Fast Shot or aimed shots

[ianpwilliams]

I'm building a character in Fallout 2, and I'm considering going with Fast Shot like I did in Fallout 1. Most guides say that having the ability to aim is better than having Fast Shot, but one of the reasons why I chose Fast Shot for the first game was because I imagine that it could be time-consuming and could become annoying having to choose a body part after every shot. But having said that, maybe it could make the combat more fun and interesting bearing in mind that I'll be playing alone without followers.

So do aimed shots make combat more fun and interesting? Or do you just end up aiming for the eyes every time (which would probably annoy me)?

 

[SnapSlav]

As I mentioned in your other thread: "Season to taste". Whatever works for you is what's best.

That being said, however, aimed shots are NOT very tedious at all. Yes, you gotta target each time you take a shot, but ONLY if you want to make targeted shots. You can still fire without aiming, and your character will aim for the torso, which has the highest chance to hit. But provided your combat skill is high enough (or you're patient enough and can tolerate missing a few times), targeted shots REALLY pay off, and can make combat much, MUCH quicker than a character with Fast Shot can.

Shots to the Eyes have the best chance of immediately killing an opponent, but they are the hardest to hit. Shots to the Head are effective and quite likely to knock your target unconscious, so you can ignore them for the rest of a fight while you deal with other enemies (possibly knocking them out, one by one, too). Shots to the Groin do very little damage, but VERY likely to knock out your target, and it's much easier to land a Groin shot than a Head shot or aiming for the Eyes. If an enemy is using ANY 2-handed weapon, you can make them useless if you aim for one of their arms and successfully cripple it. If an enemy tries to flee from you (you said you're playing the RP, and there's ONE particularly nasty guy who runs away you'd probably want to take out before he escapes) then aiming for the legs will make them a sitting duck.

I made a full conversion from Fast Shot Sniper to Targeted Shot Sniper, and I played FO2 DOZENS of times with Fast Shot characters, so it's not to say that it isn't really, really fun. But some parts of the game are just INCREDIBLY tedious if you can't target your shots. Becoming a Heavyweight Champion is very easy when you can constant punch boxers in the nuts for an easy knockout. ^^

 

[Marionettetc]

As a long time Fast Shot supporter, it's really only for burst weapons if we're talking min/maxing with living anatomy. Generally all the big guns benefit from Fast Shot more than any other weapon since they all don't have aimed shots to begin with.

Fast shot also takes a huge spike in power if you're heading into the Sniper perk. It can also be useful in the precursor Sniper Build since you don't get sniper until level 24 (end of the game). For the whole rest of the game, 10 LUCK, Finesse, More Criticals x 2/3, Better Criticals still does work with a high Damage, Low AP gun (Alien Blaster/.223 Pistol) - something like 3 a turn with 2 x Action Boy/Girl. At the point you get Sniper, you can use MUTATE! to change another trait to Fast Shot with no gameplay loss.

Really though, if we're talking just pure game crunch, you only take Fast Shot if you're going Burst Weapons, or you're at the threshold where taking the trait would give you 2 total attacks per turn, or in extreme cases - 3 attacks. Otherwise it's just a role playing choice because under the current aimed shot rules - they are always better if your accuracy is high enough.