u/cinnaminiii

I'm a returning f2p player, at the tail end of Act 2, and I'm not really trying to hit meta teams at the moment. However, I don't really want to struggle later on due to missing characters I should've pulled. I do want to get Hiyuki on her upcoming rerun, and after some research, Suisui seems incredibly good for her. Like Suisui is pretty much mandatory to make a good team with for Hiyuki.

My main issue is that I'm not sure if I should pull for Suisui right now even with enough Astrite saved up (about 11k). I got lucky with pulling Aemeath early, so ignore her. I don't really plan on making a solid team for her. It was more cause I liked her character and mech.

I've been pondering if should I try to pull for Suisui right now, or just continue to save up for Hiyuki, and then get Suisui on her rerun. What I don't really know is if Hiyuki still performs well without Suisui. Any input is appreciated.

Nexus Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/17759

Meat and Po-Ta-Toes

Taking ideas from how real life lasers work, I've overhauled the laser certification into making lasers more geared for scouting the area with scoped semi-lasers, or applying intense fire DoT that can reduce enemy accuracy and defense, or causing enemies to "explode" and ignite and debuff enemies around the hit target.

The parks are as follows: 

Rank 1: Automatic lasers are 20% more accurate. Laser weapons deal 15% more damage. Current and future buffs/effects do not apply to ballistic, EM, or particle weapons. Challenge: Kill 20 enemies with a laser weapon.

Rank 2: 4 consecutive shots with an automatic laser weapon on an enemy will burn them for 15 seconds. Scoped semi-auto Laser shots emit a 15m wave effect from hit target that reveals enemies for 15 seconds. Challenge: Kill 30 enemies affected by a detect life spell created by laser weapons.

Rank 3: Enemies lit on fire with automatic laser weapons will become 30% more inaccurate, and shooting affected enemies with semi-auto lasers will cause them to explode and debuff enemy accuracy in a 10m area. Challenge: Cause 25 enemies to explode with a semi-automatic laser.

Rank 4: Enemies lit on fire by automatic laser weapons will lose 15% energy resistance. Detect wave increased to 20m. +10% Critical chance for any weapon used against enemies revealed by scoped semi-auto laser shots.

Notes

• L.A.S. stands for Laser Armament Systems. I'm not good at making names.
• I primarily play on survival difficulty settings, and I also have a mod that removes enemies from appearing on the compass/map. While the detect life might not be super useful otherwise, gaining the specific location of enemies is still nice I think.
• The AoE detect life spell works on dead bodies. Feel free to lug around a dead body to use as a mobile radar... thing.
• The fire damage is based on the max health of affected enemies. The exploded ignited target will take damage from both the initial fire DoT and the explosion DoT. Ignition deals 4% health over 15 seconds, and the fire from the explosion deals 2% health over 15 seconds.
• Explosion requires Line of Sight to hit and apply the DoT effect.
• Despite the wording, the +10% crit does apply to all weapons. It is also a flat +10% crit chance.

Quirks and stuff I don't know how to change yet

• The activation range for the scoped semi-laser spell is limited to 75m. I don't know how to increase that. If ever find out, then I'll be sure to increase it cause I wish it was farther.
• Sometimes, shooting an enemy that already exploded can potentially trigger another explosion. Despite that not being allowed in the conditions, it still happens. The explosion DoT and debuffs can't be applied more than once anyway.

Installation instructions

Install with any mod manager. Load after anything that touches the Laser Certification

Nexus Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/17672

A growing list of Energy weapons that are given a mod slot via StarPatcher that allows you to change their laser color.

Meat and Po-ta-toes

Attachpoints were added to energy weapons via StarPatcher that will let you alter the beam colors in the weapon mod workbench.
 
The colors you can choose from consist of:

• Red
• Pink
• Purple
• Cyan
• Aquamarine(ish)
• Green
• Yellow
• Orange
• White
• Black with Inner White
• Rainbow

Listed energy weapons have a new mod slot that let's you change the color of the beam. The muzzle flash and the light emitted from the flash are colored accordingly. The lights used for the muzzle flashes are their own forms that are simply duplicates of the base game's ones, but recolored and slightly brighter - they shouldn't conflict with anything.

• Equinox
• Solstice
• Orion
• Inflictor Rifle and Pistol
• Novalight
• Big Bang (Beams were added to the Big Bang and have colors. There is also a version of the default colors with a beam. I will not be making colored versions without the beams).
• MGP Laser Rifle
• Cathode
• Resonator
• Dogfight

A default option was added to allow you to revert back to the base game color if you wish. I also don't plan on recoloring the Stealth Laser as I don't think it is needed.

Terran Armada "bullet" energy weapons were turned into a beams. I'm not a fan of the bullets for lasers. I tried to make a couple of them more distinct from typical energy weapons however.

Shattered Space and Tracker's Alliance weapons will be done in the future.

Quirks and stuff I don't know how to change yet

Smaller weapons like the Solstice and the Cathode, will appear to have their laser beam extend through the behind of the gun, or to the side of it. That's how it is in vanilla and I'm unsure how to fix that. Though, sometimes it goes away, and sometimes it stays around. I have no idea why.

Resonator's beam in spaceships doesn't really work as it should. No idea why, but outside of ships the weapon's laser beams are fine.

Technical Stuff

Why use StarPatcher?
StarPatcher was used to ensure compatibility between this mod and other mods that modify the Starfield weapons. While I can add the attachpoints in the CK for any weapon, this would conflict with other mods that also alter the weapons.

There is a "However..."
However, because of how projectiles and their particles work, these custom projectiles will not have any changes made by any mod that alters the projectile of a weapon. Those will need to be patched and you are free to do so if needed (typical credits apply). IE a mod that increases the damage of a weapon's base game projectile or adds an effect will not have that damage increase or effect on any of the colored lasers.

Regarding LUTs

Colors of the beams will be changed if you have a LUT mod (and will look different even without them). They will still *look* like their color, but might not be exactly that color (ie green might look different with a LUT). I use Gravity LUT myself and they do look different when looking from the CK to in game. Even in vanilla they look different. Keep that in mind.

On Modded Weapons

You can either patch modded weapons yourself via utilizing StarPatcher, or request that some be added. However, permission would be needed for me to make and upload those mods. Especially paid mods.

Installation instructions

Ensure you have StarPatcher and install like any other mod. The ba2 that comes with the mod is necessary for the particles to appear.

Requirements

StarPatcher is required for the attach points to be added to the listed energy weapons.

Shout outs

Zzyxzz for making StarPatcher and having documentation on how to use it.

On Creation Club
Due to this mod's requirement of StarPatcher, it will not be available on the Creation Club. I can make a version that adds a keyword to weapons, but that will have potential conflicts with any mod that alters the weapons as well.

After much playtesting, this is going to be the first perk rework mod I'll be releasing. I didn't want to do a bulk of them at once despite a few more being ready. Mainly because I wanted to get a feel for uploading mods in general before I started publishing more.

Currently only on PC via Nexus.

Below is the main meat of the mod description.

Main features
Following Shotgun cert ranks and effects -

• Rank 1 - Shotguns do 15% more damage. Damage taken is reduced by 10% while sprinting.
• Rank 2- Hip-fire Accuracy while moving is increased by 20%. Kills increase reload speed by 25% for 15 seconds.
• Rank 3- Hip-fire shots at a target within 10m have 15% bonus critical chance. Kills now also increase crit damage by 20% for 15 seconds.
• Rank 4- Hip-fire shots at a target within 6m have 20% armor penetration, and gives you a 15% movespeed buff for 15 seconds. Kills now also add an additional 10% movespeed. Damage resistance now only requires movement.

The general idea of these changes was to engender a play style that involves being constantly mobile, aggressive, and have a more interesting way to increase damage dealt rather than just damage percentage increases. Both kills and shotgun hits give their own buffs to the player. That way, even if you aren't close enough to get the major damage buffs, you still get other bonuses for kills to help you be able to get the major damage buffs.

Hip fire shots were prioritized so as to keep up the speed and close range rather than slow down for ADS. Of course, you can still ADS when you need to, but a shotgun won't be as effective.

Challenges were changed to be more related to "training" for the next rank and its effects. Numbers are kept pretty low compared to base game's requirements. They also even have their own names!

Some technical notes about about the effects gained

• Crit chance bonus is an additional +15% and not a multiplicative one.
• 6m Movement speed buff and kill movement speed buff stack.
• Like other buffs in the game the buff duration(s) will not be refreshed on hit or on kill.
• Damage resistance while sprinting/moving is a general buff to damage resistance and not dependent on damage type.

My general idea is to make each combat perk a bit more like a combat style or requiring skill to obtain certain affects. All the buffs and effects only apply to respective weapon types. Gun Kata wont work with an automatic pistol, shotgun wont work with a pistol shotgun (mod or otherwise).

Pistol Certifcation, now Gun Kata, has more to do with getting up close and personal and utilizing either combat slide or weapon bashing to take out a target. Hitting the legs is a way you can get up close to someone due to the debuffs they give.

Sniper certification is the one i didnt really change, but added on to. It's meant more for utility in regards to debuffing enemies depending on the body part hit. I do want to make it so getting a headshot emits a fear aoe thing so as to make enemies run out of cover or sometsomething. The hardest part about this is considering how to balance it since basically every weapon can have scopes.

Shotgun Certification, now Shotgunner's Momentum, was the first perk I actually started to mess with. Thus it is the most... basic and has little change. I wouldn't consider this done as it really isn't where i want it to be. That is, i want it to be a sort of Hunter-Prey deal and build up, well, Momentum as you kill more targets. I just cant get it to work currently.

Rifle Certification, now Bullet Storm, I actually took some inspiration from Heavy from TF2. Especially the last perk rank. This one is probably the most straight forward.

Marksmanship is the second perk I altered, but had a more accurate idea of what i wanted to change. Instead if just getting flat crit chance, you have to work for it, and that work would be rewarded. The last rank Im not too sure about. The idea was that I wanted the freeze to make it easier to line up another headshot, but it doesnt really fit thematically - it fits mechanically, tho.

Weight Lifting i made changes based on the fact that it is WAY to strong for a reduced carry weight playthrough. This probably wont be relevant on characters without that setting. The last rank I tried to make it so that if you had a heavy weapon, and wanted some extra weight, you could dynamically "increase" your carry capacity by restricting yourself to that heavy weapon. Nothing to deep, but I thought it might be a neat little quirk, I guess.

Geology is just expand on to make the Cutter experience a little better. I originally wanted to increase the mag size as the perk ranks went up, but I couldnt get that to work. At least with just perk stuff. Same thing for increasing the range. Also, the last rank kind of nullfies the use of the Cutter at all since the double drop chance applies to Elemental Pull. This is intended, but... like I said it nullfies the use of the cutter other than having it equipped lol

Each of these perks also have their challenges changed to make it seem like youre "training" yourself for the next rank or make use of the effects you just got rather than just killing things or whatever. Ex: Bullet storm rank 1 has you shoot people 5 times in a row 15 times to unlock rank 2; GunKata rank 2 has you weapon bash people to unlock rank 3; Sniper Certification has you apply the debuffs you just got access to.

A lot of the aforementioned challenges are still a wip since they arent really consistent with each other. In that, they have you either use the stuff you got, or "practice" for stuff in the next rank. I kind of like both methods, but i think that might just cause frustration and annoyance for people.

I have more perk changes i want to do eventually. Particularly to ones i find that are too simple or just "number go up". I also still have to balance some of the ones i have right now (Gun Kata's combat slide doesnt take any oxygen afaik and being able to constantly knock people down at rank 1 is incredibly broken).

This is the first time I've actually tried making mods for a game, so any good feedback, or knowledge, is appreciated.