Hi everyone,

On behalf of all of the hard-working teams at Bethesda and Obsidian, I’d like to give you an update what we’ve been working on these past few months.

Well, here’s what happened: our next DLC release (announcement coming very soon, we promise) has been complete while we worked on getting a patch ready for you all. We didn’t want to just release more DLC before we had a patch that would improve the overall New Vegas experience.

The good news, is that we do have such a patch and it’s been handed off to the necessary platform owners. It should be released in the next couple of weeks on 360, PS3 and PC (can’t be more specific than that, I’m afraid, although PC will almost certainly get it first).

So what’s in that patch? First and foremost, optimizations and stability improvements. While there are bug fixes, our core focus was on improving stability and performance. We worked directly with first party platform owners to identify issues, and we have fixed a great deal of the crashes and lockups that people were experiencing. In addition, we scoured the forums and this patch includes weapon balance tweaks and other requested fixes.

We know we’re not done yet. There’s still more work to do, and we’ll be monitoring the forums very carefully following the release of this patch, looking for more issues. We do have another update planned further down the line.

So I’d like to apologize for the radio silence. Hopefully you’ll be pleased with the enormous amount of work we’ve put into this update over the last few months, and will enjoy the rest of our DLC releases. We have some pretty cool stuff coming soon. Stay tuned!

Thanks,
Jason Bergman
Senior Producer, FNV

Fallout: New Vegas 1.3

This update contains optimizations and stability improvements, as well as the following balance changes:

Guns Changes:

? Automatic Guns - SMGs, the Assault Carbine, and the LMG are more accurate across the board. They're also more durable. 12.7mm SMG mag capacity increased to 21.

? Shotguns - Buckshot has received a x1.2 inherent DAM mod. This slightly incentivizes using buckshot over slugs when enemy armor is not an issue. Magnum buckshot has a x1.3 DAM mod and a small amount of DT bypass. Spread for many shotguns has been lowered.

? Hunting Rifle, Anti-Materiel Rifle - Hunting Rifle and AMR now have the lowest spread of all rifles. Hunting Rifle RoF increased, Crit Chance set to x2. Anti-Materiel Rifle's Crit DAM has been raised from 80 to 110 to make it more viable when compared to the Gobi.

? Sniper Rifle, Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle - Sniper Rifle and Gobi now have a higher RoF and lower AP cost. Both have x2 Crit Chance. Gobi has increased DAM and much higher Crit DAM over the Sniper Rifle.

? That Gun - That Gun is now a slow-firing hand cannon that does huge DAM firing 5.56mm out of a short barrel.

? Hunting Revolver - RoF increased.

? Service Rifle - DAM slightly lowered, firing animation changed to the one used by Marksman Carbine, RoF dramatically increased. Spread decreased.

? Silenced .22 Pistol, SMG - Crit DAM and Crit Chance significantly increased.

? 5mm Ammo - Base ammo has 10 points of DT bypass. AP variants have 25 points of DT bypass. This affects the Assault Carbine, Minigun, and CZ57 Avenger.

? .308 JSP - DAM mult reduced from x1.5 to x1.3. x2 CND degradation effect added.

? Lever-Action Rifles - Cowboy Repeater, Trail Carbine, Brush Gun - RoF has been slightly reduced, AP costs have been significantly increased, and spread has been slightly increased. Cowboy Repeater Custom Action RoF increase has been reduced. La Longue Carabine spread has been significantly lowered.


Explosives Changes:

? Dynamite - Larger explosion radius.

? Frag and Plasma Grenades – DAM increased.

? 25mm Grenades - Slightly increased DAM on the explosion.

? 40mm Grenades - Significantly higher DAM on the explosion.

? Missile Launcher / Fat Man - Now have much better zoom FoV and good accuracy. Missile and Fat Man projectiles (not the explosion) have a large base DAM. Both are extremely effective on direct hits, but still potent even if a direct hit is not scored. N.B.: Listed DAM on weapons assumes a direct hit!

Energy Weapons Changes:

? Gatling Laser - Base DAM is higher. Against heavily armored targets, this is still a poor weapon. Against lightly armored targets, especially with Over Charge or Max Charge ECPs + Focus Optics + Laser Commander, it has extraordinary DPS.

? Tesla Cannon, Tesla-Beaton Prototype - These now consume far less ammo per shot and can be fired several times before a reload. DAM is beefy with an additional 2 second DoT.

? Pew-Pew - Lower ammo capacity, consumes far fewer ECs per shot. Still a two-shot weapon.

Melee Weapon and Unarmed Changes:

? Ripper, Chainsaw, Thermic Lance - DAM lowered, all ignore DR/DT.

? Bladed Gauntlet, Mantis Gauntlet - Ignore DR/DT flags removed (were not supposed to be marked as such). Mantis Gauntlet animation/sound fixed.


Perk Changes:

? Splash Damage – Functions properly.

? The Professional - 10mm Pistol, SMG added to perk list.