What's the deal with Vanilla Firearms Expansion?

[ꐟ Nebula ꐟ]

The title, why's Vanilla Firearms Expansion essentially taking the place of Brita's weapon pack? I've noticed it's rise and popularity, just don't get it. Doesn't seem to be any quality difference, just the aesthetic difference so that it fits the vanilla aesthetic. But I'm guessing that's the point?

[ProtecTron]

It's exactly what some people want, I like vanilla, adding a few more guns is desirable, now, adding a whole depot of different yet similar guns and ammo types is not, for some, of course... Get it, let it be, the world is yours to take, let people decide what's best for them..

[VANGUARD]

Another problem is also that Brita's weapons and ammo are way too common even on rare loot settings.
I've never personally installed the mod but read about it in the comments.
At least this is the reason I decided against using it.

[ꐟ Nebula ꐟ]

Originally posted by Sceadugengan:

Another problem is also that Brita's weapons and ammo are way too common even on rare loot settings.
I've never personally installed the mod but read about it in the comments.
At least this is the reason I decided against using it.

Ah, I'm an American so weapons being commonplace is pretty immersive to me personally, that and there's no way people wouldn't be making their ammunition after an apocalypse since it's so darn easy. And- honestly I don't think guns being rare in any apocalypse makes any genuine regardless of the setting, outside of just game balance which is a lazy excuse imo.

[Shift]

I speak for myself, but the reason I don't use Brita is because it add way too much clutter on top of (IMO) unwanted complexity. For some that's exactly what they signed and good for them, for but for me it's just not that fun.

Also the Vanilla aesthetic is what sold me in. No offense to the authors, but I just dislike mods that add so much fine textures details in a way that create an aesthetic dissonance with the rest of the game.

[Quill]

I find Britta to be a bit... insane with the guns

You either have just so much firepower you can take on all of Louisville with a few gun stores or if you try to reduce the amount of firepower that spawns there's so much variety you will never find enough of 1 thing to use any of what you find.

I can see why other firearm mods are starting to become popular

[ꐟ Nebula ꐟ]

Originally posted by Quill:

I find Britta to be a bit... insane with the guns

You either have just so much firepower you can take on all of Louisville with a few gun stores or if you try to reduce the amount of firepower that spawns there's so much variety you will never find enough of 1 thing to use any of what you find.

I can see why other firearm mods are starting to become popular

That I can kinda understand. Though early Apocalypse that still makes sense to me imo. Is there a decent mod that adds in more in depth ammo crafting that might include stuff we'd find irl? You can learn how to make ammo off YouTube lol.

[Doko]

Originally posted by Ghoul:

Originally posted by Sceadugengan:

Another problem is also that Brita's weapons and ammo are way too common even on rare loot settings.
I've never personally installed the mod but read about it in the comments.
At least this is the reason I decided against using it.

Ah, I'm an American so weapons being commonplace is pretty immersive to me personally, that and there's no way people wouldn't be making their ammunition after an apocalypse since it's so darn easy. And- honestly I don't think guns being rare in any apocalypse makes any genuine regardless of the setting, outside of just game balance which is a lazy excuse imo.

I'm not even from the US and I know guns are more commonplace than anywhere else in the world.

Also, I really don't understand folks who want to play a zombie apocalypse game and *not* have guns/ammo in them. it's exactly why I didn't buy into Dying Light 2, because the devs thought they were being smart by removing guns and enforcing melee only weapons.

I can't think of a zombie apocalypse without guns tbh, making a game like that melee only, or pro melee just comes off as repetitive and boring.

[ꐟ Nebula ꐟ]

Originally posted by Doko:

Originally posted by Ghoul:

Ah, I'm an American so weapons being commonplace is pretty immersive to me personally, that and there's no way people wouldn't be making their ammunition after an apocalypse since it's so darn easy. And- honestly I don't think guns being rare in any apocalypse makes any genuine regardless of the setting, outside of just game balance which is a lazy excuse imo.

I'm not even from the US and I know guns are more commonplace than anywhere else in the world.

Also, I really don't understand folks who want to play a zombie apocalypse game and *not* have guns/ammo in them. it's exactly why I didn't buy into Dying Light 2, because the devs thought they were being smart by removing guns and enforcing melee only weapons.

I can't think of a zombie apocalypse without guns tbh, making a game like that melee only, or pro melee just comes off as repetitive and boring.

Yeah that's kinda why I came out asking. I completely agree with you. Guns wouldn't just fade from existence or become rare over time. I figured it was more of an aesthetic difference, I noticed the mod when Firedragon switched our Britas weapon pack for it so I guess I'll use a new mod collection from now on that still uses Britas.

[Doko]

Originally posted by Ghoul:

Originally posted by Doko:

I'm not even from the US and I know guns are more commonplace than anywhere else in the world.

Also, I really don't understand folks who want to play a zombie apocalypse game and *not* have guns/ammo in them. it's exactly why I didn't buy into Dying Light 2, because the devs thought they were being smart by removing guns and enforcing melee only weapons.

I can't think of a zombie apocalypse without guns tbh, making a game like that melee only, or pro melee just comes off as repetitive and boring.

Yeah that's kinda why I came out asking. I completely agree with you. Guns wouldn't just fade from existence or become rare over time. I figured it was more of an aesthetic difference, I noticed the mod when Firedragon switched our Britas weapon pack for it so I guess I'll use a new mod collection from now on that still uses Britas.

There are also enough folks on the planet that know how to create make-shift firearms anyway, let alone know where said firearms are produced, so people can always find a way to create new weapons, we've already seen it done in the vanilla game via makeshift melee weapons, and mods that allow us to create mad max-style scrap weapons.

The only logical moment in time I could see guns fading, is if it were a nuclear apocalypse, but even Bethesda thought that was a stupid idea, because again, a melee only based game in any kind of apocalypsesetting would be boring.

I can't really think of an RPG game that has basically told you to only play with one weapon type, and been insanely successful because of it.

Hope you manage to get that collection you're after. I've had to recently purge mine and adopt a friend's one, because I've played on multiple servers to a point where mods full on clashed.

[Drizzt]

i'm a Firearms B41 fan - for one thing because it was straightforward for me to mod it to allow for variations where i could just have the silencers and everything else vanilla - or use the new models and textures for the weapons, ammo and attachments, but just have the vanilla weapons, or select exactly what new weapons i wanted etc

Brita's is a massive code base that rewrites the entirety of the distribution files for a load of stuff, as well as all sorts of other weapon related mechanics - and has so much interlinked stuff that it is not so simple to mod

that being said - Brita's is an incredible mod that is pretty much a gun nut's wet dream lol :-)

and it is also the only mod that provides true automatic burst fire

i haven't played much with VFE, but again, it is another different flavor of gun mod

that's what's so great about mods and moddable games - we each get to choose from a wide selection of mods to make the perfect game for us - plus we can have different playthroughs with different mod lists

and so i may do a Brita's run and then a Firearms B41 run and then a VFE run

and then a run with just vehicle mods and silencers

and then one with Dynamic Traits, Night Sprinters and Brita's (for the automatic burst fire)

and then maybe one just using mods written by Tchernobill (they made a mod just coz i asked about it - so gotta give em a shout out lol - plus they make some really awesome mods)

but yeah - is really nice that we have 3 distinct flavors of big gun mods to choose from

and that automatic burst fire of Brita's is incredible :-)

also - OP asked about ammo crafting - Hyzo who makes Firearms B41 also has an ammo crafting mod (also i thought Brita's has its own ammo crafting feature included too - but i could be mistaken)

[Greb]

BRITA's pack is too bloated and seems to not come broken down into sub-modlets (or it wasn't when we last used it anyway) to make management easier. The bloat is a bit much on its own anyway but when you consider how there's so many loot items to spawn but only so many loot spots per container, you might end up having to trawl the very earth just to find a magazine for a weapon you want to use. A lot of the weapons are seemingly overpowered as well, realism or not aside, I recall using a semi-automatic shotgun of some kind that obliterated entire groups and my friend had some rifle, possibly a FAL or something, that could one shot zombies from a full zoom out with minimal Aiming skill etc.

Also the many additional ammo types on top of the many different magazines also makes it more annoying and confusing, there's just so much stuff with it that it becomes a chore to manage your firearms and armoury, honestly.

Finally, a fair chunk of it as anachronistic, which we generally dislike too. I think there are mods or patches to fix that though, but not sure really.

I'm not throwing any dirty looks at people who use and enjoy the mod, just giving my reasons for not using it, of course. Some of the stuff in the mod is pretty good, so my group ripped some of the stuff from it to use in a (private) mod of our own. We also use the Firearms B41 mod, which I think is very similar to the Vanilla Weapons Expansion mod, they're just slightly less insane with the amount of stuff added, and fit nicely into the aesthetic without going into "armchair military ARMA II MLG pro" type stuff, lol.

The same applies to his clothing pack mod, really. These massive mods are great, he's definitely shown his work, but there's just too much in them for me and my group to use at this point.

[ꐟ Nebula ꐟ]

Originally posted by Greb:

BRITA's pack is too bloated and seems to not come broken down into sub-modlets (or it wasn't when we last used it anyway) to make management easier. The bloat is a bit much on its own anyway but when you consider how there's so many loot items to spawn but only so many loot spots per container, you might end up having to trawl the very earth just to find a magazine for a weapon you want to use. A lot of the weapons are seemingly overpowered as well, realism or not aside, I recall using a semi-automatic shotgun of some kind that obliterated entire groups and my friend had some rifle, possibly a FAL or something, that could one shot zombies from a full zoom out with minimal Aiming skill etc.

Also the many additional ammo types on top of the many different magazines also makes it more annoying and confusing, there's just so much stuff with it that it becomes a chore to manage your firearms and armoury, honestly.

Finally, a fair chunk of it as anachronistic, which we generally dislike too. I think there are mods or patches to fix that though, but not sure really.

I'm not throwing any dirty looks at people who use and enjoy the mod, just giving my reasons for not using it, of course. Some of the stuff in the mod is pretty good, so my group ripped some of the stuff from it to use in a (private) mod of our own. We also use the Firearms B41 mod, which I think is very similar to the Vanilla Weapons Expansion mod, they're just slightly less insane with the amount of stuff added, and fit nicely into the aesthetic without going into "armchair military ARMA II MLG pro" type stuff, lol.

The same applies to his clothing pack mod, really. These massive mods are great, he's definitely shown his work, but there's just too much in them for me and my group to use at this point.

Arma 2 was badass mate, good ol' days. But otherwise I suppose that makes sense.

[Black Jack]

Don't BRITA's pack add weapons that are post 90s?

[Mushroom Steve]

Brita's guns are too much. They're all "movie" guns. Too tactical, or too expensive, or just plain wrong era.

Back when we had it on the server, it was a massive ordeal to try and config it into our preference. IIRC, it wouldn't keep the host settings which resulted in us needing a prefab for it. So that ruined the vibe halfway through a police station just to find some korean rifle that shouldn't exist.

Then the metric ♥♥♥♥ ton of ammo that also needed to be configured.

So instead of us dealing with a headache and a half before even playing the game, we just decided to pull all of brita's for simplicity.

edit: Also remembered, the grenade launcher and flamethrowers were hella jank. It was a fun time of drawing straws to see who'll test it.

[Death]

Originally posted by Doko:

Originally posted by Ghoul:

Ah, I'm an American so weapons being commonplace is pretty immersive to me personally, that and there's no way people wouldn't be making their ammunition after an apocalypse since it's so darn easy. And- honestly I don't think guns being rare in any apocalypse makes any genuine regardless of the setting, outside of just game balance which is a lazy excuse imo.

I'm not even from the US and I know guns are more commonplace than anywhere else in the world.

Also, I really don't understand folks who want to play a zombie apocalypse game and *not* have guns/ammo in them. it's exactly why I didn't buy into Dying Light 2, because the devs thought they were being smart by removing guns and enforcing melee only weapons.

I can't think of a zombie apocalypse without guns tbh, making a game like that melee only, or pro melee just comes off as repetitive and boring.

I disagree. The fact that Zomboid isn't just another zombie shooting gallery is exactly why I love it. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with liking those games, hell I like some of them too, but I am saying that Zomboid is a nice change of pace from all the other games. If you want a zombie shooting game, then you can play 7 Days to Die or one of the many other games that have you being a Rambo style badass, because that isn't Zomboid.