OK, so with the new patch 5mm rounds have a base 10 DT bypass. So I am thinking that will make the Minigun/Assault Carbine stronger in relation to other weapons. A "balance" thing.

I started a new character for the patch (the funnest levels are the low ones!) So I come accross Jack Rabbit Springs and two Super Mutant Masters at level 6! Fun times I think. Pull out the new Service Rifle with AP rounds and proceed to shred the first Super Mutant Master. Service Rifle w/AP > Super Sledge - at least against the AI. So I just started thinking that the Service Rifle is a beast when I hear a Minigun wind up. Now I am use to prepatch and F3. I am wearing Re-enforced leather and a trooper helmet. No need to worry about the Minigun.

I swear it was no more then two seconds before my character was turned into swiss cheese! Wow.

So I reloaded and decided to aim for the Super Mutant using the Minigun first. Again, I got ripped to shreds. Dying to the same encounter in FNV has not happened in a long, long time. So anyways - hats off to Obsidian and the new 5mm round!

I am actually happy that I died two times in a row. Not happened in a long, long time!

Had the same thing happen but Pre-Patch.

I went up there thinking "hey super mutants up here...easy kill pshhh"...NOT. I lured them the whole way to nipton and i thought to myself" The legion will surly kill him" NOT. He massacred all of them except for vulpes inclata. So he comes up to me and im thinking" STOP TALKING TO ME AND KILL THIS SUPER MUTANT!!" Once he was done talking the super mutant shot me in the face with his Light machine gun.

Yeah I'm not too eager to storm Black Mountain anymore at level 2 for Raul.

Same here, beefed up mini-guns and that one jerk with Annabelle will hit even harder now. My characters usually have very, very low DT so I'm a little gun shy about going up there at any level really.

I had the exact same experience, but back when I first modded the -8DT in that I put on the 5mm round. I wandered up there, and thought: 2 SM. No big deal. Pump some lead in 'em and I'll get me a minigun. I died 8 times. 8 TIMES!!! Keep in mind I also removed the sneak attack crit extra damamge so I had to fight 'em straight up, mano a mano. Most times the mini gun would wear me down and the sledge would finish me, but sometimes the sledge would wear me down and the minigun would kill me. i tried every tactic I could think of to kill these birds. The thing that finally worked was luring them down into the prosector den (which is where i got the smg that finally killed them) and bottlenecking them in the door. I got lucky and the mutant with the sledge came in first, blocking the minigun so I could finally engage them one at a time. That was the most fun I'd had since the release day's first run.

-Gunny out.

Actually, I should name this thread - how the patch became a pain!

Viper Gang Leaders with Grenade Rifles! Doing Raided Farmstead. Again level 6 tonight - passed on the Minigun Super Mutant Master.

Bunch of chump Viper Ganger guys pop up and I am thinking easy loot! Except one has a Grenade Rifle and proceeds to cripple every single limb on my character! I am looking around trying to find who is tearing my character a new one. Ack! Good thing Edde saved my butt! He actually killed the leader.

So really, really liking the patch!

The base ammo buff is a step in the right direction. Either 5mm or 40mm Grenade. The PC will hoard AP rounds - no luck for the AI. So improving the base round performance has a very big impact on gameplay,

Had this happen too lol. I lured them into a NCR patrol though.

I have found this to be exactly true. I went a step further than Josh and modded DT bypass into all high velocity rounds, eg: 5mm, 5.56mm, .308 & .50, as well as improving the ballistics on auto-pistol rounds. Human firearm armed opponants are now by far the hardest enemies in the game. My smgs have higher RsOF, my bullets all hit harder, and my currier is dying a TON. I died twice tonight in vault 3 and had only 2 bars of health left after the fight on top of Black mountain that I lost Veronica and almost lost Ed-e in.

Giving the enemies weapons and ammo that can compare to the fancy gear i get makes this game so much more of a challange and so much more fun to play.

-Gunny out.

The Nightkin Sniper can kill all but the beefiest characters if his shots land anywhere near you.

Most missile launcher Super Mutants are a pain with a missile launcher. Hint, hint - make a DLC with lots of them! Or even a GMG - fun times!

Yes I must admit these changes have made combat dangerous again even on a console with no mods. I didn t think it would help NPCs, but I was wrong.

minigun still fails. Can't sneak attack from the other side of the map with one.

when was minigins ever meant to be stealthy?

He meant it as a joke.

I hate sneak attacks

Unlike F03, you face an enemy that is a higher level than you, and not the same level you are... atleast from what I hear.

I have to say I'm loving the new Service rifle, it feels perfect now.
It's also nice to see NCR partrols putting up more of a fight when they cross paths with Legion etc.

So minigun is finally a force to be reckoned with?

Meh that's a walk in the park all u nedd to do is focus in your melee skill and nothing else then use a stealthboy and [censored] the nightkin sniper next get raul as a companion and kill rohonda

I'm a firm believer in leaving no traces of life in the wake of my Courier.

The Nightkin sniper who carries Annabelle doesn't actually use it that I've ever seen, unless you shoot his Sniper Rifle out of his hands and break it in the process. Now, I usually come up the back side via the Centaur pit, since I want the BoS loot that's down there so I can get into the bunker, so this guy tends to die first. In addition, approaching him from that direction allows you to use the structure of the radio tower to your advantage; he will not use Annabelle if the tower is in his LoS, and he's not a very good shot at short range with the Sniper Rifle.

Going up the long way, on the other hand, would be brutal and a half as the non-Nightkin SMs tend to carry LMGs even at low levels (I've scored one off a Brute there at L5 before).

He's used it in my games fairly often when approaching from the road/the "proper" way. Quite often.
It's the rest of the enemies along that route that have (in the past) been cake & pie for me even at very low levels, partly because at low levels the game spawns less (spawns more at certain clvl markers perhaps), combined maybe with the occasional "monsters there, monsters not there" glitch (like at the Vertibird & ghoul place near Novac). I once ran up the entire mountain encountering only 2 nightkin & 1 super mutant until I reached the radio tower. :huh:

I'll be eager to see how it goes now.

I've run into this before myself (there are usually 2 Centaurs as well, 1 each at two points), and what happened was usually that the other 6-8 all spawned at the top near the crater, with maybe 1-2 of same a bit down the road near the boulder they usually roll down the hill at you. It seems that the spawning mechanism does not check the individual locations but rather the mountain as a whole, and randomly drops them at various points. I've had runs the long way where all the Nightkin were at the top of the hill, which made the road up a breeze as I never got hit from behind in the middle of a shooting match.

Of course, now the Nightkin are the easier targets, since they don't carry LMGs or Miniguns, so I doubt I'll be doing any more low-level runs the long way any time soon.

Hm. They've never clumped up like that for me yet, they're just not there. Usually if I go at higher levels the spawning seems more proper/there's a lot of them, but at lvl 2-8 it's very inconsistent and even when it doesn't seem completely nonsensical there's still a lot fewer.