Hello everybody,

as an hommage to Mad Max, my favourite weapon is a Double Barrel Shotgun (Advanced Receiver, Sawed-Off Barrel, Short Stock, Glow Sights) with the "Fiery" perk. It was one of the first Legendaries I found ever since release day, and is my go-to sidearm ever since. To further explain the magnitude, I've built the better part of my character around this very weapon - storm into foe's faces with "Moving Target", and then unleash hellish damage orgies in their midst, using maxed-out "Better Criticals", "Quick Hands", "Critical Banker", "Grim Reaper's Sprint"; and of course the gun's ridiculously low AP cost. This has worked splendidly ever since.

It is 100% VATS-based obviously, and sometimes there would be situations in which my target is posing unfortunately, thus reducing hit chance, so I figured I could rectify this somehow. However: Ever since I learned "Penetrator", my shotgun deals close to no damage in VATS anymore!

I'm talking regular humanoid Raider enemies, point blank range (still not too close, so that I would be standing "inside" them or anything) body shots with 95% hit chance and an estimated one hit kill - yet when my character fires, it barely takes an inch off their health, as if I were standing a mile away from them. I've tried reloading a save before and not picking "Penetrator" when levelling up, and it worked as it always had still, so it cannot be due to the fact that I buffed the enemies by levelling up into the next tier or anything. Also, it still deals considerably high damage when shooting outside VATS. Some math calculating the redefined ballistics for the perk must have a serious unexpected flaw IMO.

Has anyone ever experienced the same, or am I just insane?