Weapon damages were all over the place, and most weapons weren't even viable options with terrible DPS, or recoil, etc.  It annoyed me.
I improved many properties of every weapon, but also nerfed some.  The goal was more balance for variety sake.  And to improve some terrible weapons. 
Tweaked the base damage, fire-rates, recoil, spread, range, ammo count, swing-times, weapon mods, etc.


There are so many factors to consider when balancing weapons.  It's not just Base-Damage X Fire-rate.  Recoil and spread are a big deal because they affect your accuracy. also the range of the weapon matters, close-range weapons need to deal more dmg to be viable, like melee or shotguns, and pistols vs rifles. also, the ammo count factors in, and the reload speed. And then factoring in extra mod options. And lots of other factors.. like sneak, weak-point, and critical damage, and damage type. 

* Modified all guns and melee to have all or most mod slot options.  Some guns like the shotguns and machine guns don't get a Sight mod.  There's a bug with a sight on LMG and HMG anyway. some guns just weren't made to have the mods. and they would be unbalanced anyway.
* Tweaked Base damage of pretty much every single weapon. and many fire-rates.
* Increased Magazine sizes for most guns
* Some weapons got extra attention. Salvager's Helper was horrendous. Greatly improved recoil and fire-rate while balancing it. 
* Made the AutoMag an automatic pistol!  Including Flintlock, which is faster. 
* Made the Plasma Carbine automatic!  fires faster.  Plasma Rifle greatly improved too.  Charged shot may be your new sniper rifle!
* All melee weapons were buffed considerably to be viable in a gun's world
* Improved or balanced sight recoil, spread, weapon ranges, ammo count, AOE radius, aim zoom for guns without a sight,    
* Some weapon and armor mods were modified. 
* Improved AOE radius on some like grenade launchers and plasma guns that already have it.  [ Aoe dmg has an effective 'inner range' that is typically half what sheet says. the Sheet shows max aoe range, but the damage falls off to 50 or 60% past inner range. all range weapons have this effective vs max range too ]
* also gave higher sell values and better condition health to some weapons
* Comes with a Low Tinker Cost mod I made, that is nicely balanced IMO, starts off low, then scales higher as you level higher. Nothing crazy like vanilla tho


I made too many adjustments to list everything. But I've spent at least 50 hours making this mod, so I haven't made changes lightly.  I've readjusted many things many times, and carefully thought about every factor when rebalancing each weapon. It was a lot more work than I was planning on, but I just couldn't stop. 
This doesn't mean I made every weapon do the same DPS either.  Though many are aligned.  All those factors I mentioned come into play to affect the EFFECTIVE DPS. Not just sheet dps. and it's not just about effective dps either, some weapons just need to or should do more damage than others. Aside from close-range vs long-range vs melee, Unique weapons need to be top tier, and Science weapons need to be the cream of the crop. 
Much of the game was based around these Science Weapons.  There's even TWO special perks just for them. No perks for any other combat type. Outer World Spacers are supposed to find these epic and tech advanced weapons and boost them with science to become the ultimate means to pulverize your foes!


This mod was designed to go with my other mod: Harder Difficulty.  Lets face it, the game is way too easy by default.  This mod lets all weapons be equal, but when your enemies die in 1.2 seconds, does it even matter?  Why play a Looter-Shooter ActionRPG that doesn't give you any challenge whatsoever?  I like challenge, I don't about you. That's why I made these mods. 

* Most testing is done with Enemy HP at 10X.   10x or 7.5x are best. but there's 5x or 3x if that's too hard. Go grab one of them!
-- I still tested vanilla. The weapons are balanced no matter how you play.  But I would need to scale back the damage considerably to make vanilla more challenging..   Main reasons I didn't do this are:  People would freak if they saw all their weapons suddenly doing far less damage. And it was easier to raise HP as a separate mod, where people can choose their own difficulty. 



Note:  The games Weapon SHEET isn't always accurate.  The game is miscalculating some of the weapons DPS, thinking they are firing or swinging faster or slower than actual. nothing that I did, or can change sadly. Salvager's Helper, Plasma weapons, bolter pistol some melee weapons and others suffer from this error. Altho I did fix one or two that had this issue, like the Carbine and Flintlock, as a result of my tinkering.  
[ FYI:  SalvHelp does NOT fire 2.5/s.  vanilla is 0.8/s. current is 1.3/s but 5 burst not 6.  Plasma Rifle fires 3/s but the DPS it shows is underscored.  Bolter pistol is 3x2/s. ]
Also, don't forget that when you're looking at DPS, if you have Base stats unchecked in Settings, it shows you the dps with all your buffs from science and effects. 

Does not include some DLCs weapons. I'll try to get them. 

I may still decide some weapons need buffing or nerfing as I play more. So check back for Updates! 
Also, I could use more feedback on melee combat.  But not to worry, I've been playing with this mod and testing a lot. It's working well so far.  I hope you enjoy it and get a better experience out of TOW


## Extract first, then put the .pak file into your PAK game folder.   \SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\TheOuterWorlds\Indiana\Content\Paks   \~mods
You might want to keep it in the PAK folder, not the ~mods folder.  This way you can use other mods if you so desire that overwrite something in my mod.  stick that other mod in the mods folder and it will load after (overwrite).  If you want my mod to win the conflict, then do vice-versa.