Is explosives really i viable skill to have in NV?

I have hardy come across any frag grenades etc and when i do use them they do extremely minimal damage (albeit my explosives skill is only 40)

Your thoughts?
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I love Explosives. Especially Incendiary Grenades and Plasma Grenades (I hate energy weapons, but Plasma Grenades are fun).

Mines can be fun if you kite targets into them.

Soften up the enemy with explosives and then blast 'em in the face with a shotgun slug.

Oh yes.

Its more of a secondary weapon skill that supposed something else in my opinion. The Missile Launcher and Fat Man are explosives now but ive only come across 2 Mini-Nukes in 50+ hours of gameplay.

Fatman
Missile Launcher
Grenade Rifle
Grenade Launcher
Grenade Machine Gun

Incendiary Grenade
Frag Grenade
Pulse Grenade
Plasma Grenade
Dynamite
Long-Fuse Dynamite

C-4
Powder Charge
Time Bomb
Frag Mine
Pulse Mine
Plasma Mine

I think you weren't looking hard enough, there's a crapload of weapons for an explosives character, all you need to do is look at the right places.

It's more useful than in FO3, since several of the weapons that were Big Guns in FO3 are now in the Explosives category. And there are more explosive weapons overall.

I found explosive underwhelming...until I found the unique Grenade Machine Gun.

It is worth noting that they "fix" explosive the wrong/lazy direction...in FO3 their blast radius is too small making them not doing the damage they are supposed to; where as in NV their blast radius is a bit too large makes you get damage by you own blast quite often.

There is also another thing worth noting: Obsidian kinda forgot about AP option for explosives......

AP as in armor piercing or as in action points? The Loose Cannon trait does make their action points cheaper. I think the fact that there is nothing armor piercing is compensated for generally very high DAM that can be made even higher with 3 ranks of Demolitions Expert (not to mention Psycho).

AP as in "armor penetration", which so far as I've figured out so far in the GECK, cannot be added to explosions (which is a special effect that does all the damage).

Explosives in FO:NV suffer from multiple issues (which is why I made http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36208):

- Some have too small of a blast radius (especially the mines)
- Some are too large of a radius (missile explosions)
- Some have their damage nerfed into oblivion (mini-nukes w/ base damage of only 165 when C4 does 250)

The only solution for the AP issue is to boost the explosives and adjust the radius until it feels "almost there" with 50 explosives and no perks. Although I haven't completely explored enchants to see whether there's one that takes AP into account to let it do extra damage.

As for the various ammo:

Frag grenades/mines are much more rare then in FO:3. The bottom of the list is now Dynamite (and Long Fuse variant) and Powder Charges which are improvised weapons that do a basic amount of damage. It's not hard to have a few hundred Dynamite, a few dozen Powder Charges, but only a dozen frag mines and a few dozen frag grenades. Plus the frag variants are 10x-30x more expensive. Plasma is even rarer then frags. On the upside, the pulse variants are very effective in the base game and the incendiary ammo is not bad (but not great either).

I'm just disappointed that they specifically nerfed the Fat Man's mini-nukes in the base game because they felt it was too overpowered. The ammo weighs 5.0, it's rarer then hen's teeth, and you'll probably never have more then 6 on you at any time. I changed it in DENV to have 450 base damage instead of 165 and increased the projectile velocity by 50% so that it could be sent farther downrange. Which makes it a lot of fun to use and worth carrying for those special moments.

Also high explosives means disarming mines and grabbing them for your later use. I'm unconvinced of the value of being a primary explosives character.. but for my gun nut I find explosives to be a nice backup. Good for taking out ants and radscorpions and groups of weaker humans.

Ap as in armour penetration.

I think there is a mod which adds 'homemade' rounds for grenade launchers and missile launchers.

Snabbik: I think you can make new ammo type which x40 or so dmg (since the round is like 2 dmg) and -10AP for missile and grenade launchers with a small explosive radius, effectively Anti-Armour explosives.

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You shouldn't be using explosives in close combat situations. Common sense.

I personally modded them to have a bit smaller blast radius and about 30% more damage.

Actually makes the powder gangers kind of dangerous in the early game.

Dynamite is ridiculously good/common in the early game. IMO it takes the place of frags, which are much rarer. Eventually you start finding Grenade Launchers, Missile Launchers, and Flamers/Incinerators, which are really useful with high explosives. My main problem is the lack of range with thrown weapons in free-aim, as well as the grenade launcher's lack of range, but the Missile Launcher makes up for that.

Sadly Common Sense is now all but extinct . However there is a perk which adds to your DT vs explosives which does include your own, which can help reduce the damage you inflict on yourself with close quarters grenade chucking.

I found Dynamite lacking....at least outside of Bison Steve.

I was trying to chuck a few to the PG's assaulting Goodspring and the result? nothing but a few shot slug in the face.

You can get bucketloads of powder charges, dynamite and the odd frag grenade from the powder gangers outside goodsprings

Flamers use energy not explosives. Finding that out the hard way with the melt-down perk was "fun".

I can live with grenades being worthless against armoured, even if it clashes with realism. But a supermutant getting hit in the head by a missile and not even doing a quarter of the damage a sniper round would is unacceptable. Come on, the shell is bigger than it's head.

That's certainly more realistic, if you consider that the casualty radius of a typical grenade is about 15 meters, and can be dangerous far beyond that. It's not out of line to end up crippling yourself in game for throwing a grenade into a room corner or down the hall, and that doesn't even take into account the kind of shock effect you get when used indoors.

I think that the explosive skill should only focus on the "throwing, or usage" of the weapon, let's really think about this, what is the difference IRL of two guys, one with a great arm that can throw it right in your damn pocket and the other guy that can only throw it (at best) a few feet from you? Nothing, that's what. Either way, you're dead. I think they should have just made the explosives skill all about throwing it as opposed to how much damage the "device" does. Regardless, if I have a explosives skill of 20 and I end up throwing the grenade (or whatever) a few feet from you....I'm sorry, you're dead. :nuke:

Or for example, If someone wants to take their toon to 100 explosives skill, say, for example in V.A.T.S. your toon is so good with explosives that he can cook and throw the "device" and have it explode perfectly right in front of the mobs face for more damage, or something like that. But really, if you are within the "Blast range" weather it's a few inches or a few feet of an explosive device, I don't care what your "skill" is, you're dead!

P.S. The only people that might not die from such a close proximity explosion in this game would be the BOS troops in full armor.

P.P.S. Ok, if I have a nuke that I am launching anywhere near you (yes I'm talking to you Mr. Deathclaw man) you are liquefied, not slightly damaged, not take slight armor reduction from the blast. NO, you're absolutely 1000% destroyed.

So, In that aspect, yes IMO, while being fun sometimes, explosives are useless.

Explosives skill is broken by how manufacturing works. If you could make enough grenades and mines yourself - it wouldn't be a bad idea to go Explosives. It also could allow you an alternative way to open a safe with a charge.

As people have said earlier, it is a very nice secondary skill i think. Not too fond of dynamite, but once you find your grenade rifle and get a long tube on it, it is very useful. Lobbing a few incindary or frags into a large group before going to work with my repeater puts a smile on my face

I have had a lot of fun with the unique missile launcher :Annebelle. I took explosives just so my grenades and dynamite would be more effective, but then I tried out Thump Thump and Annebelle. A missile not doing as much as a sniper bullet is 100% correct physics. Imagine trying to puncture a piece of armor with a broad explosion, now imagine a tiny force-focused bullet with over three times the velocity. An explosive device is meant for impact radius and not for penetration. I tried Annebelle on the mutants too and was unimpressed, but then I launched a missile from it into Cook-Cook's house and cackled as five bodies blew apart just inside the window. Even got his head intact somehow as well. I have also caught a radscorp, 2 brahmin, and 2 fiends in one HE missile shot. Thrown versions of explosives are obviously harder to aim, and therefore so an extreme amount of damage when they DO hit. Explosives work as intended in my humble opinion.

Which is why you don't use HE ammo against armored targets and instead break out the AP rounds. The RL US military does just that with their tank shells, they have the HVAPFSDS round which is expressly designed for anti-armor use. They also use APDU rounds for the really tough stuff- these have a depleted uranium slug as a core and can punch through almost anything.

Thus, I would say there is ample precedent for having missiles do more damage than bullets regardless of whether or not the target has heavy armor. Even with HE rounds there is still the concussive force of the blast wave, which can readily pulp the innards of the target even if it doesn't penetrate the body armor. Unfortunately there is no in-game model for compression damage, so HE rounds fall short of where they should be.

Missiles lagging behind bullets is not new to F:NV, it happened in FO3 too. This was especially noticeable if the bullet user was a sniper character, since every hit was a sneak critical for hundreds of damage. I ended up adding Missile weapons to the Demolition Expert form list and increasing their base damage in order to boost their damage to where I felt it should be.

I have yet to try out the Grenade Machine Gun due to ammo being hard to come by, perhaps once I get my Explosives skill to a high level I will see how it performs.

Kanthor, dude, I'm taking about a missle hitting a FACE and doing next to no damage. Correct physics that. Good luck.