Before I begin, I must say that I love this game and this is just a minor issue that has irritated me during my experience with the game, however, what exactly does power armor do in this game? NCR soldiers with clubs are posing a danger to me as are the Praetorian Guard with a fully repaired suit of Brotherhood T-51b power armor. I was under the impression that enemies with a weapon that doesn't exceed the damage threshold couldn't harm me, and yet I have half-naked, Roman copycats killing my level 21 character with a few hits. Then, I face Legate Lanius and he beats me to death with a bumper sword. There are several things I wish to gain from this thread First, I want to know just how damage threshold works. Second, I want to know why the game seems so overwhelmingly inconsistent in its difficulty and if anyone else feels the same way. Third, I could use some advice on killing Legate Lanius. My character is level 21, is wearing the Brotherhood T-51b power armor, and is wielding both a minigun and a light machine gu as primary weapons with 100 guns skill, and I can barely take out a couple of those Praetorian guards while utilizing running and gunning tactics. I was really looking forward to damage threshold making power armor turn me into a walking tank, but after all the trouble I went through to get the power armor, I'm still patheticly weak in comparison to some enemies. Am I not understanding this damage threshold mechanic properly?

I can still get killed by a 9mm pistol with power armor on, fully repaired.
Damage Threshold doesn't make much sense to me.

How to kill the legate-

- Place mines all over the place
- Use the alien blaster
- Use tons of chems
- Run backwards

I wouldn't be surprised if we all found out it was yet another bug. One of my characters as well has a high DT and lower level weapons still hurt me.

if you have a minigun it really shouldnt be a problem...are you using armor piercing rounds? those help a lot against the legion and those goofy ass suits, especially lanius. i used a special variant of a minigun so that might be why it was a tad bit easy for me. it was called the cz57 avenger.

From my understanding, in New Vegas Damage Threshold subtracts a flat number from damage taken unless the damage threshold is higher than the damage taken. If your DT (or an enemy's DT) exceeds the damage being dealt then you will take 20% damage.

Talonfire is correct. You'll take damage no matter what but with a high Damage Threshold you'll negate most of it.

Nah the regular minigun is better than that thing anyway, when it's upgraded at least. If he can't kill them with that, which is hands down the best weapon in the game when coupled with AP rounds, he's had it lol.


Seti18 what difficulty are you playing on? When I'm wearing T-45d power armour I barely ever get scratched in combat, even on very hard. You always take a bit of damage, but you shouldn't be getting killed by legionaries any time this year if you're wearing power armour. If you're getting absolutely anihilated like you say you are, it has to be a bug.

From what I've picked up, the way DT works is that it subtracts its rating from incoming damage, up to 80% of the incoming damage. So if you were being hit with a gauss rifle slug for 100 damage, and you had a DT of 30, it would subtract the full 30 meaning you still get hit with 70 damage. Or if you were being attacked by 30 damage, your 30 DT would block 80% of the hit, leaving 6 damage that still hurts you.

As far as your weapons, you really do need to use armor piercing rounds if you're going to use 5.56mm or 5mm weapons against opponents with any kind of armor. These weapons are very weak without that -15DT bonus.

It doesn't feel any different than in Fallout 3. :shrug: I thought everyone was hailing damage threshold as the mechanic that would make power armor turn the PC into a walking tank, again, but it didn't. Just how much damage are Lanius and the Praetorian guard dealing per hit, if anyone knows?

Well that sort of defeats the purpose of DT.....its supposed be so that if yo uhave 30DT, small arms dont hurt you, just bounce off the armor degrading it.

That way someone with a 9mm poses very little threat to someone wearing power armor as their bullets just bounce off....but if they are still doing 20% damage....whats the point of hacing high DT?

This is what people mean when speaking of PA' troopers getting shot to death by BB guns.

The concept of DT is great, because it means that no matter how many time you hit a tank with a baseball bat, you can't scratch it.... But in FO:NV (theoretically) that tank would take 20% damage from the bat and be reduced to scrap eventually.

In the Geck this is supposed to be a moddable value. (I intended to set it to zero in my game, but haven't done it yet)

Months back I was hoping we'd see a PA infantry shotgun pistol designed to clean unarmored attackers off of a PA'd trooper.
(A gun that used buckshot that damaged just below the PA's DT; something they could fire with abandon in a dark room full of enemies, and not care about hitting their team mates). But the 20% bit ruins that idea.

I'm playing on normal difficulty, and I figured that the Minigun and the Light Machine gun are useless against heavily armored targets without AP rounds, so I tried using my riot shotgun, instead (I have the shotgun surgeon perk), and still didn't have much luck. I forgot about AP rounds, so perhaps I'll give those a shot with my minigun, but the Praetorian Guard didn't look very heavily armored.

Yes, 20% always get through armour, even if armour DT is higher than weapon damage rating. What I would be interested to know however is what happens if armour DT is lower than damage. Is there still 20% going through on top of difference?

Let say armour DT is 9, weapon1 damage is 10. If just 1 point of damage gets through (10%) than weapon2 with damage 9 would actually do more damage (20% from 9 = 1,8). I know values are rounded but lets assume they are not.

They are quite heavily armoured. Their armour has a DT of 12, so regular minigun rounds are a no go. Your Riot Shotgun will be doing full damage with the Shotgun Surgeon perk though.

Buckshot is pointless against anybody in heavy armor, even *with* Shotgun Surgeon. What Shotgun Surgeon does is negate light armor and take a big chunk of medium armor. If you want to use your shotgun against heavy armor, load it with slugs and it will penetrate just fine.

It's supposed to be, but it was essentially turned it into glorified damage resistance for the sake of "balance". I can live with this, but I really wish that the mechanic wasn't called damage threshold because DT is supposed to be the subtraction of a flat amount, period.



According to the GECK Lanius' sword has a base damage of 65, plus a possible addition of 35 damage if he lands a critical hit equaling 100 damage; the damage per second of the weapon is 102. The version Lanius is equipped with is at 100%. Considering the punch he packs, this sounds accurate.

How much health do they have? My riot shotgun is pathetic against them. Does anyone know if damage threshold operated the same way in Fallout 1 and 2? I was pretty sure it didn't, but I only played those games, not ask questions or look up technical mechanics of them.

It did not, in Fallout 1/2 damage threshold subtracted a flat amount. If you tried to shoot someone in T-51b power armor with a 10mm pistol you'd do no damage at all unless you got lucky and scored a critical hit, but even then you'd probably only do 1 damage tops.

In F1-2 you had damage threshold and damage resistance: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_2_armor_and_clothing

Here is how it worked: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_Resistance

I was about to point out how BoS soldiers slaughtered me as I failed to do anything to them the first time I met them in Fallout 1, but that I was able to kill three of them when I first met them in New Vegas. That's when I stared at the game, pointed my figure, and said "Wait a minute, weren't they supposed to slaughter me while laughing as my bullets bounced off of them?" Was New Vegas' manner of handling damage threshold a surprise or did anyone know about it before release? I was overjoyed when I first heard damage threshold was going to be in the game, but it's become my greatest disappointment affiliated with the game. :sadvaultboy:

I though the powerarmor is so usefull, I could get hit with like 20 bullets and not even lose a health point. and as for killking the guy, put c4 all throughout the camp, run away and blow it up, he actually can survive a headon fatman shot, it will only get like a third of his health down. the C-4 took out most of it. Also try and get your endurance up, I didn't fight untill I was like level 32(yes I used mods) and I still almost died becuase of that sword

Because there are plenty of enemies who deal 40 or more damage per hit, Cazador's and NIghtstalkers for example deal 70. Having a DT of 46 is significantly better then 10 or 20 when you being hit for a high number of dmg. Members of the legion like to use hunting rifles which can easily deal 30dmg a hit. If your taking 20% of the damage from a spray of bullets each dealing around 10 each. Your only taking 2 per hit, how is that a threat to you?

Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!!

(No, seriously, pump your Small Guns skill to stupidly high levels (about 250% ought to do) and you can shoot people in the eyes from across the screen. "Badass" only begins to describe dropping power-armored Enclave troopers left and right with shots to the eyes with your pistol)

If I may, I've read that there is a bug with DR and DT that if you use Med-X and / or the ReBreather then any amount of Damage Threshold is like having 0 until you use another one. And in the PIP-Boy it is greyed or black (at least on 360).

Aside from this potential bug, I wondered if there was some sort of intended "piercing ability" from melee weapons with any armor since the shock of the attack would still transfer to the body? but I'm not sure playing on the 360. :mellow: