ammo crafting : Fallout: New Vegas

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:21 am

Hand Loader custom ammo is amazing.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:03 am

Haven't bothered with ammo crafting at all, ammo seems far more plentiful in general than it was in the last game (I only carry three guns as opposed to the half-dozen I'd lug around with me in 3 and I've never come close to running out for any of them).

It isn't the amount of ammo in the game, there's plenty, it's how awesome the Hand Loaded ammo is. This Machine with .308 JSP? Amazing. Sniper with the same? Equally Amazing. Dinner Bell with Magnums? Close quarter Deathclaw annihilator.

I love ammo crafting. I only use ammo I craft at this point. It's easy once you understand it.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:56 am

Im too lazy. in the games self adjusting economy, i just go to contrreas (the NCR supply clerk at camp mc carron) and he always has 1000 or so .308 rounds and since i only use the sniper rifle i have plenty of ammo.(2836 to be exact!!)

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:19 am

* slug, crowd control, more spread

I would just like to point out that a slug has less spread since it is basically a huge, solid chunk of lead fired out of a shotgun. So normal rounds have a spread where the slug is like a high caliber rifle round.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:30 pm

Wrong, it's not useful only at the beginning, it's even more useful as game progresses and I do it all the time. Typically I will make ammo out of surplus hulls just to restock what I am using without having to pay for it. But that's only a part of it. Reloading Bench gets really cool after I grab Hand Loader perk allowing to make awesome custom ammo.

10mm JHP - +65% damage
.308 JSP - +50% damage
.357 JFP - -20% spread, -3 enemy DT, +25% damage
45-70 SWC and .44 SWC - +20% damage, -6 enemy DT
.50 Match - +15% dmg, -35% spread

Since you can make those by simply converting basic ones, they aren't hard to make, they often leave surplus materials and they actually increase gun damage by quite a lot.

* .308s are the best example here, find me a perk that would increase your damage by 50% on every bullet, I freaking dare you.
* Another example, hand-loaded .50 MGs for Anti-materiel rifle make more damage than AP rounds of the same type, guess what's easier to acquire.
* Finally, give Tejada a Ranger Sequoia with SWC, enter a Cozador nest and just watch. :-)

How hard is to buy 300 of basic ones at Gun Runners, walk three steps to the reloading bench next to the store and convert them to 200 rounds with half more damage?

Another excellent example of customizing ammo are .12ga shotguns. 12 gauge ammo comes in a number of types:
* base
* magnum, +15% dmg
* beanbag, no damage but slows enemy down
* slug, crowd control, more spread
* coin shot, made out of denarius for sale with huge profit margins

You give enemy a few beanbags, then finish him off with magnums. Dinner Bell from being an average gun suddenly becomes your all-around boss-killer.

Finally energy weapons, why not make a bunch of max charge MFCs and switch Gauss to them when you need to send Mommy Deathclaw flying?

You still say you can't be bothered to make your gun do 25-50% more damage at almost no expense? Well... stop playing on easy? ;-)

What he saids except you can also break down something like 5, 9, or 10mm to provide you enough material to make every single round into hand loaded ones.

The perk actually makes me want to get near the reload bench, which is nice.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:09 pm

It isn't the amount of ammo in the game, there's plenty, it's how awesome the Hand Loaded ammo is. This Machine with .308 JSP? Amazing. Sniper with the same? Equally Amazing. Dinner Bell with Magnums? Close quarter Deathclaw annihilator.

I love ammo crafting. I only use ammo I craft at this point. It's easy once you understand it.

I'm sure you're right, and if I could be bothered to up the difficulty I'm sure I'd learn to love the hand loaded ammo, but on normal difficulty I haven't come across anything I can't kill with regular bullets. And I doubt I will bother to up the difficulty, as in 3 it just turned the enemies into bullet sponges and I suspect that hasn't changed. Still, I'm not knocking those who do get something out of it. Just adds unnescessary inventory clutter for me though.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:55 pm

The materials may not have weight (except lead... which I have like 80 lbs of), but you can only breakdown and combine at ammo benches. At that point they have weight....so effectively its the same as making them materials have weight. I guess if you do not mind constantly traveling to ammo benches I guess it would be sorta cheap.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:05 am

I'm sure you're right, and if I could be bothered to up the difficulty I'm sure I'd learn to love the hand loaded ammo, but on normal difficulty I haven't come across anything I can't kill with regular bullets. And I doubt I will bother to up the difficulty, as in 3 it just turned the enemies into bullet sponges and I suspect that hasn't changed. Still, I'm not knocking those who do get something out of it. Just adds unnescessary inventory clutter for me though.

I 2 shot a legendary deathclaw with an AMR (your mileage may vary) on very hard/hardcoe mode. The higher difficulties actually make you use the perks and whatnot instead of just half-assing everything.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:59 pm

I buy a bulk of .308 and 12 gauge, break them down, and make them more powerful.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:15 am

The higher difficulties actually make you use the perks and whatnot instead of just half-assing everything.

Really? That's an improvement from 3 then, aside from needing to use chems more often the only feature hard/very hard mode introduced was raiders that took half-a-dozen headshots to kill. If that's changed, great, maybe I'll give it a go. If it still just gives people titanium skulls I think I'll pass.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:12 pm

Really? That's an improvement from 3 then, aside from needing to use chems more often the only feature hard/very hard mode introduced was raiders that took half-a-dozen headshots to kill. If that's changed, great, maybe I'll give it a go. If it still just gives people titanium skulls I think I'll pass.

It depends on how you make your character. If you are not combat oriented the fights can last a while sometimes. My first play through there were no long fights except at the beginning because I slowly increased my primary weapon skill instead of rushing it to 100.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:30 pm

Combat or non-combat, 1000 .308s or 5000, you want to have +50% more damage per a bullet. If you can buy 1000 from Contreras it means you can make 900 hand-loaded and shoot once instead of shooting twice.

If your character is a weakling, you want to have those hand-loaded ammunitions twice more because he most likely can't spam.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:46 am

Its important to remember that many of the shells you have are from ammo you used, with the ammo crafting you can break down ammo you don't use into useful lead, powder and primer then create the ammo you do use.

You recover shells when you shooting, so you can break down a few hundred 5mm and use those materials into your recovered 5.56mm shells, you can get more if you actually manage to buy some shell casing.

Hand Loading not only gives access to some awesome ammo to use, but increases your shell recovery rate, it can be as high as 40% so after firing 1,000 rounds of 5.56mm you'd have 400 shell casings, it be easy to buy some cheap 5mm[which can be bought in high numbers quite easily] break them down and then make the more expensive 5.56mm that your using.
No denying that is a lot of ammo saving.

Its also really helpful for the more rare ammo that can be difficult to find

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:59 am

I use Plasma weapons so I dont craft ammo, I do however recycle microfusion cells.

As for the other ammo, I just buy them off the gun-runners

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:49 pm

I craft ammo all the time. I use the handloader perk to get all the fancy ammo types that you can't buy, which is the only thing that really makes it worth it for me, but some of those ammo types are pretty powerful. And in hardcoe mode I break down all the ammo types I don't use and craft them back into the types that are useful to me. It also appeals to my interests and seems a little more fun than just buying the ammo, even at those times when it's not really that useful.

I agree 100% with the complaints of inventory clutter though, I hate having all the extra casings from useless ammo that I broke down in my inventory, and even more so the supposed "quest items" I can't drop, but that's a completely separate issue.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:53 am

I use it when I have plenty of cases for ammo that is pretty hard to come by, like 12.7mm bullets. AFAIK, 12.7mm can't be purchased. I've never seen it for sale at any vendor at any rate.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:31 pm

Except for 5.56mm, every round I fire is hand loaded. Last time I checked I had ~600 10mm JHP, ~700 .44 SWC and nearly 1,000 .308 JSP rounds. Can't even carry them all at once on hardcoe mode.

Also, got a small nest egg of about 120 45-70 Gov't SWC rounds for Brush Gun ownage. (<-- no better description)

If I ever get around to buying the AMR the only rounds that'll grace it is the ".50MG Match Grade" hand loads.

Yeah, I think the ammo crafting system is great.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:22 am

I use it when I have plenty of cases for ammo that is pretty hard to come by, like 12.7mm bullets. AFAIK, 12.7mm can't be purchased. I've never seen it for sale at any vendor at any rate.

12.7mm rounds can be bought they just don't show up very often (i have nearly 800 12.7mm rounds) but i have only found one person who sells normal .45-70 gov't rounds (which i have only 80-90 rounds), mean while i have at least 2000 normal rounds for all other caliburs and gauges (even .50 for the AMR and have nearly 10,000 5.56mm and .308 cal rounds).

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:44 am

I see alot of people say yo ushould be doing ammo crafting on harder difficulities.....

I just finished playing through the MQ on Hard with hardcoe mode on and I found all the base ammo worked just fine...sure might have etaken a few more shots but nothing special. I will admit on Very Hard you really do need that extra bonus fro mthe ammo.

I feel it is more of a bonus for players that like having lots of choice on how ot approach a situation, and enjoy attacking people in ways other then 'Fill with holes'.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:56 am

Hand Loading perk = +50% more damage with your sniper rifle.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:36 pm

I reload.

I did it religiously at the lower levels when I generally had very little money, which is a bit like being at level 19, but without all the good guns and stuff. I'm still a tad short on .44 ammo, so every so often I knock up a batch.

But I've just bought myself a brand spanking new .45-70, and lo and behold, did a tour of the traders and dealers and could only find 16, that's right, sixteen, .45-70 rounds. And no cases....

So it's back to the .44, and the big gun is now sitting in the locker....grrrr....

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:24 am

I craft ammo all the time only worthy crafting table worth using compared to science and survival.

.44 and Gov. is a [censored] to find, so its very useful.

Also I like making my own JSP .308 rounds

And conversion is really sweet to have and alot simpler.

Also remember in misc items you can find primer, lead, and powder if your missing something for your ammo you want to make.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:38 am

Too lazy to use it.

When two AP Rounds from a Sniper Rifle can take down pretty much anything in the game, why bother?

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:37 am

Because hand loaded ones can do it faster?

I really don't get why is 50cal more available compare to .44 and .45; the later two suppose to be commercial rounds?

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:59 pm

Because hand loaded ones can do it faster?

I really don't get why is 50cal more available compare to .44 and .45; the later two suppose to be commercial rounds?

Idk, every gun store I've visited in the past month has had all three. 50 cals are usually just more expensive.