Fallout: New Vegas Project Director Releases Personal Mod

Now you can whack mutants with golf clubs using the settings J.E. Sawyer intended.

J.E. Sawyer, the project director for both Fallout: New Vegas and its Honest Heart DLC, has released a mod that makes things a bit more difficult for those wishing to bring order to the Mojave Wasteland. Sawyer’s changes shift certain NPC alignments and modify a few character stats, but won’t add any additional quest-related content.

Here is a list of some of the more notable changes Sawyer has made to the game, as posted on his Formspring account:

* Max level with all DLCs installed is 35.
* XP rate is halved.
* Base player health is quartered and level-gained health is reduced by 25%.
* Base Carry Weight from 150 to 50 (related perks/things have also been adjusted).
* Energy Weapon ammo weighs less than its nearest equivalent Guns ammo.
* Energy Weapon durability is in the same ballpark as Guns durability.
* Medium Armor has a small amount of DR proportional to its DT.
* Heavy Armor has even more DR proportional to its DT.
* Power Armor does not require a perk, but if you have the perk, the weight of the armor is essentially negated.
* Karma/Alignment values adjusted all over.
* H2O/FOD/SLP rates doubled, but the first threshold is moved from 200 to 400 (statuses roll over ever 150 after).
* Water and Food drop rates on NPCs is dramatically lower. It is difficult to stay out of Dehydration/Starvation by looting enemies.
* Water/Nuka-Cola/Sunset Sarsaparilla heal much less, but now all restore H2O (alcohols will as well, but at lowered values).
* Default Stimpaks are uncommon. A new variant, Stimpak, Expired is the default. It is not that great.
* The player’s Workbench recipe now makes Stimpak, Homemade. It is better than Expired, worse than default Stimpaks, and has the PE penalty from Healing Powder.
* All Stimpaks have weight.
* Pre-Order items have been adjusted to be more well-balanced and not worth that much if you rush to Chet’s to trade them in.
* A bunch of fixes I couldn’t make during development because of load order conflicts, time, etc. E.g.: Automatic Rifle spread re-adjustment, putting the Police Pistol on the Cowboy List, Bozar on Grunt, Junk Rounds are now actual ammo variants you can make, etc.
* Some other stuff.

[…]

* fKarmaModKillingEvilActor from 100 to 5
* fKarmaModKillingVeryEvilActor from 2 to 30
* All (known) Feral Ghouls set to Neutral alignment
* Colonel Moore Alignment changed from Neutral to Evil
* Colonel Hsu Alignment changed from Neutral to Good
* Dam Centurion Alignments changed from Evil to Neutral
* Doctor Usanagi Alignment changed to Very Good
* Dixon Alignment changed from Neutral to Very Evil
* Jean-Baptiste Cutting Alignment changed from Neutral to Very Evil
* Gloria Van Graff Alignment changed from Neutral to Very Evil
* Alice McLafferty Alignment changed from Neutral to Evil
* Alice McBride Alignment changed from Neutral to Good
* Squatter Alignments changed from Neutral to Good
* The King’s Alignment changed from Neutral to Good
* Contreras’ Alignment changed from Neutral to Evil
* Westside Citizens and Militia Alignments changed from Neutral to Good
* Gomorrah Prostitutes Alignments changed from Neutral to Good
* 1E Junkies’ Alignments changed from Neutral to Good
* Michelle and Samuel’s Alignments changed from Neutral to Good

[…]

When asked why these changes wouldn’t come to players in the form of an official patch, Sawyer gave a variety of reasons, including technical difficulties and the difficulty curve. “Some of the mechanics changes make the game significantly more difficult (base health / stim changes),” he wrote, “or at least more of a hassle (carry weight, stims having weight, H2O/SLP/FOD rate increase). I’d rather have people opt-in to those changes than make them the default in a patch.”

Sawyer also mentioned that “the ship has [already] sailed” for Fallout: New Vegas. “No one is working on it anymore. No testers, nothing. This mod is just me working in my free time,” he explained. “If I horribly botch something, you can just un-check the mod and go on your way.”

While a plethora of time-consuming AAA titles have come out since Fallout: New Vegas, I’m sure there are more than a few people willing to go back and try out Sawyer’s mod (which can be downloaded here). After all, it’s not every day that the actual project director makes personal, yet optional, changes to his game. At the very least, it should be interesting to see how well the Courier fares in a New Vegas designed solely by the preferences of one key designer.

Source: No Mutants Allowed