink something like
6-8 pints of water per day. Depending on activity level, whether you're in
the sun or shade, and a bunch of other variables.

It might be interesting to change values based on sleep, wait, daytime,
nighttime, indoor/outdoor, carried weight, etc. But without NVSE, it is
not possible to change Hydration, Starvation, Sleep Deprivation rates on-
the-fly. Since nothing else in this mod requires NVSE, I'm not looking to
add that requirement to the mod at this time.

Given that timescale defaults to 15 in the mod, when normal is 30, and
because of the way that the H2O/FOD/SLP values interact with timescale, you
will find that your meters rise at 1/2 normal when waiting or sleeping.
Which is not a bad thing as a side-effect, but that's why it's occuring.
It will mean that you can more easily catch 8 hours of sleep at night,
without worrying as much about dying from dehydration.

The default timescale means that 24h in-game takes 48 minutes of real-time.
The modified timescale in this mod (of 15) means that a day now takes 96
minutes. If your character stays active for the entire 96 minutes, you
will need to drink about 9 bottles of purified water during that time (one
every 10 minutes of real-time).

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Meds & Chems:

A balance has to be struck between what the object looks like, how much it
would weigh if it was real, and game balance. Something that the player
might reasonably need to carry 20-30 of should not weigh 5.0 each. Items
that are extremely useful should weigh slightly more (or have more value)
then more situational or less useful items. This presents a trade-off in
the early game of "do I hoard this, or do I sell it".

BASEHEX NAME WG(OLD/NEW) VALUE AD% EFFECTS
000e2c6f Antivenom 0.000/0.250 25/50 0% Cure animal poison
001613bd Bitter Drink 0.000/0.200 0/10 0% Heal 2HP/18s
00034051 Blood Pack 1.000/- 5/- 0% Heal 1 HP (Heal 4HP/5s with FO3 perk)
00015163 Buffout 0.000/0.200 20/- 10% +3 END +60 HP +2 STR (240s)
0007ea1b Catseye 0.000/0.150 20/40 0% Low-Light Vision (120s, increased to 300s)
00122b49 Dixon's Jet 0.000/0.100 5/- 50% +10 AP (240s)
000cb05c Doctor's Bag 1.000/0.900 55/75 0% Restore individual limb condition (by 36 or 45)
000cb5a9 Fixer 0.000/0.150 20/30 0% Temporarily remove addiction (120s)
00136a1d Healing Powder 0.030/- 5/10 0% -1 PER (18s) Heal 1HP/18s (increased both to 40s)
0014c11c Healing Powd (Leg) 0.000/0.050 0/15 0% -1 PER (18s) Heal 3HP/27s (increased both to 40s)
0013b2c3 Hydra 0.000/1.000 55/150 10% Restore all limbs (10/s for 60s)
00015164 Jet 0.000/0.100 20/- 20% +15 AP (240s)
00050f8f Med-X 0.000/0.100 20/30 10% +25 DR (240s)
00015165 Mentats 0.000/0.100 20/- 5% +1 CHA +2 PER +2 INT (240s)
000bf7c6 Mentats, Berry 0.000/0.100 20/60 0% +5 INT (240s)
000bf7c5 Mentats, Grape 0.000/0.100 20/40 0% +5 CHA (240s)
000bf7c7 Mentats, Orange 0.000/0.100 20/45 0% +5 PER (240s)
0015e3a4 Mushroom Cloud 1.000/0.600 50/150 0% +3 AP/s for 20s Heal 3HP/20s
00146ccb Party Time Mentats 0.000/0.100 20/50 15% +5 CHA +2 PER +2 INT (240s)
00015166 Psycho 0.000/0.200 20/35 20% +25% Damage (240s)
00015168 Rad-X 0.000/0.050 20/30 0% +25 Radiation Resist (240s)
00015167 RadAway 0.000/0.500 20/25 0% 50 immediate or 10/s for 5s, 10 more with RadAway Challenge Perk
000cea5f Rebound 0.000/0.100 20/15 20% +5 AP/s for 60s
00146ccd Rocket 0.000/0.100 20/40 30% +30 AP (60s)
00146cca Slasher 0.000/0.200 20/50 20% +25 DR +25% Damage (60s)
000ced8c Steady 0.000/0.500 20/25 80% Weapon Spread Reduced (60s)
00015169 Stimpak 0.000/0.150 25/40 0% Heal 30 or 36HP (over 6s in hardcore)
000ccef2 Super Stimpak 0.000/0.400 100/- 0% Heal 60 or 72HP (over 3s in hardcore), 30s debuff
00120d81 Turbo 0.000/0.300 20/100 20% Turbo Effect (3s, 4s w/ challenge perk)
000c9cf4 Ultrajet 0.000/0.100 50/90 20% +40 AP (240s)

BASEHEX - Base object hex ID (used with Player.AddItem)
NAME - Name of the object
WG(OLD/NEW) - Weight (old vs modded), "-" no change
VALUE - Base value in caps
AD% - Addiction percent chance each use
EFFECTS - Effects of the chem, duration, etc.

Larger Changes:

Blood Pack - Removes 24 radiation (over 12s), heals 24 (over 12s), 30HP with Fast Metabolism.

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Not Really Chems but Sorta Are:

BASEHEX NAME WG(OLD/NEW) VALUE AD% EFFECTS
00031020 Ant Nectar 0.250/0.300 20/40 5% +4 STR -2 CHR -2 INT (240s)
00085abb Fire Ant Nectar 1.000/0.300 35/75 0% +4 AGI +25 Fire Resist -3 INT (120s)
0013d60f Scorpion Poison 1.000/- 20/- (not in game)

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Poisons:

BASEHEX NAME WG(OLD/NEW) VALUE AD% EFFECTS
001613d0 Bleak Venom 0.500/0.100 0/10 0% Damage 15HP/10s
00167476 Mother Darkness 0.500/0.100 0/30 0% Damage 8HP/10s -3 AGI (60s) -3 PER (60s)
00167475 Silver Sting 0.500/0.100 0/20 0% Damage 8HP/10s -2 STR (60s)
00167477 Tremble 0.500/0.100 0/40 0% Damage 2HP/20s -50 to weapon skills (Energy, Explosives, Guns, Melee) for 20s

Slight adjustments to the required items, but the big difference is that
the poisons now weigh 1/10th as much per-dose and the recipes produce 15
doses instead of 3 (a 5x increase).

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Water:

Standard definition says that a gallon of water is 8 lbs. Four quarts in a
gallon, so each quart is 2lbs each. One quart (US) is 32 fluid ounces
(US). The bottles of water in-game look somewhat like 12-16oz bottles, or
single pints of water. So the weight of 1.0 per bottle of water is
basically correct.

BASEHEX NAME WG(OLD/NEW) VALUE AD% EFFECTS
000151a4 Dirty Water 1.000/- 10/- 0% +6 RADS, -50 Dehydration (-7 more with perk), Heal 2HP/5s
000151a3 Purified Water 1.000/- 20/35 0% -50 Dehydration (-7 more with perk), Heal 2HP/5s

Larger Changes:

Dirty Water - 1HP/3s, +25 RADs, -25 Dehydration (-4 more with perk), planned chance of vomiting/weakness

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Medical/Chem Components:

BASEHEX NAME WG(OLD/NEW) VALUE EFFECTS/NOTES
0013b2ba Broc Flower 0.010/- 3/-
0013b2b9 Xander Root 0.020/- 0/2
00038e0c Cave Fungus 1.000/0.250 50/- Super-rare
00034049 Mutfruit 1.000/0.400 5/15 Somewhat rare, no respawn
0001519e Nuka-Cola 1.000/- 20/- 200+ in New Vegas
00103b1e Sunset Sarsaparilla 1.000/- 0/10 150+ in New Vegas

BASEHEX NAME WG(OLD/NEW) VALUE EFFECTS/NOTES
000250A8 Empty Syringe 1.000/0.050 8/- 140 in New Vegas
000250a7 Forceps 1.000/0.050 5/- 25 in New Vegas
0002210c Leather Belt 1.000/0.300 5/- 18 in New Vegas
0002210d Medical Brace 2.000/0.750 10/- 13 in New Vegas
000250a5 Scalpel 1.000/0.050 8/12 38 in New Vegas
00022111 Surgical Tubing 1.000/0.100 10/- 60 in New Vegas

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Adjusted Medical Recipes:

Antivenom - Reduced required qty of Radscorpion Poison Glands from (4) to (2).

Hydra - requires Cave Fungus (super-rare and too much night stalker blood).
Changed to use (2) Nuka-Cola instead of (5) Cave Fungus. Decreased Night-
Stalker Blood requirement to a single unit.

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Adjusted Survival Recipes:

Mostly a rebalancing of some of the simpler recipes like "plain" steaks
based on the level of the mob that supplies the steak. Dog and Coyote
steaks are now low-level recipes, with Gecko steaks not far after them.
These are basic recipes and they don't provide a lot of food value, but
still better then most scavanged foods.

Added tanned dog hides and tanned coyote hides. Adjusted the amount of
turpentine and white horse nettle required. Most of the tanning recipes
now require 6 hides and output 6 tanned hides as a result. This allows the
turpentine and white horse nettle requirements to be less of a burden.

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Timescale, Hydration, Starvation, Sleep Deprivation Rate Calculation:

Test 1 (Using the Wait Menu) - Timescale=30 H2O=5 FOD=25 SLP=25

09:31 H2O=11 FOD=122 SLP=122
18:38 H2O=228 FOD=158 SLP=158
06:45 H2O=517 FOD=208 SLP=208
Game: 21h14m (21.23 hours)
H2O rate = 23.83/hr
FOD/SLP rate = 4.05/hr

This means that an H2O value of 5 results in stage 1 dehydration (+200)
after 8.4 game hours. Purified bottles of water are about -90 H2O,
requiring the player to use 6.35 bottles per day. That's a decent value
for waiting around or sleeping.

Test 2 (Real-Time Standing Around) - Timescale=15 H2O=5 FOD=25 SLP=25

(Times here are "wall time" followed by "game clock".)

17:30:45 09:40 H2O=16 FOD=123 SLP=123
18:05:12 17:59 H2O=410 FOD=202 SLP=202
Game: 8h19m (8.32h)
Real: 34.45m (0.574h) (roughly 14.5 timescale)
H2O rate = 47.36/hr
FOD/SLP rate = 9.50/hr

Interestingly, with a timescale of 15, time passes more slowly compared to
the real-world wall clock (15 minutes in-game takes 1 minute of real time).
Yet the hardcore food/sleep/water values don't seem to adjust when the
timescale changes. So as the timescale is adjusted, the food/water/sleep
need rates also need to be adjusted.

With a timescale of 15 and dehydration of 5, the player has to drink 12.7
bottles of purified water per day. You'll go from zero to stage 1
dehydration (+200) in about 4.3 game hours. In real-time, that would be
about 17 minutes.

I'm going to back that value off to "7", which should cut that to about 9
bottles of purified water (-90) per day. It will be half that if you spend
24h waiting. That means the player has to drink

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Version history:

1.00 Nov 2010 - Initial release. It's good enough for general use now, but
possibly not as fine tuned as I want it to be.