I was very dissapointed by the damage guns do in this game. It's so bad you're better off using almost anything else than them, there's no reason to use a shotgun over a fireaxe, for example (beyond energy cost), as it takes 2 swings to kill most mutants, and 4+ shots to kill them with a slug...


Thereby this mod. I've boosted the damage multiplier for shotgun\pistol by x2.5, Revolver by x3.5 and rifle by x2 (it didn't need as much of a boost). You can also change these values in the settings if you want.

Shotgun:
Changed the default spread cone angle of the shotgun to 5 (vanilla is 20!) which makes the spread sligthly tigther than in real-life (somewhere between 6-7 is probably closer to reality).

With 5, at about 15 meters you'll (generally) be able to down a deer with a proper aimed shot (assuming it's standing sideways so you got a bigger target, otherwise, it'll take 3-4 shots to down it), at 10 meters it's pretty consistent to take it down (even if it's staring at you).

To compensate for the (massive) increase in accuracy of the buckshot (i.e; much lower spread), the buckshot deals less damage (configurable between 0.01 to 1, where 1 means all 8 pellets will deal the same damage as 1 slug).

Look at the TTK for a detailed breakdown of how easy\hard it is to kill things with buckshot (overall, the point of buckshot becomes more for hunting \ guranteed a few hits in high-stress situation, not as an actual go-to ammo).



How to install:

Drop the mods folder into your game directory where SonsOfTheForest.exe is).


Possible minor issue:
I haven't done testing on it (can't be bothered since I can't fix it anyway), but virginia may, or may not be affected by these values when holding a weapon. For example; if she's holding a shotgun, while your last used weapon was a shotgun with buckshot, her damage will be whatever that value is (default 0.35),  while if she has a (regular) pistol (while your last held item was a solafited pistol), she'd have x3.75 damage.

As stated, I haven't confirmed if this is the case, so this is just theoretical if she uses the weapon damage modifiers herself or not, and I can't fix it (would need to redo how guns function entierly in the game, I have no intentions to do so).


Enemy TTK:
Here's my testing on a few higher-end enemies to give an idea of damage numbers:

--

NOTE: Buckshot has 8 pellets in it.
Note2: all buckshot values assume center-mass., headshot\limbs will decrease\increase these numbers.

--
Buckshot only (anything else will 1-hit K/O on centermass)
Deer: 5 pellets
Moose: 9 pellets (effectively 2 shots minimum to down)
Cannibal: 4 pellets to cripple\down, 7 to kill.

--

big cannibal \ heavy:
Pistol:
Torsor: 3 shots.
Head: 2 shot.
Revolver:
Torsor: 2 shots.
Head: 1 shot.
Shotgun:
Buckshot: 21 pellets / 3 shots
Slug: 1 shot
Rifle:
Torsor: 1 shot
Head: 1 shot
Albino \ puffy:
Pistol:
Torsor: 3 shots.
Head: 1 shot.
Revolver:
Torsor: 2 shots.
Shotgun:
Buckshot: 23 pellets / 3 shots
Slug: 1 shot
Rifle:
Torsor: 1 shot
Head: 1 shot
Spotted Albino \ spotted puffy:
Pistol:
Torsor: 3 shots.
Head: 2-3 shots (rarely they died in 2, so general rule is 3).
Revolver:
Torsor: 2 shots.
Shotgun:
Buckshot: 51 pellets / 7 shots
Slug: 2 shots
Rifle:
Torsor: 2 shot
Head: 1 shot
Albinino boss \ puffy boss:
Pistol: 4 shots (no difference between torsor\head)
Revolver: 3 shots.
Shotgun:
Buckshot:  72 pellets / 9 shots
Slug: 3 shots.
Rifle: 2 shots
Open-mouth-thing \ fingers:
Pistol: 6 shots.
Revolver: 5 shots.
Shotgun:
Buckshot: 59 pellets / 8 shots
Slug: 2 shots.
Rifle: 3 shots.