Radscorpions...

Makenshi

Makenshi

Ahoy, ye salty dogs!
... in Fallout 1/2 died with 3 shots of 10mm pistol.

In tactics they got a bit of a buff, but still died to 2 shotgun shots.

But in Fallout 3/New Vegas, goddamnit, each shot from whatever bullet weapon takes only one of those little bars (I assume each is 1 HP?). I tried a rocket launcher for the lulz and it actually took 3 rocket to kill the bastard - and a rocket in Fallout 1 was often insta-kill against supermutants.

Why such a change? I mean, fuck, it's just a chittin exoesqueleton for God's sake, it shouldn't be SO tough. I was in the Wrights' house (New Reno, Fallout 2) yesterday and one of woman in the kitchen even talks about radscorpion hunting, so it's actually kind of canon that regular people (player characters of heroic proportions don't count, hehe) can kill them without need to "prepare for a war".
 
Yeah, some insects seem insanely strong. Cazadores and radscorpions really fuck me up everytime.
Just a few hits kill me, and espcially the Cazadores are fuckin' fast!
The poison is also really annoying, especially if you don't have antidote.
 
What difficulty are you playing on? Radscorpions are beastly until you get some kind of high DAM rifle. Apparently unnarmed is really strong against them, but I can't speak to that from personal experience (I also wouldn't feel to eager about getting in melee range).
 
normal; and like i said: rocket launcher, 3 rockets each scorp

this is madness, and it's not even sparta ¬¬

also, the point of the topic is not so mch about ho to deal with them, but why WHY oh god WHYYYY did beth take this design decision and, most important, why did obsidian keep it? aaand I hope some modder decide to put radscorpion back in their place ^^
 
But in Fallout 3/New Vegas, goddamnit, each shot from whatever bullet weapon takes only one of those little bars (I assume each is 1 HP?). I tried a rocket launcher for the lulz and it actually took 3 rocket to kill the bastard - and a rocket in Fallout 1 was often insta-kill against supermutants.
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Well, a) what was your explosives skill?
b) there's some sort of weird thing in NV where AoE weapons fail to bypass high DT sometimes despite high DAM. Not sure if that's bugged or as intended.
c) Try any high-damage weapon and they go down easy. For example, a sledge or a sniper rifle, etc.

I also never recall rockets being that powerful in FO1/2.
 
Cazadores = 1 or 2 hits with a hammer.

In New Vegas an important thing is armor of target and penetration. That's why there is anti-armor ammo in game, which may has a low damage, but against armored targets it does much more damage than normal ammo.

High damage =/= high penetration

PS. Sorry for my english!
 
Problems with scorpions is that they don't have a head zone defined. So you can only shot their limbs or their body. I personally always aim for their forceps (via VATS), because if you destroy them, the scorpion dies as well. Of course, using AP ammo for it is a must have as well.
 
A service rifle is enough to clear out scorpion gulch - as soon as the giant radscorpions appear, switch to AP ammo. Allow Veronica to punsh things, and they´ll go down even faster. (hardcore + very hard, gun skill ~ 50)

So IMO, they aren´t tough enough. As already said, NV forces you to use different tactics (or better: ammo ^^) instead of just rushing into combats.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
I also never recall rockets being that powerful in FO1/2.
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They're seriously underpowered in New Vegas though. All big guns are. Useless. Even more than in Fallout 3 to my memory.

Anyway, radscorpions are easy, just don't waste bullets on them unless you have some extra AP rounds. If you're not playing hardcore/very hard, you can take em out with spiked knuckles or better.

Apparently unnarmed is really strong against them, but I can't speak to that from personal experience (I also wouldn't feel to eager about getting in melee range).
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Cazadors are a pain in melee range but radscorpions hardly do any damage.
 
Makenshi said:
... in Fallout 1/2 died with 3 shots of 10mm pistol.

In tactics they got a bit of a buff, but still died to 2 shotgun shots.

But in Fallout 3/New Vegas, goddamnit, each shot from whatever bullet weapon takes only one of those little bars (I assume each is 1 HP?). I tried a rocket launcher for the lulz and it actually took 3 rocket to kill the bastard - and a rocket in Fallout 1 was often insta-kill against supermutants.

Why such a change? I mean, fuck, it's just a chittin exoesqueleton for God's sake, it shouldn't be SO tough. I was in the Wrights' house (New Reno, Fallout 2) yesterday and one of woman in the kitchen even talks about radscorpion hunting, so it's actually kind of canon that regular people (player characters of heroic proportions don't count, hehe) can kill them without need to "prepare for a war".
Click to expand...

I like the fact that radscorpions no longer have the dubious distinction of being useless mooks. It doesn't make sense for them to be, as the basic scorpions exoskeleton offers decent protection from predators.

The bigger it is, the stronger its skeleton is. Logical and interesting, certainly more than Fallout 1/2's scorpiomooks.
 
They're seriously underpowered in New Vegas though. All big guns are. Useless. Even more than in Fallout 3 to my memory.
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Maybe. I really have never liked big guns in any FO game, so I haven't even tried. I think the reason for it though is that some big guns in FO3 were a bit OP so the overshot it in the other direction. And technically there aren't even "big guns" anymore, making them doubly useless.

... in Fallout 1/2 died with 3 shots of 10mm pistol.
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I was playing just now, regular-sized radscorpions go down to about 3-4 10mm pistol shots. Or two sneak-criticals with a varmint rifle.

Problems with scorpions is that they don't have a head zone defined.
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It's not obvious, but the game treats "stinger" as "head" for whatever reason. I know for sure because I had one of those "cripple X heads" message show up after crippling a scorpion stinger.
 
Well, they have a DT or 30. I assume they have a mutated carapace that protects them from hits.

Don't worry, the ultra powerful Sniper weaponry kills them with 1-2 hits like it kills everything else.
 
Other than wasting much ammo on them, I don't have a problem with the normal radscorpions. The Giant ones can really be trouble if you run into them at an early level though.

One of the best "oh shit..." moments I've had was doing that lame quest from the Mojave outpost where you kill a bunch of ants on that road with the walls around it. I'd just cleaned out the ants and am about to head out of that "trench" (can't find a better word atm) when all of a sudden a Giant Radscorpion lumbers into view. Nearly had a heartattack (it killed me pretty quickly). It must've chased something because I don't think it usually wanders on that road (I know there are scorpions around that general area, just not on the road).
 
Speaking of Oh Shit Moments, a little mod called "True Damage Threshold" makes it so that no damage goes through if you are hitting less than the targets DT. Needless to say, I had quite a few OH SHIT moments early in the game when neither me, nor my companions did any damage WHATSOEVER to the large radscorpions. It was fuckin sweet.
 
a little mod called "True Damage Threshold" makes it so that no damage goes through if you are hitting less than the targets DT.
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Well, that's silly. I mean, it worked great in FO1/2, but it simply doesn't work well the way NV is set up. A lot of DT and DAM value tweaking would be required to make that actually fun to play; does the mod do that?

As for the Oh Shiiiii moments, the glorious one is in the Camp Searchlight where the Ghoul soldier asks you if you're SURE you took all the scorpions out.
 
It seems to have worked in NV, I mean, a varmint rifle did no damage, but Boone kills them now easily. Along with everything else.
 
Ditch Boone and get Veronica (mod fixing her level up issue). Give her pushy, balistic fist or anything like that. See her solo three Cazadors and win.

Or, if you like Boone, give him Oh Baby!.

I'd suggest Lily, but she can't equip unique weapons, which sucks.


There is a reason behind this. Boone might be better with Brush Rifle or This machine in his hands, but that means you have to supply him with ammo. Giving an NPC unarmed/melee weapon however will make them self-efficient forever (the weapons also don't lose durability). That's how you can easily preserve ammo: garbage of all levels from coyotes to cazadores will be RAPED by your melee/unarmed NPC without breaking a sweat unless rare situation of stunlock. NPCs take nearly no damage at all from gunfire at very hard with a good armor - unleash Veronica equipped with Pushy and Combat/Power armor against a group of fiends and see their heads flying a mile away.

Ironically, you can get all of that without any serious fights in the first place. It's like Fallout 2, where you could get Advanced Power Armor at level 2.
 
She doesn't level up (at all) and her personal quest is glitchy. Both can be fixed with mods. The first one is simple, since she just lacks a flag for "can level up". You can do it yourself by ticking that box in GECK or download a mod that fixes it at newvegasnexus.
 
DForge, you seem to dislike the game being too easy, but you have the PC ver. so why not use mods?

The way i have it modded, even me boone veronica and cass get killed, quite often if we dont have cover. Big Radscorps one shot any of us, and any of my team can take like 3 bullets (one to he head) before dying. None of us wear actual armor, so that keeps things interesting.
 
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