================================================================================
Fallout: New Vegas - Weapons Guide
by Ken Egervari
ken.egervari [.AT.] gmail [.DOT.] com
Game......................Fallout: New Vegas
Guide...........................In-depth FAQ
Platform.........................PC/X360/PS3
Version.................................1.17
First Published............November 09, 2010
Last Updated...............November 16, 2010
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Table of Contents
================================================================================
Use CTRL-F and copy-paste the content inside the []'s to quickly find a
section.
1. Introduction ....................................................[1-00]
1.01 - About This FAQ ...........................................[1-01]
1.02 - Credits/Thanks ...........................................[1-02]
1.03 - Updates and Revisions ....................................[1-03]
2. Weapons .........................................................[2-00]
2.01 - Best General Purpose Gun .................................[2-01]
2.02 - Best General Purpose Energy Weapon .......................[2-02]
2.03 - Best Sniper Weapon .......................................[2-03]
2.04 - Best VATS Weapon .........................................[2-04]
2.05 - Best 1HKO Weapon .........................................[2-05]
2.06 - Best Anti-Robot Weapon ...................................[2-06]
2.07 - Best One-Handed Weapon ...................................[2-07]
2.08 - Best Ammo-Conservation Weapon ............................[2-08]
2.09 - Best Unarmed Weapon ......................................[2-09]
2.10 - Best Melee Weapon ........................................[2-10]
3. Charts ..........................................................[3-00]
3.01 - VATS Total Damage Chart ..................................[3-01]
3.02 - VATS Total Damage vs 15 DT Chart .........................[3-02]
3.03 - VATS Total Damage vs 30 DT Chart .........................[3-03]
3.04 - Average DPS Chart ........................................[3-04]
3.05 - Average DPS vs 15 DT Chart ...............................[3-05]
3.06 - Average DPS vs 30 DT Chart ...............................[3-06]
4. Builds ..........................................................[4-00]
4.01 - Versatile Ranged Weapon Build ............................[4-01]
5. Last Words ......................................................[5-00]
5.01 - Contact Info .............................................[5-01]
5.02 - Copyright Info ...........................................[5-02]
5.03 - Coming Soon ..............................................[5-03]
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1. Introduction
================================================================================
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1.01 - About This FAQ
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The main purpose of this FAQ is to detail all the best weapons in a given
situation, provide an objective commentary and analysis to help you select
the best weapon for the job at hand, and provide you with their exact in-game
locations to help you quickly find them.
There are a lot of choices and options in Fallout: New Vegas, as the weapon
system is surprisingly very deep. This guide mostly focuses on ranged
weapons, although there is a section on melee/unarmed weapons.
This FAQ is aimed at helping new and experienced players alike.
If you need to, check the "Credits" and "Copyright" sections at the bottom of
the document.
Lastly, I hope you learn something, and please ALWAYS have fun! :)
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1.02 - Credits/Thanks
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* To GameFAQS for hosting this FAQ.
* To fallout.wikia.com @ http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Wiki, for
all the fantastic statistical information about weapons and other related
information.
* To mmSNAKE for his mathematical analysis on Gobi vs. Plasma Caster, where
he showed that Plasma Caster+ does in fact deal slightly more damage than
Gobi over a 5 second span
* To SomethingToPonder and Kroo for helping with the exact damage
calculations concerning weapons that have multiple projectiles like the
Multiplas Rifle.
* YOU: For reading this FAQ! ;)
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1.03 - Updates and Revisions
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Version 1.17 - November 17, 2010
--------------------------------
* Because the patch fixed the DT of several enemies like Deathclaws and
Securitron MK II's, I removed the charts against 60 DT and added charts for
15 DT, which are much better suited if you have version 1.2 of the game.
* Fixed all references to 30 DT targets and replaced them with 15 DT
references.
* Added a note about Brush Gun become the #2 general purpose gun in the game,
surpassing This Machine as a result of the patch changes.
Version 1.16 - November 15, 2010
--------------------------------
* Added Multiplas Rifle as the third best 1HKO weapon
* Added more statistical information for 1HKO weapons concerned normal damage
and critical hit damage
* Commented that Brush Gun is the 3rd best sneak attacking weapon in the
game, and the best sneak attacking weapon for Gun users
Version 1.15 - November 13, 2010
--------------------------------
* A big overhaul to the damage formulas. Now these are much more accurate
for weapons with multiple projectiles.
* Add VATS Total Damage Charts vs 30 DT and 60 DT targets
* DT Bonus for .45-70 SWC is now included in all the DT charts
* Added .45-70 HP ammo to the various charts
Version 1.14 - November 12, 2010
--------------------------------
* Added Average DPS Charts vs 30 DT and 60 DT targets
* Added All-American to all stats tables, just to show people how useless it
is, even with .556mm AP ammo
Version 1.13 - November 12, 2010
--------------------------------
* Added Average DPS Chart
* Several additions and clarifications to various sections.
Version 1.12 - November 12, 2010
--------------------------------
* Re-added indenting to the FAQ. If the GameFAQS people don't like it because
it takes 1562 more bytes on their server's hard disk space, they can go to
hell.
* Added VATS Chart
Version 1.11 - November 10, 2010
--------------------------------
* Renamed Anti-Materiel to Anti-Materiel. Thanks to Barticle for that!
* Added Service Rifile as a cheap repair option for Gobi and Sniper Rifle+
Version 1.10 - November 10, 2010
--------------------------------
* Mostly spelling and grammar fixes
* Added more information about Gobi's damage, and how it compares to Plasma
Caster+
* Added "Versatile Ranged Weapon Build"
Version 1.00 - November 09, 2010
--------------------------------
* Start of the project
================================================================================
2. Weapons
================================================================================
In Fallout: New Vegas, the developers took care to create a combat system
where different weapons excelled in different circumstances. So in this
section, we'll look at the best weapons available for each type of situation.
This FAQ assumes your character has the Hand Loader perk to bring out the
best in your weapons. This perk is easily one of the best perks in the game,
and if you're using guns, it's highly recommended that you should get it.
For some weapons, additional perks are also taken into consideration.
If you do not have these perks on your character, the analysis presented here
will not be accurate, and you should make decisions according to the perks
you have rather than follow this advice blindly. If in doubt, restart your
character and get the necessary perks ;)
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2.01 - Best General Purpose Gun
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When people say, "What is the best weapon?", this is what they probably mean.
When I think of a best all-around gun, I think that weapon should have the
following characteristics:
* Has access to plentiful and cheap ammo
* Does not need to be repaired often
* Can be repaired cheaply without Caps or Weapon Repair Kits
* Has fantastic regular damage
* Has fantastic critical damage
* Has fantastic DPS (damage per second)
* Has a decent range
* Has low AP requirements in VATS
* Has high Damage/AP
* Reloads ammo quickly
There's a lot of excellent weapons to choose from that satify most or all of
this criteria. But in the end, it comes down to two weapons: Gobi and This
Machine.
1. Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
While Gobi is a Sniper Rifle, it is balanced in such a way that you can use
it as a general purpose weapon. That is its main attractive quality over the
basic Sniper Rifle.
When using basic ammo, Gobi does 60 damage, which is very high among all the
weapons in the game. The only weapons that do considerably more damage per
shot are weapons like the Anti-Materiel Rifle (110) or the YCS/186 (140).
Most of the other high-quality weapons hover around 60-75.
With the Hand Loader perk, you can craft .308 JSP Hand Loader ammo, which
adds 50% more damage on top of the regular ammo with no drawback. This should
be your standard ammo as it enables .308 weapons to become some of the best
in the entire game. Break down all of your .308 rounds and convert them .308
JSP Hand Loader ammo regularly. There is never a good reason to use the
regular .308 ammo!
While .308 is fairly common, you'll want to buy it in bulk from Quartermaster
Bardon at Hoover Dam. If you have a good reputation with the NCR and a
reasonable barter skill, you can buy ~230 rounds for a little over 1000 caps:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Quartermaster_Bardon
What sets Gobi apart from 'more powerful' weapons, though, is its 5x critical
multiplier. If you have a character with 10 luck (highly recommended) with
the Finesse perk, you'll score critical hit 75% of the time, even without
sneaking. Equip a "1st Recon Baret" which adds 5% to your critical chance
(you get this helmet after finishing Boone's quest in Novac) and you will
score a critical hit with Gobi 100% of the time. Thus, Gobi will do much more
damage than mostly every other weapon in the game in practice except for the
Plasma Caster or Pew-Pew... despite what the statistics say in your Pip-Boy.
You should expect to do 90 damage per shot and 261 DPS, but since you'll
score a critical hit every shot, in reality you'll do 225 damage per shot
with 398 DPS. That is why Gobi is THE best all-around Gun in the game -
period.
Even though Gobi is a Sniper Rifle, don't be afraid to use it like a normal
gun. You are not required to use the scope in order to score a critical hit.
You can shoot from the hip and get fantastic results. You'll end up
conserving a lot .308 JSP Hand Loader ammo in the end compared to using 'This
Machine' because you'll be doing a lot more damage per hit. Having the
ability to use the scope is just an added bonus, and you'll get lots of free
kills before the fight truly begins.
A lot of people marry themselves to the Anti-Materiel Rifle because it does
amazing burst damage, but Gobi isn't too far behind and the ammo is cheaper
and more readily available. Even despite that, Gobi can fire 6 times very
rapidly, which makes it far superior to the Anti-Materiel rifle. The Anti-
Material Rifle has a horrible rate of fire, and has low DPS as a result.
Unlike the basic Sniper Rifle, Gobi can be used in VATS a bit more easily.
Because it uses 33 AP per shot instead of 38, it will allow most builds to
get 3 or 4 shots using VATS. It's not the best VATS weapon by a long-shot,
but it'll work well enough without having to change weapons to kill fast-
moving cazadors and other annoying enemies, which are very hard to shoot
outside of VATS.
Also, Gobi lets you fire 6 times instead of 5 before having to reload. This
is surprisingly useful for general purpose combat. Gobi reloads ammo very
fast as well.
Considering the insane amount of damage you'll be doing with each shot, 3-4
shots in VATS is likely all you will ever need. To help with the AP
expenditure, it's recommended to get Grim Reaper's Sprint at level 20 to
allow you to use VATS continually throughout an encounter as it's very likely
each enemy will die with only 1 shot. Action Boy/Girl taken twice will let
you fire Gobi 4 times in VATS (this is optional).
Gobi also has 50% more durability compared to the basic Sniper Rifle, so you
won't have to repair it as much. Still, there aren't many cheap repair
options even with the Jury Rigging perk. Buying fully repaired Service Rifles
from Gun Runners for 645 caps for repair parts is probably the most efficient
way to keep your Gobi in top condition.
In the end, if you are the kind of person that hates switching weapons -
which is not entirely recommended - you can't go wrong using the Gobi
Campaign Scout Rifle throughout the entire game.
You can find a Gobi at the Sniper's Nest. Not only is this hard to find on
your own, you will need 100 points in your lockpicking skill to unlock the
container that contains Gobi:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sniper%27s_Nest
2. This Machine
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
While Gobi is probably the best general purpose weapon in the entire game, it
comes with two striking drawbacks that make it a bit bothersome for regular
use. Gobi is only moderately effective in VATS because of its high AP cost
and low damage per AP spent. It's also difficult to repair and has low
durability, which forces you to repair it frequently to maintain peak
performance.
This Machine, while lacking Gobi's scope and 5x critical multiplier, solves
both of those problems. It provides you with a nice alternative.
Like Gobi, This Machine uses .308 ammo and it does 65 base damage per shot,
which is a bit more than Gobi. You should craft .308 JSP Hand Loader ammo
with the Hand Loader perk and use that exclusively.
In practice, Gobi will perform much better due to its critical multiplier.
Do not expect This Machine to do nearly as much damage as the Gobi Campaign
Scout Rifle. When you use this weapon, you are doing so primarily because of
ease of maintenance.
Here's how both weapons compare when shooting from the hip with both
.308 and .308 JSP ammo when the character has 10 Luck, the Finesse and Better
Criticals perks and is using the 1st Recon Baret:
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 90.00 | 225.00 | 397.77 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 20.0% | 97.50 | 243.75 | 271.05 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 60.00 | 150.00 | 265.18 |
| This Machine | .308 | 20.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 180.70 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
Gobi's clearly winning, but like I said, you're using This Machine for
ease of maintenance while still having a very effective VATS weapon that can
better abuse Grim Reaper's Spirit.
Two things set This Machine apart from Gobi. The first is that This Machine
is tied for the most durable weapon in the entire game, having 600 HP. It is
very likely that you will only have to repair it once by the time you reach
level 30, and that assumes you found it and have been using it regularly very
early in your game.
It is also much easier to repair with the Jury Rigging perk, as you can use
cheap and plentiful Vermite Rifles, as well as many other types of common
rifles found in the game to repair it.
Secondly, This Machine is an excellent VATS weapon. In fact, without
considering perks like Cowboy or the ammo hog Pew-Pew, it is one of the best
VATS weapons in the game for all but the strongest enemies.
This Machine is very efficient. It only costs 22 AP per shot, so getting 5 or
6 shots off in a VATS sequence is very easy for most characters to achieve.
If you can kill an enemy in 1 hit, Grim Reaper's Sprint will give you that
attack almost free.
In this next chart, you'll see that This Machine and Gobi are virtually tied
in VATS performance when the character has 125 AP, but This Machine can
technically use VATS indefinitely against most enemies in the game due to its
lower AP cost:
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 90.00 | 225.00 | 3 | 675.00 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 97.50 | 243.75 | 5 | 670.31 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 60.00 | 150.00 | 3 | 450.00 |
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 5 | 446.88 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
While This Machine obviously doesn't work as a long-range weapon like Gobi,
it is the one of the best medium-range, general purpose weapons in the entire
game, particularly in VATS combat.
Outside of VATS though, don't expect accurate shots at long range, since This
Machine has a spread of 0.5. In Fallout: New Vegas, the lower the spread
value, the better. This Machine's spread is high enough that shots will still
miss their target even though your retical was spot on at long ranges, so
move in towards your enemy a bit before firing.
This Machine is extremely easy to find, so you'll likely be using This
Machine for awhile before you can even get your hands on Gobi anyway. You can
find it at Camp McCarran during a free-form quest called "Dealing with
Contreras". Make sure to have 40 in Science with a magazine since the easiest
way to resolve the quest is to hack into Contreras' terminal.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Dealing_with_Contreras
Note: Brush Gun
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because of the new patch, many enemy DT's has been cut in half. I think the
designers intended it to be this way all along, but due to a bug, Deathclaws
had 30 DT instead of 15, and Securitron MK II's had 60 DT instead of 30 in
previous versions of the game.
Now that almost all of the enemies have around 15 DT or less, .45-70 HP ammo
has suddenly become MUCH better to use than it was in previous versions of
the game.
For this reason, This Machine has suddenly dropped in value and weapons like
Brush Gun and Ranger Sequoia have risen in value with respect to VATS. For
example, even against 15 DT targets, a Brush Gun using .45-70 HP is better
than This Machine using .308 JSP, as shown in this table:
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 94.50 | 263.25 | 5 | 683.44 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 67.50 | 202.50 | 3 | 607.50 |
|*Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 59.06 | 305.16 | 5 |*602.93 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 SWC | 37.5% | 94.20 | 233.70 | 4 | 586.05 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 78.75 | 219.38 | 5 | 569.53 |
|*This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 75.00 | 221.25 | 5 |*557.81 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 HP | 37.5% | 48.13 | 251.56 | 4 | 497.66 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 | 37.5% | 72.50 | 188.75 | 4 | 464.38 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 45.00 | 135.00 | 3 | 405.00 |
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 50.00 | 147.50 | 5 | 371.88 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
And of course, .45-70 HP ammo slaughters This Machine if the enemy's DT is
lower than 15, as it does 1128 VATS damage compared to 670.
Even outside of VATS against a 15 DT target, it turns out the Brush Gun is
slightly better using HP ammo too:
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 67.50 | 202.50 | 357.99 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum | 20.0% | 49.11 | 169.86 | 293.02 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 101.70 | 270.45 | 280.41 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G | 20.0% | 42.70 | 147.70 | 254.80 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 45.00 | 135.00 | 238.66 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 SWC | 30.0% | 94.20 | 233.70 | 228.56 |
|*Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 20.0% | 59.06 | 305.16 | *224.16 |
|*This Machine | .308 JSP | 20.0% | 75.00 | 221.25 | *222.93 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 20.0% | 78.75 | 219.38 | 221.25 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 HP | 30.0% | 48.13 | 251.56 | 183.38 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 | 30.0% | 72.50 | 188.75 | 180.39 |
| This Machine | .308 | 20.0% | 50.00 | 147.50 | 148.62 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
And of course, if you use SWC ammo, Brush Gun is much better.
In addition to the overall boosts in damage and DPS, Brush Gun using .45-70
SWC offers the highest critical damage, making it the best sneak attacking
weapon for gun users. It is also much more accurate than This Machine by a
huge margin out of VATS. Brush Gun is simply better at everything - no
exceptions.
For all of these reasons, I unofficially declare Brush Gun to be a better
general purpose weapon than This Machine. The only reason This Machine was
better before was because of the rarity of .45-70 SWC ammo... but now that HP
ammo is much more effective and can be purchased in mass quantities easily,
there is very little reason to use This Machine now.
In the future, I may very well remove the section discussing This Machine
entirely.
Note: Riot Shotgun
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot of people drool at the sight of this mighty weapon, but I don't think
it's all that great by the end of the game. It's first major problem is that
this weapon is confined to close quarter combat. That alone takes it out of
contention for being the best general purpose weapon.
Secondly, the Riot Shotgun suffers from the same problems as Gobi in that all
of it's repair options are rare and expensive. Even with the Jury Rigging
perk, you can't even repair it with other shotguns! In fact, it's repair
options compete with Gobi and Sniper Rifle+, which I think is horrible.
You'll find all sorts of useless shotguns in this game, and yet, they'll be
useless for repair purposes. At least you can sell the shotguns for caps so
an NPC can repair the Riot Shotgun I suppose. Other than that, you'll have to
rely on Weapon Repair Kits.
Thirdly, while the Riot Shotgun offers very impressive damage outside of
VATS, it is one of the worst weapons to use in VATS, even with its best ammo
options. If a character has 125 AP, Riot Shotgun will only deal an average of
366.92 damage during it's VATS sequence. The Brush Gun does more than double
that amount.
Lastly, and more importantly, even with the Shotgun Surgeon perk, the Riot
Shotgun will do less damage than Gobi against Deathclaws or Securitron MK
II's. Guns like This Machine, Brush Gun, Anti-Materiel Rifle, Gobi and the
Sniper Rifle+ - just to name a few - are simply more effective and efficient.
These weapons can also be used in other situations as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.02 - Best General Purpose Energy Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it's fair to say that energy weapon users got hosed in Fallout: New
Vegas... probably because the developers thought they were too powerful in
Fallout 3. While there are some standout energy weapons, there isn't one
weapon that I would say is truly great in most areas. They are generally
not very versatile like guns.
Also, you'll often pay more in caps to get a similar effect for far cheaper
with regular guns. Weapons like the Plasma Defender, Multiplas Rifle and
Pew-Pew cost an insane amount of caps per shot. It is astonishing that the
developers didn't properly balance energy weapons at all.
Other than continuity reasons, I'm not sure why energy weapons are in this
game from a mechanics point of view. They seem to offer no distinct
advantages to regular guns. In fact, regular guns are so versatile that there
isn't a single context or purpose that energy weapons excel at that guns
can't.
Nonetheless, you have a few choices, all with varying tradeoffs to consider.
It's up to you to decide which characteristics matter most.
1. Plasma Caster+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The closest thing to the best general-purpose energy weapon in the game would
have to be the Plasma Caster+.
For one, unlike a lot of energy weapons, it is extremely economical to use.
Each shot only requires a single MF Cell, which amounts to 3 caps per shot.
The damage per shot is excellent (65) and compares to other guns like This
Machine. The DPS is also very high, reaching up to 299 DPS if modded with the
Plasma Caster HS Electrode!
Because the Plasma Caster is so economical, you should convert some of your
MF Cells to use the Overcharge or Max Charge variants at a Workbench if you
have a Science skill of 70. Alternatively, you can simply ask Veronica to do
it.
When using Max Charge ammo (the recommended choice, because it's the best
bang for your buck), you'll be doing 115 damage per shot and 382 DPS
unmodded. When modded with the HS Electrode, the DPS will jump up to 488!
This is pretty much the best your going to get with energy weapons -
especially at the bargain price of 7.5 caps per shot!
There are a lot of minor drawbacks to this weapon, but none that are truly
devastating. The Plasma Caster+ doesn't have very good durability, so you'll
have to repair it frequently - especially when using Max Charge ammo.
It's also a little difficult to repair. With the Jury Rigging perk, you can
expand its repair options to include Flamers, Incinerators, and Heavy
Incinerators, which are all quite common and useless... so repair away. You
may still have to utilize Weapon Repair Kits though.
Secondly, the Plasma Caster+ doesn't fire correctly in 3rd person mode. For
some reason, the weapon fires towards the ceiling, thus missing it's targets
and makes the weapon completely unusable. This will likely get fixed in a
future patch.
Lastly, it is not a very good VATS weapon at all. For some reason, sometimes
non-critical hits do very little damage - a lot less damage than they
ordinarily would in regular combat. Perhaps it's bugged and will be fixed in
a patch as well :/ Regardless, this will surely make some fights much harder.
It doesn't matter because in order take advantage of the Plasma Caster+'s
insanely high rate of fire, you do NOT want to use this weapon in VATS
anyway!
Overall, the Plasma Caster is a fantastic weapon and compares favourably even
to many of the best Guns (it even does more damage than Gobi outside of VATS,
but lacks the Scope and the ability to do VATS combat):
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Plasma Caster+ | MF MC | 20.0% | 142.19 | 355.47 | 635.86 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF OC | 20.0% | 81.25 | 203.13 | 454.19 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 90.00 | 225.00 | 397.77 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF | 20.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 388.70 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 60.00 | 150.00 | 265.18 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
You can acquire the Plasma Caster+ at Silver Rush. That place gives you the
opportunity to acquire 2 of the best energy weapons (the other being the
Multiplas Rifle) relatively early in the game.
Make sure to also purchase the Plasma Caster's only mod - the "Plasma Caster
HS Electrode" - from Gloria or the Gun Runner kiosk near Freeside. It's a
random spawn. Since some quests encourage you to kill the Van Graff's, you'll
want to try and get this mod from Gloria to increase your chances before you
start your killing spree :)
BEWARE OF BUG:
When doing the mission Birds of a Feather (a Van Graff mission receieved in
Silver Rush), if you choose to save Cass, Jean Baptiste will pick up the
Plasma Caster. Because of a glitch that makes his body unsearchable, if you
do not acquire the Caster before killing him, it will be lost forever in his
inventory! This happened to me! If that's the case, you are stuck with the
Multiplas Rifle as your top weapon :/
2. Multiplas Rifle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second best general purpose energy weapon is easily the Multiplas Rifle.
It does excellent damage per hit, has a fair range, is extremely easy to
repair since Plasma Rifles are a dime-a-dozen, and the ammo is plentiful
(just not cheap).
The Multiplas Rifle is one of the best VATS energy weapons in the entire
game, especially if you can get up-close to your target because you'll do at
least 105 damage per shot, and 263 damage if you score a critical hit!
Because the Multiplas Rifle uses multiple projectiles, it suffers major
penalties when you go up against enemies with 30 DT or more. In these
situations, you want to try and achieve critical hits whenever possible as
straight-up VATS damage will not be as effective.
The Multiplas Rifle also does excellent damage outside of VATS if you aim
well, whether in medium to close range. It only takes 1 or 2 hits to crisp a
Securitron MK II into a pile of goo, which is a feat only reserved for a few
weapons in the game.
By shooting out of VATS, you can take advantage of the fact that weapons with
multiple projectiles deal way more damage when you score a critical hit. With
the Multiplas Rifle, you'll deal a whopping 578 damage!
Because this weapon is a shotgun variant of the regular Plasma Rifle and has
a wide spread, you should strive to get into medium or close range of the
enemy at all times to make sure all 3 rounds of plasma make contact.
Otherwise you're just wasting ammo.
Because of this, I would recommended wearing Power Armor and getting all the
Damage Threshold bonuses you can if you're going to use this weapon
exclusively. You're going to be in the thick of combat all the time.
The only real drawback to the Multiplas Rifle - and it's a doozy - is that it
uses 6 MF Cells per shot - 2 for each round of plasma and there are 3 rounds
of plasma total. In a nutshell, it'll cost you 18 caps to fire each shot, so
you'll want to use this weapon in VATS exclusively to make sure every shot
counts.
You'll be lucky to find around 1200 MF Cells as you progress through the
game, so that gives you around 200 shots before you have to invest your own
money into ammo. You'll most likely need to invest in MF Cells frequently.
Having a character with high Luck and playing lots of Blackjack at the
various casinos will make sure you got the caps to buy your ammo in bulk from
Quartermaster Bardon at Hoover Dam:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Quartermaster_Bardon
On the plus side, the Multiplas Rifle's attack with basic ammo is strong
enough that you'll likely not upgrade your ammo to Overcharge or Max Charge
for most situations. But, it couldn't hurt either against really tough
targets.
With Max Charge ammo, you'll do 184 damage per shot and 297 DPS. If
you're blessed by the RNG gods to score a critical hit, you'll do a
rediculous 459 damage in VATS and 1011 damage outside of VATS! This is by far
the most critical damage you can do in the entire game - even more the
YCS/186!
This critical damage can be improved further by targeting the enemies head
and doing a sneak attack. Since both situations multiply your damage by 2,
you'll get 4x the damage - that's a total of 4044 damage! So while Multiplas
Rifle is a fantastic VATS weapon, it's also an incredible Sneak Attack weapon
as well. Maybe even the best in the whole game.
It's really too bad it'll cost you 45 caps per shot in order to achieve this
level of carnage, which won't become practical until you've amassed a lot of
extra caps. Once you can afford it, nothing is going to stand in your way -
not even a Legendary Deathclaw on the hardest difficulty!
Another drawback to the Multiplas Rifle is its slow rate of fire outside of
VATS. It is one of the slowest energy weapons available, taking about 1
second to fire in between shots. This really hampers the weapon's potential
DPS to the point where using a Tri-Beam Laser Rifle or even a Q-35 Matter
Modulator would be much better (and cheaper). Just be sure to stick to VATS
as much as possible when it's hard to aim and time your shots, and you'll do
fine.
It's ironic that with the Plasma Caster, you generally want to stay away from
VATS, but with Multiplas Rifle, you mostly want to be in VATS all the time ;)
Probably the easiest way to acquire the Multiplas Rifle is simply by stealing
it from Silver Rush, which has many other weapons and ammo for your thieving
pleasure:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Silver_Rush
3. Q-35 Matter Modulator
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This weapon, while not the most impressive for its base damage, has a high
critical modifier and does nearly 4x the base damage whenever you score a
critical hit. So while a regular hit does 32 damage, a critical hit will do
125 damage with normal ammo.
The Q-35 Matter Modulator has many drawbacks though. Firstly, it's VATS cost
is very high (28) compared to other weapons of similar function, so you will
need to take many Action Boy/Girl perks and additional energy weapon perks to
make the best use of it.
Is it worth using as a general purpose weapon? To put it simply: No. I only
include the weapon in the section because I see it discussed on the forums as
an alternative. It really drives me nuts that people don't understand that
this weapon is terrible given logical and rational arguments, so I'm going to
explain why it isn't a very good weapon right here and now by comparing
the Q-35 Matter Modulator with This Machine - a completely legit and fair
comparison.
Let's say you have a character with 125 AP - not an unreasonable assumption.
This Machine will get 5 attacks in VATS while the Q-35 will get 4. This
character has 10 Luck, has the Finesse and Better Criticals perks and is
using the 1st Recon Baret. We'll use .308 JSP ammo in This Machine and give
the Q-35 Matter Modulator Max Charge ammo.
The Q-35 Matter Modulator has a 2x critical multiplier - one of it's touted
"amazing" advantages. In VATS, it has a 50% chance it will do 56 damage, and
a 50% chance it will score a critical hit and do 218.75 damage. The total
damage done by the Q-35 Matter Modulator for all 4 attacks is 549.50 damage.
In contrast, This Machine only has a 1x crit multiplier, so it has a 75%
chance it will do 97.50 damage, and a 25% chance it will score a critical hit
and do 243.75 damage. The total damage done by This Machine for all 5 attacks
is 670.31 damage.
Here's a summary table:
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 97.50 | 243.75 | 5 | 670.31 |
| Q-35 MM | MF MC | 50.0% | 56.00 | 218.75 | 4 | 549.50 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
As you can clearly see, This Machine is 18% more effective! The situation
just gets worse when you consider normal ammo:
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 5 | 446.88 |
| Q-35 MM | MF OC | 50.0% | 40.00 | 156.25 | 4 | 392.50 |
| Q-35 MM | MF | 50.0% | 32.00 | 125.00 | 4 | 314.00 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
Since the Q-35 was specifically built for VATS combat, and we can see that it
fails at it quite hard, I'll put this matter to rest.
My other beef with the Q-35 is that it's damage is wildly inaccurate. If you
score a critical hit, the damage is very impressive. Otherwise, the damage is
abysmal. In fact, if the target's DT is high, it will do hardly any damage at
all - even with Max Charge ammo!
With the Q-35, you are essentially "gambling" for critical hits, which do not
occur often enough in practice to justify using this weapon. The best you can
hope for is 50% in VATS and 40% out of VATS. I just don't see any reason to
put up with this weapon when other weapons can achieve reliable damage every
hit, like the Plasma Caster+.
This leads me to believe that the Q-35 was really meant to be a sneak attack
weapon only, where criticals are at least assured. How you pull this off
without a scope and a spread of 0.2 is beyond me. I guess the developers want
you to sneak with Silent Running? There's no way you successfully do that for
the whole game. You're going to get into trouble... and then what?
Honestly, if you want to sneak attack things, use Gobi. At least you won't be
screwed if your sneak doesn't work out the way you planned, because unlike
the Q-35, Gobi is actually good!
If you do plan on using the Q-35, you are basically accepting the trade-off
that you will do less damage compared to your other choices in order to
conserve ammo more efficiently while having a weapon that is easy to repair
at the same time. I guess that is something good about the Q-35.
Despite all of this negativity, choosing the Q-35 Matter Modulator as your
leveling weapon is a pretty solid option because of the low strength
requirement. To use a Plasma Caster+, you need 100 in energy weapons and 8
strength to satisfy its requirements, so you can use the Q-35 before you are
able to use power armor and before you can buy your strength implant. You can
actually start with a character that has as little as 3 strength!
In the end though, the Q-35 Matter Modulator is just not worth it when you
have easy access to a Plasma Caster+.
You can find the Q-35 Matter Modulator at REPCONN Headquarters:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Q-35_Matter_Modulator
4. Pew-Pew
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pew-Pew, is a brilliantly fantastic weapon in almost all respects. Not only
does it deal solid damage and DPS, it's highly accurate and comes with a 2.5x
critical multiplier. It is definitely the best Laser-based weapon hands down,
and makes the rest of them look like child's toys.
All this power comes at a price. The Pew-Pew uses a hell of a lot of ammo. It
sinks 15 Energy Cells per shot. When compared to the damage output of 3
Energy Cells in a Plasma Defender (which is also quite steep), I can only
conclude that this is not a very efficient use of ammo. This rules Pew-Pew
out of contention for the top general purpose energy weapon.
When playing the game through to level 30, you'll likely find around 1500
Energy Cells throughout the wasteland. This gives you around 100 shots.
Keep in mind that each shot with Pew-Pew will cost you 30 caps. If you want
to use Overcharge ammo for the +25% damage bonus, each shot will cost you
45 caps. If you want to use Max Charge ammo for the +75% damage bonus, each
shot will cost you 75 caps. It seems you have to pay to play with Pew-Pew.
Each shot with Gobi using .308 JSP ammo costs 6 caps by comparison. Still
think energy weapon users didn't get hosed? The Overcharge ammo is especially
a huge rip-off.
On the bright side, you'll find lots of Laser Pistols to repair Pew-Pew. It
is one of the easiest elite weapons to repair, and you don't even need the
Jury Rigging perk.
For those who have 12,000 spare caps laying around and don't mind investing
in a quality weapon, one could hardly go wrong with buying 6000 Energy
Cells. That's how many cells it's going to take to fire this great weapon 400
times!
If you are willing to invest the caps into this weapon, taking the Laser
Commander perk is a no-brainer. You'll get an additional 15% damage (as if
the base damage on Pew-Pew wasn't enough) plus an additional 10% chance to
score a critical hit! The Laser Commander perk was made for this weapon
specifically (most of the other laser-based weapons in New Vegas are pretty
abysmal) since Pew-Pew gives a 2.5x critical multiplier - half that of a
sniper rifle! Don't forget to get Finesse and Better Criticals too.
If your character has 10 Luck, all the necessary perks and has the 1st Recon
Baret equipped, you'll score a critical hit 75.0% of the time outside of VATS
and 87.5% of the time in VATS. This is the highest possible critical chance
you can obtain with a weapon other than Gobi or Sniper Rifle+.
I will admit, doing an average of 499 DPS with Max Charge ammo with critical
hits factored in on nearly every shot is truly a sight to behold. Nobody can
fault energy weapons for not having the potential for greatness... you just
need to be bloody rich to afford the upkeep.
Given these stats, Pew-Pew becomes the #1 weapon to use in VATS, and one of
the best weapons to use in regular combat.
For most of us though, it's not very practical to use Pew-Pew... and the
Plasma Caster is almost as good. Perhaps the Plasma Caster+ is better in some
ways because it's clip size is much larger (10 instead of 2).
You can get the Pew-Pew at Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters by talking to
Festus and giving him 50 star battle caps:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sunset_Sarsaparilla_star_bottle_cap
Note: Alien Blaster
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
While an Alien Blaster certainly does the most damage out of all the energy
weapons, you have a limited supply of non-replenishable ammo. This makes the
Alien Blaster a horrible choice for general purpose combat, even though it's
technically the absolute best energy weapon in the game, period.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.03 - Best Sniper Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're inclined to use sniper rifles - and you should - there are lots of
options availabe in Fallout: New Vegas. Despite the stats on the the YCS/186
or the Anti-Materiel Rifle... it turns out that the plain, old Sniper Rifle
is actually the best sniper weapon in the entire game.
1. Sniper Rifle+
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unlike all the unique weapons, normal weapons give you the ability to add
mods. There is one very good mod for Sniper Rifles - The Suppressor - which
causes enemies to be completely oblivious to your attacks and will just stand
there helpless... waiting to be picked off.
Because of the Suppressor mod, an upgraded Sniper Rifle turns out to be the
most effective sniping weapon in the entire game. In fact, it kind of breaks
the game and makes many areas too easy.
There's also a mod to lower it's weight to just 3 pounds, which is not bad at
all.
The Sniper Rifle also does a little more damage compared to Gobi. They are
comparable regardless, but with a proper sneak attack with Better Criticals,
you'll be able to kill a deathclaw on the hardest difficulty level in a
single shot!
Like This Machine and Gobi, regular Sniper Rifles use .308 Caliber Rounds, so
you'll want to use the .308 JSP Hand Load ammo for maximum damage. Never use
plain .308 rounds.
One small annoyance - and it's not really a problem with the weapon - is the
stupidity of your companions. Especially ED-E. He just loves to charge into
battles, playing that stupid music of his and blowing your cover in the
process. Be sure to keep allies in passive mode and have them stay way behind
you, although ED-E will get you into trouble anyway unless you tell him to
wait. I guess the developers had to find some way to balance Sniper Rifle+.
An actual drawback to Sniper Rifle+ is that it degrades very quickly due to
its poor durability. Like Gobi, Sniper Rifles are not easy to repair, even
with a Jury Rigging perk because most of the repair options are rare and
expensive. It becomes doubly so if you intend on using Gobi and Sniper Rifle+
at the same time, which many people do, including me.
Still, probably the cheapest way to repair your Sniper Rifle+ is to buy fully
repaired Service Rifles from Gun Runners for 645 caps. You'll need the Jury
Rigging perk to pull this off.
Also, if you ever find yourself forced into medium to short-range combat, a
basic Sniper Rifle is definitely not the weapon of choice. You'll probably
want to switch to Gobi, This Machine or a Brush Gun to finish them off in
VATS.
The best place to acquire two Sniper Rifles is in Vault 34's Armory. You'll
be heading to the armory for lots of other quests anyway, so might as well
get those Sniper Rifles!:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_34
One way to get a Suppressor is to buy one from the Gun Runners kiosk near
Freeside. The other is at the 188 Trading Post's "Arms Merchant" (that's her
name). Just warp there, cross the bridge and talk to her - she's by the truck
during the day.
NOTE: It *is* annoying to get the shops to spawn the Suppressor though, as
their inventory's stock is random. In one playthrough, I had to refresh the
inventory 8 times to get the Suppressor... while in another playthrough, I
got the Suppressor on the first attempt. So if you don't see an item called
"Sniper Rifle Suppressor", wait 24 hours and keep checking their stock. Good
luck!
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sniper_Rifle_Suppressor#Locations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.04 - Best VATS Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VATS combat has been nerfed in New Vegas in comparison to Fallout 3. In New
Vegas, VATS shouldn't be used exclusively. Nonetheless, it's still an
important and necessary part of the game.
There are a variety of enemies that are extremely difficult to hit without
VATS, such as:
* Cazadors, which fly around and from side-to-side, making them difficult to
hit at long-range. They are also difficult to take out when they swarm
you.
* Giant Mantis', which almost seem like they are programmed to jump at the
exact moment you fire
* Nightstalkers, which are invisible before they attack but can be seen in
VATS if ED-E is one of your companions
The game mechanics in VATS combat work differently from regular combat.
Instead of using the weapon's rate of fire to dictate your damage potential,
the VATS system uses Action Points (AP) instead. AP governs how many actions
you can take, and thus how much damage you can deal while using VATS.
Some weapons which are really good at firing from the hip actually do less
damage in VATS because they use a lot of AP per shot. The Riot Shotgun is a
great example of this.
Likewise, weapons that have poor DPS surprisingly perform much better in VATS
because they are very efficient when it comes to AP usage. The Multiplas
Rifle is a great example of this.
The best VATS weapons need to have a really good balance between doing a lot
of damage while expending a low amount of AP per shot.
With the Grim Reaper's Sprint perk, you regain 20 AP for every kill in VATS.
So, if you can kill a target in a single shot and only expend around 20 AP to
get the kill, that VATS attack will essentially be free. This perks enables
you use VATS repeatedly as long as you are using the right weapon.
Two weapons really shine in VATS: This Machine and Brush Gun. Both weapons
have great base damage and have very low AP costs (22 and 23 respectively),
which makes them excellent candidates to exploit the Grim Reaper's Sprint
perk.
Both This Machine and Brush Gun do ~3.25 damage per AP spent in VATS, which
is the highest ratio among all the weapons.
However, after all the number crunching, and taking ammo, perks and upkeep
costs into consideration, it turns out that the Brush Gun is the best VATS
weapon to use in Fallout: New Vegas.
1. Brush Gun
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the regular .45-70 Gov't ammo packs a mean punch and is generally
excellent, the .45-70 SWC Hand Load ammo crafted with the Hand Loader perk is
far superior. This ammo offers 20% more damage plus -6 to the target's DT
(defense threshold).
While .45-70 SWC Hand Load ammo is quite good... by itself, it would not be
enough to outperform This Machine. For Brush Gun to become the best, you must
also take the Cowboy perk, which gives a +25% damage increase to all lever-
action weapons (which Brush Gun qualifies).
When using the Cowboy perk and SWC Hand Load ammo, you should expect to deal
a whopping 113 damage per shot and 303 DPS. Mathematically, this is almost
as good as using an Anti-Materiel Rifle using .50 MG Match Hand Load! (Except
you won't have to put up with *any* of Anti-Materiel Rifle's drawbacks, such
as its horrible rate of fire or its insanely low DPS).
Since Brush Gun does a base damage of 75 per shot - 10 more damage than This
Machine - when combined with the 45% damage boost, you will do roughly ~13%
more damage compared to This Machine in VATS. And that doesn't even account
for the -6 DT either! When attacking heavily armored targets like Deathclaws,
Brush Gun does 18% more damage - a very noticeable upgrade!
Here's a comparison between Brush Gun and This Machine against 15 DT targets
to illustrate the damage increase:
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 94.50 | 263.25 | 5 | 683.44 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 59.06 | 305.16 | 5 | 602.93 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 78.75 | 219.38 | 5 | 569.53 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 75.00 | 221.25 | 5 | 557.81 |
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 50.00 | 147.50 | 5 | 371.88 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
As you can see, even when This Machine uses .308 JSP, it does less damage
than the Brush Gun regardless of which ammo you are using.
The Brush Gun is not limited to being a VATS-only weapon however - it is an
excellent weapon in its own right. It has a fantastic, low spread of 0.03,
which is on par with a Sniper Rifle. If you have the skill to hit things out
of VATS, the Brush Gun is highly effective and is more accurate than This
Machine.
The Brush Gun also deals much more normal damage, critical damage and has a
higher DPS compared to This Machine outside of VATS:
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 20.0% | 164.06 | 410.16 | 441.53 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 112.50 | 281.25 | 302.76 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 20.0% | 97.50 | 243.75 | 271.05 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 20.0% | 93.75 | 234.38 | 252.30 |
| This Machine | .308 | 20.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 180.70 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
In fact, the Brush Gun deals the 3rd highest critical damage in the game,
only behind the YCS/186 and the Multiplas Rifle. This makes it the best Sneak
Attacking weapon for Gun users.
While there's a lot to like about the Brush Gun, there are two major
disadvantages that might cause you to use This Machine anyway.
The first problem is that .45-70 Gov't ammo is not at all common. It is very
likely you will only find around 75-100 bullets by looting ammo from
containers and corpses as you progress through the game.
Furthermore, most vendors do not sell the basic .45-70 Gov't ammo that
enables you to craft the SWC ammo easily - they only the Hollow Point
version, which is not very effective against really heavily armored targets
like the Securitron MK II or Mr. Gutsy despite the high damage and DPS that
is reported by the Pip-Boy.
Still, .45-70 HP is best used to kill random enemies with 14 DT or less, just
so you can acquire the cases for crafting SWC ammo. Because the latest patch
lowered the DT of most heavily armored targets in the game by half, it turns
out that using .45-70 HP is now slightly better than using This Machine with
.308 JSP ammo in VATS.
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 94.50 | 263.25 | 5 | 683.44 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 59.06 | 305.16 | 5 | 602.93 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 78.75 | 219.38 | 5 | 569.53 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 75.00 | 221.25 | 5 | 557.81 |
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 50.00 | 147.50 | 5 | 371.88 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
Conclusion: .45-70 HP ammo is actually pretty good and shouldn't be wasted
just to make SWC ammo - use it up!
The easiest way to acquire lots of .45-70 Gov't ammo is to breakdown regular
.308 ammo, which can be purchased in bulk cheaply, to get 3 out of the 4
components at the Reloading bench. Then, you'll just have to find cases...
and that's actually quite a painful process.
The best locations to acquire .45-70 Gov't are to:
* Buy .45-70 Gov't Regular rounds from Knight Torres in Hidden Valley, a
Brotherhood of Steel outpost. She's the only one that regularly sells
normal rounds from what I can tell.
- Buy .45-70 Gov't HP rounds from Alexander at the Gun Runners outpost
underneath the 188 Trading Post overpass, or Gun Runners near Freeside.
Then, use them up in regular fights to get cases.
- Pickpocket from Regular and Veteran NCR Rangers in various NCR locations.
Camp Golf is probably the best spot as several Veteran NCR Rangers exist
in the resort building and sitting down next the table by the tents.
- Pickpocket from several members of the Great Khans in Red Rock Canyon.
- Pickpocket Orris, the bodyguard for hire in Freeside. You have to avoid
helping the Kings to make sure he sticks around.
- Loot the various footlockers found in tents at Camp Golf.
The second problem is the Brush Gun's ammo reload time. Each bullet has to be
inserted individually, so inserting 6 bullets takes several seconds.
Hopefully after 6 shots the battle is over... but if it isn't, you'll have to
find cover before firing again. Since This Machine reloads quicker, it
doesn't have this problem. A lot of people use This Machine instead for this
reason too.
However, if you can put a little effort into getting the ammo, Brush Gun is
actually a better 'general purpose' weapon than Than Machine, and would give
you the strongest VATS weapon in the entire game save Pew-Pew. I give this
weapon two thumbs up!
The easiest way to get a Brush Gun is to simply purchase one at the Gun
Runners kiosk near Freeside:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Gun_Runners
2. Gobi and This Machine - A tie
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gobi can also be used as a VATS weapon even though it's AP cost is 33, just
because it does a huge amount of damage. It is generally on par with This
Machine with respect to VATS damage, so feel free to use either Gobi or
This Machine as your .308 VATS weapon of choice.
NOTE: As the enemy's armor gets tougher, Gobi is a much stronger choice even
though it uses 33 AP. If in doubt, use Gobi.
3. Multiplas Rifle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Multiplas Rifle is probably the 3rd best option, and for energy weapon
users it's easily the best choice - especially at close range.
The Multiplas Rifle has three big drawbacks that keep it from scoring higher
in my lists. The first is that you'll have to spend 45 caps per shot using
Max Charge ammo to fully realize the damage potential on this weapon, which
is much more expensive than using Brush Gun, Gobi or This Machine.
The second drawback is that the Multiplas Rifle's damage barely comes close
to the Brush Gun using .45-70 SWC, and is simply slaughtered by .45-70 HP
against low armored targets:
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 164.06 | 410.16 | 5 |1127.93 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 112.50 | 281.25 | 5 | 773.44 |
| Multiplas | MF MC | 25.0% | 183.75 | 459.38 | 3 | 757.97 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 93.75 | 234.38 | 5 | 644.53 |
| Multiplas | MF OC | 25.0% | 131.25 | 328.13 | 3 | 541.41 |
| Multiplas | MF | 25.0% | 105.00 | 262.50 | 3 | 433.13 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
When you are up against high armored targets with 15 DT, such as Deathclaws,
the Multiplas Rifle's VATS damage goes *WAY* down in comparison to the Brush
Gun, despite the crazy number of caps you'll spend per shot:
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 94.50 | 263.25 | 5 | 683.44 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 59.06 | 305.16 | 5 | 602.93 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 78.75 | 219.38 | 5 | 569.53 |
| Multiplas | MF MC | 25.0% | 105.00 | 380.63 | 3 | 521.72 |
| Multiplas | MF OC | 25.0% | 75.00 | 271.88 | 3 | 372.66 |
| Multiplas | MF | 25.0% | 60.00 | 217.50 | 3 | 298.13 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
It's unfortunate that energy weapon users are completely hosed when it comes
to VATS damage because all of their weapons either cost too much to fire or
use multiple projectiles, which lowers their VATS damage considerably.
The last drawback is the Multiplas Rifles's range. In VATS, it's often best
to target enemies while being far away. With the Multiplas Rifle, you'll get
better results the closer you are to your target. Weapons like Brush Gun
allow you to use VATS from a safe distance.
For all of these reasons, and just due to general versatility, Brush Gun is
considered a much better VATS weapon.
Note: Pew-Pew
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pew-Pew with the Laser Commander perk is technically the *best* VATS weapon
in the entire game IF you use EC Max Charge ammo. It will be approximately
11% more effective against 15 DT targets compared to the Brush Gun using
.45-70 Gov't SWC. Against 0 DT targets, the Brush Gun still wins.
The main problem with Pew-Pew, and the main reason why I don't include it as
the best VATS weapon in this FAQ, is that each shot with EC Max Charge ammo
costs 75 caps. It's just not worth using Pew-Pew as a general VATS weapon
when you can use Brush Gun for a much smaller investment for basically the
same results. So we'll just stop the discussion right here.
If you have 20,000 caps to burn on ammo, then by all means, use Pew-Pew
instead of Brush Gun... although I don't see the point. I'd just thought I'd
mention it for completeness.
Note: YCS/186
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the YCS/186 technically does more damage per AP spent in VATS, it
requires a whopping 40 AP per shot, thus rendering Grim Reaper's Sprint more-
or-less useless. Also, it's been said that the YCS/186 is bugged in VATS and
does less damage than it should anyway. In fact, playtesting shows that Gobi
does more damage, so don't use the YCS/186 in VATS mode.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.05 - Best 1HKO Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes you just wanna kill something in one hit in a 1-on-1 situation.
These weapons will do that nicely.
1. YCS/186 Gauss Rifle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outside of VATS, the YCS/186 has the single most powerful shot in the entire
game at 140 damage for the modest expenditure of 4 MF Cells. It sounds like a
lot of ammo, but compared to most other energy weapons, it's actually quite a
bargain.
With Max Charge cells, you'll bring the damage up to 245, which is absolutely
devastating - especially when you score a critical hit (which will most
likely be the case). Critical hits go for 428.75 damage.
To put it simply, you point the YCS/186 at something? - It dies. You point it
at something else? - It also dies.
Here's a chart listing all the top 1HKO weapons against a target that has
15 DT (the likeliest situation that you are going to need these weapons for).
The list is sorted by the normal damage it would deal - not factoring
critical hits - meaning it's the worst possible, guarenteed result for each
of these weapons and ammo combinations:
.---------------------.------------.--------.--------.----------------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | DAMAGE | AVERAGE DAMAGE |
|---------------------|------------|--------|--------|----------------|
| YCS/186 | MF MC | 40.0% | 218.75 | 292.25 |
| YCS/186 | MF OC | 40.0% | 156.25 | 208.75 |
| YCS/186 | MF | 40.0% | 125.00 | 167.00 |
| Pew-Pew | MF MC | 75.0% | 124.69 | 237.89 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 Match | 20.0% | 109.25 | 136.85 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF MC | 20.0% | 105.00 | 270.38 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 101.70 | 135.45 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'--------'----------------'
As you can see, the YCS/186 blows away the competition here, even with
Pew-Pew, Multiplas Rifle and Brush Gun thrown into the mix.
The YCS/186's main drawback is that you must reload it after every shot,
which takes a significant amount of time. It also has a nasty kickback, which
makes aiming the next shot in your scope a big problem when your targets are
moving.
For this reason, once enemies are alerted to your presence and are rushing
towards you, you should switch to a close-quarters weapon or a VATS weapon.
Feel free to get another shot off if you can, but you want to be prepared.
Good choices for this style of play are This Machine, Brush Gun or the
Multiplas Rifle.
In VATS, it has been reported that the YCS/186 is bugged and does less damage
than it's supposed to. This often makes Gobi a superior choice to use when
using VATS, at least until things get patched up.
The YCS/186 can be found very easily if you're willing to trek all the way to
Brooks Tumbleweed Ranch, which is west of Freeside/The Strip. Once you arrive
at Brooks Tumbleweed Ranch, head north-east from there until you see a merc
camp with 5 mercs. You can use a Sniper Rifle+ to make short work of them
without any retaliation. One of those mercs has the YCS/186 on him.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/YCS/186_Gauss_rifle
2. Anti-Materiel Rifle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This weapon is discussed a great deal on forums everywhere. It's often touted
as the best weapon in the game by many. It's certainly potent, but doesn't
quite measure up to the YCS/186. It does have a few things going for it
however.
The Anti-Materiel Rifle uses .50 MG rounds, which typically shred through
just about everything. They are even more powerful than .308 rounds.
Unfortunately, .50 MG's ammo variants are not quite as good. The best of the
bunch is the custom-made .50 MG Match Hand Load provided by the Hand Loader
perk. It boosts your damage by 15% while reducing the weapon's spread by 35%.
The Anti-Materiel Rifle is already extremely accurate, so it's doubtful the
player will see any meaningful difference due to the spread reduction, but a
15% damage increase is always nice.
The Anti-Materiel Rifle can also use .50 MG Armor Piercing rounds, which can
be purchased from any of the Gun Runners merchants. These are almost as
effective as the custom Hand Loader rounds, but the Match Hand Load rounds
will deal more damage against lightly armored targets while dealing about the
same damage to heavily armored targets.
When using .50 MG Match Hand Load, you should expect to deal 127 damage per
shot with the Anti-Materiel Rifle. You'll often be scoring a sneak critical
hit too, so you'll be doing 265 x2 damage per shot if your critical hit was
successful. That's a little more than Gobi's first shot, which only does 226
x2 damage in the same situation.
One nice thing about .50 rounds is that you can buy them in bulk for just 6
caps per round. So even though it's not quite as good as the YCS/186, it's a
bit more economical to use unless the targets are really tough.
Anti-Materiel Rifles have several disadvantages. For one, they are not good
for anything other than 1HKO's and 1-on-1 encounters. Their rate of fire is
abysmal, so once the enemy comes charging, you must switch to a different
weapon like Gobi, This Machine or Brush Gun - or face the consequences. The
Anti-Materiel can't be used in VATS very well either.
Another drawback is that while the Anti-Materiel Rifle has a scope, it
doesn't get the critical multiplier like a regular Sniper Rifle+ does. This
isn't a problem when sneaking, but afterwards, it is at a significant
disadvantage when compared to Sniper Rifle+ or Gobi.
To make matters worse, the Anti-Materiel Rifle barely does more damage than a
character who is spec'd to use the Brush Gun. Remember, the Brush Gun does
113 damage. After the first shot, the Brush Gun quickly jumps in the damage
lead with its superior rate of fire while the Anti-Materiel Rifle is still
busy setting up for its next shot. By then, the Brush Gun will have dealt
around 226-339 damage.
Probably the easiest way to acquire an Anti-Materiel Rifle is to go to the
Gun Runners kiosk near New Vegas, suck it up, and buy it for ~6500 caps.
Although for the same price, you can buy a Brush Gun instead ;)
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Gun_Runners
3. Multiplas Rifle (Sneak Attacking only)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
It turns out that because of the way critical damage works with multiple
projectile weapons, it's possible to rack up on insane critical damage with
the Multiplas Rifle.
With regular ammo, the Multiplas Rifle will deal 577.50 * 4 (2310) damage if
you sneak attack an ememy in the head. With Max Charge ammo, the Multiplas
Rifle will sneak attack for 1010.63 * 4 (4042.52) damage! The YCS/186 has no
chance in hell to deal this level of damage, and this enables you to take out
ANY enemy in the game - including Legendary Deathclaws - with a single hit
if you can be stealthy enough.
If you find yourself in a situation where you can sneak attack an enemy to
score a guarenteed critical hit, the Multiplas Rifle is actually much better
to use than going with the YCS/186 or the Anti-Materiel Rifle and is the best
gun in the game for this purpose.
Of course for regular attacks, the YCS/186 and the Anti-Materiel Rifle are
superior... and that's ultimately why I listed them first.
Here's a chart with all the best 1HKO weapons in the game ordered by critical
hit damage. As you can see, the Multiplas Rifle completely obliterates the
competition.
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Multiplas Rifle | MF MC | 20.0% | 183.75 | 1010.63 | 296.76 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF OC | 20.0% | 131.25 | 721.88 | 211.97 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF | 20.0% | 105.00 | 577.50 | 169.58 |
| YCS/186 | MF MC | 40.0% | 245.00 | 428.75 | 215.62 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 20.0% | 164.06 | 410.16 | 441.53 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 HP | 30.0% | 153.13 | 356.56 | 359.78 |
| YCS/186 | MF OC | 40.0% | 175.00 | 306.25 | 154.02 |
| Pew-Pew | MF MC | 75.0% | 142.50 | 285.00 | 498.75 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 112.50 | 281.25 | 302.76 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 Match | 20.0% | 126.50 | 264.50 | 69.00 |
| YCS/186 | MF | 40.0% | 140.00 | 245.00 | 123.21 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 SWC | 30.0% | 105.00 | 244.50 | 246.71 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 20.0% | 93.75 | 234.38 | 252.30 |
| Sniper Rifle+ | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 93.00 | 232.50 | 372.00 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 | 20.0% | 110.00 | 230.00 | 60.00 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 | 30.0% | 87.50 | 203.75 | 205.59 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
It has to be noted that the Anti-Materiel Rifle is not a very good sneak
attacking weapon, as you can see that the YCS/186, Brush Gun, Ranger Sequoia
and Pew-Pew are all more effective.
Against a target with 15 DT, like a Deathclaw, the order of effectiveness
really doesn't change much except for that the Anti-Materiel Rifle goes up to
5th place with Pew-Pew and Brush Gun still besting it. This is generally why
I have such a low opinion of the Anti-Materiel Rifle - it's actually a pretty
terrible weapon due to its inferior versatility.
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Multiplas Rifle | MF MC | 20.0% | 105.00 | 931.88 | 229.82 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF OC | 20.0% | 75.00 | 665.63 | 164.16 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF | 20.0% | 60.00 | 532.50 | 131.33 |
| YCS/186 | MF MC | 40.0% | 218.75 | 402.50 | 197.85 |
| YCS/186 | MF OC | 40.0% | 156.25 | 287.50 | 141.32 |
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 75.0% | 124.69 | 275.63 | 475.78 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 101.70 | 270.45 | 280.41 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 Match | 20.0% | 109.25 | 247.25 | 61.28 |
| YCS/186 | MF | 40.0% | 125.00 | 230.00 | 113.06 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.06 - Best Anti-Robot Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robots have different type of armor and a high damage threshold. You often
need specialized weapons to take them out as regular weapons like Shotguns
and the like just won't cut it. Sometimes This Machine won't hack it either.
This section covers some of your options in taking out high-armored robots,
like Sentry Bots or Securitron MK II's.
1. Pulse Gun
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is *the* weapon to kill Robots, as it only takes 1 or 2 hits to kill any
robot with it. Each shot will cost you 10 caps due to the gun consuming 5
Energy Cells, but the effects are very much worth the cost.
If you ever want to take out Mr. House's entire army of Securitron MK II's...
this is the weapon you want to do it with. Each consistently dies in 1 hit,
which is pretty stellar. No other weapon can claim that except for the
YCS/186. All other weapons, such as Gobi, Brush Gun or Plasma Caster need to
rely on criticals in order to kill a Securitron MK II successfully in one
hit.
Outside of the purpose of killing robots (or those wearing Power Armor), this
gun is useless. Luckily it only weighs 2.00 pounds, so you're not really
punished for lugging it around everywhere you go. You'll never know when it
might come in handy!
You can find the Pulse Gun in Vault 34's armory, like many other excellent
weapons:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_34
To get access to the key that open's the locked footlocker, you need to
initiate Veronica's personal quest "I Could Make You Care":
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/I_Could_Make_You_Care
2. Others
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you don't have the Pulse Gun, use the YCS/186, Gobi or an Anti-Materiel
Rifle - in that order. It'll work.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.07 - Best One-Handed Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I haven't quite figured out why anyone would want to use a pistol. They
generally do less damage compared to Rifles and other types of weapons, and
never seem to offer any significant advantages. It's not like you have an
energy shield or something else in your free hand. The only advantage that I
can think of is that you run faster. If someone knows, be sure to send me an
email ;)
Anyway, if you do happen to require a pistol, there are a lot of options, all
with various tradeoffs. When just comparing damage output, the Alien Blaster
easily wins outright... but it's ammo is limited and it's non-replenishable.
This fact pretty much rules it out of contention for practical use. The other
options are not much more practical, however.
The two best pistols in the game are Pew-Pew and Ranger Sequoia. In fact,
they are almost equally good if you don't factor in Max Charge ammo. Once you
include Max Charge ammo, however, Pew-Pew comes on top.
1. Pew-Pew
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Energy Weapon users, you're going to want to use Pew-Pew. In terms of raw
damage, DPS, critical hit chance, low spread, VATS, etc., this weapon has it
all.
There are two drawbacks though:
1. It's very hard to acquire, and will take you many hours until you
eventually find 50 of the 100 star bottle caps.
2. It uses A LOT of ammo, and will cost you 30 caps per shot - 75 caps if you
should want to use Max Charge ammo.
For a more detailed discussion about Pew-Pew, see section 2.02.
2. Ranger Sequoia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For gun users, the Ranger Sequoia is the cream of the crop. It simply
demolishes the competition. It is simply quality at its finest.
For starters, it has a base damage of 70, which is the highest among all the
Gun-based pistols. It's not just the highest, but it's nearly 30 points
higher than the next in line - The Mysterious Magnum at 42.
The damage is noteworthy too because even among the rifles, only the Anti-
Materiel Rifle and the Brush Gun have a higher base damage - 110 and 75,
respectively.
Conclusion? This is one powerful pistol! Since Ranger Sequoia is part of the
Hunting Revolver family, it also gets a 25% damage bonus with the Cowboy
perk! Who would have thought the Cowboy perk could be so useful? :)
When using custom .45-70 Gov't SWC ammo, you can expect to deal 105 damage
per shot and 247 DPS. Remarkably, it does almost as much DPS as This Machine!
Ranger Sequoia is superior in many other ways too:
- It is the most accurate pistol, in and out of VATS at long ranges since it
has a low spread of 0.1.
- It deals the most critical damage out of any other pistol (62 damage) and
is 7th best sneak attacking weapon in the entire game! Critical hits with
this weapon are capable of taking out extremely tough enemies!
If you like the Ranger Sequoia, you should probably consider taking
"The Professional" perk, which adds another +20% damage whenever you get a
sneak attack critical. With Better Criticals and Cowboy, that's a total of
+95% damage from just perks alone.
- It has a 1.5x critical modifier, which is the most out of any of the high
damage pistols. High Luck and the Finesse perk can be used to further boost
this advantage. The Ranger Sequoia will deal 244.50 damage on a critical
hit.
- It offers 2.33 damage per AP spent in VATS, making it tied for the best
guns-related pistol to use in VATS. Even better, Ranger Sequoia using
plain .45-70 Gov't ammo is better than Pew-Pew using normal regular EC or
EC Overcharge ammo. It comes pretty darn close the level of damage of
Pew-Pew using Max Charge ammo too... at a fraction of the cost in caps.
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 87.5% | 98.44 | 249.38 | 3 | 691.52 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 SWC | 37.5% | 105.00 | 244.50 | 4 | 629.25 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 | 37.5% | 87.50 | 203.75 | 4 | 524.38 |
| Pew-Pew | EC OC | 87.5% | 70.31 | 178.13 | 3 | 493.95 |
| Pew-Pew | EC | 87.5% | 56.25 | 142.50 | 3 | 395.16 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
- It's easily repaired with Hunting Revolers and just about any type of
pistol with the Jury Rigging perk. That's right - you can use all of
those spare 9mm and 10mm's to repair your Ranger Sequoia easily.
Like the Brush Gun, the Ranger Sequoia's only real drawback is it's ammo
type. You'll be busy hunting for a reasonable amount of ammo to comfortably
use the Ranger Sequoia. Unlike Brush Gun, where This Machine acts as a
suitable substitute... all the other pistols are terrible.
You can obtain the Ranger Sequoia from Chief Hanlon at Camp Golf during the
"Return to Sender" quest chain. This is a long chain, but the Ranger Sequoia
is a good reward for your effort! Make sure to choose to turn him in so he
commits suicide. After the long speech he'll kill himself. When you can
finally enter the room, open the door and look on the ground near his body
for the Ranger Sequoia. It's not ON his body, but near it!
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Return_to_Sender
3. Mysterious Magnum
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, if you need to sneak something into a casino or into the Legion
camp, the Mysterious Magnum is probably the weapon of choice. While not
nearly as powerful as other weapons, it's plenty capable of handling whatever
threats lie in these locations.
The Mysterious Magnum's one advantage over Ranger Sequoia or Pew-Pew is that
it's very economical, easy to repair and is not a total pain to get ammo for.
You'll likely find 150 rounds all on your own, but .44 Magnum rounds can be
purchased in bulk rather easily and cheaply.
Mysterious Magnum's base damage is 42 - kind of miserable - but it can be
improved. You can take the Cowboy perk to get an additional +25% damage. With
that, you'll do 53 damage per shot and have 149 DPS. Unfortunately, the
Mysterious Magnum still doesn't perform very well in VATS and still has
problems cutting through high DT targets. What can you do?
You can acquire the Mysterious Magnum from the Lonesome Drifter, a guitar
playing cowboy with daddy issues, during the quest "Talent Pool". When you
recruit him to play at the Tops Casino, be sure to pass the Barter check to
get something in return for your troubles:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Talent_Pool
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.08 - Best Ammo-Conservation Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes you don't want to use weapons because of repair issues, because you
don't have enough ammo, or you just want to save your high quality ammo for
harder targets.
This category goes to the weapon that is best at killing trash effectively
while being easily and cheaply repaired and having access to a constant,
natural supply of ammo.
1. Weathered 10mm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Without a doubt, the Weathered 10mm is the best weapon for this purpose.
While Maria has a slightly higher DPS out of the box, and has a 2.0x critical
multiplier, It's possible to upgrade the Weathered 10mm to be far superior.
For starters, you can use the Hand Loader perk to create custom 10mm JHP
rounds, which takes the base damage from 24 to a whopping 40! DPS is also
significantly increased from 65 to 123! This almost puts the Weathered 10mm
on par with the Mysterious Magnum.
The best news of all is that you'll find about 800 or so rounds of 10mm ammo,
which will allow you to craft 600 rounds of JHP - more than enough to kill
all sorts of trash in this game. In fact, it's such an effective weapon that
you'll find yourself using it against 50% of the lower-bound enemies in this
game. It's that good!
Because the Weathered 10mm only uses 17 AP per shot in VATS, it's Damage/AP
ratio has been boosted dramatically to 2.35, which puts it exactly on par
with the Ranger Sequoia (assuming no Cowboy perk or SWC ammo)!
But that's not all! Unlike a lot of unique weapons, you can actually further
mod the Weathered 10mm to add many exciting capabilities!
For example:
- 10mm Pistol Extended Mags gives +4 Rounds per magazine.
- 10mm Pistol Laser Sight decreases bullet spread and adds a laser sight
effect.
- 10mm Pistol Silencer reduces limb damage but adds a silencer to avoid
detection.
To obtain the Weathered 10mm, You need the pre-order DLC from EB-Games or
Gamestop. If the DLC is installed, you'll get it immediately at the start of
your adventure:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Weathered_10mm_Pistol
2. Maria
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those that don't have access to the Weathered 10mm, your next best option
is Maria, a unique 9mm Pistol. It's one drawback is that you need to progress
the storyline up to the point where you kill Benny in order to obtain it.
It's possible to progress the story where you don't kill Benny... and if so,
you miss out on it indefinitely:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Benny
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.09 - Best Unarmed Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Ballistic Fist
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This weapon is easily the best fist weapon in the game. When you have maxed
strength and maxed unarmed skill, it does 104 damage! The one drawback is
that you need a character with 9 strength to use it effectively. This is not
a problem, because you'll probably want to make a character with 7 strength
if you plan on using fist weapons anyway (you can get +1 strength from
implants and +1 from armor).
The Ballistic Fist is also the best fist weapon in VATs, as it offers the
highest DMG/AP, Pushy falling slightly behind.
The easiest and earliest ways to get this weapon is from Blake at the Crimson
Caravan Company:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Blake
Or from Torres in the Hidden Valley Bunker:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Torres
2. Pushy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This one is not as potent as Ballistic Fist outside of VATS, but it's much
easier to obtain, it's free, and it only requires 2 strength to wield it.
You can find Pushy on a dead Jackal Gang member inside the Ruby Hill Mine.
This is not an easy location to get to early in the game, but if you can deal
with Cazadors on your way there, go for it.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ruby_Hill_Mine
3. Mantis Gauntlet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another option is to craft a Mantis Gauntlet. This weapon doesn't have as
high of DPS as the Ballistic Fist, but it does have a 3x critical modifier on
it and (should) ignore target defense, making it ideal against heavily
armored targets. It's best used on a character with lots of LUCK. It is also
a very fast weapon as you can get in lots of attacks, but it is terrible when
using VATS compared to Pushy or Ballistic Fist.
Unfortunately, people report that it doesn't work so well against Deathclaws,
so you're probably better off with Ballistic Fist anyway as it's non-critical
damage is much higher than the Mantis Gauntlet, at least until this gets
patched.
You can learn about how to craft a Mantis Gauntlet here:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mantis_Gauntlet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.10 - Best Melee Weapon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Oh Baby!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================================================
3. Charts
================================================================================
This section presents several charts containing weapon stats in and out of
VATS which you may find very helpful.
All the charts in this section assume that your character has 10 Luck, has
the Finesse and Better Criticals perks and is using the 1st Recon Baret for a
helmet - the best possible setup.
For the VATS tables, it is assumed that your character has 125 AP, which is
what most characters will have. Nonetheless, it is a good number to
approximate VATS effectiveness.
For Laser-based weapons, the Laser Commander perk is assumed, which gives 15%
more damage and an additional 10% critical hit chance.
For the Brush Gun and Ranger Sequoia, the Cowboy perk is assumed, which gives
an additional 25% damage.
For the Riot Shotgun, the Shotgun Surgeon perk is assumed, which gives a -10
Bonus to your targets DT.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.01 - VATS Total Damage Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To give you an idea as to which weapons and ammo combinations perform the
best in VATS, I'll present you with a chart that shows how much damage is
made possible during the full VATS sequence with critical hits factored in
completely. You won't find this chart anywhere else on the Internet!
NOTE: The critical chance is improved by 5% for all weapons in VATS. This
critical chance is also affected by the weapon's multiplier.
NOTE: Plasma Caster is not included because it is bugged in VATS and usually
does pitiful damage or misses completely. Do NOT use Plasma Caster in
VATS!
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 164.06 | 410.16 | 5 |1127.93 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 HP | 37.5% | 153.13 | 356.56 | 4 | 917.66 |
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 87.5% | 150.94 | 301.88 | 3 | 849.02 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 112.50 | 281.25 | 5 | 773.44 |
| Multiplas | MF MC | 25.0% | 183.75 | 459.38 | 3 | 757.97 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 90.00 | 225.00 | 3 | 675.00 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 97.50 | 243.75 | 5 | 670.31 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 93.75 | 234.38 | 5 | 644.53 |
| Tri-Beam | EC MC | 52.5% | 104.65 | 149.93 | 5 | 642.11 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 SWC | 37.5% | 105.00 | 244.50 | 4 | 629.25 |
| Pew-Pew | EC OC | 87.5% | 107.81 | 215.63 | 3 | 606.45 |
| Q-35 MM | MF MC | 50.0% | 56.00 | 218.75 | 4 | 549.50 |
| Multiplas | MF OC | 25.0% | 131.25 | 328.13 | 3 | 541.41 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 | 37.5% | 87.50 | 203.75 | 4 | 524.38 |
| Pew-Pew | EC | 87.5% | 86.25 | 172.50 | 3 | 485.16 |
| Tri-Beam | EC OC | 52.5% | 74.75 | 107.09 | 5 | 458.65 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 60.00 | 150.00 | 3 | 450.00 |
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 5 | 446.88 |
| Multiplas | MF | 25.0% | 105.00 | 262.50 | 3 | 433.13 |
| Q-35 MM | MF OC | 50.0% | 40.00 | 156.25 | 4 | 392.50 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm JHP | 25.0% | 39.60 | 101.48 | 7 | 385.48 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum | 25.0% | 89.36 | 106.61 | 4 | 374.67 |
| Tri-Beam | EC | 52.5% | 59.80 | 85.68 | 5 | 366.92 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G | 25.0% | 77.70 | 92.70 | 4 | 325.80 |
| Q-35 MM | MF | 50.0% | 32.00 | 125.00 | 4 | 314.00 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm | 25.0% | 24.00 | 61.50 | 7 | 233.63 |
| All-American | .556mm | 25.0% | 26.00 | 65.00 | 6 | 214.50 |
| All-American | .556mm AP | 25.0% | 24.70 | 61.75 | 6 | 203.78 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.02 - VATS Total Damage vs 15 DT Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the VATS Total Damage chart in section 3.01 is all well in good, it's
only accurate against targets which don't have any armor. Most of enemies
with no armor are pretty easy to kill except for Cazadors.
A more practical chart is one that factors in the enemy's Damage Threshold
(DT) values, because an enemy's DT will significantly reduce the amount of
damage per shot that you deal to the target.
In this chart, we'll assume that we are up against enemies with a 15 DT.
Enemies like Deathclaws and Super Mutant Masters and are difficult to take
out with SMGs or low-damage weapons. Some enemies like Giant Rad Scorpions
and Sentry Bots have 18 DT, so this chart will give you a close enough
approximation of what to expect against those.
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 87.5% | 124.69 | 275.63 | 3 | 770.27 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 94.50 | 263.25 | 5 | 683.44 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 67.50 | 202.50 | 3 | 607.50 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 59.06 | 305.16 | 5 | 602.93 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 SWC | 37.5% | 94.20 | 233.70 | 4 | 586.05 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 78.75 | 219.38 | 5 | 569.53 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 75.00 | 221.25 | 5 | 557.81 |
| Pew-Pew | EC OC | 87.5% | 89.06 | 196.88 | 3 | 550.20 |
| Multiplas | MF MC | 25.0% | 105.00 | 380.63 | 3 | 521.72 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 HP | 37.5% | 48.13 | 251.56 | 4 | 497.66 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 | 37.5% | 72.50 | 188.75 | 4 | 464.38 |
| Q-35 MM | MF MC | 50.0% | 29.75 | 192.50 | 4 | 444.50 |
| Pew-Pew | EC | 87.5% | 71.25 | 157.50 | 3 | 440.16 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 45.00 | 135.00 | 3 | 405.00 |
| Multiplas | MF OC | 25.0% | 75.00 | 271.88 | 3 | 372.66 |
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 50.00 | 147.50 | 5 | 371.88 |
| Q-35 MM | MF OC | 50.0% | 21.25 | 137.50 | 4 | 317.50 |
| Multiplas | MF | 25.0% | 60.00 | 217.50 | 3 | 298.13 |
| Q-35 MM | MF | 50.0% | 17.00 | 110.00 | 4 | 254.00 |
| Tri-Beam | EC MC | 52.5% | 25.90 | 71.18 | 5 | 248.36 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum | 25.0% | 49.11 | 66.36 | 4 | 213.67 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm JHP | 25.0% | 14.85 | 76.73 | 7 | 212.23 |
| All-American | .556mm AP | 25.0% | 24.70 | 61.75 | 6 | 203.78 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G | 25.0% | 42.70 | 57.70 | 4 | 185.80 |
| Tri-Beam | EC OC | 52.5% | 18.50 | 50.84 | 5 | 177.40 |
| Tri-Beam | EC | 52.5% | 14.80 | 40.68 | 5 | 141.92 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm | 25.0% | 9.0 | 46.50 | 7 | 128.63 |
| All-American | .556mm | 25.0% | 11.00 | 50.00 | 6 | 124.50 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
Once the DT has been factored in, Pew-Pew still remains king and weapons like
Brush Gun and Gobi dominate the field much more strongly than they did
before. Even Ranger Sequoia gets a huge boost because of the SWC ammo.
On the flip side, weapons that use multiple projectiles, like the Riot
Shotgun, Tri-Beam Laser Rifle and Multiplas Rifle sunk in effectiveness
dramatically. Even the Shotgun Surgeon perk offered no real help. The
Multiplas Rifle didn't make the top 2 VATS weapons because it simply gets
nerfed in these situations.
Besides Pew-Pew, energy weapons really got shafted here. When it comes to
VATS, guns pretty much dominate this game.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.03 - VATS Total Damage vs 30 DT Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Generally speaking, if a target has 30 DT, VATS is really not the kind of
thing you want to be using. It has to be said that sneak attacks with weapons
like Sniper Rifle+ or Multiplas Rifle, or going for burst damage with
weapons like Gobi or YCS/186 is much prefered.
Nonetheless, I thought I'd include a chart illustrating the average DPS for
the various weapons against a target with 30 DT, which is the DT for Mr.
House's Securitron MKII's.
Generally speaking, not much has changed from the 15 DT chart - guns like
Brush Gun, Gobi and Ranger Sequoia have everything crushed. Likewise, guns
like Riot Shotgun and Tri-Beam Laser Rifle become absolutely useless.
.--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |
|--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 87.5% | 98.44 | 249.38 | 3 | 691.52 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 25.0% | 76.50 | 245.25 | 5 | 593.44 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 45.00 | 180.00 | 3 | 540.00 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 SWC | 37.5% | 76.20 | 215.70 | 4 | 514.05 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 25.0% | 63.75 | 204.38 | 5 | 494.53 |
| Pew-Pew | EC OC | 87.5% | 70.31 | 178.13 | 3 | 493.95 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 25.0% | 52.50 | 198.75 | 5 | 445.31 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 | 37.5% | 57.50 | 173.75 | 4 | 404.38 |
| Pew-Pew | EC | 87.5% | 56.25 | 142.50 | 3 | 395.16 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 30.00 | 120.00 | 3 | 360.00 |
| Q-35 MM | MF MC | 50.0% | 11.20 | 166.25 | 4 | 354.90 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 25.0% | 26.25 | 200.16 | 5 | 348.63 |
| Multiplas | MF MC | 25.0% | 36.75 | 301.88 | 3 | 309.09 |
| This Machine | .308 | 25.0% | 35.00 | 132.50 | 5 | 296.88 |
| Ranger Seq. | .45-70 HP | 37.5% | 24.50 | 146.56 | 4 | 281.09 |
| Q-35 MM | MF OC | 50.0% | 8.00 | 118.75 | 4 | 253.50 |
| Multiplas | MF OC | 25.0% | 26.25 | 215.63 | 3 | 220.78 |
| Q-35 MM | MF | 50.0% | 6.40 | 95.00 | 4 | 202.80 |
| Multiplas | MF | 25.0% | 21.00 | 172.50 | 3 | 176.63 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm JHP | 25.0% | 7.92 | 51.98 | 7 | 132.54 |
| All-American | .556mm AP | 25.0% | 10.45 | 47.50 | 6 | 118.28 |
| Tri-Beam | EC MC | 52.5% | 18.20 | 18.20 | 5 | 91.00 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm | 25.0% | 4.80 | 31.50 | 7 | 80.33 |
| All-American | .556mm | 25.0% | 5.20 | 35.00 | 6 | 75.90 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum | 25.0% | 17.87 | 17.87 | 4 | 71.48 |
| Tri-Beam | EC OC | 52.5% | 13.00 | 13.00 | 5 | 65.00 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G | 25.0% | 15.54 | 15.54 | 4 | 62.16 |
| Tri-Beam | EC | 52.5% | 10.40 | 10.40 | 5 | 52.00 |
'--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.04 - Average DPS Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot of places online will give you stats for base damage, critical damage
and DPS for regular ammo rounds, but this data is often useless for in-game,
practical purposes.
This chart will give you a good visual of not only the damage you can expect
for the various weapons with different ammo types, but it'll show you the
Average DPS you will get with critical hits factored in based on the weapon's
critical multiplier.
In a nutshell, this information presents a far more accurate view of what
actually happens in-game. Once again, you'll not find this anywhere else on
the Internet! ;)
Like this VATS Chart, this chart assumes that your character has the Finesse
and Better Criticals perks, has a Luck score of 10, and is using the 1st
Recon Beret. The Laser Commander and Cowboy perks are also assumed for their
respective weapons.
NOTE: Pew-Pew's Average DPS appears to be a lot higher than it actually is
because while you'll get 2 fairly fast shots, you are forced to reload
due to your small clip size. This actually really slows you down in
practice, so the value is very deceiving. I indicate this with **'s
next to it's value.
In practice, Plasma Caster+ and Gobi both have a much higher DPS
compared to Pew-Pew.
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Plasma Caster+ | MF MC | 20.0% | 142.19 | 355.47 | 635.86 |
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 75.0% | 150.94 | 301.88 |**528.28 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF OC | 20.0% | 81.25 | 203.13 | 454.19 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum | 20.0% | 89.36 | 210.11 | 454.02 |
| Tri-Beam | EC MC | 45.0% | 104.65 | 240.49 | 452.13 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 20.0% | 164.06 | 410.16 | 441.53 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 90.00 | 225.00 | 397.77 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G | 20.0% | 77.70 | 182.70 | 394.80 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF | 20.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 388.70 |
| Pew-Pew | EC OC | 75.0% | 107.81 | 215.63 |**377.34 |
| Sniper Rifle+ | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 93.00 | 232.50 | 372.00 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 HP | 30.0% | 153.13 | 356.56 | 359.78 |
| Tri-Beam | EC OC | 45.0% | 74.75 | 171.78 | 322.95 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 112.50 | 281.25 | 302.76 |
| Pew-Pew | EC | 75.0% | 86.25 | 172.50 |**301.88 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF MC | 20.0% | 183.75 | 1010.63 | 296.76 |
| Q-35 MM | MF MC | 40.0% | 56.00 | 218.75 | 290.64 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 20.0% | 97.50 | 243.75 | 271.05 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 60.00 | 150.00 | 265.18 |
| Tri-Beam | EC | 45.0% | 59.80 | 137.43 | 258.36 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 20.0% | 93.75 | 234.38 | 252.30 |
| Sniper Rifle+ | .308 | 100.0% | 62.00 | 155.00 | 248.00 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 SWC | 30.0% | 105.00 | 244.50 | 246.71 |
| Lucky | .357 JFP | 50.0% | 46.88 | 117.19 | 225.59 |
| YCS/186 | MF MC | 40.0% | 245.00 | 428.75 | 215.62 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF OC | 20.0% | 131.25 | 721.88 | 211.97 |
| Q-35 MM | MF OC | 40.0% | 40.00 | 156.25 | 207.60 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 | 30.0% | 87.50 | 203.75 | 205.59 |
| All-American | .556mm | 20.0% | 26.00 | 65.00 | 202.80 |
| Mysterious Magnum | .44 SWC | 20.0% | 63.00 | 157.50 | 199.63 |
| All-American | .556mm AP | 20.0% | 24.70 | 61.75 | 192.66 |
| This Machine | .308 | 20.0% | 65.00 | 162.50 | 180.70 |
| Lucky | .357 | 50.0% | 37.50 | 93.75 | 180.47 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF | 20.0% | 105.00 | 577.50 | 169.58 |
| Mysterious Magnum | .44 | 20.0% | 52.50 | 131.25 | 166.36 |
| Q-35 MM | MF | 40.0% | 32.00 | 125.00 | 166.08 |
| YCS/186 | MF OC | 40.0% | 175.00 | 306.25 | 154.02 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm JHP | 20.0% | 39.60 | 101.48 | 142.93 |
| YCS/186 | MF | 40.0% | 140.00 | 245.00 | 123.21 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm | 20.0% | 24.00 | 61.50 | 86.63 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 Match | 20.0% | 126.50 | 264.50 | 69.00 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 | 20.0% | 110.00 | 230.00 | 60.00 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.05 - Average DPS vs 15 DT Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the Average DPS chart in section 3.04 is all well in good, it's only
accurate against targets which don't have any armor. Most of those enemies
are pretty easy to kill except for Cazadors.
A more practical chart is one that factors in the enemy's Damage Threshold
(DT) values, because an enemy's DT will significantly reduce the amount of
damage per shot that you deal to the target.
In this chart, we'll assume that we are up against enemies with a 15 DT.
Enemies like Deathclaws and Super Mutant Masters and are difficult to take
out with SMGs or low-damage weapons. Some enemies like Giant Rad Scorpions
and Sentry Bots have 18 DT, so this chart will give you a close enough
approximation of what to expect against those.
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Plasma Caster+ | MF MC | 20.0% | 87.50 | 258.13 | 522.99 |
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 75.0% | 124.69 | 275.63 |**475.78 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF OC | 20.0% | 62.50 | 184.38 | 373.56 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 67.50 | 202.50 | 357.99 |
| Pew-Pew | EC OC | 75.0% | 89.06 | 196.88 |**339.84 |
| Sniper Rifle+ | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 70.50 | 210.00 | 336.00 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF | 20.0% | 50.00 | 147.50 | 319.70 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum | 20.0% | 49.11 | 169.86 | 293.02 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 101.70 | 270.45 | 280.41 |
| Pew-Pew | EC | 75.0% | 71.25 | 157.50 |**271.88 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G | 20.0% | 42.70 | 147.70 | 254.80 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 45.00 | 135.00 | 238.66 |
| Tri-Beam | EC MC | 45.0% | 25.90 | 161.74 | 237.36 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF MC | 20.0% | 105.00 | 931.88 | 229.82 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 SWC | 30.0% | 94.20 | 233.70 | 228.56 |
| Q-35 MM | MF MC | 40.0% | 29.75 | 192.50 | 227.64 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 20.0% | 59.06 | 305.16 | 224.16 |
| Sniper Rifle+ | .308 | 100.0% | 47.00 | 140.00 | 224.00 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 20.0% | 75.00 | 221.25 | 222.93 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 20.0% | 78.75 | 219.38 | 221.25 |
| YCS/186 | MF MC | 40.0% | 218.75 | 402.50 | 197.85 |
| All-American | .556mm AP | 20.0% | 24.70 | 61.75 | 192.66 |
| Lucky | .357 JFP | 50.0% | 31.88 | 102.19 | 184.34 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 HP | 30.0% | 48.13 | 251.56 | 183.38 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 | 30.0% | 72.50 | 188.75 | 180.39 |
| Tri-Beam | EC OC | 45.0% | 18.50 | 115.53 | 169.54 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF OC | 20.0% | 75.00 | 665.63 | 164.16 |
| Q-35 MM | MF OC | 40.0% | 21.25 | 137.50 | 162.60 |
| Mysterious Magnum | .44 SWC | 20.0% | 45.00 | 139.50 | 155.76 |
| This Machine | .308 | 20.0% | 50.00 | 147.50 | 148.62 |
| YCS/186 | MF OC | 40.0% | 156.25 | 287.50 | 141.32 |
| Lucky | .357 | 50.0% | 22.50 | 78.75 | 139.22 |
| Tri-Beam | EC | 45.0% | 14.80 | 92.43 | 135.63 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF | 20.0% | 60.00 | 532.50 | 131.33 |
| Q-35 MM | MF | 40.0% | 17.00 | 110.00 | 130.08 |
| Mysterious Magnum | .44 | 20.0% | 37.50 | 116.25 | 129.80 |
| YCS/186 | MF | 40.0% | 125.00 | 230.00 | 113.06 |
| All-American | .556mm | 20.0% | 11.00 | 50.00 | 112.80 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm JHP | 20.0% | 14.85 | 76.73 | 74.87 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 Match | 20.0% | 109.25 | 247.25 | 61.28 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 | 20.0% | 95.00 | 215.00 | 53.28 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm | 20.0% | 9.00 | 46.50 | 45.38 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
As you can see, low-damage pistols like the Weathered 10mm Pistol or the
Mysterious Magnum take a huge hit. Also, high DPS, low damage weapons like
the Riot Shotgun (even with their -10 DT bonus), Tri-Beam Laser Rifle and the
Plasma Caster become much less effective.
In contrast, weapons like Gobi, Sniper Rifle+, YCS/186 and Brush Gun go up in
value. They punch through high enemy DT relatively unscathed. This is what
makes Gobi so damn effective - it's useful in every possible situation as you
can see that it's near the top on every chart.
Also, weapons with a high critical chance, like Pew-Pew and Gobi, continue to
do massive damage. This is why having a character with 10 Luck, getting the
Finesse perk and using the 1st Recon Baret is so important!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.06 - Average DPS vs 30 DT Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some enemies like the Securitron MK II's or Hoover Dam Turret's have 30 DT.
For these enemies, SMGs and other low-damage weapons simply won't do. You
have to bring out the big guns.
Here's a chart illustrating the average DPS for the various weapons against a
target with 30 DT:
.---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.
| WEAPON | AMMO | CRT % | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |
|---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|
| Pew-Pew | EC MC | 75.0% | 98.44 | 249.38 |**423.28 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF MC | 20.0% | 61.25 | 231.88 | 410.11 |
| Gobi | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 45.00 | 180.00 | 318.21 |
| Pew-Pew | EC OC | 75.0% | 70.31 | 178.13 |**302.34 |
| Sniper Rifle+ | .308 JSP | 100.0% | 48.00 | 187.50 | 300.00 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF OC | 20.0% | 43.75 | 165.63 | 292.94 |
| Plasma Caster+ | MF | 20.0% | 35.00 | 132.50 | 250.70 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 SWC | 20.0% | 83.70 | 252.45 | 243.14 |
| Pew-Pew | EC | 75.0% | 56.25 | 142.50 |**241.88 |
| Gobi | .308 | 100.0% | 30.00 | 120.00 | 212.14 |
| Sniper Rifle+ | .308 | 100.0% | 32.00 | 125.00 | 200.00 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 SWC | 30.0% | 76.20 | 215.70 | 198.32 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 | 20.0% | 63.75 | 204.38 | 190.20 |
| YCS/186 | MF MC | 40.0% | 192.50 | 376.25 | 180.08 |
| Q-35 MM | MF MC | 40.0% | 11.20 | 166.25 | 175.73 |
| This Machine | .308 JSP | 20.0% | 52.50 | 198.75 | 174.82 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF MC | 20.0% | 36.75 | 853.13 | 170.02 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 | 30.0% | 57.50 | 173.75 | 155.19 |
| Lucky | .357 JFP | 50.0% | 13.13 | 83.44 | 132.77 |
| Tri-Beam | EC MC | 45.0% | 18.20 | 82.99 | 129.16 |
| YCS/186 | MF OC | 40.0% | 137.50 | 268.75 | 128.63 |
| Brush Gun | .45-70 HP | 20.0% | 26.25 | 200.16 | 126.35 |
| Q-35 MM | MF OC | 40.0% | 8.00 | 118.75 | 125.52 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF OC | 20.0% | 26.25 | 609.38 | 121.44 |
| This Machine | .308 | 20.0% | 35.00 | 132.50 | 116.55 |
| Mysterious Magnum | .44 SWC | 20.0% | 27.00 | 121.50 | 111.88 |
| All-American | .556mm AP | 20.0% | 10.45 | 47.50 | 107.16 |
| YCS/186 | MF | 40.0% | 110.00 | 215.00 | 102.90 |
| Ranger Sequoia | .45-70 HP | 30.0% | 24.50 | 146.56 | 102.68 |
| Q-35 MM | MF | 40.0% | 6.40 | 95.00 | 100.42 |
| Lucky | .357 | 50.0% | 7.50 | 63.75 | 97.97 |
| Multiplas Rifle | MF | 20.0% | 21.00 | 487.50 | 97.16 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum | 20.0% | 17.87 | 49.11 | 96.47 |
| Mysterious Magnum | .44 | 20.0% | 22.50 | 101.25 | 93.23 |
| Tri-Beam | EC OC | 45.0% | 13.00 | 59.28 | 92.26 |
| Riot Shotgun | 12G | 20.0% | 15.54 | 42.70 | 83.89 |
| Tri-Beam | EC | 45.0% | 10.40 | 47.43 | 73.80 |
| All-American | .556mm | 20.0% | 5.20 | 35.00 | 66.96 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 Match | 20.0% | 92.00 | 230.00 | 53.55 |
| Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 | 20.0% | 80.00 | 200.00 | 46.57 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm JHP | 20.0% | 7.92 | 51.98 | 46.01 |
| Weather 10mm | 10mm | 20.0% | 4.80 | 31.50 | 27.89 |
'---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'
Generally the same story follows: Weapons that do high burst damage or have a
high critical chance like Gobi, Sniper Rifle+, YCS/186, Pew-Pew and Brush Gun
get stronger, while low damage weapons like the the Riot Shotgun, Tri-Beam
Laser Rifle and Plasma Caster+ get much weaker.
While the Riot Shotgun did slightly more DPS compared to Gobi against enemies
with 0 DT, you can see now that Gobi is doing over 3x the damage!
================================================================================
4. Builds
================================================================================
Here's the builds section. If you have a build that you'd like presented
here, be sure to email it to me. Make sure to take the time to use the exact
same format that I used so it fits with the formatting goals of this FAQ, or
I won't bother putting it in here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.01 - Versatile Ranged Weapon Build
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't claim this build to be the absolute best - although it's most
certainly potent enough to do everything in this game easily - but one
advantage it has is that it'll let you experiment with all the weapons in the
way this FAQ advocates. I think that's pretty fun.
1. Stats
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our first goal is to make sure that somehow we end up with 10 Luck, because
that'll gaurentee that we can get as many critical hits as possible, and it
will allow us to achieve 100% critical success with Gobi. We can achieve that
by allocating 3 of our 5 points towards Luck. We can get the remaining points
with a Luck implant from the New Vegas Medical Clinic and from the Intense
Training perk at level 2.
A Luck score of 10 will also boost all of our skills by 5 points, which is a
very nice side-effect. We'll also win ~85% of our hands in Blackjack at all 4
casinos in the game, allowing us to make a sizable number of caps very
quickly - probably around 25,000 or 30,000 in total before they ban us. This
is a fantastic way to get early money for crafting 1000 .308 JSP rounds, or
buying up all of our implants as soon as possible.
Next, we need to make sure that you can get 8 strength somehow to use weapons
that have this strength requirement. The best way to achieve this without
forcing you to wear power armor (let's face it, the running speed is awful)
is to keep Strength at 5, get a Strength implant and take the Weapon Handling
perk when it becomes available. That way for weapons, our strength will be 8.
We'll also need to get 6 Perception to get the Better Criticals perk, so
we'll also keep that at 5 and get the last point of Perception from an
implant.
Intelligence is always handy to boost the number of skill points per level,
so we'll use 1 extra point there.
Now we'll want to make sure we get 6 implants in total. We've already planned
on getting 3, but it would be nice to get implants for Agility, Intelligence
and Damage Threshold as well. In order to achieve this, we'll have to get 6
endurance before implants. So we'll put our last remaining point into
Endurance.
Here's what we have so far:
.---------------.----------.-------------.-------.
| STAT | AT START | /W IMPLANTS | TOTAL |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-------|
| Strength | 5 | +1 | 6 |
| Perception | 5 | +1 | 6 |
| Endurance | 6 | | 6 |
| Charisma | 5 | | 5 |
| Intelligence | 6 | +1 | 7 |
| Agility | 5 | +1 | 6 |
| Luck | 8 | +1 | 9 |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-------|
| DT BONUS | | +2 | +2 |
'---------------'----------'-------------'-------'
Now, you could go off in the Mojave just like this, and you'll be fine... but
there's more we can do.
Having a high agility is very desirable. It raises your gun skill, giving you
a bonus at the start of the game and allows you to focus on other skills like
lock-picking, science, repair and speech... without having to put a single
point in guns for the first 10 or 15 levels.
Agility also the number of AP you get in VATS and our run speed. I don't have
to tell you how useful these are. In the Majove, you'll trek long distances
and explore areas much faster with a high agility score. This cannot be
overstated!
Because of all the amazing benefits agility gives us, we need to find a way
to get this stat to 10 in the long run. For now, we just need to get it to 8.
It would also be nice to get more Intelligence, because skill points are
always useful. The earlier we get it, the more useful it's going to be - so
let's try and get 1 more point in Intelligence as well.
Charisma isn't that great of a stat. Sure, it increases the nerve of our
companions, but honestly, besides Boone, they mostly get in the way. Heck,
Boone will still rock even if you have 1 Charisma. It's my honest opinion
that companions are best suited as pack mules. Besides, you're actual
character is going to be so strong you won't need any companions to attack
anyway. They are probably just going to get in the way.
So in order to bring our Agility up to 8, we can drop Charisma by 3 points.
We'll lose 6 points in Speech and Barter, but we'll gain 6 points in Guns and
Sneak. This is actually a fair trade so we don't lose any skill points by
doing this.
To get the extra point in Intelligence, we can further drop Charisma to 1.
Here's the final stats of our Versatile Ranged Weapon character build:
.---------------.----------.-------------.-------.
| STAT | AT START | /W IMPLANTS | TOTAL |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-------|
| Strength | 5 | +1 | 6 |
| Perception | 5 | +1 | 6 |
| Endurance | 6 | | 6 |
| Charisma | 1 | | 1 |
| Intelligence | 7 | +1 | 8 |
| Agility | 8 | +1 | 9 |
| Luck | 8 | +1 | 9 |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-------|
| DT BONUS | | +2 | +2 |
'---------------'----------'-------------'-------'
As a last note, try and get to the New Vegas Medical Clinic as early as
possible. It's not essential, but getting an Intelligence implant early will
net you 10+ more skill points. If that adds more stress on your life, don't
worry about it.
NOTE: If you already know that you won't be using weapons that have a
strength requirement of 8, then feel free to move 2 points from
Strength into Intelligence for more skill points:
.---------------.----------.-------------.-------.
| STAT | AT START | /W IMPLANTS | TOTAL |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-------|
| Strength | 3 | +1 | 4 |
| Perception | 5 | +1 | 6 |
| Endurance | 6 | | 6 |
| Charisma | 1 | | 1 |
| Intelligence | 9 | +1 | 10 |
| Agility | 8 | +1 | 9 |
| Luck | 8 | +1 | 9 |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-------|
| DT BONUS | | +2 | +2 |
'---------------'----------'-------------'-------'
2. Traits
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Traits were designed to give balanced tradeoffs - "more of this, but less of
that." But some of the traits are broken in that they obviously give you free
advantages.
Two come to mind:
1) Good Natured - This trait gives you +5 to Barter, Medicine, Repair,
Science, and Speech, but have -5 to Guns, Energy Weapons,
Explosives, Melee Weapons, and Unarmed.
This trait is broken in that most characters, especially
the one we are making right now, will only require points
in Guns, Energy Weapons and Melee Weapons (for the Cowboy
perk). On the other hand, we'll happily take all 5 of the
social skills.
At level 1, we save 15 skill points immediately, and in the
long run, this gives us a boost of +10 skill points for
when we actually take the Cowboy perk.
2) Small Frame - This trait gives you +1 Agility at the cost of getting +25%
more damage to your limbs.
I will admit, in the short-term, if you are not very good at
this game, this perk will force you to sleep or use stimpaks
a bit more often than you would otherwise. If you are good,
this disadvantage is negligible.
But in the end, when you have fantastic armor, a lot of
damage threshold perks and bonuses, and can kill everything
in 1 shot - the disadvantage becomes pointless. So you
should happily take that extra point in Agility.
Factoring in our extra point in agility, here's what we have now:
.---------------.----------.-------------.-----------.-------.
| STAT | AT START | /W IMPLANTS | /W TRAITS | TOTAL |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-----------|-------|
| Strength | 5 | +1 | | 6 |
| Perception | 5 | +1 | | 6 |
| Endurance | 6 | | | 6 |
| Charisma | 1 | | | 1 |
| Intelligence | 7 | +1 | | 8 |
| Agility | 8 | +1 | +1 | 10 |
| Luck | 8 | +1 | | 9 |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-----------|-------|
| DT BONUS | | +2 | | +2 |
'---------------'----------'-------------'-----------'-------'
3. Perks
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
These perks are not the absolute best you can get, but they will let you
experiment with all of the ideas presented in this FAQ.
If you already know that you don't want to play around with Pew-Pew or
Shotguns, I'd recommend another rank in Toughness and Action Boy/Girl.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure to rob the casinos and get all of your implants
BEFORE level 16, because you'll need +1 Perception to get the
Better Criticals perk. I'd recommend visiting there much
earlier.
The exact order that you take these Perks in doesn't really matter too much.
For example, you could take Cowboy at level 8 if you wanted to, but it's
doubtful you'll be in a position to get all 4 of the Melee Weapon Magazines
throughout the Mojave at that point in the game.
It is NOT recommended to invest so many skill points in Melee Weapons,
because they'll be wasted. Make sure you only have 33 points in melee weapons
before you use the magazines. Once you use the Magazines, you'll have 45 in
Melee Weapons - enough to get the Cowboy perk.
I recommend getting Hand Loader at level 8 so you can benefit from getting
extra cases from corpses and pick-pocketing as early on as possible, but it's
not essential either. Remember, some of the best ways to get .45-70 ammo is
to steal the cases on the NCR Veteran Rangers in Camp Golf. Between stealing
their ammo and their cases, you should get around 100 ammo for your Brush Gun
and Ranger Sequoia.
Also, using .45-70 HP Rounds, which are easily bought at Gun Runners at the
188 Trading Post and near Freeside, will sometimes give you extra cases. So
even though I already said this ammo is crap (and it is), use it to kill
trash so that you'll recover more .45-70 cases to make more SWC ammo.
Now for the perk listing:
.--------.------------------.-----------------------------------------------.
| LEVEL | PERK | NOTES |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 2 | Intense Training | Get +1 in Luck, bringing it to 10 |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 4 | Educated | Get an extra 52 skill points over the |
| | | long-term. Great! |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 6 | Toughness | Get +3 to our DT. Very helpful in the |
| | | beginning, and lets us use medium armor in |
| | | the end |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 8 | Hand Loader | Hopefully by now you have +70 in Repair |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 10 | Finesse | By now, you should be kicking ass |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 12 | Sniper | Probably the best VATS-% perk there is |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 14 | Jury Rigging | Not essential, but very handy! |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 16 | Better Criticals | To really boost the damage on all of your |
| | | weapons, especially Gobi. |
| | | |
| | | NOTE: Make sure to have gotten all of your |
| | | implants! |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 18 | Weapon Handling | Now you can mess around with YCS/186 and |
| | | see how bad the Anti-Materiel Rifle is ;) |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 20 | Grim Reaper's | Weapons like This Machine, Brush Gun and |
| | Sprint | Multiplas Rifle got a whole lot better! |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 22 | Cowboy | Make sure to hunt for all 4 Melee Weapon Mags |
| | | before level 22! |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 24 | Action Boy/Girl | Make Gobi a bit more viable in VATS |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 26 | Silent Running | Probably the best sneak-related perk |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 28 | Laser Commander | Hopefully you've found 4 Nikola Telsa Mags |
| | | and boosted energy weapons high enough. Now |
| | | you can play around with Pew-Pew |
|--------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 30 | Shotgun Surgeon | So you can play around with Riot Shotgun |
'--------'------------------'-----------------------------------------------'
Here's the final stat table with all of our perks taken into consideration:
.---------------.----------.-------------.-----------.----------.-------.
| STAT | AT START | /W IMPLANTS | /W TRAITS | /W PERKS | TOTAL |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-----------|----------|-------|
| Strength | 5 | +1 | | | 6 |
| Perception | 5 | +1 | | | 6 |
| Endurance | 6 | | | | 6 |
| Charisma | 1 | | | | 1 |
| Intelligence | 7 | +1 | | | 8 |
| Agility | 8 | +1 | +1 | | 10 |
| Luck | 8 | +1 | | +1 | 10 |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-----------|----------|-------|
| DT BONUS | | +2 | | +3 | +5 |
'---------------'----------'-------------'-----------'----------|-------'
I don't claim that the Perk selection is perfect. It wasn't meant to be. If
you know exactly the kind of build you're going for, I'm sure you can make a
lot of optimizations, like taking 3 Strength instead of 5, and things like
that.
NOTE: If you know in advance that you only need 6 strength for weapon
requirements, you can go with this stat allocation instead:
.---------------.----------.-------------.-----------.----------.-------.
| STAT | AT START | /W IMPLANTS | /W TRAITS | /W PERKS | TOTAL |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-----------|----------|-------|
| Strength | 3 | +1 | | | 4 |
| Perception | 5 | +1 | | | 6 |
| Endurance | 6 | | | | 6 |
| Charisma | 1 | | | | 1 |
| Intelligence | 9 | +1 | | | 10 |
| Agility | 8 | +1 | +1 | | 10 |
| Luck | 8 | +1 | | +1 | 10 |
|---------------|----------|-------------|-----------|----------|-------|
| DT BONUS | | +2 | | +3 | +5 |
'---------------'----------'-------------'-----------'----------|-------'
Anyway, Happy Gaming!
================================================================================
5. Last Words
================================================================================
Well, I hope you enjoyed reading the FAQ and learned something from it. I
enjoyed poking away at the secrets of the game, trying to find best weapons
myself as well and writing this FAQ was a good way to assert my knowledge and
help people who don't have time to do all the work we did.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.1 - Contact Info
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any suggestions to improve or fix the content in the FAQ, please
contact me (Ken Egervari) at ken.egervari [.AT.] gmail [.DOT.] com and I'll
add them to the next version. I will, of course, give you full credit for
your addition, and be eternally grateful to you (as well as the other readers
that benefit from your information).
If you are going to email me about this game, in the subject line, please put
"Fallout: New Vegas" along with the version number of the FAQ that you are
looking at. If you don't do this, I might not reply seeing as you didn't take
the time to respect my wishes.
If you ask me generic questions about the game, I may or may not respond. I
only have so much free time and I obviously can't respond to everything. I
really tried to convert my knowledge about this game into the written work
that you see here, so if it concerns Radiant Dawn's characters, it's probably
here already.
As a last thought, please read this FAQ in its entirety before you ask
questions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2 - Copyright Info
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Document is Copyright 2010 by Ken J. Egervari.
Fallout: New Vegas and all related marks are copyrighted and trademarked by
their respective owners. I had nothing to do with the development of the
game and I am not affiliated with them in any way.
This FAQ may not be posted without my expressed permission. In the event
where it's posted, YOU are responsible for keeping to date. If it's not, I
reserve the right to ask you to take it down from your site.
You may not charge for, or in any way profit from this FAQ.
If you would like to me write articles and FAQs for you, email me and we can
work something out.
You are welcome to download the FAQ, print it out and even give it out to
friends (although I'd prefer that you give them the proper gamefaqs.com URL).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.3 - Coming Soon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps detailed builds to best take advantage of certain weapons.
Also, expect future updates to this FAQ as people, like yourself, contribute
new ideas and material.
================================================================================
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