Releases: FrontierMods/Loadout
v2.0: total overhaul
This release features a complete overhaul of the mod, streamlining its content to provide a more cohesive experience applicable to both casual players who seek an expanded variety of gunmods and gun nerds who want the most out of the attachments they carry.
Game version: 0.H stable. Make sure to also use the latest version of Core.
Also note that due to the significant restructuring of the mod's contents, as well as the fact that the base game's migration system is limited, this release introduces breaking changes and will not be compatible with saves made while using Loadout v1.0.
Highlights
- Gunmod collection has been optimized. This version does away with gunmods which add only superficial difference in either appearance or performance. Ultimately, it was a decision to balance development effort and playtesting time with a good variety of content that is grounded in reality and provides distinct options for a variety of playstyles. We want to provide an exciting experience with Frontier Mods, and if it means removing a few options to keep the rest of the items meaningful in their differences and what they represent relative to the real world, Don't fret: the items in Loadout are still kickass. Implementing all of the items accurately was a massive undertaking, and we hope you enjoy the results.
- Items have been remodeled with higher resolution. Everything in the mod is as accurate as can be, with weights and dimensions being given another pass to make each gunmod as accurate as possible. This includes attachments, standalone weapon platforms (like the M320 grenade launcher), and support equipment (like slings). The sourcing of the material has also improved, resulting in a more-real collection of items: from popular aftermarket parts to government orders, the makeups of kitted guns now represent what one would look like in a given situation more accurately.
- Military rifles now spawn with appropriate attachments. This comes from both simply providing the existing gunmods to spawns, and introducing new attachments for the specific weapon platforms, referencing official documentation and photographic evidence to provide an accurate list of attachments that were in actual use by the military over the last 30 years or so. This means that many a historical gun nerd would (hopefully) enjoy being able to build a clone-accurate Block I M4 or M110A1. (The vast civilian aftermarket will be given the same love in a future release.)
- CQBR has been fixed. There is a fix for this issue in the upcoming 0.I stable, but in 0.H, the CQBR (a short military rifle) still spawns with two upper receivers. We will revert to the 0.I implementation once the stable version lands, but for now, Loadout stands against breaking reality and in favor of the one-upper-receiver-per-rifle policy.
- Upper receivers for the AR-15 have been overhauled. This includes the common 5.56mm options, such as the M4A1 and the M16A4, as well as all of those rarer options present in the base game, such as the .450 Bushmaster ones. Their remodeling required adjusting their gunmod slots; generally, this means that many of them now require rail mounts to attach rail and underbarrel mods. This is consistent with reality: upper receivers that come with a quad Picatinny rail are rare these days. This also led to the introduction of the M16 carry handle as a detachable, Picatinny-mounted sight... which, in turn, led to the revelation about how to model front and rear iron sights separately without sacrificing fidelity or gameplay.
Going forward, the intent is to expand on these changes and provide an even deeper gun management system (though far from rebuilding a gun from constituent components just yet). This includes accurately modeling all of the gunmods which either don't exist but should (e.g. replaceable iron sights) or which do exist but aren't fleshed out yet (like stocks or bipods).
If you like Loadout and/or any other Frontier mods, you can donate to support their development. You can do so via one of the one-time donation services we use: Ko-Fi or Buy Me a Coffee. The links are all in DONATE.md in the Core repo.
To make it a little more interesting for you and me both, I've introducer the Ladder of Benefits™: a set of donation tiers, where you can add something to any of the mods under the Frontier Mods umbrella if you donate over a certain amount. This, too, is well-described in the donation document.
We hope you enjoy this release of Loadout! Feel free to contact the developers, leave an issue, or post to the release's discussion page if you have bug reports, suggestions, or notes about the contents of v2.0.
v2.0.0-rc.2
This is a pre-release version of Loadout v2.0.
Its purpose is to seek out bugs, errors, unintended behavior, as well as to find ways to improve existing functionality for a full release. Feel free to create a new issue or comment on the release discussion to help with the mod's development.
v2.0.0-rc.1
This is a pre-release version of Loadout v2.0.
Its purpose is to seek out bugs, errors, unintended behavior, as well as to find ways to improve existing functionality for a full release. Feel free to create a new issue or comment on the release discussion to help with the mod's development.
v1.1.0-rc.1
This is a pre-release version of Loadout.
Its purpose is to seek out bugs, errors, unintended behavior, as well as to find ways to improve existing functionality for a full release. Feel free to create a new issue or comment on the release discussion to help with the mod's development.
v1.0.0
Release v1.0.0
The first full release of Loadout features a variety of interesting and diverse gun attachments.
It introduces the following mechanics changes:
Suppressor mounts
Some suppressors now require a separate mount. It may be a muzzle brake, a flash hider, or a muzzle adapter. The mount must be installed onto the gun (often, but not always, providing benefits of its own) prior to the installation of a related suppressor. Both suppressors and relevant muzzle devices hint at which item you may need in their descriptions.
This models the way many suppressors operate in reality.
There is still a variety of suppressors that mount directly onto the muzzle thread (i.e., the muzzle slot), so you won't be left out because of bad spawns.
Sight mounts
Some sights now require a related mount to install. The mount names usually correspond with the name of the sight, so you won't be lost. This mostly concerns compact red dot sights; holographic sights, as well as full-sized red dot sights, usually come with Picatinny rail adapters that allows them to mount directly onto the sights slot.
This is most apparent with scopes: they now require an appropriate ring mount (30 mm, 34 mm, or 1 in., depending on the scope).
ACOG sight and RMR mount
The sight mount overhaul is most-apparent on the ACOG sight. ACOG can now be mounted with a compact red dot RMR sight, through the use of the RM35 mount. This reflects the reality of ACOG's design: its manufacturer, Trijicon, also produces the popular RMR, and being able to use the same platform for aiming at two different distances is a boon in combat.
In the future, mounts for other red dot sights may be introduced.
Muzzle brake effects
Muzzle brakes are extremely-effective at reducing recoil: an average muzzle brake can improve handling by over 50%, with high-performing models reaching over 70% of recoil reduction for their designated calibers.
The downside of that is a significant increase in gunshot volume. In reality, gases redirected by muzzle brakes add around 20 dB to the already-deafening 140 dB for 5.56mm NATO and other rifle calibers. This is reflected in a significant increase in loudness_modifier for all muzzle brakes. Hearing protection is now mandatory when running a muzzle brake.
(Suppressors that mount onto muzzle brakes compensate for volume increase in their values.)
Suppressor covers
A new class of firearm attachments has been introduced: suppressor covers. These are heat-resistant covers that wrap around a suppressor.
In reality, their primary benefit is in allowing the shooter to handle the suppressor after a shooting session without burning their hand. In the mod, the benefits are spread between some amount of dispersion reduction, and noise reduction. Both effects have been reported by shooters in real life, though their intensity was stated to be small to minimal.
Dispersion modifier, in this case, is an abstraction of the fact that suppressor covers also prevents mirage (hot air from the suppressor obscuring shooter's sight picture, or what they see in front of their sights). While, for the sake of balance, this benefit is not significant, several points of reduced dispersion may provide a mid-level marksman with the edge they need when shooting at higher ranges.
(It's worth noting that while in reality suppressor covers may be cut down to a desired length, the game does not allow this level of adjustments, so covers are limited for installation to suppressors 7 inches (≈ 178 mm) and longer.)
Streamlined attachments
Many attachments have been obsoleted or removed from spawn. They were either impossible (underbarrel crossbow), impractical (launcher sights mount), fictional (underbarrel double-barrel shotgun), currently unusable in their desired form (tail hook stock), or obsoleted by new mechanics (scopes requiring ring mounts) and attachments (ACOG sight in respect to its hybrid sibling). (You can find the full list in json/items/gunmods/obsolete.json. The list is affixed with a notes section that describes which items were obsoleted why.)
The remaining attachments have been comprehensively rebalanced, with the balance skewing towards existing values so as to maintain existing gameplay considerations. The ultimate goal is to have either real-life values (as in case of field_of_view for sights) or a reproduceable equation or a system of points for each benefit or negative value.
Accurate dimensions
Every single attachment – including overhauled base-game ones – has been adjusted in volume, weight, and length, with the aim of ultimate accuracy to the real-life model. While volumes may be off by a few percept for each item, they are not placeholder values and are significantly more-accurate than base-game values.
One benefit of it is realism: your gun will weight roughly as much as it would in reality with the same attachments. Another is variety of choice: in some cases, performance must be traded for bulk, while in others, you can benefit from a smaller alternative that produces optimal results.
Feel free to open discussions (for larger-scale conversations that touch upon the whole mod), issues (for bug reports or feature requests), or pull requests (if you want to contribute to the mod).
v1.0.0-rc.1
This is a pre-release version of Loadout.
Its purpose is to seek out bugs, errors, unintended behavior, as well as to find ways to improve existing functionality for a full release. Feel free to create a new issue or comment on the release discussion to help with the mod's development.