I was doing some testing for my upcoming explosives character and I noticed that I was not doing any extra damage with this perk on certain weapons. I boosted Issac's health at the Gun Runners to a 1000 points and noticed that I was not doing any extra damage with Demo Expert Rank 3 with the Missile Launcher. (Using the perk Living Antamoy check damage) Baffled, I opened up the GECK and checked what weapons are supposed to work with this perk. Sure enough, the missile launcher was not on the list! Also, the Fatman, the Unique Missile Launcher, C4 and even Dynamite do not work with this perk! It does work with all the other mines, grenades, grenade launcher and machine gun grenade launcher.

So, any explosives characters be warned! There are bugs loose.

Edit: Added the Missile Launcher to the list and damage ramped up as expected. Using HE rounds with Demo Expert 3 and a quick mod boosted the damage up from 251 a shot to 568.

Nice catch. I think this should probably be moved to another section other than general, due it possibly being a bug or possible spoiler as it relates to weapons.

Anyways, I didn't have problems with it not working. The recent update made the much more effective and able to wipe out most enemies in basically one - two shots. Of course, overkill is always welcome when it comes to explosives.

^^ It impacts the Unique Missile Launcher(Annabelle) as well. It least on the PC. I will go ahead and post it in the bug section as well.

Wish I had good news here - but it gets worse for explosives characters. The perk Splash Damage has NO effect at all. I did a bunch of test until I got the EXACT range I could shot a rocket and not take any damage. Saved the game and gave myself this perk. After taking the perk I still took NO damage. Sigh, no wonder people complain about explosives.

Another bug to add - and this impacts the Heavy Incinerator. Any of the base weapon damage does not get added to a normal attack. Strangely, it does get added on a VATS hit. So the Missile Launcher does not do an extra 20 points of dmg and the Heavy Incinerator does not do an extra 15 points of dmg. It is easy to test out by modding the base damage for one of those weapons to do 500 points of dmg. Score a direct hit on someone and it just inflicts the normal explosion dmg. Hit them in VATS will 1 hit most anything.

After a lot of testing I think it has something to do with the NIF file for the projectile. Because you can mod the Gauss Rifle explosion to do 500 points of damage (it is currently 0) and you will one hit kill anything.

I think splash damage works for me. I can injure myself from across the hall in my Lucky 38 suite with the grenade launcher.

^^ I tested on both the missile launcher and Grenade Rifle. The perk has no effect at all.

I looked at at the Fallout.esm for SplashDamage after seeing your initial reply about Splash Damage bean. There's NOTHING associated with it. Just as a big old NONE where it should say that increasing explosive radius. I made a list for it, thanks for the help again btw, but haven't found a solid way to test if the fix works.

Here's how Splash Damage looks like in the G.E.C.K. : http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y123/celica62/New%20Vegas/SplashDamage.png

^^ Unfortunately even adding the function "Adjust Explosion Radius" does not seem to do anything. To test is straight forward. Pick a stationary target and save. Launch a Grenade at him. If you take any damage then reload and step back. Repeat until you take no more damage. Then open the console and give yourself splash damage. It is player.addperk 00165af0 . Launcher another grenade. Notice you STILL do not take damage. Perk is broken.

I have mostly become just annoyed with explosives. Full of bugs. Which is sad, because the new weapons could have been A LOT of fun. Especially if you have gotten bored with Sneak Sniping(Which is super overpowered in this game. A sneak attack head shot is basically a 400% attack. Ruins all balance. )

Mmhm.

I have as well but hey, nothing a sneak attack critical from a Missile Launcher can't solve right? There's still a lot of fun to have with Explosives but to think that one has not some of the weapons and the other doesn't even work, it kinda just makes me puzzle in confusion. None of the other perks have this big of a problem with them that I've seen. Any problems are just 1 or 2 weapons or values that were incorrectly inputted.

True. I have been working on a mod for explosives. To be honest I think a few tweaks, plus ramping Demo Expert to give a 100% bonus at level 3 would probably make them good enough. On the bright side adding DT Reduction to the ammo works perfectly. Evertything in the blast radius will lose DT. Probably to good, since you can easily blow yourself to bits! Especially with a HE Missile Launcher and Demo Expert 3 (after you tweaked the Demo Expert list) That thing is just super powered. I don't think anyone would be complaining about the Missile Launcher if it scaled with Demo Expert in the vanila game. Easy to hit 500+ points of damage in a large radius.

Sounds Interesting. I'll probably give it a go when you release it or try to do it myself. :brokencomputer:

I think if Obsidian fixes both of these perks, or even just one, we may actually see a nerf of some weapons, like the Missile Launcher. As it stands with the fixed Demolition Expert Perk List, the Unique Missile Launcher one shots everything within its blast radius with HE missiles. So it could be considered a "be-all; end-all weapon" as missiles are easy to come by thanks to Gun Runners so there wouldn't be a short supply of them. I would look forward to that to be honest, just for the sake as to how they nerfed / buffed other weapons in the previous patch.

bump this thread is 100% correct.

this quite honestly made me a sad panda .I had no idea the perks were either half done or intentionaly nerfed.I vote for this topic.It needs to be fixed no lie.I thought energy weapons were nerfed man i was wrong haha

Wow, I was going to pick all 3 ranks of DE and splash damage. Will have to wait until this gets fixed. Shame explosives would go well with both of my characters (one PA character with all of the big guns and a sniper with mines), hope it gets fixed ecause this is an amazing game.

Does Hit the Deck still work?

I haven't tested Hit the Deck, but I can confirm the other behaviors noted here.

I ended up modding the Demo Expert list to include the missing weapons and added a -DT to certain ammo types, and Explosives now feel powerful again. Of course that works both ways, so opponents with explosive weapons are significantly more dangerous.

I also buffed the base damage of a couple of weapons, especially the Fat Man which was massively underpowered. Now it blows the hell out of pretty much anything, but ammo remains rare. Am considering adding a small number of mini-nukes to the Nellis vendor list, although that might make it a bit too good.

I gave a shot at testing Hit the Deck.. However, I'm not sure results can be accurate if I shot a missile at my feet. Regardless:

I had the Remnants Power Armor and Helmet as well as 4 DT from Whiskey thanks to Cass for a total of 40 DT.

Shooting a good old missile at my feet with the Annabelle resulted in me going from 425 HP to 98 HP. This was without Hit the Deck.

Quickloaded, added the perk through console, fired again. Based on what it says, and what the G.E.C.K says, it should multiply my DT by 1.5 to give me 60.

Fired again. Checked my HP. It went from 425... to 98... Yeah, now I'm a bit annoyed.

If someone can test this with another weapon, and possibly a more effective strategy, go for it.

Edit: Remember, based on what I've heard, and seen, I should of ended up with 118 HP after I added Hit the Deck as the damage subtracts the DT then my HP.

Was it the new patch that bugged out most of the explosives perks? Mad this makes me a sad panda I am halfway through my Explosives/unarmed PA guy and it just annoyes me that I will skip a few explosvies persk :-/ I mean he still rocks but I cant 100% out of him :ermm:

I believe that it was bugged from initial release. That would explain why even with all 3 ranks of Demolition Expert, the Annabelle only made 120~ damage compared to the Grenade Machinegun which made ~80.

Like I said, explosives is still fun to use, I never get tired of it, but I can only hope that the next patch, if or when it comes, balances Explosives some more along with fixing the perks. I would honestly love to see a Mini Nuke explosion first-hand with Splash Damage working.

This really aggravates me as I have been playing an explosives only character and hes level 16 already. I have 3/3 demo expert and I'm surprised (and yet not, due to low dmg) that it doesn't affect all explosives.

I wasn't going to get the radius perk because frankly, you're never really swarmed by more than 3 enemies and the radius is fine for that number of enemies, any higher and you just risk hurting yourself, companions or random friendlies unnecessarily. just my opinion though.

Although your rite man .I chose to maximise explosive damage to be a sixy love muffin of destruction and excessive force.

You sir, are completely right.

I believe that they're working on some comprehensive fix for explosives that will come in a patch. In http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1148383-no-love-for-explosives/page__p__16787667__fromsearch__1#entry16787667 Sawyer talks about some minor tweaks he made to certain explosives in the latest patch, but I think it only applied to a few weapons.

I think explosives are going to get fixed, i think it is just a secondary priority to the game freezing / quest breaking bugs that still occur.