» Sat May 28, 2011 11:32 am
In FWE, there's only the FAL Rifle, the M60 Machine Gun, and Bozar Automatic Sniper Rifle that makes use of the 7.62x51 ammunition, supposing there are no unique, really rare or high level weapons that use that same ammunition. Regardless, those three are the only ones I know of. I feel there's some quirky balancing between the M60 and the FAL though, leaving the FAL almost without any redeeming features whatsoever, whilst the Bozar secures a fairly decent position as a high powered rifle with lower DPS but higher damage per shot, as well as great accuracy (My favorite gun from Fallout 2. I used to pickpocket some from the guards in NCR).
Anyways, the FAL has lower damage per bullet, a smaller magazine, marginally lower accuracy but marginally higher re-fire rates than the M60. The lower damage is perfectly understandable and makes sense, but how a fairly well made assault rifle can have less accuracy than massive machine gun pretty much intended for suppressive fire is beyond me. I think good accuracy should be the one thing it's got going for itself, but currently there's nothing the FAL can do that the M60 can't do better. Both the M60 and FAL can take Scopes and Laser-Sights, but with similar modifications the M60 is just plain more accurate. The Extended Magazine helps the FAL get closer to the M60 but the M60 still has more than twice the size of its magazine. Although the FAL is the only 7.62x51 caliber weapon that can take a silencer, such a modification would bring its damage down to almost half of that of the M60.
I recommend reducing the spread of the the FAL Assault Rifle to put it somewhere inbetween the Bozar and M60 in terms of accuracy. The rifle would then have its place again instead of just being beautiful trash.
Bozar: Highest Damage Per Bullet, Most Accurate. Accurate and high powered, the Bozar also comes with a scope, making it ideal for sniping and combat at far distances.
FAL: Lowest Damage Per Bullet, Good DPS, Good Accuracy. Through its good accuracy and high re-fire rate the FAL remains a respectable adversary at any range, capable of maching or surpassing the Bozar in DPS at ranges where the M60's usefulness would begin to peter off due to inaccuracy.
M60: Highest DPS, Biggest Magazine Size. Although not very accurate, the M60 can saturate an area in bullets and can be devestating to groups of foes or single foes within medium to close ranges.
Making a signficant enough change to the FAL would actually make it much better than other assault rifles. It turns out it's the M60 being the culprit with too much accuracy, rather than the FAL having too little. The Minigun however ought to be less accurate than the M60, but is surprisngly close in its accuracy levels making it more difficult to solve this than I thought, without causing other issues. <_<
Aside from the above remarks I also have a couple of questions regarding the Tommy Gun and Grease Gun. These two I believe are your only options for .45 ACP ammo, but not only do the models look rather low quality (Apologies to anyone who's feelings I might've hurt with that comment) they're also quite poor weapons with incredibly low damages per bullet and terrible accuracy. Are they implented in the role of low level trash weapons for early enemy spawns with ranged weapons, as an attempt to go easy on newly made characters? Because in the early game they are very quickly outmatched in both Accuracy and DPS by SMGs and Assault Rifles, and there's far too little ammo about for you to able to make proper use of their good re-fire rates before they've grown obsolete.
Also, why no .45 handgun, such as the M1911 Pistol that would likely have been in use in America during the war with China? I suppose it'd be hard to find a place for yet another pistol when there's already the weak but fast .32s and 10mm's, and the the slow but powerful 14mm's and .44s. Still, there's not really anything in the middle ground there though - a reliable quick firing pistol with good stopping power such as the M1911 could hold such a spot. :wink_smile:
Edit:
I noticed some stuff that doesn't appear to be used in the FWE.esm too. Such as Throwing Knives, which made me go "Oooooh". I haven't tried messing around with them, but why is it those are not used? I keep encountering simple rocks carried by enemies that are presumably a simple throwing weapon, since those are there, I can only assume that throwing weapons *do* work. I also note that rocks are tied to the Explosives skill, and the Throwing Knife to Melee. Would I be wrong if I guessed that it was a failed or incomplete experiment? An oversight is possible, but highly unlikely as there's a pretty high level of badarse surrounding throwing knives. :toughninja: