I am going to jump straight into this, appreciate anyone reading this and giving their input as I am hoping to find a solution.

.45 Semi Auto Combat Rifle VS .45 Sub Machine Gun. A semi auto Combat Rifle does WAY more damage, WAY capitalized more damage then the .45 SMG. Not only does each bullet do a LOT more damage, but you kill things much faster as well. Lets assume you have the mods and Perks that optimize said weapons.

I have two characters in Fallout 4, both just under level 40 on Normal difficulty, at least right now. One is completely specialized in all full auto's in the game, and one in semi auto's. I have much more caps, I have much more ammo, and I never run out of ammo with any gun on my semi auto character. I do much more damage, and kill faster as well.

The Cost and Time to KIll is awful in comparison to semi autos. You just do so much more damage, faster and with far less ammo with none automatics. The cost is the biggest issue, it cost way too much caps to buy 5mm or .45. It just doesn't pay off.

Other then Sniping Big Guns and other fully automatic weapons are simply more fun to use, especially miniguns, but its eating me alive and not paying off in comparison to my other characters experience.

I am looking for opinions, suggestions, and input on this. I want to hear I am doing something wrong, and more importantly why.

Thank you!

Even if one compares a semi-auto version to a full-auto version of the same weapon (combat rifle for instance) the full-auto is just depressing...and a total ammo hog.

It is "depressing" because I truly love full-auto weapons.

You are wrong from the first time you decided to use Automatic guns as main weapon.

Yeah you are 100 % correct there is no reason to wield a full auto weapon in FO4 it's an absolute waste of resources. this is something I hope the address in the 1st patch

It took another play through with a different play style to realize that. The biggest issue, and definitely is really the biggest one, is the fact even if you set aside the ammo use and cost of full autos in Fallout 4 you still would want to use a semi auto to get a job done simply because it just kills things faster. That's backwards if you ask me, the Combat Rifle does more damage then a damn mini gun. That's just the combat rifle, if we take a .50 cal rifle lol, it just doesn't make sense to use any full auto in the game.

Its sad though, because their is something fun about running around in a power armor with a minigun, but it doesn't pay off, and its very costly.

I think auto weapons have more dps if they have some special modifier like explosive but I don't know the exact math. Spray n' Pray can be bought from the junkie caravan trader and it is a potent weapon.

Yea see that is interesting, both my current characters have 3 in Demolition Expert. If you found a fully automatic with a explosive modifier that might change things.

Honestly what Big Guns and Commando needs is Armor Penetration that could help, possibly. Minigun's have no armor penetration, you will go through a seriously dumb amount of 5mm unloading on anyone or anything with armor.

Edit: I have been told that a Gatlin Laser with the charging barrels mod is much more cost efficient then a minigun. I will haft to look into this.

I just wish they removed the large damage drop off on automatic receivers. It should have worse accuracy and worse range than semi-automatic receivers (not to mention be more expensive to run).

I liked my .38 auto pipe pistol, for shooting rapidly moving critters like ghouls, and for panic situations. i.e, times that calmly trying to aim individual shots just isn't workable.

so......auto-weapons are teh new destruction magic ......sorry....had to say it

but yeah, i have to agree, it is really sad, i went through 1500 mini-gun bullets in a single, decently long dungeon, IMO, that should not be a thing.

Just get a rifle and go for the head.

No need for mgs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4DzB2YOjkE

Edit: I usually carry 4 weapons, a rifle without scope for the normal stuff, one with a scope for crazy distances, a knife and a pistol.

Never saw the point in mgs.

that is kind of teh point, most of us WANT to be able to use full-auto weapons, and you "can", but as that video kind of proves, little reason to do so when a hunting rifle is more dangerous to some enemies then a mini-gun in some cases.

The 10mm auto pistols have 1 damage difference from the semi version, though I completely agree about most automatics from the gatling to the combat rifle.

The Automode seems to be a legit mode for an irradiating laser rifle with 50 rad damage per shot, well I think it beats the Gamma ray at the Gamma Ray's own job lol. And can be used on robots and ghouls to some affect.

The Overseer's rifle on auto pierce is a beast for me though, the auto button helps ignore any lag as well since the gun fires and hits even if I'm not aiming or holding the trigger. I used it on Kellog the fight lasted one clip.

Cost is ignorable when you have like 4K ammo, everything is silenced, and get 5K caps each time you visit your settlements.

Well... it highly depends on the situation, at some point that rifle won't do the trick anymore.

Then its time to get creative with explosives, but thats also the point where heavy weapons come into play.

Sure thing a rifle can kill stuff fast and quick when handled right, but its tedious to take out bigger stuff with it.

The gripes I have about this game are few (literally: 3) and this is one of them. Automatic weapons straight up svck. Investing any kind of time or resources into them is an abominable waste.

nope, a shotgun or non-auto-assault/combat does FAR better to bigger enemies then a mini-gun does.

Seems to be the case with ballistic weapons, but I'm getting a lot of mileage out of having swapped my laser rifle to automatic. Don't know why that is. Statistically it should be worse, but it's been wrecking face. Part of it at least is the ammo drop for sniper barrels on laser weapons is pretty harsh and full auto carries more per mag.

It's something I continue to tinker with.

I'll say this though, there are certain critters I prefer to have automatic weapons against. Sawing the legs off of mirelurks for instance.

The minigun really does too little damage, unless you get the explosives variant all of the shots brought out just get sponged up or resisted.

But that's what you get when people think it might be OP and balance it.

Did you use a char with the heavy weaponsperk??? I bet my mini gun guy will do more DPS the you.

I'm purposefully using only automatic weapons because I can't use ammo up faster than I get it (I got the ammo scrounging perks and turns out it causes you to get obscene amounts of ammo you can either use or sell to buy ammo you prefer). Even on survival difficulty I can't use up ammo faster than I get it and things still die very easily... so much so that I'm probably going to download a mod that makes survival damage reduced by an additional 25% on top of the 50% default of survival mode.

Once you've maxed out the perks for weapon groups, even automatic weapons do obscene damage on survival difficulty. A custom made combat rifle with 45 rounds full auto kills everything with incredible ease. Full auto Righteous Authority is godly in full auto, i fell like I'm cheating using it.

Topping it all though is full auto plasma.. it's absurd how powerful it is.

The weapons in this game need to drastically reduce their damage on survival, the "bullet sponge" effect some people mention is non existant at higher levels, even vs the toughest enemies... eveyrthing dies in a few seconds.

They should have just made it so that full auto guns are less stable and have more recoil. Every perk you take reduces the recoil. In what universe does flipping the switch on an HK for example from semi to burst or full auto make the bullets travel slower? Its just nonsense and I can't wait for the mod that fixes it because I would also like to use full auto weapons as well. To be honest the whole specializing in pistols, semi rifles or auto rifles is just stupid.

On survival mode even with semi-auto i chew up ammo. I can use 200 rounds or more just clearing Super Mutants out of a building. Granted I am not the best shot but firefights are hectic when trying to dispose of Legendary creatures.

Was always one for precision anyway, and had planned on using non-automatics before release. Good to see it was a smart move, but shame that they designed it to which a specific weapon type is better over the other.

Even if it was any better, I probably wouldn't use any automatic weapon still. Eat up too much ammo.

I agree the sub machine guns feel way too weak. After getting the Silver sub machine gun for a certain questline, I ended up chucking it away. The only fully auto gun I use is a wicked rapid fire combat rifle I got from a dead Supermutant and man it`s a vicious beast.

I love using it. Other than that, meh.

Well from youtube videos the explosive minigun definitely owns, but i am not a fan of it. I would just rather the normal minigun do more damage. I think adding armor penetration to Big Guns and Commando is the answer, but then that might make it too over powering, so who knows lol.