DevBlog - LitR Weapons Overhaul

It's been a few weeks since I posted, so I figured you guys were probably due an update.

Previously, I was working on the Radfall script, making improvements, adding melee crafting back, and adding degredation for melee weapons, as well as making other various improvements. During this process, I got to thinking about the base weapon set in the list (e.g. the ones that spawn standard on enemies, not the uniques).

Commando Automatics

So, one of the ways Vanilla make automatics a viable play style is a wider selection of ammo. Most of the pistols caliber ammos have automatic variants, e.g. the 10mm auto pistol, and the 45 SMG. When I built out Lunar Arsenal as the backbone of the base weapons in the list, this isn't something I fully understood, and as a result Commando is a very difficult playstyle in LitR. It doesn't have very well defined early game options, and the increased ammo scarcity really makes it challenging. So, what I am working on right now is rebuilding Arsenal, with that in mind.

Submachine Guns

Pistols as a class no longer have automatics, I've removed the 10mm auto receivers (which were pretty much the only ones). Instead, there's a new class of SMG weapons, which include the base .38 Pipe Guns (which no longer have semi-auto receivers), and the vanilla SMG as well as some new variants. These are all automatic only weapons, that are all chambered in pistol calibers, and use the Commando perk for progression.

Assault Rifles (actual assault style weapons, not the vanilla assault rifle)

The combat rifle based weapons previously covered by the commando perk are getting an upgrade as well. This is covers the .223, 5.56, and 7.76 semi/auto weapons. I'm replacing the standard semi-automatic firing mode with Interruptive Burst Fire, from T6M's burst fire framework. My goal is to shift their niche slightly further towards a high ammo usage playstyle, and make them less attractive for snipers (stealth sniping is already massively OP in FO4, it doesn't need the extra options).

Other Changes

I'm working on two other changes to Lunar Arsenal. First, I'm removing See Thru Scopes, which requires custom mesh replacement for every scope variant to work, with the Sniper Scope Overlay and Reticles Replacement mod, which has a slightly jankier transition but requires zero patching to work with mod added scopes, because it just replaces the sniper screen blackout overlay, instead of reworking each individual scope into a high-zoom reflex sight.

Second, I'm removing the paint job distribution integration from Lunar Arsenal, and moving it into a custom load order patcher instead. Trying to manually maintain this is a headache, and I've gotten good enough with the scripting around automated load order patching that I'm confident I can automate the entire process of integrating paint jobs. This will make maintaining the weapons in the modlist simpler for me, and it will bring back integration of creation club skins for users who have them. I originally removed them because I didn't want the headache of maintaining them, but with the process automated I don't have to do anything- users can just rerun the script, and it will grab all the relevant paint jobs and put them where they need to go. Or at least that's the plan- I've not started on the implementation of this yet, so we'll have to see how it goes.

These changes will all be wrapped up with a nice bow, in a rebuild of the Lunar Fallout Arsenal mod. My goal is to actually do a nice compile, with all the open.-usage mods merged into a single download, to make it easy to install for anyone who wants the expanded base weapons for a Lunar playthrough.

Release Timelines

It should be fairly obvious, given that I've undertaken to rebuild the core weapon integration framework in the list, that the next update isn't coming tomorrow. My goal is to have 7.2 out before December. I'm expected another large bump in interest in the list coinciding with the Fallout TV series season 2. I'm also aware that there are leaks around another FO4 update coming (maybe in october to coincide with the bombs drop day), and that this will make the list uninstallable if I can't recompile the list because my local version is unfinished. I can always work around this if I have to by doing a seperate install and recompiling that, but it's a pain. So, we'll just have to see how development goes. When a built is ready for beta testing, it'll be openly available here (like it always is).