Are GRA weapons like the Laser Pistol (GRA) really better than the regular Laser Pistol? I still don't understand what the big difference is, they seem to have similar stats. The biggest difference is now all the super-powered weapons you used to get past the double digit levels are available from traders at level 5.

I'm asking the same thing. I robbed like 3 caravans to get my gra assault carbine and I didn't notice a difference

the GRA weapons can have GRA mods added to em. Kinda stupid if you ask me, shoulda just added the new modifications for normal weapons.

GRA weapons can have mods added to them, and the mods make them superior to their vanilla game counterparts. For example, the GRA tri-beam laser rifle can be modded to have +200% condition, doubled magazine capacity, and increased damage per beam. The regular tri-beam lase rrifle was a mediocre energy rifle that would break often, but the fully modded GRA tri-beam laser rifle is arguably the best energy rifle in the game.

This is what Josh tried to do, but in the end, because of limitations (and a lack of foresight) they had to do it the way they did. Because the new mods were introduced in a dlc, there was a potential for load order bugs. It was a fairly small potential, but if one happened, it completely screwed the pooch, game unpalyable, saves corrupted, meteor showers and Justin Beiber elected as President kinda bad. Rather than risk yet another dlc release that had the potential for game breaking bugs, they went the less risky route of just adding the GRA versions along with the mods. All GRA version of weapon are exactly the same, with the exception of the GRA AMR, which (I believe accidently) has a higher AP cost than the most recently patched main game version. Also, since all these weapons were introduced by DLC, they also can't be added (again, due to poor foresight) to any perks that were introduced by other DLCs. So you get a weird scenario where the base game Assualt Carbine gets the damage boost from the Grunt perk, while the Assault Carbine (GRA) doesn't, but has a higher rate of fire with the Light Bolt mod attached. Which one's better? That's subjective, but the numbers suggest the regular one with Grunt is best. It has 3 more damage than the GRA one and a base DPS 8 higher.

I hope this explains the reasons why Josh had to do it the way they did.

-Gunny

So, in other words, unless you don't have any other DLC's and so don't have access to those better perks, the GRA DLC is a POS?

Acronymgasm...

Not really. There really aren't that many dlc perks that use form lists like that. The only one I can think of off the top of my head IS Grunt. Light touch could have been a problem, too, but they used a formlist that was already in the base game (they used the formlist for travel light). See that's where they had poor foresight. It would have been an incredibly simple thing to set up any number of dummy formlists in the main game, left empty just so they could add dlc content that referenced them. That's what Josh did with GRA. He used a couple of unused formlists (leftover from FO3. He used formlists for the residents of Andale and Arefu, but it worked.) for ammo lists so that the main game weapons could use some of the new ammo types. (or something like that. I don't remember the exact specifics.)

But for the most part, only grunt is the perk most effected. And again, this could have been avoided. So could the load error bugs. All they have to do is make it so the first couple of load order slots (let's say the first 10) are preserved only for official content, and then mods start loading at 11. This way they could code the launcher to load the dlcs in the order they want, and thereby avoid the load order bugs. If someone decides to change the "official" load order using FOMM, then that's their problem. I can't think of any reason why someone would want to do that anyways, since mods load after the main .esms anyways.

-Gunny

So, GRA could have potential to wreck my game, then? Because in my last save I already wasn't able to load the Strip whenever I entered, and I just bought a new copy of the game a couple months ago.

No, GRA won't wreck your game because they went the overly safe route (duplicated items with (GRA) tags), instead of the route that woulda had better integration of the weapons (but had risks).

Queue

Well, it won't wreck your game for that reason at least. :wink_smile: There may well be other game breaking bugs that the DLC cause, but it won't be because of load order bugs from the game trying to reference content from another DLC that hasn't loaded yet. :celebration:

-Gunny

However, if you're on the PC, there are several mods that make grunt apply to relevant weapons in other DLCs. Including the GRA guns, as well as some others like the Dead Money autorifle or the Great Bear/Red Victory grenade rifles.

I'm sure FOOK will have this functionality in the next version, but there's standalone fixes too. But consoles don't have a way of affecting load order, so Obs couldn't add it elegantly without a lot more work.

Anyone with a GECK could easily do this as long as they know that HH loads before GRA. All you have to do is add a single line to the script I mentioned that adds the appropriate weapon to the Grunt formlist. Just load the .esms in the GECK and add this line to the above mentioned script somewhere along with the other lines that add things to other form lists:

AddFormToFormList NVDLC02PerkGruntWeapons NVDLC05WeapNVAssaultCarbineCustom;

Save and name it, check it off to load the mod and shazam! Assault Carbine (GRA) is now in the Grunt perk list.

-Gunny

I'm on Xbox, haha.

But thank you guys for the info, this'll help me later.