Since some of the special ammo's effectiveness is based on whether or not the person you're shooting has armor, I'm wondering if some of the tougher enemies who don't have equippable armor are considered to have armor, like giant scorpions and super mutants, or do they just have a naturally high damage threshold?

I know that armor piercing ammo has a HUGE effect on deathclaws. Armor only really matters because because it changes DT, so high DT really equals high armor.

The reason I'm asking is ap ammo is less effective against unarmored opponents, and hollow point is less effective against armored opponents, and I don't want to waste any special ammo

A lot of enemies have natural DT, such as death claws and giant rad scorpions, so yeah, AP ammo helps. If you're not entirely sure, check to see if the broken shield icon is appearing when you shoot something, that means you've overcome their DT, if the shield isn't broken, break out the AP ammo.





Or just get a high melee stat and get a Super Sledge, whatever floats your boat.