Damage and armour rebalance

[Ediros]

So, after playing New Vegas for over 1000 hours, I have decided to come up with this thread. As you know, vanilla New Vegas uses almost pure DT system. With the highest number of achieveable dt equal to about 50 dt.

The damage formula is simplified here, but it should get my point across.

(Damage x dr - dt)*chems=final damage.

Where chems are few in number mostly atomic cocktail and such. Those only affect fire and energy weapon damage.

Dr in vanilla can only be increased by using things such as med-x, slasher and battle brew up to 85 dr.

For example a deathclaw from Lonesome Road deals 350 damage per hit. So a player with 50 dt and 0 dr, dies in two or three hits.

To top it off, explosives are seriously overpowered with fixes in New Vegas. A missile deals 150 + 200 damage and they are quite common without fixes. However with fixes a single missile deals 350 damage. So two missiles can kill a deathclaw, without perks. Compared to all other weapons in game like anti materiel rifle, ycs Gauss riffle or anything else. It is simply too powerful. I counted that in Fallout 2 both Gauss and missile launcher were both on a similar level. One needed 5 hits with max damage no crit to kill enclave comnander, the other 4. In New Vegas though they are vastly superior to anything else in terms of damage. The ycs deals 140 damage. While standard missile 350, more than twice as much.

Fatman deals 1000 damage with explosion using fix. Mod ammo fixes.

You see where I am going with, arent You? Pure dt system with damage like this is simply not enough. So there are a few choices, either buff all the armours and other weapons to compensate, nerf the damage of deathclaws, missiles and such or add dr. Though You need at least 50 dr to make any difference. (50% damage reduction).

My question is what is your opinion on the matter?

 

[mef]

explosives are seriously overpowered with fixes in New Vegas

The ycs deals 140 damage. While standard missile 350, more than twice as much.

consider damage per second, not damage per hit. and take into account that missile launcher is slow to use, the projectile is much slower and the ammo is much heavier. sure, it's still a very powerful weapon but that's because it should be. i think rocket launcher was really underpowered in the originals

 

[Ediros]

consider damage per second, not damage per hit. and take into account that missile launcher is slow to use, the projectile is much slower and the ammo is much heavier. sure, it's still a very powerful weapon but that's because it should be. i think rocket launcher was really underpowered in the originals

Well, kind of. The random damage was between 35 - 100; Something New Vegas, doesn't have. However, considering an Orion Moreno with remnants Power Armour has got 36 dt + 365 hp, he can barely take two rockets, not even direct hit.

However, I do believe New Vegas is fairly well balanced outside of explosives. All weapons are useful basically, in certain situations and there isn't only one build. However, the lack of dr or any kind of protection makes wearing power armour a moot point. The same thing with deathclaws. They two shoot you, due to their sheer damage. And in order to stop that, you would have to need 350 dt, which is absurd. Since Antimateriel rifle does 110 damage.

That's why, J.e.Sawyer mod added DR to armours. I also made some calculations:

350*0.15 = 52.5 (Almost max DT you can get in game).

Honestly, I think the simplest solution is to add DR to all kind of armours, with late game gear being top notch. Of course, none of the armours should have 85 DR, that would make the game too easy.

To put into perspective. Remnants power armour with 36 DT and 85 DR, would be able to tank attacks lower than 240 without taking a scratch.

However, Remnants Power Armour with 50 DR and Courier's 50 DT, would need only 100 damage. And even legendary bloatfly would deal 450*0.5 - 50 = 175. Three shoots to kill the Courier, that's alright with me, considering it's not even the cap.

In fact, I would balance the game that way so all power armours have got highest DT and DR rating out of them all.

That way we can have 3 classes of armour let's say:

a)Light - crit build - Ulysses, Duster, First Recon Beret, etc;

b)Medium - Elite Riot Gear - less crits, more DT and DR. Good all rounder.

c)Power Armour - highest DT and DR (up to 50, not more), but lowest crit.

 

[NMLevesque]

It could use work for sure. Seems like it's difficult to set up power armor in a way that doesn't put it in a league of its own, while making it hit the right narrative notes. However, the impracticality of using a fatman or Annabelle tends to outweigh the damage output. There's more than just math to consider. E.g friendly fire and self damage potential, your reload time vs the speed of charging enemies, a situational nature (bad angles, indoors, and proximity mean they're often not an option). Mercy aside, a good grenade launcher turned out to be the most effective option in my explosives only run.

 

[Ediros]

It could use work for sure. Seems like it's difficult to set up power armor in a way that doesn't put it in a league of its own, while making it hit the right narrative notes. However, the impracticality of using a fatman or Annabelle tends to outweigh the damage output. There's more than just math to consider. E.g friendly fire and self damage potential, your reload time vs the speed of charging enemies, a situational nature (bad angles, indoors, and proximity mean they're often not an option). Mercy aside, a good grenade launcher turned out to be the most effective option in my explosives only run.

The ai doesn't really care about that. That is the problem. Fortunately the number of enemies with Rocket launchers is rather limited and thanks to Obsidian nobody uses fatmans.