So I've been playing a sniper character with 6 ST and 8 AG. So far it is working very well. I"m a crack shot and can take down pretty much everything in the game with a few well placed headshots.

In the interest of variety, I decided to try some large rapid fire guns like the LMG and the minigun. I got the perk that lowers the strength requirement, loaded up on the applicable AP version of the respective ammo and head up to black mountain for some muttant bashing.

These guns are damn near useless. They do nearly no damage to armored targets, despite unloading entire clips of AP ammo.

And then it occurs to me that AP ammo in this game might not actually be working properly. While the critical hits seem to bypass armor like they should (which explains the sniper rifles effectiveness), the other AP mechanisms in the game seems to do almost no additional damage against armored targets when compared to regular ammo.

It got me thinking that maybe this is the trouble with energy weapons. I'm wondering if the developers originally intended energy weapons to be AP in all situations (which explains the lower base damage then their counterparts in guns). Maybe energy weapons svck because the AP component simply isn't working effectively, except on critical hits (which appear to use a different logic mechanism for bypassing armor).

I haven't quite pinpointed it yet, but I know something is not working as intended in regards to AP ammo. Anyone else have any insight?

You are right . I tried minigun with both mods , 100 gun skill , 10 strength , even Psycho + Steady and it was let's say not very effective against anything half dangerous . I play on vh.

light machine gun in my opinion is more effective then the mini-gun.

doesnt burn through ammo like mini-gun does

given, I'm not sure if people are aware.. BUT

AP ammo always does LESS damage. It just gets through the armor easier. So while it makes sure it WILL do damage to a high-DT target, it will do less damage than 'regular' ammo to a low-DT target generally

The damage factor on most AP ammo is x0.95. That means it does 95% of the damage of regular ammo. So if you are set to do 25 damage with normal ammo, you will do 23-24 damage with AP ammo. The difference is not that significant.

AP ammo usually reduces the targets DT by about 10. If the target has 15DT, then it will be reduced to 5DT. So 23 - 5 = 18 damage. While that is a noticable reduction in damage, consider this:

If you use regular ammo, the targets DT stays at 15, and you do normal damage. Meaning 25-15=10.

Based on the forulas above, the final result on a 15DT target with a weapon that does 25 damage should be:

AP = 18 damage
NORMAL = 10 damage

That is a significant difference in damage. It is almost double.

The problem is, people aren't seeing it. In the actual game, there doesn't appear to be ANY perciveable difference between AP and NORMAL rounds. Which is why I'm suggesting that the AP ammo system is broken, or at least significantly less effective than it should be.

Critical hits seem to bypass armor like one would expect, but AP ammo doesn't have nearly the effect that the formulas indicate they should.