So, as any energy weapons enthusiast knows, the gauss rifle and its unique variant suffer from a "bug" that carried over from FO3

In VATS, each shot will do a set amount of damage, regardless of what body part you target, or if you crit.

AFAIK, there isn't a fix out there, so I have been searching for one.

The problem seems to happen because the gauss projectile has an explosion on it. Remove the explosion, and it works fine. But I, and many, many people out there love that explosion.

More on my progress later...

I believe the explosion-removal fix has existed for over a year in Fallout 3 modding.