how do level differences effect combat?

E.g I am level 17, robot enemy is level 24 with 75 armour. I attack him with a rocket launcher with 150 damage, and plasma mines 150 damage. They are ineffective. His laser insta-kills me at close range with my 50 armour.

question: does the robot get attack and defence bonuses, because of the level difference? is my attack power reduced, because of the level difference? if I attacked with the same equipment at level 24, would the combat be easier, assuming no change to combat related perks?

You shouldn't be taking on an Assaultron at LVL 17.

Levels effect

what spawns

your health.

A level 80 enemy is the same whether you are level 1, or 250, the only difference is you have more health at 250

perks are the biggest difference, weapon damage perks change the balance of power significantly more than levels.

Each level gives you 2.5 + (0.5E) hp, E being your endurance amount, so at 250 with 10 end you have a 1867(.5 rounds down) hp advantage compared to level 1

Enemies tend to spawn at around your level, but can vary, they are however fixed in terms of stats, and all enemies of that type at that level are the same.

Edit,

End is probably the most important special skill, it is retroactive, so taking an additional level in it adds all the hp from previous levels,

so taking a point in it adds half your level as hp instantly. so if at level 18 you get 9 max hp instantly, at level 50 it would give 25, making it better than life giver in the long run

every level after 50 it is giving you more health each level for each point than life giver, and unlocks better endurance perks.

I believe the damage resistance of the enemy is what is listed (if you have that perk that shows enemy vulnerabilities). I believe the level of the robot relates to overall attributes like health, attack and defence, but if the defence is boosted than that would be reflected in the individual damage resistance categories that are shown to you (if you have that perk).

Edit: it may be that level only affects health, it sounds like MisguidedWorm has access to a script (we wrote our answers simultaneously) but what I said about damage resistance is still true.

The difference in level between you and your enemy does not have any effect regarding damage and resistance.

However, the difficulty setting does have an affect. Well... at least as far as damage is concerned. On normal difficulty the potential max damage your down does and what enemies can inflict on you is unmodified. On hard difficulty, the max damage a weapon can do is 75% of what is stated by the weapon's stats. Enemies can inflict 50% more damage on you. On very hard and survival difficulty your weapons does a max of 50% of the weapon's stated damage while enemies can inflict up to 2x more damage against you compared to normal difficulty. On survival difficulty stimpaks and radaway slowly heals / cures you instead of being instant.

Sooo.....

Rocket Launcher Stat Damage = 150 (I believe that only applies to direct hits. Enemies caught in the explosion will take splash damage which decreases the further away they are from the point of the explosion)

Normal Difficulty = 150 max damage

Hard Difficulty = 112.5 max damage

Very Hard / Survival Difficulty = 75 max damage

I don't think that really matters if you know how to play it right. On survival shooting or punching them probably wont do much, but explosives can still do the trick. I killed them all the time around the same level (idk exactly but very early on at certain area in the deep south) by using mines and grenades (though mostly mines and sometimes drugs).

But what does a higher level enemy get???? I don't actually know, but it definitely felt like they were given a boost in armor and hp and possibly damage, as some felt way stronger than usual at the higher levels of 100+.... Anyways since it seems to sort of depend on the area that the op found the enemy(since the starting area of the game always seems to have weaker enemies no matter what level you are) I would say we don't really know, but the higher your character gets in level seems to cause you to encounter the higher (and therefore tougher?) level enemies....which may be a reason why it would not matter if op came back at a higher level... Also as to potential buffs because of the level difference.. I don't think there are any buffs given to the enemy because they are higher level than you, but are stronger because higher level enemies are just stronger but i don't actually know... just guessing from experience..

Enemies get whatever arbitrary stats the dv gave them. Each enemy has a minimum level that it can spawn, and will usually use that as it's level.

A normal deathclaw is lvl 22, has 510, health and 60 melee damage.

A normal alph deathclaw is lvl 31, has 800 health, and 75 melee damage.

A normal mythic deathclaw is lvl 91, has 1360 health, and 175 melee damage.

Enemies that are higher level than their base stats, so a mythic deathclaw higher than level 91, has increased health, but all other stats are the same.

Enemy health per level is lower than the type base health within class, so among dathclaws a level 91 normal deathclaw will always be inferior to a mythic deathclaw in every attribute.

Names of enemies denote their minimum stats, and most enemies don't spawn above their minimum level, only the highest tier in each category spawn above their normal level because there is nothing higher to replace them. so when normal deathclaws would spawn above 22 thy are instead replaced by an alpha deathclaw level 31 instead.

Or at least do it with stealth, which can take time. As soon as I got a silenced sniper rifle with high damage, I took one on from quite a distance. He came close or at least halfway toward my direction to investigate after each shot, so I waited for him to cooldown each time before taking the next shot.

I was on my way to Libertalia early in the game to get the Fusil shotgun. I was lucky just to run past the Mr Gutsy on the bridge with minimal damage. The only annoying thing was, I found out the Fusil wasn't even being guarded by those robots, I could have just kept going after crossing the bridge.

Once you get to the point where you have a100 damage high fire rate rifle, you can just open fire on them, though better yet to have a 130+ damage combat rifle for when they come in close. Don't forget too that it matters a LOT what perks you buff. Note too that there's a Sentry Robot just east of Sanctuary in a tiny junk yard that you can activate and send to about 4 locations for defense.

I've never really seen anyone discuss this, but I've always felt levels affect damage dealt and received. After you hit level 50 or so, and gotten all the combat perks for your build, you'll be pretty powerful. But as you keep leveling, you keep getting stronger despite not picking up any more perks or upgrading your weapon. I am level 84 and walk around with only 100 DR and I can basically tank gun shots from raiders and super mutants on survival.

Level does not influence combat directly. There are no bonuses to damage or resistance from level alone. Neither to you, nor to enemies. However higher level enemies do have hard coded bonuses to damage. On low levels they can even have negative bonuses. So lv 50 raider with pipe pistol will likely do much more damage then lv 5 raider with the same pipe pistol. He will also have much more health.

Your lv 24 robot have listed resistance and not more. He probably however have large health and his laser likely does more damage then would you expect (say equivalent of unmoded laser rifle without perks).

Btw, robots are really dangerous in Fallout 4, be extremely careful around them. They're especially dangerous at close range. Their weapons tend to be rater inaccurate at longer ranges. So I suggest engaging them at a long range and to utilize cower. Avoid close fight as much as you can. Fortunately they don't tend to close distance aggressively. Exception are assaultons and those things can really screw your day if you are not careful.

This.

You can get idea at the wiki for corresponding enemy. Here are for example http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Raider_%28Fallout_4%29. Currently there are no stats listed since GECK is not out yet but I guess they will be filled. Right now only levels are listed. They give you idea when those types of enemies start appear in the game. Beware however that minimum level of enemies is set also geographically and so if you travel too far from vault 111 too early, you may start encounter enemies way above your level. You can check Fallout 3 wiki since enemy progress and spawning works the same way.

At low levels you will encounter just "raiders". As your level rise, you will notice that you are starting to encounter "raider scums", then "raider psychos", then "scavvers", "wasters" and so on.

While raiders might have damage bonus of -50%, scavvers might have bonus +100% (that's just example). Therefore raider scavver with pipe pistol will be doing about 3x the damage of common raider. Typically he will however have also better weapon and armor so difference will be even larger.

The best way to deal with assaultrons is to cripple one of their legs. They are primarily melee combatants with one powerful laser beam attack that takes time to charge.

I remember playing chicken with an Annihilator Sentry Bot Mk II at level 76 survivor. I was fighting it with my trust peashooter; a .38 automatic pipe rifle which does 39 damage when I look at the stats. On survivor difficulty that means at most 19.5 damage. Yeah, it was fun dodging rockets and machine gun fire by running around and around a nearby boxcar. I think I had to reload (48 round drum) 3 or 4 times to finally take it down.

Not sure if shooting the fusion core in the back to destroy a sentry bot means there will no fusion core as loot. I suppose I will try next time.

I don't think he encountered assaultron. They start to appear at about lv 20 and higher. Unless he wandered too far away at lv 17.

If however it was assaultron, then that thing deals massive damage with it's head mounted laser and can kill almost any player in one shot. It does not deal damage instantly, rather in a beam which lasts few seconds. You can sidestep out of the beam to avoid damage. It also take some time to prepare/charge it and can be easily spotted if you have some experience. You should immediately start running to the side and if possible look for cower. Assaultron is immobile while using it's laser. Using jet can be very helpful too.