Fallout 76 Patch 7 rebalances Heavy and Energy weapons, and lets you build "bigger and fancier" C.A.M.P.s

Fallout 76 Patch 7 rolls out this week and Bethesda shares more details on the game's first seasonal event.

Fasnacht Parade was outlined in February's roadmap and even though it isn't going live until March 19, the Patch 7 preview has shared a few more tidbits about what we can expect. The update itself is scheduled for this week, and will rebalance Heavy and Energy weapons, as well as adjusting the "C.A.M.P. and Workshop budget system that should allow you to build even bigger and fancier Wasteland abodes."

Heavy and Energy weapons will have "greatly" increased durability, as well as dishing out more damage, while C.A.M.P. changes will "give you more overall budget space to build." More no-build zones are also coming to the map. If your C.A.M.P. is in one of these areas, you'll get a notification and a free C.A.M.P. placement so you can bugger off and build somewhere else.

Included in the first batch of Wild Appalachia content is the Brewing and Distilling crafting system we heard about last week.

Challenge tracking is also being added to the map, as well as in-game notifications that will let players know when they've made progress towards tracked challenges.

You can get the snazzy masks in the screenshot above during Fasnacht Parade. You can repeat the event as many times as you like between March 19 and March 26 to collect a multitude of masks and Fasnacht-themed C.A.M.P. plans. You can trade the masks with other players, so if you were looking or a new in-game business venture, you can fill your boots in preparation for when the event comes to an end.

"You and any other dwellers who wish to take part must speak with the Master of Ceremonies in Helvetia and then divide and conquer to find and aid the town’s robotic shopkeepers in setting up for the annual parade. You and your compatriots will be asked to assist with a variety of party prep duties that may have you stepping on stage to play a cheery tune, choosing the perfect decorations, or exterminating some buzzing pests, among many other activities.

"If you find and aid the Protectrons quickly enough, they will be able to march in the parade. Be sure to remain vigilant! Times have changed since the pre-war days, and all that commotion is sure to attract some party crashers. Defend your marchers as they traipse around town, and then set Old Man Winter ablaze to banish the biting cold, earn some sweet loot, and even claim a festive Fasnacht mask of your very own. The more marchers who survive the parade, the higher the chance you’ll earn a mask, some of which are exceedingly rare."

You can check out the patch highlights below.

Energy and Heavy Weapon Balance:

• Energy Weapons
  • For heavy and semi-auto energy weapons, we’ve greatly reduced the amount of condition damage they take per shot. Your heavy energy weapons should now last four to five times longer, and semi-auto energy weapons should last twice as long before needing repairs.
  • We’ve also given semi-auto energy weapons an additional damage boost of +10% so they have a little more bite.
• Heavy Weapons
  • We’ve reduced the fire-rate for high rate-of-fire automatic heavy weapons across the board and increased their damage by +10%. Adjusting these weapons’ fire-rates gave us more room for a damage increase, which will help them punch through armor more effectively without increasing their baseline damage per second too high.
  • Weapon damage for all other automatic heavy weapons has been increased by 10% to 20%.
  • Like energy weapons above, we’ve significantly reduced the condition damage that automatic ballistic heavy weapons take per shot, and they should now last about four times longer before they need to visit a weapons workbench.
• We know that many of you have also been asking for weight changes for heavy weapons. While we haven’t addressed this in Patch 7, we do plan to make improvements with a future update and we will let you know as soon as we have more details to share.

C.A.M.P. and Workshop Budget Adjustments:

• The amount of budget space that some buildable objects consume, such as Turrets and Lights, has been reduced, but they now also have a maximum amount that can be placed in your C.A.M.P. or Workshop. The build menu recipes for these objects will show you how many are already present in your C.A.M.P., including the ones you have stored, and the total amount of each you can place.
• There are several important aspects of C.A.M.P. and Workshop budgets we must keep in mind when making adjustments, including how objects are used by players, overall structure balance, and even game performance. While the above changes aren’t a direct increase to budget size, they should give you more overall budget space to build lots of cool stuff, while also allowing us the flexibility to further refine and improve balance and performance.

C.A.M.P. Placement Adjustments:

• Starting with Patch 7, and in future updates, we plan to add a few new “no-build zones” to the game world that will prevent players from constructing C.A.M.P.s in those areas.
• However, it’s possible some players may have already built in these locations before they became no-build zones. When this happens, affected players will be notified upon joining a world that their C.A.M.P.s can no longer be placed, and they will be given a free C.A.M.P. placement as a result. We don’t expect this will impact most players, but we hope this free move will help you find a new home for your home.

Challenge Tracking:

• We’re adding a new challenge tracking interface to the Map, which you can use to quickly access the challenges menu whenever you’d like.
• As you scroll through your available challenges, you can now select and add them to the tracker, which will update as you make progress toward completing each one.
• Additionally, you will also receive a notification in-game whenever you make progress toward one of the challenges you’ve added to the tracker.