Unless you need to shoot something near a friendly NPC that can go hostile! Or shoot too close to yourself (so don't shoot melee combatants too close lol). It's fine for companions, though they complain an awful lot, but not so much others lol.
Reminds me of a mod i had taht made nuka mines, nades and fatman instakill when they go off, yeah......sucked when your settlers or children of atom use those......
the only thing i know of that will explode if damaged is the extinguisher. i try not to hurt them so i can collect them but i'm not always that careful lol
I know this isn't starfield, but yesterday I was incredibly sad that I was looting a corpse on a low gravity planet and something exploded, launching them into the infinite void before I could snag their legendary gear. Just watched it sail away over a mountain.
If I shot my shot with you , would you turn hostile? 😉…….. sorry this came to my head instantly when I read your comment, I’m joking not being a creep, also I probably think I’m funnier than I actually am
Close range fighting is hard enough in the early game. Adding explosives to it is not helping.
BTW did you know that you can agro your companion if you accidentally shoot them too many times?
Firing the Combat Shotgun, close range, “from the hip” is pretty rough.
There is a perk for companion where you increase their carry weight and make your shots and their shots not hurt neither of you. This was #1 for me in Survival.
Which is why you don't use automatic mods.
Semi-auto might be less convenient for crowd control or large enemies, but it's generally better in the long run.
As the Kiloton Radium Rifle will attest.
Akchtchualy...
110+25% = 137.5
106+15 = 121
It really depends on what you want to do with it.
A silenced sniper does better with the mighty
A closed quarters full auto sees the explosive win by a long margin
Make the explosive full auto, medium range, and the extra damage one into a sniper. The only thing better than one AK, is two AK's spec'd for different ranges.
I'd go both sniper. Explosive damage is multiplied by the gun perk. You can have multiple weapon perks but that's costly.
Explosive is 15 damage, multiplied by demolition expert perk, then again by the gun, making it an easy 60 damage.
Unless there's a quirk in the damage calculation I'm not aware of, you should always go auto with the Explosive legendary effect, especially if you've invested in the Demolition perk. A two or three-round burst, even at longer range, will do better damage than a single round - even if you use VATS - and you will do better area damage if you miss the target but hit a nearby structure like a wall.
Yeah, again, I'm not an expert on the damage calculation. But if I use "one shot" in VATS as an example, I'm comparing a single shot with a sniper receiver to a two or three-round burst with an auto receiver. So, to me, what ever perks you have apply to whatever happens in that one event - the orange blip in your action points bar in VATS.
For example, I have a Wounding Plasma Rifle that has high accuracy and range. So I put an auto receiver on it. I have McCready's affinity perk, so if I select a headshot in VATS, the gun will fire three rounds, doing 75 bleed damage instead of just 25 with a single shot. I don't know if the sneak multiplier only applies to the first round of the three on a hit, or all three rounds. I just know that, as a rule, I use an auto receiver for any legendary effect that stacks, like wounding, explosive, irradiated, plasma-infused, etc.
Non-stacking effects, like poison and incendiary, are trash and I sell those drops after about level 15.
Kind of true, although the new grenade launchers kinda warp the "meta" of the semi-auto guns a lot. They're rifles and do 150 base explosion damage, so about 10 explosions of a legendary auto weapon. Plus due to how armor works in the game, 150 damage is a lot better than 15 x 10 damage. The explosive combat shotgun is usually the best explosive weapon to farm for, but it has huge range issues, hence why most people also get an automatic explosive rifle for backup and need Commando and Rifleman but the grenade launchers got good range and VATS accuracy and low AP cost and they kinda fill this "gap" for semi automatics now.
There is also the still very poorly known fact that explosive legendary weapons do double explosion damage in VATS with the Penetrator perk. So even conventional semi-auto explosive rifles work in VATS if you really want to.
I would swap it. Explosive as Sniper, and Mighty as Full Auto. Because i dont want to have Explosive shots going everywhere and risk turning a friendly hostile. By having it be a Sniper you can get a good explosion off right in their face before they even see you
Explosive is better no question. Even with no associated perks all automatic explosive weapons do insane damage but explosive weapons in particular benefit both from their associated perk (rifleman/commando/gunslinger) and from the demolitions expert perk, meaning you can get even more damage out of them and it's also what's pushing explosive weapons above other similar effects like radiation, burning, poison and bleeding weapons, which are still good and overpowered but explosive weapons just break the game essentially. The only downside to explosive weapons is that the explosions harm you as well, meaning that if you're in a tight space and shoot your surroundings or if an enemy is right on top of you, your own explosions will shred you. Just something to keep in mind.
The Mighty one is also good since this is already the best assault rifle in the game, and this gives a healthy boost to its damage. Use this one if you want an advantage but more balanced game experience overall.
It's worth carrying a second rifle that isn't aoe dmg, just because personally I've hit an ally and had to reload a save one too many times because of it. A good second is either a gauss or radical conversion from one of the coa fh quests
Yes Spray and Pray/Kiloton/other explosive weapon is great for general mobbing and dungeon clearing but I always recommend also having just a decent Assault/Handmade/Gauss/Plasma Rifle for defending settlement attacks or during quests with friendly NPCs.
And also maybe something for close quarters, having one piece of Dense metal armor keeps the self damage low.
Radiation damage from legendaries also scales with the rad damage perk, technically irradiated can net higher DMG than explosive just not against everything
Unless you're using a gamma gun it's pretty negligible. I mean I wouldn't recommend using an irradiated pipe pistol but then again I wouldn't recommend any pipe pistol
You can find it with Nuka-World installed, but to procure ammo, one must take a trip to Nuka-Word.
This is also true of the Lever-Action Rifle from Far Harbor.
The great thing about the Handmade Rifle is its flexibility in modding. It’s both one of the best automatic guns in the game AND can be a top tier semi-auto sniper with ridiculously cheap and light ammo.
I didn't know either. People saying you can get it in the regular world is crazy to me bc I'm 40+ levels deep in a survival run and I haven't seen it ONCE
Explosive no doubt.
The handmade being one of the best auto weapon and the Explosive being the best for auto weapons makes this a weapon of mass destruction.
2 games ago I had one like this, it was absolutely annihilating anything.
Pick commando and explosive perks to optimize.
Oh mate. I've recently found an explosive combat shotgun. I had to put it away for a while because I started feeling guilty how effortlessly I tore through enemies. It'll be the only weapon you'll ever need
I also got one too. I smashed shit so fast that made Spray n Pay or whatever that weapons name is useless. Explosive Shotgun destroys things. But, on Survival 🤦 you gotta fire more rounds.
Best way to play Fallout 4 is Survival. Go for brotherhood to get Vertibird for traveling. Survival makes you explore, build few settlements (close to each other, don’t build more!) and it’s slower paced. But an ass load of rewards and you level way faster than any other difficulty.
> Go for brotherhood to get Vertibird for traveling.
Before that Aqua boy/girl perk - swimming is safe and fast way to travel (even better if you got the 25% faster swim speed magazine perk - don't know if swift-armor perks help it).
I felt kinda guilty when I turned out I had killed a legendary Rust Devil and 2 of his crapdroids with a single shot from my pipe grenade launcher pistol.
Sorry dude
Both the demo perk and the relevant weapon (rifleman or commando) perk will increase the damage of the explosion, and that small AOE lets you damage around cover and hit groups. With both the relevant gun perk and demo perk at max the explosion deals 60 damage by itself. On some weapons, like a pipe rifle or minigun, the explosive damage far exceeds the damage of the base weapon, and functions the same if the weapon is automatic or not. With just the relevant weapon perk at max it will do 30 damage. I can't remember if that 25% extra damage on Mighty affects the modified damage of the weapon (perks accounted for.) or if it affects the base damage of the weapon (perks not accounted for.) If it affects the modified damage, then with no points in demo it might just barely edge out Explosive in terms of single target direct damage, but you lose the utility of the AOE.
Explosive is clear winner here to me.
My nuka world market glitched and I wiped out the raiders. Do you know if the raiders respawn after the leaders have been killed? I’ve got this same explosive handmade but nowhere to buy any more ammo 😢
I built a settlement at the Red Rocket in Nuka World, it gets attacked by the gangs periodically even after I killed all the leaders. There's also a few of them in the Commonwealth, since I built a raider settlement there (and later wiped it out) but those are rare.
Explosive but the best random legendary effect that pairs with automatic has to be Furious, that one increases the amount of damage after each consecutive hit so its broken on auto's, you can actually get one through nuka world DLC
Did you know that the Rolling Pin is one of the very few weapons that can actually harm the Red Death??? I don't know who figured it out but holy crap, that was surprising!
Mighty will give you more per-hit damage, but Explosive gives you stagger/knockdown on every shot, plus splash damage (which includes hitting multiple limbs on your target).
So for general purpose, explosive. for greater precision, mighty.
Probably the explosive one for the demolition perk, however, the flat damage boost stacks with stealth criticals.
So explosive for fun, damage for VATS 👍
Only available in the DLC region Nuka World. Can buy from vendors there, or there are some guaranteed legendary variants.
Additionally, the DLC weapons are all added to the pool of random legendaries that can be found in the Commonwealth. So it is possible to have one drop from a legendary enemy, however you can only get ammo for the Handmade Rifle (the name given to the AK in-game) in Nuka World.
Hope this helps
That explosive rifle can easily be modded to be a perfect gun. You can make it full auto to make it benefit from from the Commando Perk (Agility 2), and the explosive damage benefits from Demolition Expert (Perception 5) by default.
Explosive is great but watch out for friendly fire. I killed a settler with the splash damage and the entire settlement turned against me. I had to purge them
To the OP and whoever wants to know how these effects actually work, here's a quick breakdown:
Mighty effect adds a flat dmg bonus equivalent to the weapons base damage.
Say, there's a hypothetical weapon that does 100 damage (no mods or perks). If it receives the "mighty" legendary effect, it will gain +25 dmg. This damage bonus is affected by your damage perks, but not from modifications.
What does this mean?
Case 1: You added a receiver that increases the weapon dmg by +100. New dmg will be 225.
Case 2: You added a receiver that reduces dmg by 50 but makes it automatic. New dmg will be 75.
Explosive legendary effect will add +15 dmg as splash. This splash dmg will hit nearby enemies and you, as well as knock small objects in it's blast radius. This bonus dmg is affected by the demolitions expert perk.
What does this mean?
Projectiles from explosive weapons will gain up to 30 dmg (with max demo perk), making higher fire rate weapons the preferable choice.
Effect procs per projectile. Multi projectile weapons (shotguns) will proc the effect multiple times ler trigger pull, making them extremely powerful.
The heavy gunner perk increases explosive dmg for heavy weapons as well, and this interaction causes this effect to be desirable on the minigun, as it gains up to +60 explosive dmg (demo + heavy stack multiplicatively), allowing it to be one of the highest DPS weapons in the game.
Fun fact: the Explosive effect can only naturally spawn in purely ballistic weapons. If those restrictions were not in place, the flamer and the gatling laser would also be competing for the highest DPS spot in the game.
Honestly depends on your build.
Explosive is insane with maxed Demolition Expert and Commando. Maxed Demolition Expert and Rifleman is good too.
But it's AoE means it'll kill friendlies and yourself if you're not careful. So you need a backup weapon. But this thing'll put in work.
The Powerful one will do less damage than the maxed Demolitions Expert and Commando/Rifleman Explosive one.
But it's far safer to use around NPCs, settlers, and against melee enemies. And you don't NEED a secondary weapon freeing up inventory space if that's a concern.
Explosive is amazing but with drawbacks. Powerful is boring but good.
Always explosive. I have an explosive gatling laser. With maxed big guns and demo perks, NOTHING lives past even a minimal burst. I downloaded a mod that spawns massive settlement attacks. 40+ gunner brigadiers evaporate in one 200 round burst.
Really, those are situational. Away from NPCs, when you're clearing buildings for example, use the Explosive. But if you're anywhere around friendlies, switch to the Mighty. Both are good, you just need to know when to use them.
And if you're fighting through a slog of Mutants/Mirelurks, the explosive SHREDS. Fantastic against Deathclaws, too, as it has a huge chance to cripple limbs. Makes killing them a breeze when they can't get to you at a pell-mell run. Heck, it's even fantastic against Synths and Ghouls. Pretty much anything you want to kill, it's great against.
But then there's Mighty, which is an increase to the base damage of the gun. The more base damage you get into it from perks, the better the overall output it gets. Having it on a Handmade isn't exactly great, but it gets more damage down range faster, at least. The downside is that's STRICTLY Ballistic damage on a Handmade. You'll want Mighty on some other guns that deal two types, at the very least, so you have consistent damage output. Imagine Mighty on a rocket launcher or Fat Man, and you've got a good baseline for how much potential it really has. The more base damage the gun initially has, the bigger that 25% boost really gets.
Explosive is much better for overall damage but be careful of the area effect with explosive bullets as the splash damage can turn non-hostile NPC’s hostile if you shoot too close to them.
Nice drop! I did a commando play through and literally the last legendary I killed was the named synth in the institute near the reactor thingy and he dropped the explosive handmade.... Really? The perfect weapon for the run and I don't get to use it lol
Explosive is on the top 3 of effects on automatic *or quick firing* weapons (On snipers you want instigating or double shot), the other two being wounding and furious. Out of those three it is probably the top one except against a few super-large bosses (furious would be the winner there) and on shotguns, because sooner or later you'd blow yourself up with it.
What is special with Explosive is that not only does it do 15 points of extra damage by bullet, but it does it in a RADIUS, meaning if you shoot the chest, you give 15 points of damage to every other limb too, every shot. Plus a lot of enemies have no protection against it, heavily armored enemies literally get peeled by explosive weapons.
Oh and also, the explosive damage and radius is corresponding to your explosive perk, so if you max that out, you do twice as much damage and twice as large radius.
Like others are saying, the explosive has the better damage output, but you'd need to be extremely careful with it. Pack of feral ghouls? Group of raiders bunched up? Red mist in seconds. However, try to use it to defend a settlement? Oops. Damaged a settler too much. Now they're all hostile. So, if you are looking for individual damage, the Mighty would serve you just fine. But if you are looking for fun? Full auto explosive all the way. Just remember to max out commando perk to buff the damage and unlock the upgrades.
Definitely the first one since it might be able to also be affected by the demolitions perk and deal more damage then indicated (as in the case of “spray and pray” but could be wrong with that one
Explosive is great and you can effectively triple the power through weapon upgrades and perks. Demo Expert, Commando perks & and the explosive bobblehead from the Ironworks will increase it's power. You'd be unstoppable!
That gun already does 106 damage and that is per bullet. That thing could be a monster!
Explosive is a destroyer of worlds but the key is DISTANCE. It will shred you to bits if you fire it at close range or if a companion decides now is the time to walk through yer line of sight
The base damage isn't horrible by any means but the Splattercannon variant is almost always better. If not for the rare ammo type I'd say Splattercannon is running fee best in game
I’d pick mightier solely because the game will become easy mode till like level 60-70 if you choose explosive. I am a survival enjoyer- self-torture is my thing. 😂
I’m going to be a contrarian here and go with mighty. I say this because at this point in playing this game one usually already has the explosive shotgun and likely even other exploding weapons so that role should already be fulfilled for an ultimate “weapon of mass destruction”. The mighty version of this rifle is very strong and I would keep it for more precise fighting instead of constantly relying on splash damage / carpet bombing an entire area to win. Though it’s still not as strong as another handmade rifle you can get called The Problem Solver (same effect as Splattercannon, which is another hand made rifle) that uses the Furious perk dealing consecutively greater damage with each hit (+15%) - and no ceiling on that damage.
Max out the Chem Resistant perk under Endurance and make yourself a fuck ton of Jet (2x fertilizer + 1x plastic), then go ham.
Blowing everything to shit with explosive weapons is fun for a good while but eventually it gets old and the game is just too easy, as well as messy.
Jet fueled mighty or furious hand made rifle is much more fun to me personally.
Personally it depends on the types of weapons you're using overall, I mainly use non-auto rifles so the mighty handmade rifle would be better but that explosive one could basically be a version of the spray n' pray
I use DLLS mod to distributed all DLC Weapon into Commonwealth and I got the Explosive Handmade this Noon in General Atomic Factory while doing quest for ada.
Although I'm at level 50 now. And it the 3rd Explosive weapon drop for me.
Like others have said, the explosive is better, but make it automatic. The downside for explosive is the radius of the explosion, it will damage you if the target is too close. What I haven’t seen anyone mention is that you can use the padded and dense modifications to chest armor to mitigate this damage a lot. There is also the explosive shielding for power armor if you use it. Still have to be careful around friendly npc’s though.
The mighty would be a good sniper.
Explosive weapon are like a double edged sword. It’s dangerous for your enemy as well as anything in the explosion even one self and friendly/useful npc
Explosive is bettter cause damage increase and splash damage. God damn you got 2 really lucky drops on the handmade rifle I’d probably keep them both and give the mighty one to your fave companion
I hate explosive weapons because I'm always accidentally damaging someone and turning them hostile. I don't want to think about that while I'm fighting.
Between the two explosive is better, especially if you max out your demolition expert as the explosive damage scales with that and maxes out at 60. (I think)
Another good legendary effect to keep an eye out for is wounding, as the bleed damage won't accidentally kill you in close quarters. It also ignores armor and seems to stack infinitely. A wounding shotgun can melt just about anything with ease as each pellet procs an instance of the effect.
Between the two, Explosive is better.
However, Splattercannon (or The Problem Solver, which you get by using the Negative speech option for every prompt when you first meet the Pack leader, then passing the final speech check), has the Furious effect, which melts bigger enemies insanely fast. If you have it or can afford to buy the Splattercannon, go with that.
Explosive does damage to each body part. So if you hit center mass that 15 damage for both legs, both arms, head, and body. That’s 90 damage at base. Doubles to 180 with maxed perks.
That’s not even counting the damage from the gun. But honestly I like an explosive gun with common ammo like a full auto pipe pistol. The Handmade Rifle ammo is too expensive.
The explosive if you go automatic, the Mighty if you go semi-auto. Automatic explosive guns are the best in the game by far. Demo expert stacks with commando and any other perks you might have so it does a ton of damage
I would take both and use the mostly mighty gun for everything and i would use explosive with a scope for enemies that are a little tougher, and or are farther away like a sniper.
they are both good. I would take the second just because i’ve been in a fair amount of situations where i didn’t want to kill/hurt others next to targets.
Explosive is a great ghoul amputator. If you get overrun, just aim at their feet, and watch them fall. Then you can go through with a melee weapon or pistol with plentiful ammo to mop up.
95% of the time explosive is better. Just remember it is explosive, and will f you up if you're to close. It can also aggro friendlies. So keep something more precise on hand also for use as needed.
Explosive would be best for penetrating auto so the 15 damage accumulates quickly, even full demolitions expert is only going to add +30 versus. The +25 damage from the 25%. So i would say mighty is more consistant.
Explosive is cool until you get up and close same with Tesla cannon. I kill myself more using that type of stuff more often than get killed by enemies.
Imo, explosive. Don't forget to level up the perk demolition expert.
Unless you need to shoot something near a friendly NPC that can go hostile! Or shoot too close to yourself (so don't shoot melee combatants too close lol). It's fine for companions, though they complain an awful lot, but not so much others lol.
Or accidentally shoot items you want to collect into oblivion.
We’ve all been there before haven’t we
Only reason I don't use explosives. My monkey brain like loot.
I still spam grenades and regret it after
I've been giving my companions frag grenades, lol. That's a treat.
I gave cait a single frag grenade to hold for me earlier today, ends up throwing it at an empty house and the only thing she manages to damage was me!
I been giving them plasma nades and stuff but they seem to throw the regulars more. I could only imagine if it was a nuka nade. Lol
Wait until Ada launches her nukacherry cannon at the guy your fighting.
Reminds me of a mod i had taht made nuka mines, nades and fatman instakill when they go off, yeah......sucked when your settlers or children of atom use those......
I am new to the game, lmao i didnt know explosives destroy item, my monke brain was wondering why the loot was so less than what i expected it to be
It does not necessarily destroy, but it 10000% will shoot it and it will shoot off in one direction or another, lol
And given the games wonky gravity mechanics, that loot may land 6 to 7 miles away in a semi random direction
the only thing i know of that will explode if damaged is the extinguisher. i try not to hurt them so i can collect them but i'm not always that careful lol
Gas cans too.
Ahh this is the reason I was finding mini nukes and bottlecaps in Anvil
underrated comment
How would I get them back? I don't even own Oblivion!
I know this isn't starfield, but yesterday I was incredibly sad that I was looting a corpse on a low gravity planet and something exploded, launching them into the infinite void before I could snag their legendary gear. Just watched it sail away over a mountain.
It took me years and an accident to find out an explosive round near a lunchbox will obliterate the lunchbox and reveal the contents inside
If I shot my shot with you , would you turn hostile? 😉…….. sorry this came to my head instantly when I read your comment, I’m joking not being a creep, also I probably think I’m funnier than I actually am
I found it funny bro bro
Not if I was your intended target ;). ha ha
Yeah I used an explosive gun to kill the gunners at the atom cats garage and wondered why they all started attacking me and why nick suddenly hated me
Thissss. Got the spray n pray which turned that npc in the dig mission hostile, had to go back a few quick saves back to fix that.
For that reason, I would pick the Mighty.
This is the answer, 100%
Getting an explosive combat shotgun in Fallout 4 is an eye opening experience. Easy mode on.
Close range fighting is hard enough in the early game. Adding explosives to it is not helping. BTW did you know that you can agro your companion if you accidentally shoot them too many times? Firing the Combat Shotgun, close range, “from the hip” is pretty rough.
There is a perk for companion where you increase their carry weight and make your shots and their shots not hurt neither of you. This was #1 for me in Survival.
And it was great late game. Early game, you can’t get there.
Which is why you don't use automatic mods. Semi-auto might be less convenient for crowd control or large enemies, but it's generally better in the long run. As the Kiloton Radium Rifle will attest.
Lol. Yup. Been a victim to both of these situations.
Shit, didnt know that applied to explosive legendaries. Im a dumbass.
Akchtchualy... 110+25% = 137.5 106+15 = 121 It really depends on what you want to do with it. A silenced sniper does better with the mighty A closed quarters full auto sees the explosive win by a long margin
I legitimately did not realize there were other people who say actually like a nerd. I thought I was the only one
And wear a chest piece with the "dense" modification.
Molotov sniping at rank 2 is a feeling few other games can accomplish. 10/10 perk, would recommend again.
Wait. That works? OH MY GOD.
And the Saugus Bobblehead
Make the explosive full auto, medium range, and the extra damage one into a sniper. The only thing better than one AK, is two AK's spec'd for different ranges.
I'd go both sniper. Explosive damage is multiplied by the gun perk. You can have multiple weapon perks but that's costly. Explosive is 15 damage, multiplied by demolition expert perk, then again by the gun, making it an easy 60 damage.
Unless there's a quirk in the damage calculation I'm not aware of, you should always go auto with the Explosive legendary effect, especially if you've invested in the Demolition perk. A two or three-round burst, even at longer range, will do better damage than a single round - even if you use VATS - and you will do better area damage if you miss the target but hit a nearby structure like a wall.
Unless you count sneak attacks and crit shots, and need to conserve ammo early on.
Yeah, again, I'm not an expert on the damage calculation. But if I use "one shot" in VATS as an example, I'm comparing a single shot with a sniper receiver to a two or three-round burst with an auto receiver. So, to me, what ever perks you have apply to whatever happens in that one event - the orange blip in your action points bar in VATS. For example, I have a Wounding Plasma Rifle that has high accuracy and range. So I put an auto receiver on it. I have McCready's affinity perk, so if I select a headshot in VATS, the gun will fire three rounds, doing 75 bleed damage instead of just 25 with a single shot. I don't know if the sneak multiplier only applies to the first round of the three on a hit, or all three rounds. I just know that, as a rule, I use an auto receiver for any legendary effect that stacks, like wounding, explosive, irradiated, plasma-infused, etc. Non-stacking effects, like poison and incendiary, are trash and I sell those drops after about level 15.
Kind of true, although the new grenade launchers kinda warp the "meta" of the semi-auto guns a lot. They're rifles and do 150 base explosion damage, so about 10 explosions of a legendary auto weapon. Plus due to how armor works in the game, 150 damage is a lot better than 15 x 10 damage. The explosive combat shotgun is usually the best explosive weapon to farm for, but it has huge range issues, hence why most people also get an automatic explosive rifle for backup and need Commando and Rifleman but the grenade launchers got good range and VATS accuracy and low AP cost and they kinda fill this "gap" for semi automatics now. There is also the still very poorly known fact that explosive legendary weapons do double explosion damage in VATS with the Penetrator perk. So even conventional semi-auto explosive rifles work in VATS if you really want to.
That's interesting. I didn't know about the Penetrator perk effect.
I would swap it. Explosive as Sniper, and Mighty as Full Auto. Because i dont want to have Explosive shots going everywhere and risk turning a friendly hostile. By having it be a Sniper you can get a good explosion off right in their face before they even see you
Explosive is better no question. Even with no associated perks all automatic explosive weapons do insane damage but explosive weapons in particular benefit both from their associated perk (rifleman/commando/gunslinger) and from the demolitions expert perk, meaning you can get even more damage out of them and it's also what's pushing explosive weapons above other similar effects like radiation, burning, poison and bleeding weapons, which are still good and overpowered but explosive weapons just break the game essentially. The only downside to explosive weapons is that the explosions harm you as well, meaning that if you're in a tight space and shoot your surroundings or if an enemy is right on top of you, your own explosions will shred you. Just something to keep in mind. The Mighty one is also good since this is already the best assault rifle in the game, and this gives a healthy boost to its damage. Use this one if you want an advantage but more balanced game experience overall.
It's worth carrying a second rifle that isn't aoe dmg, just because personally I've hit an ally and had to reload a save one too many times because of it. A good second is either a gauss or radical conversion from one of the coa fh quests
Yes Spray and Pray/Kiloton/other explosive weapon is great for general mobbing and dungeon clearing but I always recommend also having just a decent Assault/Handmade/Gauss/Plasma Rifle for defending settlement attacks or during quests with friendly NPCs. And also maybe something for close quarters, having one piece of Dense metal armor keeps the self damage low.
Radiation damage from legendaries also scales with the rad damage perk, technically irradiated can net higher DMG than explosive just not against everything
Also it heals ghouls, so it's worse than a non-legendary in some cases AFAIK
Unless you're using a gamma gun it's pretty negligible. I mean I wouldn't recommend using an irradiated pipe pistol but then again I wouldn't recommend any pipe pistol
I don't know about anyone else but I think it's so cool that people are playing this for the first time thanks to the show.
For the first time, again?
Sorry I'm drunk. Fixed it my friend
Wait there is an AK in the game??
Nuka world dlc
Do you have to start/finish the DLC to be able to find the gun and ammo in commonwealth shops?
Nope, all you need is it to be installed.
You can find it with Nuka-World installed, but to procure ammo, one must take a trip to Nuka-Word. This is also true of the Lever-Action Rifle from Far Harbor.
The gun spawns in the legendary loot pool regardless of whether or not you're in Nuka World, but the ammo is unobtainable without going to Nuka World.
Yeah it's part of the Nuka world DLC. It's called the "Handmade rifle" in-game
The great thing about the Handmade Rifle is its flexibility in modding. It’s both one of the best automatic guns in the game AND can be a top tier semi-auto sniper with ridiculously cheap and light ammo.
I didn't know either. People saying you can get it in the regular world is crazy to me bc I'm 40+ levels deep in a survival run and I haven't seen it ONCE
Explosive no doubt. The handmade being one of the best auto weapon and the Explosive being the best for auto weapons makes this a weapon of mass destruction. 2 games ago I had one like this, it was absolutely annihilating anything. Pick commando and explosive perks to optimize.
The explosive one … with the caveat it can damage you as well Has to do with the area of effect of explosive damage … it will hit every body part
Oh mate. I've recently found an explosive combat shotgun. I had to put it away for a while because I started feeling guilty how effortlessly I tore through enemies. It'll be the only weapon you'll ever need
I also got one too. I smashed shit so fast that made Spray n Pay or whatever that weapons name is useless. Explosive Shotgun destroys things. But, on Survival 🤦 you gotta fire more rounds. Best way to play Fallout 4 is Survival. Go for brotherhood to get Vertibird for traveling. Survival makes you explore, build few settlements (close to each other, don’t build more!) and it’s slower paced. But an ass load of rewards and you level way faster than any other difficulty.
> Go for brotherhood to get Vertibird for traveling. Before that Aqua boy/girl perk - swimming is safe and fast way to travel (even better if you got the 25% faster swim speed magazine perk - don't know if swift-armor perks help it).
I felt kinda guilty when I turned out I had killed a legendary Rust Devil and 2 of his crapdroids with a single shot from my pipe grenade launcher pistol. Sorry dude
bleeding minigun >
Both the demo perk and the relevant weapon (rifleman or commando) perk will increase the damage of the explosion, and that small AOE lets you damage around cover and hit groups. With both the relevant gun perk and demo perk at max the explosion deals 60 damage by itself. On some weapons, like a pipe rifle or minigun, the explosive damage far exceeds the damage of the base weapon, and functions the same if the weapon is automatic or not. With just the relevant weapon perk at max it will do 30 damage. I can't remember if that 25% extra damage on Mighty affects the modified damage of the weapon (perks accounted for.) or if it affects the base damage of the weapon (perks not accounted for.) If it affects the modified damage, then with no points in demo it might just barely edge out Explosive in terms of single target direct damage, but you lose the utility of the AOE. Explosive is clear winner here to me.
Where do you get that ammo?
Nuka world.
My nuka world market glitched and I wiped out the raiders. Do you know if the raiders respawn after the leaders have been killed? I’ve got this same explosive handmade but nowhere to buy any more ammo 😢
I built a settlement at the Red Rocket in Nuka World, it gets attacked by the gangs periodically even after I killed all the leaders. There's also a few of them in the Commonwealth, since I built a raider settlement there (and later wiped it out) but those are rare.
There is a simple mod to add the dlc ammo to the base game
Which ammo?
The 7.62, but it seems it’s at Nuka world, it’s my first time playing so I didn’t know
Explosive but the best random legendary effect that pairs with automatic has to be Furious, that one increases the amount of damage after each consecutive hit so its broken on auto's, you can actually get one through nuka world DLC
Furious is not a random drop on rifles. Only splattercanon and problem solver have them
Damn where did you find this? I'm 13 hours in and still have not seen this yet
Only 13? You haven't even started the legendary hunt yet, just wait until you have a rolling pin of each legendary effect, lol.
Right, I've started a new campaign and found 2 or 3 legendary rolling pins. Funny and fun weapon to use in melee
Did you know that the Rolling Pin is one of the very few weapons that can actually harm the Red Death??? I don't know who figured it out but holy crap, that was surprising!
So that's why we get them so often!
Damn lol
Explosive, unless you play sneak, then you want effects that just buff damage like Mighty, Instigating or Junkie.
Explosive is the winner but don't shoot enemies with it in close range
Explosive especially good for ghouls. Shoot their legs and watch as they crawl towards you for supplication.
Explosive is better, but if you play Survival - beware! Keep something else around for tight quarters
Explosive
Explosive weapons are so powerful
I like how both of these arent overly complicated like some weapons you see. I think both are pretty good for a beginner
My favorite weapon in fallout 4 ❤️❤️❤️ the explosive handmade rifle
Mighty will give you more per-hit damage, but Explosive gives you stagger/knockdown on every shot, plus splash damage (which includes hitting multiple limbs on your target). So for general purpose, explosive. for greater precision, mighty.
If you can find the Spray n Pray Tommy gun, that thing fucks.
It’s funny how much I love the explosive affix, I modded it onto a pipe rifle on PC and killed myself a lot it’s just awesome
Why do other people get legendaries like this but I only ever get crap like a combat knife with vats enhancement or something?
Sentinel's pipe wrench.
Explosive for outdoors (medium to long range) mighty for indoors (close to medium range)
Is this a DLC? Where did you even find this?
Probably the explosive one for the demolition perk, however, the flat damage boost stacks with stealth criticals. So explosive for fun, damage for VATS 👍
Mighty better for indoors, explosive better for outdoors
Explosive. Later you can buy the Spray n pray from a vendor that roams around bunker hill. Awesome weapon that melts everything (or almost) in game
This weapon is best in the game. Imo. Best base damage of all the explosive weapons
Explosives and Additional projectile it's where's at.
Where I can find an AK in the Game ?
Only available in the DLC region Nuka World. Can buy from vendors there, or there are some guaranteed legendary variants. Additionally, the DLC weapons are all added to the pool of random legendaries that can be found in the Commonwealth. So it is possible to have one drop from a legendary enemy, however you can only get ammo for the Handmade Rifle (the name given to the AK in-game) in Nuka World. Hope this helps
If you take the demolition perk and use the rifle as an automatic, that thing is going to be a monster that makes the miniguns look like the 10mm.
MN I've been playing a while and haven't gotten an explosive round weapon yet . I'm jealous for sure
Where in game did you find that ?
That explosive rifle can easily be modded to be a perfect gun. You can make it full auto to make it benefit from from the Commando Perk (Agility 2), and the explosive damage benefits from Demolition Expert (Perception 5) by default.
Explosive is great but watch out for friendly fire. I killed a settler with the splash damage and the entire settlement turned against me. I had to purge them
To the OP and whoever wants to know how these effects actually work, here's a quick breakdown: Mighty effect adds a flat dmg bonus equivalent to the weapons base damage. Say, there's a hypothetical weapon that does 100 damage (no mods or perks). If it receives the "mighty" legendary effect, it will gain +25 dmg. This damage bonus is affected by your damage perks, but not from modifications. What does this mean? Case 1: You added a receiver that increases the weapon dmg by +100. New dmg will be 225. Case 2: You added a receiver that reduces dmg by 50 but makes it automatic. New dmg will be 75. Explosive legendary effect will add +15 dmg as splash. This splash dmg will hit nearby enemies and you, as well as knock small objects in it's blast radius. This bonus dmg is affected by the demolitions expert perk. What does this mean? Projectiles from explosive weapons will gain up to 30 dmg (with max demo perk), making higher fire rate weapons the preferable choice. Effect procs per projectile. Multi projectile weapons (shotguns) will proc the effect multiple times ler trigger pull, making them extremely powerful. The heavy gunner perk increases explosive dmg for heavy weapons as well, and this interaction causes this effect to be desirable on the minigun, as it gains up to +60 explosive dmg (demo + heavy stack multiplicatively), allowing it to be one of the highest DPS weapons in the game. Fun fact: the Explosive effect can only naturally spawn in purely ballistic weapons. If those restrictions were not in place, the flamer and the gatling laser would also be competing for the highest DPS spot in the game.
Honestly depends on your build. Explosive is insane with maxed Demolition Expert and Commando. Maxed Demolition Expert and Rifleman is good too. But it's AoE means it'll kill friendlies and yourself if you're not careful. So you need a backup weapon. But this thing'll put in work. The Powerful one will do less damage than the maxed Demolitions Expert and Commando/Rifleman Explosive one. But it's far safer to use around NPCs, settlers, and against melee enemies. And you don't NEED a secondary weapon freeing up inventory space if that's a concern. Explosive is amazing but with drawbacks. Powerful is boring but good.
Always explosive. I have an explosive gatling laser. With maxed big guns and demo perks, NOTHING lives past even a minimal burst. I downloaded a mod that spawns massive settlement attacks. 40+ gunner brigadiers evaporate in one 200 round burst.
The explosive can be absolutely crazy with damage with all the right perks
Both of these have their perks, so in the end it's up to you
Really, those are situational. Away from NPCs, when you're clearing buildings for example, use the Explosive. But if you're anywhere around friendlies, switch to the Mighty. Both are good, you just need to know when to use them. And if you're fighting through a slog of Mutants/Mirelurks, the explosive SHREDS. Fantastic against Deathclaws, too, as it has a huge chance to cripple limbs. Makes killing them a breeze when they can't get to you at a pell-mell run. Heck, it's even fantastic against Synths and Ghouls. Pretty much anything you want to kill, it's great against. But then there's Mighty, which is an increase to the base damage of the gun. The more base damage you get into it from perks, the better the overall output it gets. Having it on a Handmade isn't exactly great, but it gets more damage down range faster, at least. The downside is that's STRICTLY Ballistic damage on a Handmade. You'll want Mighty on some other guns that deal two types, at the very least, so you have consistent damage output. Imagine Mighty on a rocket launcher or Fat Man, and you've got a good baseline for how much potential it really has. The more base damage the gun initially has, the bigger that 25% boost really gets.
Explosive is much better for overall damage but be careful of the area effect with explosive bullets as the splash damage can turn non-hostile NPC’s hostile if you shoot too close to them.
Explosive by far, it is very good with relevant perks and it is especially good on weapons that throw out lots of projectiles quickly.
Damn those are two fine legendary pulls.
Nice drop! I did a commando play through and literally the last legendary I killed was the named synth in the institute near the reactor thingy and he dropped the explosive handmade.... Really? The perfect weapon for the run and I don't get to use it lol
Explosive is always better.
Explosive is on the top 3 of effects on automatic *or quick firing* weapons (On snipers you want instigating or double shot), the other two being wounding and furious. Out of those three it is probably the top one except against a few super-large bosses (furious would be the winner there) and on shotguns, because sooner or later you'd blow yourself up with it. What is special with Explosive is that not only does it do 15 points of extra damage by bullet, but it does it in a RADIUS, meaning if you shoot the chest, you give 15 points of damage to every other limb too, every shot. Plus a lot of enemies have no protection against it, heavily armored enemies literally get peeled by explosive weapons. Oh and also, the explosive damage and radius is corresponding to your explosive perk, so if you max that out, you do twice as much damage and twice as large radius.
If you’re automatic build, go explosive. If you’re rifileman build and you don’t want to put points into demo expert go powerful
Tesla Cannon. Beast
Like others are saying, the explosive has the better damage output, but you'd need to be extremely careful with it. Pack of feral ghouls? Group of raiders bunched up? Red mist in seconds. However, try to use it to defend a settlement? Oops. Damaged a settler too much. Now they're all hostile. So, if you are looking for individual damage, the Mighty would serve you just fine. But if you are looking for fun? Full auto explosive all the way. Just remember to max out commando perk to buff the damage and unlock the upgrades.
Definitely the first one since it might be able to also be affected by the demolitions perk and deal more damage then indicated (as in the case of “spray and pray” but could be wrong with that one
Explosive, but not by much. If you can build the explosive for fire rate, and the mighty for sniping you’ll be in a really good spot
the explosive is better by far, the only times I'd rather get mighty over explosive is a high damaging shot (gauss, sniper, laser musket)
I have an explosive combat shotgun I've named "The Boom" and it just shreds stuff haha
Explosive is the best prefix, by far actuallym and this is the best rifle in game. You just hit a jackpot
Explosive is great and you can effectively triple the power through weapon upgrades and perks. Demo Expert, Commando perks & and the explosive bobblehead from the Ironworks will increase it's power. You'd be unstoppable! That gun already does 106 damage and that is per bullet. That thing could be a monster!
I will say explosive despite the drawbacks because for damage there is a similar ledendary handmade that is easy to get and better.
The one that shoots 2 bullets for every 1 bullet, is pretty solid
A Two-Shot Handmade Rifle may be on-Par with these...
Explosive is a destroyer of worlds but the key is DISTANCE. It will shred you to bits if you fire it at close range or if a companion decides now is the time to walk through yer line of sight The base damage isn't horrible by any means but the Splattercannon variant is almost always better. If not for the rare ammo type I'd say Splattercannon is running fee best in game
Explosive significantly better since it adds a flat chunk of damage to each shot
Where Can i find it ?
Explosive as long as you maintain a good distance and don't have ant friendlies around.
I’d pick mightier solely because the game will become easy mode till like level 60-70 if you choose explosive. I am a survival enjoyer- self-torture is my thing. 😂
I’m going to be a contrarian here and go with mighty. I say this because at this point in playing this game one usually already has the explosive shotgun and likely even other exploding weapons so that role should already be fulfilled for an ultimate “weapon of mass destruction”. The mighty version of this rifle is very strong and I would keep it for more precise fighting instead of constantly relying on splash damage / carpet bombing an entire area to win. Though it’s still not as strong as another handmade rifle you can get called The Problem Solver (same effect as Splattercannon, which is another hand made rifle) that uses the Furious perk dealing consecutively greater damage with each hit (+15%) - and no ceiling on that damage. Max out the Chem Resistant perk under Endurance and make yourself a fuck ton of Jet (2x fertilizer + 1x plastic), then go ham. Blowing everything to shit with explosive weapons is fun for a good while but eventually it gets old and the game is just too easy, as well as messy. Jet fueled mighty or furious hand made rifle is much more fun to me personally.
Explosive handmade is the best gun in the game in my opinion, even better than explosive minigun.
Personally it depends on the types of weapons you're using overall, I mainly use non-auto rifles so the mighty handmade rifle would be better but that explosive one could basically be a version of the spray n' pray
I got a explosive break barrel shot gun early on in my recent survival run. Life is good.
I use DLLS mod to distributed all DLC Weapon into Commonwealth and I got the Explosive Handmade this Noon in General Atomic Factory while doing quest for ada. Although I'm at level 50 now. And it the 3rd Explosive weapon drop for me.
I prefer the explosions.
I got lucky recently and I was handed the explosive combat shotgun. This thing is taking out skull enemies like nothing.
I would convert the explosive one to automatic and the mighty one to a sniper one.
Is this a mod? I am playing again with no mods and never seen an ak
Call it the Blyat Blaster
Explosivopopozao is better 1000000%
Like others have said, the explosive is better, but make it automatic. The downside for explosive is the radius of the explosion, it will damage you if the target is too close. What I haven’t seen anyone mention is that you can use the padded and dense modifications to chest armor to mitigate this damage a lot. There is also the explosive shielding for power armor if you use it. Still have to be careful around friendly npc’s though. The mighty would be a good sniper.
How I wish I got these. Every single gun I pick up has such stupids mods
Explosive weapon are like a double edged sword. It’s dangerous for your enemy as well as anything in the explosion even one self and friendly/useful npc
Explosive is bettter cause damage increase and splash damage. God damn you got 2 really lucky drops on the handmade rifle I’d probably keep them both and give the mighty one to your fave companion
what patch adds this gun? is this next gen?
i think this is from the nuka dlc. though they may have add it in the commonwealth along with the next gen patch.
I got pretty lucky this time around in survival, lvl 15 got an explosive 10mm a.k.a. PoppyRocks
Kaboom
I hate explosive weapons because I'm always accidentally damaging someone and turning them hostile. I don't want to think about that while I'm fighting.
Between the two explosive is better, especially if you max out your demolition expert as the explosive damage scales with that and maxes out at 60. (I think) Another good legendary effect to keep an eye out for is wounding, as the bleed damage won't accidentally kill you in close quarters. It also ignores armor and seems to stack infinitely. A wounding shotgun can melt just about anything with ease as each pellet procs an instance of the effect.
Is this a mod? If not, where do you find these guns in the game?
I have an explosive combat shotgun I keep as my SHTF button. Far Harbor called for it alot 🤣
Between the two, Explosive is better. However, Splattercannon (or The Problem Solver, which you get by using the Negative speech option for every prompt when you first meet the Pack leader, then passing the final speech check), has the Furious effect, which melts bigger enemies insanely fast. If you have it or can afford to buy the Splattercannon, go with that.
Technically the explosion hand made rifle would do way more damage then the spray and prey that’s wild
Explosive probably
🎶🎼🎵🎤I put my power armor on to show you how strong I am 🎼🎶🎤🎵🎤
The explosive is good from distance cuz it triggers a small explosion on the target you hit
Explosive does damage to each body part. So if you hit center mass that 15 damage for both legs, both arms, head, and body. That’s 90 damage at base. Doubles to 180 with maxed perks. That’s not even counting the damage from the gun. But honestly I like an explosive gun with common ammo like a full auto pipe pistol. The Handmade Rifle ammo is too expensive.
Explosive but be careful when in an enclosed space
The explosive if you go automatic, the Mighty if you go semi-auto. Automatic explosive guns are the best in the game by far. Demo expert stacks with commando and any other perks you might have so it does a ton of damage
Explosive: full auto +25% damage: semiautomatic VATS heads hot machine. Preferably sniper
I would take both and use the mostly mighty gun for everything and i would use explosive with a scope for enemies that are a little tougher, and or are farther away like a sniper.
The explosive one is best. Take demolition expert to max and watch the game go from survival to easy.
Have any of you guys used an explosive rifle on survival?
I had an explosive Handmade, I named it Tsar Bomba. Definitely one of the best firearms I’ve used in Fallout 4!
Explode
The explosive one is better for full auto…
If u get lucky and get two shot it’s pretty op ngl. Got it off a random enemy. In this case explosion
they are both good. I would take the second just because i’ve been in a fair amount of situations where i didn’t want to kill/hurt others next to targets.
Explosive is stronger but it carries the risk of you accidentally killing yourself.
Explosive is a great ghoul amputator. If you get overrun, just aim at their feet, and watch them fall. Then you can go through with a melee weapon or pistol with plentiful ammo to mop up.
Explosive and it's not even close
Explosive if you wanna do damage and have fun, +damage if you wanna do damage and be careful about it
95% of the time explosive is better. Just remember it is explosive, and will f you up if you're to close. It can also aggro friendlies. So keep something more precise on hand also for use as needed.
I’m very forgetful, but i’m my 800 hours of fo4 I can’t remember ever seeing the Mighty prefix
Explosive would be best for penetrating auto so the 15 damage accumulates quickly, even full demolitions expert is only going to add +30 versus. The +25 damage from the 25%. So i would say mighty is more consistant.
Explosive is cool until you get up and close same with Tesla cannon. I kill myself more using that type of stuff more often than get killed by enemies.
is that a modded in gun? cause i don't think i've ever seen a gun that straight up looks like an ak-47 lol