My latest character has focused on automatic weapons and while I thought it was great for about the first 8-10 levels I'm starting to wonder... are they underpowered? What are your thoughts/the general consensus on this? Maybe it's just me.

Automatic weapons' low damage doesn't keep up well with increasing armor values. They eat through ammo as well.

The only automatic I use is a bleeding SMG. Bleeds are per bullet and stack, so it's a great (if cheesy) way of dealing with huge baddies like high level deathclaws.

Automatics shouldn't do as much damage per shot as a non-auto, but they could certainly use a bit of a buff. As it is, I only see automatics being useful as bleed delivery mechanisms at high levels.

I can see automatics as useful if they have a legendary effect that is per-shot, say, a bonus of 10 extra damage per shot on a fat man is going to be very different than 10 extra damage per shot on a minigun.that said, without a bonus like that, I can see them just eating ammo faster than pratical to use much, let alone sink the 5 perk points in to specialize in them.

The only one I use is a 20% chance to cripple .45 I found. I gave it a .38 Automatic Receiver and hose down anything fast and big with the most common ammo in the game. Works amazingly well.

I'm two days into my second character (play time) and I don't think I've used anything automatic more than once. Just my play style really, I much prefer keeping enemies at a distance if possible, or taking them down with a few very high powered rounds if it's not. I think it is more effective. I always have ammo for my guns and I think I'd end up taking a lot more damage if I had to keep getting close enough to keep something rapid firing on target.

Lol!

Just get a certain unique weapon from a certain vault (can be bought), and you will destroy anything.

I played automatic weapons + VATS on survival, and encountering a Deathclaw it didn't even get to move. I think you have to make sure your weapons are modded to best available level. The weapon I had did around 120 damage per bullet, I think regular super mutants took one salvo...

cheers,

I surprised myself by not going for automatic weapons so far, the rifles seemed a bit more interesting to me.

I did a sniper with single shot weapons. My next playthrough is an automatic weapons commando.

If you know what to do and how to mod they are virtually equal. With legendary items considered automatic are best. Pay and spray destroys everything.

try a silenced automatic assault rifle^^ it's kinda op

Normal automatics are largely junk. Standard high damage modifications are hit hard when up against armor, and armor piercing mods really aren't. That said, anything with a chance effect or a stacking damage effect will make them God-like. They're definitely a weapon type where early game they're powerful but ammo is scarce because of how ammo drops scale and lack of scavenger perks, mid game they fall off in terms of dps horrendously because of DPS, then late game if you've been lucky and picked up the right legendaries they turn back into beasts that can stand up to semi-autos again.

I'm finally going through a play through beyond 1 day playtime with semi-autos instead of automatics, and while I love the damage output of being a rifleman, being a commando was still much more exciting because I prefer more dakka to efficient dakka.

i disagree they are stil viable at high levels with the exception of pistols and the submachine gun

try converting your combat rigle or laser rifle into a automatic weapon make sure you keep up with your perks and weapon mods anything that reduces recoil makes your weapon better meaning even they do less damage more vullets will hit , at gunnut level 3 you can mod them so they barely have any recoil anymore and while auming manually aim low

the only downside on automatic weapons is the ammo consumption

and no a charactr specialized in automatic weapons is not the UBER power build that can one shot a legendary deathclaw , but claiming it is a complete failure is just BS