[X] My Assistant

[Tiralee]

Avowed Fallout min-maxer here, but love the handloads too much to bother with energy weapons this time around. Or melee. Or Unarmed.

Loadout:

Gobi Sniper (.308 handload) -for close encounters....bwhaha
Silenced Sniper with Carbon Fibre (.308 handload)...sniping legion.
Anti-Material ( .50 cal Match)..for shooting God.
Tricked-out 10mm SMG (With 10mm JSP rounds - and yes, it DOES make a difference)...spray-and-pray-and-loot.
Mysterious Revolver (.44 handloads - chewed a bunch of buffout extreme and read a few books/magazines as my survival skill this time around was pathetic, you need 45 survival to learn the .44 handload)...casual-like carnage. Also love the musical riff.
Tesla Canon (of pain) Mostly the odd Fiend or wasteland bandit. Noticed that it sometimes makes the others run for the hills.
Alien blaster (God, I love this thing, I managed to accidently find it at level 3, who'd a thought them aliens wouldn't like the varmit rifle?;o)...for killing God's buddies.
Pulse pistol (robo-toaster, could have an energy skill of 1 and it's still a 2-shot killer)...take that, tin man!
Combat Shotgun ( with 12-gauge Coin, Slug and Magnum rounds. The coin rounds are quite fun! Slug = close range HURT, fast reloads too. Magnum is great for multiple enemies combined with shotgun surgeon)...for close-R encounters.

Musings:
22. cal silenced machine gun is...oddly effective and horrible to ironsight. The way it goes through Condition means you need Jury-rig Perk ASAP.
Tried the light machine gun, too inaccurate for my liking and the SMG chewed through VATS much less. Bonus marks for cool/awesome (as soon as you equip it, you need to empty a box of 5.56 into someone), negative karma for being as accurate as the 9mm submachinegun.
Tried the CMZ Prototype...holy crapsticks, that's a fast way to go through ammo, chews up supermutants like marshmellow. Note - Armour-piercing is a VERY expensive way to show people you hate them.
Loved the Heavy Incenerator, but didn't have enough energy weapon skill to make the weight tradeoff (Although the fuel is everywhere!)
The 12.7 mm weapons; the SMG (although can be silenced, awesome!) chews through the magazine too quickly unless you're single-shotting via iron sights and condition drops way too fast.
The 12.7mm Pistol is little better, but does hit like a lump of rebar.
The Grenade rifle was...interesting.
The Auto-grenade launcher would be HORRIBLE in the wrong hands, especially combined with the various extended demo and area of effect perks. Ammo was...if not in short supply, needful fo a 90 barter skill and frequent vendour-whoring.

Don't try at home!
Used both Incenerator and the grenade hose in Scorpion Gulch - there were radscorp chunks raining down for 5 minutes after I'd finished firing. Also fun to use in the Black Mountain crater.

Sads:
The Fatman...eh, get more fun booby-trapping an area with mines and sticking a lump of C4 somewhere. Cheaper too. Only 16 or so of those things in Vegas.
Anyone know if they do the sympathetic explosion like F3? You could really ruin someone's day in F3 with that.


Avoid:
9mm, unless starting.
Silenced .22 cal, unless you've got a stealth skill of less than 50.
Single-shot shotgun, unless you're down to using your fists versus a giant radscorp
Caravan Shotgun - stop buggering about and buy a damned hunting shotgun!
Any weapons that's unmodifiable, non-unique or uses a standard ammo type. (The Gauss Rifle is a rare exception to this as it seriously hurts.)


Needs more:
Dakka!
Nukes!
Mods! I want to mod the damn LMG into something USEFUL.
Ammo Types. (Tracer would be niiiice.)
Level-up Perks! (Nah, but man, you really notice the difference in F3 versus F-vegas)
Random Weirdness
Bug fixes.


Nighty,
-Tir

[nezumi]

Yeah, I found there seems to be a sharp trade-off between dakka and effectiveness. I played through the Hoover Dam, and the sniper rifle was way more effective than the LMG, Grenade Machine Gun, OR the Fat Man - although those were more pleasing on a purely visceral level.

I never found much use for the Gobi rifle vs. the sniper rifle. Seems like my sniper rifle did more damage, had the same reload time, was lighter and accurate for further.

The best weapon in the game though was probably the Holy Frag Grenades.

[Doc Chase]

I still have never found a Hunting Shotgun - Lever-Action was the closest I ever got, so I gave up on them.

[Mäx]

Mods! I want to mod the damn LMG into something USEFUL.

You should check-out This mod, it adds 127 new weapon mods (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

[Fix-it]

-Laser RCW-
Beam Splitter
Laser Sight
-Tri-Beam Laser Rifle
Extra Fusion Cell
Laser Sight
-Gatling Laser-
Laser Sight

yo dawg, we herd you liek lasors...

[Zyerne]

The sniper rifle gets nerfed in the latest patch apparently. Base damage drops to 42, presumably crits drop too.

What I've read indicates this is a correction rather than an actual nerf. Either way, it makes the Gobi superior if you don't need/want a suppresor, which is how it should be.

[Doc Chase]

Hm, interesting.

I won't deny it's not warranted, but I do like being able to go -fwip- and people's heads explode without their buddies being any wiser.

[Stahlseele]

wut? O.o

[Tiralee]

Not to mention sniping Deathclaws and having the damn things duck unexpectedly. That second shot can stop you from having run to the hills popping stimpacks and shooting backwards with something heavy.

God, who else made the mistake of sniping one of those baby deathclaws and a whole fraggin NEST erupt out of the desert ready to eat you? Those blind ones seem to be able to track you anywhere.

Interestingly, Deathclaws are damaged less by mines, etc, than in F3.

Vipers - use the ratslayer
Fiends - use whatever, but the silenced sniper is great.
Powdergangers - Use Lucy. Or even Rex.
Legion - Use a damned scope.


-Tir

[nezumi]

Indeed. I was rather disappointed when, clearing out the deathclaw nest, the anti-material rifle just could not compare to the sniper rifle. Honestly, the AM rifle is almost completely useless, except when there's only one enemy, who has slightly more hit points than the sniper rifle will do in one shot, but fewer hit points than the AM rifle does in one shot. It worked alright for nightkin (and setting brahmin on fire), but that's about it.

[Zyerne]

Sniper rifle with hand loads flat out beats the AM due to it's crit multiplier. Unless your pulling sneak attack crits, the sniper will do consitently higher damage.

With 20% crit chance:

Sniper 90+60 all the time for 750 over five shots
AM 110+80 1/5 of the time for 630 over five shots

Sneak Attacks it's 210 vs 270 in the AMs favor.

Following the patch, the Gobi should still pull those numbers, the base sniper rifle will be down a third or so but as the only suppressed weapon of the 3 will be easier to make SAs with.

[Tanegar]

Bought New Vegas yesterday or the day before for half-off through Steam: 40% discount from their holiday sale, another 10% because I already owned Fallout 3. Damn, I loves me some Steam sales.

Anyway, I just had a little chat with Boxcar in Nipton, and I'm thinking those Legion fucks need to die. Favorite weapons so far: cowboy repeater, varmint rifle, single shotgun, in that order. The shotgun would be higher on the list if it didn't use up so much AP per shot.

[Doc Chase]

Boxcar is so much more fun to talk to if you've cleaned out NCRCF. Poor guy just can't catch a break.

Think next time I'll make sure I've got 15 Med-X on hand when I talk to him so he can sleep the sleep of angels.

[Tanegar]

I was amused when Boxcar described me as "the Powder Gangers' grim fuckin' reaper" to my face. I'd only killed maybe five or six by that point.

[ Spoiler ]

Am I the only one annoyed by the fact that you can't ask Jeannie May Crawford why she sold Carla Boone into slavery? It just seems so out of character for her.

Also, holy crap those Legionaries are tough. I'll come back to them when I have an anti-materiel rifle or something.

[Stahlseele]

Get a Shotgun or something automatic to take them on.

[Doc Chase]

I was amused when Boxcar described me as "the Powder Gangers' grim fuckin' reaper" to my face. I'd only killed maybe five or six by that point.

[ Spoiler ]

Am I the only one annoyed by the fact that you can't ask Jeannie May Crawford why she sold Carla Boone into slavery? It just seems so out of character for her.

Also, holy crap those Legionaries are tough. I'll come back to them when I have an anti-materiel rifle or something.

It was clear to me why it happened. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[ Spoiler ]

Jeannie May's life is Novac. Listen to her harp about it, it's clear she wants nothing to do with anybody that talks down about it. Carla not only hated it, she wanted to take people away from it.

[Doc Chase]

blar

[Tanegar]

It was clear to me why it happened. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[ Spoiler ]

Jeannie May's life is Novac. Listen to her harp about it, it's clear she wants nothing to do with anybody that talks down about it. Carla not only hated it, she wanted to take people away from it.

[ Spoiler ]

Maybe I solved it too quickly. I only spoke to Jeannie May twice before leading her in front of Boone's rifle, once when I arrived in Novac and the second time to ask about Carla. I know Carla didn't care for Novac, but I never did hear anything about Carla wanting to take people away. I spoke to the antisocial couple (can't remember their names) who told me about No-Bark, who told me to look in the motel office for evidence. Picking the lock on the safe got me the bill of sale, and that was it for old Jeannie May Crawford. Can't say I feel especially bad about setting her up to get her head blown off, either, selling a pregnant woman to slavers like that.

[Tanegar]

Has anyone else experienced a phenomenon where you go into VATS, queue up attacks, start the sequence, and your character just stands there? Eventually, VATS ends with my character having done nothing and expended no AP. It's happened three times now.

[Doc Chase]

No, I haven't really had that issue - just pathing problems with trying to shoot a mans and it sticking around in slow mo while my .50 cal incindiery round spangs off a bush.

[ Spoiler ]

I ended up talking to everyone, even Jeannie May at the start. Everyone agrees that Carla hated Novac (which rankles Jeannie May), but I think it was the other sniper that said she wanted to go back to New Vegas and Boone was starting to lean that direction. He only went to Novac because of Manny, but he really loved his wife.

[Wounded Ronin]

I was amused when Boxcar described me as "the Powder Gangers' grim fuckin' reaper" to my face. I'd only killed maybe five or six by that point.

[ Spoiler ]

Am I the only one annoyed by the fact that you can't ask Jeannie May Crawford why she sold Carla Boone into slavery? It just seems so out of character for her.

Also, holy crap those Legionaries are tough. I'll come back to them when I have an anti-materiel rifle or something.

I laughed at the grim reaper comment.

The legionaries were super easy. I just impulsively attacked them using a worn out 10mm pistol. The key in Fallout always has been to run around corners and go for headshots as the enemy follows you around said corner. Or eyeball shots back when you could still do those. I remember that was the only chance you'd have to kill Metzger and all his goons in Fallout 2 if you weren't meta gaming hard. You had to run around the level and make gratuitous use of the corners. It worked better with the Benny Hill chase music.

[nezumi]

Has anyone else experienced a phenomenon where you go into VATS, queue up attacks, start the sequence, and your character just stands there? Eventually, VATS ends with my character having done nothing and expended no AP. It's happened three times now.

It happened to be - followed quickly by a death and reload (as my failing to do anything in VATS didn't apply to the bad guy too).

My biggest issue was for some reason the game thought the mouse was clicked when it wasn't. When I figured it out though it was just an inconvenience.

[hobgoblin]

It worked better with the Benny Hill chase music.

Anything do (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Faraday]

Bought New Vegas yesterday or the day before for half-off through Steam: 40% discount from their holiday sale, another 10% because I already owned Fallout 3. Damn, I loves me some Steam sales.

Anyway, I just had a little chat with Boxcar in Nipton, and I'm thinking those Legion fucks need to die. Favorite weapons so far: cowboy repeater, varmint rifle, single shotgun, in that order. The shotgun would be higher on the list if it didn't use up so much AP per shot.

I, too, got the same deal on x-mas. I was too busy finishing Assassin's Creed 2 though, so I haven't started with Vegas until today. So far, I've seen a radscorpion nest and killed a dozen Powder Gangers. I like new music myself, but I've only played about an hour so far. We'll see where I go from here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tanegar]

The more I learn about Caesar's Legion, the more I want to commit full-on genocide.

Anybody else think karma loss from stealing should be based on faction standings? It makes sense to lose karma if you steal from friends, but not from enemies. Why is stripping Powder Gangers' corpses OK, but not ransacking NCRCF?