Fallout Fallout 4 Thread

[CthuluIsSpy]

I do like the equipment display options in Fallout 4. That's actually a nice feature, because I tend to display my gear if I can in the other Bethesda games.
If only the fucking settlers didn't keep grabbing my guns off the racks whenever I turn my back. Bloody magpies.

 

[Butter]

I've done a Big Guns playthrough of Fallout 1 that used the mini-gun extensively. It absolutely mauls mutants. I'm sure it's a lot less effective in Fallout 2 against the Enclave.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well yeah. Miniguns in the classic games were low damage but really high rate of fire weapons.
They are supposed to be used against targets with poor armour but huge health pools, like mutants and creatures. They are less effective against armoured targets due to their low base damage.
I think the only modern fallout game that got that right was Fallout NV.

 

[jackofshadows]

I've done a Big Guns playthrough of Fallout 1 that used the mini-gun extensively. It absolutely mauls mutants. I'm sure it's a lot less effective in Fallout 2 against the Enclave.

Well don't forget there're new miniguns even for non-crit builds: bozar and vindicator both are able to penetrate armor much better than minigun does.

The issue is also tied with ever bugged AP ammo in original Fallout games.

 

[Butter]

You can use the Flamer against armor as well. It's not like the mini-gun is the only Big Guns weapon, even in Fallout 1.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Bozar is better at fighting power armour though due to the higher base damage. However, if you build for it, you can increase the vindicator's damage outputs to silly levels that makes it even good at killing PA.
Though I am theory crafting. I don't think I ever used heavy weapons outside of tactics, because you don't get an early big gun in FO1 and 2. Hence why JE Sawyer dropped it in NV; setting out to make a character who's a heavy weapon user and investing points in big guns, only to find that for most of the game you can't do shit because you can't get one isn't great.

 

[jackofshadows]

Flamethrower is my favorite weapon of all I think but unfortunately Enclave guys have very high DR against fire. Otherwise, fucking love it yeah. I've done a whole marathon on Fallout global mods recently and I was pissed that autists nerfed it to hell in some of them (Sonora especially IIRC).

It extremely well works with sneak skill, that's my favorite build again, of all when you use the skill for closing distance like a maniac to burn people.

you don't get an early big gun in FO1 and 2.

Nah man. Just kill those mutes in Necropolis and take the flamethrower. Then buy ammo off general store in Hub (if you really need then from guy in old town district but his prices are insane). That's all you need for a start.(I just have done today Necropolis right after vault 15, wasn't hard at all). It's trickier in Fallout 2 if not doing SF visit but you can get it in New Reno and you're suppose to go there pretty early anyway.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

You can use the Flamer against armor as well. It's not like the mini-gun is the only Big Guns weapon, even in Fallout 1.

Yeah, flamer has really high base damage and it deals fire damage, which most enemies have poor resistance too. It does have really short range and high AP costs though, but given how powerful it can be that's probably for the best.
It's actually pretty sad that flamers in the modern games are absolute shit in comparison.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Flamethrower is my favorite weapon of all I think but unfortunately Enclave guys have very high DR against fire. Otherwise, fucking love it yeah. I've done a whole marathon on Fallout global mods recently and I was pissed that autists nerfed it to hell in some of them (Sonora especially IIRC).

you don't get an early big gun in FO1 and 2.

Nah man. Just kill those mutes in Necropolis and take the flamethrower. Then buy ammo off general store in Hub (if you really need then from guy in old town district but his prices are insane). That's all you need for a start.(I just have done today Necropolis right after vault 15, wasn't hard at all). It's trickier in Fallout 2 if not doing SF visit but you can get it in New Reno and you're suppose to go there pretty early anyway.

How do you kill mutants when you don't have weapons you are proficient in though? To kill a mutant for its heavy weapon you need a heavy weapon. I guess the trick is to use explosives, but wouldn't that aggro them? I forgot how good the AI is in FO1 and 2.
I should really revisit them some day, its been a while.

 

[jackofshadows]

How do you kill mutants when you don't have weapons you are proficient in though? To kill a mutant for its heavy weapon you need a heavy weapon. I guess the trick is to use explosives, but wouldn't that aggro them? I forget how good the AI is in FO1 and 2.

Zero abuse. Just take 10 mm SMG, hunting rifle and 2 grenades from vault 15, that's all you need. I didn't even tag light weapon and still was able to to that. Those green muties are weak, have little hp. With sneak you can dispatch them one by one. The only real problem is Harry (the one with laser rifle and decent amount of hp). You can also grab plasma pistol in Necropolis sewers, it deals very good damage obviously.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

With no points investment? Strange, when I tried using weapons with a low skill I recall not being able to hit shit. I'll have to give that a try.

 

[jackofshadows]

With no points investment? Strange, when I tried using weapons with a low skill I recall not being able to hit shit. I'll have to give that a try.

That's correct but you can shoot at point blank range, just lure Harry out of his room for example. In the end, it depends on which wep skill did you picked. Sneak also allows to bypass Harry first and then kill him with your new flamethrower.

 

[Silverfish]

The point is that power armour was always supposed to be extremely rare and the best protection available in the game.

In past games? Sure. In Fallout 4, it's good protection balanced by resource consumption. We can talk about what it should be all day, but that's its niche in the game as is.

If miniguns are that shit, then that's a sign of poor weapon balance and design, no?

No. The minigun is designed to be a weapon that is generally poor, but shines with the right builds.

 

[Yosharian]

I guarantee that the minimum, PA and Deathclaw thing was thrown in there because they looked at how many people play an hour of a game then quit, and targeted that demographic specifically.

I.e. morons

 

[Yosharian]

I personally don't have a problem with the minigun being bad against armoured targets but then that causes problems when you play with modlists that significantly up the difficulty and then you can't kill the Deathclaw because duh it has a tough armoured hide lol

 

[Yosharian]

Also fun fact a few modlists deal with the early PA by making it explode when you get out of it lol

 

[Hirato]

The minigun being poor against armoured targets really only work properly with Fallouts 1, 2, Tactics, and New Vegas, for the simple reason that these games present an "Armour Threshold" value that actually abstracts this trade off.
Where with 3 & 4, it's just a pure damage multiplier.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, the DR system that Beth uses is stupid and doesn't accurately represent the effectiveness of heavy armour against small caliber rounds.

 

[Gargaune]

Then again, videogames in general don't accurately represent firearms for balance reasons, like the usual trope of offsetting high fire rates with low per-shot damage - whether it's Fallout or Fallout 4, minigun bullets apparently have less stopping power than assault rifle bullets. Nevermind that the whole idea of handheld miniguns was only popularised because it looked cool in Terminator 2.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

And the barrel spin up. Real miniguns don't have a warm up period, they just go brrr and remove anything in a general direction.
That's just there to look cool and give an audio cue to the player to GTFO.

Ditto with laser sights on sniper rifles. Again, that's a visual cue to let the player know that there are snipers. Letting your enemies know that you are there is highly counter-productive.

But in the case of DR, it doesn't work for game design reasons.
You can see this in Fallout 3; Power Armour, which is supposed to be comparable to tank armour, can be beaten with mere 5.56 rounds because it only reduces damage by a percentage.
APAmk2 only reduces damage by about 50% and Enclave soldiers only have about 45 health. This means it takes a measly 6 shots from a Chinese assault rifle to kill one.

That is absolutely pathetic for a suit of advanced power armour.

 

[Hirato]

Balance and gimmicks aside, the abstractions are important.

Consider a minigun or SMG or whatever that fires 30 rounds per second at 5 damage each,
and some carbine that fires twice per second for 50 damage each.

You will respectively have a damage potential of 150 DPS and 100 DPS respectively, reloading aside.
Should you run into someone with 50 DR, your potential DPS is reduced to 75 and 50.
Assuming perfectly accuracy, the former will always be better in a system that abstracts damage this way.

But with a Damage Threshold abstraction, each round now loses fixed damage.
If you run into someone with 1 DT, the potential is now 120 and 98,
Make that 2, and the equation now favours the carbine at 96 over 90.
With the former's prospects only getting worse from there.


Even Fallout 1's power Armour only had a 40% DR.
But the 12 DT also attached to it made you a nigh unstoppable walking tank
With those stats, these hypothetical weapons would do 0 (barring crits) and 15 damage per round.

Yes I'm aware I'm ignoring most damage types

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, and that's why the DT/DR system is better, because it provides more variation between weapons. In a pure DR system its whichever that deals the most DPS that's always better. In DT/ DR system its a little less clear cut.

 

[whydoibother]

Does this allow me to circumvent the material gathering and settlement defending parts of the game? I never beat Fallout 4 on release, and I've been thinking about revisiting it, but every time I remember how much I hated my inventory clogged with literal trash that I need for a bad minigame completely removed from the plot.
The mandatory building, and the way you need to carry tons of industrial garbage to facilitate it, was the main thing that kept me from completing the game.

Damn, 4 years later, same question.

 

[Gargaune]

Does this allow me to circumvent the material gathering and settlement defending parts of the game? I never beat Fallout 4 on release, and I've been thinking about revisiting it, but every time I remember how much I hated my inventory clogged with literal trash that I need for a bad minigame completely removed from the plot.
The mandatory building, and the way you need to carry tons of industrial garbage to facilitate it, was the main thing that kept me from completing the game.

Damn, 4 years later, same question.

1) search "no settlement attacks" on the Nexus, there's a couple of different mods disabling that crap;
2) just "tgm" in console to build with no material requirements in settlements;

 

[Yosharian]

Does this allow me to circumvent the material gathering and settlement defending parts of the game? I never beat Fallout 4 on release, and I've been thinking about revisiting it, but every time I remember how much I hated my inventory clogged with literal trash that I need for a bad minigame completely removed from the plot.
The mandatory building, and the way you need to carry tons of industrial garbage to facilitate it, was the main thing that kept me from completing the game.

Damn, 4 years later, same question.

This doesn't really solve the problem but you can download a mod from the Nexus that makes all fundamental materials (e.g. glass, concrete, and so on) weightless.

I quite like this mod even though it's not very realistic since as you say, the game is designed around having these materials on hand to do stuff