Legion said:
Yeah, that makes sense! I find that in the early game, when the 10mm pistol and pipe weapons that use .38 ammo are abundant, Raiders take up to 3 shots to kill. My rationale for taking those perks is:
-Raiders have 30 health
-The 10mm pistol has 18 base damage: a two-shot kill in center mass, one-shot kill to the head
-Add a powerful receiver with Gun Nut 1: 28 damage, still a two shot kill
-Gunslinger 1 + Powerful Reciever: +20% damage = 33.6 damage. Rounding down, that's still a 1-shot kill against basic Raiders, and a two shot kill against Raider Scum (45 health) who would take 3 shots otherwise.
So by level 3, I've increased my survivability by reducing the shots to kill on the two main enemy types I'll be facing in the northern half of the map. These numbers are of course skewed in game by armor and damage resistance, so I find that I'm often 4-shotting enemies to begin with and move down to 3. But this is why I find Rifleman so very useful. By level 9, if I've taken Gun Nut 1 and two Rifleman perks, I've reduced my shots-to-kill by 1 and ignore 15% of armor (which may or may not make any difference at all, I don't actually know). So, yeah, I may be perking for overkill and redundancy. But to my mind, anything that makes me offensively more effective is essential. I can always run and hide, I can always use cover effectively and manage my inventory intelligently, but I can never become more deadly than my opponents until I perk those.
Part of the reason I didn't perk them in my first survival playthrough is because I went down the very original sneak/sniper path and so I was doing plenty of damage through sneak attacks alone and didn't need any additional damage from rifleman and gun nut. This time arround I'm attempting pretty much the opposite, so shotgun/short hunting rifle + a combination of chems and doing everything I can to avoid damage while getting closer to whicher raider I have decided needs to die. Which has resulted in me prioritising perks that will keep me alive and moving which then means I can keep shooting longer. I also have a fairly large inventory so I can carry larger amount of food which will allow me to heal more often. Combing that all with my greatest advantage, that of being the player who can do things the npcs can't, such as jump which lets me use the terrain to get the drop on people and I'm already more deadly then they will ever be.
I think another reason I don't take them is that it results in me not being superman (or the game's equivalent), I might be a little more resiliant then the average raider but I have to really work for it if I want to take down a strong enemy. For example I recently decided that I must kill Hammer (a named super mutant with a missle launcher, who is surrounded by other super mutants), I did so by picking off his followers and then bunkering down in a ruined house as he closed in on me, all without going into sneak once.
[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Legion]Legion[/url] said:[/b]
Yeah, that makes sense! I find that in the early game, when the 10mm pistol and pipe weapons that use .38 ammo are abundant, Raiders take up to 3 shots to kill. My rationale for taking those perks is:
-Raiders have 30 health
-The 10mm pistol has 18 base damage: a two-shot kill in center mass, one-shot kill to the head
-Add a powerful receiver with Gun Nut 1: 28 damage, still a two shot kill
-Gunslinger 1 + Powerful Reciever: +20% damage = 33.6 damage. Rounding down, that's still a 1-shot kill against basic Raiders, and a two shot kill against Raider Scum (45 health) who would take 3 shots otherwise.
So by level 3, I've increased my survivability by reducing the shots to kill on the two main enemy types I'll be facing in the northern half of the map. These numbers are of course skewed in game by armor and damage resistance, so I find that I'm often 4-shotting enemies to begin with and move down to 3. But this is why I find Rifleman so very useful. By level 9, if I've taken Gun Nut 1 and two Rifleman perks, I've reduced my shots-to-kill by 1 and ignore 15% of armor (which may or may not make any difference at all, I don't actually know). So, yeah, I may be perking for overkill and redundancy. But to my mind, anything that makes me offensively more effective is essential. I can always run and hide, I can always use cover effectively and manage my inventory intelligently, but I can never become more deadly than my opponents until I perk those.
[/blockquote]
Part of the reason I didn't perk them in my first survival playthrough is because I went down the very original sneak/sniper path and so I was doing plenty of damage through sneak attacks alone and didn't need any additional damage from rifleman and gun nut. This time arround I'm attempting pretty much the opposite, so shotgun/short hunting rifle + a combination of chems and doing everything I can to avoid damage while getting closer to whicher raider I have decided needs to die. Which has resulted in me prioritising perks that will keep me alive and moving which then means I can keep shooting longer. I also have a fairly large inventory so I can carry larger amount of food which will allow me to heal more often. Combing that all with my greatest advantage, that of being the player who can do things the npcs can't, such as jump which lets me use the terrain to get the drop on people and I'm already more deadly then they will ever be.
I think another reason I don't take them is that it results in me not being superman (or the game's equivalent), I might be a little more resiliant then the average raider but I have to really work for it if I want to take down a strong enemy. For example I recently decided that I must kill Hammer (a named super mutant with a missle launcher, who is surrounded by other super mutants), I did so by picking off his followers and then bunkering down in a ruined house as he closed in on me, all without going into sneak once.
