Supermutants

[Harukage]

Well, i had somehow completed this game couple times in my school days.
But now... i just have no idea how to compete with supermutants. They just tear me to shreds with their automatic machinegun fire with a sniper accuracy and range. Am i doing something wrong? Is there any general advice of how to best deal with them?
Oh god, maybe i became too stupid with age.

[Harukage]

Anyway, after a while i got better. But my main gripe is with Kansas city mission. The hyge number of machineguns, couple of miniguns and rocket launcers with a large number of grenades and melee meatshields makes almost impossible to not loose any ghouls. I loose like 5 defenders at my best, and that is if i tear my arse covering 2 entrances, west and south one. North one is relatively safe by itself due low number of supermutants and a minefield.
i mean, i am doing my best, but both Ghoul Bishop and general are not relay pleased with the result.

[Moff]

Use shotguns. You should at least have CAWS by now, and it's a perfect weapon against large groups of enemies charging in. One soldier with CAWS and a sniper rifle should really be enough to slaughter the entire wave of mutants without much casualties. Unless you just get unlucky and ghouls start charging mutants or something.
Either way, i don't think that loosing a couple of ghouls really affects anything other than final dialogue.

[theworld]

Psycho and Voodoo. That's all you really need.

Also, Supermutants have terrible PE, so if your PC has Big guns and 8+ PE (which he should) engaging them at range.

Exception: Toccamata's fortress in St.Louis. There's highest level mutants with what looks to be 300%+ Big Guns, using Brownings with Depleted Uranium. You need several doses of Psycho (Must have high EN or you will overdose) so you have 150%+ Damage Resistance. Even then, if they roll a high crit (Very rare, as they have 4% chance) (Fallout Tactics uses different Critical roll table than FO2) it can do the bypass armor and hit for 400 damage which is instant death.

[Suomipoika11]

Speaking of Super mutants and Kansas, is it normal the armed muties don't take ANY damage from small guns, even from sniper rifles to the eyes , while they nearly kill any of my squad members from 300 hit bursts from great distance. I try to rush at them...and you can guess what happens...

And yeah, I pretty much ignored Big Guns skills or squad members due to experiences from Fallout 1 and 2...Only got 1 with RPG, and she can't cover 2 gates at once. And I sold all SAW's I came across, and can't afford to buy them back....and don't have gambling skills to get them back.....

[theworld]

It is normal if you're playing on Insane.

[Suomipoika11]

Playing on normal...

[leithold315]

Use the vehicle as much as possible. Get a recruit with a high repair to keep it running. also, the first mission with super mutants will be where you get your first sniper, you will almost always outrange any super mutant.
just be careful with mutants carrying 50 cal brownings.
Use chems and high PE Big Gun recruits like the others said

[PDK]

The first mission, Kansas City and the last mission are the contenders for most difficult mission IMO. Turn based helps a lot with this mission unless you have starcraft 2 multitask and micro. I've beaten this on Insane/Tough Guy without losing any ghouls. Doing so takes prep work though. What it really comes down to is having 2 heavy gunners with brownings and pumped full of Psycho and a supporting 3rd character on the south. 2 on the west and 1 up top. Pancor's and M2's tear through the mutants. Prone and splash damage are whats mostly needed. You can get a lot of friendly fire on the mutants as well if you try and line them all up right.

[theworld]

PROTIP: Vindicator > M2

[PDK]

Did they change something about the Vindicator? I remember it being garbage.

[theworld]

Under normal circumstances it is indeed quite bad and feels like a waste of ammo.

But with Voodoo-powered 100% crit chance and rolling armor bypassing criticals with Better Criticals and Kamikaze, its total damage is much better than most other big guns except Browning and Gauss Minigun. With human enemies you don't even need to roll high on the crit table, even regular crits are one-shots, or one-bursts to be more precise.

Thing is, Browning ammo is quite scarce for the majority of the game. On the other hand Vindicator is available after 1st mission if you know what you're doing and you can easily get > 10 000 ammo with it from missions and even more from random Super Mutants in random encounters.

[PDK]

I agree with those points. 7.62 is very common and 50 cal is more scarce. When you know which missions to use it on though it's totally fine. Kansas city being the big one where Harukage should let let the 50 cal wreck. Agreed though TheWorld, Vindicator is much more usable day to day.

It comes down to situation and preferance, I guess. Like a lot of things.
I always disliked miniguns for the fact that you can't fire from prone and felt it wasn't so much superior to the 249 for all the amount of ammo that it wastes.

Some things to consider Harukage (and others in the same boat)
M2: strongest damage, 6 bursts before reload. Heavy ammo, high STR req, scarce ammo overall.

Vindicator: 4 bursts before reload, common ammo, lighter load overall. A smidge less damage, lower damage per shot (consider DT and DR of enemy) can't prone.

M249: 3 Burst before reload more damage, higher per shot damage than Vindicator even more common. Less range (40 vs 45), less overall damage.

Side notes: I think the M2 has a higher innate crit chance as well (TheWorld might know something of this) not 100% sure on that.
The Vindicator animation might take a small fraction longer than the others, which in those round the corner quick draw scenarios might make a difference (Insane/ Tough Guy). Not 100% on this either. Need to get back up to the higher missions and test stuff.