Are there any tricks for killing these guys? Barring stuff like lowering game difficulty, cheating, etc...

Extremely minor spoilers may follow:


I'm doing the Come Fly With Me quest, and am just entering the basemant to take out the Nightkin. I've not fought these guys before, and am having some trouble with them at level 7. I was planning to go with energy weapons, but have actually been mostly using guns up till now (with 10 skill ) simply because ammunition and repair for energy weapons hasn't been nearly as available. That said, I do have a laser pistol that is almost at 75% condition, and I'm also carrying a 10mm pistol in similar shape. My laser pistol generally seems pretty anemic vs everything (45 skill), but I'm having a particularly hard time killing the Nightkin with it. A full energy cell with 30 shots didn't quite kill a single Nightkin, and that's without seeing the red-shield icon indicating that his damage threshold was too high. Using a skill magazine (+20 due to perks) didn't really seem to make much difference either.

My 10mm pistol seems to take the Nightkin down a little quicker, but I still need many shots to kill one. So far I've only killed the first two guys in there, and don't know how many there are in total - probably more than I have 10mm rounds for, though.

Do these guys have high energy resistance? Too many hit points for my level and equipment? I'm wearing leather armor, and they do quite a lot of damage to me per hit. With the amount of time and ammunition it's taking me to kill them, and the cramped spaces I'm having to do it in, it almost seems like I should leave and come back at higher levels or with better equipment. My laser pistol is pretty disappointing so far

PS
Please try to avoid quest spoilers as much as possible in replies. I've seen some comments about this quest being really neat, and I'd prefer not to know too much about it in advance .

I had Boone an ED-E for back-up at level 8, and I also had the RatSlayer, it was a breeze.

Try metal armor, obtaining a companion and finding some more advanced weaponry.

Bring along a friend.

There are storage closets with many items throughout the basemant area & offices and there is a workbench and a reload station up in the offices and down in the basemant, if I'm remembering correctly. Anyone feel free to correct me. Be well prepared; they are tough. Frag mines can help too, if you have them. Lure one at a time down a passageway. I had an Incinerator and ED-E and it took a lot to get them but it worked.

If you have decent melee steal their rebar club works great or a machine gun works too. If you have them or money to buy them turbos good to use.

Melee..... Rebar club

** spoiler **

I used a stealth boy and had to kill just one jailer for the key (even that one was very tough at level 4, he broke several of my limbs). This assumes you're doing the optional quests to get the Nightkin out of the building voluntarily.

It's kind of tough, but if you can target their legs for a cripple shot they walk far slower. Seeing as they only use Melee weapons, once you've slowed them down it's much easier.

Don't rush in either, engage only one at a time. Sneak around and drop frag mines if you have them.

i think theres a total of five? i was level ten and used a caravan shot gun.

Using their club works great. Targeting their leg to slow em up will let you kill them at your leisure.

Those guys are tough. I got lucky and had ed-e with me which helped a lot but like you I was in there pretty early before I had all kinds of goodies.

buy a shotgun before going down if possible, caravan shotgun works wonders.


and heres a trick that worked really well for me, my character has low end btw so a couple hits from them and I was dead so here's what I did. I would let them charge me and then enter VATS as they raised their rebar to strike, this gives you a clear shot right at the face and even if your skill is low they're so close you're still at about 95%. then with the shotgun or the smg if you don't kill them outright this way you'll do enough damage to stagger them and finish them off.

again though the easiest solution is to get ed-e and another companion (boon works really well) and they'll just slaughter them.

If your accuracy isn't too bad, you can just aim for the weapon. They take a lot more damage than the Nightkins do, and once it's destroyed, they'll switch to fists. This greatly reduces the profit you may make from killing them, but their weapons are too heavy to carry around if you aren't melee/unarmed anyway.

[e] Multiple weapons helps as well. I killed them with a 9mm pistol, "Lucky" (.357 revolver), "That Gun" (5.56 revolver) and some explosives. My .357 ammo was scarce back then so I just over-dosed myself with med-x and psycho then spent my oversupply of the two other types. Fighting two of them at once or the Jailer, I just broke their weapons then took my time.

I became addicted to Pscyho as I was about to fight the Jailer, though. But nothing another dose or a doctor wouldn't fix.

Other than having a companion (which is going to be more necessary in this game than in Fallout 3 with the scant skill points and perks per level up) I recommend using a weapon with a high damage per second rate. I shredded a nightkin easily with a 10 mm submachine gun. Think my gun skill was 70.

I picked up Boone and E-DE before going back into the basemant, and boy it made an enormous difference. With the damage he's putting out, it feels like I should be Boone's companion, rather than the other way around .

Still, I need to find a way to significantly increase my damage output. Most enemies I face are able to absorb quite a few shots, the Nightkin were just the worst I've seen so far (barring things with damage thresholds too high for my weapons). I've gotten 1-shot kills with sneak attack criticals, but that's not always an option; especially with my extremely low sneak skill. Are the plasma pistols or laser/plasma rifles significantly better than the laser pistol? Would some weapon modifications do the trick? Using a skill magazine to raise my energy weapons from 45 to 65 still left me needing a tremendous number of hits from the laser pistol to drop one of the Nightkin (Boone was killing them in maybe 2-3 hits ). After next level (come on pack rat perk!) I'll have the skill points available to start investing in energy weapons again, but it still seems like the laser pistol is just too weak.

rebar club its bit heavy but as you kill night kit repair it deal great damage.. works great.. although. i killed most of them with cleaver though... at level 9 melee 80? or so.. can remember exact number

wierd i just got down there last night, i'm a level 5 on normal diff and i breezed through em

i used a sledgehammer, then their rebar club after i killed the 1st one, my melee skills only 35ish? my str is 9

just block, counter with 2 swings, repeat

i did notice guns in general to seem a bit weak against them despite their lack of armor, but in cramped conditions like that i never use ranged weapons anyway

These guys are really annoying to say the least. Using sneak with 100 stealth skill and stealth boy in use, they spot me instantly from down hallways. They run faster than me even with a 10 agility and no armor/no weapons in hand. Basically these mobs ignore every option in the game but brute force beat down... and they're massive at that as well. Add to that the manditory cut scenes where the talking npcs automatically see through your stealth and force you into a conversation and you see that this adventure just isn't up to the standards of the rest of the game for being free form and open to creative thinking on the part of the player. After wasting too many hours and developing several character types to try and solve it in a clever manner I give up. --- Some things I'd like to see here: 1) air ducts or some other way to bypass these guys accessable with a high lockpick, like 75+. 2) a computer that you can hack to activate security systems like gas, robots or turrets with science 75+ 3) a temporary companion to help fight with charisma based perks or skills 4) rewards altered by charisma based skills 5) additional conversation options based on perks/stats --- basically have the adventure use the characters skills and perks besides the straight up combat stuff.

Great feedback on how to fight/stealth through this. Thanks!

I took care of this whole quest line very early in the game(Round lvl 5-7) and had ED-E. I used the "Cowboys Repeater." Took 3-4 trys til I got rid of the all the Nightkin, there isnt that many actually, maby around 6-7 at the most. Just have a good conditioned repeater with ya and some stims and you should be ok.

You just have to walk real slow. They may bump into you which is why you may be getting caught. I snuck passed them and killed jailer.

bring along a companion and get a powerful close range weapon

I set up Boone and ED-E to follow closely and whipped out my fully repaired Cowboy Repeater and crouched a lot. Then I VATSed it up, aiming for the melon of course.

The first one was waiting for me around the corner of the door and as soon as I got into the doorway a Rebar Club materialized in my face.

Edit- totally forgot you have low skill. I would say sneak in and Kill Davidson and get the bumper sword, but it's like 8 str.

When you go down, turn left, then right(I think) and through the door there - talk to that nightkin. That way you only have to kill one ghoul instead of 7 nightkins.

I think I was level 6 or 7 when I did this quest. The easiest way to do it is to have your companions wait for you while you scout around a bit and drop down a bunch of frag mines (if you have them.) The lure nightkin into the trap and watch them go boom.

Dumb dumbs go boom boom!

I you are really desperate there is a room near the basemant entrance with two or three big green mainframes or whatever (quite big boxes). You can lure Nightkin here, then run between the mainframes to prevent them from charging and bug them a bit, taking occasional VATS shots around the corners. And hope for crits.

i cleared the whole place with the concrete hammers they use. its actully really effective, it only takes about 8 or 9 hits to the head to make them explode.