Major update (detailed changelog is in, well, the changelog section):
Primitive factions buff. Removed the old buffs for tribal and medieval pawns, but added new traits that give major buffs to pawns of tribal or medieval (primitive) origin.
Prone option. You now can lower the pawn vertically to reduce chance of getting hit and to use low cover (like stone chunks) as full cover.
Rebalanced ammo costs. Amount of produced ammo is reduced and chemfuel cost is added.
Small tweak - factions with techlevel lower than industrial should only spawn with proper gear.
Small tweak - buffed bulk for non player humanoid pawns.
Small tweak - non player pawns should more reliably get more ammo on spawn.
Some pain reducing hediffs and one gene nerfed.
PREVIOUS Major update (detailed changelog is in, well, the changelog section):
1.ammo is back and without ammo type bloat (both generic and non-generic ammo supported);
2.another buff to arrows;
3.mortar shell, grenades and landmines got a cost reduction;
4.configurable tribal and animal techlevel factions incoming damage and movement speed buff;
5.configurable carried weight buff;
6.configurable healable scars;
If you are having issues with reloading weapons on existing saves - unload your weapon by firing it or through dev mode and then reload as usual.
If you have ammo system off completely some weapons may default to unsupported ammo because developer of the weapon chose non-FMJ ammo as default.
if you encounter ammo that is not patched properly (has AP, HP ammo types or just has weird stats) and that ammo caliber is lower than ~.50 cal - write a comment with the name of the caliber and what's wrong with it.
Makes DAKKADAKKA more fun (IMHO). Unfinished, but tested in several runs.
What you can expect: armor matters less, more useful firearm calibers. Tech levels are more balanced against each other - power armor gets a nerf, tribals get buff, everyone happy.
More detailed description.
Mod nerfs armor and brings ~ all different weapon types to kind of the same TTK, like in modern shooters. 7.62 will deal noticeably more damage and will have more AP, but average 5.56 weapon has higher fire rate so the end result will be roughly the same.
Instead of relying on armor (that actually can cause problems because it reduces movement speed a lot) it's now better to use the magic of suppressive fire (MG3 during tests performed fairly well lol), fortifications, positioning and smoke. Value of grenades, GLs and artillery is also increased. Same with sniping - taking out enemy MG can win you a firefight.
SMGs are viable but pistols are, as usual, just a way to show that you are throwing. They will deal damage and all that, just lack of rate of fire won't let them to do a lot.
Tribals are buffed because bows now have much more damage and AP. This and the armor nerfs makes 4-5 greatbow hits enough to degrade marine power armor to the state when any more hits will hurt not only your feelings, like in normal CE, but your internal organs as well. Tribals will still die quickly because they don't use armor and bows provide no suppression, but fighting them will require a much more tactical approach because of their large numbers and high ranged damage. Basically, use fortifications and suppress or kill them quickly or they will just swarm half your forces and snipe the other.
Power armor has mostly same armor value as three normal tiers of industrial armor. Power armor however has more coverage, but most importantly - no movement speed debuff and carried weight buff allowing you to move faster and carry more weapons. It means that power armor does not allow you to go AFK, but allows you to maneuver more aggressively and use versatile arsenal. It's way more engaging while still being balanced, because even concentrated pistol caliber fire can down power armor user.
Armor is nerfed but not useless btw, it definitely can turn incapacitating shot into a smaller bleeding wound that can be dealt with later or even a bruise. Heavy armor also can turn alive colonist into dead one because the cover was a bit too far and colonist - a bit too slow.
Armor selection should be based on both it's protection and movement debuffs. There are three tiers of industrial vests and helmets, they are not upgrades though, your sniper won't need modern tier armor if you plan to ever move that sniper. A breacher, however, will benefit from that same modern set of armor that will allow to survive a couple more shots.
Requirements and Recommended Mods
Combat Extended Armors and CE: Armors - Extended Cut are needed because without it you won't have the proper tiers of industrial armor.
Gear repair mod required for armor. I use [LTS]Maintenance, but any will do. Armor durability is heavily reduced across the board. Even a few hits can significantly lower its effectiveness, making armor maintenance essential. So if you won't have a way to repair armor, it will be single use item. Realistic actually.
More injuries recommended to get even more chaos. It has some bad stuff (looks at Lung Collapse), but will make firefights more dynamic because any wound will need urgent attention.
I also use Grievous Wounds and Combat Extended Fragmentation buff (actually outdated and maybe not working at all).
Combat Readiness Check recommended to make firefights more even and natural depending on strength your forces.
Smarter Raider AI works nicely and is very recommended.
Also nice to have Enemy Self Preservation to make smart target prioritization more rewarding and No One Left Behind to make encounters more realistic and dramatic.
Compatibility
Armor requires manual patching, so that's a weak point from compatibility perspective.
Weapons need no tweaks BUT ammo does. Some ammo types are not tweaked because I mostly touched common ammo that I saw in use by Gtek and Local's guns so some stuff will have insane AP and/or damage. Will eventually fix that if reported or if I'll notice it myself. If gun has non-CE ammo type (like Local's High Tech pack) it won't be compatible.
Not finished
Xenotypes are rebalanced on my side, but not in this mod. Unlikely to handle unless "Edit Existing Xenotypes" gets an export feature like CE Manual Patcher does.
Mechanoids - don't interact with them that much so no idea how balanced they are. Low tier ones seem to be ok, but with average AP power of firearms lowered dedicated AT weapons are probably recommended.
DONE - Ammo types as stated above. NOT DONE - Also didn't touch ammunition above ~.50 cal, that's AT zone and so far I don't know what to do about it.
DONE - Grenades, mines and mortar rounds won't have component cost unless it makes sense. Other small cost reductions. Currently not implemented, but molotov is already pre-nerfed lol.
Not save compatible because of armor HP changes. Actually, it is compatible, just armor HP numbers will be loaded from save and break balance. To fix - get shot.
AI was used to write C# and some XML. I'm a cat, just can't do that myself.
