Hi all,

I am new to Fallout New Vegas (and I never played a Fallout game), but I played Oblivion a lot (which I was told is similar to Fallout). I have the PC version for my gaming rig.

I am looking for a good sniper build to play the game for a first time. As an engineer (in real life), I’d also like to exploit the science side of the game if it is useful to do so in the game (if it’s not then I won’t invest in that). Is there any sniper energy weapon or are all the sniper weapons standard weapons?

I will also gladly accept general tips on how to play and enjoy the game as well as mods suggestions.

This forum has a great Elder Scrolls community and I am happy to join the Fallout universe.

DarthLeader

Mid game if you follow the MQ, ( which is advisable first time imo ), you can modify a laser rifle with a scope as stores start to stock energy weapon mods then.
Other than that the gauss rifle is a late game weapon that is one if not the most powerful sniper weapons in game.
For general mid range marksman ship any laser weapon will do even unscopped.

Most early scoped weapons however are in the gun skill set, and can be silenced unlike lasers.

Although you don't really need to have a high sneak if you stay at range, having some skill in sneak will help.
If you play with EW's science is very usefull, as it allows more options to customise ammo types at a workbench, more so with the vigilent recycler perk.
EW's however are prone to being rare ( less so after the latest patch ), and costly to buy and supply with ammo.
The repair skill is also good / vital for this build, and barter though not needed will help with overall costs of ammo.

The trait I allways sugest to single weapon skill users and those that need more skill points in those skills that help make things a little less awkward is good natured.
You may lose 5 points from your EW skill but make up for it with 25 spread into other more gneral use skills.

Earliest sniper weapon you can get your hands on is the Varmint rifle. You get your first one for free right where you start- in Goodsprings- and there's a second one there that can be stolen so you could repair the first one (floor safe in the salonon). Chet sells a night scope for it and, if you're lucky, a silencer. A scoped Varmint rifle combined with some sort of close range weapon can carry you through the early game like nobody's business.

High Sneak+ silenced weapon is what makes snipers powerful.

"Proper" sniper rifles and hunting rifles (which work ok as a stopgap measure when the Varmint rifle is beginning to lack in power but sniper rifles are not yet available) have ST requirement of 6. Keep that in mind when distributing your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. However, you can also raise your ST with Intense Training perk or with implants.

1st Recon beret is great sniper headwear as it increases your critical hit chance. You can get it by completing the quest "One for my baby".

Perks provided by companions ED-E and Boone are great for snipers. You will see your enemies coming from a LONG way off, and they will be highlighted in red.

Take Hand Loading perk. It allows you to create much more powerful ammunition.

Take Finesse and Better Criticals perks as soon as available.

Take Jury Rigging for repairing high-end weapons. It is also useful as a way of making money (you can repair expensive weapons and armor with cheap ones), Also, stock up on weapons repair kits. Buy any that you see, and also craft your own at workbenches. Scrap Electronics+Scrap Metal+Wrench+Duct tape= Weapons Repair Kit.

Take Silent Running. Useful for changing position in a hurry while sneaking.

Even though the patch boosted energy weapons and lowered the sniper rifle's power some, guns is still the way to go your first play through as they are so much more common.

Somebody get this man a YCS/186!!!
In all seriousness.... sniping = manual aiming + sneak criticals (albeit from the next county...)
That being said there really is not one set of special stats for sniping.

Just make sure to invest in Energy Weapons, Sneak, Repair, and Science

Laser rifle + Gauss rifle works well.

Spoiler below!
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Early Laser Rifle: After leaving goodsprings make your way to Nipton - in the trailer park is a laser rifle next to a pile of ash / dead body.
In one of the houses is a plasma pistol under the workbench, and a laser rifle in the bathtub. Be on your guard in nipton...
Use science at the workbench to convert energy cells to micro fusion cells - for your laser rifle
And the parts you find to build weapon repair kits at the workbench.
Happy Sniping!

Big thanks to everybody for your help so far, it has allowed me to understand the game a bit better and to do more research for what I want to build. As someone insisted, I’ll try guns instead of energy weapons on my first play.

I will definitely start by finding the Varmint rifle and buy some mods for it (silencer, scope, and extended mags) and buy doing the quest “One for my baby” to get the beret (I hope it does not affect my affiliation, I didn’t choose which side I’m on yet).

I will try to have high sneak and gun early, but I don’t know the levelling system on this game. I will also do the “Scrap Electronics+Scrap Metal+Wrench+Duct tape” mix to have Weapons Repair Kit.

I have a few questions:
1) How does the levelling system works? How do I level a specific skill?
2) Is the game player-centric (your enemies level up with you) or world centric (enemies X at place Y will always have the same strength and life no matter what level you are)
?
3) What do you guys think of my stealth sniper build?

Strength: 5
Perception: 5
Endurance: 7
Charisma: 1
Intelligence: 4
Agility: 9
Luck: 9

(the idea for those stats came from: http://faqs.ign.com/articles/113/1131544p1.html

For my traits, I was thinking of Fast shot + Good natured

About perks, I was thinking of the following:

(if the choice and/or the order are not good, feel free to comment !)

2: Confirmed bachelor
4: Educated
6: Comprehension
8: Entomologist
10: Strong Back
12: Finesse
14: Silent Running
16: Jury Rigging
18: Better Criticals
20: Weapon Handling
22: Rapid Reload
24: Shotgun Surgeon
26: Living Anatomy
28: Hand loader
30: Adamatium skeleton

Thanks for reading and participating!
DarthLeader

"One for my Baby" only affects faction stuff if you actually take Boone with you. He attacks Legion on sight and thus makes them red for you as well. Leave him in Novac if you don't want that, plenty of other companions.

You level when you reach a certain XP point, and (depending on your INT) have a set amount of skill points to distribute among all your skills as you see fit. I think the minimum is 10 skill pts. per level, with higher INT it can be 14-16 or something. You CANNOT "save" up these skill points, leveling is "forced" upon you as soon as you're out of combat (the level screen won't pop up until there's no enemy around). Leveling is very fast in an unmodded game, especially the first 15 of them.

enemies are not scaled with the player, but at certain clvl points there are some areas where you'll start to see slightly different (higher) enemies where they weren't before, that sort of thing. But no, they don't get stronger.

Yes not much leveling as if you follow the main quest you tend to level with the enemies anyway.
There still is some though with numbers or occasional upgrades at out of the way places.
If you go off road a bit at any point early on you may run into a challange or ten, but when you become familiar with the game you learn new ways of dealing with them.
Which if you enjoy challanging your low level character will have good rewards for those risks you take imo.

Perks, it's your character really just play to role and you can't go wrong, imo you've made a good wish list though.

Myself with fast shot and guns I would take rapid reload and shotgun surgeon as soon as they become available, as they are my two favourites and are of great use to my combat style.
Shotgun surgeon turns any shotgun into the boss killer, light ones go for buckshot, heavy armour / deathclaws slugs + shotgun surgeon makes sure you do full damage.
Combined with rapid reload, fast shot and a caravan shotgun it will take down foes much higher than your level.

1) Your S.P.E.C.I.A.L is rather bizarre. You do NOT need 9 AG or 9LK, and with IN 4 you lose a lot of skill points (and fail some dialogue checks). What you NEED is PE6 and LK6 for Better Criticals and AG6 for Silent Running. If you want to use Hunting rifles and Sniper rifles early on, before you get implants or Weapon handling (level 16), you might want ST6, although if you're patient enough to wait for Weapons Handling, it's not necessary. Also, how important is it for you to have combat support from the companions? If you want them to watch your back effectively, lowering CH to 1 might not be the best of ideas. Also, CH influences both barter and speech; you'll be losing a substantial number of points.

2) Confirmed Bachelor means your character is gay. Just for your information

3) If you're playing hardcoe (where ammunition has weight) and/or if carry around food and water (not necessary in non-hardcoe, you can make do with stocking up on stimpacks), Pack Rat will be more helpful than Strong Back.

4) Adamantium Skeleton is mainly necessary in hardcoe. In non-hardcoe, limb damage is not a major problem as stimpacks heal it.


5) You should decide on your close-range weapon option. If you're going with guns, the choice is between full-auto guns (SMGs, assault rifles, machineguns), cowboy guns (Trail Carbine, Brush Gun) and shotguns.

If you go with shotguns, Shotgun Surgeon is a must, and I would advise taking perks that increase your accuracy or damage in V.A.T.S. with two-handed weapons (Commando, Center of Mass, Sniper), and Rapid Reload.

With Cowboy guns, take Cowboy and the aforementioned V.A.T.S. perks and Rapid Reload.

With automatic weapons, you do not need Shotgun Surgeon.

6) The lever-action shotgun (rather easy to obtain early on, can be stolen in Boulder City) is a cowboy gun. It benefits from BOTH the Cowboy perk and the Shotgun Surgeon perk. It won't out-DPS the Riot shotgun, but for most of the game it's a great close range weapon, with low requirements and plentiful ammo. Take Rapid Reload if you plan to use it.

7) If you're going with a sniper, DO NOT take Fast Shot. Snipers do not shoot fast at the cost of accuracy; they shoot slow and make their shots count. Take Trigger Discipline. Or Built to Destroy if you plan to have high Repair quickly.

Here is the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. distribution I use:
Strength: 5 + 1
Perception: 5 + 1*
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 5
Intelligence: 8
Agility: 6 + 1*
Luck: 6 + 1

The "+1"s are the implants you can get at medical clinic. The ones marked with * are the ones you need to get to meet certain perk requirements. Increased strength is necessary for using high-tier weapons (i.e. anti-material rifle) and luck is for boosting criticals.

Perks I use:

2.Rapid Reload - Because there's nothing else useful.
4.Educated - more skill points->merrier (note: comprehension is useless, there aren't enough books to make it worthwhile)
6.Hand Loader if you meet Repair requirement. If not, Toughness is useful.
8.The one you didn't pick at 6 (Strong Back if you're touchy about the amount of stuff you can carry)
10.Finesse - Moar criticals! (no "if"s, no "but"s. I can get violent about this)
12.Strong Back or the one you didn't pick at 6 (sniper isn't that useful. besides vats is garbage at long distance)
14.Jury Rigging - requirement is steep but it's totally worth it. Get Toughness II if you can't get Jury Rigging.
16.Better Criticals - Feel the pain. Snipers depend on criticals.
18.Weapon Handling - in order to use anti-material rifle you need 8 strength. 5 + implant + weapons handling grants that.
20.The one you didn't pick at 14 - Grim Reaper isn't that imba anymore so it can wait.
22-24-28.Grim Reaper and Action Boy I-II - Past 20 there aren't much useful perks.
26.Nerves of Steel - mostly because there's not much to pick from.
30.Whatever you want. Living Anatomy, Silent Running and Commando come to mind as part-useful perks.

The trick is getting the implants before you meet the level requirements for certain perks (example:get perception implant before level 16 to get Better Criticals on time)

General advice: get Boone as companion. Not for the imba beret of his but because it makes for great role-playing material.

And because highlighting enemies in red is very useful, especially at night and behind cover.

Traits: Small Frame + Good Natured

Strength: 5 + implant = 6
Perception: 5 + implant + Hat = 7
Endurance: 8 + implant = 9
Charisma: 3 + Implant + Duster = 5
Intelligence: 7 + Implant = 8
Agility: 5 + Small Frame + Intense Training + Implant = 8
Luck: 7 + Implant = 8


2: Intense Training
4: Educated
6: comprehension
8: Strong Back
10: Hand Loader
12: Silent Running
14: Shotgun Surgeon
16: Better Criticals
18: Cowboy, or Weapon Handling
20: Entomologist
22: Toughness
24: Toughness
26: Pack Rat (hardcoe mode only)
28: Rapid Reload (?)
30: (?)

Note: Level 18 is the break point for going for a Trail Carbine loaded SWC ammo with a .45-70 weapon as the heavy hitter, or the .308/5.56mm rifles with the AMR as your heavy hitter.

I like running down the Cowboy path myself since the ending loadout is feather light (under 50wg for everything) with the pack rat perk. Also, the scoped Trail Carbine is the game's best overall sniping weapon. Once you start using one with SWC ammo you'll never go back.

^^ I don't know, where is finese? That perk is a must have. Way better then Silent Running or Shotgun Surgeon, especially for a sniper. You can sneak snipe with a base Sneak of 30 from a distance. Silent Running is really only for close action. Otherwise, don't bother.

Sneak attack criticals are 100% guaranteed, even with a goofy 1 Luck build and using a weapon that has a 0x critical hit multiplier. With the demise of the 100% criting sniper rifle the finese perk just isn't that important anymore on the guns side. Energy Weapons it's a different story. Anyway there is an empty perk slot for finese if it's really wanted, but 1st Recon Beret should be enough already.

Having the Shotgun Surgeon perk covers your short range panic button. A Riot Shotgun is a devastating short ranged weapon with this perk behind it and shooting magnum buckshot. Shotguns also still seem to retain their massive sneak attack damage with buckshot like in FO3, but you need a way around DT for it to work. With this perk I've pulled off some pretty amazing sneak attack kills with the single shotgun firing magnum buckshot. Hunting Shotgun and leaver-action shotgun are even better.

I have stopped using Sneak Attck criticals - just to imbalanced. The NPC are morons and let you snipe them one by one if you are using a silenced weapon. Takes all the fun out. Might as well turn the game down to easy.

For short Range panic, I have always liked the SMG. Never really liked the shotgun in FNV.

get your strength to 8, with the implan, that way you can use the anti material rifle at best. Unless you want to waste a perk spot for weapon handling.

Given how slow the AMR fires, I wouldn't worry about the sway.

1) Is the shotgun the best weapon to complement my sniper build? My actual plan is to have rapid reload and hand loader as well as fast shot and shotgun surgeon: everything seems to synergize pretty well with shotguns, but just in case I’m asking if it’s the best option. The riot shotgun with 268 DPS seems extremely deadly in those conditions. At the start of the game, I guess I will use the Lever-action shotgun as my secondary weapon to complement my sniper.

2) It seems like shotguns are 2 handed weapons and I received advice to get some VATS perks for close range combat (not sniper combat). Since Adamantium Skeleton won’t be necessary as I am not playing hardcoe on my first play, I guess I will follow Golem’s suggestion to take the commando perk instead of the adamantium skeleton for shotguns (already have rapid reload). This seems to be my only VATS perk, but as a sniper I will only use VATS when I have to fight in close range (with my shotgun). Is this enough to be effective in VATS with my shotgun?

3) There seems to be quite a debate about Fast shots vs Trigger Discipline vs Built to Destroy. Golem advices against using fast shots on a sniper, but the wiki says it’s good to do so: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fast_Shot

Can anyone give more information about the “Fast shots vs Trigger Discipline vs Built to Destroy” debate for snipers?

4) Why I don’t need such high agility and luck? Is there another way to max it out? I am getting “good natured”, so it will help for the low charisma. I have a low intelligence, but I have comprehension to get a few extra skill points (and to pass some checks with magazines: I did read we could do that).

5) @ Kor'Ah: you mention 2 times “heavy hitter” in your sentence. I guess one of those was met to be some kind of killer thing for light enemies? You seem to be right about scoped Trail Carbine, it seems like a very good sniping weapon: is its default the long range shots? Is it really the best sniper gun?

1) Riot, yes. light weight with high DPS, and high DPH as well. However Hunting/Sniper/Gobi is decent at closer range as well.

2) The difference the VATS perk makes are minimal at close range. I am not found for any of them in NV.

3) Fast Shot makes (almost) every gun/EW better, and have quite an impact in VATS;
Trigger Discipline on the other hand is only good for few weapons and the effectiveness of those combo a questionable, it also destroy VATS;
Build to Destroy is not bad, but not necessary for a gun-based character.

4) Because VATS is nerf to smithereens. Difference between agility 10 & 6 is negligible outside of VATS. I however thinks Luck 9 is always good unless you are on hard-core and need some points for Charisma.

5) Trail Carbine is a very good (but late) general purpose rifle; it is good if you don't carry a wide range of weapons.

I define "Heavy Hitter" as something that has a much greater DAM stat than what the Trail Carbine, or Hunting rifle, has. Ranger Sequoia, Brush Gun and AMR all do 100+ DAM with hand loaded ammo. The Ranger Sequoia and Brush Gun in particular are just the right things for stopping a charging deathclaw dead in it's tracks. The other end of the damage scale can be covered by such weapons as the .357 Magnum Revolver, or Chance's Knife, for cowboys. For non-Cowboys a fully moded 10mm pistol does fine.

Hmm, apparently Fallout Wiki says that scoped weapons have such a low spread that Fast Shot doesn't decrease accuracy too much. It does decrease accuracy meaningfully for shotguns and automatic weapons though.

Although to be sure, I don't know how much difference the firing speed actually makes. In most encounters, you'll want to sneak up on your enemies and take them out with a single Sneak Critical to the head.

20% increase, also 20% less AP needed in VATS.
For shotguns you can compensate (or you should've) use slug shot for medium range. Automatic ain't accurate enough to worry about accuracy to begin with.

Between Fast Shot and Trigger Discipline it comes down to VATS.

-If you use VATS allot then use Fast Shot.

-If you rarely touch VATS, if at all, then Trigger Discipline.

To be honest unless you are after an extreme VATS character (Fast Shot is vital here) forget both of these traits. Use "Good Natured" in it's place since for every weapon skill you don't care about and never put a point into you gain +5 skill points. The skills that gain points from this trait are all way more useful than a unused weapon skill.

just regarding point 5 you dont need shotgun surgeon with all shotguns just stock up on 12 gauge and get a hunting shotgun as early as you can its punp action but very powerful (and ive only got 45 guns on my sniper char!!!)

Trigger Discipline also slow down your real time shots, so yes, it is 90% detrimental.

The only weapon that would actually gain from Trigger Discipline (and not from Fast Hand) are: Telsa Cannon (and unique), Gauss Rifle (and unique), Big Boomer, Single Shotgun, and Level action shotgun.

Automatic weapons' DPS would be 20% lower, unless you prefer them over semi-automatic/bolt-action at medium range.

Semi-automatic/bolt-action are accurate enough not to worry about 20% more spread but gain 20% DPS from Fast Hands.

Good Natured is always good secondary, but since we are talking about sniper here, which have plenty of skill points and stats.