“Guns determines your effectiveness with any weapon that uses conventional ammunition (.22 LR, .357 Magnum, 5mm, 10mm, 5.56mm, .308, .45-70 Gov't, etc.).”— In-game description
Guns is a skill in Fallout: New Vegas. It is the successor to the Small Guns skill of previous Fallout games with the addition of some weapons previously categorized under Big Guns (such as miniguns, but not missile launchers or Gatling lasers).
The level of the skill determines the player character's accuracy and damage with every kind of conventional firearm, from pistols and rifles to light machine guns and miniguns; at the highest level of 100, a weapon's sway is heavily reduced and its damage is twice that of the lowest level of 0.
Initial level[]
Example: A starting Agility of 5 and Luck of 5.
Ways to increase Guns skill[]
- Permanent
- Leveling up (10+INT (+2 with Educated perk))
- Guns and Bullets (+3, or +4 with the Comprehension perk)
- Reflex Booster implant (+2 depending on current Agility, a perfect Agility of 10 will see no benefit.)
- Tag! (+15)
Skilled (+5)
- Temporary
- Milsurp Review (+10, or +20 with the Comprehension perk)
- Coyote tobacco chew (+2 depending on current Agility, a perfect Agility of 10 will see no benefit.)
- Fire ant nectar (+2-8 depending on current Agility, a perfect Agility of 10 will see no benefit.)
- Merc outfit (+2)
- Bounty hunter duster (+5)
- Regulator duster (+5)
- Sheriff's duster (+5)
- Raider blastmaster helmet (+5)
Riot gear (+5)- US Army General outfit (+5)
Elite riot gear (+10)- Any armor or clothing that increases Agility, will improve Guns by +2 per point of increased Agility (up to +18).
Affected weapons[]
Perks that require Guns skill[]
| Perk | Requirement | Level | Additional requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid Reload | 30 | 2 | Agility 5 |
| Run 'n Gun | 45 | 4 | — |
| Shotgun Surgeon | 45 | 6 | — |
| Cowboy | 45 | 8 | Melee Weapons 45 |
Grunt 
|
45 | 8 | Explosives 20 |
And Stay Back 
|
70 | 10 | — |
| Center of Mass | 70 | 14 | — |
| Concentrated Fire | 60 | 18 | Energy Weapons 60 |
Interactions that require Guns skill[]
- 25 Guns to unlock the Reloading bench function in the duplicated ED-E.
- 40 Guns to access Alexander's inventory at 188 Trading Post.
- 45 Guns and 45 Explosives to effectively train the Misfits during Flags of Our Foul-Ups.
- 45 Guns to execute a pistol whip on Carlyle St. Clair III (killing him and failing the quest) during Beyond the Beef.
- 45 Guns to point out to Ricky that there is no such thing as an 11mm submachine gun like the one he supposedly killed a Paladin with.
- 50 Guns and 60 Survival to receive the Schematics - .44 Magnum, hand load from Jules in North Vegas Square.
- 50 Guns to convince Dean Domino that you have the skills to defeat the Ghost people of the Sierra Madre.
- 50 Guns to identify the sound of gunfire in one of ED-E's recordings as being a hand-loaded .308 round.
- 60 Guns to help the Boomer teacher improve her curriculum by suggesting teaching how to make specialized ammunition.
- 75 Guns to procure a K9000 cyberdog gun and receive extra ammunition from the Think Tank during Welcome to the Big Empty (50 will only net the gun without the ammo).
- 75 Guns to inform Mobius about how the "wrinkle" in the Courier's brainpan was caused by a bullet.
Notable Guns skilled characters[]
- Benny (57 → 100) - head of the Chairmen.
- Craig Boone (48 → 100) - ex-First Recon sniper and possible companion of the Courier.
- Dean Domino (53 → 100), pre-War King of Swing and a companion of the Courier.
- Joshua Graham (75 → 100) co-founder of the Caesar's Legion and ex-legate.
- Lee Oliver (86 → 100) - NCR Army general and commanding officer in the Mojave Wasteland.
- Raul Tejada (92 → 100) - old vaquero and possible companion of the Courier.
- Rose of Sharon Cassidy (47 → 100) - owner of Cassidy Caravans and possible companion of the Courier.
- Gloria Van Graff (94) - head of the Van Graff family, and manager of the Silver Rush.
- James Garret (94) - co-owner of the Atomic Wrangler Casino in Freeside.
- Cato Hostilius (90) - a frumentarius in Caesar's Legion stationed around Hoover Dam.
- Caesar (100) - co-founder and leader of the Caesar's Legion.
- Liza O'Malley (100) - the receptionist at the NCR Embassy.
- Orion Moreno (100) - a retired Enclave soldier living in the outskirts of New Vegas.
Notes[]
- The Vault Boy image for the Guns skill is the same that of the Small Guns skill in Fallout 3.
- The Codac R9000 is classified as a gun despite being loaded with camera film.
- As with all weapons, the player character can use and fire any weapon regardless of skill level; the level "requirement" is simply a recommendation to ensure the weapon has minimum sway and decent damage.
Behind the scenes[]
Combining Big Guns and Small Guns was a largely uncontested change among the development team, though Feargus Urquhart and Chris Parker dissented. Game director Joshua Sawyer assured them that it would be fine.[1] Previously, Sawyer had attempted to design low-level Big Guns for the early game so that everyone could get what they wanted, including items such as rivet guns, but found that it felt forced and did not work well. As such, the team simply merged Small Guns and Big Guns and redistributed the latter.[2]
References[]
- ↑ Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream Part 3 (reference starts at 45:17)
Joshua Sawyer: "'Was combining Small Guns and Big Guns back together an uncontested change?' The only people who contested it were Feargus Urquhart and Chris Parker. Nobody else contested it. And I was like, 'It's fine.' [laughter] They're like, 'I think it's gonna do this-' I'm like, 'Nah. Nah.' That was my feedback, like 'Nah, it's fine.'" - ↑ Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream Part 3 (reference starts at 46:13)
Joshua Sawyer: "Yeah, Big Guns, like at first, I tried to... design low-level Big Guns. So the goal in combining them was that I just wanted there to be more stuff available at the beginning of the game for everybody to use. And it was just really difficult, it felt very forced. Yeah, 'low-level Big Guns?' It just didn't work very well. I was making up like industrial things like rivet guns and stuff like that. I'm like, 'Ehhh, I dunno.' And once I just said, 'No, there's just Guns' and I split up all the weapons that were previously in Big Guns. Is it a missile launcher? Then it's Explosives. Is it a minigun? Then it's in Guns. Is it a laser Gatling gun? Then it's in Energy Weapons. And that was fine."
