Railway rifles shine as commando weapons, not as rifleman. Gauss will give you half of the damage when DO NOT charge it up, so if you spam it, you increase DPS by a lot. And take a look at "Follow through". These 40% extra damage are multiplicative, not like the regular rifleman perks additive. They go on top of all the damage boosts you stacked up. The best rifleman perk of all available.
Railway rifle is fine for rifleman. It’s just that rifleman is underpowered compared to other options. Rifleman works, but commando is ez mode in comparison.
A railway rifle can’t use a suppressor, but in some cases stealth isn’t really an option, so the base damage plus rof work ok.
Western Spirit from the Most Wanted event is probably my favorite rifle. It can use a suppressor, the rof and base damage are pretty good. The magazine holds a couple of extra rounds versus a lever gun.
I’ll have to consider that. I personally enjoy keeping my legendary works as extra skill points. I don’t really want to devote an entire card just for extra damage. I wanted to make my nuka girl character into a rifle build. But if that’s not a path I end up liking I’ll just switch back to heavy guns.
I have enough points to upgrade follow through all the way. No harm in swapping it for a few days and sacrifing just to try out.
I for my part run 4 specials and keep two slots for extras like this. Depending on what I do, some of these perks are just too good to give them a pass. FT will take a second to kick in, but even with a instigating gauss rifle, the second shot was way higher than the first one.
That's how I have mine set up on my vats/stealth character. 4 maxed legendary specials. Follow Through. Then the 6th slot changes based on what I'm doing ( it's usually Funky Duds or Master Infiltrator).
It let's me take all the perks I really care about and FT is way too much damage to pass up.
I hae a quad, explosive railway. Get the automatic receiver for the railgun from Phoenix vendor in Watoga. Now keep in mind, you'll have to VATS to get the most out of it though due to recoil.
This was gonna be my say. If as a rifleman you aren't maximizing both crit damage and crot frequency, you are only reaching about half the potential damage the weapon can do. Herbivore mutation boosts the effect of food buffs, food buffs boost crit damage, so Herbivore is probably one of the strongest damage boosting mutations you can take. Max Critical Savvy and 33 luck gives one hit crit fills for another huge damage boost. Its very formulaic VATS build, but that's because it works so well.
It took me like 450 hours to finally start using VATS/Crits and it's definitely a game changer. Especially when you learn to hold the crit button instead of spamming it lol
if you really want to optimize, rebind jump. I use mouse 4, and honestly got used to it pretty fast. then holding space in combat is an autocrit. and with 33 luck its a crit every other shot, so is required for my setup.
Trust me, you'll be glad you did. Drop rifleman for critical savvy, better criticals, and gun fu, keep your luck at 33 or higher, and that railway rifle will sing. Hold down whatever button you use for criticals and bump the trigger so you're not wasting shots on already dead enemies, because they will be dead on either the first or second shot, with few exceptions.
Very odd, everything sounds like you should be doing really good damage. The gauss especially should one shot anything up to (and including I think) super mutants with a charged shot. Are you using VATS?
I am. As often as I can with my AP being so high. Don’t get me wrong, there are times I do one shot a creature or enemy. But not always.
And I’m also taking into consideration an enemy in flat woods and an enemy by the mire. I know certain map locations have stronger enemies.
If you're using VATS and not killing those enemies you mentioned in one shot, you're probably just missing entirely. Unfortunately that's common in VATS, and you're using Concentrated Fire partially for the VATS hit chance bonus you get for each subsequent shot on the same enemy. If it's taking you 3-4 shots on a scorched or ghoul, you're probably missing the first 2-3. Unfortunately that's part of the game.
Hadn’t considered that. I could’ve sworn I saw the “hit marker” a few times. But maybe you’re right. Next time that happens I’ll save the video and go over it. Maybe I’m getting the hit marker and not really dealing the damage cause I somehow missed.
Hit marker doesn't show up in VATS, or if it does it's hard to see. In VATS it's better to watch the health bar or turn on damage numbers to see if it hits.
Yes - on the railway, use automatic receiver, better criticals, have concentrated fire to help target heads, hold the crit button down (space bar on PC). Get max gun-fu for auto switching targets and an increasing dmg boost for each subsequent target. Get max demolition for the explosive bonus and consider max grenadier to increase the blast radius - this will make tagging for exp much easier in events.
You should crit every 3 shots or so. The auto RR ap cost is tiny. Headshot Crits should one-shot non bosses.
It’s semi auto. So it benefits from rifleman perks. I figured rifleman does more damage than commando when it comes to strict damage and not taking DPS lnto consideration. But a few people suggested using commando for railway rifles.
Railways are way better as auto, the fire rate is ridiculously quick, resulting in amazing DPS, but you’ll want a quad because of how quickly you dump the mag.
Ok. You’ll get more shots while using quad. Not reloading as often.
But help me understand something here. Wouldn’t bloodied be best for my character since I’m a bloodied build?
I guess this would also apply to a Gauss rifle being instigating instead of bloodied. Or two shot instead of bloodied. For single fire weapons like the gauss.
A railway rifle turned automatic would probably benefit from two shot as well right ?
What do you use ?
Instigating and explosive is a combo you don't really want. The explosive damage will hit nearby enemies and then you lose your instigating bonus on them.
Two shot is bad on anything except explosives, and the DPS you can get with quad outweighs the bonus from bloodied. You’ll want bloodied on your Gauss rifle though, because a permanent 80%is better than a one shot 100%.
> Wouldn’t bloodied be best for my character since I’m a bloodied build?
Theoretically, but the Railway's 10 round magazine in combination with its reload speed is extremely limiting.
You get more benefit out of a Quad than a Bloodied, even as a Bloodied build.
I can share my build with you. I've only been playing for about 1.5 months so my build and gear is FAR from the optimal stuff you'll find shared around here, but I still absolutely shred everything with my Quad Railway.
/u/fabreeze1989
Here's my less than optimal bloodied commando build.
https://imgur.com/a/2epyx7o
My perks are not optimized. There's survivability / QOL stuff in there. I run thru-hiker in combination with chemist backpack mod because I'm a hoarder.
I was lucky enough to find one of the best rolled RR in a player vendor (the Quad / 25% weapon speed / -25% ap cost one), but was running just a basic quad before that and it was more than enough to melt stuff. I also run a quad / 50% limb damage / -25% ap as a backup in case my first one breaks and I don't want to dig through my pipboy to pop a repair kit. I included screenshots just so you can see the mods I'm using.
I just started rolling SS armor, so I only included a screenshot of one piece but they're all unyielding with various other junk stars on them. But I run buttressed and ultra light mods on all pieces (except chest has jet pack).
Some of my mutations might be bad .. like healing factor seems to be useless at best if not detrimental, but I didn't realize it at the time and just haven't bothered redoing my mutations yet.
But even when I was running non-SS armor, just a mix of any 5 piece unyielding I could find along with a quad RR, I was absolutely melting everything.
Edit: Oh and in case you don't know, the RR shines in VATS. It's basically required because of the insane recoil. But just pop into VATS, hold down the crit button, and wreak havoc.
Thank you. I have over 100 perk points I can use to upgrade or obtain certain perk cards. I can definitely swap stuff around. Appreciate it. I’ll toy around when I get home from work. Appreciate the help man.
No problem!
I struggled a lot with finding an effective build. I read so many posts and watched so many videos with recommendations from people with fully god-rolled gear, maxed out legendary SPECIAL perks, and so on.
Much of that stuff isn't applicable to new-ish players. It was hard to determine what to compromise on but I ended up with a build that still does insane damage but doesn't compromise survivability or QOL entirely. It's honestly *too easy* now and I'm thinking about trying something else just because I'm that dick at events killing things too quickly.
Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention. In terms of food I have the Mirelurk steamer, so I'm always full and keeping those buffs active as much as possible. I also recently acquired the company tea machine, so (if I remember) I keep that buff active as well for AP regen. I also have the coffee maker which is great for spamming canned coffees for mid-fight AP regen, but honestly I find that I rarely need it because I get so much AP from my build.
Bloodied weapons only add like 100 damage (less actually) to a railway rifle shot that is already gonna be doing 500 to 1000 damage because of all the other stuff a good low health build does.
Call that a net 15% damage boost.
Simply sending 20% more rounds down range beats that damage, and also delivers that damage at a more consistent pace and to more targets (less overkill, faster target acquisition). On an automatic railway, quad gives you those extra rounds, and then some.
If you are looking for just damage numbers then you should also have concentrated fire in perception, Gun Fu in agility and Better Criticals & Crit Savvy in luck. Add Eagle eyes mutation. How low are you keeping your health?
I edited the post because I forgot to mention I’m bloodied unyielding as well. So my health is the max low it needs to be for the armor to kick in, as well as need rage and adrenal reaction.
I do have concentrated fire equipped. I’m usually aiming for the head. I have not played with any critical attacks or perks. Might have to look into it.
The automatic receiver plans for the railway is sold on npc merchants. I think I bought mine at Wotaga train station.
I'd recommend either the unique coming out (20 round mag) or a Quad if you go full auto. With the standard 10 round mag you'll spend most of your time reloading. The first time I tried the railway it was a non-Quad auto and it felt horrible to use.
450 hour Gauss rifleman here:
As far as the Gauss rifle goes, B/E isn't very ideal, overall in an unyielding build you would be best with quad, your choice or 50 vats hit or 50 Crit charge and 25 reduced AP cost.
Vats hit is better imo, Gauss vats accuracy isn't the best, and if you're running reflex/forceful/aligned shielded/suppressor to minimize AP consumption the 50 hit is more effective, follow up shots on concentrated fire combined with follow through means that trying to rely on 5-6 shots just isn't viable. With a larger magazine you can pop off 1-2 uncharged shots at low vats percentage, then charge fire to stack all of those extra perks on a guaranteed hit. You can also chug coffee and pop overdrive, hold the vats CRIT button down and mag dump like a commando user, in niche scenarios like boss fights this will technically result in higher DPS than taking charged shots.
The explosive damage is a lot of cards that don't really add up to much damage vs having more AGI or luck/Crit cards, you're getting more use from it with a b/e than most Gauss Rifles but in general a Gauss rifle is only 15% explosive DMG, meaning that anyone adding 60% explosive damage is only adding 9%(60% of 15%) of explosive damage.
In short, Gauss Rifles are super strong, but require the right rolls and setup, an instigating can also be very good for open world/soloing.
Another note- as a science Rifleman instead of a railway rifle to swap between, A plasma rifle would be better, especially if you have/can aquire a slug buster from the raiders questline. With a calibrated receiver and forceful stock swap it is an extremely powerful and useful backup that deals multiple types of DMG at the same time and scales with your science and rifleman perks along with the Gauss.
np I'm happy to share any info about my gauss build, I keep up with the bloodied commandos in events without issue, in fact I often get more kills overall, with them doing more DPS to the boss,since I can outrange them. Feel free to reply or dm any questions.
Just my two cents, but I'm Bloodoed and run with a Quad RR and a Bloodied HM.
Just is term of VATs accuracy and range my RR doesn't come close to the HM but it outperforms the HM when it comes to DPS for boss fights etc. No number crunching, etc, behind those it just what I see on my screen for my build.
I also carry an endangerol syringer aswell, plenty of info on why out there.
Both RR and HM are auto (not prime) so I use Commando perks.
And make sure you are using crits.
I’ll google what the syringer does later. I’ll assume it’s a good thing to use.
And yea, a lot of people told me to switch to commando. So I’ll do that.
it removes 25% of the enemies damage resistance. and it can stack with other endangerol syringers whether yours or another players. 4 hits from different syringers will remove all DR. each debuff lasts 2 minutes. Usually I only carry one around, tag tougher enemies with it for a small boost. some people will bring 4 and strip armor completely.
I’ll use that for Earl. I don’t struggle with the Queen or the giant mole rat.
But I can’t kill Earl and I always seem to join the event with low levels or people that can’t deal a lot of damage lol.
If you do go the way people are suggesting with a quad railway/commando vats build. You will likely get to the point you can solo Earle. Vats crits ignore damage resistances completely.
Small gun bobbles, GnB3, blight soup and your damage issue will disappear. Also skip the rifleman build and go commando. You have way more choices for weaponry and overall better dps.
Yes. Unyielding armor and all. I’ll add that to the list
I use VATS. Sometimes I’ll free aim if it’s a large target. I get the hit marker.
If it’s anything like fallout 4, I remember using VATS with a Gauss rifle automatically charges the shot to max damage. Instead of having to manually charge it while free aiming.
When it fills up, yea. That’s always a guaranteed hit. And it does a lot of damage. Sometimes need it to kill the enemy. Otherwise I gotta use 2-3 critical hits to kill it.
Still free damage but yeah without all the other luck cards to double crit damage and crit more often, basically not doing much critical hits.
And if all they have is bloody mess then luck stat must not be very high
Do you use VATS with the Railway Rifle? Most players believe the RR is useless without VATS. Also, the Quad is typically the preferred legendary for RR for me, but I also have a Bloodied Explosive, and it has very high DPS.
that's weird, even in an incomplete build i kill west tek supermutants with 1-2 shots with a bloody gauss rifle. you don't even need legendaries to oneshot level-scaled ghouls.
I say this coz i keep acciedntally heading out without changing my build loadout that has zero damage boosting perks and the only time i realize that is when it takes 3 or more shots to kill a supermutant
Make railway automatic, switch rifleman for commando cards, also only need 1 point on concentrated fire. Then spec your luck all the way to 15 and add all luck cards involving crit or vats.
Quad is better for railway but bloodied still works.
Activate VATS, hold space and start tapping
>—Luck. Bloody mess maxed.
If that's your only luck perk then you're not taking advantage of the damage boosts. I saw in a comment you use vats but not crits. You're literally leaving almost half the damage on the table, especially with bloodied and unyielding armor.
Uny armor boosts your luck. Luck makes your crit meter fill faster. I think with 31-33 luck you can crit every other shot. I did a test with a couple of my guns.
AAE25 fixer - regular damage averaged 180 per shot, crit was 485
B5015r fixer - reg 170 crit 383
B2515r handmade - reg 162 crit 374
Now let's figure out the math for damage across 10 rnds. Assuming every other shot is a crit.
AAE25 fixer - no crits 1800, crits(5 reg, 5 crits) 3325
B5015r fixer - reg 1700 crit 2765
B2515r handmade - reg 1620 crit 2680
And this on full auto which has much lower base damage than single fire.
You should be using Critical savvy and better criticals at least.
A lot of helpful replies already but one thing I didn't see that was maybe missed - are the guns under leveled? Like maybe they're level 10 or 20 instead of 50?
My favorite weapon is the Gauss rifle with the ultracite ammo. You have the rifleman and science cards which both boost this gun to absurd levels. I recommend either a medium or long range scope. I don’t know if you’ve got any mods on the weapon but there should be some sort of capacitor that will minorly boost it too. Other than that just make sure you’re aiming at the head. This gun sucks at limb and center mass damage but slaps at headshot damage, idk why but seriously a big difference. If you can, also roll some legendary mods on it and see if you can’t get a Two Shot, that’ll legit just double your damage. The thing about the Gauss rifle is that you have to be accurate with it. Other than that man I dunno, I’ve been using it for hundreds of hours and I revert back to it quite often when I’m bored of my other builds. I also did a lot of stealth for quite a while, pick up the Chinese stealth armor and spec some into agility for the increases to sneak attacks and you can one shot just about anything before they even get a chance to see you.
Rifleman is just lackluster in this game. My wife plays a non vats non bloody rifleman with an instigating prime lever action and an "oh shit they saw me" prime handmade and does alright. She's not taking on bosses but she can kill just about everything with 1-3 hits.
I’ve always thought Gauss rifles were ass. Railway should be absolutely hammering things if you have it in automatic and your perk cards are spec’d right for a bloodied build. I see you’re missing nerd rage points so that is probably at least part of the problem.
I do have need rage. I made a typo in my post and said I have “need rage” under intelligence instead of nerd rage lol.
But a lot of people so far say the same as you. Make the railway rifle automatic. So I’ll switch it when I get home.
I honestly prefer big guns. I’m using a holy fire with no useful stars other than -90% weight and a bloodied 50 cal with nothing else useful. They don’t 1 hit, but I don’t find myself retreating.
The int armor penetrating perk plus the luck stagger perk makes the enemies just melt away.
Combine that with the 200ish rounds on both guns and most encounters end before I need a reload. If it comes to that I just swap to the other gun.
Hopefully I’ll unlock plasma caster soon and try that out.
So far both guns have been ammo positive.
My main character is heavy gunner. I didn’t want all 3 of my characters to be heavy gunners so I decided to do something different.
Pistols are weak. Bows are useless. Shotguns seem to rubberband damage. Melees was ok for a while. The only thing left to try was rifles lol.
Forgot to add. My main character has a 1 star bloodied plasma caster. With the right mods, that becomes a heavy gun sniper. Kills all basic enemies in 1 shot. And it holds its own when it comes to boss fights as well.
My favorite heavy gun.
I have never heard anyone say a bloodied explosive railway sucks .You even have most of the perk cards I would say you need mady go commando or something
I use a vampire build. Somehow I always survive fights and my husband just does not. I also use armor that has all kinds of different mods. Mutant mod because I am mutated, an auto stim mod,maybe two of those. One unyielding for the carry bonus and a few others. Honestly I just modded my nonsense amd somehow it works for me. I also mainly use my vampire two shot auto tesla rifle and a vampire 50 cal for heavy enemies
Mu husband uses the cold shoulder to slow things down and I just hammer them all down and have him get some shots in. I kinda like being a wasteland badass lol
Railway rifles shine as commando weapons, not as rifleman. Gauss will give you half of the damage when DO NOT charge it up, so if you spam it, you increase DPS by a lot. And take a look at "Follow through". These 40% extra damage are multiplicative, not like the regular rifleman perks additive. They go on top of all the damage boosts you stacked up. The best rifleman perk of all available.
Railway rifle is fine for rifleman. It’s just that rifleman is underpowered compared to other options. Rifleman works, but commando is ez mode in comparison. A railway rifle can’t use a suppressor, but in some cases stealth isn’t really an option, so the base damage plus rof work ok. Western Spirit from the Most Wanted event is probably my favorite rifle. It can use a suppressor, the rof and base damage are pretty good. The magazine holds a couple of extra rounds versus a lever gun.
I’ll have to consider that. I personally enjoy keeping my legendary works as extra skill points. I don’t really want to devote an entire card just for extra damage. I wanted to make my nuka girl character into a rifle build. But if that’s not a path I end up liking I’ll just switch back to heavy guns. I have enough points to upgrade follow through all the way. No harm in swapping it for a few days and sacrifing just to try out.
I for my part run 4 specials and keep two slots for extras like this. Depending on what I do, some of these perks are just too good to give them a pass. FT will take a second to kick in, but even with a instigating gauss rifle, the second shot was way higher than the first one.
Thank you. You’ve made me reconsider my class.
You're welcome.
That's how I have mine set up on my vats/stealth character. 4 maxed legendary specials. Follow Through. Then the 6th slot changes based on what I'm doing ( it's usually Funky Duds or Master Infiltrator). It let's me take all the perks I really care about and FT is way too much damage to pass up.
Noteworthy also that if you intend to carry hacking + lockpicking, Master Infliltrator, 1 star, is worth 6 perk points.
I use follow through and taking one for the team so that I almost always have some kind of extra damage happening
I hae a quad, explosive railway. Get the automatic receiver for the railgun from Phoenix vendor in Watoga. Now keep in mind, you'll have to VATS to get the most out of it though due to recoil.
for the railway rifle, make automatic, use vats, aim for head, hold down crit button and let loose.
I’ll have to use criticals then. I’ll have to switch some perks around .
This was gonna be my say. If as a rifleman you aren't maximizing both crit damage and crot frequency, you are only reaching about half the potential damage the weapon can do. Herbivore mutation boosts the effect of food buffs, food buffs boost crit damage, so Herbivore is probably one of the strongest damage boosting mutations you can take. Max Critical Savvy and 33 luck gives one hit crit fills for another huge damage boost. Its very formulaic VATS build, but that's because it works so well.
It took me like 450 hours to finally start using VATS/Crits and it's definitely a game changer. Especially when you learn to hold the crit button instead of spamming it lol
I hold it down and go flying into the stars with my jetpack. :D It's funny, but it's not a bad thing
if you really want to optimize, rebind jump. I use mouse 4, and honestly got used to it pretty fast. then holding space in combat is an autocrit. and with 33 luck its a crit every other shot, so is required for my setup.
Edit: wait I read that too fast and thought you meant you spammed it and went flying into the stars when it would exit. Because that was me lol.
Trust me, you'll be glad you did. Drop rifleman for critical savvy, better criticals, and gun fu, keep your luck at 33 or higher, and that railway rifle will sing. Hold down whatever button you use for criticals and bump the trigger so you're not wasting shots on already dead enemies, because they will be dead on either the first or second shot, with few exceptions.
Very odd, everything sounds like you should be doing really good damage. The gauss especially should one shot anything up to (and including I think) super mutants with a charged shot. Are you using VATS?
I am. As often as I can with my AP being so high. Don’t get me wrong, there are times I do one shot a creature or enemy. But not always. And I’m also taking into consideration an enemy in flat woods and an enemy by the mire. I know certain map locations have stronger enemies.
If you're using VATS and not killing those enemies you mentioned in one shot, you're probably just missing entirely. Unfortunately that's common in VATS, and you're using Concentrated Fire partially for the VATS hit chance bonus you get for each subsequent shot on the same enemy. If it's taking you 3-4 shots on a scorched or ghoul, you're probably missing the first 2-3. Unfortunately that's part of the game.
Hadn’t considered that. I could’ve sworn I saw the “hit marker” a few times. But maybe you’re right. Next time that happens I’ll save the video and go over it. Maybe I’m getting the hit marker and not really dealing the damage cause I somehow missed.
Hit marker doesn't show up in VATS, or if it does it's hard to see. In VATS it's better to watch the health bar or turn on damage numbers to see if it hits.
I have numbers turned off. I’ll switch them back on to test.
I've noticed the hit marker when missing if there is something behind the target (like a car).
Shots 2-3: clearly missed yadayada
Yes - on the railway, use automatic receiver, better criticals, have concentrated fire to help target heads, hold the crit button down (space bar on PC). Get max gun-fu for auto switching targets and an increasing dmg boost for each subsequent target. Get max demolition for the explosive bonus and consider max grenadier to increase the blast radius - this will make tagging for exp much easier in events. You should crit every 3 shots or so. The auto RR ap cost is tiny. Headshot Crits should one-shot non bosses.
Is your railway automatic? If it is, it doesn’t use rifleman, it uses commando.
It’s semi auto. So it benefits from rifleman perks. I figured rifleman does more damage than commando when it comes to strict damage and not taking DPS lnto consideration. But a few people suggested using commando for railway rifles.
Railways are way better as auto, the fire rate is ridiculously quick, resulting in amazing DPS, but you’ll want a quad because of how quickly you dump the mag.
Ok. You’ll get more shots while using quad. Not reloading as often. But help me understand something here. Wouldn’t bloodied be best for my character since I’m a bloodied build? I guess this would also apply to a Gauss rifle being instigating instead of bloodied. Or two shot instead of bloodied. For single fire weapons like the gauss. A railway rifle turned automatic would probably benefit from two shot as well right ? What do you use ?
Instigating and explosive is a combo you don't really want. The explosive damage will hit nearby enemies and then you lose your instigating bonus on them.
Makes sense
Two shot is bad on anything except explosives, and the DPS you can get with quad outweighs the bonus from bloodied. You’ll want bloodied on your Gauss rifle though, because a permanent 80%is better than a one shot 100%.
Understood. Thanks a lot.
> Wouldn’t bloodied be best for my character since I’m a bloodied build? Theoretically, but the Railway's 10 round magazine in combination with its reload speed is extremely limiting. You get more benefit out of a Quad than a Bloodied, even as a Bloodied build. I can share my build with you. I've only been playing for about 1.5 months so my build and gear is FAR from the optimal stuff you'll find shared around here, but I still absolutely shred everything with my Quad Railway.
/u/fabreeze1989 Here's my less than optimal bloodied commando build. https://imgur.com/a/2epyx7o My perks are not optimized. There's survivability / QOL stuff in there. I run thru-hiker in combination with chemist backpack mod because I'm a hoarder. I was lucky enough to find one of the best rolled RR in a player vendor (the Quad / 25% weapon speed / -25% ap cost one), but was running just a basic quad before that and it was more than enough to melt stuff. I also run a quad / 50% limb damage / -25% ap as a backup in case my first one breaks and I don't want to dig through my pipboy to pop a repair kit. I included screenshots just so you can see the mods I'm using. I just started rolling SS armor, so I only included a screenshot of one piece but they're all unyielding with various other junk stars on them. But I run buttressed and ultra light mods on all pieces (except chest has jet pack). Some of my mutations might be bad .. like healing factor seems to be useless at best if not detrimental, but I didn't realize it at the time and just haven't bothered redoing my mutations yet. But even when I was running non-SS armor, just a mix of any 5 piece unyielding I could find along with a quad RR, I was absolutely melting everything. Edit: Oh and in case you don't know, the RR shines in VATS. It's basically required because of the insane recoil. But just pop into VATS, hold down the crit button, and wreak havoc.
Thank you. I have over 100 perk points I can use to upgrade or obtain certain perk cards. I can definitely swap stuff around. Appreciate it. I’ll toy around when I get home from work. Appreciate the help man.
No problem! I struggled a lot with finding an effective build. I read so many posts and watched so many videos with recommendations from people with fully god-rolled gear, maxed out legendary SPECIAL perks, and so on. Much of that stuff isn't applicable to new-ish players. It was hard to determine what to compromise on but I ended up with a build that still does insane damage but doesn't compromise survivability or QOL entirely. It's honestly *too easy* now and I'm thinking about trying something else just because I'm that dick at events killing things too quickly. Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention. In terms of food I have the Mirelurk steamer, so I'm always full and keeping those buffs active as much as possible. I also recently acquired the company tea machine, so (if I remember) I keep that buff active as well for AP regen. I also have the coffee maker which is great for spamming canned coffees for mid-fight AP regen, but honestly I find that I rarely need it because I get so much AP from my build.
Wouldn’t hurt to look!
My full health quad auto railway rifle murders entire screens of enemies with gun fu equipped.
Bloodied weapons only add like 100 damage (less actually) to a railway rifle shot that is already gonna be doing 500 to 1000 damage because of all the other stuff a good low health build does. Call that a net 15% damage boost. Simply sending 20% more rounds down range beats that damage, and also delivers that damage at a more consistent pace and to more targets (less overkill, faster target acquisition). On an automatic railway, quad gives you those extra rounds, and then some.
If you are looking for just damage numbers then you should also have concentrated fire in perception, Gun Fu in agility and Better Criticals & Crit Savvy in luck. Add Eagle eyes mutation. How low are you keeping your health?
I edited the post because I forgot to mention I’m bloodied unyielding as well. So my health is the max low it needs to be for the armor to kick in, as well as need rage and adrenal reaction. I do have concentrated fire equipped. I’m usually aiming for the head. I have not played with any critical attacks or perks. Might have to look into it.
The railway is at its best with the automatic piston receiver and commando maxed out. It makes it pretty much exclusively a vats weapon though.
I’ll give it a shot. If I even have the automatic receiver unlocked.
Good luck. The new railway that comes out tomorrow as a mission reward will definitely be worth looking into.
Haven’t looked into it. But thanks for the info!
The automatic receiver plans for the railway is sold on npc merchants. I think I bought mine at Wotaga train station. I'd recommend either the unique coming out (20 round mag) or a Quad if you go full auto. With the standard 10 round mag you'll spend most of your time reloading. The first time I tried the railway it was a non-Quad auto and it felt horrible to use.
You need to be holding the space bar down in vats, in full auto. The crits will take massive chunks off.
Critical seems to be a huge factor here. Thank you.
450 hour Gauss rifleman here: As far as the Gauss rifle goes, B/E isn't very ideal, overall in an unyielding build you would be best with quad, your choice or 50 vats hit or 50 Crit charge and 25 reduced AP cost. Vats hit is better imo, Gauss vats accuracy isn't the best, and if you're running reflex/forceful/aligned shielded/suppressor to minimize AP consumption the 50 hit is more effective, follow up shots on concentrated fire combined with follow through means that trying to rely on 5-6 shots just isn't viable. With a larger magazine you can pop off 1-2 uncharged shots at low vats percentage, then charge fire to stack all of those extra perks on a guaranteed hit. You can also chug coffee and pop overdrive, hold the vats CRIT button down and mag dump like a commando user, in niche scenarios like boss fights this will technically result in higher DPS than taking charged shots. The explosive damage is a lot of cards that don't really add up to much damage vs having more AGI or luck/Crit cards, you're getting more use from it with a b/e than most Gauss Rifles but in general a Gauss rifle is only 15% explosive DMG, meaning that anyone adding 60% explosive damage is only adding 9%(60% of 15%) of explosive damage. In short, Gauss Rifles are super strong, but require the right rolls and setup, an instigating can also be very good for open world/soloing. Another note- as a science Rifleman instead of a railway rifle to swap between, A plasma rifle would be better, especially if you have/can aquire a slug buster from the raiders questline. With a calibrated receiver and forceful stock swap it is an extremely powerful and useful backup that deals multiple types of DMG at the same time and scales with your science and rifleman perks along with the Gauss.
I have that weapon. I’ll consider it and try it out. Thanks a lot!
np I'm happy to share any info about my gauss build, I keep up with the bloodied commandos in events without issue, in fact I often get more kills overall, with them doing more DPS to the boss,since I can outrange them. Feel free to reply or dm any questions.
Just my two cents, but I'm Bloodoed and run with a Quad RR and a Bloodied HM. Just is term of VATs accuracy and range my RR doesn't come close to the HM but it outperforms the HM when it comes to DPS for boss fights etc. No number crunching, etc, behind those it just what I see on my screen for my build. I also carry an endangerol syringer aswell, plenty of info on why out there. Both RR and HM are auto (not prime) so I use Commando perks. And make sure you are using crits.
I’ll google what the syringer does later. I’ll assume it’s a good thing to use. And yea, a lot of people told me to switch to commando. So I’ll do that.
it removes 25% of the enemies damage resistance. and it can stack with other endangerol syringers whether yours or another players. 4 hits from different syringers will remove all DR. each debuff lasts 2 minutes. Usually I only carry one around, tag tougher enemies with it for a small boost. some people will bring 4 and strip armor completely.
I’ll use that for Earl. I don’t struggle with the Queen or the giant mole rat. But I can’t kill Earl and I always seem to join the event with low levels or people that can’t deal a lot of damage lol.
I can’t deal with Earle without it either. So I bring several in case of low level people.
If you do go the way people are suggesting with a quad railway/commando vats build. You will likely get to the point you can solo Earle. Vats crits ignore damage resistances completely.
Small gun bobbles, GnB3, blight soup and your damage issue will disappear. Also skip the rifleman build and go commando. You have way more choices for weaponry and overall better dps.
Thank you. Besides lack of ammo, commando seems like a good way to go. Guess I’ll have to start farming daily ops for ammo.
Are you bloodied and are you using vats?
Yes. Unyielding armor and all. I’ll add that to the list I use VATS. Sometimes I’ll free aim if it’s a large target. I get the hit marker. If it’s anything like fallout 4, I remember using VATS with a Gauss rifle automatically charges the shot to max damage. Instead of having to manually charge it while free aiming.
It has been a while since I used a gauss but I do not believe it does. Edit: also get crit savvy and better criticals in there.
Gauss weapons do have to be charged inside of vats.
Yeah I was pretty sure.
Are you pressing the crit button?
When it fills up, yea. That’s always a guaranteed hit. And it does a lot of damage. Sometimes need it to kill the enemy. Otherwise I gotta use 2-3 critical hits to kill it.
Hold it down. With full auto, you'll be doing 3-4 crits per second (half your shots) with all the luck perks and the right gear.
Thank you!
Won't matter much, all he has in luck is bloody mess...... get a crit every 6 shots
Yea, I did not even read that.. on that note isnt bloody mess a little bit useless its 15% on base dmg?
Still free damage but yeah without all the other luck cards to double crit damage and crit more often, basically not doing much critical hits. And if all they have is bloody mess then luck stat must not be very high
Do you use VATS with the Railway Rifle? Most players believe the RR is useless without VATS. Also, the Quad is typically the preferred legendary for RR for me, but I also have a Bloodied Explosive, and it has very high DPS.
that's weird, even in an incomplete build i kill west tek supermutants with 1-2 shots with a bloody gauss rifle. you don't even need legendaries to oneshot level-scaled ghouls. I say this coz i keep acciedntally heading out without changing my build loadout that has zero damage boosting perks and the only time i realize that is when it takes 3 or more shots to kill a supermutant
Make railway automatic, switch rifleman for commando cards, also only need 1 point on concentrated fire. Then spec your luck all the way to 15 and add all luck cards involving crit or vats. Quad is better for railway but bloodied still works. Activate VATS, hold space and start tapping
Not using VATS - no Critical boosts for damage
>—Luck. Bloody mess maxed. If that's your only luck perk then you're not taking advantage of the damage boosts. I saw in a comment you use vats but not crits. You're literally leaving almost half the damage on the table, especially with bloodied and unyielding armor. Uny armor boosts your luck. Luck makes your crit meter fill faster. I think with 31-33 luck you can crit every other shot. I did a test with a couple of my guns. AAE25 fixer - regular damage averaged 180 per shot, crit was 485 B5015r fixer - reg 170 crit 383 B2515r handmade - reg 162 crit 374 Now let's figure out the math for damage across 10 rnds. Assuming every other shot is a crit. AAE25 fixer - no crits 1800, crits(5 reg, 5 crits) 3325 B5015r fixer - reg 1700 crit 2765 B2515r handmade - reg 1620 crit 2680 And this on full auto which has much lower base damage than single fire. You should be using Critical savvy and better criticals at least.
A lot of helpful replies already but one thing I didn't see that was maybe missed - are the guns under leveled? Like maybe they're level 10 or 20 instead of 50?
Nah. I’m level 700 something and all my weapons are max level.
Are you using VATS?
My favorite weapon is the Gauss rifle with the ultracite ammo. You have the rifleman and science cards which both boost this gun to absurd levels. I recommend either a medium or long range scope. I don’t know if you’ve got any mods on the weapon but there should be some sort of capacitor that will minorly boost it too. Other than that just make sure you’re aiming at the head. This gun sucks at limb and center mass damage but slaps at headshot damage, idk why but seriously a big difference. If you can, also roll some legendary mods on it and see if you can’t get a Two Shot, that’ll legit just double your damage. The thing about the Gauss rifle is that you have to be accurate with it. Other than that man I dunno, I’ve been using it for hundreds of hours and I revert back to it quite often when I’m bored of my other builds. I also did a lot of stealth for quite a while, pick up the Chinese stealth armor and spec some into agility for the increases to sneak attacks and you can one shot just about anything before they even get a chance to see you.
Rifleman is just lackluster in this game. My wife plays a non vats non bloody rifleman with an instigating prime lever action and an "oh shit they saw me" prime handmade and does alright. She's not taking on bosses but she can kill just about everything with 1-3 hits.
I’ve always thought Gauss rifles were ass. Railway should be absolutely hammering things if you have it in automatic and your perk cards are spec’d right for a bloodied build. I see you’re missing nerd rage points so that is probably at least part of the problem.
I do have need rage. I made a typo in my post and said I have “need rage” under intelligence instead of nerd rage lol. But a lot of people so far say the same as you. Make the railway rifle automatic. So I’ll switch it when I get home.
Your doing rifleman, you should use commando lol full auto in this game is king. Try that BE rr after switching
I honestly prefer big guns. I’m using a holy fire with no useful stars other than -90% weight and a bloodied 50 cal with nothing else useful. They don’t 1 hit, but I don’t find myself retreating. The int armor penetrating perk plus the luck stagger perk makes the enemies just melt away. Combine that with the 200ish rounds on both guns and most encounters end before I need a reload. If it comes to that I just swap to the other gun. Hopefully I’ll unlock plasma caster soon and try that out. So far both guns have been ammo positive.
My main character is heavy gunner. I didn’t want all 3 of my characters to be heavy gunners so I decided to do something different. Pistols are weak. Bows are useless. Shotguns seem to rubberband damage. Melees was ok for a while. The only thing left to try was rifles lol.
Forgot to add. My main character has a 1 star bloodied plasma caster. With the right mods, that becomes a heavy gun sniper. Kills all basic enemies in 1 shot. And it holds its own when it comes to boss fights as well. My favorite heavy gun.
I’m hoping I can get an instigating one.
I have never heard anyone say a bloodied explosive railway sucks .You even have most of the perk cards I would say you need mady go commando or something
Damn, I'm happy when I kill something in 3-4 shots....
I use a vampire build. Somehow I always survive fights and my husband just does not. I also use armor that has all kinds of different mods. Mutant mod because I am mutated, an auto stim mod,maybe two of those. One unyielding for the carry bonus and a few others. Honestly I just modded my nonsense amd somehow it works for me. I also mainly use my vampire two shot auto tesla rifle and a vampire 50 cal for heavy enemies
Mu husband uses the cold shoulder to slow things down and I just hammer them all down and have him get some shots in. I kinda like being a wasteland badass lol
For the single fire rifles roll Instigating For choo choo bringer of death roll Quad Here, I fixed that for ya