Lost substantial amounts of damage after getting the penetrator perk.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

I am aware that shooting enemies through cover deals reduced damage, but I am hitting a third of the damage my sniper once did now that I have this perk. Its almost as if the damage reduction from shooting through cover is being applied at all times. I was able to use the perk for about the first 2 hours of getting it with no problem, but now it seems to be glitched. Enemies I once head shotted with a single vats shot now take 2-3 headshots or 2 crits. Its kinda killing my desire to play right now, so some insight as to what is going on or how to fix it would be appreciated.

[Tenkillsmore]

Mods?

[Bored Peon]

Enemy levels. Higher level enemies have more damage resistance.

Are you shooting at zone mobs that max at like 42 or so, or are you shooting at level 100+ mobs equal to your level?

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Penetrator
Allegedly there is only damage reduction if it passes through terrain.

You can save your game, remove the perk with console commands and then test it again.

[Bored Peon]

Grab the perk that allows you to see stats in VATS, the second rank is bonus damage.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

Nah I am only level 30 on this character. The vats damage is really unreliable now. Many shots that say they will kill only do 1/3 the damage they should. That is normal if you are shooting through cover or very long range, but I am getting heavily reduced damage shooting people across a room from me with no cover. No mods.

[Bored Peon]

Yeah but at 30 is when most mobs are in heavier armor.

Also remember different mob names means different levels.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

I will probably try just removing the perk and see if it fixes anything. I will do a test with and without the perk against the same enemy, at the same range. I will do another test at further and further ranges to see if its range related. I just got this hunch, maybe its because of how buggy these games tend to be, but I think its giving the penetration damage penalty to all enemies regardless of cover. Raider wasters for me right now are typically 2 head shots to kill, but on random occasions they will not even lose 1/3rd of their hp.

Not today though I gtg to work soon.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

Alright so with a little bit of testing on the same yao guai with and without the perk it appears that the penetrator perk works for the most part. On one of my repeated tests with it though there was a log blocking just the legs of the bear and I hit the head. The damage was severely reduced as if I shot through the log. I ran the exact fight again and made sure the log was partially blocking the bears body and I got the same result. I believe this is what I have been running into with this perk. Its hard to prove and I don't have anyway of recording it, but I believe if anything blocks even 1 limb then your damage gets reduced. Thinking back on it most times I noticed this perk screwing me over is while I was crouching and the lowered line of sight was probably causing the glitch to happen more often. Perhaps the hitbox on some enemies limbs or some objects are larger then they appear to be and that causes the damage reduction even though they visually are not in cover. I know partial cover is a thing, if you shoot at an enemy who is slightly blocked by an object without the penetrator perk you lose some vats accuracy. Maybe in those same instances with the perk instead of losing as much accuracy you just trigger the damage reduction.

Overall I would say this perk isn't worth taking, the marginal benefit of being able to shoot through cover does not make up for the damage lose due to the glitchy nature. Even without the glitch most times your damage gets reduced so severely from shooting through cover that it isn't even worth using the ap. Sentry bots and power armored enemies are not dangerous enough to warrant taking the perk just to deal with their fusion cores(they are also quite rare).

[Bored Peon]

So it is what I thought, something considered blocking.

Honestly, the perk is great for fighting robots and power armor because you can target the cores from the front.

It also depends where you are too. cover is there a lot. I will bet that fight mobs ducking behind objects will eventually make you think maybe I shouldnt have gotten rid of it.