Boone is only good with his hunting rifle, everything else he would throw it away at some point or another. 5.56mm surplus is plentiful, you can easily get at least hundred or few per vendor, not to mention it is available in all weapon vendors but Mick.

Plasma Caster is definitely accurate at medium range, I guess is the same old speed of plasma bolt that give people headache.

Never been a fan of Lever-Action style weapons myself. 12.7mm Submachine Gun with Silencer for me that or the good old fashioned 10mm Pistol with Silcencer. Only problem with the 12.7mm Machine Gun is the small clip size, however it has some stopping power at short range. I don't max a skill out to 100 due to the way the magizines work so never really used a 100 skill gun. Hunting Rifle with Scope and Extended Mags I find to be nice if I have to pick people off from some range and with a tasty 25% Crit Chance and a Riot Shotgun on standby just incase Deathclaws and Supermutants normally fall over very quickly. AP round to the head from Sneak at mid-long range from a Hunting Rifle or Sniper Rifle will do pretty much the same as most weapons at close range.

Plasma:
A good number of people complain of it being inaccurate.

Not quite true... the spread on a plasma rifle is 0.2, and the caster is 0.7.
With a stationary target I rarely miss.

The reason some people can't hit what they are aiming at (perceived inaccuracy),
is not the spread but the velocity of the projectile.

With a moving target and slow moving projectile, you need to lead the target.
*Gasp* ...I know, a novel idea for a video game...

So V.A.T.S takes the guesswork out of leading the target...
which is why if you use plasma you probably use V.A.T.S. too.

As far as This Machine, it has a spread of 0.5; disappointing at best.
M1 Garands are used in service rifle competition out to 600 yards all the time.
They should have at least included a match barrel & trigger mod to reduce the spread in game.

Only being able to hit stationary targets hardly befits a 100 skill weapon...
EDIT: Oh, and I prefer not to use VATS unless I'm being swarmed. if I say so myself, I have FPS experience and can aim better than what VATS would allow, normally. I did, as a matter of fact, use the Plasma Caster in VATS to see if it performed any better. Believe it or not, it's even more inaccurate!
Sniperbob: Yeah, it would be cool to have match-grade barrels for hunting rifles and such. They should have also had unique versions of the Hunting Rifle, Brush Gun, Trail Carbine, and AMR, but that's a different story entirely.

Scoped trail carbine is definitely one of the best weapons in the game, just never really used it that much. All American and the Dinner Bell are just my babies.

Most of them aren't really worth it in my book I like the Brush gun just a power house especially since you can get 45-70 gov now, and the plasma caster is excellent at close to medium once you learn how to aim. all of the top tier weapons have some advantages and disadvantages over their lowered tier bretheren mostly repair costs and range issues but used with the right play style any of them can do quite well they just require different tactics

Exactly, the Brush Gun is already stronger than the Plasma caster, it can have SWC rounds, fires a faster bullet, and can be far more deadly with the Cowboy Perk (which also makes things like the Trail Carbine and La Longue Carabine far more deadly). No options like this exist for the Plasma Caster. the energy weapons really got the short end of the stick this time around. Next time, or in future patches, the devs should really take balance into more consideration.

Will never happen, it make one person happy and piss off 10,000 others.

I was discussing this with Josh at one point, and the problem, as he put it forth is this: You cound make all the bullets in NV model drop if you wanted. All you have to do is flag the porjectile as a physics object in the geck and then model the proper gravity on them to work right. But flaging every bullet fired as a physics object could possibly create so many physics objects in the game (think of a couple of dudes battling it out with miniguns and how many bullets are flying around in the game space all at once. Flying away until they get to the max distance for that projectile and cease to exist.) that it could slow the frame rate down to a crawl or just outright crash your system. Super high end PC might be able to handle it, but there's no way the consoles or most of the PCs folks are playing this game on could handle it. Or at least that's how Josh put it.

-Gunny out.

Nvm about the Plasma Caster, just have to use it ike I used Dinner Bell previously. All-American is still garbage, my weapon used to kill weak opponents.

What that's news to me, The Marksman Carbine is easily the best Assault Rifle in the game. I love it because the rate of fire is perfect you don't need to mash the button you just repeatedly shoot it.

Huh? It only works against unarmored targets, and AP 5.56 ammo is quite rare. It is decent, but very limited; definitely not suited for many purposes like the Brush Gun, This Machine, Dinner Bell etc.

I bought a LMG at great expense, and it didn't do that much for me; I retired it in favor of my old assault carbine (with AP ammo) and gave it to Cass, who was my companion at the time (Arcade left and Boone got killed when we whacked Caesar). She shredded everything we met with it. So I know it's a good gun, it's just not my best gun.

One gun I've started to get really fond of on my second playthrough is the Assault Carbine (75 Guns skill). It shreds Cazador swarms at mid to close range, and 5 mm ammo is cheap and plentiful. It's not good against armored enemies, and the muzzle flash at night is really bad, but under the right conditions it's a great little weapon.

I think it really says something that there is no perfect weapon for every circumstance. At close range I like to use either the Diner Bell, or Vance's 9mm, depending on what I'm up against. At medium range I like the Ranger Sequia, Auto-Rifle, or This Machine. Lastly, at long range, either marksmen carbine or anti-material rifle. And if all else fails there's always high explosives... Mu-ha-ha-ha!

Trail Carbine, Brush Gun, Holorifle, Plasma Caster, Multiplas and YCS is pretty good for handling all situation with regular rounds; the list would be two or three fold consider all the rounds available.

QUOTE: One gun I've started to get really fond of on my second playthrough is the Assault Carbine (75 Guns skill). It shreds Cazador swarms at mid to close range, and 5 mm ammo is cheap and plentiful. It's not good against armored enemies, and the muzzle flash at night is really bad, but under the right conditions it's a great little weapon.

Try using AP ammo in it. It's pricier, but it slices through most Legionaire armor no problem.
'
And I'm a new convert to the Brush gun. Ammo for it is hard to get early on, but it's a killer piece.

The Thermic Lance, horrible weapon with a skill requirement of 100. The chainsaw has the exact same DPS and has a skill requirement of 75. I heard someone on YouTube say it's fun to draw dikcs on the wall with the thermic lance though.

Thermic Lance have higher skill requirement because its more valuable.

Thermic Lance doesn't hold a candle to Oh, Baby! but it does look cooler

I use vats as seldomly as possible and I absolutely love the All-American. The LMG is also pretty great, if you can find a vendor with the .223 ammo boxes buy them up and unleash. If only we could construct some of the 5.56/.223 ammo.

The All-American though, it's a M-4 with a camo paintjob, extremely accurate, fires as fast as you can pull the trigger and has a scope. Pretty sweet gun.

Having said that, This Machine blows it away =)

Really? Even with ~60 guns skill, the LMG is an amazing weapon.

Guns are tools, people. Different tools for different tasks. All-American, This Machine, LGM and the Brush Gun are simply not in the same category.

All-American has a scope. That should be a big fat hint about how the gun is intended to be used- sniping at long range against lightly armored enemies- Fiends, Feral Ghouls, Nightstalkers, even Cazadors. If you want to hunt Deathclaws or NCR Heavy Troopers, All-American is the wrong gun to carry, obviously, but that's just common sense.

The LMG, like the SMGs, is a panic weapon. A "spray and pray" gun. You deploy it in situations where the sheer volume of fire is more important than accuracy- relatively close range, multiple targets, high pace of battle. If you're being charged by a swarm of Cazadors, or if need to defend a mountain pass against a wave of Legionnaires and their dogs at Bitter Springs, the LMG is perfect for the job; you can simply hold down the mouse button and "walk" your fire onto targets. You can use it to wear down a single large target by racking up the DPS with sustained fire, too, although a Brush Gun is better suited for that. But you can't do long-range sniping with it.

This Machine's spread and magazine capacity suggest that it should be grouped with high-powered handguns, not with rifles. It's a good weapon against a single tough opponent at close to medium range. If you didn't take the Cowboy perk, This Machine is a viable alternative to Ranger Sequoia or a non-scoped Trail Carbine, and at closer ranges may even have advantages over the Brush Gun. It's one of the best guns to give to Boone. But its neither a sniper gun nor is it very well suited for out-of-V.A.T.S defense against a swarm of fast opponents like Cazadors and Nightstalkers.

i just started using the all american and its working out great for me against even the toughest enemies,think you might be doin something wrong.

Never heard of a Swiss army knife or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzpRh-ZE9Mo?


Ever heard of AP rounds?


I wouldn't give it to Boone as he have the tenancy to drop any good decent weapon on him. This Machine fire and reload pretty fast, it wouldn't have any problem taking down a horde of Cazador or Nightstalkers.