i just read some posts that said that perception didnt have any impact on weapon accuracy including energy weapons. supposedly its only good for red blips and if you want perception based perks. does perception only influence the damage of energy weapons or doesnt it even do that. im running around with a level 9 perception character and ill be PISSED if i coudl have had just as good a character with level 5 perception. i dont use vats so the increased range there doesnt mean anything to me.

yea.. 9 inteligence would of been a wayyy better alternitive actually or 8.. oh and perception increases EW so if your using those at least its for soemthing.

i think it does effect your overall accuracy with the gun or ew skill and strength skill added in with it so its like math u need so much str and gun or ew and per to have a good accuracy is what ive been told that per alone wont give u good accuracy u need gun which is what i use im a sniper with per 10 and str 7 going to add more with intense training and gun at 100 so i can hit about anything lol

Agility is better for aiming with Guns, actually. I know nothing about EW.

well i have a 575774 build that i used in my last two games. if i can get away with dropping my perception and increasing my intel or charisma i would like to do that instead.

as for strenght i wasnt even aware that that affected guns at all. ugh i wish they would put this stuff in the descriptions.

If you want perception then you can leave it at 5 and take the "Four Eyes" trait. I left mine at 5 and with any pair of glasses and a hat, not helmet, I have an adjusted PER of 7.

PE does not seem to affect range or accuracy (other than to detect targets).

Correct.

"Contrary to what designers said pre-release, perception has no independent effects on ranged weapon accuracy."
-Fallout Wikia

FO3 was screwed up too (in its own way), because it seems that PE only gave bonuses (no penalties )
Low PE just gave a low bonuses, and did not detract from perception related abilities.

**All the stats were like that apparently.

In the words of Wikipedia, "Citation needed" – like, not to the wiki, but in the wiki.

When you are assigning SPECIAL stats in the doc's house in the beginning of the game, it specifically says "Accuracy" among the things associated with Perception. (It makes no distinction between Energy Weapons and Guns; just says "Accuracy.") If someone can get a peek at the code and confirm this is bunk, that'd be handy, but that would be quite the doozy of the mistake for them to leave that one in there.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/PE

Lol, thanks.

There are some nice perks that require a Perception stat of 6 or higher, my char has messed up his perk progression somewhat heavily by ignoring this stat in the beginning only to have to pick Intense Training more than once to make up. I'm now playing catch-up on all my favourite perks - only got Sniper at level 16, for instance.

I've done the tests. It does not affect accuracy.

This is so odd that people would find no change in accuracy given the character's improved perception as I have noticed the exact opposite.

In VATS, my High Luck/Guns character is far less accurate than my High Perception/EW character. In VATS. In 'ironsight' general FPSery, I'm still as wobbly as ever.

Is it possible that perception plays a part in the accuracy equations for VATS?

Well as far as I remember perception gave bonuses ONLY at large distances. So if you were targeting something few meters away, you would not notice difference. However if you were targeting something across map, difference will be significant. That how PE worked in previous Fallouts. If it work like this in F3 and FNV I don't know however.

I play with the HUD off to add immersion. I would like to know if this should end up as a "dump stat" for me like it was in Fallout 3. It looks like it. I could care less bout that little radar blip. Aside from doc calling me blind as a bat, it looks like I may have 9 points to play around with on 6 stats when I make characters, no?

Perception only alters the range/ability of your character to detect foes from a distance, I do not know how this plays with Stealthed foes however. It has no other inherent bonus other than the perk requirements, although Sniper: +25% to Head in V.A.T.S is a almost too good to miss out on.

Reno

Thanks, but as I said, "not TO the wiki, but IN the wiki" – that is, I know that it says this on the wiki, but the wiki doesn't actually demonstrate this, and anybody can edit the thing to say whatever they think.

I'm curious about how it was tested by the one person here who says they tested it (especially given the other comment about range as an important variable). Is this not the kind of thing that can be checked with the GECK? I'm on a console, so the superpowers of PC users remain largely mystical to me still.

I have my perception at 2. My stats are 9291991. Some times I can't hit a thing, other times, I am hittin from far away, so I am not shure if Perception actually works. I am hitting often a lot. Maybe it's my play style, I am usually up close so when I hit in VATS, it's in the 80% or higher. Never thought of this. Maybe my VATS would be higher percentage further away if my Perception is higher. I am not shure. I haven't tried it out yet since I will not start a new game yet.

The main reason I have Perception set so low, is I HATE having the red blips on the screen but they are so far out, I end up sneaking for 5 minutes before I actually get to them. So if I see a red blip, I know it's close by then.

So for me, in my current game, I am fine with my Perception set to 1 since I don't care for the perks.

if u dont use vats u probably should have put it in int. that gives u more skill points and in the end at level 30 i think that equalls 100+ skill points to add maybe more. but for weapons accuracy i kept picking intens training perk and got 9 int 9 strrength 8 agility 6 perception 4 luck but pick the finesse perk that adds 5 to ur luck and theres an outfit in that 2 guys shop (i forget there names) right through the gate behind gunrunners club that u can wear to boost ur luck another 5. and if other outfits u can wear to boost perception, speech, ect. with 9 str. and 8 agil. and 6 end. u can use any weapon (except minigun u need 10 strength for that.) and i put 80 in my guns and my character is serious.

I just found strange thing:

I wanted to test perception so I took position as far from target (Victor) as I could for VATS and planed to drug myself plus put on headgear, then compare VATS percentage. Now what I noticed is that each time I entered VATS, it showed different % chances to hit. Target was stationary, I was stationary. Same gun.

Than I actually tried to shot at his head which showed some 15% chance. 4 out of 4 hits landed.

There seems to be something odd about VATS...

I'm going to (or you can try this idea) do the same thing with Easy Pete when I get home tonight. He just sits on that chair outside of the bar, so I figure that is definitely stationary. I'm not saying your test wasn't sufficient, but Victor does move sometimes.

So were the VATS %'s different everytime you entered, even when you weren't using the drugs?

I have noticed this too but considering that the sniper scope is like 10000000 times better than the previous game i try not to do long distance VATS anymore, i stick to mainly using VATS for medium/close range

...And it would be edited back... and those edits would be visible....
What you want is a developer's personal explanation and guarantee?

For this kind of information, a peer review wiki is the best source other than personal examination of the game files. If the wiki was wrong about this, it would not remain that way for long.