*Doublepost, forgot I already made a previous reply, delete if you're a mod*

The shockwave stuff is true, but I was mostly talking about things like landmines and grenades, the weapons I most commonly associate with Explosives as a skill.

I hope that the cowboy weapons stick around, even if the Old West feel isn't going to be there. Partially for variety, partially for my own personal tastes, but also because I don't think it's unreasonable to expect those kinds of weapons to still be back East for your average consumer and hunter before the bombs fell. It's not like them being there would be unrealistic, because even though the weapons are associated with the Wild West, it's not like they were ever exclusive to it.

Which is why I put Pulse/Tesla/EMP. The Pulse Gun from New Vegas only did 5-6 damage per shot but had a huge +250 damage bonus vs machines.

Perhaps Pulse could be the standard base while Tesla is an end modification? Alternatively, Pulse and Tesla could be entirely separate base weapons that simply share the bonus vs machines.

The caravans also make a stop outside Evergreen Mills, implying they do business with the raiders there.

Big Town is ignored because its not considered safe. If you finish the quest, and help the residents fight off the super mutant attack successfully, you can have a random encounter in the wastes with a merchant saying he is going there because he heard its safe now. AFAIK the actual 4 named merchant caravans don't stop there, even then, but that's possibly because they didn't want to mess up the merchant patrol cycle.

If they do it like Skyrim did with its fire/frost/shock magics then

-Fire will do lowest amount of base damage, since it only attacks HP, but can cause damage over fire via burn effects, and, if the enemy's hp is low enough, will cause them to run away in fear until the fire wears off.

-Frost will do medium damage, but it attacks both HP and stamina, or in this case HP + AP. Frost will generally slow down enemy movement by 50%, but can also paralyze them, aka freeze them solid, if they are below a certain HP threshold.

-Electric, which we have seen in weapon mods, will do the most damage, will attack HP, will do more damage vs power armor and robots, maybe some sort of battery drain on those things since Fallout doesn't have magicka, and electric weapons will have a chance to instantly vaporize an enemy at a certain HP threshold.

What would make normal guns interesting would be to include different types of ammo, such as incinerary or explosive rounds.

Normal guns were never interesting to me, because they exist in every other game, nothing about them is interesting or unique.

But energy based weapons on the other hand are the epitome of interest, uniqueness and advancement, they're technologically advanced, they're fun to use, some guns utilize solar power to work, other require energy or microfusion cells, even their critical hits are fascinating, like turning them to goo or ash.

Energy weapons are always more interesting than normal guns.

That's just you. Even if I like Energy Weapons -> Laser over Plasma; but nothing is as good and simple as a normal gun/rifle.

You can use serveral kinds of ammo (the ammo system in Fallout never appealed to me - it was way to simple), and the droprate of metal junk, gunpowder is likely higher than to find a operating energy cell or similiar kinds.

Also these low-tec weapons are easier to modify.

Example:

Laserrifle:

• You need the parts
• you need to know how to rearrange wires, chip-sets (hardware/electronics/microelectronics)
• modify the software the weapon is running (softwaredevelopment).

08/15 Rifle:

• Parts
• Drill
• done

Same goes to ammunition:

The Battery used in fallout would need to get recharged. But unfortunately these are not your 'lil of AAA-cells.

Wich means for recharging alot more hardware is required than for creating bullets.

What do you need to make a simple bullet:

• plum
• gun powder/black powder (explosive alternatives)
• heat
• a pincer

(I'm not going any deeper, no one wants to know how to create explosives or ammunition in RL)

The time you need for energy recharge, I would make some bullets. And If everything is prepared beforehands, I just need a few seconds per bullet. While you are waiting for you battery for recharge.

But now you say "My Rifle is Solar powered!" <- means 12 fast, low powered shots, waiting for recharge (and of course dieing if you are in a raider camp).

In the end a plas/laser weapon might look nice, but from a practical post-apo standpoint...with a general lack of ammunition and parts, I only use them for instant kills.

Laser Sniper Rifle .

Let's get to the crossover:

Gauss Weapons:

We already have these weapons in RL, just under a different name. They didn't got mass produced, due the fact the ionized ammunition is "expensive".

These type of weapons have pro/cons from both sides. You need an high energy flow in order ionize the metal bolts. Could get interessting to find a stable high power source in the capital wasteland.

Sure we have Helios and a million other places with a reactor of some kind. But if they are really useable (for this) is another cup of tea. Therefore it wouldn't make that much sense to create ammo for a weapon wich is

a) hard to repair

expensive (time/usage for finding/ionizing ammunition)

And before someone screams:

"this is fallout, not RL!" <- What if this happens RL? The odds are high enough for such an impact in todays world.

But yeah, I want to see more energy weapons aswell. Even if I don't use them, they may look nice above my bed .

The more complex the process of upgrading weapons and creating ammo, the better, I myself love complicated processions, especialy the ones that reward you handsomely, like upgrading Plasma/Laser rifle into a rifle, sniper or an automatic rifle, the damage output wiuld be quite massive, especially if you upgrade the software and recoils and energy receptors and energy output, which would make energy weapons more effective and useful than normal guns, because you simply can't upgrade normal guns like you upgrade energy weapons, they aren't technically advanced as Energy weapons, they don't have software development, energy receptors or recoils that help them be more powerful