Why they changed the Varmint from .22LR I don't think I'd ever be able to guess. It makes more sense and balances things better. However, I totally understand not wanting to change FNV in any way.
I think the .32 ammo should be gotten rid of. Convert the hunting rifle, re-balance it to the new higher power, and bump over something from FNV to fill the gap. There are plenty of rifles in FNV to find something to fill the gap nicely.
I'd like something to be done about the .32HR, whether it's upgrading it to .308 and removing it from lower-levellists, or replacing it with Varmint Rifles or a unique-looking .22LR or .357 replacement. There are some nice breech-loading homemade piperifles floating around out there on the nexus that could conceivably use .32 pistol rounds. But I don't see why the .32 pistol can't happily exist even if it's the only gun to use that ammo.
If you can't let the .32 caliber stay for that one pistol, then I'd suggest that it become a .38 Special (Make a new Ammo formlist including only .38SPC). It looks too big for a .22LR unless you upped it to 8 or 9 chambers, and it looks too small for .357 or .44
We currently replaced the DC .32HR with the NV .308HR. The .32 pistol is now a .22 Revolver. I agree it doesn't really look like a .22 Revolver but it seemed the best decision at the time. Making it a .357 Revolver makes it conflict with NVs .357 revolver. Making it a .44 Revolver is reasonable in my opinion but seeing as how it is a skill 0 weapon it makes .44 ammo available too early. Your idea of .38 special is a good one, I am against it because I would prefer to allow it to use more than one ammo. If we allow it to use .357 we get back to the same problem as before. It bears thinking on and I will keep it in mind. Thanks.
Sounds like a good, workable solution. I really do like the idea of a .38 special (exclusively) though.
Yeah I really like the .38 special myself. I am considering it, believe me, if I can find a way to put it in and make it fit, I definitely will.
So I've been doing some research on .32 ammo to see what the opportunities are here.
The .32 pistol in fallout 3 is a Smith and Wesson (S&W) revolver. According to wikipedia, there are four types of ammo that are the same diameter and can be used interchangeably - they all have the same .375 rim diameter.
The Magnums pack quite a punch it seems. Unfortunately, all of these ammo types are almost always used in revolvers.
There are not many ".32" rifles that fire a small handgun (S&W .32) cartridge - most of the so-called .32 rifles have a rim diameter that is much larger than .375 - between .4 and .6 for most of them.
So here are my suggestions to round out the .32 - I know this is all pie in the sky, since an expert modder with experience making custom weapons would need to make these:
So yeah. I think that's the only realistic way to do it, since really, there aren't a lot of .32 options in real life either. At least not ones that would be compatible with the S&W .32 that is in FO3.
So. Any custom weapon geniuses want to volunteer for this? 
FWIW I don't know that realism is all that importanrt. Bethesda wasn't being very realistic when they positively *littered* the DC are with 1) Chinese weapons, notwithstanding DC was not a warzone; and 2) hunting rifles firing .32 pistol ammo, notwithstanding your research that there were "very few" made. Obsidian wasn't being very realistic when they made what is pretty clearly a .22 rifle but had it using 5.56 rounds. There are hundreds or thousands of different kinds of firearms that might turn up for survivors after a devastating war, and Bethesda put about twelve of them in the game. Obsidian put 20 or so in NV. Does it really matter if TTW replaces a few of the guns, and has a different twelve than Bethesda's twelve? It's wildly unrealistic either way.
Ease-of-implementation trumps, along with playability. If the easiest way for the team to deal with things is to make the .32 revolver simply use different ammo (.22 or .357 or .38, whatever) and the game plays the way you expect it to, then I say good job.
In fact, I think the simplicity of implementation is also valuable because people will no doubt want to use mods that add a greater variety of more (and more realistic) weapons to the game... so it's probably best to try to make sure mod compatibility is not broken. (...which it may not be anyway, I don't know - just making the general point.)
Btw here's a point as far as realism goes (yes I'm contradicting myself, I don't care :P): DC is an dense, urban, east-coast city, meaning it would have been full of cops before the war. And the 50s/60s vibe suggests life in the era before police departments switched over from revolvers to semiautomatics. So you could realistically expect that there would be a substantial number of .38 revolvers around the city, looted from police armories in the 200 years since the war. From my perspective, using 9mm pistols and .38 revolvers in place of Chinese pistols and .32 revolvers would *enhance* realism, not detract from it, in a game that takes place in DC.
Whatever the decision we ultimately settle on, the .308 hunting round is just too powerful for a tier 1 gun to have. Raiders in the CW need some kind of long-range weapon. If we merge all NV/FO3 weapons, then varmint rifle would work, but I think merging the weapon lists as part of the base mod is a bad idea. Short version: it's easier to scramble an egg than unscramble it.
I am still rabidly for keeping .32 as a caliber, despite the fact that it applies to only two weapons. It's lore-friendly, and really an iconic element of FO3. That aside, we should have something low powered in terms of a hunting weapon. .38 special could work, though we run the risk of oversaturating the .357-equivalent caliber weapons.
If we can't keep .32 as a caliber (seriously, can't stress enough how much I'd like to), I'd say we should pick a caliber that DOESN'T have a rifle weapon associated with it. For low level, right now that's either .22LR or .9mm. .22LR has the silenced .22 SMG, and for people running a specific mod the Varmint Rifle. 9mm on the other hand has no BASE rifle, although arguably since 9mm is taking the place of 10mm in the CW the Lever-Action Rifle should be chambered for it.
Anyway, that's my recommendation: stick with .32 as a caliber, and failing that go with a .22LR or 9mm rifle. What the weapon looks like beyond that... no idea.
The Lever-action rifle is too much a distinct part of Point Lookout. For Small Guns players, the Lever-action Rifle and the Backwater Rifle were THE rewards for playing that DLC. As much as I would love to have access to the LAR right off the bat, it would deviate from the feel of the game too much.
Side-note: its easy enough to limit that extra damage effect to when it is being used by specific types of NPCs. The reason its in there is to make the hillbillies in PL hit that much harder. Same with the extra damage on the Tri-beam Laser Rifle and Super Mutant Overlords. We can retain those abilities but confine them to the specific classes the weapons were limited to in FO3, which will stop any weird balance issues.
I honestly think we're either going to need to make a new gun, or bite the bullet (heh) and reuse an existing one. Reusing a gun would be my preference, ideally with a new skin to differentiate between the other version.
