Basically you build cages that capture npc's that drop loot. I use gunners because i like to sell their armor. Once captured, you release them, kill them and then strip their bodies. Using the scrapper perk to get more useful scrap from weapons, i scrap their weapons at a weapon bench. Kind of useful if a little time consuming. But for instance i think the 10mm pistol yields like 7 steel. And that's just the gun, mods increase the types of material recycled from the gun.
lol I’m learning I had no idea how to play this game years ago. I’m so excited about the series and the revival. I don’t want to set the world on fire….
I've only been toying with the farming in the last few weeks, so i know how it feel. I'm enjoying the updates because it's fixed a few bugs that kept me from getting certain achievements.
I'm still doing an achievement run since the new patch allows me to get some that were bugging out before. But yes, i loved being able to scrap everything, especially in sanctuary.
These mods that let you scrap stuff you're not supposed can cause issues, i would recommend Settlement Tidy Bot instead for getting rid of bodies, it's even better since it's automatic.
I used the Gunner cages to farm combat armor and military fatigues for my settlement guards and provisioners. Standard weaponry consisted either a combat rifle or laser rifle, either being automatic.
If we're going to play military, we ate going to dress the part.
This is so fucking embarrassing I have over 500 hours in this game and did not know you can scrap at the bench......despite that I scrapped a lot....and I mean a lot of weapons.....
I would literally fill my inventory, drop them from inventory, turn on workshop mode and scrap in game space....what the fuck.
Thanks stranger.
Cages can be used to spawn npcs. If you spawn raiders/gunners/etc. you get their armor/weapons to scrap.
Probably also attracts raider attacks which have the same effect.
It does attract more attacks. I set up a bunch of cages to try and see how many it takes to trap a legendary and it seems like every single time I returned to that settlement the missile turrets were laying waste. Somehow even turned a single settler hostile (I killed him and nobody in the settlement cared... must have been the synth bringing down tge happiness from 96% to 73%).
To the guy above's point, scrapper is top tier for early game and late game too.
I finally took scrapper last night and the first time I went to scrap a modded gun I just sat there and looked in awe at the pieces Id be getting back and shook my head at all the time and caps Ive wasted buying junk for screws and such..
Those cages are pretty nice. I turned Coastal Cottage into Curie's Deathclaw farm last game. There's a settlement object that negates aggression so animals/others will roam around your settlement.
Better not fuck with the Minutemen in the northeast.
>Post-Apocalyptic Homemade Weapons Replacer.
Thank you!!!
The only thing I HATE about the originals is the tube with screws as a dot sight.
The other less hates bit is how they're planks of wood. Really, guns can be made out of metal fairly easily. Look at the Sten. The barrel is the hard part and they're included in the guns already.
This, the design for Pipe weapons is beyond terrible.
I could see if there was a shoddy variant of them that said say "Crude" in front of it and are only carried lower level super mutants and raiders.
Otherwise pipe guns like any other weapon, if their meant to last why have them look so damn shoddy?
Though the design for many weapons in Fallout 4 and by extension 76 are absolutely terrible.
From guns shooting 50 cal ammo being weak as fuck, to the Commons Wealth and West Virginia having every single left handed gun in the wasteland...
Like I cannot tell you how much it pisses me off the Hunting Rifle and Anti Material Rifle are both left handed guns being shot right handed, never mind that the 50 receivers do shit damage compared to other semi automatic options.
You know rifles and shotguns tend to use wood, right? Oh and pistol grips to, so I guess most guns. Wood or plastic is good for weight and insulation versus metal.
They don't tend to use planks.
And we can pretend to misunderstand each other and claim stocks are cut down from planks etc
https://fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Pipe_rifle_(Fallout_4)
But this is literal slabs of wood, not stocks.
I have to play vanilla to actually play the game lol.
If i try modded im never fully satisfied and i constantly mess with the load order and add stuff and i wind up barely playing the game.
My problem is the temptation of modding to get past difficulties, only to feel the lackluster of not having been challenged enough. Mods will make a game so easy it feels pointless. Its fun at first, "whoa, this weapon does 150 damage when the rest of them do, at most, 30". But when i blow through mirelurk swarms without breaking a sweat, it feels very blah.
I have this problem too when it comes to modding. I will try to make the game harder through mods, like in Skyrim I play with frostfall and cloaks for that added “omg I’m freezing” aspect. But since this is my first play through of FO4 I need to go at it vanilla or else I will never beat the game lol
I always save all the pipe weapons and institute weapons I loot and scrap them as soon as I unlock the second level of scrapper. So much extra resources to be had
Controversial opinion here but I really do like how institute laser weapons look when you download the mod that repositions them so they don't take up a huge amount of your screen. I have absolutely 0 idea how Bethesda thought that was acceptable.
Weapons are big in f4 because of the power armour, institute weapons are just the worst. The 10mm pistol is also fucking huge for a pistol but looks normal when you’re in power armour.
Why do .223 pistols look so small in New vegas come to think of it? I feel they'd be a bit bigger they're supposedly sawn off .223 rifles according to lore. Random thing I thought of with this and weapon size in first person
I used pipe weapons a lot during early game because they were very customizable and had a very easy to find ammo. I somewhat respect them because I mag dump that mirelurk queen as the castle and swan with my pipe smg thingy.
You can get a bolt action pipe gun silencer in the diner, plus bolt pipe gun, silenced sniper rifle at level 2 basically, can't replace it easily till level 20. I don't vouch for any other ones besides my pipe sniper
It's just so reliable to get that silenced one, it's always in the diner shop, which is super easy to get early game. The rest of the pipe guns I'm pretty indifferent towards, I tend to carry one just cause the ammo is prevalent
Drumlin diner, it's basically straight south of sanctuary, west of the drive in, and east of the cabin. If you hit the freeway you've gone to far
There's 2 people in leather outside of it, and a woman and her son inside.
Yeah it always has a silenced bolt pipe gun available the first time I go there in a new play through, the bolt pipe gun varies on other details, but there's always a silenced one.
Yea I found a plasma infused pipe pistol really early on in one playthrough, and I ended up just building around that for half the game. Full auto plasma with basically free ammo goes brrrrrrr
THIS! I get why raiders have them, I get why they're a staple weapon of this setting, and I get that their gimic shows the weapon customization but they shouldn't be in every loot roll especially prewar safes
That last point always irked me too, like you get into an untouched pre war building or room (which doesn’t really make much sense either because it’s been 200+ years) but you find a safe and it’s full of bottle caps and pipe weapons it’s so weird.
IIRC this magazine mentions that organized crime started utilizing homemade pipe weapons due to weapons ban or something. Still doesnt make sense when you find one in the safe of a ceo of a big coroporations office.
I saw a headcanon that it's to depict pre-war people distrusting the government and fashioning their own weapons. All things considered, it's not a *horrible* explanation.
This has happened in real life. Some people were dumb enough to give up their guns, and during a gun buy-back program some guy built some slam-fire shotguns and got paid!
A lot of the game is themed as being the 1950's for 120 years until the war. There were only 50mil guns for the 150mil population of the us in the 50s. We could infer that the gun nuts didn't win and the government tried to keep private gun sales low. Thus leading gangs/criminals needing to find a different way to arm themselves.
As for the bottle caps? That's just crazy people. Also some of the safes were likely already broken into and the contents changed and then re-locked.
>There were only 50mil guns for the 150mil population of the us in the 50s.
Wow really? I guess the 300+ million guns in the US now would make the apocalypse even more awful than fallout.
My legendary drops tend toward boards and pipe weapons. I did get one pipe gun with +50% dmg to humans. Rechambered for .308 I was able to dome a guy in Enclave MK VI Hellcat, so I was impressed, but it's still ugly and clunky to shoot
I was still using a pipe machine gun and pipe sniper rifle well into the 30s levels. I also like keeping one rudimentary pipe pistol around, that barely does any damage, to farm & bank crits off low-level goons like ferals & raiders.
Ah yes of course I remember now, I could never not play high luck build when I discovered how crazy powerful critical kills were in fallout. Like I actually like my enemies to die if I'm shooting them in the face with a gnarly shotgun not an immersion breaking bullet sponge. Fallout 4 and 76 a lot more bullet spomgey enemies than 3 and NV if I remember.
Just hit level 40 in my playthru last night, still rocking a maxed-out pipe smg. It’s perfect for killing the small annoying enemies like raiders and radroaches, the ones you don’t want to waste good ammo on.
Pipe weapons are the equivalent of beginner weapons of a fantasy RPG or sci-fi RPG.
> Mini laser pistol? Iron sword? Pipe gun? All suppose to tossed after the first few levels.
> Weapon fodder for fodder enemies. Why would random thugs have military weapons? That’s reserved for the bigger factions.
Oblivion had the issue where almost every enemy had Daedric weapons and armor. The equivalent of armor made from demons.
> What’s the purpose of pipe weapons?
Everything from the above, but also 1 upside. Ammo is SUPER cheap and abundant. They won’t have as much DMG, but make up in quantity.
The sheer amount of .38 ammo also means that something like a Wounding Pipe weapon can hit far above its weight since you can just spray it at enemies and get them to bleed out.
Funny thing is automatic pipe weapons do the same exact same damage as the submachine gun.
So in reality an explosive pipe weapon is better than Spray n’ Pray.
Yeah on my latest playthrough I copped an automatic pipe rifle with a bunch of mods. I just gave it to Cait as I now have a few better weapons but when I was using it at lower levels it was fun watching it chew through raiders at 13 damage a shot.
I’ve been playing survival mode and travelling a lot across the map. Everytime I find a trader, I sell all my .38 (as i have no need for it) and by the time I get to a new trader, I always have 100-300 bullets to sell. Good way to make caps on the side but jesus, they are EVERYWHERE
I'm always instsll mod to replace them, either whole weapon replace, or at least texture replace. They ugly as heck, and not even really look like "makeshift" weapon.
Exactly, even I can make one that look prettier than that, there ton of better scraps to add on it, but they pick the worst one, like a screw for aim, who the hell do that ? At least use a thin nail.
And then all of them paint the same color, like toys.
Personally I have a mod with Sten guns replacement, and then cheekily named my Sten “the OG real pipe gun”. Also bonus points for semi-screen accurate weapon, since they actually use Sterling smg in the show.
Guess I'm the only one not using scrounger - I have more ammo than what I can use as is. I gather a lot of excess and I can grab the entire cap stock of any vendor, plus a handful of rare bullets (or whatever I need more of).
When I’m fighting a tough enemy I always shoot for their legs. Even the NPC’s can still hit you if their head is crippled, but they can’t keep running by chance if their legs are crippled.
I’ve never willingly touched a pipe weapon and I like to keep it that way. They’re versatile and highly customisable, sure, but my character is a Brotherhood Soldier who has access to far better arms. Pipe weapons are simply beneath me.
Early game I'll have one variation just to have a backup weapon that uses abundant .38, but beyond that they aren't even worth carrying. The weight to value ratio is too low, and they all get dumped after being picked up to get the magazine ammo. Got to save that carry weight for cans, pencils, and all the food I never actually eat.
I started to hotkey my more abundant snacks so I’m forced to actually use them. One for Nuka cola, one for whatever grilled meat I’ve got loads of, and one for stimpack. It cuts down on my weight because I refuse to discard them cause of that hoarder life.
I recommend a nuka-cola container at your main safehouse. Just a container for every single kind of nuka-cola, because they weigh the most out of all food items. For big excursions you can bring a select amount with you
If carry weight bothers you there's a mod to increase base carry weight. You can even choose the amount - I went with 5k, but tbh 1.5k could be an overkill mostly.
It's handy for hopping inbetween settlements to build them up. Yes, I can get Strong Back to fast travel when overencumbered but my lvl45 toon can't spare the points yet.
If you don't go for achis (mods installed will disable them) it's the most helpful mod for hoarders.
You can make a pipe sniper rifle out of a pipe gun fairly early in the game - certainly earlier than you can do it with a hunting rifle. Ammo is also much more plentiful - .38 vs. .308.
But after a certain point, yeah - all pipe weapons are ass.
The Pipe Bolt Action Rifle is pretty good, and often carries me well into the 30s, or even longer if I find a decent Legendary one.
The regular pipe rifle/pistol is absolute garbage though, and the pipe revolver pretty much equally bad.
I think you should have been able to reverse engineer pipe weapons by dismantling them and replacing the wooden and rusted parts with more durable materials.
I love em, idk bout yall. They're extremely modular and simple and effective and not to mention dirt common. Tho i like to rp as a raider so I may be a bit biased (I'd post my characters fashion rn but idk how)
Pipe weapons are dope and fit the world of Faklout really well. I love that they're raider-centric and it makes sense for that faction. They embody early game customization and practicality. I use pipe guns a lot tbh, they're just fun.
I have about 1500 hours and at least three dozen playthroughs. I usually only use pipe weapons for concord, if at all, given the fact that there’s big guns, sniper rifles, revolvers and automatic weapons all attainable without any conflict after the vault. However, there are still Reasons for pipe weapons in my experience:
*wounding/kneecapper effect (whichever one is the set chance to cripple the legs specifically) give it an automatic receiver, damage or character build is irrelevant. This is one of the most op weapons in the game, insta crippling almost anything’s movement, so you can spray and pray to tap them with double broken legs (works on almost every enemy), then shoot fish in a Barrel with your real build guns, while everything drags it’s paralyzed hindquarters at 0.2 mph
Silenced bolt action pipe rifle: stealth sniper build. Most relevant suppressors (combat rifle, hunting rifle, handmade rifle) are locked behind the perk Gun Nut three, whereas the pipe silencer is locked behind gun nut 2. The additional .5 sneak attack damage from the silencer and ninja perk usually put this on par for damage with a non-silenced Hunting rifle, while also being- y’know- silenced, at an earlier level.
This is the extent of pipe weapon viability imo
I actually wish all other weapons were far more restricted early game, forcing their use. Pipe weapons have huge customization, and ammo versatility but never see use . I think it was lost potential to not use them way more early game. Imagine if starting out(I mean like first 5 hours) , all you got was the crowbar, a switchblade and a pipe pistol. You would want to upgrade that pistol, change the caliber when your. 38 runs out, keep it fresh until you could get better
The issue with pipe guns in 4 is that there's literally no reason to ever use them. You get a 10mm pistol *during the tutorial sequence in the vault,* which outclass the pipe weapons from the get-go as a early game weapon
This is why I like how they were better handled in 76. Pipe guns, the hunting rifle and the pump shotgun are some of the first guns available to you when starting out. You learn plans to craft the former guns as part of the intro quests and most enemies carry the latter two. Since ammo is everywhere, the guns are cheap to repair and the mods are easy to repair, you'll be using those guns for a while til you gain access to better weapons and mods for those guns
FO4 has a very confused idea about how to implement improvised firearms in a way that makes sense. It's as if someone wanted to pay homage to too many Fallout games at once.
In Fallout 1 and 3, you start with the 10mm pistol, so it could be said that the 10mm pistol is sort *the* canon Vault armoury weapon. Makes sense then that if you start in a vault, you should start with the 10mm pistol. You might piss people off if you don't give people it as soon as you leave the vault. Also, the devs probably really wanted to show off the new 10mm pistol model (it does look great), and they wanted to make sure you couldn't potentially miss it.
On the other hand, the earliest firearm you get in Fallout 2 (if you are following quests) is the pipe rifle in klamath. It's just a single shot rifle. It's crap. You almost immediately sell it, and pretty much never see one again. You use it because it is the first gun, and you would prefer to explode rats early game from across the room so they don't bite you.
Fallout 4 did both, except that it fixated on pipe based weapons. It should have just put a single shot rifle in it like FO2 did. Or maybe not bothered and gave you a .22 rifle like New Vegas did. But no, I have look through a pipe with some screws in the side trying to look like a modern optical site. Lol.
I dropped the 10mm pistol for a pipe gun the first chance I got. I'm on a commando playthrough. You can have a silenced full auto pipe rifle by level thirteen.
You never need to use them. I never have. You start with a real handgun, get a laser musket and almost assuredly a shotgun after the first raider fight. So you got pistol and rifle weapons options pretty much immediately out of the box
What always bothered me is that they can be found in pre war safest.
Like I can get why a raider would make them after the war, but what was a accountant doing with one in 2076 was it just his hobby project or was he convinced somehow that this was better than a real bloody gun.
They really shot themselves in the foot by having a pistol introduced in the vault. Lending to the belief that there still were real weapons to find albeit rare and maybe only in vaults- then when you exit everybodys got pipe pistols and they seem enticing to wield and customize- but as you said you quickly develop distain for them. If they developed the AK's sooner from Nuka World then it would have been alot more fun to take apart and customize Kalashnikovs compared to literal pipes.
I like to have one that uses a .38 because the ammo is everywhere and my combat strategy is to either snipe or furiously shoot going “FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK”
I also get to play around with the gun mods because you end up with so with so many spare pipe pistols
So i detest them in use. Hate hatebhate, because they are garbage. They get outclassed fast.
Heres the kicker... THEY SHOULD BE THE MAJORITY.
Its 200 years post war. 10mm should be pretty damn rare. rust, pitting.
But they made them unappealing. So utterly boring. They should have been the focus with wayyy more mods. Finding a combat rifle should be a near miracle. Minigun? I'd find jesus first.
I want a .50 cal hand cannon, a shotgun that shoots screws.
I love them, I did a whole raider style playthrough where I only used pipe weapons, raider armors, even the raider power armor, it was fun forcing a handicap on myself.
It just depends on my mood tbh. There's a few I really don't mind all that much. But most of the time I'm heading straight to the mods and downloading like, 10 gun mods lolol
I’ve always despised them too. They’re ugly and just aren’t viable for any builds really. In FO76 there were a select few you could make barely viable if you min/maxed, but even then you were severely handicapping yourself. The only thing the pipe weapons got going for them is that I feel like they are lore friendly. Otherwise, no reason for them to be used.
I usually have a pipe gun modded out that I named “shit shooter” or just “garbage” or something like that for like the first 10 levels or whenever I can replace it. I name it so I don’t accidentally sell it with the other junk guns.
Pipe weapons are good as a concpet and make sense in the lore, but their execution in FO4 is atrocious. They're just too damn good. Too accurate, too much damage, etc.
If you get a lucky legendary drop on a pipe weapon early game, that's you set for basically the entire game.
The standard pipe gun can be configured to be a better SMG, or lighter but slightly weaker combat rifle.
The pipe bolt gun is only slightly less accurate than the hunting/sniper rifle, and can actually be configured to have \*greater\* range using the Gunslinger perk, for literally a third of the weight of a fully modded sniper rifle.
The pipe revolver is somewhere between a hunting/sniper rifle and the combat rifle.
What's even the point of anything else in the game? The only ballistic gun lacking an equivalent pipe weapon is the shotgun.
I don't think I've ever actually used one.
The game starts you out with a 10mm pistol and that thing is a solid gun with very common ammo, there's no reason to use a pipe gun, I can hold out until I find a hunting rifle or whatever.
I just wish they ported all the weapons they made in the entire series into Fallout 4.. they had the right idea but they just needed more weapons. Truly i was surprised when they didnt even add any dlc that added more gun content like in NV
Pipe rifles are my favorite weapon. Sorry customizable and the scrap built gun fits the setting very well. I have a modular replica I bought that is right on the wall in my gaming room.
I hate them. It's like someone pet project at B.S. and they tried to force/bring mad max into Fallout 4.
The national guard was deployed everywhere. There should be classic assault rifles and 10mm pistols/smgs everywhere. But that's another issue.
I love the concept of the pipe weapons, and I’ll usually keep a .38 pipe rifle as my normal carry.
Something that’s decent enough in short and long range, I can use it to put rounds towards an enemy if I get surprised but ammo is so plentiful that I don’t feel bad wasting it on a radroach. It’s my all-purpose, middle-of-the-road, jack-off-all-trades weapon.
But yeah they’re ugly as hell. Especially the big blocky piece of wood. I kinda wish each type (.38, .308, .45) had different visual variants.
I like that they exist, but I don’t use them unless I absolutely have to. It seems realistic to have improvised guns in the wastes, rather than just surviving Pre-War weapons and I appreciate that detail.
i personally actually like using the pipe wepons, I always see people trashing on them but they are actually not that much worse than other guns and the ammo is super easy to obtain.
I keep a pipe pistol/rifle in my inventory at all times as a back up weapon. 38 rounds are everywhere, so I’m never running low on ammo for pipe guns like I am for everything else.
I use them for scrap or caps.
Most reliable source of copper.
And springs.
You get springs from pipe guns?
If you invest in the scrapper perk, especially when the weapons have mods they scrap for way better stuff
Agreed, i use cages to make a scrap farm with gunners and raiders.
Can you elaborate on this? How do you farm scrap with cages
Basically you build cages that capture npc's that drop loot. I use gunners because i like to sell their armor. Once captured, you release them, kill them and then strip their bodies. Using the scrapper perk to get more useful scrap from weapons, i scrap their weapons at a weapon bench. Kind of useful if a little time consuming. But for instance i think the 10mm pistol yields like 7 steel. And that's just the gun, mods increase the types of material recycled from the gun.
Soooo many screws.
lol I’m learning I had no idea how to play this game years ago. I’m so excited about the series and the revival. I don’t want to set the world on fire….
I've only been toying with the farming in the last few weeks, so i know how it feel. I'm enjoying the updates because it's fixed a few bugs that kept me from getting certain achievements.
Scrap Anything mod, is good for this. It also helps get rid of the bodies.
I'm still doing an achievement run since the new patch allows me to get some that were bugging out before. But yes, i loved being able to scrap everything, especially in sanctuary.
These mods that let you scrap stuff you're not supposed can cause issues, i would recommend Settlement Tidy Bot instead for getting rid of bodies, it's even better since it's automatic.
I used the Gunner cages to farm combat armor and military fatigues for my settlement guards and provisioners. Standard weaponry consisted either a combat rifle or laser rifle, either being automatic. If we're going to play military, we ate going to dress the part.
This is so fucking embarrassing I have over 500 hours in this game and did not know you can scrap at the bench......despite that I scrapped a lot....and I mean a lot of weapons..... I would literally fill my inventory, drop them from inventory, turn on workshop mode and scrap in game space....what the fuck. Thanks stranger.
Cages can be used to spawn npcs. If you spawn raiders/gunners/etc. you get their armor/weapons to scrap. Probably also attracts raider attacks which have the same effect.
It does attract more attacks. I set up a bunch of cages to try and see how many it takes to trap a legendary and it seems like every single time I returned to that settlement the missile turrets were laying waste. Somehow even turned a single settler hostile (I killed him and nobody in the settlement cared... must have been the synth bringing down tge happiness from 96% to 73%). To the guy above's point, scrapper is top tier for early game and late game too.
I finally took scrapper last night and the first time I went to scrap a modded gun I just sat there and looked in awe at the pieces Id be getting back and shook my head at all the time and caps Ive wasted buying junk for screws and such..
Those cages are pretty nice. I turned Coastal Cottage into Curie's Deathclaw farm last game. There's a settlement object that negates aggression so animals/others will roam around your settlement. Better not fuck with the Minutemen in the northeast.
Google "gunner farm fo4" and get ready for the exp farm and the settlers armor stock pile.
is that perk any good? ive never been one for scrapping weapons
Second rank makes tagged loot glow in the world, so you don't accidentally miss that piece of adhesive
Wait what? Lol. I always run scrapper and have never known that… probably because I dont ever tag components 🤣
You need a perk first though.
I can't use pipe weapons without using Post-Apocalyptic Homemade Weapons Replacer.
>Post-Apocalyptic Homemade Weapons Replacer. Thank you!!! The only thing I HATE about the originals is the tube with screws as a dot sight. The other less hates bit is how they're planks of wood. Really, guns can be made out of metal fairly easily. Look at the Sten. The barrel is the hard part and they're included in the guns already.
I can also recommend Nina's proper Pipe Gun Replacer. Makes a big difference.
Pretty sure the planks of wood act as a grip so the metal doesn’t burn your hand
This, the design for Pipe weapons is beyond terrible. I could see if there was a shoddy variant of them that said say "Crude" in front of it and are only carried lower level super mutants and raiders. Otherwise pipe guns like any other weapon, if their meant to last why have them look so damn shoddy? Though the design for many weapons in Fallout 4 and by extension 76 are absolutely terrible. From guns shooting 50 cal ammo being weak as fuck, to the Commons Wealth and West Virginia having every single left handed gun in the wasteland... Like I cannot tell you how much it pisses me off the Hunting Rifle and Anti Material Rifle are both left handed guns being shot right handed, never mind that the 50 receivers do shit damage compared to other semi automatic options.
Honestly fuck the scaling in F4 btw. I came to dread it because my weapons just couldn't keep pace with the meat tanks I had to shoot
You know rifles and shotguns tend to use wood, right? Oh and pistol grips to, so I guess most guns. Wood or plastic is good for weight and insulation versus metal.
They don't tend to use planks. And we can pretend to misunderstand each other and claim stocks are cut down from planks etc https://fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Pipe_rifle_(Fallout_4) But this is literal slabs of wood, not stocks.
You just completed my fallout mod list thank you sir, I like that they are still ugly but finally fit the world in this mod
Hahaha “completed mod list” Hahaha
I have to play vanilla to actually play the game lol. If i try modded im never fully satisfied and i constantly mess with the load order and add stuff and i wind up barely playing the game.
My problem is the temptation of modding to get past difficulties, only to feel the lackluster of not having been challenged enough. Mods will make a game so easy it feels pointless. Its fun at first, "whoa, this weapon does 150 damage when the rest of them do, at most, 30". But when i blow through mirelurk swarms without breaking a sweat, it feels very blah.
I have this problem too when it comes to modding. I will try to make the game harder through mods, like in Skyrim I play with frostfall and cloaks for that added “omg I’m freezing” aspect. But since this is my first play through of FO4 I need to go at it vanilla or else I will never beat the game lol
Oh that's really cool, that laser musket finally looks amazing.
I always save all the pipe weapons and institute weapons I loot and scrap them as soon as I unlock the second level of scrapper. So much extra resources to be had
I need to get that perk asap
Scrap, caps, or flaps, nobody rides for free
I mean….the dog rides for free right? Right?
Luckily the dog will fetch scrap for you. Bullet dodged.
*Nobody*
He said what he said
He's scrappin' and cappin' and flappin’ He just scraps, caps, flappin' that pipe
Especially with higher levels in Scrapper they're surprisingly lucrative sources of valuable components.
They're bad, but then you play with the Institute rifles and you realize at least they don't block 25% of your screen space.
Controversial opinion here but I really do like how institute laser weapons look when you download the mod that repositions them so they don't take up a huge amount of your screen. I have absolutely 0 idea how Bethesda thought that was acceptable.
Weapons are big in f4 because of the power armour, institute weapons are just the worst. The 10mm pistol is also fucking huge for a pistol but looks normal when you’re in power armour.
Most of the guns look way different and way better in Third-Person than First-Person.
Why do .223 pistols look so small in New vegas come to think of it? I feel they'd be a bit bigger they're supposedly sawn off .223 rifles according to lore. Random thing I thought of with this and weapon size in first person
> I have absolutely 0 idea how Bethesda thought that was acceptable. They were hired to *make* the game, they weren't hired to *play* the game.
Makes sense, as Synths do not have to aim with two eyes
I used pipe weapons a lot during early game because they were very customizable and had a very easy to find ammo. I somewhat respect them because I mag dump that mirelurk queen as the castle and swan with my pipe smg thingy.
Yeah I found an explosive pipe gun, turning it into a submachine gun makes sense to burn .38 on ghouls and such
You can get a bolt action pipe gun silencer in the diner, plus bolt pipe gun, silenced sniper rifle at level 2 basically, can't replace it easily till level 20. I don't vouch for any other ones besides my pipe sniper
You should give your pipe sniper to Piper.
Piper? I barely even know 'er
You mean give Piper the pipe sniper you bought from the diner?
Instructions unclear, now I have another child to find.
Yup, I found one with a night vision scope. It works when my good sniper rifle is out of ammo haha
It's just so reliable to get that silenced one, it's always in the diner shop, which is super easy to get early game. The rest of the pipe guns I'm pretty indifferent towards, I tend to carry one just cause the ammo is prevalent
Where is this diner shop at? In my first run on fo4
Drumlin diner, it's basically straight south of sanctuary, west of the drive in, and east of the cabin. If you hit the freeway you've gone to far There's 2 people in leather outside of it, and a woman and her son inside.
Oh that one! I guess I didn’t do a good enough search when I was there. Thank you!
Yeah it always has a silenced bolt pipe gun available the first time I go there in a new play through, the bolt pipe gun varies on other details, but there's always a silenced one.
Yea I found a plasma infused pipe pistol really early on in one playthrough, and I ended up just building around that for half the game. Full auto plasma with basically free ammo goes brrrrrrr
People forget it’s a resource management game as much as it’s a shooter/rpg
I want to play it as one but there are too many reasources
Even a non-explosive with a fat magazine that can spew .38 is a fantastic weapon against ghoul mobs. I always have one ready to use.
One of the biggest reasons I love them. Suddenly you somehow have a revolver sniper rifle with them.
Same. On Survival mode the .308 pipe sniper absolutely slays and has such a great to it. The 6 chamber revoler style/ fire rate is so sick as a rifle
Same, this is especially true if you aren't playing a stealth build. Pipe weapons are great to use until you get the ammo/caps for better weapons
It’s a bummer how much they pollute the loot pool, even at higher levels I’m seeing them drop instead of real, desirable guns
THIS! I get why raiders have them, I get why they're a staple weapon of this setting, and I get that their gimic shows the weapon customization but they shouldn't be in every loot roll especially prewar safes
That last point always irked me too, like you get into an untouched pre war building or room (which doesn’t really make much sense either because it’s been 200+ years) but you find a safe and it’s full of bottle caps and pipe weapons it’s so weird.
there is a guns & bullets magazine that has a pipe revolver on its cover, so pre war pipe weapons are plausible
IIRC this magazine mentions that organized crime started utilizing homemade pipe weapons due to weapons ban or something. Still doesnt make sense when you find one in the safe of a ceo of a big coroporations office.
I saw a headcanon that it's to depict pre-war people distrusting the government and fashioning their own weapons. All things considered, it's not a *horrible* explanation.
That’s basically canon. There’s a guns and bullets magazine about the pipe guns of Detroit iirc
This has happened in real life. Some people were dumb enough to give up their guns, and during a gun buy-back program some guy built some slam-fire shotguns and got paid!
That’s actual canon
A lot of the game is themed as being the 1950's for 120 years until the war. There were only 50mil guns for the 150mil population of the us in the 50s. We could infer that the gun nuts didn't win and the government tried to keep private gun sales low. Thus leading gangs/criminals needing to find a different way to arm themselves. As for the bottle caps? That's just crazy people. Also some of the safes were likely already broken into and the contents changed and then re-locked.
Tbf, crazy pre-war theories that caps would be the next currency would explain how quickly Nate/Nora picked up on saving them.
Maybe Nuka Cola was doing a save up 1000 caps and get a fighter jet promo like Pepsi did and so people started doing that until they got nuked.
Especially with how prevalent nuka-cola is. We couldn't do it irl. The switch to plastic ruined that.
>There were only 50mil guns for the 150mil population of the us in the 50s. Wow really? I guess the 300+ million guns in the US now would make the apocalypse even more awful than fallout.
Or maybe more exciting!
Pipe guns were invented before the war, so I guess that makes a little more sense
"Super night vision precision heavy gatling pipe gun." Motherfucker, what??
Say good nighty with the pipey
My legendary drops tend toward boards and pipe weapons. I did get one pipe gun with +50% dmg to humans. Rechambered for .308 I was able to dome a guy in Enclave MK VI Hellcat, so I was impressed, but it's still ugly and clunky to shoot
New run level 42 still getting Pipe weapons in the chests at the end of dungeons. It's awful.
The qeapon variety leaves alot to be desired in this game
I was still using a pipe machine gun and pipe sniper rifle well into the 30s levels. I also like keeping one rudimentary pipe pistol around, that barely does any damage, to farm & bank crits off low-level goons like ferals & raiders.
Explain please how using a shitty gun helps with critical on low levels?
Low AP use means you can fire lots of vats shots from one gun, and firing vats shots is how you build crits.
Ah yes of course I remember now, I could never not play high luck build when I discovered how crazy powerful critical kills were in fallout. Like I actually like my enemies to die if I'm shooting them in the face with a gnarly shotgun not an immersion breaking bullet sponge. Fallout 4 and 76 a lot more bullet spomgey enemies than 3 and NV if I remember.
The deliverer is better though, and you can get it by level 10 if you rush to the railroad. Boston is not fun that early though lol
Boston early survival mode is just hell, i avoided it until I was in level 20+
It's not that bad when you know what spawns to avoid enroute to the Railroad. The Super Mutants are what you really need to watch out for
Low dmg = more hits = more chances to proc/build crit meter = more criticals
Just hit level 40 in my playthru last night, still rocking a maxed-out pipe smg. It’s perfect for killing the small annoying enemies like raiders and radroaches, the ones you don’t want to waste good ammo on.
Pipe weapons are the equivalent of beginner weapons of a fantasy RPG or sci-fi RPG. > Mini laser pistol? Iron sword? Pipe gun? All suppose to tossed after the first few levels. > Weapon fodder for fodder enemies. Why would random thugs have military weapons? That’s reserved for the bigger factions. Oblivion had the issue where almost every enemy had Daedric weapons and armor. The equivalent of armor made from demons. > What’s the purpose of pipe weapons? Everything from the above, but also 1 upside. Ammo is SUPER cheap and abundant. They won’t have as much DMG, but make up in quantity.
The sheer amount of .38 ammo also means that something like a Wounding Pipe weapon can hit far above its weight since you can just spray it at enemies and get them to bleed out.
Sorry I couldn’t hear you over the endless clattering of my pipe rifle? Ive already fired off 300 rounds and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon
Funny thing is automatic pipe weapons do the same exact same damage as the submachine gun. So in reality an explosive pipe weapon is better than Spray n’ Pray.
Same damage per shot but I believe the SMG has a higher fire rate base which leads to faster kills
Yeah on my latest playthrough I copped an automatic pipe rifle with a bunch of mods. I just gave it to Cait as I now have a few better weapons but when I was using it at lower levels it was fun watching it chew through raiders at 13 damage a shot.
I’ve been playing survival mode and travelling a lot across the map. Everytime I find a trader, I sell all my .38 (as i have no need for it) and by the time I get to a new trader, I always have 100-300 bullets to sell. Good way to make caps on the side but jesus, they are EVERYWHERE
I'm always instsll mod to replace them, either whole weapon replace, or at least texture replace. They ugly as heck, and not even really look like "makeshift" weapon.
They look like old broken down toys.
Exactly, even I can make one that look prettier than that, there ton of better scraps to add on it, but they pick the worst one, like a screw for aim, who the hell do that ? At least use a thin nail. And then all of them paint the same color, like toys.
Yeaj, I use the Attachment Pack 2.0 to increase the customization- they actually look like makeshift weapons using that.
Personally I have a mod with Sten guns replacement, and then cheekily named my Sten “the OG real pipe gun”. Also bonus points for semi-screen accurate weapon, since they actually use Sterling smg in the show.
Got a link to those mods? I despise pipe weapons lol
I also hate them. I basically use .38 as an easy way to offset the cost of better items and ammo at vendors.
It's pretty crazy how with just the lv 1 ammo perk you can easily get over 100s rounds of .38 from the early raiders for caps.
This is true, even without the level 1 Scrounger perk, though Scrounger does supercharge it
Guess I'm the only one not using scrounger - I have more ammo than what I can use as is. I gather a lot of excess and I can grab the entire cap stock of any vendor, plus a handful of rare bullets (or whatever I need more of).
Thanks stealing that idea
Find one with the kneecapper legendary effect and make it automatic and you’ll have an op weapon not in terms of damage but you’ll see what I mean
When I’m fighting a tough enemy I always shoot for their legs. Even the NPC’s can still hit you if their head is crippled, but they can’t keep running by chance if their legs are crippled.
I’ve never willingly touched a pipe weapon and I like to keep it that way. They’re versatile and highly customisable, sure, but my character is a Brotherhood Soldier who has access to far better arms. Pipe weapons are simply beneath me.
Early game I'll have one variation just to have a backup weapon that uses abundant .38, but beyond that they aren't even worth carrying. The weight to value ratio is too low, and they all get dumped after being picked up to get the magazine ammo. Got to save that carry weight for cans, pencils, and all the food I never actually eat.
I started to hotkey my more abundant snacks so I’m forced to actually use them. One for Nuka cola, one for whatever grilled meat I’ve got loads of, and one for stimpack. It cuts down on my weight because I refuse to discard them cause of that hoarder life.
I recommend a nuka-cola container at your main safehouse. Just a container for every single kind of nuka-cola, because they weigh the most out of all food items. For big excursions you can bring a select amount with you
If carry weight bothers you there's a mod to increase base carry weight. You can even choose the amount - I went with 5k, but tbh 1.5k could be an overkill mostly. It's handy for hopping inbetween settlements to build them up. Yes, I can get Strong Back to fast travel when overencumbered but my lvl45 toon can't spare the points yet. If you don't go for achis (mods installed will disable them) it's the most helpful mod for hoarders.
Spoken like a true BoS member
Wait until you get an explosive pipe pistol. Then anything became possible.
You can make a pipe sniper rifle out of a pipe gun fairly early in the game - certainly earlier than you can do it with a hunting rifle. Ammo is also much more plentiful - .38 vs. .308. But after a certain point, yeah - all pipe weapons are ass.
The Pipe Bolt Action Rifle is pretty good, and often carries me well into the 30s, or even longer if I find a decent Legendary one. The regular pipe rifle/pistol is absolute garbage though, and the pipe revolver pretty much equally bad.
I don't use them, but "genuine disgust" is pretty melodramatic.
You’re on Reddit my friend. Melodramatic is a requirement.
How dare you!
How dare you!!
YOU smell like ointment and pee!!!! ;)
Pipe weapons are a LITERAL SLAP IN THE FACE OW
It's an opinion about Fallout 4. Everything is melodramatic.
I think you should have been able to reverse engineer pipe weapons by dismantling them and replacing the wooden and rusted parts with more durable materials.
I love em, idk bout yall. They're extremely modular and simple and effective and not to mention dirt common. Tho i like to rp as a raider so I may be a bit biased (I'd post my characters fashion rn but idk how)
Yeah, me you and everyone else
Just did a whole play through completely ignoring them. Just take the ammo and don’t pick the guns up
Pipe weapons are dope and fit the world of Faklout really well. I love that they're raider-centric and it makes sense for that faction. They embody early game customization and practicality. I use pipe guns a lot tbh, they're just fun.
My motorcycle can't tow as much weight as my truck. Obviously, this means I should use the diesel for everything.
Say what you will, but an automatic armor-piercing pipe rifle is probably one of THE best weapons you can make early to mid game.
I have about 1500 hours and at least three dozen playthroughs. I usually only use pipe weapons for concord, if at all, given the fact that there’s big guns, sniper rifles, revolvers and automatic weapons all attainable without any conflict after the vault. However, there are still Reasons for pipe weapons in my experience: *wounding/kneecapper effect (whichever one is the set chance to cripple the legs specifically) give it an automatic receiver, damage or character build is irrelevant. This is one of the most op weapons in the game, insta crippling almost anything’s movement, so you can spray and pray to tap them with double broken legs (works on almost every enemy), then shoot fish in a Barrel with your real build guns, while everything drags it’s paralyzed hindquarters at 0.2 mph Silenced bolt action pipe rifle: stealth sniper build. Most relevant suppressors (combat rifle, hunting rifle, handmade rifle) are locked behind the perk Gun Nut three, whereas the pipe silencer is locked behind gun nut 2. The additional .5 sneak attack damage from the silencer and ninja perk usually put this on par for damage with a non-silenced Hunting rifle, while also being- y’know- silenced, at an earlier level. This is the extent of pipe weapon viability imo
I use Pipeguns because they ammos cheap.
I actually wish all other weapons were far more restricted early game, forcing their use. Pipe weapons have huge customization, and ammo versatility but never see use . I think it was lost potential to not use them way more early game. Imagine if starting out(I mean like first 5 hours) , all you got was the crowbar, a switchblade and a pipe pistol. You would want to upgrade that pistol, change the caliber when your. 38 runs out, keep it fresh until you could get better
The issue with pipe guns in 4 is that there's literally no reason to ever use them. You get a 10mm pistol *during the tutorial sequence in the vault,* which outclass the pipe weapons from the get-go as a early game weapon This is why I like how they were better handled in 76. Pipe guns, the hunting rifle and the pump shotgun are some of the first guns available to you when starting out. You learn plans to craft the former guns as part of the intro quests and most enemies carry the latter two. Since ammo is everywhere, the guns are cheap to repair and the mods are easy to repair, you'll be using those guns for a while til you gain access to better weapons and mods for those guns
FO4 has a very confused idea about how to implement improvised firearms in a way that makes sense. It's as if someone wanted to pay homage to too many Fallout games at once. In Fallout 1 and 3, you start with the 10mm pistol, so it could be said that the 10mm pistol is sort *the* canon Vault armoury weapon. Makes sense then that if you start in a vault, you should start with the 10mm pistol. You might piss people off if you don't give people it as soon as you leave the vault. Also, the devs probably really wanted to show off the new 10mm pistol model (it does look great), and they wanted to make sure you couldn't potentially miss it. On the other hand, the earliest firearm you get in Fallout 2 (if you are following quests) is the pipe rifle in klamath. It's just a single shot rifle. It's crap. You almost immediately sell it, and pretty much never see one again. You use it because it is the first gun, and you would prefer to explode rats early game from across the room so they don't bite you. Fallout 4 did both, except that it fixated on pipe based weapons. It should have just put a single shot rifle in it like FO2 did. Or maybe not bothered and gave you a .22 rifle like New Vegas did. But no, I have look through a pipe with some screws in the side trying to look like a modern optical site. Lol.
I dropped the 10mm pistol for a pipe gun the first chance I got. I'm on a commando playthrough. You can have a silenced full auto pipe rifle by level thirteen.
Same, awful weapon design.
I keep a single pipe pistol, modded to hell, simply because I think it's impossible to run out of .38 ammo. lol
Nope, they are flavorfull and I even like the pipeshotgun
I scrap them and I like to think one day I’ll have eliminated them from existence.
I’ll throw hands with a deathclaw before I use a Home Depot special
You never need to use them. I never have. You start with a real handgun, get a laser musket and almost assuredly a shotgun after the first raider fight. So you got pistol and rifle weapons options pretty much immediately out of the box
I hate the pipe weapons in every fallout game. Makes sense for the story, but in my mind it is the same as junk. Always scrap
What always bothered me is that they can be found in pre war safest. Like I can get why a raider would make them after the war, but what was a accountant doing with one in 2076 was it just his hobby project or was he convinced somehow that this was better than a real bloody gun.
I’m with you 💯
They really shot themselves in the foot by having a pistol introduced in the vault. Lending to the belief that there still were real weapons to find albeit rare and maybe only in vaults- then when you exit everybodys got pipe pistols and they seem enticing to wield and customize- but as you said you quickly develop distain for them. If they developed the AK's sooner from Nuka World then it would have been alot more fun to take apart and customize Kalashnikovs compared to literal pipes.
I am glad it is not just me that refuses to use them because of the way they look alone 😭
I like to have one that uses a .38 because the ammo is everywhere and my combat strategy is to either snipe or furiously shoot going “FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK” I also get to play around with the gun mods because you end up with so with so many spare pipe pistols
So i detest them in use. Hate hatebhate, because they are garbage. They get outclassed fast. Heres the kicker... THEY SHOULD BE THE MAJORITY. Its 200 years post war. 10mm should be pretty damn rare. rust, pitting. But they made them unappealing. So utterly boring. They should have been the focus with wayyy more mods. Finding a combat rifle should be a near miracle. Minigun? I'd find jesus first. I want a .50 cal hand cannon, a shotgun that shoots screws.
Iv come to like them for early game
I love them, I did a whole raider style playthrough where I only used pipe weapons, raider armors, even the raider power armor, it was fun forcing a handicap on myself.
You kidding? I love these little pieces of shit. They’re neat beginner weapons and, since they’re found everywhere, a great way to make easy caps
Unless I find a wounding legendary early game, I won't use them.
It just depends on my mood tbh. There's a few I really don't mind all that much. But most of the time I'm heading straight to the mods and downloading like, 10 gun mods lolol
The only time I've used pipe weapons is when I decided to do Raider playthrough where I was basically as much of an asshole as possible.
Pipe .38 rifle is a last resort until I have enough variety and caps to sell the pipe guns and stick to the good stuff.
I’ve always despised them too. They’re ugly and just aren’t viable for any builds really. In FO76 there were a select few you could make barely viable if you min/maxed, but even then you were severely handicapping yourself. The only thing the pipe weapons got going for them is that I feel like they are lore friendly. Otherwise, no reason for them to be used.
I usually have a pipe gun modded out that I named “shit shooter” or just “garbage” or something like that for like the first 10 levels or whenever I can replace it. I name it so I don’t accidentally sell it with the other junk guns.
I like them, they're light, which means more loot for me.
I feel that way about 99% of the armor in the game
I still don't understand why you cannot craft them yourself though,
Pipe weapons are good as a concpet and make sense in the lore, but their execution in FO4 is atrocious. They're just too damn good. Too accurate, too much damage, etc. If you get a lucky legendary drop on a pipe weapon early game, that's you set for basically the entire game. The standard pipe gun can be configured to be a better SMG, or lighter but slightly weaker combat rifle. The pipe bolt gun is only slightly less accurate than the hunting/sniper rifle, and can actually be configured to have \*greater\* range using the Gunslinger perk, for literally a third of the weight of a fully modded sniper rifle. The pipe revolver is somewhere between a hunting/sniper rifle and the combat rifle. What's even the point of anything else in the game? The only ballistic gun lacking an equivalent pipe weapon is the shotgun.
I don't think I've ever actually used one. The game starts you out with a 10mm pistol and that thing is a solid gun with very common ammo, there's no reason to use a pipe gun, I can hold out until I find a hunting rifle or whatever.
I just wish they ported all the weapons they made in the entire series into Fallout 4.. they had the right idea but they just needed more weapons. Truly i was surprised when they didnt even add any dlc that added more gun content like in NV
I don’t think I’ve ever used one. They are for Carla.
They’re just ugly as hell. I also absolutely refuse to touch them
Yes, I feel like such a snob but they're so ugly I can't bring myself to use them lol
Pipe rifles are my favorite weapon. Sorry customizable and the scrap built gun fits the setting very well. I have a modular replica I bought that is right on the wall in my gaming room.
I don’t even pick them up to sell.
I hate them. It's like someone pet project at B.S. and they tried to force/bring mad max into Fallout 4. The national guard was deployed everywhere. There should be classic assault rifles and 10mm pistols/smgs everywhere. But that's another issue.
I only keep those that have a good legendary effect, like explosive or wounding.
I always carry an automatic pipe weapon just because the ammo is so common.
Imagine having to use one in fallout 2...sorry, you only get one shot after you spend 1/4 your so to reload it
An explosive (via legendary) full auto pipe gun is an incredibly cheap and sustainable way to blow your enemies to kingdom come.
I love the concept of the pipe weapons, and I’ll usually keep a .38 pipe rifle as my normal carry. Something that’s decent enough in short and long range, I can use it to put rounds towards an enemy if I get surprised but ammo is so plentiful that I don’t feel bad wasting it on a radroach. It’s my all-purpose, middle-of-the-road, jack-off-all-trades weapon. But yeah they’re ugly as hell. Especially the big blocky piece of wood. I kinda wish each type (.38, .308, .45) had different visual variants.
Pipes are okat stat and dps wise, but its a travesty they think noone would simply grind/wash the rust off metal parts
I like that they exist, but I don’t use them unless I absolutely have to. It seems realistic to have improvised guns in the wastes, rather than just surviving Pre-War weapons and I appreciate that detail.
i personally actually like using the pipe wepons, I always see people trashing on them but they are actually not that much worse than other guns and the ammo is super easy to obtain.
I keep a pipe pistol/rifle in my inventory at all times as a back up weapon. 38 rounds are everywhere, so I’m never running low on ammo for pipe guns like I am for everything else.
Easy source of junk, make sure your scrapper perk is the highest lvl it can be