Two Shot is a legendary weapon effect in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.
Fallout 4[]
It fires two projectiles with 25% greater recoil and a significant reduction in accuracy, while using only one unit of ammunition. The reduction in accuracy is significant enough to cause weapon fire to go 45 degrees off-center (compensated by aiming-down sights or VATS).
Damage[]
The damage done by the weapon is not simply the base damage doubled. Instead the calculation is as follows:
- The game combines the weapon's current damage with all mods applied, then adds its base damage.
- The resulting value is then split evenly between two projectiles fired by the weapon.
- However, only the combined damage is used to calculate the effective damage versus target armor.
- For example, an unmodded hunting rifle does 37 damage, while a .50 cal hunting rifle does 64. So a Two-shot .50 cal hunting rifle does 64+37 = 101 damage, resulting in two projectiles hitting for 50.5 each. However, the amount of damage reduced by the target's armor is determined as if a single projectile hit for 101 damage.
Effectively, Two Shot weapons deliver double the base damage from a given weapon, and greatly increase its performance against armor (potentially obsoleting any Penetrating legendary effects). A Two Shot weapon also easily does more damage than an identical weapon with one of the race-specific damage prefixes (Assassin's, Exterminator's, Ghoul Slayer's, Hunter's, Mutant slayer's, Troubleshooter's).
- For example, given two fully identically modified .50 sniper rifles, one a Ghoul Slayer's and one a Two Shot, the former will do 64 base damage to any enemy and (64 * 1.5) = 96 to ghouls; while the latter will do a consistent (as demonstrated above) 101 damage to any and all enemies, ghouls or not.
Two shot behaves slightly differently depending on the mods installed: With automatic mods applied to semi-automatic weapons, it can increase the effective damage per projectile (as automatic weapons reduce the weapon's damage from base and the legendary effect averages the two).
Weapons[]
- Guaranteed spawns
- Effects
- Two Shot stacks with the laser musket cranking mechanic, greatly increasing its damage rating (double at base and even triple due to the armor calculation). As a four-crank capacitor (and optionally long barrels) are available with Science! 1, a legendary drop with potential for 240-248 damage per shot is possible very early in the game.
- Upgrading a Two Shot Fat Man like Big Boy with the MIRV modification will result in the weapon carpet-bombing a huge area with twelve mini nukes instead of six while simultaneously and massively reducing its range, potentially catching the player in its own fire.
- When applied to an unmodified double-barrel shotgun, it will double its base damage, but cause it to have zero accuracy, meaning it will only be effective at point blank range.
- A Two Shot railway rifle will shoot two railway spikes, and because of this, enemies killed with such a weapon have a chance to drop two railway spikes instead of just one.
- Missile launcher or harpoon gun cannot spawn with this effect.
Fallout 76[]
The mod returns in the base game, with slight modifications. It is a one star legendary effect.
Damage[]
The biggest change is that instead of adding the base damage of the weapon, Two Shot adds a stacking +25% damage (changed in Update 5 from the original 100%) on top of any other modifications, while spawning two projectiles. In effect, the mod becomes a general purpose damage increase, which is inferior compared to specialized legendary mods (eg. Ghoul Slayer's), but superior to most, and armor calculation also behaves differently, as most weapons may now mount Piercing or Perforating magazines, which reduce target armor for the purposes of calculating damage. Two Shot synergizes well with these mods, as well as certain two and three star effects.
Weapons[]
- Guaranteed spawns
- Pirate Punch
- Nuka-Launcher
- Salt of the Earth and The Action Hero were formerly guaranteed spawns, rewarded for completing weekly Survival challenges.
- Effects
- The same considerations apply as in Fallout 4, taking into account the changes in the damage formula.
- The one exception are explosive weapons that spawn with the effect, like the M79 grenade launcher or auto grenade launcher: Two shot spawns two projectiles, but only reduces the base damage of the launcher. The explosions generated by the two projectiles both deal full damage, for a consistent double damage output. As a result, the Nuka-Launcher and other explosive weapons are far more damaging than it would seem on paper.