I am playing around with the numbers and trying to create an alternate scale for Difficulty+ (which I will likely release as an addon rather than an update).

First, I would like to mention that the cultists in that mission have a ridiculously low base health of just 15, and even though the mission is a level 6 mission they would only have 24 health after the multiplier is applied. For comparison, Bulpops (those bouncy leeks) have a base health of 35 and NPC villagers have a base health of 50.

One of my problems when figuring out what the curves should be was that I decided that the NPCs should follow the same rules as the player. It dosn't quite work out well because NPCs don't have the same base health as the player (some have 50, some 75, some 100, and of course those cultist archers only having 15). I still want to keep that concept, I just need to do some more experimenting and I will probably apply a multiplier to the values already present. I won't go and change the base health of every NPC because that is outside the scope of Difficulty+.

When you say "get up to speed", what exactly do you mean? Difficulty+, in a way, has its own definition of what "up to speed" is: you have a weapon and a full set of armor (Tier 6 armor has some special rules because of its individual bonuses) at the same tier as the planet you are on. Everything on that planet (including the player) would take and deal proportionaly the same damage as they would on any other tier. Your Asuterosaberu DX, for example, is a tier 6 sword that would deal a base 163 damage (including the armor mutliplier at Tier 6, using that special rule I will explain later). If you were to encounter a bulpop on that planet, and hit it, it would lose 89% (about 10% less than what it would be in vanilla) of its health. Now, if your Asuterosaberu DX was actually tier 1, and you had tier 1 armor on, then hit that bulpop that is using a tier 1 health multiplier (as it would on the starter world) then you would still take away 89% of its health (also about 10% less than what it would be in vanilla) by dealing 31 damage. That 163 damage is enough to one shot any bulpops Tier 5 and below. I didn't assume that you are using the Increased Damage addon. NPC and Monster damage works the same way. Finally, it also does not assume the use of augments or the use of other mods that can change the stats of a weapon, monster, or NPC.

Now then, for that special rule: the leveling curves for Tier 5 and Tier 6 don't assume any of the three kinds of armor you can make at those tiers, but instead assume a continuation from the previous tiers (basically, the lowest values from tier 5 and tier 6 rather than the highest). Instead, those highest values are placed as tier 10. I did this to prevent NPCs from effectively wearing the best part of every one of those armos simultainiously. Because NPCs can spawn at a higher tier than the planet they are on (these are defined by the NPC files, not Difficulty+), their stats will tend to drift to those values.

To summerize what the addon, if I release one, will do:
I will probably decrease my "base damage" value, used in the formulas that I made to calculate these curves, from 3 to 2 (this defines just about everything else). NPC health will increase (maybe by 1.5x or 2x), a change that might make it to Difficulty+ and Nightmare Edition.

thanks for the explanation. They don't seem to be quite that low though, since the armored melee cultists can take what seems like 100 damage, while archers were like 60-80 as far as damage pop-ups were concerned...

that's also basically what I meant about being up to speed. having the right level armor and weaponry for the right planet level. Also, some of my stuff doesn't quite follow a trend or has stronger/OP tendancies cause it's like an overwatch weapon from a mod or my armor mod or some beefed up magnorbs.

I could probably get behind the change you sumarized, and no, I'm not using increased damage, only the armor scaling change so I don't become invulnerable. I can still get totally smoked if I mess up, just not easily, it's usually cause I keep getting DoT applied to me cause my shields can't regenerate, if the entire sky is filled with those cute glowy ghost ball guys that spit projectiles at you or if I get slapped across the arena by one of the ruin's tentacles into a swarm of his bugs which each apply a hit of damage and air juggle me... This is from around close to 300 health, doubled cause of tier 3 shield augment mod having 100% of your health as shield at that level and after like 120 armor using armor scaling change.

You could also give the Nightmare Edition of Difficulty+ a try, but it is character binding since it removes those invulnerability periods you get after being hit (and it won't do this to an old character either, they have to be made while Nightmare Edition is active).

It might fix some of your issues as it narrows the gaps inbetween tiers, so that each tier isn't significantly more powerful than the previous one. It also removes health provided by armor (assunming that your armor is properly using the leveling system like it should). There are still some ways to get more health through armor, such as augments and those set bonuses added in by FU, as it dosn't touch those. This means that if your shields are based on a percentage of your health, they won't be so powerful.

It will, however, amplify the thing you don't want and that is everything's damage is even further increased (proportionally to the tier, the multiplier is actually smaller at higher tiers because if the narrowed gaps).

I just released an update for Difficulty+ that mostly changes NPC stats (most of them are minor changes, such as their damage multiplier at a certain tier). The big difference is that they now have 1.5x times more health than before.

Alright then, I'll give it a try.

On your previous post, I'd probably not do nightmare cause I don't quite want to be infinite combo'd with no flash flinching and no health improvements and be forced to cowardly shoot from afar all the time since if theres melee, I like to be able to use it somewhat effectively... :<