What is Rainstorm Refinery

Rainstorm Refinery is my attempt to create my '''ideal''' Risk of Rain 2 experience for myself and my friends. It is a fairly large balance mod primarily focused on refining and expanding various playstyles for a "vanilla +" feel. While I would ideally like to utilize more buffs and reworks then nerfs, there is a lot of content (especially newer stuff) that needs to toned down in order to maintain the difficulty that I and many other people expect from a Risk of Rain game.

Known Issues

• TheTimesweeper's Red Alert mod - There's a particular compatibility issue that I haven't been able to find a clean solution to, so my global changes to execute thresholds are disabled when used alongside it.
• Other large balance mods - Not tested, but it should be pretty obvious that multiple mods with similar goals would lead to conflicts. Please only use one large balance mod at a time, for the sake of all of our sanities.

What does this mod contain?

All Changes

Survivor Balance

As of right now, this mod makes changes to all survivors except the new Alloyed Collective survivors. These changes frequently come in the form of simple number changes, but there are several cases of more significant additions in order to make certain skills feel more unique. Overall, bad default/alternate skills have been tuned up, minor changes have been made to make a lot of skills feel more fluid to use, and a lot of the more recent survivors have been heavily nerfed (and even still they remain incredibly powerful, SOTS 2.0 part 3 really did break survivor balance in half).

I would love to go over everything in detail, but I'll stick to just showing off some of the notable non-numerical changes. There's so much more than this, but you can see all the details and exact numbers changed in the Wiki.

Survivor	Skill	Description
	Magnetic Grenade	Throw a grenade that attaches to enemies and explodes for 700% damage. Can hold up to 2.
	Strafe	Agile. Quickly fire a seeking arrow for 150% damage. Critical strikes reduce all skill cooldowns by 1s.
	Serrated Dagger	Agile. Lunge and slash for 360% damage. Critical strikes cause hemorrhaging and lacerate enemies. (Lacerate increases damage taken from skills by 25%, nonstacking.)
	Serrated Shiv	Agile. Throw hidden blades for 2x160% damage. Critical strikes cause hemorrhaging and wound enemies. (Wound reduces enemy speed by 40%, nonstacking.)
	Bubble Shield	Place an impenetrable shield that blocks incoming damage and grants up to 25% bonus shields to allies inside.
	Snapfreeze	Freezing. Create a barrier that blocks attacks and hurts enemies for 100% damage.
	Ion Surge	Stunning. Burst into the sky, dealing 600% damage. Only recharges while grounded. (...but it's now a utility skill, and the cooldown is only 1.5 seconds.)
	DIRECTIVE: Harvest	Fire a bolt that does 400% damage and injects an enemy. Targets can be executed and drop multiple healing fruits on death that heal for 25% HP.
	Spiked Fist	Stunning. Fire your gauntlet forward, rapidly pulling you to your target. Light targets are pulled to YOU instead. (For context, the alt grapple physics are now completely different.)
	Thunderslam	Stunning. Slam your fists down, dealing 1200% damage on impact. Barrier is granted for each target hit.
	Neurotoxin	Poisonous. Agile. Spit toxic bile for 320% damage. Always lands a Critical Strike on a poisoned target.
	Ravenous Bite	Poisonous. Slayer. Regenerative. Bite an enemy for 400% damage. Kills triple your Regenerative duration.
	Frenzied Leap	Stunning. Leap into the air, dealing 700% damage. Reduce the cooldown of all skills by 1s for every enemy hit.
	Vulcan Shotgun	Fire a blast of pellets that deal 8x100% damage. Charging the attack narrows the spread and removes damage falloff.
	Beacon: Resupply	(No description change, but now regains charges over time.)
	Void Corruption	Gain Corruption over time, the rate of which is increased by held void items. Once transformed, rapidly lose corruption. (No longer imapcted by damage, healing, or crits.)
	Inner Strength	When you take fatal damage, Saving Grace is consumed to endure the hit and grant 100% of your health as barrier. When you would gain Tranquility while under the effects of Saving Grace, you may consume your Saving Grace to revive a fallen Survivor.
	Boosted Roll	Stunning. Speed forward at full charge, dealing 600% damage and leaving a trail of oil behind you.

Item Balance

Significant changes to many Items and Equipment have been made. In terms of item balance, here are my goals:

• Make sure all items serve some kind of purpose on their own.
• Make sure that the scenarios in which a given item is strong are not too rare (basically, no item should be auto-scrapped).
• Ensure that powerful item synergies remain in order to keep runs unique, but are not too powerful as to be an automatic win.
• In the case of void items, there needs to be an actual choice between them and their uncorrupted counterparts.
• Equipments are generally a bit stronger, with slight changes made to hopefully open up additional synergies.

Some bigger changes that I'm particularly fond of (again, for full details check the Wiki):

Icon	Name	Description
	Fireworks	Activating an intractable launches 6 (+4 per stack) fireworks that deal 300% base damage and ignite enemies for 50% TOTAL damage.
	Roll of Pennies	Gain up to 5 (+5 per stack) gold on taking damage from an enemy, scaling with damage taken. Gain 1 armor for every 2 gold gained within the past 4 (+1 per stack) seconds. Scales over time.
	Warbanner	Prepare a banner after leaving combat for 10 seconds. Place the banner upon entering combat, strengthening all allies within 12m (+6m per stack). Raises attack and movement speed by 30%. Has a 30 second cooldown.
	Bandolier	15% (+8% per stack) chance on kill to drop an ammo pack that resets all skill cooldowns. Can overstock skills by 1 charge. (Overstock allows skills to have more charges than their maximum until the stock is consumed.)
	Death Mark	Increase damage done to enemies by 7% (+7% per stack) per debuff they are afflicted with. Enemies with 4 or more debuffs are marked for death, increasing damage taken by 35% from all sources for 7 (+3s per stack) seconds.
	Hunter's Harpoon	Killing an enemy increases movement speed by 100% for 1.5 (+0.75 per stack) seconds. Consecutive kills increase duration for up to 25 seconds.
	Infusion	Killing an enemy increases your health permanently by 1, up to a maximum of 100 health. Reaching the maximum consumes this item to additionally increase base health regeneration by +1.5 hp/s.
	Old War Stealthkit	When taking damage, chance to turn invisible and gain 40% movement speed for 4s (+2s per stack). Chance starts at 5% and scales with damage taken.
	Ben's Raincoat	Prevents up to 3 (+1 per stack) debuffs and instead grants a temporary barrier equal to 15% (+5% per stack) of maximum health. All charges refresh over 30 seconds.
	Dio's Best Friend	Upon death, this item will be consumed and you will return to life with 3 seconds of invulnerability. Drops 3 common items upon consumption.
	Laser Scope	Gain 10% (+5% per stack) critical chance. Critical strikes from your skills strike again for 70% TOTAL damage 1 (+1 per stack) times.
	Soulbound Catalyst	Kills generate soul charges. Upon activating your Equipment, consume all soul charges to fire a number of homing wisps for 320% (+320% per stack) base damage equal to 2 + the number of soul charges consumed.
	Happiest Mask	Killing enemies has a 25% chance to spawn a ghost of the killed enemy with 500% (+500% per stack) damage. Lasts 20 seconds.
	Queen's Gland	Every 30 (-10% per stack) seconds, summon a Beetle Guard with 200% (+100% per stack) damage, 100% (+50% per stack) health, and bonus 30% attack speed. Can have up to 2 Guards at a time.
	Lost Seer's Lenses	Your attacks have a 1% (+1% per stack) chance to create a void pulse, dealing 1000% TOTAL damage and instantly killing non-boss enemies below 50% health. Reduced effectiveness on large enemies.
	Ocular HUD	Gain +100% Critical Strike Chance for 8 seconds. While active, excess Critical Strike Chance is turned into Critical Strike Damage.

Overall Difficulty

This mod also adjusts certain elements pertaining to difficulty. To start with, it uncaps monster levels so that enemies keep scaling well into the late game (this won't really have too much impact unless you were only barely getting by). The other change is a significant modification to the gold formula, as gold drops from enemies are now increased slightly in the early game, but have reduced scaling with the difficulty coefficient. This makes it such that as enemies become more plentiful, each individual enemy drops less money. This is both an indirect buff to items that grant money as well as a way to force players to continue engaging with the central game mechanics in longer runs.

There exists a config for this mod, but the options within it are reserved for the changes that I see as possibly controversial. If there are certain config options that you want me to add, let me know, but I will NOT be adding config options to adjust every single value (for the sake of my own sanity).

Contact

• Sorry, the github repository isn't public because there are a lot of in-development branches for future changes that I don't want to make accessible at the current time. If you have questions, comments, or bug reports about the mod you can contact me through discord. My username is OblivionAXiS, and I am on both the official RoR2 discord server and the RoR2 modding server (I don't really send any messages in either, but feel free to reach out).

Credits

• Risky_Lives (RiskyMod, RiskyTweaks): thank you for publicly available code on GitHub, which I pretty much used as my RoR2 modding tutorial. RiskyFixes is also included as a dependency as a collection of vanilla bug fixes/extremely minor balance tweaks that I want in my mod but would rather not implement myself.
• Many other balancing mods served as inspiration for what I did (or in some cases, what I didn't) want to do in my mod. It's hard to remember all the mods that have had an influence on this one, but here are some that I know have directly inspired one or more of my changes:
  • Groove_Salad's Groove Salad vs the Game
  • kking117's FlatItemBuff
  • TheBestAssociatedLargelyLudicrousSillyheadGroup's Well-Rounded Balance

1.2.5

• Adjusted balancing:
  • Damage of Laser Scope's multihits toned down slightly (75%->70%)
  • Happiest Mask damage on subsequent stacks slightly increased (400%->500%)
• Fixes:
  • 🌧 Fixed Plasma Shrimp doing like a billion damage
• Overhauled visual appearance of changelog and readme page

1.2.4

• Fix for Alloyed Collective patch
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Engi Bubble Shield rework applied to Drifter's random Bubble Shield projectile
  • Numerous minor adjustments to Warped Echo
  • Pocket I.C.B.M rework applied to Missile Drones and Operator's Missile Drone command activation
  • Adjusted Pocket I.C.B.M + War Bonds interactions
  • Decided to allow Spare Drone Parts and Box of Dynamite to work with Empathy Cores and Orphaned Core (might reconsider or nerf SDP even further in the future)
    • Still don't apply to Engi Turrets or other generic mechanical allies
• Fixes:
  • Fixed Pocket I.C.B.M not properly calculating the number of Plasma Shrimp missiles to fire

1.2.3

• Added balancing to the following: Items: Molten Perforator (had previously been implemented erronously, plus this time there are more significant changes made)
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Seeker primary nerfs toned back, plus added a velocity increase
  • All playable drones as well as Lemurians and Elder Lemurians (for Artifact of Devotion) now have skill damage flags associated with their attacks, allowing them to make use of Breaching Fin and the reworked Laser Scope
• Fixes:
  • Fixed certain Warped Echo interactions with WolfoTweaks (no longer applies armor twice or puts the player into danger - a vanilla bug that I have chosen to adopt as a feature)
  • Fixed mod conflict with Red Alert (just a stopgap for now by disabling global execute tweaks when used together, I still have no idea what the root cause is)
  • Made the mod work even when loaded without certain dependencies (particularly NetworkedPrayerBeads because people see a deprecated mod and think that they need to turn it off)

1.2.2

• Added balancing to the following:
  • Items: Eclipse Lite (was previously implemented but not enabled).
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Allowed boosted CHEF skills to be used if boosted Oil Spill was interrupted by using Yes CHEF again
  • CHEF roll no longer counts as a combat skill
  • Several additional gold pickups now can only be picked up by players: Cleanup Drone's drops, Gilded elite gold drops, and gold drops created by one of Drifter's cleanup projectiles
  • Added the following items to the temporary item blacklist: Rusted/Encrusted Keys, Decryption Key, Dio's/Pluripotent Larva, Infusion, Shipping Request Form, Benthic Bloom, and Functional Coupler
• Visual changes:
  • CHEF secondaries now include the Agile keyword
• Fixes:
  • Fixed CHEF skills becoming unusable if boosted Roll was interrupted by using Yes CHEF again
  • Fixed Executive Card not working as a multiplayer client
  • 🌧 Fixed Executive Card cooldown not being properly set when Wolfo's WolfFixes mod is used, again
  • Attempt to fix possible AssetBundle loading conflicts

1.2.1

• Added balancing to the following:
  • Brand new rework for Laser Scope
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Commando Phase Round damage increase per pierce reduced to compensate for base damage buff (200%->100%)
  • Bungus base heal radius increased (3m->6m)
• Visual changes:
  • Improved visuals and sound of Lost Seer's Lenses void crit effect to make it more obvious when it triggers
• Fixes:
  • Fixed a couple other stat adjustments being accidentally disabled (specifically void items)
  • Spare Drone Parts/Box of Dynamite can once again apply to Gunner Turrets
  • Massively improved consistency of several IL hooks for mod compatibility; notably now works alongside Starstorm 2
• R2API_ProcType was added as a dependency in order to facilitate the Laser Scope rework

1.2.0 - Items Galore

• Added balancing to the following:
  • Boss Items: Charged Perforator, Defense Nucleus, Genesis Loop, Little Disciple, Molten Perforator, Queen's Gland, Shatterspleen, and Titanic Knurl (Planula will receive changes later on but said changes are currently dependent on WIP teleporter boss changes)
  • New Alloyed Collective Items: Eclipse Lite, Box of Dynamite, Faraday Spur, Kinetic Dampener, and Networked Suffering
  • Functional Coupler doesn't drop equipment on the ground when items are temporarily disabled
  • Eclipse 1 has a reworked difficulty modifier that actually increases difficulty rather than just nerfing allies
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Acrid Blight dps per stack increased from 60% to 90% (compensation for base damage nerf, as blight was still underperforming compared to poison)
  • Self-damage skills (REX, Void Fiend) no longer put the user into danger (good for Oddly-Shaped Opal/Cautious Slug), but they do still disable shield regeneration
  • Seeker's Saving Grace barrier now scales with shields
  • Adjusted some item tags to standardize barrier items as purely Healing, and shield items as Healing/Utility
  • Warped echo no longer enters danger (vanilla behavior), now simply disables shield regeneration for 2.5 seconds on activation
  • Warped echo now takes the user's armor stat into account when triggering
• Visual changes:
  • Collective Elites now display their buff icon
• Fixes:
  • Fixed a bunch of this mod's stat adjustments being accidentally disabled
  • Fixed Topaz Brooch breaking on-kill effects
  • 🌧 Fixed teleporter items dropping as temporary items

1.1.4

• Fixed for Alloyed Collective
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Sojourn no longer reduces max health in Eclipse 8
  • Loader's utility skills are once again combat skills due to encouraging boring gameplay when used with Red Whip.
  • Aegis armor per stack increased from 10 to 15
  • Harvester's Scythe healing now ignores proc coefficient (as long as proc coefficient is > 0)
  • Topaz Brooch percentage barrier now scales with shields
  • Warped Echo now properly enters danger (notably disabling shield regeneration) of the initial damage tick
  • Warped Echo now has a form of pseudo one-shot protection, preventing cheap kills from full health
  • Head Stompers proc coefficient re-added
• Enemy damage source mod temporarily removed as a dependency while it updates to Alloyed Collective

1.1.3

• Belatedly remembered to add Soulbound Catalyst to AIBlacklist because homing projectiles on Scavengers is not good

1.1.2

• Added balancing to the following:
  • Brand new rework for Soulbound Catalyst, turning it into a damage item while maintaining its existing synergies
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Lost Seer's Lenses proc damage nerfed (1500%->1000%)
  • Replaced REX default utility buff (extra stock) with a different buff (increased weaken duration) as it didn't really have much impact when playing
  • Removed REX utility cooldown adjustments
  • Allies can no longer pick up Ghor's Tome and Bandolier drops
• Fixes:
  • Fixed REX primary weaken duration being nearly doubled from vanilla (it's not a buff that it needs and it infringes on the Directive: Disperse's role)
  • 🌧 Fixed certain tooltips not displaying properly
  • 🌧 Fixed Executive Card cooldown not being properly set when Wolfo's WolfFixes mod is used

1.1.1

• Added balancing to the following:
  • Items: Wax Quail, Strides of Heresy (Shadowfade)
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Captain's Shock Beacon has 50% increased radius (10m->15m)
  • Seeker's Reprieve skill has slightly less initial velocity
  • False Son's default special properly scales with attack speed
  • Roll of Pennies % health for maximum money increased from 15% back to 25% (this is a nerf)
  • Executive Card cooldown increased from 30s to 45s
  • Milky Chrysalis airdash speed reduced, but now increases air control while active
• Many small adjustments for SOTS Interactables:
  • Halcyonite Shrines have fewer rare drops on average, and now pull from all drops equally instead of favoring SOTS items
  • Shrine of Shaping credit cost 50 -> 20
  • Prime Meridian geodes now include shields when granting percent barrier
  • Prime Meridian geode reward is no longer locked to SOTS items and has fewer rare drops on average, but cannot include "Stage Start" items (including Rusted Key, Shipping Request Form, Regenerating Scrap, and Sale Star)
• Fixes:
  • Fixed multiple issues regarding Unstable Transmitter's barrier generation
  • Fixed Seeker's Palm Blast still being able to grant multiple stacks of Tranquility at once if used on bosses
  • Fixed Huntress's autoaim range buff being overridden by a dependency mod

1.1.0 - The Equipment Update

• Added balancing to the following:
  • Items: Tentabauble
  • Equipment: Disposable Missile Launcher, Eccentric Vase, Executive Card, Jade Elephant, Milky Chrysalis, Molotov 6-Pack, Ocular HUD, Preon Accumulator, Royal Capacitor, Radar Scanner, Super Massive Leech, The Backup, and Volcanic Egg
  • Lunar Equipment: Effigy of Grief, Glowing Meteorite, and Spinel Tonic
  • Lunar Items: Corpsebloom
• Adjusted balancing:
  • Added an additional equipment cooldown reduction to Bottled Chaos, and added Gnarled Woodsprite to the random equipment blacklist
  • Increased projectile velocity of Loader's alternate secondary to make it more consistent when grappling from farther away
  • Buffed MUL-T Rebar Puncher damage a bit more (700%->800%), slightly nerfed double rebar (Retool has a longer cooldown)
  • Slightly increased Acrid's default secondary damage (300%->320%)
  • Increased accuracy of Fireworks projectiles
  • Nerfed Ceremonial Daggers' targeting range (130m->60m)
• Added dependency mod SnappierStalks as a buff to Brainstalks
• Added dependency mod DamageSourceForEnemies so the reworked Breaching Fin as well as Luminous Shot work in Artifact of Devotion, as well as to enable future endeavors.

1.0.1

• Adjusted balancing:
  • Remove Mercenary alt secondary launch force nerf (idk why I added it in the first place)
• Update Wiki files and README

1.0.0

• Public release
• Contains balance changes to all survivors except Heretic
• Contains balance changes to the majority of common, uncommon, legendary, and void items
• God I hope I did this right