CROSS-CONTENT DISCUSSION: Weapons

[JaxFirehart]

I am opening some things for general discussion, I want input from everyone who reads this on various topics listed below. The current goal is to recreate FO3 in the FNV engine while also integrating appropriate upgrades. The question is, what are the appropriate upgrades.

WEAPONS

Should FNV weapons appear in DC and DC weapons appear in the wasteland.

Things to consider:

With the weapon system overhaul in FNV, I don't think there are enough FO3-only weapons to fill every niche.

Some weapons, like the Caravan Shotgun or Cowboy Repeater just don't fit in the DC setting. Chinese Assault Rifle in Mojave?

That said, there is nothing stopping us from excluding certain weapons that don't fit.

My conclusion:

I vote for integrating MOST weapons and skipping ones that don't feel right. Which ones do and don't feel right is up for discussion as well.

[dandys]

I love the fact that there is more choice of weapons in New Vegas, like multiple weapons that aren't necessarily better than each other just better for different situations. I think the reduce in emphasis on unique weapons helped too because in Fallout 3 once I got a unique all the regulars would become useless.

I think we need some New Vegas weapons. Bumper sword if someone can change the liscence plate and rebar club would be cool maybe for super mutants.

Things like 9-iron, chainsaw for raiders, and definitely fire axe since it makes sense. (On that note also add fire helmet and construction hat to fallout 3, not common by any means but why not)

Explosive weapons like grenade launcher rifle and maybe machinegun are pretty important to Fallout 3 since I feel Fallout 3 didn't really have any besides like missile launcher fat man and grenades/mines so I think they add a lot for explosives based characters (probably not popular but still)

C4, incendiary grenades, powder charge would probably be fine.

Machete, power fist variants, fire axe, multiplas rifle, plasma caster, all that stuff maybe as long as it doesn't take away from the feel of the game.

I agree with you about cowboy and caravan guns. I might add dynamite too, but maybe not I don't know.

The other guns are tricky. I think the Fallout NV guns have a little bit of an army game feel which I don't know fits into Fallout 3 which feels more post-nuclear. Might work though.

[JaxFirehart]

Technically, all of those would be available anywhere in america. I can go down to any sporting goods store and buy weapons very similar to either the caravan shotgun or the cowboy repeater.

That said, we also have to worry about the way the game feels, which I think is where you were going. Dynamite and powder charge, on the other hand, would not be used widely by civillians or the army. I always assumed that the dynamite and powder charge were made by the NCR. With no NCR type civilization, I doubt simple raiders would have the knowledge and I doubt Rivet City/Megaton would have the need. C4 I agree would probably fit fairly well, all forms of grenades and mines should actually be more common in DC since there was a lot more fighting in DC during the war.

You said about FNV having more of an army feel, I agree, but if anything the military-type weapons would fit better in DC, once again, because of the extent of the fighting.

[yukichigai]

I think a cross-wasteland weapon feature shouldn't be part of the vanilla mod.  The weapons in FNV are too dramatically different and have a completely different feel to them compared to the FO3 ones, particularly when it comes to the rarity of automatic-fire weapons.  I'll admit it will be a much-desired feature, but not by everyone.  It would be simple enough to make it an add-on mod (in fact I already had back in the RFCW days), leaving the "vanilla" CW and NV feeling in tact if people so desire.

The one exception I would like to suggest to this is in the case of 10mm weapons in the CW.  I've talked this one to death already, but I'll reiterate here: 10mm weapons (or at least the Pistol and SMG) are now FAR too powerful to be around during the earliest parts of the game.  There aren't any good candidates to replace them from the existing FO3 weapons - certainly not in Vault 101 - but the 9mm pistol and SMG would slot in nicely as replacements for the now-buffed 10mm versions.  It's one of the rare cases where using an NV weapon would PRESERVE the "FO3 feel", due to the new damage balance.  If we went this route, I'm not sure the Chinese Pistol shouldn't be switched to 9mm as well, to better preserve ammo balance and such.  10mm could still be distributed in the CW, just at a higher level.

[JaxFirehart]

My only argument there is that there aren't enough weapons in FO3 to even fill all 5 skill tiers of any skill. I agree with your point about the 10mm, I hate to do it, but the v101 security officers need their armor weakened and their weapons downgraded to 9mm.

[yukichigai]

the 5-tier system can KIND OF work in the CW, if you sort of bastard merge it wiht the 3-tier system from FO3.  I managed to pull it off I think.  I'll get my modifications working and show you soon.

[darthbdaman]

Base version should not include NV weapons, Merged version should include the ones that feel appropriate, which should be most of them.

[subtledoctor]

Hi - new poster here, I love what you guys are doing.  One of the reasons I love the idea of redoing FO3 with the NV engine is specifically weapons - FO3 weapon balance sucked big-time (among guns, anyway).  In NV, every weapon at least has a place, and has characteristics that make it different from other weapons.  FO3 had semi-auto pistols, slow-shooting bolt/lever-action rifles, and full-auto machine guns (in one- and two-handed varieties.  Period.  And shotguns that are mostly useless because you get a combat shotgun very quickly.  There are a ton of great ideas on this thread and on the .32 cal thread... here are my 2 cents about bringing it all together.

 

1) The .32 revolver and Chinese pistol were HORRIBLE.  Why did they even exist??  I say, replace the .32 revolver with the .357 revolver, and change the Chinese pistol to the 9mm pistol.  (Why are there so may Chinese pistols around DC?  It wasn't a big battlefront in the war, there were just a few spies.  Whereas, 9mm semiauto handguns are fairly ubiquitous around the east coast.)

 

2) Because you don't want any ammo to only be used by one gun, change the CW hunting rifle to the NV cowboy repeater.  If the name is too NV-ish, just change the name to "Repeating Rifle" or something.  But I feel like the repeater plays a similar role in NV that the hunting rifle did in FO3, so it should be a simple, easy change.

 

3) Assault rifles & Chinese assault rifles were HORRIBLE.  First, again, why are there so many Chinese weapons around DC??  Doesn't make sense.  Second, there was NO difference between them, other than that Chinese ones hit harder. If the regular assault rifle had a lower spread or something, at least there would be a reason for them to still exist.  But no, they were only valuable for repairing my chinese assault rifle.  So, again, replace these entirely.  Replace assault rifles with NV service rifles, and replace chinese assault rifles with NV assault carbines.  This accomplishes two things: first, it makes a nice progression in Super Mutants from low-level one with slow repeaters, to mid-level ones (Brutes) with semi-auto service rifles, to high-level ones (Masters) with full-auto assault carbines & miniguns; second, it provides a use for all the 5mm ammo for players who want to carry guns smaller than the minigun.

 

4) Vary up the shotguns... something like the combat shotgun (hits hard, loads cartridges quickly, holds lots of ammo per cartidge) should be VERY rare and high-level, like the hunting shotgun in NV.

 

5) So now we're left with the problem that the 9mm pistol is the only one that uses 9mm ammo; and the service rifle is the only one that uses 5.56 ammo.  The former could be cured by switching 10mm SMGs to 9mmSMGs in the CW (10mm would still have two weapons using it) and the latter could be cured by dropping a few (a very, very few) 5.56 pistols around in hidden places.

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts!  Can't wait to test this out when I have my FO games back up and running!  (I'm repartitioning my drives, so will have to reinstall the games.)

[dmcgee627]

As far as there being chinese weapons everywhere, LOB Enterprises was working with them to make experimental guns, and there were holdouts like Mama Dolces too.

[Gribbleshnibit8]

[quote=subtledoctor]1) The .32 revolver and Chinese pistol were HORRIBLE.  Why did they even exist??  I say, replace the .32 revolver with the .357 revolver, and change the Chinese pistol to the 9mm pistol.  (Why are there so may Chinese pistols around DC?  It wasn't a big battlefront in the war, there were just a few spies.  Whereas, 9mm semiauto handguns are fairly ubiquitous around the east coast.)[/quote]

The .32 has been turned into a .22 revolver. Though most .22 revolvers I've been able to find in research are 7 or 9 shot, not 5. So really a new model would be needed for that imo.

[quote=subtledoctor]3) Assault rifles & Chinese assault rifles were HORRIBLE.  First, again, why are there so many Chinese weapons around DC??  Doesn't make sense.  Second, there was NO difference between them, other than that Chinese ones hit harder. If the regular assault rifle had a lower spread or something, at least there would be a reason for them to still exist.  But no, they were only valuable for repairing my chinese assault rifle.  So, again, replace these entirely.  Replace assault rifles with NV service rifles, and replace chinese assault rifles with NV assault carbines.  This accomplishes two things: first, it makes a nice progression in Super Mutants from low-level one with slow repeaters, to mid-level ones (Brutes) with semi-auto service rifles, to high-level ones (Masters) with full-auto assault carbines & miniguns; second, it provides a use for all the 5mm ammo for players who want to carry guns smaller than the minigun.[/quote]

The assault rifles served a fine role. Sure, they weren't very accurate, but the hunting rifle was the accurate gun. ARs were for high fire and damage. As for moving the service rifle over, that makes no sense whatsoever. I was under the impression in the game that the NCR was in some way actually producing the service rifles. Hence the high number found in the game. I could be wrong, but that was the feeling I got about it. It could work in Fo3 just fine, I just don't think it should be there.

[quote=subtledoctor]4) Vary up the shotguns... something like the combat shotgun (hits hard, loads cartridges quickly, holds lots of ammo per cartidge) should be VERY rare and high-level, like the hunting shotgun in NV.[/quote]

I do agree with shotguns, the choices in FO3 were very limited. Honestly I think the caravan shotgun should be in Fo3, as should the riot shotgun, the double shotgun, well, all of them really.

[quote=subtledoctor]5) So now we're left with the problem that the 9mm pistol is the only one that uses 9mm ammo; and the service rifle is the only one that uses 5.56 ammo.  The former could be cured by switching 10mm SMGs to 9mmSMGs in the CW (10mm would still have two weapons using it) and the latter could be cured by dropping a few (a very, very few) 5.56 pistols around in hidden places.[/quote]

Now you're just changing whole weapon tiers. 

 

 

My thoughts are, most weapons should be carried over, just much more rare, in the case of say, cowboy repeater, caravan shotgun, etc. Riot shotguns make sense, because there was a lot of rioting etc. Service Rifle, maybe, as well as the other service weapons, most rifles should be in FO3. Again, as was pointed out, most gun types are available everywhere, it's just a matter of how common. If the cowboy repeater was a "Unique" single instance in FO3, that'd be fine with me.

As far as the Chinese pistol should, if anything, be chambered in .45 ACP. Check this article for that. That change would of course require a rebalance of the weapon, giving it more power but moving it way up on the tier lists. It would however give 1) another .45 ACP weapon, and 2) a more fitting .45 ACP weapon in the CW.

I honestly can't think of any gun that would not fit into the CW in some way. Even guns like the Anit-materiel rifle would fit, if made exclusive to military armories, and very very rare (as in maybe 2 in the whole CW).

I had other ideas, but have forgotten them now. If I remember I'll add them as well.