Explosives is widely viewed as the weakest combat skill in the game. It is nowhere near as useful as Guns or Energy Weapons. It is even weaker then unarmed and melee - especially if you get some tuff in your face melee monsters like Deathclaws. So I wanted to start this thread to go over some changes I think would make explosives more useful. Hopefully someone from Obsidian will see this thread and incorporate a few of the ideas!

1. Fix the bugs! Make Demo Expert work with all weapons. Currently it does not work with the Missile Launcher, Fat Man, Dynamite and C4. Make Hit the Deck work (it does nothing) and make Splash Damage work (it does nothing)

2. Lower the prices of Ammo and make them more common. Really, Frag Grenades base value is 150 caps. The 357 Magnum base value is 110 caps. That is nuts. Make Frag Grenades cost 30 caps. Drop Incindary Grenades down to 50 and Plasma Grenades to 75. Right now Grenades are good for one thing - selling for caps. Also, make ammo more plentiful. Why is it so hard to find regular 25 MM ammo. And the 25MM HE rounds are insanely expensive. Same goes with 40 MM ammo - very rare.

3. Crafting - I don't think there is a single receipe for explosives. At least allow us to brake down and convert guns ammo and energy weapons ammo into frag grenades, plasma grenades, 25 MM, 40 MM and missiles.

4. Change the Damage Calculation for HE Ammo. Right now the bonus damage for HE is applied after the targets Damage Threshold reduces the damage. Instead make the base damage from HE Rounds higher. Or add a reduction to DT to the ammo type.

5. Increase the hit damage for 40mm, 25mm, Missiles and the Fat Man. Right now, due to a bug these weapons do no extra damage on a direct hit except in VATS. If this was fixed I would love to see these weapons do double damage on a direct hit. Go Google what a direct hit from a 40MM Grenade does. They can take out lightly armored vehicles. Direct hits should be devastating. Nothing worse then hitting some monster in the HEAD with a missile and having only a qrtr health removed.

6. If number 5 is impossible to fix, then simply increase the damage for those weapons. Make a 40MM Grenade do 75 damage and a 25 MM Grenade do 55 damage. If the Demo expert is fixed for Missiles then they need to be dropped down to 150.

7. Change Demolition Expert to two perks that give a 30% bonus or three perks that boost damage by 100%.

8. Move the Flame Weapons - Flamer, Incinerator and Hvy Incinerator into Explosives. Right now an explosives character has no real option once a monster gets right in your face. Having a Flamer would give you something to use. Also, give a low DT reduction to Flamer Fuel - like 5 points and create a new High Burn Fueld that would strip off 15 points of DT, but would increase wear on the weapons. Give me something to kill that Deathclaw that is point blank!

9. Increse the effective range of the Grenade Launchers and make them more accurate. Right now these guns have a very limited range of use. They can not hit anything far away and anything close will kill your character. I would not be suprised if you could throw a Frag Grenade farther then a Grenade Launcher can shoot.

Edit New One!
10. Sometimes Explosives will do no damage. This seems to happen the most with the Grenade Launcher/Rifle. The target will become completely immune to all Grenade attacks taking 5-6 Grenades and no damage.

So thats my thoughts. I think those changes would make Explosives a much more interesting and useful skill. What changes do youo think would make exploisves better?

To put it out there how bad off they are.
I tried to kill Manny Vargas with 5 frags, he was fine, had like 75% health; Jeanie May (Novac hotel owner) took three 40mm grenade shots to the head (SHE WEARS A DRESS AND A FULL RED SHIELD APPEARED)

They don't seem underpowered to me. My favorite toy is the Grenade Machine gun. With all the perks, the High Speed Mod and HE rounds, it's devastating. I routinely use it for taking down Deathclaws and Cazadors. My real gripe is the range. For decent range I have to use the Heavy Incinerator.

What I did note was odd, though, was that Mercy (the only 40mm version of the gun) seemed underpowered by comparison.

I rarely use mines and grenades so I can't say about them. As for the Missile Launcher, I never liked it. Even in FO3. It is too slow outside VATS to be effective at any range at all.

The GMG? Are you kidding? The ammo is rarer than cats and it cant penetrate the DT of Leather Armor.

Not really. . It's the 40mm ammo that's hard to find.

As for DT what can I say? They die. That's all I care about. :twirl:

Maybe they should move ballistic fist to both explosives and melee, it explodes dosent it ? And explosives have nothing for up close.
Fix the perks is a must, I have one character with 3 DE and splash damage, 4 perks wasted atm.
Lower the price of c4, at 1500 caps a peice you eventually start thinking "hmm its expensive, maybe I should save it for the next deathclaw" lower the price a bit, at that rate people jsut wont use it due to how much it costs, I would need 2 fully repaired laser rifles just to afford that.

@Edouard - While you can take down a Deathclaw with a fully tricked out GMG, HE and Demo Expert. It is very risky and expensive. I have blown myself to bits with that. With a 100 Explosives, a fully repair GMG, Demo Expert 3 it takes from 12-18 HE Grenades(It is hard to aim that thing once the explosions kick in) to drop a Deathclaw. At 30 caps a shot it gets real expensive really fast 400 to 500 caps. Plus if the Deathclaw gets close it is game over, the explosives guy has no weapon at all. But we do agree on the range - it is just horrible. And Mercy is weaker then the HS GMG.

@Mako - while they are bad, maybe not THAT bad. Just keep in mind head shots have no effect - aim for the feet!

@isnt my name - C4 is really expensive, like everything in explosives. Rare and expensive. I never thought about the Ballistic Fist. Though the Unarmed guys would howl since that is the best unarmed weapon. That is why I picked the Flamer/Incinerator. Post patch no one uses those.

Yeah c4 should be around 500 caps, its only use is the detonator lets you choose when to blow it up, aside from that its just overpriced, I could get an anti material rifle for 9000 caps, that is 6 blocks of c4, the rifle will do more damage and last longer.
I use the flamer and incinerator on my energy weapons character, lots of EW players use them to take out unarmoured things like cazadors.

I never could take out deathclaws using my explosives character. 1 death claw I used like 4 plasma mines 6 plasma grenades, sneak attack with anabelle and unloaded with my HE GMG and barely took off 1/4 of its health before it got to veronica... then she 1 hit killed it /sigh. That was pre-patch though.... have not tried that character since.

Mercy is garbadge compared to a fully modded gmg ill point out the reasons gmg mod=3 times rof/40mm incendinary=extremely rare/the reduced magazine/its garbadge in every way compared to a gmg .Gmg is decent but their needs to be a hand loader perk for explosives/use casings from explosives/gun powder/ect to make improved ammo.Either give us the 3 x mod for mercy or make 40mm easier to come by.It is truth that demo expert splash damage,hit the deck are bugged or intentionaly nerfed.Fat man is a pathetic joke lol

We should be allowed to buy frag, incendiary and plasma grenades from the venders in Dead Money. <_<

Annabelle seems okay to me, I've taken out 2 Deathclaw Mothers, 1 Deathclaw Alpha and 2 Deathclaws at the Deathclaw Promontory with just 2 shots of HE missiles from Annabelle, with Demolition Expert Rank 3.

EDIT: Direct hits should indeed be made more powerful, a direct hit from Annabelle HE only reduced a Deathclaw to about 1/3 health.

All this was on Normal difficulty.

They require thought as it should be, if they don't work the way you're using them change tactics.

The only thing that needs changing is the direct impact damage of the projectile itself as posted above by Indalus, and by myself on other threads.

A missile on impact should deal the same damage as at least a gauss rifle to that "one" target before splash damage is taken into account.

The grenade guns roughly about a slug loaded shotgun to the directly hit target, then add the splash damage.

One kill if a lucky hit, and a chance of injuring and cripling many foes if placed right., not unbalanced, just quite realistic in a user friendly way imo.

I don't think it's intended to be a primary skill. On reflection, only using missile launchers and grenades is kinda stupid. Take it as a situational backup skill, giving a Guns or EW character more options, and it's suddenly much better.

@Gurkog - You can take Deathclaws with Explosives. The GMG with HE Rounds or a Missile Launcher with HE Rounds. That is about it. The Fatman is actually weaker then the Missile Launcher right now. But it is expensive and very risky, you can easily kill yourself. Better of just switching to an AMR or Gauss and do a sneak attack headshot. Or if you like some fun get a fully tricked out Minigun with AP Ammo and go mow them down (takes about 30-40 rounds to drop one).

@Madocmayhem: While I agree with the direct hit damage, not sure I follow your tactics. What tactics do you use for melee combat critters? Especially indoors or outside when they can come at you from several directions? The only thing I can think of is to periodically drop mines and then lead the melee monsters over them. Not very fun. All of the other weapon skills can deal with close range, medium and long range encounters(Granted your unarmed people have to take cover and get close, but it is not impossible. The AI does not Kite the player). The only long range weapon is the Missile Launcher and with even the High Veliocity ammo it moves very slowly. And at a 100 caps a shot it hurts when your missile misses. Explosives are really only useful at medium range.

@Major - I agree with you there. As is they make a poor primary weapon skill. But since FNV has less skill points and less perk slots then FO3 why waste your time with them? Just go with the other weapon skills - they are all better. But I think they could be a lot of fun with some changes.

I'd consider it a main skill.
But it should have been designed differently.
It's weapons are so powerful that most of them are one-hit kills.
But the drawback is expensive ammo, expensive weapons, expensive repair, double edged damage, companion murder, and loot not found on bodies blowing away to narnia and back.

As it is right now it's a pretty pathetic combat skill.
And I have no idea why someone would want to waste skill points on a "back up" skill when it isn't even powerful.

Dear god Old Lady Gibson's DT blocked two 40mm headshots... and her dogs, i wasted half my health trying to use splash damage to kill them up close.

The only tactic for the GMG is at range and from height, or secondarily, if the enemy is behind cover. I love to rain down terror when the enemy can't get to me. When they are behind cover and I am hidden it will flush them out or simply kill them. Aiming is the challenge because your HUD gives lateral but not azimuth data.

I can't figure out why a 25mm HE round id more powerful than a 40MM Incendiary.

As for cost, in the later game money is no object, availability is the problem and that's solved by waiting and fast travel.

As a none sneak, I found placement and patience works best.
against cazadors gain high ground and use a grenade rifle / thump thump to cripple them ( and turn them berserk to others with cripled antenna ).
Against Deathclaws mines, back peddling and tight corridors work wonders, or again high placement and a long distance crouch shot with a missile launcher.
V.A.Ts and not sneaking with thrown explosives will hurt you however, but then placed mines and powder charges early on with a "flash bang" thrown stick of dynomite will help.
Hit the deck and toughness makes your explosives friendly to use up close.

Finally, take Melee and unarmed as back up / early use skills.

The best strategy to using explosives is to not use explosives. Why bother when you can do more with the other skills with a fraction of the resources you need to kill something with explosives, its silly.

One gauss rifle headshot is still worth more than your entire clip of HE grenades.

i hate you so much lol -_-

Exclusively using Explosives add a complete new flavor to combat.
So I want to bother with it cause I don't want to play as Guns, Unarmed and EW all the time.

options=longer play time.But explosives in close range=stupid every one can agree lol ;P

Yay for options!
Now gimme my Laser Weapons, Side-Arms, Rifles and Big Guns skill damnit! :stare: @ Obsidian

No never give in, I counter with.
Remove explosives, put GMG, GL's and GR's in guns.
Frag grenades, mines and dynomite in Melee as well as unarmed weapons ( as the names are completely wrong for the skill sets imo ).
Then any pulse and plasma in EW's.