The best End Game suppressed weapon

[Professor Q]

I punched a bunch of stats into a spreadsheet because I wanted to know what the theoretical best weapon is. I only looked at suppressed weapons because I wanted to include Sandman and the Operators perk. I'm sure a Gatling Laser or something might beat some of the numbers I calculated. Anyway...

Here are my assumptions:
- You have the following perks maxed out:
-- Nuclear Phycisist (for radium rifle)

-- Demolitionist with Bobblehead and Scav magazine (for explosive weapons)

-- Whatever gun perk applies (Rifleman or Commando)

-- Lone Wanderer

-- Ninja, Mr. Sandman, Deacon's perk

-- Operator's Perk from Nuka World

- I am adding +14% damage to Rifleman weapons vs Commando to simulate the best case scenario for the penetration effect. The lower the enemy's armor the worse this is, of course, but for theory crafting we'll just set it at 14%.


Here are my spreadsheet results:

When doing Sneak Attacks the Gauss rifle wins. I didn't need to do a spreadsheet to know that, but I thought I'd point out that is confirmed by the numbers. Lever action rifles win second place, which also isn't a surprise. What MAY surprise you is how the rest fall out.

Handmade Rifle is the next best
Radium Rifle next
Combat Rifle with .308 after that

All of these are the non-auto maxed out versions.

The margin between Radium and the .308 combat rifle isn't huge, but it IS interesting, possibly making the Radium the better sniper rifle overall with an easier to find ammo type. The top 3 are so much better though that if you get an instigating version of any of those you'll probably want to use them instead.

As far as gun perks go, obviously Rifleman makes all the above weapons even better.



For regular firefights after the sneak attack opportunity has passed, Commando is just the better perk for damage, even considering the penetration effect of Rifleman. Exploding is also almost always better than Double Shot when you have the Demolitionist perks.

Here are the top 10 guns with damage numbers for the same timeframe based off of rate of fire:

Exploding Automatic Handmade Rifle - 26,661

Two Shot Automatic Handmade Rifle - 25,778

Exploding Automatic Assault Rifle - 24,189

Two Shot Automatic Assault Rifle - 22,600

Exploding Automatic 10mm Pistol - 22,423

Exploding SMG with Rapid Gun mod (NOT powerful receiver) - 22,111

Exploding Automatic Radium Rifle - 20,109 + 9,000 Radiation Damage

Exploding Automatic Combat Rifle - 20,109

Exploding SMG with powerful receiver - 20,042

Two Shot Automatic Combat Rifle - 19,688


The Radium Rifle may be the best if enemies are affected by radiation, otherwise the above table is accurate.

I think the most interesting thing is the Spray and Pray is best modded with the rapid mod rather than a powerful receiver, assuming again you invest in explosion damage.

The 10mm explosive auto pistol performs really well in pure theory, but the 24 ammo clip will likely reduce its comparative staying power significantly. Without numbers on reload times though I can't really simulate this.


Now obviously going commando isn't very ammo efficient, and if you're playing on survival mode especially you may prefer going with a damage per shot optimization. If that's what you're after the Gauss Rifle and Lever Action are king again, but may not have the Rate of Fire you're looking for. It is worth mentioning that those two weapons are better with Two Shot instead of Exploding, breaking the rule that basically every other weapon looked at otherwise follows.

Otherwise the ranking for per shot goes like this:

Exploding Semi-Auto Handmade Rifle - 360
Two Shot Semi-Auto Handmade Rifle - 356
Exploding Semi-Auto Radium Rifle - 332
Exploding and Two Shot .308 Combat Rifle - 321
Two Shot Semi-Auto Radium Rifle - 310

Then it goes all of the above except automatic - the per shot damage drops to 236 and goes down from there. SMG has the worst per shot damage, of course.

Most interesting thing learned from the above is that the Overseer's Guardian is just as good as an exploding Combat Rifle on a per shot basis.


The Handmade Rifle is probably the best overall gun in the game, but the special ammo can be unappealing. I didn't test the furious effect but I suspect it's even better than explosive on an automatic.

Otherwise the Kiloton Radium rifle seems to perform the best overall for guns you don't need to rely on RNG to get, and you don't have to worry about a weird ammo type to use it. Technically the Spray and Pray will do more for an automatic weapon, but the number of bullets it eats to win is kind of insane.

[Professor Q]

I also didn't look at the combat shotgun, which can be suppressed.

My spreadsheet doesn't have plugs to account for the buckshot effect, but I think we all know an exploding Combat shotgun is OP.

[wtiger27]

The Problem Solver and Splatter Cannon from Nuka World, are hands down the best automatic weapons in the game. The "Furious" effect on them is unique to them. That effect normally only exists on Melee weapons and you will not get any range weapon to drop which has it on it.

If you want to do a Commando build, you are missing out on a lot of damage by not getting them. One is free if you pass a charisma check.

I really do not have any issues getting ammo for the Handmade Rifle. There are two spawn spots in Nuka World, where the Nuka gang factions will spawn and you can kill them over and over and not become enemies of the ones in the main park center. Looting the rifles and ammo, will get you a lot of the ammo.

Plus the one merchant sells it and normally has close to 1000 rounds when you first get there.

[Professor Q]

Yeah looking at the stats I think I agree.

.45 is still easier to come by but yeah you can just buy it.

[-={LG}=-]

I like the .45-70 lever action. One built for assault, one built for sniping. Pretty easy keeping a good supply of the ammo with the occasional visit to Far Harbor for bartering. It may not look the best on a spreadsheet, but it certainly feels OP on High Difficulty.

You can buy a double-shot version in Arcadia, which is the one I make into a sniper.

[inetd]

Splatter cannon is still better then these

[craldark]

Useful damage numbers - though there are so many other factors to consider for 'best gun'. I never tried testing if a radium or gamma gun is effective against ferals and CoA. Then there's reload speed, fire rate, recoil, and mag size. There's even 'feel' - I was never keen on having to pump up a gun before firing. My favorite 'feel' gun was a maxed up, silenced 10mm - but its range was too limited for a general-purpose gun.

Then some of us don't want power. I currently play in rags with a single, all-round weapon that's not too powerful, has decent range but no scope so I can aim close up or distant: a .50 which I think was originally a hunting rifle but I renamed it so much I forget. I don't need to keep switching weapons. I wish there were field mods so I could just clip on/off a scope as needed. I just reached level 25 on this playthrough and got a silencer. That's about as far as I want to go with a 'best gun' but it still feels too powerful for low-level npcs. Mines and grenades are crucial for some situations.

Stealth [edit: and weakness!] is essential for me, adds tension and edginess. I enjoy spraying death in power armor but for real immersion, make me weak and scared. I even sometimes play with a no-human-kills rule. I mean, why would any normal person come out of a vault and kill people to get their stuff? After six months of fear, suffering, and hunger maybe. Who knows what we'd do.

Still thanks for the stats; formerly my goto gun was the Overseer's Guardian because it could be attained fairly early (without mods,) but now it's too good for my current mindset.

[EDIT: Actually just looking again at your topic title 'end game' maybe my views are not so relevant here.]

[wtiger27]

Diposting pertama kali oleh inetd:

Splatter cannon is still better then these

The OP agrees the Problem Solver and Splatter Cannon are the best for automatics. They each have the same stats.

I don't think they are however, when we talk about semi-automatics. The most powerful weapon I have had for semi-automatics, was a Explosive Combat Shotgun.

It did have a couple drawbacks, short range and the splash back from the explosion could damage your char if fired too close. Esp. if you had all the ranks in the Demolition Perk. However, this could be negated some with armor modifications reducing explosion damage. Which I found to be a necessary modification using that weapon esp.

In over 4000 hrs and over a dozen runs, I have only had that shotgun to drop once.

[wtiger27]

Diposting pertama kali oleh craldark:

Then some of us don't want power. I currently play in rags with a single, all-round weapon that's not too powerful, has decent range but no scope so I can aim close up or distant: a .50 which I think was originally a hunting rifle but I renamed it so much I forget.

The .50 cal in Fallout 4 is severely nerfed in damage compared to one in real life. It is like the developer had no experience with that round or even did some research.

You make some good points however about what is the best weapon for a play style, is not always the one with the most damage.