I felt the same way at first, but the weapon style has grown on me. So much that I don't particularly care about real world weapon designs being made. I like my combat rifle look as I have it set up and there is something I like about my beret and brotherhood fatigue wearing character with an assault rifle. It gives it a good feel, both falloutout and sci fi. It's recognizable and at the same time something completely different.


What you are looking for OP is something that modders will deliver in spades, and I imagine most of those will be simple enough (as long as the creators don't get all no you have to use my ammo which requires a script extender) to come over to the consoles as well.


I would not be adverse though to seeing a few different actions and animations introduced by Bethesda, like a pump or lever action weapon.

I'm talking modern looking Assault Rifles, not some tube steampunk looking thing. They existed in universe.

Military went energy weapon. Civilian weapons continue with bullets but froze at 1950 style because of no military development, perhaps also weapon laws.

This isn't true. Nothing "froze" in 1950. The timeline just diverged along an alternate path, this doesn't mean firearm manufacturers got stuck in time developing the same guns over and over, case in point, the 10mm pistol, 10 mm smg, R91 Assault Rifle, list goes on, and weapons that hardly saw the light of day in our timeline, like the H&K G11 were developed. Also, laser weapons were still in their infancy by 2077, so military forces still used plenty of conventional ballistic weapons.

By old game standards at least, if FO3 and 4 is to go by, some of that seems to have had a retcon.

And now also tube steampunk looking thing exists in Fallout universe.

FONV is old?

the term assault rifle was first used during WW2

sturmgewehr is german for "assault rifle" and the stg44 (actually designated mp43, for Maschinenpistole, to trick hitler as he was not keen on the new assault rifle and wanted them to develop sub machine guns instead) was designated "sturmgewehr" and it was hitler himself that came up with that term.

the "assault rifle" term ion the 70s was coined by the anti gun movement to make them sound evil but has been around a hell of a lot longer time than that.

assault rifle does not actually mean what it sez in that link (yep its a dictionary but it is technically wrong in this case) as an assault rifle must use an intermediatery sized cartridge to be termed as syuch. eg the m14 and FN FAL are as websters described " any of various auto or semi auto rifles with large capacity magazines for military use" but they are not assault rifles they are battle rifles as they use a full sized rifle cartridge (both 308)

also its arguable whether they have to be military rifles

aslo it does not apply to machine guns as they are not rifles. the assault rifle in game we have by weight especially and by looks really should be a LMG (LMG not machine gun as it uses the lighter 5.56 cartridge)

the modern (well ish) assault rifles such as ak47, ar10, m16, fnfal etc etc were not designed for looks nor were they designed based on the idealogical and art deco of the time but for functionability

WW2 unlike WW1 the battles were at much closer ranges were the power of a big heavy cartridge (such as the .303 and 30 06) was unnecessary, which is why the germans developed the stg44 with a shorter lighter cartridge. This allowed the troops to carry far far faaaaaaaaaar more ammo on them but also due to less recoil and muzzle climb due to the lower powder charger a much faster and more accurate fire rate while still maintaining a much heavier hit impact than the pistol cartridges that the sub machine guns used..

the ak47 was developed based on the stg44 (despite kalashnikov denail of this you can clearly see the similarities). The russians who were on the receiving end of the stg44 the most were very quick to adopt this lighter cartridge as they learnt the hard way how good this was.

unfortunately the other allied parties were not convinced, especially the americans, and prefered the old school big heavy shock cartridge so when NATO was formedto oppose the soviet block they adopted a full sized rifle cartridge the 308 as their standard round and the assault rifles were developed around that such as the G3 FN FAL and american M14

it did not take long for them to realize this and is why the 5.56 Nato round was developed originally 55gr and was then replaced with the SS109 round which was heavier bullert at 62gr

the development of rifles and rounds in our world is based purely on how they perform and the ability of our soldiers to wield and use, it has absolutely nothing to do with looks and/or art (only if psyhcological such as looking down the big fat wide barrel of a 12gauge pointed at you) and there is no reason to think that wouldnt be the same in the fallout universe.

the only difference between our world and fallout is in their world technology grew exponentially against ours and their mindset for art/culture/lateral thinking etc stayed in the 50s mindset (such as smoking is good for you, better dead than red etc)

they are still the same human beings as us so therfor have the same strengths and weaknesses, the ability to fire at faster rate more accurately and to carry more ammo per troop is just as important to us as it would be to them so weapon development would have parralled ours just at a much high tech rate.

the big heavy clunky assault rifle we have in fallout 4 goes against every design logic, the only explanation is power armour and yes i agree thats a good explanation but not when you think about non PA troops, police forces, BADTFL(?) agents, recon etc etc where that weapon would be an utter nightmare for them. not every troop had PA.

what they should of had is yeah ok the assault rifle we have (should of been a LMG though really) and a more real world assault rifle. that way theres one for PA uses and one for those that dont and both the likers and haters of this weapon could be happy.

the m16, which ofcourse the M4A1 is a derivative of, was in tactics but i hear that apart from main story plot that its not considered canon

it is not exactly stated the exact date our timelines split but due to the fact they are 50s inspired with art/style/mindset i personally like to think of say 1959 is the split purely because our 1950s and their 1950s are the same and they must have split afterwards if its the same as ours (subjective just my opinion based on that)

so american weapons developed in the 50s

ar10 1956

m16 1956 (as the ar15, the ar15 finished final development 1958 and didnt become "M" untill adopted into military

m14 1945 started development as the t25 finished development for the model we know as m14 1956

m60 (machine gun not AR but anywyas) 1956 (this is really what should be used as an AR by PA wearers)

the m14 and the m60 entered american service before 1960

even with the disputed "when did timelines split" we do know for a fact WW2 was same in both worlds and the m14 is a development of the m1 and the m60 a development of the mg42 german WW2 machine gun. Also ofcourse every single designer behind these rifles was around during the second world war and theres noi reason to think that they wouldnt of done what they did in our world as in the fallout world.

personally i think they should of kept continuity between the games, it doesnt have to be real world weapons as although the R9, sniper, 10mm submachine gun, combat shotgun etc of fallout3 were based on real world weapons they are not real world weapons but fit in perfectly with the previous fallout games. (especially the 10mm sub as it was in those games)

im really unsure though as to why if they wanted to go with old school almost steam punk style like weapons (fallout is not steampunk) why they didnt have both those and more real world style weapons too, probably would have kept everyone happy?

The FO4 "Assault Rifle" is ridiculous for what it is supposed to be....the base weapon is semi auto.....if it were a belt-fed full auto .308 intended as a weapon for PA troops it would have made sense. It's an unfortunate byproduct of the decision to use the mod system as a mechanic to regulate player firepower.

People disagreeing with the OP do realize that the assault rifle we had now is a model from WW1 right? In the 1920s? So the "it's the 1950s" argument doesn't apply to that weapon. It was thirty years until the 50s and your telling me they updated EVERYTHING but a thirty year old broken assault rifle design when better assault rifles were made in WW2 which was, you guessed it, before 1950!!!! Chinese assault rifles have been in every Fallout. They just somehow disappeared in the commonwealth? Or it was retconned to make us believe no other automatic guns exist beyond a tommy gun and the assault rifles based on 20s-30s designs when again this is based off of 1950s ballistic designs? You can't defend these two weapons sorry


Edit: I accept the new rifles existence, I don't accept them removing all others from FO3. We CAN have both can't we?

What surprised me is that when you scrap laser pistol or institute pistol, you get 'Plastic' out of it.

LOL.

Since when did WWI take place in the 1920s??

And there were no 5.56mm weapons in WWI either

Ya know, that is a good point. For all these guys saying the M-16 didn't exist in the FO Universe(they are wrong, but whatevs) they are staring at the 5.56... and why was the 5.56mm created? Oh, it coincided with the M-16, that is why.

Yes, but not in USA. Not until 70ties. It's also not internationally accepted term, different countries use different terms. AK-47 is not assault rifle in Russia, but "automat". The bottom line is that terminology in Fallout does not necessarily have to follow our terminology. You should not apply it literary.

F4 assault rifle is using intermediatery cartridge. It fits your definition too. Light machine guns are portable weapons which F4 assault rifle clearly is not. Despite it's weight.

So why to judge F4 assault rifle by it's look?

F4 assault rifle is no different from our assault rifles. It's automatic (with receiver), it's magazine fed, use intermediate cartridge. There is no weight limit in assault rifle definition I am aware of.

Development of intermediary cartridge started well before the war and well before StG44 and in several countries. Full rifle cartridge was too powerful also for semiautomatic weapons and caused problems (like German Gewehr 41). This was recognized already during WWI and designers begun to search cartridge which would be more powerful then pistol one (used in SMGs) but weak enough for auto/semiauto firing.

Soviet army begun to develop intermediate cartridge in 1943, at the time when stg44 just begun appearing at the battlefield. And it was originally developed for SKS semiautomatic rifle and PK light machine gun, not AK-47. AK-47 begun to be developed only after the war.

Also StG44 was not first assault rifle. It was first adopted in to military use assault rifle although that claim is also disputed because Russian army adopted during WWI Fedorov automat, which is assault rifle by definition (used 6,5x50 cartridge, was magazine fed and selective fire).

Which logic? Yes, it's heavy for individual firearm but so are many other individual weapons in Fallout universe. You can argue that they are meant for use with power armor. Which is perfectly logical explanation.

There's no any other "design logic" against which F4 assault rifle design would go against. In fact it have very conventional design.

As you yourself said, M14 is not assault rifle. Non of them entered service before 1960, which is latest date split could occur. It could also occur earlier. US army was at the time opposed to use of assault rifles for all sorts of reasons (among them claim that intermediate cartridge is not powerful enough and that US soldiers should rely on marksmanship and similar nonsense) and it was M14 which was intended as a post war main individual weapon. It was only utter failure of M14 in Vietnam which convinced generals otherwise and they rushed M16 in to service. Weapon as well as new cartridge which were not at all ready for service and were full of problems causing them to be unreliable and fail in worst situations. Soldiers always pay for delusions of generals in blood.

I am all for continuity. But not at all costs. And not against improvement of the series and not against fun. I wouldn't mind if F4 assault rifle looked like ones from F3, but I also don't mind this one. I appreciate that developers put some work, creativity and thought in to design of Fallout weapons instead of just copping existing designs. And I think they fit main Fallout theme better then in any previous games. It had struck me as illogical when our modern weapons have appeared in Fallout games, be it Fallout 2, Tactics or New Vegas. Design of energy weapons in Fallout 1/2 was utter crap. You can argue of course that these weapons could have being developed in Fallout universe exactly like in ours. Which is possible. But also very improbable. And when there was not one but whole bunch of such weapons then it simply felt wrong. New Vegas on top of that completely screwed energy and big weapons so whole combat system felt out of place.

You may like or dislike individual weapons in F4 based on your taste (like I dislike most of the armours) but mechanically and functionally vise there is little to criticize. You can argue about battle rifle using pistol ammunition or bolts being operated from left side but mechanically they are perfectly sound and functional. Assault Rifle including.

As for their look, that comes down to individual preference. And myself I like their design and find them fitting in to Fallout retro futurism style better then any previous Fallout game.

There are no steam punk weapons in game. Assault rifle is clearly (but only loosely) inspired with Lewis Gun from WWI and WWII. That weapon bye the way was not water cooled as several posters on these forums claim. Metal cylinder around the barrel was actually air cooler.

There were no assault rifles in WW1 or 20ties in USA. In fact there was only single assault rifle in use during WWI and it was in Russian army.

No, only one rifle. And not in USA.

Agree with you. I want to like laser weapons but it's even worse if you put a scope on them.

That's good to hear.


It feels to me like they weren't completely confident in their decision to go with '50s theme, so they weren't able to keep a consistent style.




You seem to know your stuff. AK-47 used 7.62 though, which is about the size of .308.

It's not. They have the same diameter of bullet but Soviet 7.62 is considerably smaller: http://delta3tactical.com/store/product_images/uploaded_images/2.jpg

Dude... I'm so sorry for using the term assault rifle... By your logic this is not an assault rifle either. Most of your arguments are about ammo size and terminology. We are arguing aesthetics. Period. The guns in FO3 and this gun can coexist in this universe. You do realize that right? In fact you have stated you are all for continuity. But how is another rifle model ruining your fun? When they appeared in all other games? So WHEN a dlc (expansion) comes out to address this, which it will because you are in the minority, are you gonna flip out because they added the Chinese assault rifle, sorry, automatic rifle? Will it ruin your fun? There can be more weapons and they can coexist. You are really, really against any other automatic rifle? Because it really sounds like it

The first "assault rifle" was the German MP44/StG44 - which the Soviets later captured and used as a basis for the AK-47

My main beef is this:

Most of the "conventional" weapons in FO4 kept the style from FO3 - the 10mm pistol can be modded to pretty much exactly resemble its FO3 predecessor, the hunting rifle can me modded with a "full" stock to pretty much eactly resemble its FO3 predecessor, the hunting rifle further modded with synthetic furniture and stuff becomes a very close resemblance to the FO3 Sniper Rifle, the Combat Shotgun and .44 revolver are both very close equivalents of their FO3 predecessors too. And the SMG is the same as the .45 one from NV's Honest Hearts DLC. Supposedly there's also an unused mesh for a Chinese Assault Rifle that closely resembles its FO3 predecessor as well. But for the Assault Rifle, they had to go and completely change the aesthethics completely, to something that resembles nothing from any previous game... Why?

Oh. So, length does matter after all. *wink wink nudge nudge*


Heehee.

Not really. The SCHV(small caliber high velocity) concept of bullet design began in the 40's but didn't materialize until the AR-15 was being designed.


So it is very possible the 5.56 was developed for a different platform other than the AR-15 given the idea and design goals go back to the 40's. .223 was originally designed off the .222 Magnum which didn't work well in self loading rifles. I would reckon even if the fallout universe the AR-10 never came to be, that 5.56 would still exist.

Uh what? It's not me who is complaining about rifle model, it's YOU. I am sattisfied with Assult Rifle and like it.

Why shouldn't it?