Yeah,my laptop went crazy while I was on a train and only notepad worked. So I wrote this because I had nothing else to do.
My previous analysis wasn't exactly correct cause I used a wrong damage formula.
Most players don't care much for the party members in FO2. Even Per's wonderful guide calls most of them a waste of time. There is a lot of incorrect info about the survivability of certain members, too.
Also, things drastically change if you use sfall's awesome "manually control your party members" option, effectively making a 5-person party the ultimate choice because... because now you don't have to worry about Goris running in front of a minigun turret. Or Marcus (almost) never using aimed shots despite 12 AP, effectively wasting a lot of potential firepower with ordinary shots.
But first, let's talk about the "vanilla" version of Fallout and the ratings. Most people consider Cassidy, Vic, Sulik (more or less in that order) the best. Often the argument is that "they can wear armor". Which isn't the greatest point to make, seeing that - going by maths - NPCs such as Skynet or Marcus don't NEED to wear armor to reach survivability of Hardened Power Armor Sulik or Cassidy. Yeah. Math doesn't lie, see for yourself...
I simply calculated damage per shot with corresponding NPC's DR/DT inlcuded, calculated how many shots would kill the NPC, then multiplied base average damage of the weapon used to calculate effective HP - the best way to calculate raw survivability in games.
See for yourself:
Cassidy - Power Armor:
Gauss pistol: 226 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 263 HP
Sulik - Power Armor:
Gauss Pistol: 258 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 300 HP
Cassidy - Hardened Power Armor
Gauss Pistol: 268HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 339 HP
Sulik - Hardened Power Armor
Gauss Pistol: 305 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 387 HP
Goris - stage 6
Gauss Pistol: 274 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 413 HP
Skynet - Stage 5
Gauss Pistol: 299 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 464 HP
As you can see, Goris - the one bashed mostly for his lack of armor - doesn't need one to be more difficult to kill than hardened power armor Cassidy. And Skynet - not only being very sturdy - also has self repair, which makes all damage taken gone directly after the combat. No healing needed, no stimpaks wasted - click and go.
Sure, Goris takes more damage from enemies. But people overestimate armor reduction. Against gauss weaponry, Goris takes about 8 damage more per shot than Cassidy, however we mustn't forget his 187 HP - and Cassidy's 128. He takes 6,7 shots of gauss pistol for average damage to die, and Cassidy takes 6,5. For an unarmed NPC, that's not a BAD score, especially with all the bashing he took over the years in mind. Yeah, those are the values of the bugged stage 6, by the way. Without fixing the protos, you will never see Goris at 187 HP, Sulik at 146, etc.
Of course, Goris' low DT will mean burst weapons doing more damage to him - making the gap between him and HPA Cassidy a big one. That is pretty much the only instance where armor proves better, since with 12 DT, Cassidy may shrug off most of low-but-numerous bullets, while with only 6 DT, Goris will be hurt by many, and the damage might be severe. However, the greatest challenge in this game- enclave soldiers - are mostly about plasma rifles, pulse pistols and gauss pistols. There are some Avenger minigun Troopers at random encounters, but those are very rare anyway. It should be noted however that it takes time to get two HPAs, and Goris, Skynet and Marcus get strong just by leveling up. Most of the game, they will probably be tougher than your "armored" NPCs against non-burst weaponry.
So much for toughness, now the damage. The average damage is not a simple thing to calculate: you have to factor the critical chance, and all 5 possible critical grades. Assuming torso shots (because NPCs extremely rarely take aimed ones) against an enemy with Advanced Power Armor,fixed protos (Vic at Stage 6 has 12 AP, which may be surprising for some players... too bad they never saw it anyway
) the damage per turn is:
Vic (Alien Blaster) - 104
Cassidy (Gauss Rifle) - 100
Goris (Claw) - 94
Marcus (Pulse Rifle) - 92
Skynet (Gauss Rifle) - 84
Vic (Gauss Rifle) - 82
Marcus (Turbo Plasma Rifle) - 68
Those are few examples. A few words here:
- Sulik with an SMG and "charge" will run to the enemy and unload his clip at the opponent's sorry face. This usually ends up with a 200-400 critical damage at Stage 6 with a HK p90c against creatures like Centaurs, making him a top damage dealer. With 13 AP and 43% (or was it 46%?) critical chance, he outperforms everyone. Against sturdy Enclave guys, he might be better with a H&K g11e though, or plain old mega power fist if you like that. .223 pistol is also a cool option. With b-mods, he probably can use gauss rifle, I never bothered to check, as I was too attached to SMG Sulik.
- Without level 6 proto fix, Vic obviously won't get as much damage. The Alien blaster variant is surely powerful, outperforming even Cassidy, but you mustn't forget about the abysmal range of the pistol, meaning Vic may not shoot at all, refusing to come closer either. It also causes him to miss a lot. Gauss Rifle, although weaker, is a more reliable option for him.
- Goris' damage and Marcus' Pulse rifle damage was calculated with the "piercing" bonus of their weapons included. Both special deathclaw weapon and pulse rifle have this modifier (check item editor if you want to see it.) Someone told me once that it makes the weapon ignore Damage Threshold of the armor, so that's how I calculated it. It may be different though. Not sure. It certainly works however, since Goris definitely doesn't do 11 dam max noncrit damage which he SHOULD if there was no armor-tinkering effect of his special deathclaw weapon. He does more sometimes(without going critical). With my calculation he should do 22 dam max to enclave troopers without going critical, and that's somewhat accurate.
- It should be noted that Goris can rarely dish so much damage though because he needs to reach his target first, wasting some APs for simple walking. This gets more annoying with high perception of the player character, as enemies will be placed farther from your team, and Goris will be completely useless for the first turn even with his 15APs on final stage.
So, with just the protos fixed, my ranking of "top" NPCs would be:
1. Sulik - nobody is more reliable when it comes to getting a kill. Also pretty sturdy for a human.
2. Cassidy - solid shooter, although pretty fragile even with HPA.
3. Skynet - Solid shooter, very sturdy, self repair.
4. Marcus - Packs a punch, pretty sturdy for an unarmed dude. If you play Killap's RP, he might as well claim the third place thanks to mutant armor, making him as tough as an APA Sulik. I still prefer Skynet's self-repair though.
5. Vic - Solid Shooter, albeit getting a third human NPC means someone will run without Hardened Power Armor and ordinary Power Armor is much worse. Cannot use alien blaster properly with AI controlling him.
6. Goris - Is more durable than people think but gets in your way, suicides against turrents and his damage potential is somewhat lowered by his lack of range.
And the proposed team would consist of Sulik, Cassidy, Skynet and Marcus. Vic isn't worth it, being worse in everything than Skynet is plus not being able to wear Hardened Power Armor unless you want to strip already fragile Cassidy or Sulik who NEEDS protection since he charges badly... IIRC you can't get more than two suits of Power Armor Hardened at San Fran. Sure, there was once a bug that made you able to do so with an infinite number of Armors, but it was, well, a bug. And probably fixed by killap's RP anyway.
Things get DRASTICALLY different with sfall's control of party members. If you toggle that, you can finally make those high-AP guys shoot at the eyes twice, making their damage and overall usefulness skyrocket.
When shooting in the eyes, the damage for NPC each round against APA targets is:
Marcus (Pulse Rifle) - 318
Vic (Alien Blaster) - 284
Vic (Gauss Rifle) - 275
Marcus (Turbo Plasma Rifle) - 248
Cassidy (Gauss Pistol) - 196
Goris (Claw) - 175
Cassidy/Skynet (Gauss Rifle) -137
As you see, NPCs with 10 APs cannot do the same damage as NPCs with more. Hence Cassidy is no longer a beast he once was, being unable to shoot twice in the eyes - which is possible to both Marcus and Vic. A shot in eyes has a massive crit chance bonus, making your guys score a critical hit pretty much every time they shoot, with bigger multipliers, going up to x4 (grade 5 torso hit is just x2 - for comparison). Also, critical hits of grade 2 to 5 are armor piercing - which removes the problem of Advanced Power Armors reducing your damage. Screw them.
My rank for sfall:
1. Sulik - Better than ever. You can now charge only when you like, use super sledge/Power fist for lesser enemies, switch to .223 pistol and shoot in the eyes of enclave troopers if you meet them. Gains a lot of flexibility with his weapons when maintained by a human.
2. Marcus - with RP he is not just a beast to take down, he's also a beast when it comes to dealing damage. Pulse rifle to the eyes twice per turn will score you tons of kills and lets not forget that he can hold a bozar in his second hand in case you want him to use that big guns skill without murdering your team.
3. Vic - Now is finally able to use the alien blaster to his fullest and also score two aimed shots with Gauss rifle. A great damage dealer.
4. Cassidy - still good, but he can only fire twice with a gauss pistol, and it's not as good as Gauss Rifle, obviously. You may give him Alien blaster and he will score lots of damage though, but his Energy weapons skill is lower than Vic's and thus, it may be problematic for him to hit at times. A good way of playing him may be to have alien blaster in one hand, gauss pistol in the other. Eye shots with something as innacurate as alien blaster are however a big gamble. You may want to stick to gauss pistol despite possibly bigger damage of the alien blaster.
5. Goris - No longer suicidal. Still does good damage, albeit not as hot as his gun-totting friends, mainly because he can only score 3 aimed hits per turn. A decent addition nevertheless, and you can always psycho him up before facing things like turrets ^^
6. Skynet - Also cannot shoot twice with Gauss Rifle, much like Cassidy. However, he cannot simply switch to Gauss pistol or Alien Blaster because he lacks the propr FRMs, making him somewhat weak in this version. There simply isn't a good enough 4AP weapon for him to make a decent use of him.
And a dreamteam for sfall-version:
Sulik, Marcus, Vic, Cassidy - those should rape everything. If you don't mind Goris, you may give him a try, since now he can just stay back when lots of burst weaponry is at hand, but that would require you to have a solid investment in Charisma. In RP 2.1.1 you may also want to try Kitsune if you prefer - 20% Critical chance is lower than Vic, but she CAN use Gauss pistol, contrary to Skynet, and when shooting in the eyes, it's more than enough to score a Critical Hit every time she shoots anyway. Dex has 30% critical chance but only 9AP so he ain't that hot for the same reason Skynet isn't - can't shoot an aimed shot twice.
Whew. Those train-hours at least went faster with me calculating and writing all that stuff ^^
So do me a favor and discuss - I wish Per would include some of my ramblings as a patch for his NPC section. As awesome as it is, I think he wasn't very correct with the usefulness of Marcus or Skynet.
My previous analysis wasn't exactly correct cause I used a wrong damage formula.
Most players don't care much for the party members in FO2. Even Per's wonderful guide calls most of them a waste of time. There is a lot of incorrect info about the survivability of certain members, too.
Also, things drastically change if you use sfall's awesome "manually control your party members" option, effectively making a 5-person party the ultimate choice because... because now you don't have to worry about Goris running in front of a minigun turret. Or Marcus (almost) never using aimed shots despite 12 AP, effectively wasting a lot of potential firepower with ordinary shots.
But first, let's talk about the "vanilla" version of Fallout and the ratings. Most people consider Cassidy, Vic, Sulik (more or less in that order) the best. Often the argument is that "they can wear armor". Which isn't the greatest point to make, seeing that - going by maths - NPCs such as Skynet or Marcus don't NEED to wear armor to reach survivability of Hardened Power Armor Sulik or Cassidy. Yeah. Math doesn't lie, see for yourself...
I simply calculated damage per shot with corresponding NPC's DR/DT inlcuded, calculated how many shots would kill the NPC, then multiplied base average damage of the weapon used to calculate effective HP - the best way to calculate raw survivability in games.
See for yourself:
Cassidy - Power Armor:
Gauss pistol: 226 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 263 HP
Sulik - Power Armor:
Gauss Pistol: 258 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 300 HP
Cassidy - Hardened Power Armor
Gauss Pistol: 268HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 339 HP
Sulik - Hardened Power Armor
Gauss Pistol: 305 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 387 HP
Goris - stage 6
Gauss Pistol: 274 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 413 HP
Skynet - Stage 5
Gauss Pistol: 299 HP
Turbo Plasma Rifle: 464 HP
As you can see, Goris - the one bashed mostly for his lack of armor - doesn't need one to be more difficult to kill than hardened power armor Cassidy. And Skynet - not only being very sturdy - also has self repair, which makes all damage taken gone directly after the combat. No healing needed, no stimpaks wasted - click and go.
Sure, Goris takes more damage from enemies. But people overestimate armor reduction. Against gauss weaponry, Goris takes about 8 damage more per shot than Cassidy, however we mustn't forget his 187 HP - and Cassidy's 128. He takes 6,7 shots of gauss pistol for average damage to die, and Cassidy takes 6,5. For an unarmed NPC, that's not a BAD score, especially with all the bashing he took over the years in mind. Yeah, those are the values of the bugged stage 6, by the way. Without fixing the protos, you will never see Goris at 187 HP, Sulik at 146, etc.
Of course, Goris' low DT will mean burst weapons doing more damage to him - making the gap between him and HPA Cassidy a big one. That is pretty much the only instance where armor proves better, since with 12 DT, Cassidy may shrug off most of low-but-numerous bullets, while with only 6 DT, Goris will be hurt by many, and the damage might be severe. However, the greatest challenge in this game- enclave soldiers - are mostly about plasma rifles, pulse pistols and gauss pistols. There are some Avenger minigun Troopers at random encounters, but those are very rare anyway. It should be noted however that it takes time to get two HPAs, and Goris, Skynet and Marcus get strong just by leveling up. Most of the game, they will probably be tougher than your "armored" NPCs against non-burst weaponry.
So much for toughness, now the damage. The average damage is not a simple thing to calculate: you have to factor the critical chance, and all 5 possible critical grades. Assuming torso shots (because NPCs extremely rarely take aimed ones) against an enemy with Advanced Power Armor,fixed protos (Vic at Stage 6 has 12 AP, which may be surprising for some players... too bad they never saw it anyway
) the damage per turn is:Vic (Alien Blaster) - 104
Cassidy (Gauss Rifle) - 100
Goris (Claw) - 94
Marcus (Pulse Rifle) - 92
Skynet (Gauss Rifle) - 84
Vic (Gauss Rifle) - 82
Marcus (Turbo Plasma Rifle) - 68
Those are few examples. A few words here:
- Sulik with an SMG and "charge" will run to the enemy and unload his clip at the opponent's sorry face. This usually ends up with a 200-400 critical damage at Stage 6 with a HK p90c against creatures like Centaurs, making him a top damage dealer. With 13 AP and 43% (or was it 46%?) critical chance, he outperforms everyone. Against sturdy Enclave guys, he might be better with a H&K g11e though, or plain old mega power fist if you like that. .223 pistol is also a cool option. With b-mods, he probably can use gauss rifle, I never bothered to check, as I was too attached to SMG Sulik.
- Without level 6 proto fix, Vic obviously won't get as much damage. The Alien blaster variant is surely powerful, outperforming even Cassidy, but you mustn't forget about the abysmal range of the pistol, meaning Vic may not shoot at all, refusing to come closer either. It also causes him to miss a lot. Gauss Rifle, although weaker, is a more reliable option for him.
- Goris' damage and Marcus' Pulse rifle damage was calculated with the "piercing" bonus of their weapons included. Both special deathclaw weapon and pulse rifle have this modifier (check item editor if you want to see it.) Someone told me once that it makes the weapon ignore Damage Threshold of the armor, so that's how I calculated it. It may be different though. Not sure. It certainly works however, since Goris definitely doesn't do 11 dam max noncrit damage which he SHOULD if there was no armor-tinkering effect of his special deathclaw weapon. He does more sometimes(without going critical). With my calculation he should do 22 dam max to enclave troopers without going critical, and that's somewhat accurate.
- It should be noted that Goris can rarely dish so much damage though because he needs to reach his target first, wasting some APs for simple walking. This gets more annoying with high perception of the player character, as enemies will be placed farther from your team, and Goris will be completely useless for the first turn even with his 15APs on final stage.
So, with just the protos fixed, my ranking of "top" NPCs would be:
1. Sulik - nobody is more reliable when it comes to getting a kill. Also pretty sturdy for a human.
2. Cassidy - solid shooter, although pretty fragile even with HPA.
3. Skynet - Solid shooter, very sturdy, self repair.
4. Marcus - Packs a punch, pretty sturdy for an unarmed dude. If you play Killap's RP, he might as well claim the third place thanks to mutant armor, making him as tough as an APA Sulik. I still prefer Skynet's self-repair though.
5. Vic - Solid Shooter, albeit getting a third human NPC means someone will run without Hardened Power Armor and ordinary Power Armor is much worse. Cannot use alien blaster properly with AI controlling him.
6. Goris - Is more durable than people think but gets in your way, suicides against turrents and his damage potential is somewhat lowered by his lack of range.
And the proposed team would consist of Sulik, Cassidy, Skynet and Marcus. Vic isn't worth it, being worse in everything than Skynet is plus not being able to wear Hardened Power Armor unless you want to strip already fragile Cassidy or Sulik who NEEDS protection since he charges badly... IIRC you can't get more than two suits of Power Armor Hardened at San Fran. Sure, there was once a bug that made you able to do so with an infinite number of Armors, but it was, well, a bug. And probably fixed by killap's RP anyway.
Things get DRASTICALLY different with sfall's control of party members. If you toggle that, you can finally make those high-AP guys shoot at the eyes twice, making their damage and overall usefulness skyrocket.
When shooting in the eyes, the damage for NPC each round against APA targets is:
Marcus (Pulse Rifle) - 318
Vic (Alien Blaster) - 284
Vic (Gauss Rifle) - 275
Marcus (Turbo Plasma Rifle) - 248
Cassidy (Gauss Pistol) - 196
Goris (Claw) - 175
Cassidy/Skynet (Gauss Rifle) -137
As you see, NPCs with 10 APs cannot do the same damage as NPCs with more. Hence Cassidy is no longer a beast he once was, being unable to shoot twice in the eyes - which is possible to both Marcus and Vic. A shot in eyes has a massive crit chance bonus, making your guys score a critical hit pretty much every time they shoot, with bigger multipliers, going up to x4 (grade 5 torso hit is just x2 - for comparison). Also, critical hits of grade 2 to 5 are armor piercing - which removes the problem of Advanced Power Armors reducing your damage. Screw them.
My rank for sfall:
1. Sulik - Better than ever. You can now charge only when you like, use super sledge/Power fist for lesser enemies, switch to .223 pistol and shoot in the eyes of enclave troopers if you meet them. Gains a lot of flexibility with his weapons when maintained by a human.
2. Marcus - with RP he is not just a beast to take down, he's also a beast when it comes to dealing damage. Pulse rifle to the eyes twice per turn will score you tons of kills and lets not forget that he can hold a bozar in his second hand in case you want him to use that big guns skill without murdering your team.
3. Vic - Now is finally able to use the alien blaster to his fullest and also score two aimed shots with Gauss rifle. A great damage dealer.
4. Cassidy - still good, but he can only fire twice with a gauss pistol, and it's not as good as Gauss Rifle, obviously. You may give him Alien blaster and he will score lots of damage though, but his Energy weapons skill is lower than Vic's and thus, it may be problematic for him to hit at times. A good way of playing him may be to have alien blaster in one hand, gauss pistol in the other. Eye shots with something as innacurate as alien blaster are however a big gamble. You may want to stick to gauss pistol despite possibly bigger damage of the alien blaster.
5. Goris - No longer suicidal. Still does good damage, albeit not as hot as his gun-totting friends, mainly because he can only score 3 aimed hits per turn. A decent addition nevertheless, and you can always psycho him up before facing things like turrets ^^
6. Skynet - Also cannot shoot twice with Gauss Rifle, much like Cassidy. However, he cannot simply switch to Gauss pistol or Alien Blaster because he lacks the propr FRMs, making him somewhat weak in this version. There simply isn't a good enough 4AP weapon for him to make a decent use of him.
And a dreamteam for sfall-version:
Sulik, Marcus, Vic, Cassidy - those should rape everything. If you don't mind Goris, you may give him a try, since now he can just stay back when lots of burst weaponry is at hand, but that would require you to have a solid investment in Charisma. In RP 2.1.1 you may also want to try Kitsune if you prefer - 20% Critical chance is lower than Vic, but she CAN use Gauss pistol, contrary to Skynet, and when shooting in the eyes, it's more than enough to score a Critical Hit every time she shoots anyway. Dex has 30% critical chance but only 9AP so he ain't that hot for the same reason Skynet isn't - can't shoot an aimed shot twice.
Whew. Those train-hours at least went faster with me calculating and writing all that stuff ^^
So do me a favor and discuss - I wish Per would include some of my ramblings as a patch for his NPC section. As awesome as it is, I think he wasn't very correct with the usefulness of Marcus or Skynet.
