What's the Best Endgame Pistol?

[dwaynegand]

This question applies to both this game and its predecessor.

I think it's a good idea to always carry a pistol with you in case one of your arms is crippled. It's also a good way to save ammo for when you're up against weaker opposition, especially if using burst fire mode only weapons such as the Minigun.

Fallout 1 has the .223 Pistol and the Alien Blaster for endgame, while Fallout 2 has the Gauss Pistol and Alien Blaster. The .223 Pistol has good damage and the weapon penetrate perk, while the Alien Blaster deals much more damage and costs less AP to fire, but has shorter range. The Gauss Pistol has the longest range and the same AP cost as the Alien Blaster. But which is the best pistol to use endgame with your build's arsenal?

[Mennan]

I hate the irritating short range of the Alien blaster so i much prefer Gauss in most encounters. It comes with the Accurate Weapon perk which gives it a extra 20% hit chance so you can put less points into small guns to get the same accuracy as higher leveled skills. The Gauss ammo also removes 30% of the CTC's AC lowering their dodge chance and giving you even more chance to hit. It's ammo is also extremely common late game and there's very little chance of ever running out of it.

Alot of people like the Needler with the AP ammo since you can grab it early and it comes with the Weapon Penetrate perk which removes 80% of a targets DT/DR and the AP ammo gives it double damage. So you could argue that it could compare. However there's very few drops of the Needler AP ammo so you essentially gotta keep going back to the vendor to buy more if you ever start running low.

Once you get Sniper(and Better Criticals to ensure armor penetration) however the Gauss pistol is the easily the better choice because the ammo modifier gives it 50% extra damage so it's base damage is actually 33-48 damage while the Needlers modifier will change it to 24-48 damage. Meaning that the Needlers average Crit damage will be lower but its max crit damage will match.

[dwaynegand]

But only the Alien Blaster can deal impressive damage to Frank Horrigan due to his weakness to electrical attacks.

[Mennan]

I mean yea sure its good against Frank, but its still a pretty terrible gun especially if your fighting Frank without using the Presidential pass because you don't have the range to hit anything. Then if you are using the presidential pass it really doesn't matter what gun you use because half time they deal a significant chunk of his health and distract him from shooting you so you essentially win the fight for free.

Like i said i simply don't like it because of its irritating short range. I hate the disintegration effect as well since now your stuck manually searching the ash to pick up each bit of loot.
So honestly only time i would ever use it is specifically to shoot Frank. Not even Granite squad or the turrets. Just Frank.

[Anderson]

For Fallout 1, it's the .223 Pistol. For Fallout 2, Gauss Pistol is not only the best pistol, but the strongest Small Guns weapon in the game in general, thanks to the higher rate of fire. It's DPS is better than Gauss Rifle.

[Chaoslord 87]

For me, the 223. is pretty good for anything outside power armored Enclave Soldiers and Super Mutants.

You always find plenty ammo for it, it has decent range and damage output. It´s a very robust primary/ secondary weapon alongside a Bozar or Sniperrifle.

I save up my Gauss pistol and Rifle either for the Endgame or for raiding the Enclave Base and the surrounding area. ( The game is very stingy with ammo for it on my current run)