Anyone else notice that the Marksman Carbine, All-American, and LMG, all weapons with a 100 skill requirement, are quite bad? They're all terribly weak; with the only good part being their DPS. Same for the Plasma Caster; the thing is heavy, rare, expensive to maintain, and not accurate past 10 feet. Can anyone suggest better ways of using it, because I am about to go back to the superior YCS and Q-35 (I never had hopes for the All-American after seeing its pathetic damage).

I'm great with all American and marksman carbine.

the mg helped me kill deathclaws.
All great guns

I wouldn't call them great. After completing Bleed Me Dry, destroying the Fort/Silver Rush and selling loot, and getting banned from all the casinos, one will have a small fortune. From that small fortune, one can buy a lifetime supply of .308 from Sgt. Contreras, as well as lead and powder. Then, with the Hand Loader perk, one can make large amounts of .308 JSP. Turn in Contreras to get This Machine, and with your large supply of .308 JSP, you are unstoppable. This is far more viable than using the mediocre All-American, a 100 skill gun, as opposed to a 75 skill gun like This Machine.

The All American is a mainstay in my arsenal, line up one torso shot in vats and as soon as the sequence ends just pop em about three or forur times, rince and repeat, you can make a bunch of guys dead that way. The rest of them I dont really know, never really used them that much.

OK, but wouldn't you agree that it is far more convenient to use This Machine to accomplish the same in one or two bullets? What I'm trying to say is that gun balance is rather bad in this game, if a 75 skill gun can outperform a 100 skill gun so drastically.

lol... I know what you mean.
For 90% of the game my go-to long guns are the cowboy repeater and trail carbine.
Devastatingly effective w/cowboy + hand-loader.
They are 25 skill and 75 skill respectively.

I had much higher expectations of a gun called the all-American.
But given America's history maybe the lever-guns should be considered "All-American".

Haha, finally someone who agrees. The All-American is trash compared to This Machine, and the Plasma Caster is trash compared to the YCS. I could take out a group of Deathclaws with the YCS before they would even come close to Plasma Caster range.

It just all comes down to preference I guess, i've used This Machine before but I just dont care for it that much. Plus I can use the All American at a much longer range way easier thanks to the scope, This Machine has a crappy spread on it and I like to keep medium distance between me and my enemies.

See, the DT system in this game makes the DPS stat irrelevant if the DAM/-DT of your gun does not exceed the DT of your target.
Translation: Big bullets = happy courier.

As for anything with "plasma" in its name - the projectile is just too slow.
Spread isn't the issue, pathetically low velocity is.

BTW- DLC weapon idea: Quiggly Sharps... even more DAM than the Brush Gun, and cowboy still applies.

I would be content with the Plasma Caster if it had the accuracy of a Q-35 and more HP. As for the All-American, a special -10DT effect would be nice

Next Fallout Game:
1. Increase the range at which the game renders the NPCs
2. calculate loss in velocity at various ranges
3. calculate loss in ft-lbs of energy at long range.
4. calculate bullet drop

Then the .556 and .308 will be better than .357/.44 mag.

Oh- and just where is my AK-47????
If there are two things that will survive a nuclear Apocalypse its cockroaches and the AK-47.

All - America is very good, So is the marksmen carbine. The only thing I don';t like with the MG is it gets damaged way to fast. I mainly use it as a companion weapon just for that. With Suplus ammo it gets to basiclly zero with out finishing a clip of 200 rounds.

True, a post-apocalyptic survival RPG NEEDs an AK-47, this was appeased somewhat with the Chinese Assault Rifle in FO3, so I was sad to see it go in NV.

Correction: It's a good mid-level weapon. It is only really better than This Machine in terms of DPS, which is nowhere near as important as DAM. Plus with the variety of ways one can get money in this game, ammo is definitely not a problem.

DPS only counts when every single bullet hits the target.
If you only hit your target with every other bullet - cut your DPS in half.

Actual high DPS weapons are repeating rifles and carbines.

Granted the higher your targets DT the lower your actual DPS.

Heavy caliber repeating rifles have good DPS because:
1. They punch through DT
2. They offer repeating firepower
3. They hit the target most of the time.

The All American is exactly what it says on the tin. It's light to carry, it has good range on it and target acquisition is easy.
This Machine is unreliable at range and it has woeful sights. Even at point blank spam range where This Machine should shine, the All American kills about as fast due to the (apparently irrelevant) DPS.

I don't use either of them.

The iron sights being bad is subjective. As for the accuracy, with the correct perks and use of .308 JSP, This Machine is a monster.

Indeed. However when given to companions, they kill stuff at about the same speed in my experience. All American is somewhat better do to it's better ROF and larger mag.

The only real time This Machine is better than the All American is on targets that have a DT too high for the All American to break through, and then i'd rather just keep shooting until it gets into close range and bust out my Ranger Sequoia and hit em in the head with vats. Thats where hand loader shines for me buddy, 45-70 rounds, cant nothing stop them.

That's a pretty big reason why you would want to use This Machine because it can tear through even high level enemies, which is more than what I can say for the All-American. And the Ranger Sequoia is a different story altogether. You'd be better off using the Brush Gun anyway, because the Sequoia is weaker and can't even be used as a holdout weapon. The Brush Gun is one of the few 100 skill weapons that is actually good.

Meh dont really like the Brush gun either, rather just keep the Sequoia for those oh crap moments and keep using the All American for everything else. It gets me through 90% of the encounters I have and the Sequoia gets me through the other 10%.

Trail Carbine.

.44 mag - never failed to cut through DT; and puts 'em down right now. Abundant ammo.

Repeating firepower - fast but controllable ROF & more capacity than a revolver

Accurate - much more so than this machine

excellent sight picture - your choice of iron sight wo/peep or scope.

Extremely durable

The trail carbine is my go-to gun for any situation.

No.

Marksman Carbine, All-American, and LMG are excellent companion weapons.
Plasma Caster is quite accurate for me, I am not sure how it is inaccurate past 10ft.

And if you can't use it, don't.

This Machine rocks at medium distance. It's not a long-range sniper rifle and I don't expect it to be.

I haven't used any carbine type weapon too much myself...I usually give them to companions, who rock with them. So I can't really compare my personal aiming skill with them. But they seem effective enough against tougher enemies when companions use them. eg, they never holler they can't punch through or anything like that. I think at least 20% of damage goes through no matter what someone's DT is, so rapid fire (assuming it's fairly accurate of course) still does a lot of dmg in a short period of time. 5.56 ammo is cheap, .308 is a little more. I don't feel like doing the math, but I have a feeling that for those of us who do not use VATS, at least in medium-to-closer ranges (vs sneak-long-distance sniping), the cost may often balance out. (edit) (Like with most weapons)...mostly I think it's just playstyle/attack preference and of course skills & stats.

Obviously, the 10ft bit was an exaggeration. It is, however, a very inaccurate weapon, its only real purpose being a close range powerhouse, which I feel the Dinner bell accomplishes much better (slugs at medium range, magnum ammo at close range). Also, for me, companions with any semi or fully automatic weapons waste so much ammo. And Boone is much better with an AMR anyway; not only is it fitting, but it's potent as well. Veronica on the other hand is a monster with the Ballistic Fist.