Okay so this thread is mostly dead but I just wanted to say I never realized the Varmint rifle being 5.56 until I started playing NV again. Well I should say, I probably did notice but didn't know enough about guns back then for it to bother me, and now it REALLY bothers me. And for a few reasons. One, why the hell would you be shooting rats with a round that will disintegrate it? Two, what varmint rifle would be CHAMBERED in 5.56? Three, it only does 16 damage where the marksman carbine does 24, and the 5.56 pistol doing 28 (the fact that these very at all per shot is ridiculous. This simply shows a lack of understanding of how bullets work on the developers part, being that a 5.56 is a 5.56 is a 5.56, and there would be no noticeable difference in performance in any of these guns sans reloading times and rate of fire. A .223 would be less powerful, because it is a lesser grain bullet, but still the exact same size. The fact that they call the varmint rifle "a low powered rifle" literally infuriates me to no end because it implies somehow that the marksman carbine can somehow shoot a bullet faster and with more force, except that's not how guns work. If a gun has enough force to hit the primer and cause it to go off, the bullet determines the speed, not the gun. The bullets are designed to go at a certain speed by the amount of powder in their cases. Hitting the primer less hard (but still with a enough force to activate) would not make the bullet go any slower or be any less powerful. It's just dumb, literally even in a world full of dumb unrealistic things that we all overlook for the sake of a good game, to me this is not one of them. For me this is simply a necessary realism mod, nothing to do with making the game harder at all for me. (That and making a 5.56 to the head or upper torso almost always kill, since without level 3 Kevlar you aren't taking more than one or two rounds of that s#*!, and with no armor you're not taking more than one to any part of your body except for maybe an arm without dying (unless it hits an artery)).
Anyway I'm really bored at 3am and seeing the varmint rifle in 5.56 finally pissed me off enough to look up if someone had something about this travesty. Now that I've wasted my time posting this on a dead thread and a probably dead modding community, I say thank you and goodnight.
Actually there would be a difference, for a 5.56/45 NATO round in particular, it doesn't perform that well from short-barreled weapons. It loses a lot of velocity, so the damage for a 5.56 pistol would be substantially lower then from a rifle of any kind. So, to be truly realistic, all rifle-length weapons in 5.56 would have the same damage, but the 5.56 pistol would have about 25-30% lower damage, more or less.
Also if you take into account the fact that longer barrel gives more velocity most of the time there is no way 223 pistol will hit harder than a rifle shooting same caliber. most of the pistols shooting harder than a 5.56nato rifle is just absurd.
Just fact checking here, .223/5.56 is a common varmint hunting round.
"Rimfire firearms (such as the highly popular .22 LR caliber) are best used to shoot small vermin such as squirrels and rats at close distances, and are somewhat underpowered for many outdoor rodents (which are often alert enough to spot hunters from a long distance away and flee or hide underground), small predators such as coyotes and larger feral animals such as goats and pigs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varmint_rifle
The gun itself is probably modeled after the Ruger American ranch rifle.
still kind of dead here but I do want to give my 2 cents as a gun nut myself. So .223 is considered a varmint round because farmers and hunters do use that caliber for varmints coyotes, groundhogs, bobcats, etc. Rodents are a different story, you would certainly use a .22lr or .17hmr for rats and squirrels also up to possums, raccoons, and rabbits. For Fallout, I guess Rat Slayer's name would make sense because they went from small pests that a single .22lr would kill to a larger varmint needing a larger caliber to kill effectively. Though the varmint rifle does feel underpowered like it is firing a 22lr which makes sense that they planned for it to be. I do think the differences between the three 5.56 rifles in the game are dumb and ill-thought-out. Raise the damage of the varmint rifle and service rifle add a scope weapon mod to it and just drop the marksman's carbine because it becomes redundant. Could also add a full auto weapon mod to the service rifle and drop the assault carbine too.
ok, looks like you don't know much about guns either. the Marksman carbine should do MORE damage than the 5.56 pistol because the speed of the bullet is determined by barrel length. how? the length of the barrel determines how much powder gets burned and gas expands before the bullet leaves the barrel. if you have more gas expansion behind the bullet, the bullet will be pushed harder therefore increasing velocity and by extension, power. so actually, since the varmint rifle has a longer barrel and is bolt action so the chamber is more sealed so there is less escapage for the gas, the varmint rifle should be one of the harder hitting 5.56 weapons. so, now with that covered, there SHOULD be variation in damage, but they got it completely backwards.
Any idea on how to make this compatible with the weapon retexture project or the simplified version? Love the 22lr ammo type but i fuckin HATE the burn mark ontop of the rifle. Ugly ash.
Can you read? it changes the ammo the varmint uses to 22LR it doesn't change anything to the TTW since this mod came out before TTW was a think some people really have no Common sense lol.
This is a blessing. In fact, even with this mod the rifle is stupidly overpowered for what it is. Yeah, it's useless for face-to-face combat, but that's really not what it is about.
The sneak attack crit can take down just about anything you're likely to meet roaming the wastes in early-to-mid game with a single hit. Any raider group, almost any Legion or NCR operative, any variant of gecko, standard ghouls and roamers, and other lesser critters. Even on very hard the kill potential remains insane for something you get for free 3 minutes into the game. It's also accurate. And scoped. And silenced. And dirt-cheap. And available from the first general goods vendor you meet in the game. The wonders never cease.
And then you find the Ratslayer.
I've considered nerfing the Varmint rifle for personal use from 18 down to 15 or 14 per shot, but then I realised this kind of fits the general theme of .22, especially with Jsawyer. His vision boosts the pistol from 9 to 12, with the crit from 18 to 30, making the sneak crit do even more dmg than the rifle. Nerfing it would also reduce the threat from the enemies using it against the player even further. So it's actually in a pretty decent place as it is.
IMO the best version of the mod is '.22lr varmint rifle only'. Removing the AP option at least somewhat compensates for every other upside of the weapon. And being chambered for .22lr instead of .223 could excuse the low (low low) cost due to low-ish pressure and other considerations. The night scope for at most 200-250 caps is... difficult to justify, it could be that it's so old and fragile only the .22 would take it without shaking it apart. Really, with re-texture mods out there, the thing is amazing with iron sights so it's a moot point really.
And the Ratslayer is unique. Like any good unique, it should be more than just a better performing stock item. High crit modifier makes it useful in direct combat, and the AP ammo helps that as much as it does for the Service rifle.
I live in a heavy ranching and farming area of Nevada (northern, near Reno), so I'm somewhat familiar with what is actually used for varmint hunting. There's a limited case to be made for 5.56 being used, since most .223 weapons are set up to take 5.56 rounds as well, but even then it's massive massive overkill. "Varminting" generally means going after things as small as squirrels, and if you shoot a squirrel with .223 you're going to wind up with squirrel paste, and not very much of it either. Hell, around here most people use sub-.22 rounds, calibers like .17 HMR. .223 is just ridiculous.
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Anyway I'm really bored at 3am and seeing the varmint rifle in 5.56 finally pissed me off enough to look up if someone had something about this travesty. Now that I've wasted my time posting this on a dead thread and a probably dead modding community, I say thank you and goodnight.
"Rimfire firearms (such as the highly popular .22 LR caliber) are best used to shoot small vermin such as squirrels and rats at close distances, and are somewhat underpowered for many outdoor rodents (which are often alert enough to spot hunters from a long distance away and flee or hide underground), small predators such as coyotes and larger feral animals such as goats and pigs."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varmint_rifle
The gun itself is probably modeled after the Ruger American ranch rifle.
i edit the ini and the .22 is restored but i get 5.56 and vice versa
The sneak attack crit can take down just about anything you're likely to meet roaming the wastes in early-to-mid game with a single hit. Any raider group, almost any Legion or NCR operative, any variant of gecko, standard ghouls and roamers, and other lesser critters. Even on very hard the kill potential remains insane for something you get for free 3 minutes into the game. It's also accurate. And scoped. And silenced. And dirt-cheap. And available from the first general goods vendor you meet in the game. The wonders never cease.
And then you find the Ratslayer.
I've considered nerfing the Varmint rifle for personal use from 18 down to 15 or 14 per shot, but then I realised this kind of fits the general theme of .22, especially with Jsawyer. His vision boosts the pistol from 9 to 12, with the crit from 18 to 30, making the sneak crit do even more dmg than the rifle. Nerfing it would also reduce the threat from the enemies using it against the player even further. So it's actually in a pretty decent place as it is.
IMO the best version of the mod is '.22lr varmint rifle only'. Removing the AP option at least somewhat compensates for every other upside of the weapon. And being chambered for .22lr instead of .223 could excuse the low (low low) cost due to low-ish pressure and other considerations. The night scope for at most 200-250 caps is... difficult to justify, it could be that it's so old and fragile only the .22 would take it without shaking it apart. Really, with re-texture mods out there, the thing is amazing with iron sights so it's a moot point really.
And the Ratslayer is unique. Like any good unique, it should be more than just a better performing stock item. High crit modifier makes it useful in direct combat, and the AP ammo helps that as much as it does for the Service rifle.
This mods fixes this issue
No you add more powder you get more damage too, not just velocity.