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It's firing using only the crosshairs, not the iron sights or scopes, and not in VATS. As the accuracy improves, the crosshair pattern will tighten up.

Also known as "spray and pray".

The crosshairs without pressing M2 to focus? Even if I don't have a scope?

Firing without aiming.

Exactly. Without right clicking. Even if you don't have a scope, you can still aim down the "sights" of the gun by pressing M2. That is considered aiming. Letting go of that M2 is firing from the hip.

It bothers me a bit that the perk for increasing hip fire accuracy is semi-deep down the Strength path, especially as guns don't rely on strength, as far as I remember, and I prefer not to use VATS. I'd think Agility or Perception would be better fits for that perk.

I didn't know this. I haven't been investing any time in the strength perks either though. I wonder what the reasoning is for this? You're strong enough to stabilize the recoil of your gun?

Right? My character has a Strength of 1. I might have to mod that perk to fall under Agility once the CK arrives. Maybe I can swap its position with "Blitz," which is a Melee perk.

Guns have recoil. When you're aming a gun, you have it braced, against the shoulder for rifles and held with two extended arms for pistols.

You don't have it braced when firing from the hip, so you need more strength to keep it accurate .

Don't belive me? Fire a 12 gauge from the hip and see if it doesn't feel like it just tried to rip your arm out from it's socket.

I was wondering what that was. I generally aim and fire with the sights/scope and not spray and pray.

I already considered this, actually, but dismissed it for multiple reasons, such as: it would be a pretty selective implementation of real world behavioral physics; it's mostly inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the perks, which emphasize unrealistic behavior across combat styles; in previous Fallout games the "Small Guns" and later simply "Guns" category were governed by Agility with most, if not all, of the relevant perks being Agility based. Even Big Guns were governed by Agility in the original Fallout and Fallout 2, then by Endurance in 3. In other words, Strength has never played a role in ranged combat in this series, other than as a requirement for certain weapons in earlier titles. But who knows? Maybe that's why they chose to place that perk where they did. I'm still gonna mod it once I have the CK.

Also, real world based mechanics crumble a bit when applied to my character, who has survived multiple incidents of bullet induced massive head trauma (indeed, managed to treat it herself mid-combat) and wanders the world with a dog who is apparently wearing an invisible backpack. Maybe it's just me.

Hmm. I thought strength fit quite well for the "fight the recoil" perk. Because that's exactly how I see it - using your muscles to fight the tendency of the gun to jerk around. Agility & Perception are for finesse & aiming, sure. But when the gun starts to jump around in your hands because of excessive recoil force, force is what you throw back against it.

No I do see it, but I am just used to most gun related stuff being Agility based, plus the reasons I posted above.