NEW!! Revolvers Fixed
NEW!! Two Shot Shotgun Fix
NEW!! Energy Weapons Fixed
Modern Night Vision Scopes
Faster Automatic Shotgun
Faster Double Barrel Reload
FO2 LSW Assault Rifle Replacer
Realistic Sprinting
Adrenaline Redone

💬 INTRODUCTION

The Molotov cocktail is a fun weapon in premise, but as you play you start to notice several glaring issues. This mod aims to lower the damage of Molotovs, balance the gameplay, and create realistic crafting recipes with new variants of the Molotov Cocktail.

Shout out to DeathbyPewPew and his mod, Blaze, for his explanation on how the Molotov damage is calculated. It helped me out immensely when working on my damage changes. His mod makes a lot of other great changes that helped me decide what I wanted to do as for mine.


⚙️ THE PREMISE

I just wanted a better Molotov recipe...

This mod actually started out as a simple Molotov crafting recipe replacer, but quickly turned into a complete Molotov overhaul. In FO4 the molotov recipe was unnecessarily vague and generic, and there was only 1 way to craft it. In reality, there's many ways you can make a molotov cocktail; leading to different results. Trust me, I did my research and now I'm on a terrorist watchlist somewhere! 😀

This led me to thinking about different recipes and the different cocktails that would be created from them. Obviously they need different stats, or what's the point? And of course, it's been known since FO4's release that Molotov Cocktails are overpowered as all hell! So I got to work...


⚙️ THE DAMAGE PROBLEM

1) It does 50 instant Explosive damage and 40 fire damage over time, even though Molotovs don't explode... In addition, you can burn twice leading to Molotovs causing up to 130 damage total when a frag grenade deals 150 damage. This is too high, especially when you factor in that you can't avoid a molotov as easily as you can a grenade due to there being no timer on a molotov. Not to mention Survival mode damage, you're talking about instant, unavoidable death. Not fun. Not realistic.

2) Another problem is that the Explosive damage scales with the Demolition Expert perk but the burning damage doesn't. This causes the burning from a Molotov--which is kind of the point--to become irrelevant next to it's severely overpowered explosive damage. This is compounded even further as the fire damage gets negated by damage resistance and energy resistance.

3) It's also possible to burn twice from the Molotov. On the surface, I don't see this as a problem, as it makes sense that the longer you stay in a fire, the more you'll get burned. But the chance to burn twice was too high. The fire hazard from a Molotov, causes 40 damage over 5 seconds, but the hazard lasts for 8 seconds, which means there's 3 whole seconds in which you could burn burn for another 40 damage. Making it more likely than it should be that a Molotov will deal 130 damage instead of 90.

4) NPC's spam more Molotovs than they actually have in their inventory.

5) The radius is way bigger than what's realistic and the lighting effects were over the top too.


⚙️ WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MOLOTOVS

Alcohol & Molotovs Don't Mix...?

Despite conventional wisdom, Molotovs are generally not made out of alcoholnor does alcohol make for a good fuel source. The alcohol Proof system puts alcohol on a scale between "Not flammable" and "Extremely flammable" with 100 Proof being the tipping point for what's flammable and what isn't. Even so, you need at least 170 proof to get a half-way decent flame. And even then, you wouldn't want to use that. It's best to just use 190 Proof or higher to get a respectable flame. (Alcohol only goes up to 192 Proof before being classified as Jet Fuel)



Real Molotov Cocktails

A proper Molotov Cocktail is made up of 4 core components:

• A bottle
• A fuel source
• A thickener
• And a rag
  

The fuel source and thickening agent together are referred to as napalm. Napalm is also what flamethrower fuel is. Knowing this, I split the Molotov Cocktail into 3 variants, each with their own unique recipe, crafting requirements, stats & visual explosions. Don't worry, I balanced the leveled lists so that all 3 Molotovs are contained within a single Molotov typing—they won't be any more common than before and other explosives won't be any less common than before.



⚙️ NEW RECIPES & COCKTAILS

The Petrol Bomb & Fire Bomb are other names that the Molotov Cocktail is known by. Demolition Expert rank 1 is required to craft the Petrol Bomb and rank 2 is required to craft the Fire Bomb for better balancing. The Petrol Bomb can be found and bought after level 5 and the the Fire Bomb can be found and bought after level 15. Though it can be crafted at level 10.

• 190 Proof Alcohol has been added to Leveled Lists and Vendors to improve believability of making an alcohol-based Molotov Cocktail. Since most alcohol is 80 Proof & below, they'll be a little harder to come by. You'll see 2 for every 4 Vodkas and/or Whiskeys. Since those are the only in-game alcohols that go up to 190 Proof in real life.
  

• Oil is the in game substitute for petrol or gasoline. You'll still need some to make a real Molotov Cocktail.
  

• Vodka is used for the Petrol Bomb to help with the mixture. Water could have been used but at the cost of flame intensity.
  

• Turpentine is the in-game version of Motor Oil and is used to thicken up and stickify the Cocktails.
  

• Flammer Fuel is already a napalm mixture. Requiring no oil. However, it's too dangerous to soak the rag in. So a bit of oil is used here as well.
  

• Rubber was added to the Fire Bomb recipe to thicken up and stickify the Flammer Fuel. Rubber only burns at extremely high temperatures. No Problem for Flamer Fuel.
  

• Duct Tape wouldn't be totally necessary for a Molotov Cocktail, but if you're preparing them in advance and walking all over creation, it makes sense to tape the rag in place. Plus it acts as a extra barrier between the flame and the mixture while being thrown.
  

**The new 190 Proof Alcohol has all the same effects as Vodka, plus a temporary -1 to Endurance and 15% Damage resistance, giving you maybe reason to not use it for that Molotov Cocktail.

Explosion Damage

I've seen mods that remove the explosive damage from Molotovs entirely. Which makes sense, but there is some logic in taking extra damage if you get caught in the "blast radius" versus stepping into the fire after. A proper Molotov is a sticky, flammable mixture that spills over a small area. So I took the approach of significantly reducing the explosive to emulate the heat upon combustion and the sticky flaming residue landing on you, while sizing down the radius to realistic levels. Explosion damage for the Molotov, Petrol Bomb and Fire Bombs are 5, 10, and 15 respectively.

Fire Damage

• The Molotov Cocktail fire damage remains 40 over 5 seconds with a reduced chance to burn twice as the fire hazard dissipates at 6 seconds instead of 8.
• The Petrol Bomb burns hotter and faster, dealing 50 fire damage over 4 seconds. With the fire hazard dissipating after 5 seconds.
• And the Fire Bomb has the benefits of burning both hotter and longer, dealing 60 damage over 6 seconds with a higher chance to burn twice than the previous 2 variants thanks to an 8 second fire hazard.
  

The flames will continue to burn visibly for 10 seconds seconds but won't harm you after the hazard timer has ended. In real life, you can safely walk through a Molotov Cocktail after 4-5 seconds, as can be seen in the video below.



Perk Change

The Demolition Expert perk now also affects damage from the Molotov cocktail fire. Making each Cocktail scale better as these now primarily deal damage through fire, as God intended. Explosive damage will still scale but won't have as large of an impact as before due to the greatly reduced explosive damage.

Additional Changes

Energy Resistance has been removed from the fire since all Cocktails deal less overall damage than the vanilla Molotov with it's high explosive damage.

Human NPCs and small creatures will now flee from Molotov fire for 4 seconds, adds a tactical reason to use molotovs no matter your level. NPCs in power armor, unique NPCs, and Legendaries are not affected by this ability.

The over-the-top lighting has been scaled down to match the smaller flames.

NPCs can no longer use more molotovs than they have.


💻 INSTALLATION & COMPATABILITY

Most Explosive mods don't touch molotov files but I did include a patch for Better Explosives Redux, which also comes as an optional file included in Better Locational Damage.

I've also included patches for Valdacil's Item Sorting and VIS-G.

Any mod that edits the Demolition Expert perk would conflict. Load my mod after.


🔮 FUTURE PLANS

I know I forgot to change the value of 190 Proof Alcohol to make it worth something more, but aside from that I'm really looking forward to getting some feedback and implementing new things. I know there's probably more here and would love your input.


Review starts at 9:05



Check out my other mods:

NEW!! Revolvers Fixed - Adds Double-Action, Slip Fire, multiple Caliber Conversions & more!
NEW!! Two Shot Shotgun Fix - Doubles the number of projectiles so shotguns end up with 16 pellets instead of 9.
NEW!! Energy Weapons Fixed - Continuous Beams, Burst Fire, Tri-beam Lasers, reworked ammo consumption, and more!
Modern Night Vision Scopes - No more crappy NV scopes! Better Night Vision effect. With patch for auto off during the daytime.
Faster Automatic Shotgun - Speeds up Automatic Combat Shotguns to shoot like an AA-12.
Faster Double Barrel Reload - Make the Double Barrel Shotgun the high fire rate alternative to the Combat Shotgun it was meant to be.
FO2 LSW Assault Rifle Replacer - replaces God awful Assault Rifle with the classic Light Support Weapon from Fallout 2.
Realistic Sprinting - more than a brisk jog, for more than 10 seconds.
Adrenaline Redone - provides a more immersive and realistic approach to the Adrenaline system in Fallout 4.

>>>>PLEASE ENDORSE IF YOU LIKE THE MOD<<<<