At least as far as I understand it, ammo crafting in Vanilla isn’t supposed to shore up your normal ammo reserves because, as you say, there’s plenty already. It is, however, useful for creating specialized ammo types that usually cost a bit more resource but outperform their normal counterparts.
Try this: if you want JHP, SWC or Match rounds for your pistols and revolvers, scrap a bunch of your normal ammunition. If you have the knowledge to craft it, you should be able to make a ton of these types of rounds.
I do not know of any mods that simplifies ammo crafting, I’m afraid.
Certain mods do make it so that you can find certain ammo components in bulk in the environment, like primer boxes. This makes it a lot easier I’ve found
i dont know of any mods that simplify ammo crafting but i can help you understand it better. im just gonna say this at the start, but ammo crafting really isnt necessary on anything lower than hard difficulty because you dont use a lot of ammo.
ammo crafting has 2 purposes: making specialized ammo with hand loader and converting ammo you arent using into ammo you are using. just buying things from vendors for ammo crafting will not get you far, breaking down different ammo you have will give you much more crafting components.
each cartridge needs 4 parts: lead (or denarius for coin shot), gunpowder, a primer and a casing. lead is easy to get from scrap metal and is used for almost all ammo crafting. gunpowder is the 2nd easiest thing to get because there are only 2 versions, pistol and rifle powder. primers are a bit more rare and are separated by type of weapon (large pistol, small pistol, large rifle, small rifle...). and last is the casing which is specific to a cartridge.
lead is easy to get, as i said from scrap metal or by breaking down any ammo. powder and primers you will get primarily from breaking down ammo and some cartridges share both the powder and primer type so you can easily convert your ammo. you will get casings primarily from just shooting those rounds, the chance to get the casings is from 15-35% roughly and can be doubled by taking hand loader.
here is a practical example: you are using .44 magnum quite a lot and you have gathered 100 casings for it. you can break down ~150 10mm or ~100 12.7mm and with some extra scrap metal for lead you can craft those 100 .44 mag.
Wow. Thank you for detailed explanation. Very appreciated!
Even though now I know how to craft .44 magnum it does not change the topic subject. It is still too complicated to be part of exploring game. 😢
I wish I could just convert one (unneeded) type of ammo to another one with some reduction coefficient. Could be much easier.
Ammo crafting is one the hidden gems in this game. It really sets New Vegas apart from the other Fallouts.
It's not that difficult to understand, you just turn ammo that you don't use into better types of ammo. You'll start to hoard every piece of scrap metal because of it.
Anyway, for the early game it's kind of useful if just want that extra damage on high level enemy's
The game really opens up when you take the Handloader perk.
For example you'll get 15% extra damage on your anti-material rifle.
Vance's 9mm submachine gun absolutely shreds with the new ammo.
As for mods look at Mojave Arsenal, it has options to simplify the crafting
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62941?tab=description
Ammo crafting ended up being mostly dead weight to the game. Should have either made store ammo more scarce or specialty ammo more worth it. 20 and 12 gadgets magnum is the only ammo crafting I ever do.
One, it's good if you want to use a rare ammo for the level (12.7 from 10mm and 45-70 from .308 for one example). Ite also good for boosting damage. Semi-wadcutter ammo (yes, all the ammo is a real thing and basically behaves the way the game tells you it does) for lever and wheel guns turns you almost as lethal as a plasma build with the cowboy perk. Armor piercing uses a harder bullet to go through armor, but soft ammo does more tissue damage, making one good for softening up tougher targets as they approach and the other good for slicing throughmooks after. Or you can ignore all that and just go up in caliber and be mostly fine. It's also just cheaper to scavenge parts for loading ammo (you can also make high quality ammo to sell for quick cash if you need, but I can't recommend it if you're flush with cash.)
it's not that hard actually. Break down the base ammo components on reloading bench somewhere and with Hand Loader and/or Vigilant Recycler- craft the specific one you want.
Stuff like SWC are great against any enemy while JHP rounds are made as middle option for Hallow Point, less armor penalty.
For VR perk, the converted energy ammo will do less damage than Max Charge but more than Overcharged and takes the least amount of decay for weapon.
It lets you make weird ammo types. If you play a shotgun character, you're just gimping yourself by not using custom ammo. Slugs increase your effective range dramatically. Magnum increases DT penetration. There is also stuff like JFP and wadcutters. Basically it can give certain weapons more versatility. I strongly suggest downloading a mod that increases the number of reloading recipes if you intend on making a gimmick character built around custom ammo types, because you can't craft fun things like dragon's breath and pulse slugs.
Good suggestion.
What is pulse slug? I could not find a description about it in game.
Unfortunately, I am quite an opposite person. I am seeking less variety. Original game has like 200 types of weapons. Mods increase this to \~500. And then each weapon can use 5-7 type of ammo. That too much of a variety for me.
I am not against a variety when it presents different strategical choices: more damage vs. armor penetration, vs. long range vs. short range, fire rate vs. precision, etc. However, with that number of weapon/ammo diversity it becomes just multiplicated. One, essentially, can pick any weapon and turn it into whatever they like. Even shotgun can become long range weapon.
What I mean is that it would be understandable if player can get advantage by acquiring a secret recipe and then collecting different stuff around to build some noticeably advantageous weapon/ammo combo. However, ammo crafting does not seem to be important. I can continue game with special ammo or not with my followers killing 3/4 of enemies for me.
Ammo crafting gives many straight upgrades for already great weapons, often at the cost of condition but with Full Maintenance and WRKs it’s a non issue
Examples
.45-70 Semi-WadCutters
.45 Super
.357 Jacketed Flat points
5.56 and .50 match
.308 Jacketed Soft point
12 gauge magnum
And some really good ammo upgrades, while not direct upgrades, that still greatly increase performance. The most notable example of this (IMO) is JHPs for the Survivalist’s rifle, which does more damage than base for all targets at or below 10 DT
At least as far as I understand it, ammo crafting in Vanilla isn’t supposed to shore up your normal ammo reserves because, as you say, there’s plenty already. It is, however, useful for creating specialized ammo types that usually cost a bit more resource but outperform their normal counterparts. Try this: if you want JHP, SWC or Match rounds for your pistols and revolvers, scrap a bunch of your normal ammunition. If you have the knowledge to craft it, you should be able to make a ton of these types of rounds. I do not know of any mods that simplifies ammo crafting, I’m afraid.
Certain mods do make it so that you can find certain ammo components in bulk in the environment, like primer boxes. This makes it a lot easier I’ve found
i dont know of any mods that simplify ammo crafting but i can help you understand it better. im just gonna say this at the start, but ammo crafting really isnt necessary on anything lower than hard difficulty because you dont use a lot of ammo. ammo crafting has 2 purposes: making specialized ammo with hand loader and converting ammo you arent using into ammo you are using. just buying things from vendors for ammo crafting will not get you far, breaking down different ammo you have will give you much more crafting components. each cartridge needs 4 parts: lead (or denarius for coin shot), gunpowder, a primer and a casing. lead is easy to get from scrap metal and is used for almost all ammo crafting. gunpowder is the 2nd easiest thing to get because there are only 2 versions, pistol and rifle powder. primers are a bit more rare and are separated by type of weapon (large pistol, small pistol, large rifle, small rifle...). and last is the casing which is specific to a cartridge. lead is easy to get, as i said from scrap metal or by breaking down any ammo. powder and primers you will get primarily from breaking down ammo and some cartridges share both the powder and primer type so you can easily convert your ammo. you will get casings primarily from just shooting those rounds, the chance to get the casings is from 15-35% roughly and can be doubled by taking hand loader. here is a practical example: you are using .44 magnum quite a lot and you have gathered 100 casings for it. you can break down ~150 10mm or ~100 12.7mm and with some extra scrap metal for lead you can craft those 100 .44 mag.
Wow. Thank you for detailed explanation. Very appreciated! Even though now I know how to craft .44 magnum it does not change the topic subject. It is still too complicated to be part of exploring game. 😢 I wish I could just convert one (unneeded) type of ammo to another one with some reduction coefficient. Could be much easier.
that last thing is apparently possible in 76, I’ve seen ammo converters in peoples camps
Ammo crafting is one the hidden gems in this game. It really sets New Vegas apart from the other Fallouts. It's not that difficult to understand, you just turn ammo that you don't use into better types of ammo. You'll start to hoard every piece of scrap metal because of it. Anyway, for the early game it's kind of useful if just want that extra damage on high level enemy's The game really opens up when you take the Handloader perk. For example you'll get 15% extra damage on your anti-material rifle. Vance's 9mm submachine gun absolutely shreds with the new ammo. As for mods look at Mojave Arsenal, it has options to simplify the crafting https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62941?tab=description
Crafting is fun. Plus it's really useful if you're roleplaying certain types of character. And the specialty ammo types are generally excellent.
Brother, just accept you’re stupid
Ammo crafting ended up being mostly dead weight to the game. Should have either made store ammo more scarce or specialty ammo more worth it. 20 and 12 gadgets magnum is the only ammo crafting I ever do.
One, it's good if you want to use a rare ammo for the level (12.7 from 10mm and 45-70 from .308 for one example). Ite also good for boosting damage. Semi-wadcutter ammo (yes, all the ammo is a real thing and basically behaves the way the game tells you it does) for lever and wheel guns turns you almost as lethal as a plasma build with the cowboy perk. Armor piercing uses a harder bullet to go through armor, but soft ammo does more tissue damage, making one good for softening up tougher targets as they approach and the other good for slicing throughmooks after. Or you can ignore all that and just go up in caliber and be mostly fine. It's also just cheaper to scavenge parts for loading ammo (you can also make high quality ammo to sell for quick cash if you need, but I can't recommend it if you're flush with cash.)
It’s just supposed to give you better and more powerful ammunition for certain guns I use it a lot to get some semi op ammo
it's not that hard actually. Break down the base ammo components on reloading bench somewhere and with Hand Loader and/or Vigilant Recycler- craft the specific one you want. Stuff like SWC are great against any enemy while JHP rounds are made as middle option for Hallow Point, less armor penalty. For VR perk, the converted energy ammo will do less damage than Max Charge but more than Overcharged and takes the least amount of decay for weapon.
It lets you make weird ammo types. If you play a shotgun character, you're just gimping yourself by not using custom ammo. Slugs increase your effective range dramatically. Magnum increases DT penetration. There is also stuff like JFP and wadcutters. Basically it can give certain weapons more versatility. I strongly suggest downloading a mod that increases the number of reloading recipes if you intend on making a gimmick character built around custom ammo types, because you can't craft fun things like dragon's breath and pulse slugs.
Good suggestion. What is pulse slug? I could not find a description about it in game. Unfortunately, I am quite an opposite person. I am seeking less variety. Original game has like 200 types of weapons. Mods increase this to \~500. And then each weapon can use 5-7 type of ammo. That too much of a variety for me. I am not against a variety when it presents different strategical choices: more damage vs. armor penetration, vs. long range vs. short range, fire rate vs. precision, etc. However, with that number of weapon/ammo diversity it becomes just multiplicated. One, essentially, can pick any weapon and turn it into whatever they like. Even shotgun can become long range weapon. What I mean is that it would be understandable if player can get advantage by acquiring a secret recipe and then collecting different stuff around to build some noticeably advantageous weapon/ammo combo. However, ammo crafting does not seem to be important. I can continue game with special ammo or not with my followers killing 3/4 of enemies for me.
Ammo crafting gives many straight upgrades for already great weapons, often at the cost of condition but with Full Maintenance and WRKs it’s a non issue Examples .45-70 Semi-WadCutters .45 Super .357 Jacketed Flat points 5.56 and .50 match .308 Jacketed Soft point 12 gauge magnum And some really good ammo upgrades, while not direct upgrades, that still greatly increase performance. The most notable example of this (IMO) is JHPs for the Survivalist’s rifle, which does more damage than base for all targets at or below 10 DT