Ammo.... : Fallout: New Vegas

» Wed May 11, 2011 1:14 am

...And proper shot shot placement. <_<

I wouldn't mind having even more ammo hand loading recipes possible, but they need to be harder to get hold of. Currently if you take Hand Loader, your damage gets a *substantial* boost from all the special ammo types you can make. Too easy. Really exotic ammo (9x19mm jacketed armor piercing rounds) ought to require points in Science to effectively manufacture.

That and no type of ammo should offer +damage% without drawbacks. Either you are putting more powder in the cartridge (+weaponDamage%), or you are making it expand and tumble better on soft targets which reduces its effect on hard ones (+targetDT). The .308 JSP, for example, is completely and utterly ludicrous with its +50% damage. Where, exactly, is this damage coming from? If you assume the standard .308 round is ball, then the JSP should do +damage% and +targetDT.

Agreed. Assuming "stock" ammo is ball (or more commonly known as full metal jacket, a type of bullet construction whereby the soft lead core is covered by a harder alloy of, usually, cupronickel for the purposes in military firearms of reducing lead bore fouling and thereby also reducing maintenance and prolonging barrel life. FMJ should NOT be confused with penetrator rounds like AP), then JSP, or jacketed soft point (basically a FMJ round with the very nose of the bullet not covered in the jacketing) should have greater damage, due to it's frangibility, on soft targets, and worse performance on hardened targets.

-Gunny out.

» Tue May 10, 2011 4:54 pm

Depleted Uranium shells would be cool for the AMR.

Why? A good steel- or tungsten-core penetrator should be quite sufficient given most every type of armor in-game, making DU little more than a nod to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool :shrug:

Only reason to add DU would be after the addition of something with an absurdly high DT rating, then you get the howls of rage about only one build, focusing on one class of weapons, standing a chance against a certain opponent.

» Tue May 10, 2011 11:47 pm

They made m1 garands with .308, and .223 is a little less powerful than 5.56

» Tue May 10, 2011 2:05 pm

I'm not sure what your specific complaint about the .308 round is, there are large variety of sniper and marksman rifles chambered in .308/7.62mm NATO. It's not at all foreign to the role. The Soviets also have the 7.62x54mm, which is ballistically extremely similar, and worked out great for their Mosin-Nagant snipers and then the SVD.

7.62x54R is roughly equivalent with .30-06 power wise, 7.62NATO is basically a .30-06 lite, it was the most the generals would allow the .30-06 to be nerfed as the DOD was looking to develop it's own "assault rifle". It's also capable of real precision.....the Finns did some amazing things with the Mosins they captured from the Russians.

» Tue May 10, 2011 2:23 pm

I do too, but remember this is a Sci-Fi retrofuturistic role-playing game that gains its roots from fears of what the apocolyptic world would be like from the 1950s (note that I said that it's what they thought what the world would be like, not the whole "they split from our timeline in the 1950s and never moved on" that I see in FO3...).

Not quite, It's not "how the apocalyptic world" looked like It's how the future would look like. AKA They still have vacuum tube computers and old style cars but they have robot butlers and ray guns along with cold fusion.

» Wed May 11, 2011 2:14 am

7.62x54R is roughly equivalent with .30-06 power wise, 7.62NATO is basically a .30-06 lite, it was the most the generals would allow the .30-06 to be nerfed as the DOD was looking to develop it's own "assault rifle". It's also capable of real precision.....the Finns did some amazing things with the Mosins they captured from the Russians.

I am not sure why everybody seems to think that the .30-06 is notably more powerful than the .308. The latter is not "nerfed", it is not "lite". Looking at ballistics tables, the .30-06 will deliver, on average, 100 footpounds more muzzle energy than the .308 using the same bullet.... out of 2800-2900ish. The .308 is slightly slower and thus slightly less powerful and slightly less flat, but this difference disappears into the variation of different loadings. The only really solid advantage the .30-06 seems to have is that it has more generous size specifications, enabling the use of a larger, heavier bullet than the .308 will allow; 220 grain bullet, a hair more energy, a lot less speed.

Pragmatically, the .308 is a redesign that acknowledges the .30-06 was unnecessarily large and shortens the design for economy of brass and weight. You have to remember that the .30-06 was designed when ammunition was undergoing radical changes owing to the introduction of new Spitzer type bullets and ongoing improvement of smokeless powder.

» Wed May 11, 2011 2:13 am

I am not sure why everybody seems to think that the .30-06 is notably more powerful than the .308. The latter is not "nerfed", it is not "lite". Looking at ballistics tables, the .30-06 will deliver, on average, 100 footpounds more muzzle energy than the .308 using the same bullet.... out of 2800-2900ish. The .308 is slightly slower and thus slightly less powerful and slightly less flat, but this difference disappears into the variation of different loadings. The only really solid advantage the .30-06 seems to have is that it has more generous size specifications, enabling the use of a larger, heavier bullet than the .308 will allow; 220 grain bullet, a hair more energy, a lot less speed.

Pragmatically, the .308 is a redesign that acknowledges the .30-06 was unnecessarily large and shortens the design for economy of brass and weight. You have to remember that the .30-06 was designed when ammunition was undergoing radical changes owing to the introduction of new Spitzer type bullets and ongoing improvement of smokeless powder.

Just for [censored] and giggles:

.308 180gr FMJ (Sellier & Bellot), fired from 24in barrel, 1-10 twist
Distance / Muzzle / 200yd / 1000yd
Velocity (fps) / 2411 / 2081 / 1131
Energy (ft-lb) / 2331 / 1735 / 511

.30-06 180gr FMJ (Sellior & Bellot), fired from 24in barrel, 1-12 twist
Distance / Muzzle / 200yd / 1000yd
Velocity (fps) / 2674 / 2281 / 1290
Energy (ft-lb) / 2684 / 2079 / 665

Info from Ammunition and Ballistics, 4th Edition. I used those particular bullets because I wanted to show identical bullets, by weight and construction from the same manfacturer so the comparison would be as close as possible and they were the first ones I came accross that were identical, not because they are any particular favorite loading of mine.

-Gunny out.

Edit: Curse you, lousy text formatting!

» Tue May 10, 2011 3:52 pm

Why? A good steel- or tungsten-core penetrator should be quite sufficient given most every type of armor in-game, making DU little more than a nod to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool :shrug:

Only reason to add DU would be after the addition of something with an absurdly high DT rating, then you get the howls of rage about only one build, focusing on one class of weapons, standing a chance against a certain opponent.

Well with these rounds that penetrate through almost all materials....Why can't I get some residual effect on the enemies that are standing in a line a la two birds with one stone especially with FMJ ammo...The cool factor of DU is high for me due to it being in my eyes the most extreme and exotic ammo you can get for small arms....Also, how about caseless ammo or the gyrojet ammo and gun?

» Tue May 10, 2011 9:46 pm

Your numbers show a variance greater than I was eyeballing, so I put together a spreadsheet to run numbers. Using http://www.shootingtimes.com/ballistics/ballistic-tables/ as a source of data (If you have some other table you trust more that's already digital, I'd be happy to run that through), and average the data for three popular bullet weights they share in common, I got:

(sorry about the colors, the forum is added that automatically)

             Bullet   EnergyCartridge    Weight   Muzzle    300y   500y.308         150        2664    1496    990.30-06       150        2842    1601   1055Differences    -         178     105     65.308         165        2622    1572   1088.30-06       165        2963    1751   1202               -         341     179    114.308         180        2656    1585   1100.30-06       180        2961    1762   1221               -         305     177    121

So. The .30-06 does have more of an advantage than 100ftlbs at the muzzle especially with heavier bullets, but the gap closes quite a bit at range. Bullet design is going to have more influence on terminal effect, with this small a variation in speed.

For continuing giggles, compare the military loading of .30-06 in use in the second world war, versus the initial loading of 7.62mm NATO?