Gunny, what round do you use to get the SAMMI data for 5mm? just curious.

I'd say for an actual fix; up the damage of the sniper with 10 points and drop the range on the cowboy rifles (except maybe the brush gun). Perhaps lower damage on some of them as well, since you can get the Cowboy Repeater before you get the service rifle.

The stuff you guys are talking about is more for a mod. And the other weapon types shouldn't be forgotten in the process.
Also intrinsic DT reduction would mean those weapons damage would have to be adjusted downwards to compensate.

The weapons DAM has *already* been adjusted downwards for the sniper rifle.

Tearing down the entire system and using .46ACP's "scientific rebalancing" approach is something more for a mod, I agree. But simply adding intrinsic DT reduction is doable for a patch.

As the Cowboy rifles already have such a huge DAM advantage over .308 and .50 cal rifles (Brush > This Machine/AMR, Trail/Repeater > Sniper), there is really no problem with giving .308 and .50cal ammo an intrinsic DT reduction to compensate. In effect, instead of adding 10 DAM points, the -10DT armor piercing ensures extended effectiveness against armored targets. Against unarmored/lightly armored targets, the intrinsic DT means nothing.

Arguably, this is more "realistic" than simply adding more DAM. Or conversely, it's more realistic than simply lowering the DAM of all Cowboy weapons. You also have to adjust .308 and .50cal ammo (two things) as opposed to balancing an entire class of weapons (the Cowboy rifles), so it's arguably also an easier/faster solution.

Or people can just restore sniper DAM to 62, restoring things as they were prior to the patch.

I used a .204 Ruger. It was the only 5mm round in the ammo book I had near the computer. Have I mentioned yet how lazy I am? I couldn't even bother myself to use a ballistics conversion site to make up a suitalble 5mm round. :hubbahubba: In my mind, the FO 5mm round would be something more like a cross between the 4.7 H&K and a FN 5.7mm. The muzzle velocity of the Ruger .204 is probably a little too high for the intended in game use, but it's within the SAAMI pressures your standard M4 is capable of (since the Assualt Carbine is chambered for the round and is similar to the M4/CAR-15) If you like, dump a little velocity off of it and reduce the energy accordingly. I still think it would retain the energy I feel it should, ie: a high velocity small caliber round designed to tear through body armor. Maybe I'm wrong here, since Josh designed the round as a pansy that can't blow through a wet paper bag. In a hurricane. With a tailwind. In July.

-Gunny out.

It still doesn't fix the fact that the cowboy rifles are pretty overpowered in comparison to many other guns.
If you're just going to tweak ammo to bring them up to the cowboy rifles level I'd say you need to bring energy weapons, melee and explosives up as well (unarmed is already pretty powerful as I've heard). It's as much of slap in the face of those weapon users as it is the sniper characters.

Whoa. Hold on there feller. .357 and .44 magnum rounds are nothing to sneeze at. They're damn powerful rounds used at the correct engagement range. Energy is only one way to look at this stuff. There's always a huge debate anytime you get two gun nuts in a room together about how to measure the lethality of any given round/load. Another way to look at it is the "Big Hole" theory. John Taylor develped a formula for comparing large caliber rounds' ability to take down big game. It took into effect energy, but added in the effect of the size of hole the bullet made in the target. Taylor Knock Out index is another tool you can use to compare relative terminal effect. Here's a few more numbers, again with bland and boring middle of the road common loads (all fired from carbine/rifle length barrels @ 100 yards):

.357 - TKO 11.5
.44 - TKO 20.3
.223 - TKO 5.1
.308 - TKO 18.4

Looking at it this way, the big hole the magnum rounds put in a target means the better chance to hit something the target don't want to lose. See how the .223 falls way off? But lets look at those same rounds at a little farther downrange, say at 400 yds:

.357 - TKO 7.9
.44 - TKO 14.3
.223 - TKO 3.9
.308 - TKO 15.8

Notice how the high velocity rounds lose less lethality due to range? That's how this works. Big slow pistol rounds are great for close shots, and fast small rifle rounds are great for accuracy and maintaining energy at longer ranges. I'm thinking the way to do this would be to make the base damage closer to the "Big Hole" numbers and the DT bypass based on the "Energy is King" numbers. Then you take away the pistol rounds' ability to hit like a sniper at long range by making them less accurate, ie: give them a large spread number, just like they do in real life. If you use the pistol round in a lever-action up to 100 yards at an unarmored target, you can, and should be a killing machine. Try it at 400 yards or against armor and you might as well be throwing the money you paid for the ammo at them instead. You use the rifle round at 100 yards and it will punch through armor like a bad taco through my colon and you risk the chance of "through and through" shots that high velocity rounds can result in, and thereby do a little less damage, but head shots at 400 yards will drop just about anything.

As far as balancing the other kinds of weapons, I, unfortunately, have little experience zapping people with lasers or whacking them with sledgehammers. I *do* have a vast amount of experience with things that go boom!, being that I used to lob mortar shells for a living. If *I* were gonna do all this, I would do guns first, explosives second and then balance the other weapons off of what I did to the others. That's a ton of work, folks. Take pity on an old Marine, will ya?

-Gunny out.

The repeater brush gun/trail arent right off the bat heavy hitters till you take the cowboy perk tbh.Id perfer if this topic stops due to the fact im tired of Je Sawyer nerfing weapons to satisfy a small number of ppl lol.I know its selfish but i like my powerful weapons X D.At first it was reasonable now its degraded into a unholy nerf swamp meet .
IF i dont fight against it were gona end up with sticks ,with a boom attached to the stock >_<

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_mm_Remington_Rimfire_Magnum << Much more in keeping with the in-game performance.

Or see http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2008/01/28/centurion-5mm-remington-rimfire-magnum/ which is apparently the only brand of the stuff on the market at present.

I'm not talking about nerfing anything. My "SCIENTIFIC! method" (thanks for the phrase, momay!) would probably make all the guns more powerfull, especially some that are now pretty limp.


That is more in line with how the 5mm performs in the game. I like the !New! 2300 fps version. I gotta tell ya though: Iffen I do this, MY 5mm won't be that weak. It's in the "Assualt Carbine", Not the "Rear-echolon pouge Personal Defense POS weapon". It'll have some zoom-zoom to it. And you'll need a ST 15 to wield the minigun.

-Gunny out.

Wasnt directed to ya your suggestion is fair/reasonable .But all these old geeser jokes you say cracks me up hahaha

Nobody is asking for a nerf here.




I agree. There is no reason why the DAM of tier one Cowboy Rifles cannot be comparable to tier one modern rifles, tier two cowboy to tier two modern, etc. People seem to just be looking at DAM here when other factors are equally well suited to differentiate the weapons.

Using energy of a gun to characterize its DT bypass is actually a great idea, and not hard to do. There are only three rounds in New Vegas that would qualify for such consideration - the 5.56mm, the .308 and the 50 cal. The 5mm is weird in that both assault rifles and the minigun uses the rounds, and I'll differ judgment on that one.



The energy weapons are fine - they were already buffed in the last patch. The Gauss rifle hits like twice as hard as AMR. Also, all MF ammo have inherent DT bypass.

Your charts and indexes don't take into account the fact that every end game player in FO:NV using a lever carbine is firing rounds that would probably exceed +P+ rounds performance IRL, just look at how much powder you are cramming into those SWC's compared to a standard round! They also don't account for the fact the rounds are projecting semi-wadcutter bullets, much better man/beast stoppers than ball or hollow-point ammo.

Would it make you guys breath easier if the lever carbines did less base damge and the same it does now via an increased SWC/JFP damage bonus? Because at the end of the day in the real world at FO:NV combat ranges a +P+ .45-70 SWC is going to make a .308 look like a rat round ballistics-wise.

You are absolutely correct. As I stated more than often enough, I was detailing very base cartridge/bullets to determine base damage and base DT performance, and then went on to explain how I would treat non-base rounds, against both armored and unarmored targets. Would you like me to say it again? I'm old and often repeat myself anyways.................I'm old and often repeat myself anyways..................

PS (yes. .45-70 is a very powerful round, as even my base figures show. Hand loads can be even greater given the extremely large cartridge size available. Of course, the thing has a ballistic co-efficient of .1 and drops like the ball in Time's Square on New Year's Day at any long range, and we weren't really talking about the Brush Gun so much, but I believe, if you read carefully enough, I think I covered all of that and how to implement it in my string of posts. Don't like the way I'm thinking, feel free to contribute more to the conversation than criticism.)

PPS (Just so I don't come off like some close-minded old coot, in support or the quoted post's point, here are the TKO figures for base (sorry, all I got at hand right now) ammo .45-70: 100y - 31.6, 400y - 24.9. They called it a buffalo round for a reason, of course, buffalo didn't wear composite armor either)
-Gunny out.

While I am no gun nut, and certainitly do not have the knowledge/experience that other players have with guns - but game balance is more important then real life! After all, how many times do you see some power armor/gatling laser beast on the battlefield?! Or try shooting some armored giant insect!

To me, the bottom line is simple guns they were shooting in the 1800's should be nowhere near as effective against armored targets. The high veliocity rounds should perform much better against armored critters, while low veliocity "Big Hole" rounds should tear up unarmored targets. Treat pistol 45-70 like hollow point - devastating against unarmored targets - but very weak against power armored targets.

Welcome to the team. Please feel free to use the Fallout New Vegas forum Gun Nuts "official" slogan of AMMO UP! in your sig. :celebration:

PS ( I wonder where the hell all the other Gun Nuts went after release? Must all still be spending all their time playing or moved on. Can my peeps give me a WORD UP?)
-Gunny out.

BTW, we might also assume that we are loading smokless powder into those .45-70's, because that Marlin brush gun can take 500gr smokless loads IRL without a hiccup. and we are loading non black powder rounds with the same jar's. That's GG x 10 for the .308.

Ballistics-wise? A .308 round would fly out to range like a laser beam compared to any .45-70.

This is what i think,i used the sniper rifle before the patch and i have a luck of 1 and i was criting so much i actully put it away,it was just so easy.But the DAM should have been left alone,sure the sniper rifle has a higher ROF and accrucy but a military grade sniper rifle dosent do more damege then some hunters .308 hunting rifle?I just think most of the .308 weapons are under powerd,besides automatic rifle of course.

45-70 gov't was developed at the U.S. Army's Springfield Armory for use in the Springfield Model 1873 .45 caliber rifle, known to collectors (but never to the Army) as the "Trapdoor Springfield."
1873 yes thats a right date.
The bullet is about 500 grains and would drop like a rock compared to a .308s trajectory.But there is no bullet drop in this game.
The .308 travels at 2,820 ft/s while the 45-75 travels at 1,597 ft/s.
but the 45-70 300 (Standard) Jacketed Hollow Point(JHP)goes 2,069 ft/s

Basically the bullet is heavy and slow which would imply that it was used with hollow points and would not peirce armor nearly as well as the .308.
So possable fix, automatically remove DT for all .308 rounds besides ap.and still up the dam for sniper rifles.Simliar to the energy weapons.

Nope.

A .45-70 loaded with ~500gr smokeless powder gives about 50,000 cup and 3,200 fps out of a marlin brush.

.45-70 > .308

And the ballistic coefficient?

Doesn't matter how fast the bullet is going coming out of the barrel if it cuts through the air like a whale. What's the speed of the round at 300 yards? 500? 800?

How does the .45/70 round behave when it impacts a SAPI armor plate?

The arteries are fine. Doc just changed my medicine. :biggrin: Again, I'm not disagreeing with the principle of any of this (I'm not so sure about .44mag +p+ loads attaining 2700 fps, though), but you also got to factor in DT in armor against all this. What you're saying is fine for unarmored targets. Also, since I can't read Josh's mind, and he never told us, we don't really know to what levels his hand load ammo was loaded to. The only +P load we know for sure in the game is the 9mm. I can easily accept some increase in loadings in handloads, since that would be most common, but extremes? Those types of rounds would get a healthy boost to damage from bullet shape anyways.

Of course you can use jacketed rounds in a lever. You can't use pointed rounds. Jacketed round point work just dandy. And some levers feed HP fine. It all depends on the length of the feed ramp. Some early rifle designs, when chambered for a longer round than originally designed, lose quite a bit of feed ramp. Those are the ones that'll have HP feed problems. Hell I've heard of guys having problems feeding wadcutters.

I will contiue to mull this stuff over in my mind while I enjoy one of the Beck's Dark I have in the garage, smoking a nice Brazillian cigar and reading the new WEB Griffin book. TTFN, folks......

:bolt:

PS (the 500gr you're talking about is the weight of the bullet. Grains of powder for those loads, would be in the 40-60 gr size, depending on bullet size and expected Mv. The 500gr loaded with 53.1 grains of IMR 3031 can attain a Mv of 1800 fps)
-Gunny really out.

I'm pretty sure a deathclaw, the ballistics benchmark in FO:NV, has leather hide. Not to mention without a tungsten core that .308 is going to do jack and s**t to that ceramic plate the first few rounds, so it's a stupid argument. You're coming out of left field with this armor plate test, I'm more referring to big game, here, and he linked a bear take-down chart.

Yes but SWC have almost no armour penetration, shooting a metal plate will stop the bullet in its tracks but the SWC hand load reduces the DT.
ANd the brush gun makes the AWM look like a varmit rifle in terms of evrything.Even if i do use match handloads(Beats brush DAM wise).Unarmed needs no changes.

Of course anything with no metal type armor will get alot of damege due to very large entrance wound and possable exit wound.Hollow points are designed to make a huge entrance wound.Thats why they were banned by Geneva!
Muzzel velocity and muzzle enrgy dont matter at long range.The 45-70 loses steam around 250 yards.And once again if bulet drop was in you really would need Boone to spot for you.

Just to let you know grain is the weight of bullet NOT powder.