this is a bit of a rant on my personal annoyance of some of the guns in fallout 4, however before i start i would like to point out fallout 4 so far is my favorite game of all time but i feel i need to do this. that being said here's a list of my biggest gun gripes:

1. assault rifles-who the hell decided that it would be a great idea to put a water cool on the damn barrel? these weapons are supposed to be from year 2077 or something like that and they're rocking WW1 weapons tech? absolute garbage, the reason we went from water cooling barrels to air cooled is because its more efficient both on resources and carry weight, also it takes the load off of the barrel allowing better accuracy.

2.side fed magazines-again with the far out dated tech, feed from the bottom magazines are of much better use and who ever thought that WW2 idea would "look cool" might have wanted to do their homework when it came to the subject. side fed magazines for the most part have been phased out with the exception of a very few modern day light machine guns even though disintegrating belt and/or bottom fed mags work with greater efficiency and less jams. if they wanted to be accurate with their mags they could have made the weapons bull pup designed because most modern countries are adopting them and its only a matter of time till weapons like the steyer, TAR and famas are an infantry man standard issue.

3. weapon modding-i love the weapon modding except for a few issues such as chopped weapons. who in their right mind thought a hunting rifle should be dolled out with a 4 inch barrel and no stock? is the design team smoking crack up at bethesda? some of them make sense like the double barrel shot gun......ok that pretty much the only one i could think of, but your gonna sit there and tell me a standard hunting rifle or combat rifle or combat shotgun does not have a [censored] stock on it? are you [censored]ting me? and as for how guns work why in the hell do the suppressor, muzzle break and compensator destroy your range? iv been trying to wrap my head around that one since i read that on the mod list, a suppressor actually evens out the gas pressure behind the bullet and in doing so helps its muzzle velocity to achieve a better average effective ranges, albeit not by a lot but that's not a penalty that the weapons should have to pay. and one last gripe before i'm done....caliber swaps, the hunting rifle in particular, when you swap the .308 to .50 how does your fire rate increase, why does your weapon sound the exact same and doesn't this upgrade completely [censored] a deathclaws day up with a head shot even on very easy while sneaking? the .50 caliber round goes through steal plates and can still ruin your day if your behind it.

in conclusion these are my gripes

assault rifles-give us back the M4 or something similar please this new one is stupid

magazines-side fed mags are old and [censored]...come on bethesda you can do so much better we've seen it

weapon mods-some serious research went into them and they work great...mostly, i think there needs to be some tweaking to a few things

if you read through all that i applaud you, please feel free to throw on some of your gun gripes or if you want to know how guns actually work ask me ill have no problem explaining

Fallout universe is a world stuck in the 1950's tech, and is an alternate world to our own. Hence why telly's looks the way they do. Tech and consumerism follow 1950's tech, and they went the way of the nuclear power for everything (even the cars!) Same goes for weapons, they to are stuck in that time period. As for short barreled rifles, they probably was inspired by the sawed off Mosin-Nagant (called an Obrez, google it)

Fallout tech is that people in 1950 imagines 2050 would be.

Guns are old fashioned as few imagined that pull pup should become common even if they have the benefit of reducing length while keeping barrel length, as you say you would use an stock anyway.

The two later points has one simple answer, gameplay balance, this is first and foremost a game, not a gun simulator.

OP, go play JA2. Or learn Fallout lore first.

Every Fallout game in the series has had guns that saw use well after the 50s (though many of those were designed in that era). Fallout 3's AR and Chinese AR are both far more practical weapons than the ones we see in 4, and the former was pretty damn common. Weapons in Fallout had already developed beyond the exaggerated "50's" style that much of the world was stuck in, and it makes little sense that those developed post-war would have regressed the way they seemed to in Fallout 4.

I just want my M1 garand back.

Let me guess, you think Fallout 3 is the first installment of the game ?

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_2_weapons

We already had some great looking assault rifles.

And AR15 were developed in the 1950s, the same goes for other battle rifles.

Aye that is correct. Same goes for the minigun for example. But OP mentions Fallout weapons in context of real weapons, where Fallout is all over the place, because it is nothing like the real world, only mostly similar. As for what weapons there was in previous Fallout games, I guess they wanted something different this time around, like the pipe guns (I wouldn't dare fire one of those irl to be honest hehe)

The aussault rifle really looks kind a stupid, but the rest of the weapons is completely satisfying.

I would just love to hav a few more mods for melee weapons and some shields.

The whole world of Fallout is goofy beyond explanation. It would have made more sense if it was just Russia vs. US in a Cold War that went towards the very deep south by the late 1960's and nobody hesitated to throw their nukes at the other guy. Instead somehow for over 100 years technological advancement was banned across the globe save for helicopters, power armor, laser guns and robots (basically, anything built for combat.) The Emperor would be proud. But whatever, the date of the world BEFORE the bombs dropped is largely irrelevant as a result. It very well could be 2177 in game and nothing would change. Some writer just decided $#!% had to get real in 2077 after a century of halted technological development. Corporations were selling the same $#!%%& TVs for over a century. Sure... I'll buy that.

TL;DR: The lore of Fallout is even more screwed up than WoW's. Don't take it seriously. The world might as well ended a scant one or two decades after world war II.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1548840-any-good-looking-assault-rifles/

Good looking rifles were cut from the game so they can be sold as DLC addon.

Source:

http://www.techinsider.io/fallout-4-dlc-release-plans-2015-11

I'm going to make a post complaining that the junk jet, cryolator, and fusion cores are not "realistic" enough.

So many people moaning about stuff that doesn't matter. If you want an aesthetically pleasing and timeline accurate game then don't play BioShock or your head will explode. Perhaps you should pick up a boring and generic shooter like COD and then perhaps you'll be happy with the weapons fitting the era, but then again you'd probably cry because the gameplay is garbage.

I like design of weapons in Fallout 4 a lot. It makes much more sense in the game setting (alternative past and future) then H&K G11 or P90 of Fallout 2 (in)fame. That was just example of design laziness. Fallout 4 have easily the best designed weapons in any Fallout game so far. And that without taking in to consideration whole modding thing. So kudos to weapon designers. Only issue I have are left side receivers.

To OP:

Who said it's water?

No, they are not supposed to be from year 2077. They are either from 1950 something or designed during collapse of civilization following all out nuclear war.

Fallout is not happening in modern day. Not our modern day anyway. Side mags fit well design of makeshift weapons made of pipes, wire and few nails.

What does have Fallout to do with modern day again?

Here you go:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/%D0%9E%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7_7.62-%D0%BC%D0%BC_%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%86%D0%B0_1891_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0.jpg/500px-%D0%9E%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7_7.62-%D0%BC%D0%BC_%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%86%D0%B0_1891_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0.jpg

Because early silencers used rubber wipe that slowed bullet down.

Because it's also fire rate increasing upgrade.

Simplification.

For the same reason why .308 bullet does not completely [censored] a players day up with a head shot.

gotta say i actually like the assault rifle as it goes well with power armour and when wielded by supermutants and the side loading magazines i do find extremely cool ( i adored the Bastard Gun in the Metro Series)

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/XL70E3_(Fallout_2)
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/H%26K_CAWS_%28Fallout_2%29
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Pancor_Jackhammer_%28Fallout_2%29


Bethesda just Bethesda'd the setting into full retro futurism.

it really does go show how different the east coast is compared to the west coast. Also the East Coast doesnt have its own version of the Gun Runners either and they also havent made their way over to the east coast yet as well.

Your source doesn't prove your point lol

Design laziness and shoddy design work.

Indeed, and that's the good thing because that's consistent with the rest of the game unlike Fallout 2 weapons.

Just saying the series has a history of having (relatively) modern bullpup weapons in it.
But i've no problem with that, i prefer Bethesda's design style. The guns and creatures are pretty awesome. And the tanks are like straight out of Red Alert (The star is just wrong color )

Though i do wonder why the submachinegun is just a plain Tommy Gun? Because of the Triggermen?

Gun nut lvl 10 up in here

Tommy gun was in use during WWII and short after so it makes kind of sense. At the end of the day, it's just design decision of developer and since game setting is fictional from 50ties on they have lot of space for creativity. It's good that they used that space and not just copied over some existing weapons. And F4 weapons are more consistent with rest of the game setting then F2 weapons were.

I didn't know the 50's had Desert Eagles.