Moraelin Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Well, there is no fundamental difference between silencer and no silencer. A silencer only reduces your gun's level from very loud to less loud. As in, no, really, that's what it does in the game. It can mean the difference between them going directly to noticing you, especially on the second shot, or just keeping laying suppression fire in the general direction of the shot, but that's about it. But to get back to that point, there is no fundamental difference. If you're far enough, at night, shadowed, and/or they don't have line of sight to you, you can stay undetected even after using a non-suppressed weapon. Conversely, if you're too close and not shadowed enough and they have LOS, they can go straight to detecting you even with a silencer. And if you're shooting from 600 yards, yeah, the silencer is pointless in any case, unless maybe if you want the Sandman bonus. Because you're WAY outside their detection range anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minngarm Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 I've noticed in this game in particular that enemies will "lay down suppressive fire" in your general direction even though they don't actually know where you are. They'll shoot from cover at the direction the shot came from and continue shooting in that direction if you move to another spot. That's how I know they don't actually know where you are, but are just returning fire. This may be what the OP is encountering. I never noticed this in previous Fallout games, and in Skyrim the enemy will run to that location even if you're not there anymore. Heck in Skyrim you can just fire an arrow at a location that you want everyone to run to and they'll go to where the arrow made impact. I kinda wish enemies tracked impact in this game too. The problem is they do this regardless if you have a silencer on or not. Which negates the purpose of the silencer. Not really, the silencer prevents them from knowing exactly where you are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NexusFiles Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 I've noticed in this game in particular that enemies will "lay down suppressive fire" in your general direction even though they don't actually know where you are. They'll shoot from cover at the direction the shot came from and continue shooting in that direction if you move to another spot. That's how I know they don't actually know where you are, but are just returning fire. This may be what the OP is encountering. I never noticed this in previous Fallout games, and in Skyrim the enemy will run to that location even if you're not there anymore. Heck in Skyrim you can just fire an arrow at a location that you want everyone to run to and they'll go to where the arrow made impact. I kinda wish enemies tracked impact in this game too. The problem is they do this regardless if you have a silencer on or not. Which negates the purpose of the silencer. Not really, the silencer prevents them from knowing exactly where you are. Then tell them to stop running right towards me. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moraelin Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 There's a difference between knowing exactly where you are and knowing the general direction. Besides, exactly what did you expect anyway? That they just stand around? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minngarm Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 I've noticed in this game in particular that enemies will "lay down suppressive fire" in your general direction even though they don't actually know where you are. They'll shoot from cover at the direction the shot came from and continue shooting in that direction if you move to another spot. That's how I know they don't actually know where you are, but are just returning fire. This may be what the OP is encountering. I never noticed this in previous Fallout games, and in Skyrim the enemy will run to that location even if you're not there anymore. Heck in Skyrim you can just fire an arrow at a location that you want everyone to run to and they'll go to where the arrow made impact. I kinda wish enemies tracked impact in this game too. The problem is they do this regardless if you have a silencer on or not. Which negates the purpose of the silencer. Not really, the silencer prevents them from knowing exactly where you are. Then tell them to stop running right towards me. :wink: Need that video footage cause nobody here has been able to relate to the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOriginalEvilD Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 (edited) Lets get something clear, there is NO SUCH THING as a "silencer". You cannot make a gun, especially a rifle, silent. Forget what movies have told you, it doesn't happen, especially when you go up in caliber and velocity. The most you can ever expect a suppressor to do is muffle the sound enough to scatter it and make it *more difficult* to pinpoint where the shot came from. Beyond that they're going to see a little reduction in muzzle flash, but that's about it. You don't just become a ghost because you're using a suppressor. And, here's the main point, if you skim this whole post and only take in one thing from everything I'm probably wasting my time typing, understand this: In order to get the most from a suppressor, you must use subsonic ammo. Without that, yes your weapon will be quieter, but nowhere near what subsonic ammo will give you. That also means a slower and less powerful round. If you don't have all the sneak perks, and you're wearing heavy ass armor, and you stand in the same spot you shot from, then yes the enemy is going to find you. On the other hand, if you get all your sneak perks, and you're not in heavy armor, you fire a suppressed round, and then you sneak away to another location, even if you're just going 30 yards away, your chances of being found are greatly reduced. But, you're not invisible, if you want to be invisible you need to use a Stealthboy along with all the other stuff. Here, this video talks a little about suppressors and will give you an idea of what they do in real life. If you'd like more info on subsonic ammo, watch this one. Edited April 19, 2016 by Evil D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jn_Panower Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Well said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moraelin Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Well, more accurately, unless you use subsonic ammo, the projectile itself will cause a very audible sonic boom (or rather crack) as it passes by. Even if they don't hear the gun at all, they're going to hear the hell out of the round. But mind you, even with subsonic ammo, suppressing a sound is misleading. For a start, even if you somehow made a totally silent round, there are some moving metal parts there. Especially on auto or semi-auto weapons, yeah, they're going to strike metal on metal pretty loudly. But silencing the round is a problem by itself, since we're talking an explosion there. Without a suppressor, almost all firearms produce peak sound levels over 140 dB. That's insanely loud. In fact a wimpy .22 varmint rifle produces 140 dB, and a .22 pistol is actually louder. (Generally, shorter barrel means louder.) Particularly large bore firearms can produce something like 175 dB. An average suppressor subtracts about 30 dB from that. A REALLY good one can go up to 40-ish, a really crappy one can subtract as little as 14 dB or so. Generally, a suppressed weapon with subsonic ammo still ends up in the 117-130 dB range or so. A change of 10 dB is a reduction of 10 times in sound power. The decibel level is also traditionally measured at a distance of 1m, and sound level is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, so let's calculate how well you could hear a suppressed weapon, especially at night, when us FO snipers operate. Well, at a distance of 1km (about 1100 yards or so), that's a millionth of the sound power at 1m, which means 60 dB less. A suppressed weapon with subsonic ammo which was 120 dB loud, will still be 60 dB loud at 1 km. Yeah, they'll hear it. WITHOUT subsonic ammo, things are even crappier. For the sonic crack of the bullet, the distance that matters is not the distance to the gun, but the closest the bullet gets to the guy hearing it. If another raider is 1m away from the one you shot, yeah, he'll hear that crack from 1m away not from 600. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOriginalEvilD Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Oh, and besides all this real life stuff, suppressors are not useless unless it's a one shot kill....they give you huge damage bonuses if you get the perks that go along with them. So much so that once you get the right perks, using anything that isn't silenced is a waste of time. With the perks and chems I think I do just a hair under 7x damage for sneak shots. At that point you're just about guaranteed that one shot will indeed be a kill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minngarm Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Really IRL you do much better with a flash suppressor than a silencer which as said above is not an accurate name for what it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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