How to use VATS

[Antearz]

So.
If you Press Q. You go into Vats.
But how do you actually Target something specific ?
It says Crit on Space but how do you liad it ?

[insert food here]

To target a specific body part you need the perk "concentrated fire" under agility. It will also make each successive shot more accurate. I only have the 1 point version and it works well. You use the mouse wheel to select different body parts.

Just be aware that not every enemy will have the same resistances for the same body part. For example setting it to target the head will be great for ghouls and scorched and super mutants, but will be hopeless for protectrons.

The crit meter will fill as you hit enemies. Once it is full you will hear an audio prompt sound to let you know. When you press scape your next shot will be a crit and use all the crit bar.

AFAIK crit shots never miss. At least I cannot remember them ever missing for me.

There are perks and legendary weapon effects that will make your crits load faster and also do more damage. There are also ones to not use all your crit bar on a crit shot.

Also having a gun with the legendary trait of +33% VATS Accuracy, or -25% VATS AP cost will help a lot if you plan to use VATS. The choice of gun mods and scope will also affect the VATS accuracy of your gun. A higher accuracy value for your gun will make the gun more accurate in VATS. However having a reflex sight will consume far less AP when using VATS over say a long range sniper style scope.

[FormerFishFarmer]

Originally posted by insert food here:

To target a specific body part you need the perk "concentrated fire" under agility. It will also make each successive shot more accurate. I only have the 1 point version and it works well. You use the mouse wheel to select different body parts.

Just be aware that not every enemy will have the same resistances for the same body part. For example setting it to target the head will be great for ghouls and scorched and super mutants, but will be hopeless for protectrons.

The crit meter will fill as you hit enemies. Once it is full you will hear an audio prompt sound to let you know. When you press scape your next shot will be a crit and use all the crit bar.

AFAIK crit shots never miss. At least I cannot remember them ever missing for me.

There are perks and legendary weapon effects that will make your crits load faster and also do more damage. There are also ones to not use all your crit bar on a crit shot.

Also having a gun with the legendary trait of +33% VATS Accuracy, or -25% VATS AP cost will help a lot if you plan to use VATS. The choice of gun mods and scope will also affect the VATS accuracy of your gun. A higher accuracy value for your gun will make the gun more accurate in VATS. However having a reflex sight will consume far less AP when using VATS over say a long range sniper style scope.

Also, be on the look out for +50% Limb damage weapons. If you use V.A.T.S. to target any body part (including the head) you get an automatic +50% damage bonus. Add that to things like Stealth and Crits, and you get pretty heavy damage per shot, especially with things like Sniper Rifles, Lever Action Rifles, and Gauss Rifles.

[STIEMgul]

@Sunleader
xD It took me over 200h playtime to notice that the perk card is the only reason for that^^ Until then i really though it just wasnt implemeted in F76 :/

Use the perk, then press Q. Then scroll with mouse wheel or arrow keys through the body parts you want to hit

[AimlessArrow]

Practical advice:
Remapping the Q button to one of the mouse button makes much more comfortable, and faster to use it.

Also worth to try Grim Reapers Sprint, which reloads all AP after each kill, if I remember well.

"AFAIK crit shots never miss. At least I cannot remember them ever missing for me."
No its not, when fired. But I have a bug sometimes that after I hit space, the next shot will not be critical. Or doesnt fires at all, just close VATS.

[ogonbatto🎃゛]

If you are a merciless killer in a great hurry,
you need a AP fast regeneration, you also need Agility: Action Boy/Action Girl (+ Gun Fu if you are lazy) and the combination of Luck cards: Better Criticals
(full + 40% is a lot), Bloody Mess (OP) then you can't find the bodies .. Critical Savvy.
The other fortune perks are too empirical .. and casually work on the VATS. Critical hits are a great help in unleashing an attack on enemies, so as to eliminate many of them in a few seconds. There would also be mutations, and drugs that help ...

[AimlessArrow]

Originally posted by ogonbatto🎃゛:

If you are a merciless killer in a great hurry,
you need a AP fast regeneration, you also need Agility: Action Boy/Action Girl (+ Gun Fu if you are lazy) and the combination of Luck cards: Better Criticals
(full + 40% is a lot), Bloody Mess (OP) then you can't find the bodies .. Critical Savvy.
The other fortune perks are too empirical .. and casually work on the VATS. Critical hits are a great help in unleashing an attack on enemies, so as to eliminate many of them in a few seconds. There would also be mutations, and drugs that help ...

Which mutation(s)?

[ogonbatto🎃゛]

Originally posted by FalseProphet:

Originally posted by ogonbatto🎃゛:

If you are a merciless killer in a great hurry,
you need a AP fast regeneration, you also need Agility: Action Boy/Action Girl (+ Gun Fu if you are lazy) and the combination of Luck cards: Better Criticals
(full + 40% is a lot), Bloody Mess (OP) then you can't find the bodies .. Critical Savvy.
The other fortune perks are too empirical .. and casually work on the VATS. Critical hits are a great help in unleashing an attack on enemies, so as to eliminate many of them in a few seconds. There would also be mutations, and drugs that help ...

Which mutation(s)?

Originally posted by FalseProphet:

Originally posted by ogonbatto🎃゛:

If you are a merciless killer in a great hurry,
you need a AP fast regeneration, you also need Agility: Action Boy/Action Girl (+ Gun Fu if you are lazy) and the combination of Luck cards: Better Criticals
(full + 40% is a lot), Bloody Mess (OP) then you can't find the bodies .. Critical Savvy.
The other fortune perks are too empirical .. and casually work on the VATS. Critical hits are a great help in unleashing an attack on enemies, so as to eliminate many of them in a few seconds. There would also be mutations, and drugs that help ...

Which mutation(s)?

EAGLE EYES
+4 PER, +25% Critical hit damage, -4 STR

if you are furious also speed-demon helps, but it has side effects anyway there is a lot of food and water in Appalachia ..

if I remember correctly some mentals (maybe orange) and x-cell help in VATS

[AimlessArrow]

Looks good I will check that. I will try overcome the STR loss, if its possible since I dont have any movable perk points for that card.

[GeneralGamePlaying]

Not sure it got mentioned: you can switch VATS targets actively with c and z or so (like workshop ribbon navigation).

[Halcyform]

Equip your rifles with mods such as reflex sights (not scopes), automatic receivers, aligned barrel, forceful stock and swift magazine. These all provide reductions to action point usage which allows you to fire more shots before your action points run out. Suppressors are neutral. Don't add or penalize action points.

You can compromise on the magazine. It isn't a huge hit against your AP and you might want to decide to use perforating if you are first starting out to conserve ammo.

Don't worry about automatic receiver using too much ammo. You can still squeeze off single shots as long as you don't hold down trigger.

Gun Fu is an option if you want to automate VATS targeting. As soon as an enemy goes down, it'll automatically target the next enemy. There's a damage bonus for it, but I don't like it. I rather do manual targeting. As long as VATS is active, your AP will not regenerate. Gun Fu keeps your VATS active.