How so? RP?

RP == "Restoration Project". IMO the best F2 mod (that keeps things relatively close to the vanilla game), but fixes bugs and restores content. Opinions vary on the restored content's quality - IMO none of it is terrible and fits in well with the rest of the game, so I'd recommend it even for a first playthrough.

Cool. Thanks for recommending that, I may check that out at some point. What do you mean when you say AP ammo is broken?

As in, they messed up something with the damage calculation formula, with the end result being that AP ammo is actually less effective than the equivalent HP ammo. See "Incosistency over effectiveness" section here: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_piercing

Just one of the many bugs of F2 (or a "design mistake" according to the Fallout wiki). Either way, RP (or the related unofficial patch without the RP content) should fix it, so that it functions properly. Or choose a different ammo mod (RP gives three options alone from memory).

Unfortunately I've yet to find one that fixes the issue with laser weapons. By which I mean, when you're first told about these "magical" weapons, they seem so awesome, able to cut through leather armor with ease. Turns out, almost any (ballistic) weapon is better than most laser weapons. The only possible exceptions are one or two heavy weapons. But to be fair this is more likely an issue with the armors in the game as opposed to the ammo - almost every armour has a higher DR against lasers than conventional weapons, for some reason - despite lasers generally not having higher damage output.

Thanks again, squid830.

According to this formula, the Damage Threshold is applied after the ammo's Damage multiplier. This on its own seems to cripple FMJ/AP rounds, since JHP rounds have a much greater ammo Damage multiplier.

---

ND = net damage value
RD = random damage value produced from weapons hit damage range
RB = ranged bonus (RB=0 unless the player has Bonus Ranged Damage perk)
X = ammo damage multiplier
Y = ammo damage divisor
CM = critical hit damage multiplier (if no critical hit then CM=2, otherwise assigned value from critical hit table)
CD = combat difficulty multiplier (Easy=75, Normal=100, Hard=125)
AI = 1 if critical hit which ignores armor, otherwise 0
ADT = armor damage threshold value
ADR = armor damage resistance value
RM = ammo resistance modifier (only value allowed to be negative or positive in the equation)

Original:
ND = ((RD+RB) × (X/Y) × (CM/2) × (CD/100) - ADT/max(5*AI,1)) × (100 - max((ADR/max(5*AI,1) + RM),0) / 100

ND then rounded to nearest whole number

--- That explains a lot. I've been running a few calculations (based off how I guessed the damage formula might work, I was quite close) and FMJ/AP rounds seem inferior to JHP rounds against every armor type I've found so far. This just confirms it. That's an issue in Fallout 1 as well.

Once you reach Metal Armor, every armor (thus far for me) has VERY high Laser DR.

I think AP ammo comes out ever so slightly ahead if the enemy is heavily armored, but I agree the damage calculations (even as intended) make AP ammo less desirable than it should be.

Which is why I use YAAM, which as a few versions ago was integrated with the RP as one of the ammo/dmg options for the RP. Ammo in YAAM has a DT modifier (as opposed to a DR modifier - though it actually affects both), and the modifier(s) are applied in more logical places based on logical assumptions about how armor and bullets interact.

I don't know if they're correct in a true physics sense, but they seem more logical to me anyway. From memory YAAM also has some spreadsheets included in the install which detail stats for the old values vs the new ones (plus a readme which details the new damage formula) - not sure if this is still included with the version installed by the RP, but a stand-alone version of YAAM is probably available via NMA somewhere (http://www.nma-fallout.com/). At least that's where I grabbed it from many years ago. True, but in F1 I don't recall NPCs mentioning how this group was using these oh-so-scary weapons, and how no one dares to fight these guys because their lasers can go through armor like butter. Then you get them and they're crap.

I guess with metal armors, the philosophy was that metal reflects light, lasers are concentrated light so that's why they have high DR against lasers? Whether this is realistic or not (I'm guessing not), I can live with that in context with Fallout's universe.

What doesn't make sense is how almost every armor out there defends better against lasers than conventional - even some (or most?) leather armors have higher DR against lasers, and lasers don't have higher damage (or not much higher anyway).

Pretty sure Leather Jackets/Armor don't defend better against Lasers, but their defense is pretty even across the board.

OK, yes you're correct - they don't have higher DR/DT against lasers, it's actually slightly lower. But since lasers aren't really more powerful than equivalent conventional arms, the end result is still that lasers are not better than conventional weapons. So actually this means we do come back to ammo then - conventional ammo has both higher damaging variants (JHP) and armor-penetrating variants (FMJ), while laser/plasma ammo doesn't affect these.

So lasers do require modifications to laser weapons (or ammo?) to make them more powerful. Plasma weapons are fine since hardly any armor resists plasma very well, and they're generally much more powerful than lasers.

Quite true, didn't mean to sound like I disagreed.

Oh I didn't think you disagreed - I was just (unnecessarily) clarifying what I said earlier.