aight, goodluck!

oh and sorry its ninja perk not sniper perk

I haven't used the two shots, but in my experience not much can come close to the gauss rifle. With a toon in the 60s (so all the Rifleman perks, 4 of the sneak perks, but nothing else that would boost) and fully modded "Freezing" gauss rifle was doing 485 base damage +20 freezing damage.

My two-shot laser musket deals 744 damage with six cranks. I think that's close to a Gauss. That's only with Rifleman 5. I'm also sure that you can deal more damage with a faster firing weapon of lower raw damage than with the slow Gauss in longer fights or against bullet sponges and also apply other benefits (like staggering). Ok, I have to confess I really don't like to shoot a Gauss, the charging is disgusting, so I'm biased.

The dps on the high end weapons is part of why the game gets easy at high levels. Not the only reason but part of it. One thing about the Gauss I find less than ideal is the noise it makes: sounds like a granny smacking her house slipper on the counter top The laser rifle effects sounds far more badass.

Hmmm, I think we're into semantics at this point. If someone is circumventing the rules or natural outcome of a given game, such as avoiding a result via restarting/re-rolling/re-saving, or making items appear in-game via the console, it is cheating in my book. Perhaps only cheating oneself, but cheating nonetheless.

People getting weapons' damage in the hundreds? I must be doing something wrong? My highest damage .44 pistol with all 5 Gunslinger perks is 168 (playing on PC with no mods).

????

Yep, you should try rifleman. Even a non legendary guass rifle.. is painful with that. 110 base damage, perked out that works out to 220 damage + limb damage.

Or if you go heavy weapons, a missile launcher does 150ish damage base damage, and 300 or so perked out with heavy weapons.

Lone Wanderer perk will boost damage too.

My first character on Normal difficulty followed the main quest as linear as he could as I was excited to get into it. I think I only did the Tenpines Bluff radiant quest before heading to the city. I got my ass handed to me many, many times just during the trip to find "The Great Green Jewel" until I figured out the safe and easy way to get there without running into any enemies. From there I followed the main quest until I finished Reunions which was a MAJOR pain in the ass to finish because I died time after time until I figured out a strategy to survive it. And along the way to that location I got killed numerous times until I figured a safe way to get there and where NOT to go, lol. I was only wearing the vault suit and the best raider armor pieces that I could find along the way. I didn't have enough Fusion Cores for the Power Armor and I don't really use the PA unless I know there's going to be an epic battle coming up. It's just too damn loud, lol.


Anyway, after that quest I decided I needed to level up and build some better weapons and armor, lol. But I got through 1/3 of the MQ as linear as it can get straight out of the vault.


The biggest thing that gets on my nerves is even on Normal difficulty there are certain enemies that are just flat out bullet sponges. It's no fun to me to have to fire mag after mag into something and see the health bar barely move. For this reason alone I'm playing on Easy difficulty as otherwise it's just too damn tedious. To offset that a little, like I said I rarely use PA, use no drugs other than Stimpaks, Rad-X and Radaway. I try to heal with meat that I cooked and force myself to eat and drink water and sleep. I have no legendary weapons mainly because I only have 1 point of Luck and I don't get that many, but the ones I seem to get are pretty stupid and useless. For some reason I get a ton of "acrobatic" things that reduce fall damage. Well, I don't usually fall anyway so those are worthless to me.


I'm at level 48 or so and still use the 10mm pistol I left the vault with, it's been fully upgraded of course, but still only a semi-auto with a reflex sight. I also carry a semi-auto .45 Combat Rifle fully upgraded but only a reflex dot sight and a .308 Sniper Rifle with a Short range Recon scope on it. I actually use it to recon the bad guys and use the Combat Rifle to snipe them as it is a lot faster.


I guess I'm just a semi-auto kind of guy and don't care much for "gimmick" type weapons or anything fully automatic and I hate the ash and goo piles that energy weapons leave so I don''t use them either. So I guess my load out and personal taste keep it somewhat challenging enough for me at this level.

Yeah, that toon I'm talking about also had Lone Wanderer at max level. I forgot about that. She didn't even have Sniper or Ninja perks at all. The Ninja perks maxed would take that 505 damage gauss rifle and multiple it by 12.3 or threabouts if I recall!

Given the highest HP mob in the game has maybe 3000 hp? (if that, 1500 is the highest I can specifically recall) a 505 damage sniper rifle boosted by 12.3 is beyond "easy" it is absurdly easy.

I be happy to post some screen caps if anyone doubts my veracity I still have the saves for the toon even though I never play it anymore.

I was that when I looked, but I've never used it before because it seems to be strictly melee. Will work on it though! Didn't get it purchased last night as I got caught up in building up County Crossing and starting the Institute questlines. Will go tonight.

Well, it is "doing it wrong" if you define "doing it right" as equal to "doing it as the game is designed." However, you should note that I stressed that there are many approaches and that there are many content elements/mechanics in order to allow this variety of approaches. People who merely look at an RPG (any RPG, not just a game in the Fallout franchise) as "something to beat using whatever mechanics the game contains to accomplish this goal" are not playing the game right because no RPG is designed with such a playing approach in mind, thus the game mechanics and other factors will obviously fall short of what such players require/expect. They are playing the wrong type of game or playing this genre of game incorrectly as far as how it is designed. Sure, they CAN abuse the combination of mechanics offered and they can do this is various ways, but the reason the mechanics were included wasn't to allow them to mix'n'match in order to defeat anything in the game. The variety of mechanics were included in order to allow a wide variety of player choices and playing styles. Designers of RPGs cannot limit mechanics but also allow a variety of character approaches. They have to include mechanics for as many character archetypes as possible and allow players access to them because designers don't know which character type any particular player will choose to play. This freedom of access means that some players can choose to abuse the mechanics, but that isn't the intent of the designers of the game nor can the designers in any way "balance" the game so that such choices cannot be made.

In essence, there are various "right" ways to play an RPG and there is definitely at least one "wrong" way to play an RPG. The "wrong" way (which is "wrong" for any game, really, not just RPGs) is to play the game in a way that goes against its fundamental design. For an RPG, this would mean exploiting mechanics or combinations of mechanics/content in order to "beat the game." "Beating the game" isn't the intent of an RPG, after all. RPGs are about allowing players to experience an alternate self and story, not simply "beating" whatever the designer includes in the game.

As for your example, let me offer some points.

You do not know the Institute took your son. Nor do you have to play a character who cares, of course, or even play a character who is a parent.

You would still use VATS (or could) even with your listed character type. If you are so anti-tech you won't use VATS then you'd also take off the Pip-Boy or not even put it on (in which case you'd never leave Vault 111, of course, so you can't do anything about Shaun or anything else such as your spouse's murder).

Guns of any kind are still a technology and quite an advanced one, at that, just as advanced as energy weapons. Heck, even a machete is a technology as a weapon. Same with clothing, armor, etc. Language and mathematics are technologies, too.

Of course, you can choose where to set your character's limits, but I am simply pointing out that such a character has an obvious bias against certain technologies while embracing other techs.

To give some numbers for Overseer's Guardian. A normal combat rifle with the .308 receiver and Rifleman 5, no other damage perks, is 114 damage. The two-shot combat rifle in .308 does 180 damage.

Which raises a very simple question for me: is it even POSSIBLE to "take off the pipboy?"

I contemplated doing this at one point so as to not be party to inadvertently betraying a particular faction, but I won't elaborate because spoilers . . .

Probably irrelevant. Since they didn't program it that way I am guessing its a script check to determine if the player is there. Once the kit is out we can do all sorts of fun toggles and if/then/else loops.

I'm glad I found this thread. This is my first first-person shooter game and it's been a bit of a challenge. I'm enjoying it, currently level 24, but have reached a point where all my quests are too hard to progress. I think my error is in that other than CHA/Local Leader I've been spreading my perks and stats around and haven't specialized in anything except building lots of settlements and managing them. So I've taken to just exploring the map until I get some more levels, better gear, and am no longer a chew toy for Super Mutants. Thanks for all the tips.

pick and choose your fights. You can run away and most mobs will leave you alone if they lose sight of you, but there are some that will chase you. also get a shotgun, even if you don't use it much, it's nice for close quarters and a ranged weapon and max out damage with in game mods.

I rarely plan a character, I just add points to either a perk or my stats(special) it all depends on what I need at time.

• You are correct about the Institute piece. I was manufacturing this persona as an example, and in retrospect you'd have no clue about the Institute until later in the game. Ideally I should have said I hated frozen food, as that is more on par with the game opening. Instead, how about hating tech (or atomic era tech) given that the entire world was destroyed by it? That should suffice.


• As I mentioned, one cannot advance in the game without a PipBoy, thus it is a cross my anti-tech (anti-frozen food) character must bear.


• If this game were set in the Neolithic age, I'd agree that a machete was "tech" (and hopefully you understand by "tech" I mean "high tech"). However in the context of this game, it is not. Standard revolvers, rifles, and shotguns also are not, having emerged well before the alt-50s atomic setting of the game. This character uses those, and opts out of lasers, Gauss, nukes, and the like.


• No biases, unless you felt I should play with only fists, grunts, and no concept of "zero".

It is not easy for me. Quest for a better gun. Get a sniper rifle, sneak a LOT. Level up a few levels.. You can level up by crafting, breaking down and creating settlements.

Stay in the easy parts of the map.

On my first play-through, I was getting blown apart by molotov cocktails, mutant suiciders and and more. But those two really hammered me in... but I still had a good time lol!!!

That is what I do now. Good thing is I like to sneak. Finally got a nice sniper rifle. No idea where I got it from. I guess from looting something but don't know what since I just kept grabbing what I killed when they tried to kill me.

So now I basically shoot from afar, and when caught, go to my trusty Close Combat weapon and finish them off since I am svcking with hand guns right now. Not putting any perks in there yet because I need them for others.

Finally got a perk in gun nut. It finally helped me out. By that I mean I could finally mod something that I wanted.

Worth noting you don't need crafting mods for that. You can rip out an existing modification, and place it on another weapon of the same type.

True. I just wish the wouldn't force you to "create" the standard for so many of them. At the start, I usually don't have all the prerequisites available for that.

I have done it once, but now for the life of me, I don't know how to do it. I can't remember if I destroyed the weapon and kept the mod or if I have to pick a lesser mod. For example if it had a scope, then I pick no scope, I have a scopeless gun and then I have the scope in my mod section. What ever I do, it's not working so I can't remember how I did it.

When you have the weapon with the mod, go in to crafting mode and just switch it to standard and the mod that was on it will become available to you and/or you can sell it.

Early game, I do it all the time and, if it's a pipe-weapon mod (I don't and never will use pipe-weapons), I sell the mod and scrap the weapon.

Warning though - sometimes, switching things over to the standard requires that you craft the standard (it's not all the time but sometimes), which requires resources. Generally though, the standard doesn't cost anything to switch to and you end up with both the weapon and the mod. Plus, switching to standard doesn't really require a high level of science skills.

Once you have the mod, you can use it, regardless of your science skills.