Yeah, you're right. It was a brainfart on my part (and the "E" was a typo... )

I also second the idea of imported FONV ammo into FO4. I miss my LMG and my 12.7mm submachine gun as well. BTW 12.7 is an equivelent to .50, and the 12.7mm pistol was an ass kicker in FONV as well...

Fatal area of the human body (or any other living body) is exactly the same regardless of bullet. There are vital parts and there are those which are not. If projectile, or any other objects penetrate in to those organs and damages them enough that they cease to function, you are dead. If not, you may survive given you or somebody else will stop bleeding. If you or somebody else won't, you are again dead no matter the bullet size. The difference between diameter of .50 and .44 is basically irrelevant.

And then there is problem with high powered bullets that thanks to their energy they have tendency to penetrate all the way through body, in which case they are less lethal then slower bluets that ends up inside the body. That why hunting and law enforcing weapons tend to use heavier but slower bullets which tend to hit with less energy. The reason why military like to use smaller diameter but high power bullets is that they are better in penetrating cover and protection, even if their lethality and stooping power is smaller.

.50 in real life is practically anti material bullet. It was designed against aircraft (for use in anti aircraft guns and as aircraft weapon itself). It's also used in heavy machine guns and rifles which use it are meant against enemy equipment, not primarily against living targets.

Now if you start talking about penetration and it's effectiveness against armor, that's another thing. But then you are opening another can of worms since just like "hit point" system is totally unrealistic abstraction, so is the "damage resistance" (aka armor). It hardly compares to real life.

What are you talking about? You do understand that ballistics data is published, and a cursory google search of .50 BMG vs. .44 mag will OBJECTIVELY tell you what you need to know?

...oh, and that ballistic data shows a grotesque comparison of delivered energy on a given target at different ranges? Do we need to show you pictures of people cut in half, or blown to bits with a .50 BMG. The damage is instantaneously "traumatic"...and an immediate game ender, no matter where it hits a human target.

14,000 ft/lbs energy delivered with a 700 grain .50 BMG
1,500 ft/lbs energy delivered with a high end 340 grain (+P) Buffalo round .44 mag

Ummm...after 20 years in the US military, and other endeavors, if given the cold choice, I'll take my chances with the .44...especially at extended ranges. You understand that delivered energy is directly proportional to damage done to the target?

Have you ever been to a rifle range and actually fired a big revolver or long action rifle?

I was referring to it's effect not to it's existence. Try to fire the thing on your pictures and then compare it to Fallout mini nuke. Being "nuke" that thing does not even leave radiation.

Yes, except what you describe is difference in penetration, not "damage" per see. If bluet fails to penetrate your protection, then it does zero damage. Which indeed is less then does one which penetrate. But that apply regardless of the size of those bullets and falls under "armor piercing" in game terms. Which is another aspect which makes no sense comparing to real life because it's again unrealistic.

So, I suppose you would like to advance that theory to Chris Kyle or other members of US & UK special forces snipers who favor the Barrett .50 cal? It is true though that the .338 is higher velocity and flatter trajectory, but then one has to consider the explosive .50 cal rounds.

Kinetic energy is important in terms of penetrative power. Against unprotected targets it can actually cause round to be less lethal, since it tends to result in bullet shooting clear through body. That's usually less lethal then bullet which stays inside body.

Also note that what is more important then kinetic energy is shape of the bullet. And here again real world physic cause penetrative power to be opposite of lethality. For the same treason as above.

No problem. Just making sure I didn't miss out on something!

Most bullets over-penetrate soft targets, especially rifle rounds. And since JHP rounds are banned from combat as per the Hague Convention of 1899, most handgun rounds will definitely over-penetrate as well. It doesn't matter if the bullet stays in the body or not, the wound cavity matters and the shock/destruction to vital organs and tissue, which kinetic energy plays a large part in.

There is zero difference between .50 hitting your liver and .44 hitting your liver. Your liver ceases to function. End of story. The difference is that thanks to it's greater energy, .50 can cut through 50cm brick wall and still reach your liver. But that's not lethality, that's penetrative power.

And no, there is no direct proportionality between energy delivered and damage done when you speak about living targets. Otherwise nobody would use anything else then .50 cal. The reality is, that even military is not using .50 cal as a main infantry weapon.

Exactly. Also, I think some of us are getting hung up on equating damage with lethality. When you speak of bullets passing through without hitting vital organs, one would think that means less damage. Yet, consider the guy who gets shot in the shoulder by a .50cal Barrett. The bullet penetrates, passes through and never hits a vital organ. Yet, a popular video showed the entire unattached arm flying off a hundred feet so, then consider what the possibility was that the guy bled out in a few seconds...

I used to be a FO4 sole survivor like you, then I took a .50 caliber round in the knee... said nobody. Ever.

I've heard stories from some buddies of mine who served together in the Army...now they have no reason to lie, but I do know some people stretch the truth. Same way a fish gets bigger and bigger each time a fisherman tells his tale...but they told me about a guy who was barely missed by a .50bmg round. The round never touched him, but the sheer force from the round passing that close to him caused massive internal bleeding, killing him.

Just a story I heard, but given the power behind those round, I'm inclined to believe it. Whether it's true or not, it's crazy as hell lol

JHP bullets are beaned exactly because they to more damage, not less. As strange as it may seem, in war killing your enemy is of secondary importance. That's why in hunting, where you actuality do want to kill your target, you are better to use larger, heavier bullets which hits with less kinetic energy. If you shot through body, then most of that energy was not actually delivered to the target and therefore did not cause any damage (the part which left target with the bullet).

And once more, it does not matter with how much energy your bullet hit some vital organ as long as that bullet penetrated all the way in to that organ. There are only few organs which cause instant death. Practically it's only your brain and hearth. There are few others which will kill you over some time if they are hit. But most of the body mass is made of things which won't kill you if damaged, like muscles or bones. The thing is that very few deaths, both in war and in hunting are caused by bullets directly. Most common cause of fatality is blood lose caused by wounds. In other words, bleeding to death.

Heh, I dunno if I buy that one or not... Crazy as hell indeed!

But... there is more to damage than lethality. the game mechanic points toward damage equating with death to be sure, but damage is as important as killing the opponent. For instance, when I'm attacked by a herd (flock? gaggle?) of feral ghouls, I don't even try to kill them immediately. I shoot (or attempt to shoot) them in the leg, one bullet per ghoul.

The result is that I don't wast time trying to kill each one. I hit a leg about four out of five times even without VATS, so if five ghouls attack at once, I bring four of them to a halt almost instantly, take the time for a follow-up shot or two for the one I missed, then go give each crawling ghoul a head shot. Sometimes the leg shot kills them out right, but you see I don't really care whether it does or not.

At the same time, the amount of damage inflicted by my weapon is important. It has to do enough damage to cripple the leg whether it's enough to actually kill or not.

The gauss rifle is classed as a rifle..

So, one charged hit with a maxed gun perk and weapon mods will kill pretty much any "soldier" with a shot to their weak point or a few crit shots on a "boss"

Hit point system when applied to living organisms clearly represents lethality in real life. In very inaccurate way but still. In real life lethality comes from ability of the projectile, or object in general to cause damage to vital parts of the body. That's not caused by kinetic energy alone. It's much more complicated than that. You have to factor shape, weight, ability to change shape upon impact or to fragment, and other things. And of course it factors which part of body it impacted.

There is no general agreement what lethality is, most importantly because it can be something different under different conditions. But for the case of comparison to Fallout game mechanic, size of the wound that bullet cause to living tissue, both it's diameter and it's length (penetration) can be used as a measure:

"...when was the last time that the cause of death was listed as "kinetic energy?" Surely in the combined annals of recent history this accepted cause of instant demise must be at least hinted at in obituaries and autopsies?

Of course it isn't, with far more historically popular listed causes of death being such maladies as "consumption." In lieu of flowers, perhaps we should ask that donations be sent to the Kinetic Energy Foundation chapter near you?

Kinetic energy is a poor basis for anything specific, as is velocity alone, mass alone, or any number. Can you look at the carcass of a game animal and determine what energy was "transferred" to it? Ironically, "high energy" projectiles have left wounds on battlefields that need no surgery at all; no excision of tissue."

"The horrific error in putting your faith in either kinetic energy or a Taylor Knock-Out value should be obvious. If you believe in TKO, a 12 gauge Foster slug is 13 times more deadly than a .223 Remington, almost four and one half times as lethal as a 30-30, and over 350% more deadly than a .308. It would also characterize the .22 LR rimfire as virtually worthless, though it outpenetrates our .223 Remington round, our 12 gauge Foster slug, and remains the most popular professional assassination cartridge of all time. Does anyone believe that?

The kinetic energy figures are also misleading. They would lead you to believe that the Foster slug is far superior to a 30-30.

The wounding ballistics show that the destruction of tissue by the .308 is superior to the rest of the pack, and that the load that offers the best penetration of the bunch is the .30-30. These two cartridges are clearly superior to the others--a conclusion that will not be surprising to experienced big game hunters. It is easy to fall into the trap of confusing trajectory with lethality, and accuracy with projectile wound profiles. Wounding ballistics profiles have nothing to do with either."

"The relatively modern broadhead arrow, with less KE than a .22 Short (50 fpe) has been used to kill all species of game. As Dr. Fackler wrote in 1987, "It is difficult to be optimistic for the future when these weapons developers still use the scientifically discredited "kinetic energy deposit" method to estimate wounding effects."

The idolatry of velocity alone greatly misleads, and kinetic energy deposit has been clinically disproved. Yet muzzle velocity and energy are still used today as the most common guides to attempting to predict wounding performance."

"Thanks to the human races' continued proclivity towards killing off parts of itself, we know that foot-pounds of energy is a myopic way of describing projectile effectiveness. How much kinetic energy does it take to stick a knife or spear between the ribs of a game animal?"

http://www.chuckhawks.com/energy_transfer.htm

The weapon in game has nowhere near enough power to be .50BMG....most likely it's .50AE, the pistol round.

this.

If I'm close to medium range from an enemy, damage isn't the only consideration. Ammo capacity and reload speed are just as important to me. I don't use the revolvers at all for this reason. Doing an extra 30 extra damage is largely moot, when you're dealing out over 100 at any rate.

properly modded plasma pistol > .44

I don't really have much experience with the various pistols in the game. I've always been more of a rifleman myself. I will say though, that the increased damage that comes from the .50 receiver swap is significantly underpowered. It barely makes a difference. It's so ridiculously underpowered that I installed a mod to fix the increased damage of the .50 receiver swap. Instead of doing 128 or whatever, the hunting rifle now does 182 after swapping the receiver. This seems more realistic to me.

A 600 grain bullet traveling at 2800fps (.50BMG) is going to do far more damage to whatever it hits than a 240 gr bullet traveling at 1350fps (.44 Magnum). You might survive a center of mass hit from a .44, you won't survive a .50 BMG hit as the hydrostatic shock from the projectile will turn your internal organs into puree without even slowing it down significantly.

.50 BMG was originally designed for use in an light automatic cannon (the M2, aka Ma Deuce) as an AA weapon and as a Anti-Tank weapon to deal with the First Gen Tanks used in WW1. It isn't a main infantry weapon because it is so powerful that a rifle capable of firing safely weighs 20+ lbs and a soldier couldn't carry it and a useful amount of ammunition in the field....not to mention you ain't firing one of those from any position other than prone or off a rest/bipod and expect to hitting anything. The only troops you'll see with one of those things is a sniper. With that said, it wouldn't be surprising if they came up with a .50BMG weapon of some kind for Power Armored troops...though it would be overkill for most things...I have no doubt the Chinese would have fielded a AMR of some sort to try to cope with the US deploying increasing numbers of Power Armored troops.

What they call a .50 in this game isn't .50 BMG...it's flat out too weak.

The .44 ammo rarity is no longer a problem if you build level 3 gun shops.

I swap loot for .44 ammo at my own shops.

I must be doing something wrong as I have compared shooting foes with a sniper rifle that is modded up ( explosive legendary, overseers guardian) to the .44 Kelloggs pistol modded up and the pistol always does more damage.

Maybe it's something to do with the survival mode damage modifiers or perhaps head shots are better with Kelloggs.

Here's something interesting. The OP says the .44 does more damage than the .50, and presents us with some figures based on max perks and the weapons modded to the max, right? So...

I have a new character I started yesterday, who is using the Red Rocket as a base. Since it was handy (and I was thinking about this conversation) I went and collected the snub-nose .44. I happened to have a bolt-action .308 pipe rifle in my inventory, so... I looked at the .44, and it does 48 points with no Gunslinger, or Rifleman and no mods. No relevant perks at all. Other than boosting SPECIAL at level 7 I have only Gun Nut rank 1, Aqua-girl rank 1, and Sneak rank 1.

I can't mod the rifle from .308 to .50 yet, but the weapon bench showed it would 59 points of damage when I can. What that means to this conversation is simply that without mods or perks, the .50 does indeed do more damage than the .44, but after modification the .44 will apparently (according to the OP's figures) then do more than the .50. One would have to believe that if the .50 could be modified (it can't) it would still do more damage, so the entire reason that the .50 can do more damage in the end boils down to the .50 being incapable of being modified. That kinda makes sense if you think that the .50 was left without receiver modification probably due to game balance. My guess it that it is not viewed as a "fixable issue" by the devs but rather just the way they see it to keep the .50 from being overpowered. You see, the .44 is NOT viewed as being overpowered, but the .50 if modified would be.

Lemme say that again in the clear so as not to be misunderstood. It's NOT that the .44 is overpowered, rather that a modified .50 WOULD be. Thus the disparity.

That's all very interesting, but I don't really see what it has to do with our conversation. What I was saying is that damage is often mistaken for lethality and visa versa. If it was a "bang you're dead"situation, that would be quite correct, I suppose but... the game has a point based option for crippling as well.

As in my example of shooting ghouls in the leg, perhaps the wound is lethal, but it's more important that the ghoul be stopped by the damage rather than necessarily killed. So, if I shoot the ghoul and the leg goes flying off (which frequently happens) but the ghoul is still alive, then damage has been inflicted without lethality ever being a part of it, yes? Somewhere I have a video of a one-legged ghoul trying to kick Dogmeat...

What is necessary is a one-shot damage to the leg capable of crippling, whether it kills or not. In the end, a crippled ghoul is still dead...eventually. Although I have on occasion just left them behind trying to crawl around. I don't KNOW that they die... Hmmm...

During WWII the Nazis used a little mine that designed to blow off the left nut of the soldier who stepped on it. It wasn't mean to kill, only to incapacitate and create another wounded soldier who would have to be cared for. The lesson is that a weapon doesn't HAVE to be lethal to be effective, and in-game health points don't have to equal zero to end the combat. Thus the two effects need different conversations, eh?

BTW I never heard of anybody being crippled by kinetic energy either... though I did have a horse fall on me once, so I suppose that was kinetic energy in some form. and it did cripple me for a few months.

Far, far too weak. When we saw ".50 cal," I think most of us were thinking BMG and New Vegas, and expecting Hecate-like antimateriel power. I guess our first indication of disappointment onset should have been when the only real option was modding a .50 receiver (something supposedly able to withstand 55,000 psi chamber pressures), onto a REM 700 Varmint Rifle look-alike....or worse, a friggin pipe rifle. Ridiculous...almost as ridiculous as chambering a mid to long range "combat" rifle in .45 ACP! But then again, this is the same game that gave us a 25 lb "assault" rifle.

If you look at the ammo box associated with .50 cal it clearly states a 290 grain cartridge, obviously less than half the weight of a BMG; but if you drop the actual in-game .50 cal round on a table, then drop one of each of the other calibers around it, it clearly looks comparable to the .50 BMG.

Either way, in performance and design, ballistic weapons are a real disappointment in FO4.

BTW, well said.

Yes its an anti materiel weapon as you say, benefit as an sniper round is that its heavy and fast and make it nice to snipe with from long distance, hydraulic shock kills you if it hit you pretty much everywhere, known to rip legs of people it hit.

bonus in that it also works well against helicopters and most APC like stryker,

An BMG combat rifle would be an tool to kill other using power armor.

Its also many types of .50 ammo.

Note that we will probably see an shift towards heavier calibers as .308 as combat armor is becoming common. Don't think power armor will be common anytime soon except perhaps in special use like bomb disposal.