* Two firearm categories: small guns (1-handed) and big guns (2-handed). This means a laser pistol would be a small gun and a plasma rifle would be a big gun.
I'm not sure if I entirely agree with this, and I'm sure everyone has their own views on reclassification of weapons and whether it's necessary. Personally, I'd like to see them divided according to the way the weapon is used. ie Something like Single Shot, Full Automatic, Scoped, Heavy. Although while this rationalises the weapon use in an arguably better manner, the Gun skills in the original Fallout incorporate maintainence. Altering weapon maintainence to fit under Repair/Science would add some extra micromanagement to the game, but on the whole wouldn't detract too much from the experience, and adds to the feeling of the PA world, where everything is in disrepair and pristine items are in high demand. It also allows a certain degree of scaling for weapon power early in the game, which I'll cover a little mor ein my next point.
* Weapon categories should do different things, not be inherently "better" than each other. Thus, the following proposals:
This is my biggest problem with weapon skills as the are implemented in Fallout, and to a greater extent, Fallout 2. A character who picks Big Guns or Energy Weapons is hobbled in the beginning and powerful later in the game. While this makes picking either a fairly interesting choice, it affects the difficulty progression in an adverse way, and logically a character who picks Big Guns at the start is probably interested in doing some serious killing and probably doesn't want to be diplomatic, stealthy or reliant on NPCs to get them through combat.
* Big guns take up both item slots. If you want to switch to another weapon while using a big gun, you're spending 4 AP to go into inventory. Suck it up.
* Small guns, generally speaking, use lower caliber (and lower damage) rounds, but can be placed in one-hand. Though this doesn't mean OMG DUAL WIELD EVERY DAY, it means that you can switch back and forth between two types of guns, or a gun and grenades, etc. without needing to go into inventory.
* Allow people to use two identical small guns simultaneously at large penalties. Give access to a high small guns requirement perk that lowers these penalties.
I don't really like the idea of Akimbo weapons, because it's become cliche in
everything from Cyberpunk to High fantasy, not to mention it's largely impractical.
* Let big guns be appropriately accurate at long ranges, but disallow the ability to make called shots with big guns when within one hex of an enemy.
I think To-Hit chances could use some more attention from a tactical point of view. Adding functionality to script To-Hit chances based on range would be good. Using a scoped weapon in close quarters should also be similarly discouraged. It means that weapons with greater ranges should have a similar
effective range to a short range weapon, making it more of a choice than an obvious upgrade.
* Do not make plasma > laser > conventional. Rather, make each weapon type fill a niche. Conventional weapons are good for shooting things at normal gun battle ranges, doing ballistic damage to unarmored, fleshy targets. Plasma weapons are shorter range weapons that do a high amount of heat damage and can be charged for more damaging single attacks (even without making a called shot), thereby blowing out thresholds on demand. Laser weapons are long range weapons with exceptional accuracy. They might even do less damage than a conventional weapon, but they are perfect for a sniper making targeted attacks.
Another good point. Given the complexity of Fallout's armour system, it means that it is quite easy to play with the types of enemy certain weapons are effective against, but it shouldn't be so pronounced as to go down the dark path of Final Fantasy X, where each enemy was an obvious target for a given player character, making most combat encounters identical, with all choices and outcomes clear as day.
* Make the chance of critical failure based off of the reliability/complexity of the weapon. Why do people still use revolvers today even though they can get a higher ROF from autoloaders?
Another good one, which could be expanded further depending on how weapon maintainence is concerned.
) in that picture, with machine guns on there noses.
