FWE - favorite weapons?

[ElPuerco]

So I just started a Small Guns playthrough with MMM (increased spawns), FWE, WMK, and a few other inconsequential mods. Seeing as FWE gives you too many weapons to be able to legitimately hotkey a significant portion of them, and weight becomes an issue FAST if you try to hold onto more than like 1 of each ammo type, what loadouts do you FWE users run with?

 

So far, the automatic weapons (Tommy Gun, Chinese Assault Rifle, FN-FAL) are seeming quite powerful. The .223 pistol looks pretty nice. I'll need a shotgun most likely, although I don't know which, as well as something to burn my 10mm ammo (SMG is the preference, I'm assuming).

 

So that's 6 weapons right there, with 7 hotkeys. (Stimpacks being on the 8th). I still don't have a sniper rifle or anything to use .45 ammo listed (D. Eagle or Lincoln's Repeater), not to mention that the weight is piling up.

 

So - what are other people using?

[ElPuerco]

Or, alternatively, is there a listing of FWE weapons anywhere that shows how they are balanced?

[Burbinator]

here's an analysis more indepth than you'd ever want:

 

imo, the .223 pistol is by far the most useful weapon in the game. 5.56 ammo is EXTREMELY plentiful. It does 48 damage a shot and can fire up to 2 shots/second (click rapidly =D) not to mention a nice x2 crit chance multiplier. Min spread is awesome too. Unfortunately the clip size is very small, but you should not be in a situation where you cannot go into cover to begin with. I definitely use this gun almost all the time (and feel like I'm cheating to boot). quick note: 14mm pistol is actually better I think except for the crit chance, and I BELIEVE it's armor piercing. so bring that gun if you're going to be fighting robots/people in PA.

 

FN-FAL is super powerful but ammo is more expensive and rare. I never carry it with me simply because I figure I won't need it for most occassions. However, if you're about to go into a big fight, it's not a bad idea to bring it along. I forget the damage, but it's significanlty more than assault rifles.

 

Chinese assault rifle is much more powerful, 26 damage a hit with 8 shots a second. Unfortunately, the min spread is a bit high (.4 with laser sight). Its very powerful, but will eat up ammo like nobody's business. But not a bad idea to keep with you when you need to pump out the lead, plus shares ammo with .223 pistol. HOWEVER, once you find the other assault rifle (X something idk) that's a better assault rifle. Slightly smaller min spread, already comes equipped with a scope. -1 damage but +1 shots a second. -6 crit damage but double crit chance. Also uses the lighter and even more plentiful .5mm round. Finally, it's got a larger clip size too.

 

I prefer not to use shotguns because of the shell weight/cost, but they are powerful. Combat with autofire kicks BUTT and has a lower spread than pancor/hk-caws I think. But both pancor/hk-caws are also very powerful autoshotguns, bust them out against deathclaws or the like. Still, since FWE requires tactical playing and NOT rushing into close combat, shotgun use is even more limited and not generally in my arsenal.

 

Instead, for close combat encounters, I use the p90 with the INSANE fire rate and clip size. Min spread is amazing too, meaning you can get a ton of headshots quickly. 10mm ammo is common too. Tommy gun I would recommend against because of the rarer ammo type and the high weapon spread (.5? ridiculous).

 

Long range, sniper rifle is still the best hands down. however I prefer to use the lever action rifle, also using 10mm ammo. It's actually pretty weak in FWE but a sneak crit to the head will still kill all raiders and supermutant infantry. Then again, it's not difficult to sneak to mediumish range and take them out with the more powerful pistol (yeah, .223 pistol does more damage AND fires faster, how about that)

 

Finally, I recommend bringing a melee weapon to save ammo. Vampire's edge is only 1 lb, jingwei's shocksword from OA is only 3 lb. very useful when fighting animals or melee exclusive opponents (the gary clones or insane survivors). I mean, those rad scorpions really soak up the bullets, easier to slash them to death.

 

All the above is assuming you're playing a more tactical, sneaky type character. I mean, if you want to play rambo style, you probably should've went big guns :P.

[ElPuerco]

Awesome analysis. Thanks much for the insights :)

 

So it doesn't look like you see much use for anything that uses .32 or .44 ammo?

[Burbinator]

Nope. .32: The hunting rifle is simply outclassed in just about every way by the lever-action rifle (assuming you have the PL DLC of course). .32 pistols are useless, just as they were in vanilla. In fact, the only use I've found for them is that you can repair .223 pistols with them.

 

as for .44 ammo, the deagle/magnum are both inferior to the .223 and use a heavier, more expensive caliber. The only reason I can think of using a magnum/deagle is that they might have more WMK compatibility (extended magazine in particular would be a godsend) but I haven't experimented much with them. All I know is that laser sight is my favorite WMK and it works with .223 =).

 

So far on my playthrough with FWE I have somehow avoided picking up lincoln's repeater. However, that might be worth using .44 ammo for. I'm just not quite sure how FWE has modified its stats, because it didn't beef them all up equally.

 

Oh yeah, just a tip. Certain weapons can be repaired by tin cans, making it easy to max them out. Other weapons CANNOT be repaired by tin cans (most of the FWE added weapons) HOWEVER they can be repaired by weapons that CAN be repaired by cans. For example, a 14mm pistol can't be repaired by tin cans. But I can repair a 10 mm pistol to nearly full condition, then repair the 14mm with the 10mm to get a fully repaired weapon. This works with 10mm smg's and g-11/p90, .32 pistol and .223, 10mm pistol and 14mm, .32 and magnum/deagles (i think). There might be a few more but I can't think of any off of the top of my head.

 

more random stuff vaguely related to weapons: getting your repair to 100 is very easy and I recommend not tagging it, although you should still dump a bunch of points into it early on. Anyway.

 

Make a toolkit (don't remember the requirements but it's not hard to get if you're looking). +10 repair

Find a workbench. +10 repair

Get utility overalls from Point Lookout. +10 repair

wasteland explorer goggles (from motorcycle) +5 repair

amphetamines +15 repair

bobblehead from arefu +5 repair

potentially +15 from mentats

 

you're totalling +40 skill bonuses and +55 if you use amphetamines, more if your intel is below 10 (personally I suggest maxing it but w/e). Amphetamines are indeed a consumable drug, but they're extremely cheap at 20 base cost a pop, if you find merchants who sell it (a few doctors, leo stahl, quick fix, evil ghoul bartender dude). So it's worth it just to haul a bunch of stuff for a massive repair session if you have the patience. The only reason to bump repair higher is if you want to repair things on the fly, but you still don't need 100%. I keep some coveralls and the goggles with me all the time, it's like a few pounds, and a toolkit in my saddlebags, if I need to save weight before heading back home to unload.

 

alright. I'm done talking about fwe :P

[ElPuerco]

Ha, nice. Didn't know you could repair some things with tin cans. I'm not having a problem keeping anything repaired at the moment, but that's a cool tip if I run into trouble with worn weapons. I'd also like to see how Lincoln's Repeater has translated into FWE. The zero-spread accuracy on it makes it infinitely worthwhile if the damage is good.

 

I actually tagged/maxed repair (with the Arefu bobblehead) because I'm running RobCo Certified, as well, and your robots' offense/defense is based on science/repair, so temporary buffs weren't going to work.