The assault carbine is a 75 Guns weapon.

I always raise my primary (tagged) skills three points each at every level up and spending rest of the points on skill i use as secondary. Primary skills includes the main weapon skill used by the character.

After primary skills are at on 100 and the two or three secondary ones are at 75 or higher, i start shouting "WTF am i supposed to do with all these skillpoints?!"

I wish difficulty would determine the kind of weapons npc's use/yall should meet a albino rad scorpion on Very hard or a Super mutant Overlord ;p

I just pulled up the GECK entries for the Veteran Rangers, and there is nothing listed there that would indicate they are getting artificially boosted. Of course, I cannot check the combat programming to see if there are any NPC-only special modifiers, so the fact there is nothing in the individual Ranger entries is not necessarily conclusive.

I also checked the stats for the armor+helmet, and at full strength they give a total DT rating of 24. Based on this, the above comment about the looted set being in terrible condition, and my own observations that Combat Armor of any sort loses effectiveness rapidly below about 50% CND, it would appear that NPCs ignore CND modifiers to their armor's base stats.

Some additional evidence to back this theory up:

I modded out the 20% 'bleed-through' effect, so any shot of equal or lesser strength to the target's DT rating should do zero damage. Now, on my current character I am using Guns weapons, and I had a full-CND Cowboy Repeater in hand while taking on the Raiders at the police station south of Primm; given my low Guns skill it was doing 17 damage per shot, which is one point higher than the 16DT the Metal Armor two of them were wearing grants at full effectiveness. When I killed them and looted the suits there were in bad shape and were only giving about 8DT or so, however when I was shooting them in the chest with the CR using standard ammo there were taking no noticeable damage. Switching to my Varmint Rifle with AP rounds dropped them in a couple of shots each, since they now only had an effective DT of 1.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NEVER AGAIN THOSE WERENT HARD THEY WERE ANNOYING BULLET SPONGES

But if they were "rationalized" like Reavers were, they wouldn't be a bad addition.

So basically you want DT to be trivial and useless? A DT of 15 might as well not even exist against the higher power weapons in the game. NCR Ranger Veterans are not push overs, they have a couple hundred hit points a DT of 24 and a 100 guns skill. Your gun skill is only fifty you said? Try raising it you do more damage with a skill of 100 then you do 50, period. You could also try a bigger gun as it sounds like your using an assault carbine or some other low dmg high ROF weapon. Try a big rifle like a brushgun or an AMR. A couple VATS shots to the head with This Machine or a Brushgun should bring a Ranger Vet down.

So
Raise your gun skill
Try a different weapon
Go for he head




Non-Companion NPC's don't suffer the effects of low armor condition just as they have unlimited ammo with 1 bullet. Its so they can have protection with out giving you expensive good condition armor. So basically the armor doesn't fall apart until they die.

Why does an axe deal more damage then a gun? because an axe does deal more damage then a gun. If Benny had shoved a fire axe

I'd take living anatomy on your next build.

Oh yeah, and This Machine w/ JSP is a monster.

You don't like this game because its too hard??? Play on Very easy then.

I have made characters that can one shot pretty much anything...using stealth.
The game is not too hard, I can always find a way around a problem - but I wish hardcoe mode would make
combat more realistic, since when does a suit of metal armor not stop bullets - but a canvas tent can?
And sorry but, a shot to the head is a shot to the head - not to mention unloading a full clip to the head.

In games gameplay must come before realism. Otherwise it's a simlulator, that most people don't find fun.

There is no amount of armor in the game that should completely negate the damage from a sniper rifle. Unless you're playing the brutally unfair Very Hard mode. In which case, stop, because Very Hard is for people that like powergaming their character and then get annoyed that enemies die when sneezed on.

If dissatisfied with the amount of damage you're doing, upgrade. Anti-materiel rifles and gauss rifles are what you use to kill off the toughest enemies in the game. The sniper rifle is for precision work (shoot them in the head from a half mile away), not really damage output. And the assault carbine, even with armor piercing rounds, simply is not that amazing versus ultra heavy armor (if you want to use 5mm rounds, get yourself a minigun and upgrade it; it delivers 3 times more bullets per second in a tighter spray, and will shred anything you point it at). But be aware that some enemies just have extremely high amounts of hitpoints, and there's no quick and easy way to take them down other than with a sneak-crit headshot.

And don't waste a perk on Living Anatomy if you're just idly curious. Open the console, click on the target so that their name shows at the top of the screen, and type "getav health" to see their hitpoints and "getav damagethreshold" to see their DT.

Ok, problem solved.
I wanted to start a new game anyway - so I did. At level 7, I got 100 guns and 50 repair.

I got the riot shotgun from the Omerta gaurd, the shotgun surgeon perk, and slugs.
I can now rip anything to shreds. Yay.

How is Very-Hard mode unfair? Any NPC in the game is easily killed in Very-Hard. As long as you can keep backpedaling with buffout, psycho, and some med-x, you can survive a 1-hit from the Legendary Deathclaw and still kill it with a riot shotgun.

Damage Threshold is probably the best feature that was added into New Vegas. That one statistic has radically changed how you play Fallout. I think its a good thing that they added it back in.

The Vetern Rangers are easy to kill just Sneak Headshot them with either the Sniper Rifle or the Anti-Material Rifle or just shoot the weapon out of their hands.

You're full of it if you say that .308 JSP wouldn't penetrate the armor. NCR Ranger Combat armor has a DT of 20, the Helmet a DT of 4. Most .308 weapons do way way more than that every shot. I can eat veteran rangers for breakfast, deathclaws for lunch, an BOS paladins for dinner with most any .308 weapon.

i think they are just becoming stronger- kinda like in oblivion

he only had 50 guns skill..... You do a TON more damage with 100 skill, especially with any of the better weapons.

On very hard/hardcoe there was not 1 opponent in the game that would not die to 2 crit hits from my AMR or a gauss rifle

Damage Threshold puts the Power in Power Armour. Without it we end up with FO3 were the armour is more of an outfit then armour that makes you a tank.

Exactly. This is a much better system than in FO3. Glad it was implemented 'again'.

Except wild creatures deal too much damage and not enough humanoid arm with high power weaponry; Reinforced Leather armour with Sub-dermal armour implant is enough for most situation.

Well, with 100 guns.. it makes a difference. But anything full-auto still svcks.

I now have the All-American for the first time - it works like a charm, I was impressed.
With AP ammo & 100 guns skill black ranger armor couldn't stop it.

I enjoy the Rangers being tough because that is what the Rangers are cracked up to be.

I'm about done with Dead Money and I'll run around with the Automatic Rifle with .308 JSP and see how that handles.

Vet rangers are supose to be hard hence the name.The diffculty made them have higher hp not DT.There DT should be 24 since armour condition dosent affect them.The assault carbine would not break through the armour no matter what you used.(12 DAM -15 DT)so about 3 DAM a shot with 100 guns and ap ammo.But they do have a high DT.