PSA: Handloading is the worst Tier 2 weapon perk in the game.

[PK_Ultra]

Handloading's ability:

5% chance for +25% damage buff
10% chance for +15% damage buff
75% chance for +5% damage buff
10% chance for -50% damage penalty

Lets put aside the massive -50% damage penalty for now.

Your bullets on average will be dealing 6.5% extra damage. Assuming that 10% chance is now just normal damage instead.

Adding in the 10% chance to literally get your damage halved, it drops your average damage buff down from 6.5% to 1.5%.

Thats right. When averaging out the damage a weapon like this will do, Handloading is essentially a weapon perk that says: Deal 1.5% extra damage.

I have no idea what weapon would ever want this as a perk. With Terran Armada letting you reroll legendary perks, I highly suggest getting rid of this for literally ANYTHING else.

EDIT:
Doombringer mentioned that all 4 chances are rolled simultaneously.

Im not sure if this is correct but assuming that it is and all FOUR buffs can be applied simulteanously, his math says its an overall 9% damage increase.

Its not bad...but its not good either. Especially when LACERATE or HITMAN are RIGHT THERE. If what they said is true, then I take it back. Handloading is mid at best.

[Ihateeverybody]

Personally (and I know in the minority on this) I find Explosive the worst.

Have hated it in Fallout 4 as well. If Skyrim counts I hate Fireball.

[Midas]

handloading was always weird. Felt more like a quirk than a buff, and would probably be fine if all the other legendary effects weren't just buffs.

[HeyYou]

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

Personally (and I know in the minority on this) I find Explosive the worst.

Have hated it in Fallout 4 as well. If Skyrim counts I hate Fireball.

If FO4, I had the submachine gun with the explosive effect, and I though "COOL!", until I discovered that it had an area of effect, and while I was pounding the guy with the melee weapon stabbing me, I blew us both up..... yep. I killed myself.....

[Realigo Actual]

but does it roll on every shot or once for the mag? because then if you dump the bad one with an extra reload the whole thing makes sense.

[StormhawkV]

I don't understand why Handloading never got buffed. Oh well, at least they made Space-Adept useful.

[Lavian]

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

Personally (and I know in the minority on this) I find Explosive the worst.

Have hated it in Fallout 4 as well. If Skyrim counts I hate Fireball.

Yeah, Explosive is annoying because it knocks things around, but it's technically not bad.

That said, they don't occupy the same slot. Handloading is a rank 2 perk. Explosive is a rank 3 perk.

[Realigo Actual]

y no like explosive I like it. I have it on a shotgun and it shreds

[PK_Ultra]

Originally posted by Realigo Actual:

but does it roll on every shot or once for the mag? because then if you dump the bad one with an extra reload the whole thing makes sense.

it rolls per bullet.

[Doombringer]

I don't know where you are getting your numbers from, but check Starfield.esm:
15% 1.25x damage, then
25% 1.15x damage, then
35% 1.05x damage, then
10% 0.5x damage, then
always 1.05x damage
average is 1.0925x damage.
(4 different rolls for each shot is silly, but that is what it does...)

It is still better than bashing.
For 2nd slot I prefer crippling (head counts as a limb!) or hitman though.
(rapid can be good too, but not on every gun)

[Skumboni]

Say what you want about handloading but I like it. Show me your best weapon without it. Show me yours and I will show you mine.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3098290987


Showed you mine anyhow.

[PK_Ultra]

Originally posted by Skumboni:

Say what you want about handloading but I like it. Show me your best weapon without it. Show me yours and I will show you mine.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3098290987


Showed you mine anyhow.

Instigating.
Shattering.
Hitman.
Reckless.

Those are the optimal weapon perks for a designated sniper. you're only dealing 1.5% extra damage with yours.

Meanwhile these perks on one sniper means one bullet deals 1030% extra damage. One shot. One Kill.

[Lavian]

Originally posted by Skumboni:

Say what you want about handloading but I like it. Show me your best weapon without it. Show me yours and I will show you mine.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3098290987


Showed you mine anyhow.

They're completely opposite ends of the spectrum in use, but if you want to see big numbers...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3711227821

[PK_Ultra]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

I don't know where you are getting your numbers from, but check Starfield.esm:
15% 1.25x damage, then
25% 1.15x damage, then
35% 1.05x damage, then
10% 0.5x damage, then
always 1.05x damage
average is 1.0925x damage.
(4 different rolls for each shot is silly, but that is what it does...)

It is still better than bashing.
For 2nd slot I prefer crippling (head counts as a limb!) or hitman though.
(rapid can be good too, but not on every gun)

https://starfield.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Effects

Are you sure its a THEN command and not an OR? Either way, 9% damage is still pretty bad. Not as bad as 1.5%.

[Mooman]

The more you look into Bethesda and mathematics you'll find they have a terrible grasp of it.

Part of the issue is the creation engine only does addition and multiplication. To do subtraction or division you need to understand that subtraction is adding negative values and division is multiplying by fractions.

Because of this there are often mathematical 'bugs' in most of their games, also because there can be more than 1 way to achieve the same result and it isn't consistent between devs.

For example to reduce a value by 20% you can do a multiply/add, multiply by -0.2 and add the result to the original value, or realise that reducing by 20% is the same as multiplying by 0.8.

Because different devs use different formats it can lead to bugs down the line (particularly if the original dev leaves). Not everything 'just works' when it comes to Bethesda games...

[Doombringer]

Originally posted by PK_Ultra:

https://starfield.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Effects

You are quoting fandom (which anyone can edit), I literally looked it up in the game files right before posting.
Creation Kit -> open Starfield.esm -> look at the Handloading perk...
It has not changed since launch.
The numbers I posted are what it always has been.
(Also there is no THEN or OR, it does entrypoints from highest priority to lowest, so priority 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> 0. If the entrypoint doesn't always happen there is a/are conditional statement(s) for that - which for the first 4 is a random roll <= to x%, the last one always happens.)

You can test it in game if you don't want to check it yourself in creation kit.
You get 16 different damage values. These line up with all the combinations of numbers I posted.
(getav health only shows values to 2 decimal places, but you can make a 1billion hp mob and use a high damage weapon to get around that though. Make sure to getav then modav the target dummy's damage resistance to 0...)

It's not terrible, but there are better 2nd slot abilities.