I can just tell you what my experience was. I didn't miss them, and I use VATS pretty often. Have to say, I'm fine with 85% accuracy, though. At close however, I'm usually always at 90 and above.
It's also very much depending on the weapon you are using.

85% is plenty, especially with your very lite AP weapons. I would have recommended Concentrate Fire if you ain't going for Demolition Expert.

So, basically you're saying Commando and Sniper don't do much? Remember that I'll virtually always be using VATS (except when I'm using the Gatling Laser or Minigun). I don't want to have to be within arms length of enemies to get a good chance to hit them, lol. I usually go for headshots as well for most damage possible.

As for Scrounger, by mid-late game, you'll supposedly (from I've heard) have tons of caps anyway, couldn't you just buy more ammo if you needed it?

Scrounger is rather useless, unless you don't buy ammo at all; but even then you have Fiends to provide you with all the energy cells.

Commando and Sniper are great, they transform 60% to 85%; but with Concentrated Fire you can turn that 85% in to 95%.

I'm so torn now - freqnasty says that Commando and Sniper are a waste of perk slots, while you and Skyline are saying the opposite =S. If I had save games to compare, I would happily do so, but having not played NV yet, it's just not feasible.

Honestly, you want my final take on it? Just go for it. Don't worry about getting it perfect the 1st time around because that rarely happens in RPG playthroughs.

You've done enough worrying; just go kick some butt, ya know? :thumbsup:

Haha yeah, I gotcha. I'm just such a perfectionist when it comes to RPGs... always gotta get my "perfect" build, taking everything into account. I'm sure I'll play through multiple times like I did with F3 anyway. Will let you know how my build turns out. Watch, knowing my luck, the patch release this week will alter a bunch of stuff and I'll have to revise things =P.

You need to play the game for a while for the "perfect" build. I yet to encounter a RPG game that you can get a "perfect" build on paper without playing the game at all.

Actually, it already got released haha. You can tell based on the controlled chaos in the Mod Section of these forums and NVSE. No sign of patch notes, so honestly, just give it a shot. When the patch notes are up, then decide. For now, just play and see how it goes. There's always the 2nd character being an enhanced version of the 1st.

Err, the patch is already out? There's be a readme along with it? May as well grab it before I start.

I also forgot to ask, Tag skills - I have EW, Explosives and Repair selected. Doesn't seem balanced to me though... what's your take?

No Update Notes yet but it shouldn't be that dramatic for changing your setup.

Tag skills? I say those fit well with what you're going after. Having a head-start for EW and Repair is nice since you're aiming for perks with 90 skill in them. Explosives, based on your perk setup, needs to get to 50 stat so yep. Go with it.

Sweet. On a different note, are you familiar with any popular NV UI mods? I remember I used such mods for Oblivion and F3 which made things like dialogue and the pipboy much smaller and view much more at once.

That would be http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1143482-wipzbeta-darnified-ui-nv/. The thread's closed but the download link still works.

Ah yes, DarNifieD, now I remember =P. Glad he's still working on it. Thanks!

I can't wait until we're presented with an Unofficial Patch for NV, similar to the way Oblivion and F3 had one which had massive amounts of fixes that the devs never bothered to take care of (unless there is already one out and I've missed it).

Well, the difference is Obsidian do fix the game twice as oppose to never with FO3.

My tags usually are going to Lockpick, Speech and Repair.
They are all very helpful from the first minute on. I always boost Lockpick to 55 till I arrive in Primm, so that I can pick the safe with Lucky in it.
As for the discussion about Commando/Sniper. Before reaching Level 8, save the game. Pick Commando.
Start a gunfight, and decide whether it is worth using a perk slot for it or not. If yes, continue, if not reload, and pick something different. Easy as pie.
The "perfect build" is something one has to decide about for himself. That is entirely subjective to the person playing. The build I've posted here is very close to what I call perfect, while others have completely other build ups in mind for that.
As for Scrounger, remember there is no merchant, where you could buy Energy ammo in huge quantities, like for conventional gunpowder rounds.
I can really say, I did not regret finding some addtional 120ECP or 40SEC to the 20 rounds of 10mm ammo, the ammo box would have yield.
If you're relying heavily on EW, ammo supply is a question you'll have to deal with, in contrast to being a gun user, where all types off bullets are available in abundance.
I did not start using EW before I reached Lvl22(that's when Laser Commander became available, and my skill was finally ramped up), so I had time to build up a certain stock, and I'm pretty glad about it.
A good way of getting along is to buy Bulk ammo. These are really cheap, just a cap per shot for a MFC, that's 1/3 of the usual cost, and while it does only 85% of the usual damage, it has also just 85% of the usual wear & tear ratio.
I found the Bulk ammo to be excellent for my AER14, and use it exclusively now, and keep the regular MFCs for conversion into Max Charges, which I use with the Gauss Rfile. Remember, a Max Charge costs 5 regular ammo units to make, so even a stock of 2000 units of a certain type can be much less than one might initially think.

Not true. you can buy up to 60 SEC in Primm (and NCRCF if you managed). If you also buy bulk ammo, you wouldn't have shortage of it.

While "perfect" build are subject to style, there would still be a skeleton which it drawn from; still, not straight out of paper.

Yeah, 60 SEC. That still is something different to 1.200 rounds of 12.7mm, 400 rounds of 45-70, 2.000 rounds of 5mm, etc. You don't find these quantities for Energy ammo.
60 SEC, that is using Pew Pew exactly 4 times :laugh: Ok, joking aside, it's 30 shots for the Plasma Defender. Not really that much considering you'd have to wait another 3 days ingame until Nash sells you another 60.
I'm not saying you'll run out of ammo, when playing EW, but one thing is for sure, you will have to invest quite a bit more time for looking after supplies

Fiends are free for you to farm.

And by the time you get 1.2k 12.7mm and 400 45-70 on vendor, you should have a dozen vendor selling 100 ECP, 80 SEC and 60 MFC.

Than there is the Van Graff's.

Quite a bit more time? only if you use Pew Pew exclusively.

A lot of them just carry pool cues or caravan shotguns. Those who carry Plasma rifles do only carry about 10MFC. Only those carrying Laser Rifles yield 40 MFCs.




The Gun Runners, Contreras, Barton, Alexander and the Brotherhood chick have these huge quantities right on from the start.
And there aren't a dozen vendors selling EW ammo in the quantities you mention. the more usual case is 50ECP, 4ECP(OC), 30SEC, 6SEC(OC), 20 MFC. And more often than not, the vendors only offer 1 or 2 types of EW ammo.
The Van Graffs are no exception here, which I found to be really disappointing. Whatever, it made the decision to wipe them out much easier

Gun Runners and Alexander only yield about 60 .45-70 Go'vot Ball and 30 Hollow Point each.

Contreras just have so many bullet it isn't funny.

Knight Torres and Barton sell energy pack as well.

Some Doctors like the one in Novac and Hidden Valley sells SEC as well; than there is Chet would have energy pack after you level up, Khan armoury, Crimson Caravan etc.

Why would you buy from the Van Graff's when you can steal?

Still, they have hundreds of .308, 12 gauge, 5.56, and what not.




Chet, Nash, and the CC guy are good sources for Bulk ammo. Hidden Valley only sells gunpowder ammo, iirc. However, you get some stuff there for free.
The Khans arms dealer I haven't tried yet, tbh.



Oh, I do steal it....dead people don't have a use for ammo anyway. :whistling: Unfortunately these stolen things don't re-stock

Bottom line, I'm really happy I could save up EW ammo the first 22 levels. It is rare compared to normal rounds, and the weapons also have a higher consumption.
The RCW eats ECP like nothing, my AER14 takes 2 a shot, and my Gauss practically 25 regular MFCs (5 Max Charges) for a single shot.
If it weren't for the godsend of Bulk ammo and my stock, I'd be having some problems soon.

You forgot the Incinerator, the true god send EW. Too bad there isn't improve fuel for it.

Hard to choose now with you 2 with totally opposite suggestions on the Scrounger Perk =P. I guess it all depends on the amount of ammo containers there are in the game and also how easy caps are to come by to just purchase the ammo from vendors?

A little off topic - I I've always made sure I maxed out my Sneak in F3, you know, to get in those Sneak Attack Criticals in (especially with insane damage weapons). Is Silent Running at all worth it for a build wearing Power-style armor? I mean, it only affects sneak running, so I'm gonna assume it's a waste of a slot.

Actually, it more or less depends on your playstyle / play habits. Are you going to be searching every container you find or are you gonna mix it up with vendors or completely depend on vendors? Those two, I can tell, have different styles. For instance, EW ammo? For me, I never had a problem once I got beyond level 7 / 8. Vendors that stock EW ammo opened up and at that point, I was at the test site, where Energy cells are everywhere. Of course, I had Melee as a backup so ammo management is easier when not dependent on simply just one weapon type. So those two are simply just expressing their playstyles, and some facts, to express their side. No harm in it and it shouldn't influence you all that much as you can only tell based off of personal experience.

Silent Running? Ah, that's a neat little perk for when I want to stealth melee. Overall, it works beautifully for me.
Honestly, since you're planning to use heavy weapons and power armor, it'll literally contradict the logic within your build. You're built to tough it out; not hide in the shadows.