Since the latest update introduced junk and crafting into the game, I noticed that the quality of items my dwellers return with from the wasteland has gone down. I have between 12-18 dwellers out in the wasteland at any one time, all fully buffed to the max and easily able to make it to the weapon/outfit cap of 100 items before returning. Since the update, my dwellers have returned with zero plasma guns and I think maybe one gauss rifle (two tops). My return on outfit gear hasn't been a whole lot better.

Bear with me for a second while I do some rudimentary math here...

- Now, the 1.4 update went live on March 3rd, so it's been 23 days of game play

- I average roughly 15 dwellers out in the wasteland at any one time right now

- Each dweller roughly spends about 3.5 days out in the wasteland before they cap out at 100 items

- The return time is halved at 1.75 days

- That works out to a round trip of 5.25 days per trip per dweller

- 23 days divided by 5.25 days per trip is 4.38 trips, but we'll round that down to 4 even for a "cleaner" number and to be conservative

- 4 trips so far times 15 dwellers is 60 trips

- 60 trips times 100 items per trip comes out to 6,000 items

One or two gauss rifles and no plasma rifles out of 6,000 items? I think with the introduction of junk, the developers scaled back quality gear...big time.

Agree or disagree? What have you noticed with your own vaults?

With the introduction of junk, and weapon/gun schematics the likelihood of finding rare weapons is lower... simply because there's more stuff to be found in the wasteland now. IMO finding rare weapons in the wastes is now obsolete, because we can now craft legendary/rare weapons and armor... Junk is much more useful.

Weapon/outfit schematics don't count towards your "found" items. Junk does count though, so good point with that. If each item (weapons, outfits, and junk) hypothetically has an equal chance to be found, it cuts weapon/outfit probability by 17% (from 50% each for weapons/outfits outfits to 33% each for weapons/outfits/junk). Even with that percentage decrease, I still feel like my ratio of rare high damage weapons is way lower than before.

I do disagree that finding rare weapons is obsolete, however. It's only obsolete if you have an aged vault that is in clear end game mode. For young-ish vaults, the rare high damage weapons from the wasteland are a vital resource to protect your dwellers while you're growing your vault. Remember, it takes 80-90 population before you can even unlock the legendary gear recipes. Tack on the time it takes to get enough of the right dwellers in there and properly craft (breeding plus maxing out Endurance/Intelligence plus rare outfit boosts), and it can be quite a while before anyone is able to start churning out legendary gear with any type of quick regularity. It can take a week plus to craft a single legendary item if you don't have the proper personnel or outfits to enhance a dweller's stats. For a small/young vault, I'd take a steady stream of high rare items in the wasteland over crafting.