The Difficulty Mod

The Difficulty Mod — Tier Redesign

Enemies and mutants scale through incoming damage, environmental pressure (radiation, anomalies, weather), and economy friction (repair, upgrade, purchase costs). Health values stay vanilla; challenge shifts to survival decisions, positioning, and resource pacing. Easy is a fair baseline, Medium adds attrition, Hard layers combat plus ability pressure, Master emphasizes lethal exposure and sustained condition drain. Free corpse loot is stripped; upper tiers add negative mechanics and faster mutant/psy activity.

Safe to enable or remove at any time. No new game required.

Customize It Yourself

Want a personal touch? Edit the patch file.

• []Open TheDifficultyMod_DifficultyPrototypes_Patch.cfg (in the .pak or unpacked folder) with a cfg editor.

  []Search a multiplier name (NPC_Weapon_BaseDamage, Radiation_AccumulationSpeed, etc.) and adjust.

  []Save and launch to apply immediately.

  Normalized Baselines (same across all tiers)

  These stay constant to keep scaling focused elsewhere.

  • []Player weapon damage

    []Armor durability

    []Weapon durability and wear damage

    []Main and side mission payouts

    []Buy condition (what traders pay you)

    What Actually Scales

    • []Enemy firearm and mutant impact

      []Radiation, anomaly, storm, emission intensity

      []Satiety drain from Medium upward

      []Bleeding severity and persistence on higher tiers

      []Passive healing reduction only on Hard and Master

      []Economy costs: repair, upgrade, purchase multipliers rise by tier

      []Explosion pressure increases starting at Hard

      []Damage reduction curve tightened for greater burst punishment

      []Accumulated damage counts healed portions from Medium upward

      []Negative mechanics layers (hunger, radiation, sleepiness, regen penalty, master modifier)

      []Headshot bonus and weapon jamming penalties introduced only on upper tiers

      []Faster mutant ability cooldowns and psy spawn pressure on advanced tiers

      Install & Remove

      • []Place TheDifficultyMod.pak in the game mods folder.

        []Select a difficulty in game options.

        []Delete the file to remove; saves remain compatible.

        Technical

        Binary patch overrides entries in DifficultyPrototypes.cfg via TheDifficultyMod_DifficultyPrototypes_Patch.cfg; no scripts added.

        Tips

        []Adjust one multiplier at a time for clear impact.

        [*]Back up a save before changing