FO3 Damage system

I

ismox

First time out of the vault
Can anyone answer this fairly simple question about Fallout 3's damage system?

My char. is basically a sneak/energy weapons character having all
the necessary skills (e.weapons, sneak etc) and perks (sniper etc).
When I take an aimed shot at a Deathclaw I can kill it instantly with a sneak critical on the head wielding the A3-21's Plasma Rifle (dmg 40).

Now, when I equip the Gauss rifle (dmg 70) it takes 2-3 hits to kill
the same enemy, what's up with this? They're both energy wpn's
and all my skills+perks should affect them equally, am I just thick or what? :-)
 
The damage system is as fucked as the rest of the game.

Try this: equip almost any ranged weapon and as soon as you percieve an enemy in the distance (you know, when the little red markers appear) start sneaking. Assuming they haven't spotted you enter V.A.T.s - don't bother selecting any part to aim at. Don't worry about range. Exit V.A.T.s and fire immediately. Enemy dies nearly every time. Repeat until you get bored and quit game.

At least this way you don't have to put up with lameass slowmo animations.

I fell asleep before trying this on a behemoth so no guarantees there, but deathclaws no problem.
 
The damage you do depends on your skill. I think the Gauss Rifle uses small guns instead of energy weapons so you are probably having lesser multipliers from sneak attacks. (Full skill with all the perks etc nets you about 400-450 damage hits from a 40 damage weapon.)

The again it might be a bug about the Gauss Rifle. I would recommend checking the B. forums or maybe the Nexus for such threads and/or fixes
 
The Gauss Rifle is currently bugged. It does piddly damage in V.A.T.s compared to firing it normally.
Then again it does'nt really do that much damage anyway unless you can glitch the version used inside the simulation which is mucho powerfull.
 
I can tell you another thing, that crappy Tesla gun's worth is next to useless unless I got some buggy version of the thing.

I have been trying it on those Vertibird, shit happened, I left the idiotic Fatman launcher behind for this?
 
Seems to be totally botched

Ok, apart from the idiotic MIRV-launcher the best weapons in the game seem to be The Terrible Shotgun and Metal Blaster...by far.

It seems that it's not enough that the "damage" system is highly illogical. Ok there guns that say DMG X, and you know by experience that skills and perks affect the damage, but the fucking game doesn't tell you HOW and HOW MUCH. So it's up to you to guess and find out what the best weapon/skill/perk is.

Back to the TTS and MB. Now I'll explain why it's not enough that the damage system is illogical, it's also broken. If you fire the guns outside V.A.T.S. (which Bethesda probably thought would account a major part of the game) the damage system handles multiple projectiles individually, or V.A.T.S. ignores them. Doesn't matter how you look at it, firing the TTS or MB outside V.A.T.S. creates MASSIVE damage surpassing even the Fat Man. Sounds silly? It is. You see, when you sneak crit a Super Mutant Behemoth outside V.A.T.S. each of the 9 projectiles fired by TTS or MB are handled individually, and if all of the 9 hit their target, you result in 9x critical hit, add a headshot, boom. Over 2000 damage. TTS can kill Behemoth in Normal and MB can kill Behemoth in Easy difficulty with one well aimed sneak critical headshot...

I rest my case, I thought the game was cool until I dug a little deeper.
 
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