I'm crafting a gun for my compansions to use since I'm low on all ammo types except .38 - of which I have several thousand. I can do a "calibrated powerful" recover that does 19 damage, or a "hardened piercing auto receiver" that only does 13 damage. My question - is the loss of 6 damage per hit for armor piercing worth it? Remember a companion will be using this not me.

Thanks!

Your companion's default weapon will probably be better than a low damage .38 weapon. Automatic weapons consume lots of ammo and you should only equip companions with them when you have lots of excess caps and bullets. Also, if you have thousands of rounds of .38 ammo, consider trading them in for better ammo.

Wow I never considered trading my .38 ammo for larger calibers. Thanks!

got to be careful in selling ammo. make sure that you or your sidekick won't be using it. there are weapon mods that really make a difference in the amount of damage a weapon does.

I gave MacCready a fully modded pipe semi-automatic, for roleplay reasons and to use the .38 ammo. He wasted the ammo in a kind I never had expected and I did not feel an improvement over his generic rifle. The main reason of a companion is distraction in my opinion. The result of my procedure is that I have nearly no .38 ammo. I should have sold the ammo and bought .45 for the money.

What do you mean he wasted ammo ?

I thought companions had infinite bullets. So it's enough to give them only one bullet specific for the gun he uses.

They use up all the ammo for the gun you give them, but their default one is infinite.

No, that only works for settlers, provisioners and companions not actively following you. Any companion travelling with you that you want to give a gun to for use needs ammo for that gun, hence why you should never give them an automatic gun a they use that ammo at an alarming rate.

Yeah, I gave Preston the most powerful .38 automatic pipe rifle I could make. I think when I equip it the damage is either 28 or 30. I gave him 1,500 rounds of .38 ammo. I did a quick run in Lexington to scavenge for more junk and even though I ordered Preston to basically hang back so that he would not attack the behemoth mutant (spawns at higher levels), Preston had like 600 or 700 rounds left.

It seems I will have to look at creating a different weapon for Preston that can fire single powerful shots quickly.

On a side note, it would be nice if weapons could be switched between full automatic and semi automatic mode like the US military's M16A4 (4th generation M16) rifle. Sure, I could quickly tap the mouse to shoot one round, but having a semi automatic mode to which shoots 3 rounds would be ideal especially since it helps with recoil.