Ok, I'm playing my first sniper at the moment and I've reached a stage where I can choose my primary weapon. First instinct was to go for the standard Sniper Rifle, but when checking the wiki for details, I couldn't help but notice that the Hunting Rifle and a scoped Trail Carbine stack up rather well against it. So the choice is not so straightforward. Lets look at the most important stats (disregarding things like DPS, Value, Weight, which are not relevant to the discussion regarding sniping) -

Base/critical damage -

Sniper Rifle - 42 / 42
Trail Carbine - 45 / 45 (can be increased even further by 25% with the Cowboy perk)
Hunting Rifle - 45 /45

Not much difference, though the Trail/Hunting are actually slightly higher.

Spread -

Sniper Rifle - 0.02
Trail Carbine - 0.03
Hunting Rifle - 0.035

Sniper clearly wins it, which is good for longer distances. But for 99% of your sniping, how much difference does 0.01 really make?

Critical Multiplier

All three are the same - x1

Scope -

Sniper Rifle - Long range
Trail Carbine - Mid range
Hunting Rifle - Long range

Trail carbine clearly comes off second best here. But even at mid range, and with a high sneak skill, you can probably get close enough to destroy your target due to the Trail's much improved damage (with Cowboy perk). Maybe.

Weapon HP -

Sniper Rifle - 80 (396 shots before breaking)
Trail Carbine - 500 (2494 shots before breaking)
Hunting Rifle - 300 (info not available, but can assume somewhere inbetween, say 1500, for example)

So, what the Sniper Rifle gains in accuracy, it clearly loses in weapon maintance, being one of the most fragile guns in the game. Either the 0.01 spread advantage that the Sniper has is so important that it overrides all other disadvantages or there isn't much advantage in maintaining it. Of course, the Sniper can have a silencer mod, which is another big advantage over the others. But even considering the advantage of a silencer, it would then be difficult to justify the existence of the Gobi Campaign Rifle, which is unmoddable.

If there is an easy answer to this, or I'm overlooking something obvious, please let me know.

I would pick both the Hunting Rifle and the Trail Carbine. The Hunting Rifle is easier to repair then the Sniper Rifle, You can add a Scope to the Hunting Rifle so it acts similar to a Sniper Rifle. The Trail Carbine is good at midrange and can do a bunch of damage, you could also add a Mid Range Scope to make it easier to pick targets off at midrange.

I love my hunting rifle but then I don't have the cowboy perk. If I did I'd probably use the trail carbine, mid scope or not.

The hunting rifle and the sniper rifle may not be affected by the Cowboy perk, but their Hand Loader ammo is much better then the Hand Loader ammo for the Trail Carbine.

.308 JSP: DAM x 1.5
.44 SWC: DAM x 1.2, DT -6

Not true, because ammo damage multiplier is apply after DT, unlike Cowboy which is apply before DT. http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2340/fnvy.jpg

So Sniper Rifles have advantage in the silencer and scope zoom. Both matter very little unless you are trying to rob NPCs and remain Friendly to say faction.

Im sorry but I have NO idea what those numbers mean.

And the silencer is very useful. If you're trying to take out Black mountain for example, you can just headshot the super mutants one by one. Every kill gets a sneak critical attack because they aren't aware of the fact that you're shooting at them. To say it's useless is like saying the Courier knows how to build a museum.

I use the sniper rifle purely for the silencer. Great for killing Veteran Rangers without the whole NCR coming after you. Plus, when shooting an enemy with others around it, they're less likely to find me.

The silencer helps a LOT when working against large groups of enemies. You can take down one enemy after another without alerting the group, or you can score repeated hits on a particularly tough opponent (Deathclaws etc.) without them knowing which way to charge in retaliation.

Just to keep the discussion from getting stuck on the silencer issue, there's a few parameters that's been overlooked in the comparison.

Ease of repair- with Jury Rigging, both the Trail Carbine and the Hunting Rifle can be repaired with cheap and plentiful Varmint Rifles (also BB guns and Caravan Shotguns), whereas all weapons that can repair a Sniper Rifle are either expensive or rare. The cheapest item that repairs a Sniper Rifle is a Service Rifle, and unless you are on a Legion playthrough, you don't find many of those.

Rate of Fire- Sniper Rifles and Trail Carbines allow quick follow-up shots. Hunting Rifles are notably slower.

Weight- At 8lbs, the standard Sniper Rifle is the heaviest of the three (5.5 for Trail Carbine, 6 for Hunting Rifle). however, its unique version Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle is the lightest (4.5). Such a pity the Carbon Fiber parts mod is broken.

Ammo Capacity: Standard Sniper Rifle- 5. Gobi- 6. Trail Carbine- 8. Hunting Rifle- 5 out of the box, 10 with extended mag mod.

AP cost in VATS: 60 for Hunting Rifle, 38 for Sniper Rifle, 33 for Gobi, a mere 21 for the Trail Carbine. While it doesn't matter for sniping per se, it does matter for overall gameplay. In panic situations (swarmed in close quarters etc.), the users of the Hunting and Sniper rifles will have to either waste precious seconds on switching to a faster weapon, or he will exhaust his VATS AP well before the fight is over. the user of a Trail Carbine can simply switch from sniping through the scope to VATS combat with the push of a button, and still be able to fire off enough shots to win the battle.

It means Cowboy Repeater with Cowboy and Handloaded ammo is almost as good as Sniper Rifle with JFP ammo.

For successive sneak kills, you would need to take on a good position and rather high sneak to remain unseen. Also note that you can't get sneak crit on an alerted enemy. Simply put, you have to play a proper sniper instead of exceptional marksmen.

I am not sure hows usefulness have anything to do with building a museum, and it would be likely that the Courier knew a good deal about antiques because they are all over the wasteland and a important aspect of survival.


Deathclaws are actually the worst example of this due to their high Perception, you have to shoot from say opposite of the crane at entrance of Quarry to the deathclaws on the northern slope to achieve this. At such range, it really doesn't matter because it is way off Mob's patrol range you can snipe for all your leisure.


Actually, Trail Carbine have a huge led in rate of fire; Sniper Rifle isn't that much faster than a Hunting Rifle with improve action.


Not sure how it the Carbon Fiber part is broken, but since you have to carry another weapon to compensate for Sniper Rifles' short comings, I think it isn't an advantage.


Sniper Rifle and Gobi is terrible in this regard.


You are right, except VATS isn't great outside of a quick draw or homing in for throwing weapons.

I could build a museum in one of my safehouses. Don't you just need lots of old junk? :unsure:

yeah, well that's why the silenced sniper rifle isn't ''useless''. That's what I was trying to explain..


when I say ''build a museum'' I'm talking about a museum that is built from scratch. There aren't a lot of good architectures out there in the Wasteland, so it's very unlikely that the Courier could ever build a building that wouldn't collapse and stuff. And no, buildings like the ones in Sloan don't count.

No even with silent kill you can alert enemy, as long as they see the dead body while the kill impulse last, thus the silencers impact isn't as great as you make it.

Do you have any proof for that?

I've scored successive hits on super-perceptive Blind Deathclaws near Bloodborne Cave. They got alerted, darted around for a few seconds, never figured out where the shots were coming from. You just need to have high sneak and maximum distance from the target.


Carbon Fiber parts mod "reduces" the rifle's weight when you look at the rifle stats, but if you check the weight being added to or subtracted from your total carry weight, you will see that the mod does nothing.



VATS is great as a panic option.

A few hours ago I've completed the Cazador eggs part of Bleed Me Dry, which required taking out a swarm of Cazadors. I'm on a Cowboy playthrough so the setup was Trail Carbine+ Brush gun, no automatics. The terrain was such that I didn't have a clear line of fire until several Cazadors were pretty much on top of me. Now, I'm sure there are "professional" teenage gamers out there with a lot of FPS experience who could shoot 3-4 Cazadors down in under a second even in that situation, but my reflexes aren't quick enough, so VATS it was. I took out all the nasty wasps with the Trail Carbine and didn't even get stung.

Blind Deathclaws, not Deathclaws. Blind Deathclaws are significantly less perceptive compare to Deathclaws. And if you have high sneak and distance, you don't need a silencer.


Interesting, no wonder I always feel a few pounds gone missing.


Also a good way to suicide.


One thing about Cazadors are that their wings are vulnerable. So just point and shoot would drop them fairly quick. VATS would only left you deeply dip into their poison.

You could've pull out a shotgun as well.

I've been using the main sniper rifle so far and it's been great, though I'm starting to notice the deterioration of the weapon is quite rapid.

I guess the question I was asking is whether the sniper rifle is so good superior than the hunting rifle/trail carbine that it's worth the constant hassle of maintenance.

As for the Gobi Campaign Rifle, I don't see why it now exists since the main silencer mod is not available and apart from a high resale value, it offers no natural advantage over the standard Sniper Rifle.

I would go with the trail carbine.

Hunting Rifle, I'm a nut for bolt-action rifles.