Bullet Time works pretty well, as an alternative to VATs. Uses AP and everything.
Patch soon™. Maybe next Monday
A preview of what it does, balance wise (obviously it will also fix bugs, quests, etc)
Guns:
Automatic Guns - SMGs, the Assault Carbine, and the LMG are more accurate across the board. They're also more durable. 12.7mm SMG mag capacity increased to 21.
Shotguns - Buckshot has received a x1.2 inherent DAM mod. This slightly incentivizes using buckshot over slugs when enemy armor is not an issue. Magnum buckshot has a x1.3 DAM mod and a small amount of DT bypass. Spread for many shotguns has been lowered.
Hunting Rifle, Anti-Materiel Rifle - Hunting Rifle and AMR now have the lowest spread of all rifles. Hunting Rifle RoF increased, Crit Chance set to x2. Anti-Materiel Rifle's Crit DAM has been raised from 80 to 110 to make it more viable when compared to the Gobi.
Sniper Rifle, Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle - Sniper Rifle and Gobi now have a higher RoF and lower AP cost. Both have x2 Crit Chance. Gobi has increased DAM and much higher Crit DAM over the Sniper Rifle.
That Gun - That Gun is now a slow-firing hand cannon that does huge DAM firing 5.56mm out of a short barrel.
Hunting Revolver – Rate of Fire increased.
Service Rifle - DAM slightly lowered, firing animation changed to the one used by Marksman Carbine, RoF dramatically increased. Spread decreased.
Silenced .22 Pistol, SMG - Crit DAM and Crit Chance significantly increased.
5mm Ammo - Base ammo has 10 points of DT bypass. AP variants have 25 points of DT bypass. This affects the Assault Carbine, Minigun, and CZ57 Avenger.
.308 JSP - DAM mult reduced from x1.5 to x1.3. x2 CND degradation effect added.
Lever-Action Rifles - Cowboy Repeater, Trail Carbine, Brush Gun - RoF has been slightly reduced, AP costs have been significantly increased, and spread has been slightly increased. Cowboy Repeater Custom Action RoF increase has been reduced. La Longue Carabine spread has been significantly lowered.
Explosives:
Dynamite - Larger explosion radius.
Frag and Plasma Grenades – DAM increased.
25mm Grenades - Slightly increased DAM on the explosion.
40mm Grenades - Significantly higher DAM on the explosion.
Missile Launcher / Fat Man - Now have much better zoom FoV and good accuracy. Missile and Fat Man projectiles (not the explosion) have a large base DAM. Both are extremely effective on direct hits, but still potent even if a direct hit is not scored. N.B.: Listed DAM on weapons assumes a direct hit!
Energy Weapons:
Gatling Laser - Base DAM is higher. Against heavily armored targets, this is still a poor weapon. Against lightly armored targets, especially with Over Charge or Max Charge ECPs + Focus Optics + Laser Commander, it has extraordinary DPS.
Tesla Cannon, Tesla-Beaton Prototype - These now consume far less ammo per shot and can be fired several times before a reload. DAM is beefy with an additional 2 second DoT.
Pew-Pew - Lower ammo capacity, consumes far fewer ECs per shot. Still a two-shot weapon.
Melee and Unarmed:
Ripper, Chainsaw, Thermic Lance - DAM lowered, all ignore DR/DT.
Bladed Gauntlet, Mantis Gauntlet - Ignore DR/DT flags removed (were not supposed to be marked as such). Mantis Gauntlet animation/sound fixed.
Perks:
Splash Damage – Functions properly.
The Professional - 10mm Pistol, SMG added to perk list.
jeffd
3843
Awise!
I’m playing through New Vegas again, this time with a Brock Sampson style melee build. It’s just me, a knife, and a mullet.
I’m having trouble with melee combat though - I take an insane amount of damage. Fights against large numbers of melee type opponents, e.g., a pack of Nightstalkers, are almost instantly fatal. Has anyone else tried this? Have any advice as to how I might approach it?
I’m probably not doing myself any favors by using light armor, I guess; I was hoping to play a stealthy melee character.
Constantly back-pedaling while meleeing seemed to help somewhat.
The only time I’ve been able to make melee work in this engine was by cheesing it. Specifically, if you have a stealth field up and 100 or so stealth, in FO3 you could kill stuff with a Deathclaw Gauntlet or something similar and it couldn’t fight back, because the melee attack was silent and didn’t break the 100% protection that you got from a stealth field. This was somewhat limited if all you had was Stealth Boys, but the Chinese Stealth Armor gave you a permanent stealth field. Eventually I ditched it because it felt like such a huge exploit.
I haven’t tried the same thing in NV. I just like shooting things too much.
jeffd
3846
Killing stuff isn’t hard, the problem is if I run into 2-3 melee opponents I die, fast. I just got dropped by a Golden Gecko with a young gecko assisting him.
Incomplete information.
What level are you already? What difficulty level?
Obviously the answer is dependent of that info. If the game is too hard: lower the difficulty in game options! :P. And this being an open rpg: evade the packs of Golden Geckos, Nightstalkers, Giant Radscorptions and Deathclaws and other medium/high level critters while you aren’t still up to the challenge, you will make them payback when you level up and have better equipment.
From what i remember, Golden Geckos were the most dangerous geckos, and nightstalkers could be nasty. That’s with already a somewhat decent character. Unlike F3, the game is designed so there is still a bit of challenging combat after 40 hours of play.
Apart from that, in F:NV the strongest the armor, the better. “Heavy” armors are just better than “light” armor, in general, even counting the bad stuff from them (possible stealth or stats penalties, more weight). Hell, you can always de-equip the armor while you play stealthy and put it again when the combat starts.
My most recent playthrough I successfully played a stealthy melee character, modeling him after an “insane doctor” type. My tagged skills were melee, medicine, and speech, though I poured as much as I could into stealth as well. I started off wearing wasteland doctor’s clothes for the roleplaying, but after playing Dead Money I finished up with the Assassin Suit.
You’ll have a lot of trouble until you get the perk that gives your melee attacks knockdown. Against packs, hit one target a few times until it’s knocked down, then switch targets and knock down someone else, repeat. Don’t use VATS unless you’re doing a stealth attack; you can get attacks off much more quickly outside of VATS, and you want to get as many hits in as possible to give yourself the best chance of triggering a knockdown.
Of course, once you get a super sledge, you’re golden. A super sledge special attack with a stealth critical will one-shot absolutely everything.
nKoan
3849
Not to take away from the current bump, but all 3 new DLC has been announced.
Available on May 17, Honest Hearts takes you on an expedition to the unspoiled wilderness of Utah’s Zion National Park. Things go horribly wrong when your caravan is ambushed by a tribal raiding band. As you try to find a way back to the Mojave, you become embroiled in a war between tribes and a conflict between a New Canaanite missionary and the mysterious Burned Man. The decisions you make will determine the fate of Zion.
In Old World Blues, releasing in June, you will discover how some of the Mojave’s mutated monsters came to be when you unwittingly become a lab rat in a science experiment gone awry. You’ll need to scour the Pre-War research centers of the Big Empty in search of technology to turn the tables on your kidnappers or join forces with them against an even greater threat.
Lonesome Road, available in July, brings the courier’s story full circle when you are contacted by the original Courier Six, a man by the name of Ulysses who refused to deliver the Platinum Chip at the start of New Vegas. In his transmission, Ulysses promises the answer as to why, but only if you take one last job –a job that leads you into the depths of the hurricane-swept canyons of the Divide, a landscape torn apart by earthquakes and violent storms. The road to the Divide is a long and treacherous one, and of the few to ever walk the road, none have ever returned.
Man, I am still waiting for a Steam sale on this one. Oh well, I waited this long and have all of the Stalker games waiting…and watching.
Erik_J
3851
How has the DLC been? Has there only been one so far? I never finished the original campaign, but reading these makes me want to go back and complete everything.
jeffd
3852
Yeah right now I’m level 9, I just got the aforementioned perk. I guess I should just be more careful about engaging packs. I’m currently wielding Chance’s Knife, which is the second or third best melee weapon on the game (you can get it at level 1, just a ways north of Goodsprings, though there’s some artful Cazadore dodging involved).
I didn’t care for Dead Money, a little too combat focused for my taste. But I will still get these others just because I am enjoying hanging out in New Vegas. I read somewhere that none of the dlc extends the base game beyond the end, so be sure to maintain a save before the point of no return if you intend to try any dlc.
Amen. This is why I will probably not buy any of the DLC this time around unless I hear they spetacular, or add a bunch of new features to the game. Like adding the max level DLC from F3.
… what’s the difference? Instead of loading savegame A, you load savegame B.
Sarkus
3857
Dead Money added five levels to the level cap, so its not like they are forcing you to remain static. And DLC as an internal expansion to the story as opposed to an additional expansion to the story works fine, IMHO.
If a DLC adds an interesting story or expands on the world, I’m fine with it. These are $10 expansions after all, not a $30 package.
I didn’t buy the previous NV DLC and I likely won’t buy the others coming up. Nothing in the descriptions sound like there is anything compelling being offered.
nKoan
3859
Honest Hearts seems the most interesting to me. Partly due to the location in the Zion mountains, and partly because F:NV did such a good job making me want to find out more about the Burned Man.
Delta
3860
I have a feeling the Burned Man has been revealed. If you don’t want spoilers, don’t check RPS.
