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I really don't understand what happened with the YCS/186. Functionally, within the game, it's fine. That's not what I'm talking about. It's the visual resources, the way they've been constructed and implemented, that confuses the crap out of me.

For most weapons there's your basic, third-person weapon mesh, or .NIF file. This points to some low-res textures suitable for being seen from far off, and generally looks okayish. Then you have what you see when you're using the weapon, what's called (incorrectly) the first-person static. NORMALLY this is just the third-person mesh with some fancy, high-res textures applied to various parts of it as ''overrides''. Again, normally this is the case.

With the YCS/186, the weapon actually has separate mesh files for the first- AND third-person models. That in itself is strange, but you've also got the first-person model, which is horrendously WRONG. It specifies incorrect normal maps which don't line up with the textures, and doesn't use the high-res textures on all the appropriate parts of the weapon.

The whole thing is just weird, and wrong. It comes across less like a professional product put together by a game company and more like ''Johnny's First Texture Overhaul'', ESPECIALLY when you factor in that the first-person textures are of a LOWER resolution than those from the standard, non-unique Gauss Rifle.


Anyway, that might have been too much background on the whole situation. The bottom line is that the YCS/186 looks like absolute crap when you have it equipped, owing to it using some low-resolution textures and an inappropriate normal map. This bugfix corrects that by applying the higher resolution textures to the first-person model and using better normal maps.


NOTES

This mod does NOT provide new, higher-resolution textures or updated models for the weapon. It also doesn't alter the standard Gauss Rifles either. If that's more your bag, I suggest you look at the ''YCS 186 Gauss Rifle Fix'' mod by Jahga. You may want to look at it anyway, as he has put together some higher-res versions of the first-person textures. His mod can be found here: http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37186