I was always a fan of this thing given how incredibly cheap it was to maintain. It wasn't the most amazing weapon but it was very, very reliable and fired many types of ammunition. Now with the recoil gone and the rate of fire boosted quite a bit (upgraded springs + fast shot = assault rifle), I'm finding it to be a total beast! I have mainly been feeding mine .223 rounds because they're cheaper. Lower damage, but damn can it spray a lot of lead.

I might have to actually considering becoming a rifleman instead of a shotgunner.

I am more thrill by the LMG

LMG is a bullet hose and requires 100 Guns and 8 strength to boot. Service Rifle still allows for some accuracy control.

It's much better than it was, but it still eventually gets outclassed.

The problem is there's no bonafide assault rifle. There's nothing in the Tier 50 category for "assault guns", it jumps from service rifle to assault carbine with nothing in between.

I give my LMG to Cass with a bunch of surplus rounds.

I never give my weapons to my companions because they always seem to degrade, I bought and anit-material rifle for 6000 caps, gave it to Boone, 30 minutes later, Boone switches back to his own rifle because it degraded down to 10%

I've actually used it post patch before that it was used just long enought to use up the 5.56 it came with and then sold since it was horrible compared to the cowboy repeater, post patch its lasted to level 13 and is still very useful new ammo prices make it more expensive to feed but so is everything else, it really excels at longer range engagements giving you time to kill anything before it reaches you even ghoul reavers reach me barely alive but you need to go for their lags first. They really made it as useful as it should have been while keeping it in its role.

That's Boone, famously know for braking guns, that's why he got kick out from the 1st.

If I'm not mistaken a weapon given to a companion will degrade in new vegas, that and any weapon fire hitting the gun will damage it very quickly.

The Fiends seem to like the new Service Rifle after they kill the NCR around NVMC.

Sort of off topic: Does reloading count towards the weapon degrading? I've always wondered that.

No.

I also doubt companion firing would degrade weapon condition.

I'm wondering why OP cares about maintenance and ammunition costs. Is it a RP thing?

I'm digging that Survivalist rifle more than the service rifle. Survivalist rifle=Father of Service rifle.

I brought the Service Rifle and That Gun to Zion with me and ended up using it through the whole DLC. I thought I'd drop it as soon as I got a .45 submachine gun, but I just kept on using it. It's a really good weapon now.

Both for roleplay and for elective difficulty.

My character mainly salvages food, ammunition, and weapons if they're not too beat up. Those would be the items most in demand in the wasteland. Armor is too heavy to lug around, as is scrap without any immediate use. Also not using Repair skill for weapon repair kits (I only have 25 points for reloading my shotgun shells). So between not making buckets of caps from all the sensors and pilot lights and booze and cigarettes, and spending a fair amount for repairs, money is something to keep track of. Cheap weapons that shoot cheap ammo and get the job done are used preferentially to expensive weapons that do the job with much more resource cost.

:)

I recently started another Guns character aimed at Honest Hearts, and got my hands on a Service Rifle after shotgunning the ants to clear the highway. Loaded it with the AP rounds that are given with it and it did a very good job of killing the Vipers along the way to Nipton and Novac, even the ones in Metal Armor.

The fact it can be now fired in rapid succession rather than a shot every couple of seconds makes a huge difference and allowed me to down individual targets quickly. I ended up swapping to an Assault carbine fairly quickly, and from there to a fully-modded Hunting Shotgun, because I know where to get them early on, but if I hadn't planned to do that I would have kept it for quite a while despite the lack of ability to make custom rounds for it. 5.56s are cheap and abundant, and the weapon itself degrades fairly slowly, so it makes a good addition to any early or mid game arsenal now instead of a piece of junk only useful as Jury Rigging fodder.

Were I to make another Guns character who specialized in auto-weapons I would keep the Service Rifle until such time as I had the weapon skill and ammo supply for an assault carbine, since it's now worthwhile.

Daaaaamn. Light machine gun is a buzz saw now. Absolutely devastating when coupled with Grim Reaper Sprint given its lowered AP cost. I went into Silver Peak mines, and bagged 5 or 6 Cazadores in effectively one long burst of fire, they never stood a chance. Glorious.

(Still no good for range. Fortunately I have ye olde curiously accurate unique 9mm pistol for my "sniping" needs).

With the 50% increased attack speed modification for the Service Rifle it becomes very very useful and probably more so than the assault carbine since it is much more accurate.

Companions don't lose condition on weapons OR armour.. Or is that just in my game?

marksman carbine or just drop assault rifles all together and use the hunting, riot or lever action shotguns

Ye olde 9mm aint quite as impressive as ye olde 5.56mm.

Anyways. It is simply impressive to see Cass mowing down everything that pops up....Cazadors are no longer a problem.

im more thrilled with the Avenger..sniping from far distances and getting clean headshots with a minigun? why..that almost sounds like an ACTUAL one D: the horror! /sarcasm

Enemies keep hitting the gun with their attacks. It's the one, and only, way a weapon will loose CND in follower's hands. AMR, LMG, Minigun, Missile Launcher and Super Sledge are all weapons with large model sizes that are bullet magnets. Now give Boone a Marksman Carbine and 1000 rounds of surplus ammo and it'll hardly lose any CND.

Gotta slap this myth down every time it pops up. :brokencomputer:

The Service Rifle still isn't a rhino stomper but it's a lot better since the patch (especailly when coupled with the new DLC perk Grunt). With it's rapid rate of fire and with armor piercing ammunition it's the first weapon you can reasonably hunt giant radscorpions with. It also seems a lot more stable for me firing on the run compared to lever action weapons (it might just be because I hate the ridiculous muzzle flip).

It does have the down side that it's pretty heavy compared to it's main competition the Cowboy Repeater (especially when the latter is fully modded) and, unless you're siding with the Legion and killing NCR troopers, pretty hard to come by for spare parts and ammo.

Bottom line is it's become an excellent second tier weapon but only for certain situations (the above mentioned high DT giant radscoprions). I still will usually stick with a scoped/silenced Varmint Rifle for sniping and switch over to the Cowboy Repeater for those "Oh crap they've seen me." moments. Of course, if they came up with a "Synthetic Stock" mod to reduce it's weight I might reconsider.

The unique one is extremely accurate though. Can pick people off far enough away that they can't even tell where the shots are coming from. It's the lightest weapon I could find that has a reasonable reach to it, to complement the huge, heavy, but short ranged LMG.

I was searching the the threads today in relation to the grunt perk.
I remembered myself plus another user talking about such a one soon after NV got released.
I found a topic by you Momaw that was about the service rifle being hinky way back when.
Maybe it's just a case of it being a cool looking gun that you wish was more powerful so you personnally use it more often.
We all have these, myself I've use the service rifle forr most of the game against all creatures and foes.
For a tier 1.5 / 2 gun it's still very good in my personal experience.