New Game Loadouts+ by SilkySmooth  

Lore-friendly rework, rebalance, and expansion of the weapons and items available in the New Game Loadout window. Compatible with any game version. v1.4.

NEW GAME LOADOUTS+

TL;DR The goal of this addon is to give the player more options for new game loadouts, with story, free-play, warfare, and iron man modes in mind. NOT friendly with the Invictus achievement. README has info about manually patching this to be compatible with BaS, it's not very hard if you have both new_game_loadouts.ltx files, just copy-pasting lines and adding the BaS weapon sections.

Feedback is welcome but if I get complaints that it makes the game too easy because you have the option to start with a nice weapon, I will recommend uninstalling the addon or using a PM, since forcing difficulty is not my goal. On the other hand, if I get specific feedback like "this weapon seems underpriced", I will be more likely to consider addressing it in an update, since meaningful choices ARE my goal.

FACTION CHOICE

The faction and equipment that the player picks should have a noticeable impact on the possibilities of the first in-game week. Factions have different strengths and are generally geared towards the playstyle that the faction embodies.

LONERS, CLEAR SKY and FREEDOM have a little bit of everything: decent equipment, decent tech, decent firepower.
MILITARY and DUTY field simple, clean-cut grunt loadouts. Well-suited for straightforward missions like mutant hunts and assaults on stalker camps before retiring back to base.
MERCS and MONOLITH live up to their reputation as dangerously well-armed killers, with access to a wide variety of starting weapons and equipment.
ECOLOGISTS are a notable outlier, with immediate access to a Svarog detector for enthusiastic artefact hunters, and a suite of high-tier meds at a discount.
BANDIT and RENEGADES are roughly armed with scant provisions, and are best served by finding some hapless stalkers and taking their things by force.

Highly-organized/Paramilitary factions start with PDA 2.0, this is by design. PDA 1.0 is cheap at traders if you don't like it, maybe I'll make it an option in the next version.