You don't seem to fit in well with a community... might I suggest rage smashing your computer..

^^^ This. +1

You are the ones raging over the fact i'm not going to re-explain myself every time someone posts in this thread not knowing what they are talking about. And i never asked for any help. I know the damane is nerfed outside of VATS, the question is why. Sound like a bunch of spoiled children. You dare expect me to read a thread before I respond to it! just wait 'till mumsy and dadsy hears of this outrage!

i've one hit killed a dude, with a shotty to the face, aiming down the sights....
it was totally an epic moment!
i had the shotty out, aiming down the sights, then he jumped at me from around the corner (and i seriously jumped at that, startled me pretty good) and just pulled the trigger (accidentally as i pulled it because i was startled) and booom, he head splattered all over the place

No problem for me using the shotguns, as after loging many hours on FO3 with the T shotgun you learn to make sure you get a head shot.
But your not taking into account spread in V.A.T.s it's allways tighter, and criticals you're practically asured a crit in V.A.T.s which may take into account the extra damage you're seeing.

I'm pretty sure shotguns are alll or nothing crits, but even if they weren't, the damage difference would not be anywhere close to a 300% difference. it has nothing to do with the spread, as its point blank range. If it did spread, you'd see the damage register on the other limbs. It doesn't. So two strikes against the spread.

(scratches his beard)

In Fallout 3, if I recall correctly, you'd actually end up with the opposite problem with shotguns. They would be extremely deadly outside of VATS, but pretty much worthless in VATS. It had to do with how criticals were calculated. Something like in VATS, only the first pellet would get the critical adjustment, all the other pellets would do regular damage. But without VATS, all pellets would get the critical. (And I may be thinking more of the issue with getting sneak attacks with shotguns.)

So far, I've only used the single shotgun (which is 20ga), and haven't been that impressed with it. I've had a few times where it tore someone's face off outside of VATS, but a lot more times that it simply didn't do squat. I'm thinking that 20ga is much more a "varmint gun" caliber, unless you go with slugs.

theres a perk for shottys that helps ignore DT, that helps if you like to use shotty's, then that 20ga does do something...

Ya, it's alright. nothing to write home about. I actually think you are better off right now focusing on crit perks/stats/items for shotgun, as it seems that the all or nothing aspect makes even criting from medium and long range the same as criting from close range,

i noticed this to and also after you reload some guns (mostly hunting shotgun) your controller seems to lock up except moveing and looking :angry:

Did your target have any amount of armor? DT makes buckshot absolutely useless. Each buckshot pellet is a fraction of the damage, and the DT is checked against each buckshot pellet individually, quickly nullifying their low damage. Load that svcker with some slugs if you're facing armored foes.

My Caravan Gun works fine in V.A.T.S. I smite Ghouls with it.

Sigh. Not again? I think we covered this like 2-3 times now? The DT is irrelevant to the problem. It's VATS versus non-VATS, DT is constant. And i don't think slugs do anything to your enemies DT, it only reduces the "spray" area. I haven't used the, but that's what the tooltip says.

Slugs also concentrate it into one projectile that more easily overcomes DT through brute damage.

oh ya? that sounds great. Like I said, i didn't try them. Just read that they reduce spread to .25 or something. I'm going to go get some and test those and see if they, too, suffer from the 300% damage reduction outside of vats.

Its a bug Vendur. Sometimes, like I already stated on page 1, shots in real time and hell, sometimes VATS time don't register/connect. Everything from guns not firing or reloading, weird lag, other problems in general with firing weapons. Testing will be inconclusive since the bugs/lag/whatever you wish to call will be sporadic. LOL at the people that didn't understand his question and instantly took the "elite stance" and told him to go play COD, or tried to guess his age. That was pretty mean spirited.

I just did it with an NRC Trooper, I hope that's beefy enough armor for you. I did notice that my first shot in VATS took 4 more bar from him than did my first ADS shot. I killed him 4 times, one set VATS then ADS no sneak and 1 set VATS then ADS with sneak. The VATS sneak crit was massive compared to the ADS crit. Both VATS took him out in 2 (sneak) and 3 (no sneak) and the sneak ADS took 3 while the no sneak ADS took 5.

There is something hinky with shotties though, I was getting 95% everything but torso (78%), so I did make sure I got VERY point blank and had 95% across the board. I do expect torso to be the first 95% though.

i think the missing shots entirely is the 5% miss rate plus some clipping type issues. Mostly the result of the physics "engine", but the sotgun thing is different, since it seems to be screwed over outside of VATs, instead of inside VATS. Funny thing I just noticed. Shotgun in VATS with buckshot does exactly the same damage against highly armored targets as using slugs, but slugs are NOT affected by the damage penalty outside of VATS like buckshot is. So, inside VATs, buckshot = slug ammo.

sometimes I will physically see the hit damage on an enemy yet his health doesn't go down, so i know there is some type of issue here.

They work just fine for me. Hunting Shotgun + Choke + extended mag = win. Riot Shotgun = OMG win.

Just for fun pull up VATS and see what you actually hit. Likely that is your problem. If it takes hitting one body part three times to kill them then it's unlikly hitting three body parts one time will. If you're in range for a shotgun then likely you're fighting a melee fighter so they are swinging at you while you're firing. Aiming at the chest you're likely to hit the arms instead.

Normally VATS works the opposite of your experience. That percentage seems to not just be your chance to hit, but also how much damage you'll do if you hit. So if it's showing 20%-50% you're better off just firing the weapon yourself. That's why I don't use VATS. The only reason VATS would be more effective is you have 95% in which case 19 out of 20 time you're going to hit the part you aimed at and the other 1 out of 20 you completely miss. You never hit the wrong part. Outside of VATS you can hit the wrong part very easily.

Just to test I shot Veronica while she was naked 20 times with my lever-action shotgun, 10 time without VATS, 10 times with VATS. My results are below:

Without: 77, 99, 99, 54, 65, 54, 54, 54, 65, 77, 77

With: 54, 54, 54, 54, 65, 54, 54, 54, 65, 54

The item display shows 6.9x7 for the shotgun, my agility is 8 and guns 100 and I have the Lady Killer and Lord Death perks. 6.7x7x1.1x1.05=54. What the 65, 77 and 99 are I don't know. It looks like a 1.2 multiplier applied once or twice for the 65 and 77. The 9th shot without VATS was a critical, but the other two were not that I noticed. If anything it seems VATS does less damage at least in that it doesn't get as many bonuses.

I would say the theory you get substantially differant results, at least on the scale of 300%, is false.

PS: At a range showing about 50% in VATS I seemed to do the same damage. I only shot her a couple of times though.

Ok, better testing. Companion seem to be funky. I retested using the console and a viper bandit. I was surprised to find at level 21 he had 30 health so I set it to 200 so he wouldn't die then set his damage threshold to various values. This is what I found.

 DAM  VATS  NORM----- ----  ----53.33 DT0   DT045.55 DT7   DT137.37 DT14  DT230.00 DT21  DT322.22 DT28  DT414.44 DT35  DT5 9.60 DT42  DT6

So VATS seems to be dividing the DT by 7.