Started up F3 again after way too many hours in FNV and set it to very hard.

I am having trouble getting stuff done because there is almost no ammo. I don't remember it being this bad, but I was just on hard before. I have good unarmed and spiked knuckles so I can off what I can get to but geez.

I have to carry a pile of weapons so if I find 12 32 caliber rounds, for instance, I can use them. As you know 12 32 caliber is about one raider, maybe one and a half. I like tactics and am good at getting the NPCs to kill each other but it's almost a chore.

What Very Hard does, mostly, is turn everything into a bullet sponge. Turn it back down to hard for awhile and see if that helps with your ammo issue. Or are you saying you cannot even find ammo?

From what I remember playing vanilla (on very hard) there was plenty of ammo around. Even my EW character being inefficient with small guns could find enough bullets to get things done, enemies usually drop more ammo than it takes to kill them, especially if you add some landmines that you can find all over the place and grenades. Besides, there's plenty of stuff to do that doesn't require you to go against hordes of raiders (blood ties, seting up a fight between Fairfax raiders and outcasts, raiding Vault 106 etc.)

It's not especially hard. I am starting to pick up a bit more now. The vampires have ammo it seems.

It is frustrating the controls are pretty slow and the animations are horrible. FNV is a bit better here.

I mostly die from the animations and stupid glitches. That does get old fast. I remember now why this game svcked. It is however a lot of fun otherwise.

I play it as a shooter and will not use VATS.

Well, if you are going to complain about the animations and the frustrating controls you might want to use VATS. FO3 isn't much of a shooter. Especially until you've learned your way around the controls. I don't play with VATS anymore (I played VATS for a long time before I dumped it) and it isn't difficult for me at all, but I've played for a very long time and am used to them. x4lien is right about the ammo. You shouldn't have any trouble keeping yourself in ammo, but if you aren't having fun in combat, there is no reason to keep the difficulty at VH. But that's your choice. I could play at VH, but I don't have as much fun. So I usually play at Hard. I find the number of headshots an unhelmeted human can take at VH and still remain standing to be ridiculous and it ruins immersion for me.

Also, if you are not going to use VATS you might want to carefully choose which weapons to use. There are very few weapons in the game that are really effective out of VATS. Almost the entire game is designed for VATS and most of the ranged weapons are as well. Some weapons will work great for you and others are a waste of time and effort. It would be worth your while to figure out which is which. You'll be less frustrated.

Yeah I know, I know. I have 300+ hours in FNV and I've played the entire Fallout 3 + DLC before. I should not be whining but the gunplay svcks harder than FNV. The Chinese assault rifle will have to do. The problem is I need as many guns as there are ammos. The spiked knuckles are doing their job quite well.

If I could bring my Stalker guns and engine along I take down the entire capital wasteland with ease and die very seldom. Those 400 yd headshots are not difficult at all with a nice gun. The sniper in Minefield should headshot you when he first sees you.


It's an RPG, I'll try to keep that in mind.

These weapons, I've found, are good without VATS. I too, don't VATS, it's more fun capping a moving target on your own.

Minigun/Flamer
Lincoln's Repeater/Ol' Painless
Blackhawk... I only use the scope as a telescope
My trusty spiked knuckles
Xuanlong Assault Rifle
and my fav... the double barreled shotgun

I don't use sniper rifles these days, but those work well too

I did take the Minefield sniper's gun. A one shot with a missile launcher, surprised me a lot. It's all over the place at 45 guns, oh well.

All semi-rifle have a "0" spread so the lower the accurate. With auto just spray & tank(rush). I still use VATS alot even though Im good out of it as well. Here's a math problem, what is :small guns/or/energy weapons + jet + nuka cola quantum + psycho + commando + sniper + finesse + action boy + grim reaper + a agility of 10= ?....................................give up?........................................................................................................................................................FTW on Very Hard :gun: :celebration:

Do the VATS perks like commando do anything outside of VATS?

No, VATS perks do absolutely nothing for you if you aren't using VATS. However, raising your critical chance is very helpful if you carry weapons with high crit % rates. So taking Finesse and having a high Luck is good to go that route. It gives you more crit hits:

To maximize this benefit I like to play an Unarmed/EW character. Then I carry Spiked Knuckles, the Deathclaw Gauntlet, a Laser Pistol and A3-21's PR which can take down Deathclaws and SentryBots with no problems. The great thing about Unarmed is you can use Paralyzing Palm when you get it at level 18 for Reavers and you aren't wasting ammo on them. Also, A3-21s PR if you run around can handle anything fast and if you use it sneaky can hit hard if you need it to for that first sneak crit, and when you don't get that first sneak crit, if you have raised your crit chance, then you get a lot of crits with it. Another good perk to take with that is Better Criticals which increases damage on crits. Although it requires high PE. There are small guns that have good crit % multipliers as well, that are also good out of VATS, like Blackhawk.

Here is a wiki link for reading about crit chance: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_chance

Here is thehttp://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_weapons from the wiki so you can check out their crit chance rate if you want

I use critical a lot in FNV. The Ratslayer with good luck and 'better criticals' and a couple of things, Boone's Beret for one, can do 100% critclal chance which makes it more powerful that the sniper rifle, which I leave at home.