Ascension

In Ascension, Starfield's gameplay has been completely revamped, changing many aspects such as weapons, armor, enemy scaling, leveling, and perks. The aim is to create a consistent, challenging, and fair game world. The major change is the removal of all level scaling from the game. Regardless of the player's level, the world remains the same. Weapons deal consistent damage from the start to the end of the game, armor always plays a significant role, and enemies don't become stronger just because the player has leveled up. The player character no longer becomes more powerful as they level up, but instead becomes more skilled. This ensures that combat remains engaging from the beginning to the end of the game, regardless of the length of playtime or the number of new game-plus cycles you go through.

Leveling

In Ascension, the player character no longer becomes stronger with each level, but instead becomes more skilled. Health no longer increases when you level up, and the experience points required to level up are now more consistent.

The player character now doesn't gain health as they level up, they just have their base 100 HP. This makes combat challenging throughout the game, requiring tactics to succeed no matter how long you play.

The exponential leveling curve has been replaced with a linear one. Initially, you will need 500 EXP to level up, and this requirement will increase by 10 for each subsequent level.

Crafting no longer grants experience points, so leveling up can only be achieved through gameplay.

Weapons

The weapons have been rebalanced so that each type of bullet now does more or less the same damage, regardless of when it is fired or from what weapon. This makes the game feel more consistent and prevents the player character from becoming overpowered. 

The quality tiers for weapons have been removed, so a weapon will always do the same damage regardless of when you pick it up, except for any mods you add. 

The fire modes no longer affect the damage a weapon does; automatics are just as powerful as semi-autos. 

Most weapons have been rebalanced to be stronger, and most enemies and the player character will die from a single headshot. 

Weapons now have more sway, making it harder to hit your target. 

Weapon mods now increase the price by a far smaller amount. 

Hollow point rounds have been added, which do 30% more damage but increase enemy armor by 30%. Shotguns are loaded with hollow points by default unless you use slugs. Armor piercing rounds now do the opposite, resulting in 30% less damage but also reducing armor by 30%. At 500 armor, both types of rounds do the same damage. Additionally, wide-beam and tight-beam lasers have been added, along with hollow point and armor-piercing options for lasers.

All weapons now have all ammo types as options (i.e. Explosive, Whitehot) if they didn't before. 

EM weapons have been rebalanced so they are a hard, but viable strategy.

Legendary weapons mods that add ammo types are now guaranteed, not percentage-based i.e. Explosive.

Armor

Armor defense ratings have been significantly increased. High-level enemies now have maximum resistance, so using AP is necessary to effectively combat them. This means that your choice of armor and weapons is always important.

All armor tiers have been eliminated, and now the base stats are always the same. It is much easier to reach the armor cap at any point in the game for both the player character and NPCs. 

Armors are now categorized as Metal, Kevlar, and Fabric. Metal is 50% weak to EM, Kevlar is 50% weak to Energy, and Fabric is 50% weak to Ballistic.

Enemies

All levels of enemies will now spawn at all levels and their stats have been adjusted so that a level 100 enemy is only twice as powerful as a level 1. The difficulty of each enemy depends on their weapons and armor, with level only slightly affecting their health. All humans, including the Starborn, follow the same rules as the player. 

• Spacers and Crimson Fleet are low-level with weak armor and weapons, making them easy foes to fight. 
• Elliptic and Va'ruun are high-level with strong armor and weapons, making them hard opponents. 
• Starborn have inhumanly strong armor, strong human-made weapons, and new abilities, making them hard to beat. 
• Aliens are stronger and larger than humans, posing a challenge to fight. 
• Robots and turrets are heavily armored. 
• Terrormorphs have a huge amount of health and medium armor, making them apex predators. 
  

Perks

The perks have been revamped, with changes made to all damage-increasing perks and perks necessary for all characters, so that the player character has those abilities from the beginning. The goal is to create a situation where players would want to take all the perks, but none are essential.

• Perks that previously increased weapon damage, for both the player character and space combat, now only provide their secondary effects. To compensate for this change, these effects have been doubled. 
• Armor Penetration is now only half as effective, to account for the increased role of armor.
• The Ballistics perk now allows players to modify the fire mode of their weapons without needing resources. Higher ranks of this perk allow players to research different ammo types.
• Players can now use Boost Packs from the start of the game. The first rank of this perk now allows players to modify their Boost Pack's fire rate without needing any resources.
• The combat slide ability is now available for free.
• Ship command abilities are now higher at the start of the game and the corresponding perk is more effective. 
• The Stealth Meter is always available, and pickpocketing is always unlocked. 
• The Wellness perk now only grants 10% extra health.
• Manipulation is no longer in the perk tree.
  

Ships

The types of ships you encounter are now not limited by your level. This means that at the beginning of the game, you may face high-tier ships if you are not careful. As you upgrade your own ship, you will become stronger and better equipped to handle tougher opponents, making combat easier over time.

Spacers have low-level ships, while the Crimson Fleet presents mid-level challenges. The Elliptic, Va'ruun, and Starborn factions are particularly formidable opponents. However, all ship parts can be purchased at any level, provided you have the right perks.

Misc

The below changes have also been made.

• Non-Legendary Enemies no longer drop their suits, as you just shot a hole in them.
• You now need to scan 5 plants/animals to survey a planet.
• Space Adept does a flat 15% damage increase in space.
• Instigating now does a 25% damage increase on the first hit.
• NG+ no longer increases the amount of damage you take or do.
• Contraband is more expensive.
• All resources cost five times as much.
• All Weapon costs are halved.
• Hotel rooms, Houses, and Doctors are more expensive.
• Ship registration now costs 50% of the ship's cost.
• All Suppressors decrease damage by 10%.
• The chance for legendries to spawn is static, at the Very Hard difficulty rate.
• You gain Exp on any kills where you did any damage, not over 50% damage.
• Med Packs heal you much slower than before.
• Vendor credits have been increased.
• Mines explode faster.
• Phase times duration has been halved.
• Vasco now helps out in the Vectera fight.
• The Elliptic Mercenaries in the Old Neighborhood are now all Spacers, as Elliptic Mercenaries are now far too difficult to face that early.
• Limb shots now only do half the damage.
• Sustaince buffs and debuffs are all decreased to 10%.
  

Patches

Patches are provided for the below mods.

• Ships need Gas.
• Random NPC Heights.
• Ship Combat Revised.
  

Instructions

Ascension is designed around normal difficulty, where both the player character and NPCs follow the same rules. Although you can play on a different difficulty, it's recommended to start with normal difficulty. You can enable survival settings as you see fit.

Installing this mod will require starting a new game, as it brings significant changes that could result in balancing issues if you continue from an old save. Starting a new game plus might also be an option.

To install, simply download the mod using Vortex or MO2.

Credits

Ascension draws inspiration from Requiem - The Roleplaying Overhaul for Skyrim. The goal is to replicate the fundamental design principles of a fair, unleveled world while avoiding the issues of gating half of the content behind high-level characters and promoting exploits. The mod's balance should closely resemble that of my Rebirth - Gameplay Overhaul for Tale of Two Wastelands, as it employs many of the same techniques.

Let me know if there are any new features you would like me to add. Once the Creation Kit is released, I will update the mod with some new features I have been planning. There is an article attached to this page with the details.

Thanks to Bethesda for creating an amazing game, and to the XEdit team for providing the tools used to develop the mod.