3 items
About this mod
Makes non-ship laser weapons actually shoot continuous beams, not some slow energy projectiles, and removes the recoil (inspired by Mechwarrior).
- Permissions and credits
It bothered me that the laser weapons in Starfield are shooting relatively slow moving energy projectiles, instead of the real beams.
Also, lasers should not have recoil.
In the vanilla, the lasers don't feel any different from other weapon types. They are just guns with energy flavour.
Making lasers shoot continuous beams and tweaking the balance around that allows for the lasers to feel more unique.
(Inspired by how lasers behave in Mechwarrior Online / Mechwarrior 5)
So, as soon as the Creation Kit was released, I created a simple mod for myself that addresses this issue.
Fair warning: It is a relatively low effort mod that does not change character animations and sounds, so they end up a litte janky due to fire rate being vastly increased to emulate continuous beams.
What does this mod change:
All vanilla laser veapons now shoot a beam (like the Cutter) instead of a projectile.
Also, lasers now have no recoil (there is still some screen and weapon shake, but it is just visual and does not affect accuracy).
To compensate for lack of recoil, the shot now has a duration. For full damage, you need to keep the beam on the target.
Solstice - small laser (red beam) - lower beam duration and lower delays between shots
Equinox - medium laser (green beam) - medium beam duration and medium delays between shots
Orion - large laser (blue beam) - longer beam duration and longer delays between shots
All laser weapons have 4 types of receivers:
Short Pulse - Very short duration at the cost of very long delay. Overall, slightly lower DPS compared to Standard Duration (-5%). Consider it a "sniper" version, not intended for close quarters.
Standard Duration - Medium duration with medium delay. The default receiver. Replaces the Semi-Auto receivers.
Long Duration - Longer duration and longer delay (but not as long as Short Pulse). Spend more ammo per beam (because it is longer, duh). Overall, slightly higher DPS compared to Standard Duration (+5%)
Continous Beam - Do not have beam duration limit - they shoot until the trigger is pulled and can start/stop shooting immediately. But this flexibility comes at a cost. They have worst DPS (-10% from Standard Duration) and are less ammo-efficient (deal twice less damage per unit of ammo). Replaces the Full-Auto receivers (except for Orion, that did not have Full-Auto in vanilla).
The exact duration numbers are shown on the mod descriptions in the workbench.
All laser receivers are unlocked by the first level of the "Receivers" recearch
Internally, the beam duration is acheived by shooting a in a burst (~20 shots per second, to provide illusion of a continous beam).
So, all clip sizes, ammo levelled lists, ammo costs, ammo crafting recipes and ammo mass were adjusted accordingly.
Also, the on-weapon ammo counters now show the number of remaining 10-round bursts.
The damage values were adjusted.
All lasers are balanced around the Orion. At the highest tier, all lasers reach similar DPS levels (but still, Solstice < Equinox < Orion)
(That means that the Solstice is buffed by 50-60% and Exuinox is by about 20%)
(I am still int the process of tweaking the exact numbers - let me know if there are any discrepancies)
Note that due to vastly higher fire rate, all effects procked on-hit are much more powerful (e.g. setting enemies on fire from the top laser perk)
Installation:
Use the mod manager.
manual installation:
Unpack the files from the .zip to the .../Starfield/Data folder.
Then, enable the mod via the Creation Club load order menu.
Uninstalling:
The mod introduces new receivers - Short Pulse and Long Duration, plus Continuous beam for Orion.
Before uninstalling the mod, you better remove these mods from your weapons.
Standard Duration and Continous Beam receivers use the vanilla forms (except for Continous Beam for Orion), so they will just reset to vanilla after uninstalling RealLaserBeams.
Also, lasers should not have recoil.
In the vanilla, the lasers don't feel any different from other weapon types. They are just guns with energy flavour.
Making lasers shoot continuous beams and tweaking the balance around that allows for the lasers to feel more unique.
(Inspired by how lasers behave in Mechwarrior Online / Mechwarrior 5)
So, as soon as the Creation Kit was released, I created a simple mod for myself that addresses this issue.
Fair warning: It is a relatively low effort mod that does not change character animations and sounds, so they end up a litte janky due to fire rate being vastly increased to emulate continuous beams.
What does this mod change:
All vanilla laser veapons now shoot a beam (like the Cutter) instead of a projectile.
Also, lasers now have no recoil (there is still some screen and weapon shake, but it is just visual and does not affect accuracy).
To compensate for lack of recoil, the shot now has a duration. For full damage, you need to keep the beam on the target.
Solstice - small laser (red beam) - lower beam duration and lower delays between shots
Equinox - medium laser (green beam) - medium beam duration and medium delays between shots
Orion - large laser (blue beam) - longer beam duration and longer delays between shots
All laser weapons have 4 types of receivers:
Short Pulse - Very short duration at the cost of very long delay. Overall, slightly lower DPS compared to Standard Duration (-5%). Consider it a "sniper" version, not intended for close quarters.
Standard Duration - Medium duration with medium delay. The default receiver. Replaces the Semi-Auto receivers.
Long Duration - Longer duration and longer delay (but not as long as Short Pulse). Spend more ammo per beam (because it is longer, duh). Overall, slightly higher DPS compared to Standard Duration (+5%)
Continous Beam - Do not have beam duration limit - they shoot until the trigger is pulled and can start/stop shooting immediately. But this flexibility comes at a cost. They have worst DPS (-10% from Standard Duration) and are less ammo-efficient (deal twice less damage per unit of ammo). Replaces the Full-Auto receivers (except for Orion, that did not have Full-Auto in vanilla).
The exact duration numbers are shown on the mod descriptions in the workbench.
All laser receivers are unlocked by the first level of the "Receivers" recearch
Internally, the beam duration is acheived by shooting a in a burst (~20 shots per second, to provide illusion of a continous beam).
So, all clip sizes, ammo levelled lists, ammo costs, ammo crafting recipes and ammo mass were adjusted accordingly.
Also, the on-weapon ammo counters now show the number of remaining 10-round bursts.
The damage values were adjusted.
All lasers are balanced around the Orion. At the highest tier, all lasers reach similar DPS levels (but still, Solstice < Equinox < Orion)
(That means that the Solstice is buffed by 50-60% and Exuinox is by about 20%)
(I am still int the process of tweaking the exact numbers - let me know if there are any discrepancies)
Note that due to vastly higher fire rate, all effects procked on-hit are much more powerful (e.g. setting enemies on fire from the top laser perk)
Installation:
Use the mod manager.
manual installation:
Unpack the files from the .zip to the .../Starfield/Data folder.
Then, enable the mod via the Creation Club load order menu.
Uninstalling:
The mod introduces new receivers - Short Pulse and Long Duration, plus Continuous beam for Orion.
Before uninstalling the mod, you better remove these mods from your weapons.
Standard Duration and Continous Beam receivers use the vanilla forms (except for Continous Beam for Orion), so they will just reset to vanilla after uninstalling RealLaserBeams.