Big Guns

[niveus_everto]

+ for big guns.

/me thinks BOS gauss rifle should be included in list.

[Sethoria123]

Totally up for this! If follwoing fallout 3, your young, first real encounter was a bb gun, and a radroach. So when you get a minigun/gataling gun, should require some skill to be effective both effective range and damage (comes with literially xp) :D Cant say how excited i am for 3.0! i have the urge for some TTW :D

[burstdragon323]

I vote Optional for those who liked the Skill.

[GrantSP]

This sounds like a hell of a lot of work to just make it optional, surely if this is implemented it should be fully integrated so that the affected perks/weapons/character interactions/quests(?) etc. will be corrected to reflect this change.

As it is now 'Guns' skill is defined thus:

Guns determines your effectiveness with any weapon that uses conventional ammunition (.22 LR, .357 Magnum, 5mm, 10mm, 5.56mm, .308, .45-70 Gov't, etc.).

Looking at the list of weapons, that definition could probably be changed to something like:

Guns determines your effectiveness with any weapon, lighter than 15 pounds, that uses conventional ammunition.

This is because all the above weapons are indeed 15 pounds or above or use other types of ammo, energy cells, alien power cells etc.

'Big Guns' was defined in FO3 as:

The operation and maintenance of really big guns - miniguns, rocket launchers, flamethrowers and such.

Pretty straight-forward so this should be the basis of the list of weapons that we should be looking at so that the existing 'Guns' skill isn't too severely nerfed.

Now where the tricky overlaps start is when we introduce energy weapons into this list. Since they are already under the 'Energy Weapons' skill, is that too going to be changed? If so then perhaps the same criteria can be employed ie. any energy weapon 15 pounds or over is now a 'Big Guns' weapon and should shift into that skill's list of affected weapons.

Some of the Tesla Cannons are too light and should not be in the 'Big Guns' list.

Then we get into the 'Explosives' weapons like the Missile Launchers or the Grenade Launchers. These too should not be included as they are already under their own skill. Unless you foresee a complete change of the 'Explosives' skill also.

So my revised list would be:

[collapsed title=Big Gun Weapons] 

• 
  - Automatic Rifle (based on the M1918 Browning MG)


• 
  - Light Machine Gun


• 
  - Minigun (duh)


• 
  - Eugene


• 
  - CZ57 Avenger


• 
  - K9000 Cyberdog Gun


• 
  - FIDO


• 
  - Shoulder Mounted MG


• 
  - Flamer


• 
  - Burnmaster


• 
  - Rapid Torch Flamer


• 
  - Slo-Burn Flamer


• 
  - Cleansing Flame


• 
  - Incinerator


• 
  - Heavy Incinerator


• 
  - Gatling Laser


• 
  - Fawkes Gatling Laser


• 
  - Precision Gatling Laser


• 
  - Vengeance


• 
  - Sprtel-Wood 9700


• 
  - Plasma Caster


• 
  - Smitty Special


• 
  - Drone Cannon


• 
  - Drone Cannon ExB


• 
  - Bozar


• 
  - Anti-Material Rifle


• 
  - Anti-Material Rifle (GRA)

[/collapsed] 

[tghs]

As someone said before I don't think it makes much since to put Laser Rifles and Assault Rifles in different categories but Miniguns and Gatling Lasers in the same category.

Big Guns that blow shit up are better off in the Explosives category anyway.

Then there's the issue of mods that change guns. I imagine they'd be a pain in the ass to port over for TTW but I don't know enough about modding to say.

Personal feelings: I like using a lot of mods. I'm concerned this will lead to less compatible mods. I'm also concerned making it optional will be too much work for a small addition.

Is it really that important?

[mortemim]

Big Guns as a "bonus" skill would be neat, one that gets trained outside of the normal path, (Hidden on level up)

Example: Big Guns books as a quest reward from Big Guns factions (Boomers, Brotherhood, etc) or found in armories.

The skill would ideally improve accuracy and possibly -DT addressing the major issues with Big Guns.

It would be completely acceptable for this to be a skill that never reaches it's cap, if there are only 10 books in the game and they award 3 points each, 30 would be the soft-cap, regardless of how high the skill can go on a technical level.

[catcameback]

I'd rather keep things as they are, with new perks being introduced that can boost Big Gun type weapons instead. Adding something like a new skill sounds like it'd break other mods.

[TAWM]

Honestly from the responses so far it's basically 1/3 for bringing the Big Guns skill back, 1/3 against bringing the Big Guns skill back and 1/3 who are indifferent to whether it's brought back or not. 

As far as some of the complaints about the big guns skill like a lack of low tier weapons...I'm guessing the poster making that comment never used the Rock-It Launcher in Fallout 3.  It's a schematic weapon one of which you can purchase off Moira in Craterside supply in Megaton.  The Rock-It Launcher allows you to turn everything from a pencil to mutilated organs into ammo to use against enemies.  It's the only weapon in the game outside the recharger rifle and pistol that I can think off of the top of my head that has unlimited ammo. 

For all of us that use to do Big Gun builds in fallout 3 back before Broken Steel came out where you couldn't be a God at everything that weapon was the go to weapon of early levels until you start killing a bunch of supermutants and get miniguns and missile launchers.  Even then the Rock-It Launcher was still extremely useful.  The only way a Big Guns build is really beyond a pain in the ass is if you use the optional file and start in New Vegas instead of DC. 

As far as Big Guns damage against power armor with New Vegas mechanics...to be blunt most weapons suck against power armor in New Vegas.  However a missile launcher will kill enclave hellfire troops just fine...so it's not that big of an issue unless you are just doing nothing but minigun flavor run.

As far as ammo like 5mm goes while rarer in TTW than in Fallout 3 game due to supermutants having almost exclusively incinerators instead of miniguns like they had in Fallout 3 you still have the ability to craft ammo at ammo benches.  Plus if memory serves me right you can get 5mm ammo by trading with the outcasts with the outcast trading optional plugin.     

As far as mod conflicts go given the size of this mod and changes in 3.0 most mods big mods Project Nevada, WMX, EVE, Interiors, More Perks etc. are going to need to be updated and need to have new patches.  So a few New Vegas mods needing patches as well if Big Guns is added back into the game is not a huge deal considering most things will need to updated anyway to work with the new TTW 3.0 

Also considering Fallout 3's repair system is going to be made default in the next version of TTW and the current New Vegas version made optional that could lead to potential mod conflicts and the TTW team is going ahead with it so I'm not seeing the big deal here. 

[RoyBatty]

Please see the first post about compatibility concerns.

Side note, FO3 repair is not enabled by default, it will be optional. That goes for DT/DR bypass on some weapons also.

Back on topic.

The skill itself was part of every Fallout game prior to New Vegas, and the weapon list is based directly on the list of weapons included in that skill in those games, Fallout 3 is the main basis, with a few weapons from Fallout 2 and Tactics added. I've already received feedback from other channels that would want the BAR and AMR removed from that list. The argument is strong for the BAR so it's likely to be removed, the AMR not so much and will probably stay. The main category of weapons in the skill are 2 hand handle and 2 hand launcher weapons, which are all presently included in the list.

Weapons cannot have multiple skills, this cannot be implemented easily and won't.

The skill cannot be hidden from the level up menu, that defeats the purpose of restoring it.

Size Matters perk has already been restored prior to the skill and adds spread reduction and damage increase instead of boosting the Big Guns skill and uses basically the same list of weapons, and it will remain regardless.

A couple people have expressed their opinion to me privately, so I will outline what they said here.

In favor of it.

Pros:

• 
  something to do with those skill points after level 40 or so when there is no skills left to put them in.


• 
  increased role playing options, creating a heavy weapons build.


• 
  more options for modding purposes when it comes to skills available for dialogue checks, weapons, npc skills and classes.

Cons:

• 
  overlapping skill sets


• 
  the strength requirements added by nv do this already in a way

Thank you all for your feedback, please continue as it's helping me form an opinion on what to do.

[TrickyVein]

[quote=Merenos]

I like how big guns continues the tradition of the classical [sic] fallout games but always found them to be less well defined than the other weapon categories.

[/quote]

I think the most consistent criteria for Big Guns are what Roy mentions, below:

[quote=RoyBatty]

 2 hand handle and 2 hand launcher weapons

[/quote]

...and probably which all slow down the player when equipped. So regardless of what type of damage they do, whether it's a flamer, gauss minigun or rocket launcher, Big Guns are all handled differently from other types of weapons. 

The variety of Big Guns which span several sub-categories can be seen as a benefit to the player who invests in the skill, IMO, enabling one to enjoy a little bit of everything. 

Snatching a weapon out from under an existing skill and moving under another isn't a problem - just upgrade both weapon skills. Or not. Choice is good. 

Where will the Survival bobblehead be moved to when the Big Guns " is restored to its original location in Ft. Constantine? :P