Ascension - Starfield Gameplay Overhaul

Ascension completely revamps Starfield’s core systems—weapons, armor, enemies, and leveling—to create a consistent, challenging, and fair "unleveled" world. Inspired by Requiem (Skyrim) and Rebirth (Fallout: TTW), this mod removes level scaling so the world remains dangerous and grounded from level 1 to level 100+.

⚖️ Core Philosophy: An Unleveled World

No Level Scaling: The world does not grow stronger with you. Enemies, weapons, and armor have consistent stats regardless of your level.
Skill Over Power: You no longer become a "bullet sponge" as you level. Instead, you become more skilled while combat remains lethal throughout the entire game.
Consistency: Weapons deal predictable damage, armor always matters, and headshots are deadly for both you and your enemies.

📈 Leveling & Progression

Linear Scaling: The exponential leveling curve is gone. You now need 500 XP for your first level-up, increasing by a flat 10 XP per level thereafter.
Health: Health increases much slower upon leveling up.
Gameplay Only: Crafting no longer grants XP. You must play the game (combat, quests, exploration) to level up.

🔫 Weapon Mechanics & Ballistics

Universal Damage: A bullet’s damage is tied to its type, not the level of the gun. Quality tiers (Calibrated, Refined, etc.) have been removed.
Fire Modes: Automatics now deal the same per-shot damage as semi-autos.
Lethality: Most humans (and the player) will die from a single headshot. However, weapons now have increased sway, making those shots harder to land.
Ammo Types: * Hollow Point: +30% Damage / +30% Target Armor. (Standard on shotguns).
- Armor Piercing: -30% Damage / -30% Target Armor.
- Note: These break even at 500 Target Armor.
- Added wide/tight beam lasers and AP/HP options for laser weapons.
- All weapons now have access to all ammo types (Explosive, Whitehot, etc.).
Legendary Effects: "Ammo-type" legendary mods (like Explosive) are now 100% guaranteed per shot rather than percentage-based.
EM Weapons: Rebalanced to be a difficult but viable non-lethal strategy.

🛡️ Armor & Survival

Increased Significance: Armor ratings are significantly higher. AP rounds are mandatory against high-level, heavily armored foes.
Tiers Removed: Base stats for armor are consistent; you can reach the "armor cap" at any point in the game.
Material Weaknesses:
- Metal: 50% weak to EM.
- Kevlar: 50% weak to Energy.
- Fabric: 50% weak to Ballistic.
Unarmored Defense: While unarmored, 50% of shots will miss you. This "dodge" chance decreases as your armor weight increases. (You also dodge 50% of the time in Zero-G).

👾 Faction & Enemy Tiers

Enemies no longer scale to your level. Their difficulty is determined by their gear and faction:

Low Tier: Spacers and Crimson Fleet (Weak armor/weapons).
High Tier: Ecliptic and Va'ruun (Strong armor/weapons).
Boss Tier: Starborn (Inhuman armor, human weapons, new abilities).
Creatures: Robots/Turrets are heavily armored; Aliens are larger/stronger than humans; Terrormorphs are true apex predators with massive health.

✨ Perk Overhaul

Damage-increasing perks now focus on secondary effects (which have been doubled). Essential abilities are unlocked by default:

Free Abilities: Boost Pack use, Combat Slide, Stealth Meter, and Pickpocketing are all unlocked from Level 1.
Ballistics: Now allows fire-mode modification without resources; higher ranks unlock ammo type research.
Boost Packs: Rank 1 allows fire-rate modification without resources.
Wellness: Nerfed to a flat 10% health bonus.
Piloting: Requires triple the kills to level up (gates C-Class ships to late game).
Removed: Manipulation is no longer in the perk tree.

🚀 Space Combat & Ships

Unleveled Encounters: High-tier ships can appear at any time.
Faction Difficulty: Spacers (Low), Crimson Fleet (Mid), Ecliptic/Va'ruun/Starborn (High).
Purchasing: All ship parts are available at any level if you have the required perks.
Space Adept: Flat 15% damage increase in space.
Registration: Now costs 50% of the ship's value.

📦 Miscellaneous Changes

Loot: Non-legendary enemies no longer drop spacesuits (they are "ruined" by combat).
Economy: Resources are 5x more expensive; Houses/Hotels/Doctors cost more; Contraband is more valuable; Weapon buy-prices are halved.
Combat Tweaks: * Headshots = 3x Damage | Limb shots = 0.5x Damage.
- Med Packs heal much slower.
- Suppressors reduce damage by 10%.
- Instigating perk does +25% damage on the first hit.
Exploration: Only 5 scans needed to survey a planet.
Second Chance: Once per location, if you hit 0 HP, you are healed to 10% (can be disabled).
Early Game: Ecliptic Mercs in "The Old Neighborhood" replaced with Spacers for balance.

🛠️ Instructions & Compatibility

Difficulty: Designed for Normal Difficulty. This ensures the player and NPCs follow identical rules.
Requirements: New Game highly recommended. Installing on a mid-playthrough save will cause significant balance issues.
Customization: Use the gameplay menu to adjust XP rates (-100% to +100%) and Health gain on level-up (0–2).