I really think the Mini Gun needs some love in Fallout 4. It's such a big and powerful looking weapon, yet it doesn't really dish out much damage, it's embarrasingly underpowered late in the game infact, esp. compared to its laser counterpart the Laser Gatling.

Therefore I believe would be extremely awesome if in a patch or DLC we were given the ability to upgrade the Mini Gun's caliber/reciever the same way as with other weapons: That way you could upgrade the standard Mini Gun to do the same in ballistic damage shot for shot as the Gatling Laser does in burning damage, finally providing us fans with that powerful Mini Gun we're all striving for.

Yeah I've never found much use for it because it reduces your mobility so much. But thats kind of the thing with miniguns in most games, you become an easy target.

Do you have big guns leveled up. The laser gat is just plain better. Many things are better than the 10 mm but I'm still using an upgraded legendary one.

I think all automatic weapons need some love. It's so weird having the base damage decrease just because you're firing more of the same round.

there is a Minigun that lights people on fire its the Ashmaker and is from a quest the Big Dig in good neighbor. here is a walkthrough for it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpfbmPTYig

All heavy weapons need love.

It's as unrealistic to think all these miniguns and minigun ammo would be laying around in the wasteland as it is to think the wasteland's residents would never make any improvements or fixes to the existing homes and all be sleeping in homes with broken or missing roofs... rare indeed do they leave a roof intact in this game which don't get me wrong I love the game, found a bit annoying.

There's a lot of game elements that defy reality but that's alright, it's a great game. Fact of the matter is with the right perks a silenced pistol will take down a deathclaw faster than a minigun. Perhaps they should tweak this so that's not the case... but it doesn't bother me much.

If they didn't, automatic would be overpowered.

The Mini-gun was pretty craptastic in FO:NV as well, at least until you got your hands on AP rounds. Even then, the lack of HE rounds meant that it couldn't compete with the LMG (especially if you had the large drum mod, which doubled the LMG's ammo capacity) against end-game targets due to high HP pools.

It is rather odd, at least from a realism point of view, that the damage decreases while using the same ammo, however from a game-play perspective it was necessary for inter-weapon balance. To wit: if the damage did not decrease, there would be little reason (carry weight cost aside) to use the semi-auto or single-shot weapons of the same caliber as they would be woefully inefficient in comparison save for situations when a character happens to not have much of the ammo in question. Case in point: when fully modded-out, the FO:NV Gatling Laser so far out-classed every other laser-type weapon that there was little to no point in using them in open combat. To be fair, one of said mods greatly reduced the carry weight to the point where it weighed about the same as a Gauss Rifle or tricked-out Laser Rifle, an option the mini-gun didn't (and to my knowledge still doesn't) have.

They've already got the functionality there for weapons to set enemies on fire, so making incendiary rounds available would be nice.

Here you go: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1845/?

I've got the heavy weapon perk complelety ticked off with double damage, but the Mini Gun still does only 16 damage pr. shot compared to the 46 pr. shot of the Gatling Laser. I seriously think this needs some balancing.

I know there are legendary Mini Guns that somewhat make up for the low damage, but there are legendary versions of every weapon. Hence I think it would be better if they actually allowed us to upgrade the caliber of the Mini Gun, just as we are allowed to upgrade the Capacitor of the Laser Gatling.

A .308 Mini Gun that does say 45 damage pr. shot would be extremely fun, and still hard enough to acquire ammo for that you would use it sparingly.

yes, any legendary effect who does fixed damage on each bullet makes automatic weapons devastating. Spray and pay is most known

One thing about automatic weapons that may make it look like they're significantly underpowered, is if you have perks for Rifleman or Gunslinger but not Commando. I remember looking at the automatic mods for my 10mm and seeing the damage go down from 40 to 22... but at the start of the game when I didn't have perks in anything the damage only went down from 18 to 14. And if I invested in Commando and Heavy Gunner more than Gunslinger and Rifleman, the damage would actually increase. You can't just switch between weapon types willy-nilly like in a shooter, your stats will still tell you what you can and can't reasonably use.

I suppose if you specialized in automatic weapons, though, you'd still have a problem making the ammo worth it. But I'd have to make a character that specializes in those weapons to really be able to say if they're underpowered.

I find this thread ironic, because if you find an explosive minigun it becomes one of the most over powered weapons in the game, only second to the two shot gauss rifle (excluding the fat man). I have one myself and it's disgusting. I play on survival, and no enemy stands a chance because what makes the explosive perk broken is that it cripples all of the enemies limbs due to explosives having a damage bonus against limbs, so most targets are crippled before they die. Deathclaws lay there helplessly with three quarters of their health left as you slowly melee them to death, humanoid targets die instantly when all their limbs are crippled (excluding ghouls), and most other things are literally in pieces before they get close to you. Just aim for center mass and it's gg.

Yeah ok, that does sound like quite a gap.

I'd just increase the miniguns base 8 damage up to 12. Then it's suddenly much better.