I've been thinking of different ways VATS could be used and decided to ask others how they use it. If you choose "Other", please specify how you use it.

I use it mainly for CQB work when I don't have time to draw a sword. Since my main character uses lasers as her main armament, fast and close is her weakness. VATS get's used to disable targets as they close.

More often than not though, it gets used to "scout" a hidden enemy.

Combat, sometimes in a mid-close range or for that final blow kill in slow-mo.

Used in combat, however I am also using MMM increased spawns, as well as a Responsive Kill Reactions, and a damage increasing mod. If it were vanilla, I don't see myself needing to use it very often since I find vanilla to be a bit too easy.

I don't use it at all, in fact I have a mod that disables it completely. I find it kind of cheesy and not very immersive, even nonsensical for that matter. Maybe if I was wearing Power Armour it would have some sort of logic, but I don't see any pulleys or gears on my Combat Armour that will direct my shots anywhere. It's just me holding a gun in my hands. Not to mention that quite often my game would lag whenever I entered into VATS mode.

I like to bring up vats, target the torso of a enemy and fire one shot. As soon as the sequence ends just unload on whoever im shooting at, works to perfection with A3-21's plasma rifle. After I get grim reapers sprint though I can out perform even LR with that thing as fas as head shots go. Clear a room without even being hit once.

Yep. I'd read that if you were quick, you could do headshots by using VATS, then exiting and shooting while the reticle is still on their head, but I guess I'm not steady enough. Torso shots are much easier. I'm such a chickensh*t though, I really only use it if they're practically on me.

I've spent the entire map crawling and sniping with ol' Victory/Blackhawk.

I use VATS for combat and scouting. Mainly because I love turn based strategy games and that bleeds over into my playstyle here.

Combat mainly, usually for the initial sneak attack critical at a critical body part. Also I only ever use grenades in VATS.

I do use it to scan the area ahead, mainly when a red mark has appeared on my compass but I can't see him yet. It's also a sniper's best friend - enemies will show up in VATS even when you are too far away for them to appear on the compass. The sniper rifle + scope will do the rest.

I use it for combat, and target location. This might be looking for a hostile, or just when I'm looking for a paricular NPC in town or whatever. Much quicker and easier to ID someone in VATS than running all over Megaton (or wherever) looking for them.

Not at all.

I use it when MMM overwhelm me, some breathing time and a chance to maybe pick one or two of them pesky ghouls out before returning to spamming the mousebutton again.

When I first started FO3 (nearly at the release date) I used VATS almost all the time.

But the more I played the less I used it.

Now I mostly use it when I want to target something very specific. Like the weapon in a Super Mutant Overlord's hands, or an antenna on a Giant Ant. But (I think) I avoid VATS most of the time now.

I use it for combat. But sometimes I avoid using them if the game is lagging or freezing or freaking out.

They are useful for headshots and hitting specific parts like antennae.

Sometimes in combat when it's getting a little bit 'sticky'. Some weopons I just find very enjoyable in VATS, like missile launchers, nuka grenades and unarmed.

Sometimes use it for scouting and sometimes to bring up all the targets in VATS range and if there's a lot it makes it easier to pick out the order in which to kill them (doesnt usually work out that way though!) and note what targets have cover or which targets I need to switch weopons for etc. This came in handy during some of the battles in broken steel where I wanted to pick out the helfire heavy flame units first.

I like using it in the beginning when I have just a baseball bat, for the 3rd person view of smacking the [censored] out of someone. After that, when I have guns, hardly ever use it.

In my first play through I used it a lot, I just loved the slow motion aspect of it. Later on, pretty much never.

At the start of battle where I am sneaking and have not been detected. No further VATS is allowed for the rest of the battle. Also to get rid of bloatflies and iguanas.

Note: Still on 1st playthrough

I tried using VATS a couple time for sniper shot but always missed, which just gave away my position and then I got swamped by 3-4 raiders, so I stopped using it. Since then I've actually forgotten about it, but the 'scouting' option is something I'd never considered! There's been times when, after combat, my pip-boy's still at [CAUTION] but I can't see any enemies about (I always sneak at the mo, I even started a thread about it ), so next time that happens, I'll use VATS to see if anythings about!

Yes, you can scoout with it. This is especially clear when you are using mods that make nights darker and remove ambient light from interiors.

Not at all. In my humble opinion V.A.T.S. is a nosense in this game. It makes the game like a turn based game. If I wanted that, I played risk or chess, not Fallout. I also like the feling to scout every zone, without a "magikal thing" that gives me the position of every enemy in seconds.

I use Fawkes at highest level for a companion, so I do not use VATS very often, because I can just snipe from behind him with mah GAUSS RIFLE!!! But if I think that I am being attacked and the grass is blocking the attacker, I use it to find where he is.

This is the truth. I don't snipe a lot in F3, as a matter of fact I ad like 10 sniper rifles in my Megaton home just sitting unused. I prefer Harkness' Plasma Rifle and the Combat/Terrible Shotgun with a splash of Chineese Assualt rifle. In NV I'm a sniping machine. Ratslayer and All-American are badass weapons and if you time it right, so is the Holorifle.

I hadn't thought of using it to scout ahead, but I shall now.

Just a note, to the crowd who think VATS is a waste or a crutch ... You DO realize this is an RPG, right? Not an FPS. We have skill points that govern our characters abilities, instead of relying on our own abilities.

Do you disable dialog from displaying [Speech %] when a speech check is available? Do you only carry as much weight as you personally could carry? Do you repair and build weapons in game, that you could never figure out IRL?

You let the stats for your character dictate these skills. Why not let your character stats dictate you skill with guns (or energy weapons, melee, etc.) Using VATS us no different than rolling a d20 and checking vs THAC0. And bonus points to whoever gets that reference w/o googling.

Oh ... All that said, I use it for combat primarily. Feels like it's intended use (per my long winded bs above) so that's how I use it most often.