I find that VATS just doesn't "do" anything for me that ordinary "aim-fire" shooting doesn't do. Am I not doing it right?

Also, I have an issue where I sometimes want to shoot someone with VATS, but can't get it to accept my "shoot" command. It just switches from target to target.

Clearly I'm being really stupid here, but I can't figure out how the system works, and it doesn't seem to offer any great benefits. (It certainly doesn't work like it does in the cartoon. ) What, exactly, is VATS good for?

I wish you could turn off the VATS animation (or at least speed it up), I would use it more often. After seeing that 100's of times it kills my brain. I mostly skip VATS because it seems like for the most part damage is decreased unless you have some max perks for the weapon you are using.

Vats is aimed at utilizing stat based PC skill, as opposed to visceral player based skill.


It doesn't do it as well as it could, but that's the idea behind it.


If you have a target run behind solid cover, or if they die while you have them selected, it can go into a weird mode where it doesn't target anyone.

My work around is exiting vats and re entering it.

I'm an old PC gamer and after 6 or 7 years (maybe more, I can't remember) of being on a console I still can't aim with those damn thumb sticks to save my life. I have to use VATS and Easy mode. I can't play any shooter on any setting other than the easiest one on my console. I just can't finesse my thumbs enough to aim with those tiny sticks.

I heavily rely on VATS in Fallout games and without doubt VATS in FO4 is really messed up. Not once have I been in a situation where there is more than one enemy within site and had VATS focus on the one directly in front of me that I had my cross-hair on. It always locks on to the enemy out of site and some times they can be quite a distance away and I have to cycle through targets. That really svcks because time doesn't stop in VATS in FO4, so by the time I cycle through targets and then which body part I want to hit, I'd say 80% of the time the target is blocked by something or someone else, usually a flippin' companion.

VATS needs work, but I don't know if that's possible. It seems to be something that is deeply embedded in the game. But I don't know, I'm not a programmer.

VATS in FO3 was more powerful imo ( I think I always used it) seems they weakened it a lot for FO4.

There was a lot of backlash around vats stopping time. Slowed time is an attempt to address that.


I like it how it is now, save the glitch I mentioned above.

VATS is pretty bad at long range, generally I find it useful when close or medium range. It's useful to find enemies too, just don't panic and shoot your companion or allies because it's easy to do that as well. I don't have a melee character but it seems to work nicely with a strong melee weapon on weak enemies anyway.

I use vats on insects