Sneaking and sniping outfit

[Adyne]

In my first playthrough I was pretty much like a tank, just straight up through the front door and shoot everything that moves. In my second playthrough I want to try sneaking and sniping, so I need an outfit that is light, but protects me at least a little bit (and looks badass, but that is not so important).
Do you guys have any advices?

[Ilja]

Are you asking about ingame stuff, or mod added stuff?

In either case, I think the most practical and best looking gear is combined from several other objects. For example, Michael here:

• Helmet: Armor and Weapon Keyword Community Resource
  
• Goggles (functional and placing them over eyes when used): West Tek Tactical Goggles.
  
• Headlamp: Tactical Flashlights.
  
• Mask: Scarf Mask (Also merged to Custom Combat Armor. Can be customized for different patterns and colors.)
  
• Base outfit: Elianora's Compendium.
  
• Bag: Elianora's Compendium.
  
• Arm Armors: Shadowed vanilla and/or Edited Combat Armors from Custom Combat Armor.
  
• Glows: Armor and Weapon Keyword Community Resource
  
• Rifle: Scratch Made textures.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1357979942
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1300523986
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1161301028

[Adyne]

Nah, just items in the stock game, DLCs included.

[RoyalAlchemist]

Shadowed-lightweight-leather armor with the chameleon legendary effect. That should basically make you invisiable during the night and very hard to spot in the day. Then just get a silenced sniper rifle and aim for the head and you're good to go.

[Pain Weasel]

If you are not using mods then Ballistic Weave is your friend if you are looking to keep it light and still have some protection. You don't necessarily even need armor, unless you want the additional bonuses from Shadowed and Muffled or some legendary effects. I'm not sure the armor is worth it though since the bonuses are pretty minimal other than the legendary effects.

Once you get some ranks into Stealth you can probably afford to increase the weight of your armor a bit without being a detriment to stealth and mix up some leather and metal armor for that nice badass wastelander feel.

[ghpstage]

In unmodded, provided you slow move in a sneak then, even without any sneak perks and in more or less any armour without sneak boosting mods you can get around a lot of buildings without being detected much. Distance sniping is even easier.

[Astasia]

Ya if you are sniping you don't really need anything in stealth and can wear whatever armor you want. Just pop a shot off while sneaking then move somewhere else and repeat. Enemies will move to where you shot from and look around a little, but their search distance is really low. You only really need to worry about stealth related equipment if you are trying to do melee stealth, or pistol VATS stealth.

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Ya if you are sniping you don't really need anything in stealth and can wear whatever armor you want. Just pop a shot off while sneaking then move somewhere else and repeat. Enemies will move to where you shot from and look around a little, but their search distance is really low. You only really need to worry about stealth related equipment if you are trying to do melee stealth, or pistol VATS stealth.

The problem with pure sniper builds with no stealth or armor is that there are far too many indoor areas where sniping just wont work well. It is great at long range but fairly crappy in someplace like the National Guard Armory. Having stealth skills and some kind of armor will increase survivability in those areas.

[ghpstage]

As a group pistols contain most if not all of the ten longest ranged weapons in the game. Theres no need to get close unless you want to use your 10mm, deliverer or .44 and even then gunslinger brings them up to considerable distances.

You can get surprisingly close without any sneak boosts, close enough to lob grenades around corners in most cases, or mines and use your sounds to lure them.

Granted you do get caught sometimes, but while i've never used the sneak perk and rarely bother with the armour mods I can still make heavy use of sneak attacks and suppressors in the overwhelming majority of circumstances if I want.

If your sniper is dedicated to killing every target with a scoped sneak atatck then yes, you'll need them to make sure you are never found. If not then pretty much any sniper build will be able to make solid use of VATS using a cut down rifle, or you could even design improved VATS performance into your sniper weapon.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

The problem with pure sniper builds with no stealth or armor is that there are far too many indoor areas where sniping just wont work well. It is great at long range but fairly crappy in someplace like the National Guard Armory. Having stealth skills and some kind of armor will increase survivability in those areas.

That's more a problem with sniping builds than their lack of stealth though. More often than not I play snipe builds, I just favor that gameplay, and I usually don't focus on stealth until much later in the game when I have nothing else to work on. Some locations I just avoid, they aren't worth trying to do with a sniper, but if it's a tight indoor map I have to do for some reason it still works in mostly the same way as outdoors. Even with nothing in stealth you can generally sneak through an empty room, peak through a doorway and shoot an enemy or two, then run away to a closet or something and wait from them to stop looking for you. Even with a lot of focus in stealth, that scenario doesn't play out much differently for a sniper, you can't shoot an enemy then just stand still without being detected unless that enemy was alone and the weapon was silenced (in which case your stealth ability doesn't matter anyway), having more stealth just means you don't have to move as far away to lose agro, and you can run while sneaking through the empty rooms instead of walking.

[Adyne]

My plan was focusing on sniping, if this doesn't works, then I would try sneaking to the enemy and just murder them all and if even that won't work and I have to expect getting hit I want al least a little bit protection.

So I need good armor that protects me, but also hides me.
My first thought is a full combat armor, with some mods like shadowed or lightweight.

[jonnan.west]

Originally posted by RoyalAlchemist:

Shadowed-lightweight-leather armor with the chameleon legendary effect. That should basically make you invisiable during the night and very hard to spot in the day. Then just get a silenced sniper rifle and aim for the head and you're good to go.

Actually the light combat armor is the lightest armor in the game by quite a bit and only the synth armor has comparable protection (but heavier weight and doesn't have a shadowed variant)

Shadowed Ultralight is pretty spiffy; Also with a light combat helmet you get one more shadowed bonus.

Chameleon is great of course, but hardly guaranteed to be found.

[jonnan.west]

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

If you are not using mods then Ballistic Weave is your friend if you are looking to keep it light and still have some protection. You don't necessarily even need armor, unless you want the additional bonuses from Shadowed and Muffled or some legendary effects. I'm not sure the armor is worth it though since the bonuses are pretty minimal other than the legendary effects.

Once you get some ranks into Stealth you can probably afford to increase the weight of your armor a bit without being a detriment to stealth and mix up some leather and metal armor for that nice badass wastelander feel.

Oh, Worth remembering that there are several outfits that allow full baliisticweave outfit + full combat armor; Most (All?) of the minuteman outfits, Army/Military Fatigues, etcetera. You can also put ballistic weave on Minuteman gloves and the Militia Hat for some reason - you can even wear the gloves with a hazmat suit.

[Stardustfire]

what gloves? i guess u wandering into modland because in vanilla Militia hat (mean Minuteman hat? ) cant get weave and something like Minutemen gloves dont exist.

[ghpstage]

Ultralight is more about weight saving and AP than stealth, for sneaking muffled would do more though with sneak perks it would probably be overkill.

[jonnan.west]

Originally posted by ghpstage:

Ultralight is more about weight saving and AP than stealth, for sneaking muffled would do more though with sneak perks it would probably be overkill.

I like the multiple benefits of Ultralight; Also if you have extra legendaries you only occasionally want (Acrobat comes to mind), Ultralight gear is a spiffy way to carry it.