WARNING: WALL OF TEXT AHEAD!
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED
Within this space here is where I will explain my thought process and the philosophy to the changes. And to start, let me say that I AM NOT TRYING TO BE REALISTIC, OR IMMERSIVE, my approach is largely fun, utilitarian, within the realm of possibility, with a slight tinge of suspension of disbelief. The reference to real world, whether it's the basis of a firearm, or specific ammunition, is merely a starting off point. So please, spare me your nitpicks about realism, I will nitpick you right back.
> Basic Receiver Overhaul - This is the divorce of damage receivers; the Damage , the Triggers, the Frames, and ammunition, this is just the basic fleshing out of receivers in the vanilla game as opposed of simply getting them pre-mixed. I do see the point of the premade mixture of these in the energy side, but the ballistic-side is largely complicated comprising 4 different categories.
> "Automatic" Hair-Trigger - How the Combat-Shotgun works is a bit different than other automatic weapons, that it's just a "RepeatableSingleFire", that it's something that fires automatically sure, but it's single shot in VATs. This feature has been kind of addressed with the overhaul, that the combat-shotgun and other format, can be legit automatic weapons as well. The automatic Hair-Trigger, instead gives a different approach to build, that it's automatic but not commando -- this is the Pipe-Gun's Retarded Automatic, but now pushed to other weapons, if they can.
> Spread-Shot vs Single-Shot - There are weapons in my Overhaul that some weapons are able to switch between buckshot and single-projectile, whether it's Slugs, or basic rifle or pistol cartridges. This must be handled differently, as longer-barrel tightens spread in the game with static crosshair, while shorter-barrel tightens hip-fire spread. I have to account for this, and that is handled by perk. Unfortunately the perk only handles the hip-fire, so there is the side-effect of buckshot having tight spread in ADS -- not as tight like rifles or pistols, but still pretty tight. It is however okay for me, as the shotguns at least have a mid-range effect if you ADS.
> The Combat Pistol - Used to be N99, and 10mm Pistol -- it's basically that common workhorse around the game. It's basically an even larger Desert Eagle, with the purposes of the MK23 SOCOM Offensive Pistol. While a massive gun, it's unintuitive to have bad automatic recoil, the problem here is that it conflicts with the SMG. Why bother with SMG if the N99 has higher ROF and damage/shot? I preferred mechanical relevance with the SMG, and so I made it a matter of controllability. Why 12.7mm instead of 44-Magnum, or both? It's because I wanted the high-calibers to be a different niche to that of the Pipe-Pistol and Combat Pistol, and the SMG can already use automatic 12.7mm, so it'll be just redundant.
> The Covert Pistol and the Deliverer - its a contentious design choice to make the Deliver more common, but I wanted more pistol choices. It's automatic setup is instead inspired by the Skorpion-38, low ROF and low-recoil, with the aim of controllability.
> The Utility Gun - The Flare-Gun is such a shit weapon. There's not a lot one can do with a single-shot weapon, saved for not making it single shot, but if done so removes the point of it as an emergency weapon. I simply approached it as such, preserving it's emergency use, but it's ability to switch ammo on the fly with different ammo types at once, makes it mechanically relevant. That you can switch between Flares and Shotgun Shells on the fly means it can also remove the need of brining a different dedicated shotgun if you're just using it for emergencies like the Flares, Explosives, or sneaking.
> The Double Barrel - I took out the Over-Under, because as it turns out it's ugly as hell. I retained Single-Barrel because it fulfills a different niche. It's also basically my M79 Thumper in the game, with grenade shotgun shells. Of course once you download the 45mm Improvised Grenade Launcher, it's a bit less useful, but it's there.
> The Assault Rifle - Previously Combat Rifle, it's more akin to a submachine gun and carbine before, it's naming is actually complicated. A rifle is anything that is shouldered and rifle-barrel, so SMGs are technically Carbines as well. But anyways, the Assault Rifle in vanilla, is not really fit for it's supposed role even if it's 5.56mm, and it's use of .45-caliber just defeats the point in using it on some other weapons like SMG and Pipe-Gun, and so here it is, made into a legit rifle.
> The Battle-Rifle / Machinegun - The Assault Rifle, despite other naysayers, is honestly fine for me. It does what it was intended to do, and that is to look awesome in power-armor hands. But it is nonetheless not the traditional Assault Rifle we come to expect, and now redundant, coming with the Combat Rifle being turned into the assault rifle. Then I thought, why not make it a heavy-gun, but in between being unwieldy and powerful? That way you could play with heavy-gun build, but NOT be bogged down by weight and ammunition constraint, that it's a choice to make it a fire-suppressing heavy machine-gun like in the days of yore.
> The Pipe Gun - Contrary before, I approached Pipe-Gun as really more of a trash, and less versatile this time around. Ammunition selection is much more restrictive, it's best ammo is 44-mag, it's capacity is lower, but that's really it, it does what it's supposed to be in the vanilla game, but still versatile enough to be used. While it is able to use 44-Mag, better options such as the Lever-Rifle, Magnum, or Combat Rifle is there. However, it's niche is that it's the only weapon in the game able to shoot 80 rounds of 44-Mag straight -- a comparatively heavy machine-gun, and that is enough. If it were 12.7mm than 44-Mag, then the 44-Mag loses on the capability of high-capacity weapon, and if both would be just completely redundant.
> The Pipe Revolver - Contrary to the awful placement it has on the Vanilla, current Pipe Revolver is a workhorse, and while you can use other ammunition, lets face it, it's the shotgun receiver that makes it shine and incredibly versatile. Why such overcorrection? Because I honestly liked Pipe Revolver, it's much more versatile than the other revolver, the Magnum. And it's not like it's overpowered, I made sure that it's not.
> The Pipe Bolt-Action - It's a literal garbage, trash, scrap version of the hunting rifle, that is all there is to it, the hell am I supposed to do? It's bolt-action, it's low-rate, it's low capacity, that is the point of the weapon else pick other weapons. And so that is the feature I chose to punctuate such as the shotgun shell, the 50-caliber. It was originally added as a shotgun on the previous iteration of my overhauls, but I did so late right now with the coming of 12-ga/20-ga dichotomy to fill in the roster. Yeah it's kind of redundant with Single-Shotgun, but the Double-Barrel can use more barrels, this does not, so it's unique in that I can crank up the damage as high as I want. Sure there is Flare Gun that is also single-shot, but Pipe-BA has more attachments and can be made into a long-gun.
> The Combat-Shotgun / Rifle and the Anti-Materiel Rifle - The Combat-Shotgun turned into a rifle is called a Combat Rifle, the name is free since we have forgone the vanilla Combat Rifle, so why not have it in here instead? The combat-shotgun is a venerable automatic/semi-automatic shotgun, that is all there is to it. Yeah the balance is fine-tuned, the automatic mode is made better for my taste, but that's just about it. The real feature is that it can be turned into an Anti-Materiel Rifle, the .50-Cal is just meh in vanilla, so why not have a legit Anti-Materiel Rifle -- it's not like that of FNV, but it's mine. And suddenly the Combat Shotgun, as a rifle, just became much more interesting. There is also the option of 30-06 as a pint-sized, but nonetheless Sniper-Rifle, and automatic 44-mag weapon which is neat. While the .44-Mag has rimmed cartridges, there is the variant called 44-Automag which are 44-magnum on cut-down 30-06 casings, that is used by Automag pistols, but I don't really need to elaborate on that much. Hell, 44-mag is already able to be used in semi-auto by the desert eagle anyways.
> The Radium Rifle - with the addition of Radium Rounds, the Radium Rifle seems to be superfluous, and I would agree that it's kind of is. But it's still powerful, with the rad damage stacking. I added the Gamma-Round receiver before, I just did not bother right now because it's more complicated stuff. There's kit-bashed snail-drum magazine though, so a bit more dakka if you're interested.
> The Handmade Rifle / Shotgun - This one is a doozy. It's basically a better Combat Rifle in vanilla, Assault Rifle here, so what's the difference then again? Inspired by Saiga shotguns, I always wanted to make it into a shotgun, problem is that the non-descript gauge shells in vanilla, is too big. Even if I'm doing things for fun, I have my limits. Having introduced 20-Gauge, I was now able to make Handmade Shotgun a reality, and with the lesson I discovered of simply making the mesh invisible, I could make the gun show a larger barrel to add. And as a side-effect of the basic tweaking of Aim-Model, the Handmade-Rifle instead handles differently than the Assault Rifle -- it's high recoil, but it's powerful, more like the AK pattern it was based on.
> Tesla Rifle - There's not really a lot I could do with the Tesla Rifle -- at least for me. It has no stocks, the fire-mode is handled by the barrel. I just added an explosive barrel, and option for Fusion Core ammo, basic Frames and Damage-Receivers, -- that is it. Some fixes were done like the missing impact data-set, but otherwise it's just good on it's own. Now you might think that it could have instead use the unified capacitors of the energy weapons -- but I already did this one.
> Railway Rifle - the previous Railway Rifle Overhaul was a disaster. The way I had set it up, like the Gauss-Rifle Overhaul, where another mod type handles the projectile is not helpful, and even more so because Railway Rifle can't help to be projectile-based while the Gauss does not need to be. I chose to simplify it versus before, it still incorporates some attachment, but other than that it's not really that complicated because it can't be. Like the Harpoon Gun, the Broadsider, the Fatman, and the Missile-Launcher, it is projectile-based and with different ammo type, it must primarily revolve around that.
> The Missile Launcher - It's an awful weapon in vanilla, it's heavy, and the ammo is even more so, so that is addressed. A running theme with the heavy weapons is that they are ammo-switching centric, that is because there's not really a lot I could do for the weapon, it'll always be a one-trick pony that lobs something with variations of how to do it, but it's pretty much the same role. The targeting PC is just there, as expected, but the Pneumatic system is from that of FO3 Miss. Launcher, but I didn't want it restricted to a legendary. The Airburst was a remnant of my initial Missile Launcher Redux, it is essentially a flying mine, but it wasn't really a good fit before since it's a lobber and awkwardly still has exhaust even if it stopped moving. As per 2.15, I have put the Airburst as proximity-mines for the pneumatic missile launcher instead, as it would make better sense for the projectile.
> MIRV - The Carpet-Bomb secondary action has glitches, because it can spawn at your feet instead -- as funny as that may be, but it is nonetheless annoying and disruptive. I chose to make it basically one massive shotgun that fires nukes, like FO3 MIRV or FNV Tiny-Tots just to simplify it. The Grenade-MIRV and the Single-Shot is my attempt for an Economical Ammo for it -- one tends to amass a lot of grenades, why not make use of those as primary.
> The Velocitas Eradico - The inspiration of the Gauss Barrel is exactly the handguard underneath the Gauss-Rifle. And when I was taking the handguard out to put it on the barrels themselves, I notice that the Gauss-Barrel has this handguard placement as well, and I realize that it could fit the weapon, and so I did.
> The 12-Gauge vs 20-Gauge - On previous update, I have introduced a new dichotomy of shotgun shells, the 12-Gauge and 20-Gauge shotguns. Actually it already exists within the under the hood to allow different performance between shotguns with respectable fire-rate and capacity and those that have not. But the reality is that there is just too much shotguns in the game vying for the same single ammunition type, and that is the shotgun shell. By having two different shotgun shells means there's less competition between weapons, and because of that, I can make the niche between shotgun types much more pronounced; the 12-Gauge can have it's fire-power, but the 20-gauge can have it's mid-range utility and better controllability -- but both still retain relevance.
> 500-Mag - 45-70 is largely superfluous, it's basically a 44-Mag anyways. It just makes sense to make the Lever-Action use 44-Mag instead, while relegating the ammo to be more powerful. While yes, having another set of ammunition type can be contrary to my position, but the idea is that it's much more different than just a round with longer case, that the 44-Magnum being more available and with the lever-rifle using it by default means we can keep the complexity of a whole 'nother roster of ammunition without making a weapon complicated to use.
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Ammo Switching
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> Ammo-Switching was a late addition in AIO, but in here, is one of the core mechanisms in the game because many less-flexible, but ammo-oriented weapons like the Missile Launcher rely on it heavily. Ammo-Switching is the next logical step for me, that with the Multiplicative Damage system allow properly-scaling damage that makes switching calibers less janky. Ammo-Switching on the fly only happened later, that the ammo-variety was only really present with the shotgun, but now, I can introduce it on other weapons as well, and I did.
> Ammo-Switching is different unlike FNV, that is because FO4 was not built for ammo-switching in the first place. It's rather messy that I have to handle it like Caliber-Receivers, basically as attachments. Attachment-Switching via script is janky, like really janky, problem there is that it only mods one weapon, and it's the first item in your inventory. I had to handle it with isolating the current weapon into a different container, and THEN modding it, afterwards giving it back to the player. As you can imagine, it's a lengthy process, script-wise, and thus I don't want to fire it over and over, and so I chose to use a menu than to cycle between ammunition types. Because of this, the weapons are also fully-loaded on switch, I originally had a mechanism that removes current ammo, and then gives it back so that the user is forced to reload, but it my playthrough sometimes the weapon switch lags too much that the ammo is back before it, so no reload occurs anyways. Instant reload is simply much better, as it is less disruptive to the player.
> Overpressure - It's just that Hollow-Point of NV, but made to be vague. It's basically the Violent legendary in ammo form, a stop-gap magnum round for the lesser ammunition type. I didn't see the point of just limiting it to bullet heads like HP, JHP, Wadcutter -- that sort of thing, because in it's just a more-powerful-ammunition at the end, and these are at the larger scope of things, redundant. Reserving the other slots for something else would be far more useful and interesting.
> Incendiary-Tracer - I combined the Tracer and the Incendiary to conserve space within the game. Having separate Tracer that has accuracy bonus, and Incendiary that trades a bit of physical damage with energy damage, is just more complicated.
> Radium Rounds - Originally from Pipe-Weapons Overhaul, and that is before the Far-Harbor DLC, that gave the Radium Rifle. Still, at this point, wasn't interested in taking it out, and right now remained vestigial and largely I am afraid in removing it. Nonetheless, one of it's problem is its not being that useful, besides humans that can take radiation damage. So far it's harmful for the player as well, but aside from being a nuisance, it's not that useful for the player to use at all. So through late addition, I added 75% bonus damage on humans -- aside from dealing a TON of damage to you if you're not careful, you can just as well deal heavy damage to any humans.
> Armor-Piercing Slug - While slugs do exist for shotgun shells, I chose to add an Armor-Piercing effect in addition to knock two birds with one stone as opposed of having dedicated ammo, like the Incendiary-Tracers.
> Trick-Shot Rounds - As said in the name, it does Trick-Shots: It's just a bullet-version of Chain-Lightning. I originally intended it to only bounce once, but I can't do it and have to rely on the already made Chain-Lightning that bounces more than once. The bounce only works within the projectile's range, so to avoid confusion, I hard-capped it's range at the same range, this is because the bounce-damage remains the same regardless of the range. Also because of this ammo, I had to make a different category for the pistol rounds so that different users could have different range effects, so if you open up FO4Edit and found "Long" and "Short" ammo types of 10mm, 45-Auto, and 38-Cal, it is because of this. It's technically stronger than the other ammo types, the Overpressure, the Incendiary Tracer, and the Radium, but it's power comes with it's utility of guaranteed hit and it's damage only adds up with multiple enemies but not stationary ones. I didn't implement it other than the three pistol rounds precisely to give them their own niche.
> Subsonic and Trick Rounds with Sneak-attack bonus -- I wanted an "overpressure" for rifles, but I don't want it to be basically just a Violent legendary in ammo, so subsonic is my approach. Yeah it deals bonus damage, but like the Trick-Shot Round, most of it's usefulness comes with the Sneak-Attack bonus. This is to make it so that it's best used with Single-Shot weapons, while the bonus damage still serves to beef up the DPS.
> The Match Round - Point of it is basically the beefed up Overpressure rounds, for incredibly long distance. That is just it, the niche of the basically the sniper-round of the Overhaul. Though I have approached it like Metro franchise, that it's prohibitively expensive and as a result is used as currency. This is because I simply can't find a use of them either as too rare to matter, or just a bit weaker than the API instead. By using them as currency, I can make them far more common than they should be, and thus they are more available to use but just simply more economical to be sold.
> Dirty Rounds - Inspired by Metro as well. Low-Quality ammo sub-type is something I try to add for the sake of economical use, this is the Quantum Core, the Rechargeable, the Homebrew, the 15mm Bearing -- the point of it is that the weapon is still usable even if you are strapped for ammo. The Dirty-Rounds are just for the rifle-rounds, which availability is problematic early on and so having a dirty version that does weak everything is something I did.
> Optimized Core/Cell/Cartridge - Basically Match Round for energy weapons, though it's not that expensive and as such not a currency. While Overpressure is basically Violent legendary in ammo form, Optimized is basically Rapid + VATs Enhanced + Lucky in ammo form. It's main use primarily is to top-up the low firing-speed of certain attachments like Sniper or Charging barrels, or make them more accurate as a result.
> The Armor-Piercing Incendiary - I could not make a wall-penetrating projectile, so instead I just approached it with explosives. LOS-Ignoring explosion means you can hurt enemies at the other side, but this is really just useful in defilade.
> The Rechargeable Fusion Cell is exactly inspired by Breeder Rounds. It is only later that I realize that the Laser-Musket can instead piggy-back on this mechanism than being locked by just one ammo type. Unfortunately the ammo-refund must be manually done, and I only have patience for up to 20 rounds for the moment. I may add more and higher refund for higher capacity, but realistically 20 is enough.
> The Plasma Rounds -- the one for the 500-Mag and 44-Mag is my attempt to give them an "Overpressure" rounds to the magnum ammo. But I didn't want it to be basically just a magnum of a magnum, so instead I added some skill involved. Originally I planned Trick-Shot ammo with the 44-Mag and the 500-Mag instead, but at the time I was iffy in using the Chain-Lightning system because I don't want it to hit more than twice. But I've since moved past that reservation since I utilized it with weaker ammunition instead.
> The 12.7mm (previously 50-Auto) - the 12.7mm is basically the 50-AE, originally named 50-Auto but it would have been somewhat confusing when with .45-Auto. Originally it's supposed to give 44-Magnum fire-power to the pipe-gun as automatic weapon, but I felt that it's already redundant. It's useful in SMG and Combat Pistol, and the 44-Magnum still has little place in the game so I instead made it so that the Pipe-Gun can shoot it.
> The Frag Round - The Frag round is exclusive to 50-MG, 500-Mag and 12.7mm, it is basically their Overpressured ammo, but with splash damage. The 50-MG Frag is of late addition, as the AP-I largely functioned as such. But with the explosives rebalancing, I felt that I could make 50-MG have it's own splash-damage ammo while I can re-focus AP-I into delivering damage through walls.
> The Pulse Round is merely just from FNV -- as I wanted, the Shotguns are the most versatile weapon in the game. Anti-Robot is just something logical following the Dragon's Breath which is anti-ghoul, and AP Slug for hunting,sniping, and anti-armor.
> Electro Gel, Shock-Harpoon - The Pulse-Round was first, it was followed by Electro-Gel, then Shock-Harpoon. I thought of making different ammo types like Acid, Plasma, and Electric thrower like that of Bioshock's chemical thrower, but the way the projectile is handled, it is extremely complicated. As in aside from ammo-switching, I have to integrate barrel switching as well. The Shock Harpoon was originally supposed to be a baton shot from a harpoon gun for the laughs, but then I thought that the Harpoon Gun is somewhat lacking in versatility, so here's an 11-second anti-robot ammo.
> Microwave Cell/Cartridge/Core - While I like FO-NV ammo selection, I just don't want to follow their exact selection. It's the Optimized, Overcharged -- without weapon condition, the ammo selection seems to be moot. So I thought of something else, a bit more unorthodox choice of making enemies explode upon death as useful crowd-control ammunition far cry from the Overcharged rounds. It is also useful against robots, to have a different effect between Organic and Non-Organic. Initially it dealt damage, but that quickly stacks up when you managed to spread it out that makes it too in tune with weak-damage rapid-fire weapons, so instead I changed the mechanics into a pseudo Furious legendary that encourages focus-firing on a single target to maximize damage, while they still explode on death, it's merely stagger. This has allowed me to also give the Gatling Laser it's own Microwave.
> Davy-Crockett and Nuka-Rocket - Basically rocket version of Nukes. It's not complicated. Though generally the Nuka-Nukes and Mini-Nukes have insanely higher AOE fitting their nature, the Nuka-Rocket and Davy-Crockett has smaller AOE, and has faster projectile speed that meant double range. This means that they are comparatively safer to use as you can fire them a lot closer without harming yourself and you can reach for farther.
> Low-Yield Nukes - Economical is one of the ammo types I am also trying to integrate. Having buffed Nukes to ludicrousness -- because they are nukes, the Low-Yield seems to be a sensible choice.
> Castle Bravo - Previously Nagasaki (don't ask, it's obvious), while nukes are buffed into ridiculousness, here's one more even more ridiculous ammo. The Fat Man is kind of unimpressive as a nuclear weapon, it's basically just a grenade-launcher that is more powerful, but all things considering it's not THAT powerful, and thusly buffed. Now as for the existence of Castle Bravo, despite already having a properly buffed Mini-Nuke is that of fun and novelty -- that you only get two shells. It's not that common or easy to craft, it's only really available once you finished Liberty Primed, which basically committing to another faction already.
