Game balance > realism. The best unarmed weapon in the game has to be competitive with the best guns/EWs/melee etc.

Likewise, the sniper rifle pooping all over everything else in the game might be realistic, but it doesn't make for ideal game balance.

They are plenty shielded against heat, they are wearing a dense armor that will require significant heating to harm the user. Metal armor might transfer heat pretty well so it wouldn't be great against flamethrowers (much better than nothing though) but combat armor would be quite effective.

Power armor almost certainly has some thermal protection, it was used in OA after all.



It's not realistic. A sniper rifle would be less powerful than a brush gun, and FAR less powerful than an AMR. It would be only a little more powerful than the hunting rifle (I'm talking like 1 or 2 points higher damage, not 17 points higher damage and 5 times higher critical chance like now).

thinking about it ur rite about sawyer having a reason to be bias towards guns lol.But yeah they got alot to make up for with this glitch fest/rushed pos lol

Combat armor does nothing to mitigate the fact that you are being drenched in what amounts to superhot glue that is also on fire. Combat armor doesn't protect your face, arms, or hands hands from being sprayed with napalm, and it only minimally protects your legs.



The cold of Alaska can be several dozen degrees below zero at most. Modern flamethrowers cover you in flaming jelly that burns in excesses of a thousand degrees, Fahrenheit OR Celsius.





On this point we agree. Hell, I'd settle for just dropping the crit chance to 2x or 1.5x, and decrease the fire rate to something only a few beats better than the AMR.

Just to shoot this in, regarding the flamethrower / napalm / thermite / white phosphorous (I know the last wasn't mentioned, but it should have been)

Those are really two classes of energy transfer:

flamethrower & napalm both burn on the outside in. So, a highly conductive armor plating, over a highly insulating inflamable material (with its own O2 supply) would be required to mitigate damage from it to any extent. I can see power armor doing so, but not combat armor. Hellfire armor even had this built in, however, it does - in effect - argue that the power armor has NO protection from flamer/incinerators, just the radiation bonus; imho, I would have liked regular power armor, even some of them, to give flame resistance.

Thermite & White Phosphorus are a different beast altogether. Their operating temperatures are so hot that it would be more accurate to use the word incinerate, and not burn. I have personally seen what a WP grenade does to a piece of Armour. If you consider a man in power armor, the equivalent to a man in Armour (actually I know it takes more than one to man the tank, but hey...), then thermite and WP would destroy them far faster than even a pulse gun would.

I have no problem about the 'realism' or lack thereof. My only problem with fallout 3 was the fact that I used one weapon, and finished the game with it. I like the fact that NV put in a lot of time and thought into the new system, new weapons, the mods, the bullets, and the like... but I also remember that one of the things that the developers wanted to do is make sure that there were no '1' gun solutions. That unique sniper rifle seems to be that. I personally feel that the AM rifle should be the be all, and end all, of high-level snipers. But, no such luck.

One thing that I found odd with the melee weapons, is that there are no medium range melee weapons. No Bows, Cross-Bows, or what-not? I mean, there are throwing spears, and daggers... but come on. I would love to get a cross-bow / bow, and load it up with tremble or mother darkness!

I chose not to mention white phosphorous for the simple reason that, beyond using WP Grenades in Metal Gear Solid 4 online play, I know next to nothing about white phosphorous. =P

Regardless, thank you, Belial, for helping me set the "fire will eff up armor" precedent.

No one said anything about snipers being gods...but I dare you to say that to a trained military sniper...oh thats right you would be dead before your saw him...one shot. Game balance is only vital in games where there is a competitive aspect. If that is what you are seeking then you should retreat...ahem...advance to the rear...towards games such as COD and MOH. "Balance" in single player games should always favor the player...by a LOT. If designers of games don't intend to respect the unique character of high accuracy marksmanship then they shouldn't include it at all. If you don't like how powerful a sniper weapon is in a single player game then don't use one. In multiplayer games (such as the one I play...MAG) snipers are often berated for their choice of weapon. As if there is something wrong with high accuracy play. In those games I would agree a weapon that can kill in a single shot is so far out of balance as to render all other weapons moot. As such, most competetive multiplayer games either don't include them or more likely make them a minimum of 2 shots to kill. Longer barrels on firearms do indeed increase muzzle velocity but not penetration power. Increased barrel length has the primary benefit of increasing accuracy. If you can't one shot a soft target with a sniper weapon than it is no more or less effective than any other weapon....including the humble .22. There most certainly is a mystique about snipers. They are the most highly trained, elite, ground soldiers fielded by modern superpowers. If you have never served (or even tried to) you would not understand the awe these invisible hands of Kali instill in the men that rely on them.

Power Armor and especially Advanced Power Armor (aka Enclave Remnant armor) had significant fire resistance in the originals.



Why would a military sniper kill me before I ever saw them? Are you saying they are all [censored] psychos that kill everyone they see in all aspects of life?

Those are the game's I'm avoiding. THIS IS AN RPG. Realism isn't nearly as important as balance and gameplay.



You still haven't explained WTF you're talking about. Have you shot a .22? Please explain this crazy theory about weapon damage to me, and how it should be either infinite or next to nothing.



There's not a "jerk off motion" smiley so I'll have to use this one. :rolleyes:

@hozrhayt: The sniper rifle is fine when you actually use it as a sniper rifle and shoot things from far away while sneaking, but the fact is that it is overpowered because it gets guaranteed criticals from ANY distance, regardless of whether or not one is sneaking. No weapon should have a 5x crit chance modifier. It devalues all other weapons and changes Better Criticals from a "good" perk to "the most absolutely awesome perk in the game."



And that damage resistance would still be accounted for even if there was a -10 DT effect on flamer fuel, since power armors have more than 10 DT.
No sane person would ask for Flamer Fuel to completely bypass DT. I just want to be able to use a flamer against hard targets and not be wasting time, ammo, and hit points/limb damage.

AMR being useless have nothing to do with sniper rifle have to high rate of fie. The sniper rifle's rate of fire and base damage is actually reasonable compare to all other high tier weapon.

The problem of people going for Sniper Rifle>AMR because of A) 5x crit multiplier like everyone said; B) AMR weights like a 5 bricks glue by lead; C) sniper rifle suppressor (which should have just reduce the noise level to normal).

JSP should have follow the trend along other hand loaded round to give some damage bonus and DT bypass. But as we have experimented, JSP actually offer less bouns than .44 SWC to a NON-crit shot.

And for the complain of This Machine to be "too easy" to obtain, it isn't. It is actually harder than Pushy and YCS (two other god weapon) and there is enough people consider Gobi rubbish because it requirse 100 lockpick.

The only reason I mentioned the AMR was as a point of reference for the fire rate. The Sniper Rifle should fire faster than the AMR, but not too much faster. Combined with the reduction in crit chance, the sniper rifle will no longer be the single most powerful gun in the game.

I am saying AMR's rate of fire is too slow instead of Sniper Rifle being too fast. The fact that Gauss shoots faster, more powerful and lighter than AMR makes it bad.

The current Fallout sniper rifle is a semi-automatic instead of bolt-action; that means game balance aside it should able to fire faster then all level-action rifles in game. ATM the sniper rifle only have half if not lower RoF than the level-action rifles, and as fast as the frigging bolt-action Varmint rifle.

Again, Sniper Rifle being crowned king in NV simply because it have a ridiculous crit multiplier which evaluated it to do double damage *all* the time. Once that's gone any more complain about sniper rifle being too powerful is like saying why do you have to pay fines for speeding.

Yeah I agree with this - I never played melee in Fallout until New Vegas and Im now about 15 hours into my level 9 character, building a sort of melee/guns hybrid. Anyway, melee, with superslam, is rediculous!

If people are running around firing sniper rifles from the hip, in the heat of combat, just to get the crit multiplier, then I say nerf that svcker. Someone who uses a sniper rifle the way it's meant to be used won't even notice. The only critical they're concerned with is the initial sneak critical.

For me, the main advantage of the sniper rifle is the suppressor. If I'm sneaking, and far enough away, then I can hit something, and even if it doesn't drop, it doesn't see me, and wanders around back and forth looking for me. Even with the slow (ish) ROF, I almost always get another shot off. Or, I sit still, wait a minute, and my target stops looking for me. I become hidden again, and shoot it for another sneak critical hit. I used to use this tactic in Fallout 3 with Perforator to great effect, and when I saw that the sniper rifle could get a suppressor in NV, well... can you blame me?

I don't need the x5 crit. multiplier. You can have it. I never use it. If something gets close, I'm going to pull out the All-American or a riot shotgun. They're ALOT cooler than hipping a sniper rifle.

I didn't even know the sniper rifle had a 5x crit and ive been using it ever since i first found one, hell i use my sniper instead of the AMR due to the low weight of it with the carbon fiber upgrade.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Tesla_Armor_%28Fallout%29 for Laser, plasma, and Electrical attacks.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Advanced_Power_Armor_%28Fallout_2%29 as you see was pretty resistant to fire based attacks.

Huh. APA does have more fire resistance than normal resistance. Interesting.

Well, still, the DT can account for that resistance in New Vegas. Really, Flamer Fuel just needs like 10 DT bypass and I'd be satisfied. It also really annoyed me that the only effect of the craftable flamer fuel actually makes it LESS desirable to use than the normal stuff. I mean, what? Why would I ever craft that? Sugar Bombs are already pretty damn rare, so it seems like a lot of work for something that does nothing but break my Flamer.

So, by that logic, a blob of superheated plasma to the face should do more than bounce off someone in combat armor, no?

Realism has no place in these discussions; the game is an RPG. If people died in like 2 shots Counterstrike-style the combat would be absolutely godawful.

Sniper rifles having a x5 crit multiplier is probably an oversight from converting the Fallout 3 weapons to FONV, as almost all other firearms have been reduced to 1-1.25% (with the exception of Ratslayer and the LE BB Gun). So the proposed patch change is more like a bugfix than a nerf.

I am also not sure if lever-action rifles should be the standard on which to balance RoF, because they shoot much faster than they did in Fallout 3 whereas most of the other weapons either stayed the same or were nerfed. I admit that balance is a bit tricky since many of the new semi-auto weapons are also blazing fast (like the 'riot' shotgun) and many of the old weapons no longer have the 'sticky trigger' delays that prevented them from achieving maximum RoF in Fallout 3 (energy weapons especially).

In Fallout 3, lever-action designs like Lincoln's Repeater, Blackwater and the BB Gun had a firing animation where the player braces the gun across his body to cycle it after each shot, similar to the bolt-action hunting rifle. This resulted in a slow RoF and threw your sights off. Thus although the weapons were ridiculously powerful per shot (I had no idea that a .44 blackpowder cartridge does more damage than superheated plasma), they had a lower overall DPS than the semi-autos and machineguns.

In FONV, new and faster firing animations were introduced for lever-actions and pump-actions that no longer shift your aim between shots. Functionally, such weapons are now semi-auto, shooting fast and without the interruptions associated with manual operation. But this apparently was not enough to do justice to such badass weapons (Winchester lever-actions, for example, can supposedly shoot 120 rpm), so the animation multipliers were tweaked in GECK to make them shoot even faster. But they still do massive damage per shot, which is further increased by 25% with a low-level perk. Ouch. Cowboys are badass.

The Gauss Rifle is not as fast as it appears because it has a long and cumbersome reload animation after each shot, making it worse than the AMR.

That's not true, the reloading time for Gauss is actually slightly faster than attack delay of AMR *before* agility and rapid reload.

I still want me M72 gauss Rifle instead of the FO3 crap one

Go to FO3 nexus, download the classic weapon mod, find the mesh and texture of it, put them in the respective folders, DONE.

Already did that in FO3. I wanted it to be "official" since we're back west.

But it throws your aim off, making it harder to re-acquire. Of course, 1337 players can compensate for this too, I suppose.

Then why would anyone bother wearing those ugly t-51b power helmets?