I've been experiencing serious trouble combating the radscorpios (and their larger brethren) early on in the game. I am approximately at the point in the game where you go to the Mojave Outpost to see about sending more troops to protect Primm, and I talked to the ranger guy for some work. He says to kill the critters north along the way to the lake (which I have not located yet). I find that radscorpions this early on in the game are extremely overpowered as they can kill me easily and I can't even get through their exoskeletons with my single-shotgun.

What do you guys think?

The ranger guy doesn't want you to kill Radscorpions, he wants you to kill ants.

As for radscorpions, I've only encountered very few regular sized ones. I'm thankful for the weathered 10mm each time, though.

They're some of the toughest kills I've come across yet. It's best to keep your eyes peeled and then keep your distance.

yep, i seem to run into them quite often too..

wait until you meet the nightkin :lmao:

I think this game allows certain type of ammo for certain types of armor. Can someone verify this? Example, hollowed points do great against certian things and are worthless against others.

That's acurate, but I don't know if it follows with the amour on critters.

Rad scorps are nothing, encountered a pack of 3 cardoza's and a young cardoza. killed them all THEN i dropped dead and looked at my screen like wtf....

They are definitely something to avoid... I found that, like dogs, the Incinerator is very effective against them.

You can 2 shot the big ones with the varmit rifle if you use the armor piercing ammo. I don't waste them on the littles ones though, they get to meet the baseball bat.

I ran into the same thing and I got stuck. The BEST way is to use the interstate or road to the mojave outpost. Yes its a little longer BUT you run into few or no radscorpions and can usually avoid anything else too. Good luck!

I haven't bought any of the armor piercing rounds yet. Basically just trying to scavange for most of my stuff for now as I don't like spending my money, haha.

That is a new challenge they've intentionally implemented in the game, by the way.

Some enemies will have strong armor that you are going to need armor-piercing ammunition to break through effectively. If you just use default ammo against everything, you are going to have a very hard time.

I was having some problems with them as well. I died to them a few times before I changed to an explosive strategy. I would run backwards while lobbing dynamite at them. You can usually drop them down to within a few HP of death. You can then switch to the shotgun to finish them off. If you use this strategy be careful not to run into anything while moving backwards. Running into the side of a cliff or some other object that restricts your path is a good recipe to get killed.

As for the cardoza's...yeah those things are tough. It went down in 2 or 3 stings, and there were like 5 of them.

For regular radscorpions and smaller, Dynamite is your friend. Don't even bother trying this with the Giant ones though... ouch!

Those guys run -fast- too...

I take it that the Entomologist perk is probably worth it.

Or stick to the main roads. I haven't seen a lot of critters in populated/traveled areas.

Explosives explosives explosives. I know very few people who actually upgrade this skill, but the beauty of it is you don't really need to. I encountered a veritable colony of them once, shortly after running through the Powder Ganger's one prison area, so I had a TON of dynamite. Took about 6 sticks to take out the whole bunch. Just drop the bomb at your feet and keep running. It'll cripple the legs of any scorpions following you and if you want to save your explodey items, you can kite them with a gun.

Alternatively, you can always grab some armor piercing rounds and go to town on em. If you're using energy weapons, then use a weapon that burns 'em.

Oh, and for fighting Cardoza's? At early levels, they will DESTROY you, but after you break level 8 or so, you can usually snipe their wings off before they reach you if you make liberal use of VATs. Without their wings, they're easily kited.

Haha. I wouldn't say overpowered. I would say enjoyably challenging. I am only playing on HARD, and a giant scorpion will just shrug off anything less than armor piercing rounds. Love it. Show the wilderness some respect...

Oh yea, they will poison you, so you can die even after a 'successful' encounter. Carry a few antidotes with you.

I wouldn't say OP, but I would say a challenge. I hate them, first time I came across them there was 3 little ones and they died quickly. Mommy and Daddy sneak attacked me from behind and I was very dead.

Now I just blow them up if I want to get where they are. I am for some reason stock piling AP ammo.

I was taking on some Powder Gangers and because I wasn't paying attention, I got surrounded by 5 radscorpions and thought I was at my end. But luckily this Cowboy Repeater gun is pretty devastating, and after the whole scuffle, I was only down to half health.

No....


Deathclaw's, Cardoza's and NightKin...


Those are 3 creatures that make killing radscorps feel like stomping on a bug.

Well, some things are harder depending on your weapon of choice, and environment. Nightkin aren't too hard for some situations. One method that works against one type of enemy is useless against others (say, humans vs. mechanical). When you first start fighting a lot of robots, you have to adjust tactics entirely.

Are you talking about the little ones or the Giant Radscorpions? The little ones are easy peasy with a tire iron. I've only seen a couple of Giant Radscorpions in the distance so far and haven't had to fight any yet but I've killed countless little ones with my tire iron with no problems at all.

Go ahead, try that on a Giant Radscorpion... tell us how it goes

Ya, I won't be doing that. I played a LOT of FO3.