Loot Economy Rework V1.11

I have always wanted Red Dead Redemption 2 to have a slightly tougher economy. My best gaming experiences are the ones where rewards are scarce, making it taste that much sweeter when a reward does come.
This mod aims to do exactly that.

This is for the minimalist players who want a tighter economic crunch with moderately less loot, with slightly more expensive purchases – all while retaining the vanilla experience. It removes the sensation of becoming plentiful and overburdened just from looting enemies, and creates a little more incentive for activities such as hunting, train robberies and collecting herbs. It also contains quality-of-life changes that have always bothered me, like having too much ammunition or excessive stacking of cigarettes and tonics/gums that never get used.

– This mod is STANDALONE, it does not require WhyEm’s or any other Online Content Unlocker, and will sadly conflict with those mods that use the catalog_sp file unless you are willing to merge my code into theirs.

– This Mod may conflict with other mods of the same description, and you can remove individual files of this mod to save it conflicting with others. See the INSTALL.txt file for more information.

LOOT & REWARD CHANGES

—– All money loot has been lowered, poor enemies may only drop 5c to $1.10, and then scales up for richer NPC’s.

—– Larger Rewards such as Money clips, Jewelry Bags and Gold Bars have been lowered reasonably. Gold Bars $500 > $250, Gold Ingots $350 > $175, Large Jewerly Bags $50 > $30, etc.

—– Jewelry prices have only been lowered fractionally , but are much less common.

—– Looted Jewelry now has a drop ratio of 70% Silver, 20% gold, 10% Platinum to reflect the rarity and cost.

—– Various other item drops have been lowered substantially, heightening the sense of appreciation for good drops, and preventing your inventory from filling up with junk items you didnt notice. This includes excessive Gun Oil, Cigarettes, Candy, Alcohol etc.

—– Poor and Moderate quality pelts/carcasses are not vauable to the butcher/trapper, but Perfect quality pelts and Pristine carcasses particularly of Predators and larger impressive game such as Bear, Panther, Bull, Ox and Moose yield a higher reward, making big game pelt hunting a worthwhile way to make some extra cash.

AMMO AND INVENTORY CHANGES

—– Ammo is no longer picked up automatically by walking over bodies, and has to be looted manually. You will find smaller amounts and not every pickup is a garuntee. This means ammo is spent slightly faster than it is accumulated, and a trip back to town will eventually be required in the long-term to top up.

—– Ammo capacity now caps out at 60 for most bullet types, 25 for arrows, 5 for Throwing Knives/Dynamite/Firebottle. This makes alternative ammo types relavant for extra carrying capacity (180 total bullets of Express, High Velocity, Normal combined) putting pressure on the player to use their ammo wisely.

—– Upgraded Bandolier and Belt are now purely aesthetic, and do not increase ammo count.

—– Guns and Ammo are now more expensive to purchase, but only a Single box of 30 or 60 bullets is needed to fill your supply.

—– All 3 Tomohawk types only have 1 slot available each, meaning you have to collect your tomohawk after each throw.

FOOD AND PROVISION CHANGES

—– All Food items, Alcohol and Cooked Meats now have slightly less core recharge – but slightly higher cost. This means the player will be required to eat a bit more to fill their needs. (This is more realistic, and solves a balance problem where only eating enough to fill your cores would leave Arthur underweight.)

—– Alcohol can still be found in the open world and purchased, but enemies will only drop opened alcohol bottles. These opened bottles are even less effective than full bottles, and dont drop very often.

—– Cigarettes and Cigars are less common, more expensive, but are actually useful to the player. Cigarettes are sometimes looted or discovered, but only 1 – 3 at a time, rather than the usual pack of 20+, preventing massive accumulation.

RESTORABLES & CRAFTING CHANGES

—– Gold Tonics, Chewing Gums and Restorables are still found in the open world lying around peoples houses and camp grounds, but are never looted from enemies. Half-used Restorables can still be looted from enemies but are also very uncommon.

—– Gold Tonics and Restorables are now a little harder to craft, and more expensive to purchase. eg. Vanilla Snake Oil required 1 Indian Tobacco to craft, it now requires 3 Indian Tobacco. Tier 2 Snake Oil = 6 x Indian Tobacco, Tier 3 Snake Oil = 9 x Tobacco. And so on.

—– Cocaine Gum and Chewing Tobacco are now rare. They also no longer come in packs of 4, and are instead a single item, preventing mass accumulation.

—– With these changes, looting camp sites and stopping to collect herbs is a more worthwhile task, as Gold Tonics and Restorables are generally harder to come by, but can sell for a nice price to the Doctor.

HUNTING CHANGES + OPTIONAL
(To remove this feature, simpy delete the loot_matrix_items.meta file)

—– Small and medium game now drop 1 – 2 meat depending on kill quality.

—– Large game now drop 1 – 4 meat depending on kill quality.

—– Feathers and Animal Fat now drop 1 – 3 depending on kill quality.

—– Animal Fat now drops from Bears and Boar, so Ducks are no longer the only source to create explosive ammo.

>>>TO INSTALL, COPY AND PASTE INTO THE ‘LML‘ FOLDER IN YOUR RDR2 DIRECTORY

Credits:

KiddoBeta