These two sidearms are incredibly similar and incredibly deadly with the right perks and setups. They're almost like two sides of the same coin: One has high base damage, the other crits more. One has the DPS of an SMG, the other can snipe almost as though it were a rifle. Some prefer Lucky, some prefer ALSID. I'm curious as to which one people think is better. So let's find out once and for all!

Wikia pages for both:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Lucky
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/A_Light_Shining_in_Darkness

Demonstration videos of both:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkklF_MakDI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1LMwTq-2SA


Benefits of Lucky:

-Lower spread
-Higher crit rate
-Superior ironsights, easy to aim with
-Cheap and easy to repair
-Easy to find ammo for
-Lucky utilizes the Cowboy perk, which also compliments the Brush gun, should a player want to use it

Drawbacks of Lucky:

-Lower DPH and DPS
-Slow reload time



Benefits of ALSID:

-Higher DPH and DPS
-Very fast reload time
-ALSID utilizes the Grunt perk, which also compliments the Survivalist's rifle and/or the All-American, should the player want to use those

Drawbacks of ALSID:

-Inaccurate ironsights, takes some adapting to in order to aim with it correctly
-Ammo can only be bought, not found, meaning the player can only use what they leave home with
-Somewhat costly to repair





Lucky's stat boosts after all beneficial perks and Hand Loader ammo:

DAM: 50
DPS: 164
Total damage with a crit: 80
Spread: .24
Damage threshold ignored: -3
Condition deterioration rate: x1 with 255 item HP

ALSID's stat boosts after all beneficial perks and Hand Loader ammo:

DAM: 57
DPS: 322
Total damage with a crit: 90
Spread: .55
Damage threshold ignored: -4
Condition deterioration rate: x2.5 with 250 item HP






So guys, which do you prefer to bring along? Which do you think wins the battle of the sidearms?

ALSID, I just like it more.

Mysterious Magnum is second because it heavily suggests it belonged to the Mysterious Stranger, who i loved in Fallout 3.

Pretty nice breakdown you did here, real thorough. I got to go with ALiSD, for one thing I usually do grunt type builds and like you said its got good synergy with two of my other favorite weapons, the All American and the Survivalist Rifle, overall it just fits my Playstyle better.

I thought I would like ALSID more, but then found out I prefer Lucky.
I think a big part of it is, you have to ask yourself what a sidearm should be designed to do. Yes, ALSID is totally badass: it hits hard and fires fast as hell, and you look and feel like a badass when you reload it. However, the Survivalist's rifle can match (or out-do) ALSID's damage and DPS while providing superior range, more common ammo, a larger clip size and lower spread. Hell, the Survivalist's Rifle is even cheaper to repair and uses cheaper, lighter weight ammo. There's really little to no reason at all to use ALSID over the Survivalist's Rifle, except so that you can feel like a badass.

Lucky, on the other hand? Why would I use it? Because I want to conserve on my Brush Gun ammo. My Brush Gun is great for sniping, both because it's got much lower spread and because a sneak attack crit from a Brush Gun with hand loaded ammo is going to seriously f*** sh*t up. But the Brush Gun isn't the best for close range and it may not be wise to use all of my .45-70 Gov't ammo on smaller targets. Lucky lets me continue sniping while conserving on ammo, it still fires fast enough to be a close range weapon and most importantly, ammo is NEVER an issue for Lucky. Lucky probably saved my life in the Big Empty: by the time I was done, I only had Pushy and .357 magnum ammo, only coming across a few rounds of .45-70 Gov't every now and then. Lucky does an excellent job of allowing the player to conserve on more powerful ammo and keep more powerful weapons in good repair while still not actually cutting down on the player's damage output by much OR forcing the player to get in close to their opponent before firing. With my build, I crit with Lucky 62% of the time, meaning 62% of the time, Lucky is doing just as much as a Brush Gun, though at a ridiculously cheap fraction of the price.

The only time I wish I had ALSID instead of Lucky is if I have a swarm of something after me, like Nightstalkers or Cazadors, since Lucky's reload speed does become an issue when you have several highly aggressive enemies and thus can't kill everyone in one clip or take cover to reload. The problem with that is, at that point, why not just use an SMG instead of ALSID? The K9000 would do the job better, and it conveniently uses the same ammo as Lucky, meaning I get to carry less...

I can name plenty of guns that can replace ALSID when it comes to providing good DPS. But when it comes to naming a gun that can replace Lucky as a bang-for-your-buck, jack of all trades that acts as a substitute when your other guns fail/run out of ammo? Can't think of one.

I definitely see your point, I guess its just a matter of personal preference. One reason I guess I favor A Light Shining in Darkness over Lucky or That Gun is because before Honest Hearts came out almost all my playthroughs ended up with me taking the cowboy perk and I just got burned out on it, now I can take the grunt perk and most of my favorite weapons are covered by it (ie All American, Thump Thump, Chances Knife) and it just turns ALSiD into a absolute beast.

Heh.

Personally because I like critical hits I'll choose Lucky by just a tiny hair. The reload is painful though.

A shame it magically disappeared from my main character.

Lucky was great with my lucky cowboy character, add in the mysterious magnum and La Long Carbine and i'm set.

ALSID is very good for when I have a guns character and have extra money to spend.

Still like them both, any (unique) gun is a good gun really, depending on perks and stats! :turtle:

This does it for me.

i voted for ALSID only because i end up useing it more, but not because i like it more, lucky is my favorite. but the fast reload is the reason i go with ALSID

Reasons for Lucky
-when RP its easy to fit in, ALSID is joshua's gun
-Looks, i love the scheme of it.
-revolvers kick ass

downside to ALSID
-Looks, i really wish it was not cut down, makes it feel like a two bullet holdout piece the manly 45. looks better.
-Its joshua's gun, so i always feel like im useing someone else's weapon

The Ranger Seqoiua is the better weapon because any other pistol can't take on a deathclaw or any high lvl npc, and the Ranger can use hollow point rounds giving it the strength of the anti metirial rifle. And the ammo you can buy if you have alot of caps that is.