Wouldn't the fact that RCW degrade rather quick and large ammo consumption "balance" out the fact that it is a superb assault rifle/SMG/PDW?

I can understand how you overjoy with a "balanced" weapon; since having the best sniper, big gun, SMG/assault rifle and semi-auto pistol isn't good enough for a set of combat skill; now it also have the best battle/DM rifle.

Nah the RCW+ is still pretty OP, the eating away of ammo is of little concern and with Raul and not having the Built To Destroy trait it don't excatly go down in CND as easily.
Also, with the DLC, (Yeah I know...) we got this new exchange system with cigarettes to casino chips to weapon repair kits and I have an over abundance of weapon repair kits.
So RCW+ is pretty OP, if you don't have the DLC, have the Built To Destroy trait and don't use Raul then yes, it's pretty balanced.

Sniper: Gauss Rifle.
Big Gun: ???
SMG: RCW+
Semi-auto Pistol: ???

Energy weapons were really unbalanced and they still are, it's not until we actually get Gauss Rifle, Multiplas, RCW WITH the mod and Holorifle+++ that we actually start getting a decent variety of weapons and then they are too powerful considering the low cost of ammo and that almost every merchant sells it.
But honestly the whole way EW is handled in Vegas is crap really.
Too common with their ammo and weapons (once reaching Vegas) and not being the specialization they should be.

IMO EW should be rare and expensive as hell, ammo and weapons and mods should be even rarer but with greater benefits.
Their damage should be several notches above Guns but their downside should be low CND and expensive and rare ammo.

So "Balance"?
There is no Balance in New Vegas.
They failed miserably on that.

I wouldn't get deep into what EW should be, but it shouldn't be just Gun which use battery.

NV's EW is quite an improvement compare to the rest of the series; as they are no longer late game Small Guns (even FO3 suffer this).

Although with 1.20 EW and Guns are more "balanced" amount the lower/mid tiers, now the high tiers lend towards EW by a landslide; since now the only "real" high tier Gun is .45-70 and 12 gaugers. Thankfully with Shotgun Surgeon the 12 gaugers are competitive with Tri-beam and Multiplas; but with Dead Money even the "hand-cannon" Brush Gun shivers with the sheer awesomeness of Holorifle.

IMO- I like to use the incinerators. Also depending on your perks / type of guns. I would prefer Plasma Rife. Search for the secret room by free-side in the supply shop. Has some okay weapons that should do the job/ try to upgrade the weapons as well.

Fair play to some of you guys taking out the death claws near the quarry with lesser guns that the , I just took out about 20 Deathclaws and it used 140 of the 200 ammo you get with it. So with a lesser gun my god it must take a while

Sorry for the off-topic, but I thought rapid reload only worked for guns?

Yeah I man even the fiends carry the ammo, you could just wipe them out every few days, loot rcws and ammo, sell everything else. Then repcon hq I went from 95 MFC to over 500 of them.


Nope. It needs points in guns, but all it effects is the reload time of weapons, it nevers says reload of guns, just weapons.

Anyone know if the tribeam counts as a shotgun ? Its the closest EW have, and if it gets effected by shotgun surgeon and stay back, then damn. Allthough that is highly unlikely, they are more laser shotguns than shotguns.

Pre-patch it was the Gobi Sniper rifle. With JSP rounds I cleared the Deathclaw promontory at around level 12 or 15 w/ maxed guns. I snuck around popping them in the head.

Not all Deathclaws have high DT. The ones in the cave w/ the legendary Deathclaw rarely have DTs higher than 0. Living anatomy comes in handy. Deathclaws have a lot of health and can one shot you. If they have no armor then they'll go done fairy quickly w/ hollow point ammo.


The minigun and LMG work very well against them. I killed the legendary Deathclaw w/ Boone and Rex tanking him. Gave me enough time to unload an LMG(w/ extended mag) full of AP rounds into him playing on hard.

Trail Carbine and SWC rounds, with a .45-70 cannon in reserve to drop the angry charging ones 300 style.

Would be nice if Tri-Beam could benefit from it as well, but I hardly think I'd ever get it since I don't raise my Guns skill.
I honestly think that Tri-Beam should have it's own challenge perk which gives it an extra edge.
Or a mod.
Obsidian when are the new weapon mods coming?
...
And for [censored]s sake Obsidian when are you going to patch Pyromaniac perk to require 60 Explosives OR 60 Energy Weapons? (I don't give a flying [censored] as to for what realistic reason it's in there, EW has three purely fire based weapons which advantages from this perk)
Or, it could require 60 Science only? Or 45 Science and/or 45 Survival?

EW do still need some work. Holorifle was a good start. I would rather they patch the perks first DE and splash damage are glitched and dont work :/
Also need alot more legion quests and traders, being legion is damn impossible (not impossible just not fun) when everyone else hates you, especially companions I have who lilly and rex/ed e yeah that will go far...

Raul is pro-Legion.

my load out is dinner bell/hunting shotgun with shoutgun surgen and stay back perks minus 10 dt + chance of knock back the ranger sequioa 45-70 gov't pistol the BAR auto rifle the knock knock fire axe i don't usethat one on dclaws but the rest tears them up

Why ? Well then thats one my ncr char wont be getting.

He's not Pro-Legion at all. It's just he has a whatever attitude towards all the factions.

If Josh thought this, and I'm sure he didn't, then he would be wrong. The .308 rifle round, while a smaller diameter bullet, is a more powerful round than either .44 or .45, both of which are pistol rounds (unless you're talking about .45-70, which is a rifle round, but a very old one introduced in 1873 back in the less powerful black powder days). Just to give you a reference point here are a few numbers:

Energy - Defined as mass x velocity². How much kinetic energy the bullet has available to pentrate the target to vital organs and impart that energy to damage tissue. Measured in foot-pounds, here are the comparable numbers for common cartridge loads for each round at the muzzle:

.308, 180 grain FMJ - 2331 ft-lb
.44 Magnum, 240 grain JSP - 741 ft-lb
.45ACP, 230 grain FMJ - 371 ft-lb

This difference gets even greater at range, as pistol rounds are relatively low velocity, large cross section rounds that bleed energy much faster than high velocity, energy efficient rifle rounds. Here are the energy numbers at 200 yards, a pretty short rifle shot, but an incredibly long pistol shot (same bullets):

.308 - 1735 ft-lbs
.44 Magnum - 440 ft-lbs
.45ACP - 243 ft-lbs

Now, to keep this honest, there are many schools of thought on how to determine which measurement is "correct" for determining how much killing power a bullet has. One method, developed by a big game hunter named John Taylor, takes into account the diameter of the bullet and comes up with a number for "stopping power". Here are the same bullets using Taylor Knock Out (TKO) index at the muzzle and at 200 yards:

.308 - muzzle, 19.1, 200yds, 16.5
.44Mag - muzzle, 17.5, 200yds, 13.5
.45ACP - muzzle, 12.7, 200yds, 10.2

As you can see, in any instance, the high powered rifle round has both greater energy (mostly from it's higher velocity and greater ballistic coefficient) and greater stopping power (in spite of it's smaller diameter), and holds this advantage out to a much longer range. Terminal ballistics pentration charts will show the .308 has much greater pentration also. (Full disclosure disclaimer: The numbers I used for the pistol rounds were from pistol length barrels. If you fire the .44 from a longer, ie: carbine length barrel, you wil have higher initial energy, but then the great drop off in performance at range, but it still does not beat the .308.)

Any way you slice it, the .308 is a more lethal, longer ranged, more accurate round. Of which I am 100% certain Josh (the E ain't for Energy Weapons) Sawyer is fully aware of.

-Gunny out.

.... Pro-legion I tells ya'! :stare:

Your fists.

Kinky.

I use the Bear trap fist to cripple the legs then run like hell and unload several magazines of the Automatic rifle into them.

It was a comment he made on the some (maybe here) forum which a thread ask about if diameter = more powerful bullet. Josh than state he went to that instead of making every round having very different behavior.

Neither Tri-beam or Multiplas need Shotgun Surgeon; they have much tighter spread compare to shotguns, high crit damage and chance, not to mention about a much better damage multiplier with OC.

After 1.20 EW have the best selection of specialize weapons (see last page).

Holorifle is bad, bad because it is yet another super general purpose weapon.