I've tried various Google searches and haven't even found this question posed anywhere, but it's important in that certain gun mods increase and decrease aiming accuracy depending on hip fire versus aiming, such as some scopes.

So anyone know if a weapon mod that reduces hip fire aiming also lowers your hit percentages in V.A.T.S.? Because V.A.T.S mode appears to be hip firing.

Also, the Reflex Scope for eg improves focus. What's focus? Less wobble when aiming down sights?

Aiming... At least that's what I see in the animations...

Hrmmm, not what I expected to hear. Even when I aim down sights with a scoped rifle, my VATS animations show hip-firing.

Anyone else see hip-fire animations in VATS?

This is a good point.

I use VATS a lot, so for mods it would be nice to know if aimed/hip-fired shots count and/or how?

Yeah there's the animation thing (seems like it's almost always hip fire in VATS) and the there's the fact that my super high accuracy, scoped sniper rifle probably misses more at close range than my low accuracy shot gun.

I want to know how to most effectively mod a weapon for VATS so I can carry for example a .308 Pistol made perfect for VATS for those hairy situations like surprise Ghoul swarms.