- The biggest change is that ammo now requires some sort of propellant to craft. This is chemfuel for industrial cartridges and FSX for charged cartridges.

- Ammo recipes generally use a wider variety of ingredients for different ammo types.

- Ammo is now crafted in smaller quantities, with the amount of work recipes take adjusted to compensate. It is now possible to craft singular artillery shells and the like.
This also applies to FSX, which can now be synthesized or refined one at a time, instead of having to do batches of 8. There are, of course, bulk x10 recipes for those who want to refine FSX in large quantities.

- Bigger cartridges are generally more expensive. The use of pistols can now be a cost-saving measure as pistol cartridges are far cheaper than full power rifle cartridges. Mortar and artillery shells can be a real drain on resources if not used sparsely.

- Utility cartridges, like firefoams shells and the like, are significantly cheaper and easier to make to encourage their use.

- Advanced ammo types generally cost less components and more advanced metals to encourage their use over industrial weapons in the endgame.

- High end mechanoids cost more to gestate.
The power of heavy and superheavy mechs scales quite sharply in Combat Extended, this change tries to balance that out by making them more expensive.
This change is autopatched with some logic and should be compatible with all mods adding mechanoid gestation recipes.


- Shooting skill matters more.
Pawns with low shooting skills will perform much worse with full size rifles and such.


- Textiles are generally a bit stronger.
Combat Extended, in the name of realism, makes a vast majority of textiles useless. Only a few textiles, like thrumbo fur, provide any protection. This mod attempts to remedy that by rebalancing the leathers of most animals. Pelts of exotic predators are generally stronger than the furs of herbivores.
Patches for the whole Vanilla Expanded series, alongside mods like Alpha Animals, are of course included.

- Laser weapons have been reworked.
Combat Extended kinda half-assed the implementation of laser weapons, power packs are practically bullets as each one correlates to one shot.
Each power pack now provides one full reload. This makes them a lot more convenient logistics wise, as a power pack can slot into any laser weapon - from high-power rifles to low-power defense pistols - and a pawn only needs a few to keep their weapons supplied for a long time.
Magazine sizes of laser weapons have been rebalanced, more powerful weapons will generally chew through power packs quicker. On the other hand, low-power laser pistols will be able to fire slightly over two hundred shots before needing a fresh battery. - There's a lot more small details related to this change that I can't really go over here.
These changes give laser weapons - which are generally outperformed by their charged counterparts - a niche.

- Shield belts now have double the energy capacity.
This change is intended to help melee pawns stay alive for longer. Keep in mind that shield belts block the wearer from firing out of the belt.

- Ballistics shields are slightly better overall, a bit lighter and less bulky when equipped.
This change is meant to help the likes of pistols, SMGs and other one-handed weapons compete with rifles in the mid/endgame. Rifles already have better range, better damage, better armor penetraton, more exotic ammo types, etc etc. and this is a small advantage in the face of many disadvantages.

- Stoneskin gland and toughskin gland implants have been significantly buffed.
Combat Extended, in the name of realism, makes these implants - which I should remind you, costs many advanced components and plasteel - offer so little armor that it does not even make a difference even when facing intermediate pistol rounds or arrows. They now offer decent full-body protection.

- Weapon quality is now much more important.
Weapon quality now plays a bigger role in determining how much damage and armor penetration fired projectiles have. Quality now also has a bigger effect on stats like sights efficiency. High quality weapons will now consistently outperform low quality ones.

- Pistols are much easier to use.
Previously, SMGs outperformed pistols in every field. They had less recoil, less sway and less natural spread, and longer ranges to boot. Combined with my skill changes, this change to pistols makes them viable self-defense weapons for unskilled pawns.

- Warcaskets can now degrade.
For users of Vanilla Factions Expanded - Pirates, warcaskets will now degrade in condition when hit. This degradation means you can finally wear down the armor of a warcasket. Warcaskets don't ever break and this damage can be repaired with an ability at no cost, though doing so takes a small bit of time and slows the warcasket down.

- Makeshift weapons can be made with just steel
Makeshift weapons from VWE - Makeshift, by default, require just components to craft. Components are generally more difficult to obtain than steel, and there are very few situations where you can obtain components but not any proper firearms. There are, however, many situations where you can obtain steel but not a lot of components.
This makes up for their low damage and variable bursts.


- Reworked weapon research tree - Only available with Vanilla Weapons Expanded
This is neither a nerf or a buff, but something in the middle. The split allows you to choose which weapons you get access to first as you progress through the tech tree. You get access to grenades and flamethrowers a bit earlier to encourage their use. Progression is a lot less linear in some ways.


- Individual bleed rates have been reduced somewhat.
Blood loss is still very lethal and even a few bleeding wounds can be enough to down a pawn but 1-2 wounds will no longer require very immediate medical attention.


- Antigrain shells can now be bought from exotic goods traders.
These shells are can technically be obtained as rewards but are far too rare to be reliably found and used. They can now be bought - provided you can afford the hefty silver cost - from exotic traders. They're not guaranteed to stock them and they will only stock a few, but they can stock them nonetheless.

- FSX can be diluted back to chemfuel
This is a lossy process but allows you to recover chemfuel from FSX.

- Firefoam is now a tangible resource
Combat Extended is very inconsistent about what firefoam is, things like firefoam poppers use none at all while firefoam pop packs use expensive firefoam grenades. This mod adds firefoam as a resource and patches all equipment and buildings using firefoam - be it foam turrets or foam pop packs - to use this new resource.


These changes, as you can probably tell, are mostly nerfs to the cost of operating firearms and buffs to melee and light gunner oriented builds.