The simple combat rifle for me. Good range, decent stopping power, cheap plentiful ammo and it can be anything you need it to be.

My plasma sniper. It does 120 ballistic and
120 energy damage
I love it so much.
Also Im quickly falling in love with the plasma thrower it does crazy [censored] damage!

Double shot rifle, with rifle / scope / critical and sneak bonuses almost every sneak shot is instant kill....

Perks. I have my rifleman perk maxed to the hill for double base damage.

According to my math, the MIRV upgrade on any Fat Man is a massive drop in damage, as the thing would need to fire 26 projectiles to get the same damage as a standard version. I get that the thing hits more area with the MIRV upgrade, but carpet bombing an area for a measly 18 damage (which is the number I saw in my game at the Weapons Bench) just isn't worth it. And the wording of the Big Boy only says it adds an extra projectile, so unless the standard MIRV upgrade has 25 projectiles, it's not enough to make up the damage loss.


According to the testing I did, at 5 cranks, you're actually getting 8.5 times damage, not 5. You may be wasting a lot of ammo by using 5 cranks to take out lesser enemies.

I use Deliverer or a Neverending .50 caliber sniper rifle.

I also recently got a wounding SMG that I'll have to try on some harder enemies.

With the commando perk the 10 mm on automatic with double the fire and a silencer. I use it as a mini uzi. Not great range but can fire it all day at medium distance. And a combat assault rifle with exploding shells. I try to conserve the ammo on it and try not to hit friendlies.

I'm only Level 14, with just one perk in Gun Nut, but I'm still loving my legendary Mighty 10mm pistol (25% extra damage). It does 31 damage over shot and has the advantage over rifles that do a less damage (as I've upgraded it a lot) damage because I can fire off about 5 or 6 shots in VATS whereas my Pipe Rifle (which is somewhat upgraded) does only 19 damage and can get 2 shots off in VATS. I love my 10mm, and bullets are abundant.

That said, I have just picked up a Combat Rifle and a legendary pipe rifle, so I'll see if either of those alter my preference at all.

So far a modified .50 Sniper rifle with medium scope. Haven't reached Gun Nut II skill yet to do longer scope. Once I do I will keep a .308 medium scope and the .50 long scope.

I call them Deadeye and Goldeneye respectively.

Lucky 10mm with silencer, powerful receiver, marksman grip, and a long mag. I call it House (as in "house always wins"). Beyond the legendary lucky buff, it's just plain old lucky. Got me out of situations that SHOULD have been the work of something much larger. Can't count the number of hip fired headshot crits I've landed while back pedaling.

I'm a handgun person myself so I love Kelloggs pistol(hand canon) and the pistol you get from the railroad. I also love the two shot plasma sniper and you can't forget about da BIG BOY.

My plasma-shotgun with exploding bullets , I dubbed "Supernova"

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/387670184648927225/34023F6547FCF44E2342A5E588191BDDD878F6E8/

And, Overseer's Guardian. The ultimate sniper rifle.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/387669574556216761/DAE907205CD45FF4494509B84C5803A85A06BE29/

Honorable mention would be Lorenzo's Artifact.

Level 36 and I'm still loving my Spray and Pray with the explosive rounds, the Two Shot .45 revolver, and the Overseer's Guardian (2 projectiles per shot semi-auto sniper).

In my opinion, Deliverer is the best standard ammo pistol in the game, when fully upgraded. Plus it looks hilarious when you use it while wearing power armor, because it's so tiny.

Beyond that, I like plasma rifles, but the ammo is too scarce to use it too often. I have a .308 rifle that's pretty great too.

The .44 pistols are pretty great when upgraded too.

My favorites are my modded combat rife and a modded combat shotgun. Thanks to the rifleman perk I do great damage and ammo (.45 and shells) is easy to come by.

Didn't know that, thanks! It's now six-crank, so I hope that it's an intended feature, not a five-crank bug. Will continue to be my go to weapon for taking out harder enemies. My arsenal has gotten an update, as ammo is plentiful. Musket, overseer's combat rifle and deliverer. If I run out of .45, I'll mod the rifle to .308, if I run out of 10mm, I'll use a shotgun instead for a while. Also getting the gauss rifle where I feel I have enough ammo.

I should add I always have my followers carry a fat man and a missile launcher. Using those in panic mode never works out for me. Plus it adds a fun element: seeing a group of enemies, or a touch one. Then telling your travel mate "hand me the nuke launcher, will you?" ^^

i almost exclusively use deliverer but i have an explosive silenced 10mm called dollar that i love for being my main weapon for so long and a snub nosed .44 is probably the 2nd most stylish weapon in the game (after deliverer of course) and it packs a damn good punch

I have a vain hope that I'll stumble upon a 2 shot laser musket that I can mod to a 6 crank.

12x damage? Yes please!

Spray n Pray most definitely. It shreds, but burns through ammo real quick. I like automatic weapons. But I left the shotgun single shot. It's still heavily modded though.

The damage per crank on the Laser Musket gets higher more quickly than the number of cranks. Two cranks, for example, actually does 2.3x damage, not 2. And 3 cranks actually does over 4x damage, not 3. I didn't test a 6 crank mechanism, as I couldn't make one. However, given the performance of lower numbers of cranks, you should be getting truly massive damage from 6 cranks.

i have 2 saves and they both play very differently my first one, Larry, is all about his rifles and 2 handed weapons not including big guns and my favorite gun for that file is probably either my legendary assault rifle fully modded with a silencer and a reflex scope, legendary bonus giving you a damage buff if the target is at full health. (i personally like the reflex more than the actual scopes.) or the righteous authority i know its not the best laser rifle but idk its just never let me down its always been my go to since much earlier in the game and if you upgrade the critical shot damage boost perk in the luck tree its critical hits are outright OP'D.ive been able to one shot death claws with a critical hit fully upgraded critical hit perk in the head consistently.

but my second account , Big Brody, is waaaaaay more fun to play as. i made him a living breathing tank, upgrading damage resistance, life giver perk, unarmed perk upgraded all the way, blitz, and ricochet, big Brody is an absolute beast, able to take massive damage and beat you to death with his fists and melee weapons. from big brody id have to say my favorite weapon is my legendary death claw gauntlet, with the extra claw and the legendary bonus giving 50% more damage against super mutants theres nothing i haven't been able to kill in 1-3 swipes yet. I've killed a behemoth while high on psycho and med x, and having the unarmed perk upgraded to the second star in roughly 10 swipes. although i must admit the furious fist from swan is a VERY close runner up, its just so satisfying!

I can't really pick one. I generally carry a .50 Cal Recon Sniper Rifle, a short scoped Marksman's Calibrated Powerful Combat Rifle, and a glow sighted Marksman's Calibrated Powerful Combat Shotgun. Just recently I've started carrying Kellogg's Pistol as well, which is pretty nice.

Your math is still wrong. Even if all 26 projectiles hit on target, the amount of damage is nerfed massively (like dividing by 4 or 5).

You forgot, in your equation, that you have to apply enemy armor 26 times instead of two times.

I did actually use the MIRV once.

I went into the glowing sea afterwards, got a perfect 26 batch on an "unlucky" little deathclaw and I ended up not even taking down 1/4 of its HP.

Also, the laser musket, no matter how one tries to spin it, is massively inefficient.

Even at full cranks, you're getting (8.5*30)/(5) damage per fusion cell (ammunition). This comes out to 51 damage per fusion cell, which is still far far behind the slow shooting gatling laser and even your average laser rifle in most cases.

My main is my modded, powerful combat rifle. I use the dot sight and it is so low recoil that I can keep sending .45 on target. Make short work of most enemies.

For close encounters I use Le Fusil Terible (shotgun you find in Libertalia). It kicks like a mule, so I mod it to compensate for recoil. Kills just about everything in one shot.

This^

Its VATS cost is stupid cheap. If I have a Crit charged, I can use it, then recharge it again for another crit in one go with VATS. Outside of VATS it's a beast: maxed out modding gives it like 110 sheet damage, but with Ninja, Mister Sandman, and Deacon's perk, you get a 6.3x damage multiplier for sneak attacks.

And keep in mind all of this is for a gun that uses measly 10 mm rounds - perhaps the most cheap and plentiful ammo in the game.