The combat skills in F:NV are Guns, Energy Weapons, Melee, Unarmed and Explosives.

Nobody would argue that a Guns-only build works just fine. Energy weapons have some balance issues but will work as your only weapon skill. Melee and Unarmed are functionally the same thing, and what they lack in ranged ability they make up for in absolutely ridiculous power. But what about Explosives? The explosives skills has basically three weapons in it:
1.) hand grenades of various kinds (dynamite, frag, pulse, plasma)
2.) landmines of various kinds (powder charges, frag, pulse, plasma)
3.) long ranged explosive projectors (grenade rifle/launcher, missile launcher, grenade machine gun)

None of these weapons is suitable for close-in use due to the extensive blast radius; and none have the single-target armor penetration that heavy firepower like the AMR or gauss rifle deliver. I suggest that these considerations put Explosives firmly in the "support" category. Nice to have as a backup, but your life will be very hard if you rely on them as your primary.

But is this fair to Explosives? Does it make sense that every other weapon skill, even the seemingly limited close-combat skills, work fine solo and this one does not? I say, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not acceptable!

And how would you go about fixing this? My basic feeling on the matter is that two elements would make Explosives viable, if challenging, as a solo weapon skill.

First: add in "Frag 40" rounds for the grenade rifle and grenade launcher. The US Military played with this idea back in the Vietnam war, in the days of the M79 40mm grenade launcher. Basically the M79 was too bulky and too heavy to issue the soldier a rifle as backup, so, they would get a pistol. Pistols, despite what games and movies like to believe, are not remotely as deadly as rifles. So: the military developed a round for the M79 that was basically a really really big shotgun shell, giving the grenadier something to use at short range. In real life, the M576 round was not terribly amazing, offering less shot at a lower velocity than a 12 gauge shotgun round. For game purposes, it should be substantially more powerful than 12 gauge buckshot, but obviously more expensive (but not even remotely as expensive as a hand grenade or missile). This gives Explosives players something to use at short range where they don't feel like blowing themselves up.

Second: in order to defeat high-armor targets, a role that they are currently much worse at than Guns (amusing), add in shaped charge ammo for the launchers. Shaped charge warheads have a very small blast radius which does minimal damage, but do a huge amount of damage at the point of impact. There's no reason to expect that a super mutant, or even a deathclaw, would be able to survive being hit by a rocket with a shaped charge warhead (nominally designed to attack tanks, or in the fallout universe, power armor). Shaped charge 40mm grenades would be less powerful than rockets, but should still deliver similar damage comparable to the AMR, enough to drop any common enemy in one shot.

Between these two improvements, I believe that the Explosives skill would become able to stand on its own as a character's sole weaponry skill.

Do you agree that Explosives should be this useful? Or should it remain as a "backup only" skill? And are these improvements adequate?

I couldn't care less to be quite frank. I prefer Guns, I have a grenade launcher too as a back up toy for amusemant. Nothing is as beautiful as 'THUMP' "BOOM'. It's a glorious sound my friend.

I've admittedly half assedly invested in explosives and am still quite deadly with them, I fea the fight with a player with 100 explosives. :cryvaultboy:

Wow, you and some modder think alike. I was on New Vegas nexus and found a mod that does exactly what you are talking about with very similar wording. Do you by any chance have a long lost brother? lol

I wish it weren't I can never get ammo for those explosives weapons....

Reducing the explosive radius on the 25mm regular ammo would probably be good enough. Not that the 25mm ammo has much of a splash zone anyway. Ramp up the damage, drop the radius (no less then 192u though) and you'd have something that could somewhat safely be used at close range. You'd still get a bit of back splash if they get within knife fighting range, but nothing serious.

Stay away from 25mm or 40mm incendiary at close range though. Back splash from incendiary rounds is a lot more dangerous then the blast effect (as the flames ignore DT).

I have a character i created that has really high sneak and really high explosives and i either go setting up traps for them to run into or revers pickpocketing an explosive on them. Its pretty fun but i do with there was some kind of gun that that had explosive tip bullets that was categorized in the explosives weapons. It would keep me from being like "damn I got discovered now i have to reload a save"

Yeah I've found explosives to be quite good at long range (although I admit I've modded it to give explosives about 25% more damage, it's like a free demolitions expert rank for everyone in the wasteland), but my explosives guy has high unarmed and a ballistic fist for close range, it would be almost impossible to go solely grenade launcher.

I just use a flamer... seems to do the same damage no matter your skill and its the close in weapon...

I think C4 was accidently forgotten but I think Explosives is fine as it is I just wished they didn't nerf the grenades though I mean look at Fallout 3 even with a low skill in Explosives Grenades still easily killed Raiders or did serious damage to them.

I would agree explosive have fail to "evolve" with the rest of combat skills.

But I still consider it on par with melee and EW due to some rather powerful weapon and highly available weapons (C4, Bottlecap mine, GMG, Mercy).

IMO missile being too weak (and no scope), no-bounce from grenade launcher/rifle and lack of crafting round make them handicap in some situations.

Energy Weapons aren't good for close-in either if you get Meltdown. At least Explosives have Hit the Deck, which is primarilly to lessen close-in damage.

I won't disagree that it's more of a secondary combat skill. But it's not too bad.

I still don't understand why the missile launcher is so weak. It was in FO3, and it still is in F:NV. It's a *big* weapon, that's extremely awkward in use, and uses an expensive uncommon ammunition... and in practice it is severely out-performed by any decent firearm except in the very specific case of being attacked by hordes of lightly armored enemies.

Odd, that.

Find them OK but somewhat inconsistent. As a skill on it's own they definitely come off as a secondary option, guns are just too numerous and effective with all the options.

I've only tried a handful tbh and only have a moderate explosives skill (about 50) but even so it's odd that a nade rifle does ok versus robots but then landing a direct hit on a raider often barely even cripples them. HC mode bullet sponge effect ? Dunno. Frag grenades seem slightly more effective.

Frag mines aren't bad, they seem to work as intended especially when I step on them Actually I like this because in FO3 I remember they seemed far less effective, as in I could walk over a few before worrying about it

C4 seems weak, from the one occasion I had C4 I used 5 packs set-up in a kill zone, had about 6 fire gekos packed in tight and set it off with a grenade launcher. End result was one K.O and the rest badly crippled. Not a bad result but considering the price of C4, and what I considered perfect conditions for it I did expect no survivors.

Anyway, haven't really taken to them and from what people say they don't get much better regardless of exp.skill lvl.

Make the flamer an explosive weapons. Hey, it uses combustion, and really fits better there than with energy weapons, which already have the multiplas rifle.

Bam.

I just figured out a rather interesting quirk of explosives centric builds..

You dont NEED perc or luck at all as you cant crit and none not ONE perk that you can use needs perception... Combine this with 1 charisma and you have all other stats at 9 with one of em even being able to start as a 10. Im replanning my explsoives build now that I figured that out. Midnight Bomber!

I think the DT mechanic totally screws the explosives damage up. We need concussive explosives or shaped charges to negate high DT. I totally loved my FO3 character that was high speech, agility, sneak, AP, with very little guns, or EW, but I was a total grenadier/sabatour. FONV has made this build useless.

I strongly oppose this.
Flamer is an addition which EW really need. Besides, fire is just no so hot plasma.

Maybe explosive should become "Ballistic" which only effect range and accuracy, and also apply to throwing weapons as well as the possible bows.

Then the mines become "traps" which is incorporate in Survival,

And the explosive damage is altered by Science.

I've never had much time for the explosive skill in FNV. I've used a couple of pulse grenades, but that's it.

It's limited in combat in that while you're fiddling around with grenades or whatnot, the bad guys are still moving and shooting...against a melee based enemy, it's no use and in fact a liability once they close on you.

I think that it is more a support skill than anything else, usable only in certain 'ideal' situations.

I tend to think that any increasing of it's capabilities would make it too strong.

Back in F3 it was ridiculous that every third super mutant had a missile launcher, at least in FNV they are nowhere near as common.

I think two things would bring it up to par.

A close-in weapon usable against melee enemies: Maybe a directional mine (IE claymore), though those aren't supported by the engine, sadly. Also, a "pole charge" would work, a melee-weapon-like spear with a charge attached to the end. It would work like a melee weapon that would automatically break after use, and do a single large hit with high DT bypass.

Also they need a way to deal with high-DT enemies, because of how explosions are calculated the damage falls off too rapidly for even direct missile hits to make much of a dent, combined with the double-DT bug, it's crippling.

My suggestion there would be a gyroc rifle or a minimissile launcher, fires like a hitscan weapon so it can be given the same effects, say DTmod -30 and moderate damage.

You know what? Panzerfaust time!

I am thinking of adding AP ammo for the 25 and 40 mm grenades and for Missiles, although I haven't used any of those weapons with a high Explosives skill yet so don't have a good comparison point. I have already increased the damage for the Fat Man and added a couple of weapons to the DE form list, so I'll need all 3 ranks of that perk and a broad selection of weapons to see how that goes before messing with the ammo.

That said, in 'base' form most Explosives weapons are a bit on the weak side save for C-4 and Bottle Cap Mines. On the other hand Dynamite is ridiculously common, which makes using Explosives from the start at least practical, if a bit underpowered. One can also get a 40mm Grenade Rifle in poor condition from a house in Nipton (need to get past 3 Bark Scorps and some traps, house in question has sandbags outside), which can be fixed up to a reasonable shape with a couple of Weapon Repair Kits.

Said Grenade Rifle is actually not a bad weapon, even at low skill, although a lot of the damage disappears when fighting armored opponents. Unfortunately the blast radius is small, so its efficacy drops off rapidly beyond the initial target, however this can be combined with Hit the Deck for use at point-bank as a 'get the ^#%$ off me!' measure. As a side benefit the small radius means you won't kill your companions in the process.

It should be a stand alone weapon skill. Just because it's difficult to use as your only weapon skill doesn't mean it shouldn't have its own skill.
Explosives are ridiculously powerful against bunched up enemies, especially with the Splash Damage perk.
Not to mention mines.

Yeah but it needs to be a little reworked.
I'd be fine with it being the new Big Guns.
Meaning: it's harder to find ammo for the grenade launchers and stuff and grenades and mines are used up since they explode and cannot be retrieved but the weapons should deal tons of damage.

Sadly, I tried that in a mod, you can't really do it.

Explosives get their damage from the distance-to-hit, plus explosives cannot have the same ammo effects. You could make a base effect that did it, however, it would not apply to that shot, only to the next one.

As in if you put a DT reduction on an explosive you'd have to make it, in modding terms, the enchantment attached to the explosion attached to the projectile used by the ammo type (yes, I know, it's stupidly complex). Problem is you'd have to give it a duration then, and only other shots in that duration would have the DT reduction, not to mention it would stack up.

Behavior for Negative DT is undetermined so it could get very ugly.

You have to have a hitscan weapon more or less to use DT reduction ammo, it has to be based on a gun not a launcher or thrown type.

I find it stupid that head shotting a Super Mutant Master, getting critical I dont kill them. But my AMR kills it pretty easy. 1 Shot with the AMR, at least 2 missiles