What exactly changes in a Weapon's object form when you switch out ammo types? Does the weapon object effect (AKA enchantment from the TES days), or does the projectile type get altered?

Anticipating the thumper gun grenade launcher, I recalled that one of the alternate munitions for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M79_grenade_launcher was essentially a shotgun round. I was considering trying to make such a round, but would like to know how the ammo switching system works behind the scenes.

Hmmm... If shotties can shoot slugs instead of just buckshot, that may mean that altering the projectile may be possible. I'll wait for a dev to go into details on the workings if they can here before calling it...

Honeslty it is kind of overwhelming in a way, the ammo types, I mean wouldn't the ideal situation usually always be to just use armor piercing rounds?

Let me explain, lets say your playing hardcoe mode & so ammo has weight and you just kinda decide on which ammo type will be the best for you to use over all throughout the game?

So im not saying you can't use more then one ammo type, but over all when it comes down to it which ammo type is going to be the best to use throughout the game?

Well it depends on the situation. Obsidian doesn't kid around with balancing so the Armor Piercing rounds would work better against armored enemies, Hollow Point would work better on wildlife, overcharge for taking down big critters, and the slugs for saying "You know what, I don't have to use a sniper rifle outside, I deserve to be able to take a walk outside with my trusty lever action shotgun!" HOT JUICY BURGERS!!!!

Since this thread is an ammo thread. I have to ask, how exactly do we switch between ammo types? :confused:

You don't I don't think but I could be wrong, there just is different ammo period. So if you have 9mm hollow point's and you have 9mm AP rounds, then you have two different sets of ammo.

I think that this was an oversight that no one has ever brought up before. Hmm, maybe you equip the ammo in the inventory?

I just asked it in here since I wasnt sure if it's been asked. In Fallout 1-2 it's easy since you could unload it and load another ammo type in. But with F3 styled games, unless it's a cumbersome 'Please choose your ammo type' pop up menu occurs, I'm rather baffled as to how you can switch ammos :bonk:

It's just like in Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactic's (if you've played them) you right click ammo or you can drag different ammo types onto the gun. Now how you switch different ammo types in New Vegas I am not sure of, but the answer is probably yes you most likley equip the ammo in the inventory.

I'm guessing it must be equipped since us lowly console users don't have the luxury or right-clicking anything. Must be able to hot-key them as well for on-the-fly ammo switching without going to pipboy every time.

I am not wanting to know how ammo types are switched in the interface, folks. I want to know the underlying mechanics of the ammo system so that I, as a modder, can maybe know what I will and will not be able to do once I get my paws on the FONV GECK.

Please keep on topic.

First, ammo types can alter, among other things, the projectile being used, including the number of projectiles per round consumed (particularly useful for buckshot/slugs).

Second, ammo types can be switched through the PipBoy inventory menu or in real-time by using a hotkey.

Thank you for clearing this up Mr. Sawyer. If I may ask, what do exactly do you do while in the PipBoy menu to change out ammo types?

Oooooh, ehhhxcellent. :chaos:

You equip the ammo in the ammo section of the inventory. It works pretty much like equipping weapons or apparel but any ammo that is invalid for your current weapon is "dark" (like a broken piece of gear would be).

Thank you very much

The weapon mods, are they effectively a completely new weapon? Or does it just change the things you change?

Oh wow, that sounds alot more simple than it seemed to be. Thank you for clearing this up even more. :laugh:

Thank you for clearing this up :tops:
:cookie:

EDIT: :facepalm:

Does this also include altering the visual ammo shown on the weapon itself ? Say I wanted to make a Bow and several different arrows will the Arrow Model be getting set by the Weapon.nif (Like FO3, effectively making this type of weapon impossible to do correctly) or from the Ammo/Arrow.nif (like TESIV).

If you can hot-key ammo do you hot-key armor piercing 9mm or is it a general, armor piercing for whatever gun you have that has ammo in the inventory?

Did you just say hotkey? Or am I dreaming that?

I would guess similar to the way you equipped different arrow sets in TES, just in the ''Ammo'' section rather than the ''Weapons'' section. In other words, you jump into the ammo screen, and, lets say you have a Assault Rifle equipped, you put your curser or highlight 5.56 AP (armor piercing), and press enter, 'A', whatever the select button is, and you'd load a magazine with that into your current gun (assuming your current gun uses 5.56).

It's also possible that the game will allow us to have multiple ammo types selected, though not for a single gun. To simplify, it might allow us to have it so, if we pull out a gun that uses 10mm ammo, then it automatically loads it with hollowpoints, but if we pull out a gun using 5.56, it loads it with AP rounds. In other words, we get to pre-set what ammo variant we use when we pull out a gun using that type of ammo. I think that would be kind of nice, because then we might, say, have an assault rifle that is pre-loaded for AP rounds, and we pop off a few guys wearing, say, NCR Ranger armor or Power Armor, but then get attacked by some raiders in their usual gear, and we switch over to a 10mm SMG pre-loaded for hollowpoints, and blast away at them.

In regards to hardcoe mode, I'd say there will be some types of ammo I will carry more of, probably the ones best used against un-armored enemies, but I'll keep a good stash of all types on me at all times, just in case I run into a few armored baddies. Then again, if you know you'll be running into armored enemies, it might be a good idea to stash some of your regular ammo, and take on more AP rounds (alright, could we just call the hollowpoints shredder rounds? Such a nicer sound to the name.. ) to deal with the armored enemies.

Overall though, I just think that pre-selecting your ammo variants for guns would be a great idea, as that way you don't have to worry about it, you just know ''oh, if I pull out my shotgun, it's pre-loaded with slugs, but if I run into a raider, my 9mm pistol is loaded with hollowpoints.''

A possible version of this idea would be to have each weapon itself has it's own loadout type - in other words, if you pull out a standard Assault Rifle, it might be loaded with hollowpoints, but then if you pull out a Military Rifle (or whatever they're calling the M16 now, I swear, it's name has been changed like 5 times...), it will be pre-loaded with AP rounds. So each individual weapon would remember its ammo variant, instead of each weapon catagory. (this is confusing isn't it?)

I wonder how the alt ammo types get ref'd... Hopefully it'll be minimally conflictive, like having the alt ammo type ref to a "base ammo type", and then the correlation between the base ammo in the weapon form will allow loading.

Though that would make for an interesting situation if someone made http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun#Hunting.2C_defensive.2C_and_military shotgun rounds and you loaded it into the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ballistic_fist... :blink: