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[Godspeed]

I've read all the threads I could find about explosives, I learned some, but a few important factors still remain open, mostly because what I found eventually boiled down to arguing who's wrong and who's right.

1. What exactly does trap skill do?
I've seen some claiming it raises dmg of explosives, even claiming how they are basing it on experimenting.
Then there are other people claiming it is no different than other weapon skills, just increasing chances tied to explosives.

2. An extension to previous questions (chance to hit, chance to crit, chance to set off, chance to fail):

a) Is chance to set off and chance to fail same thing? I'm guessing it isn't but am not really sure.
b) Can you miss with explosives (does chance to hit even exist), or just chance to crit?
b) Are all of these chances affected by skill trap?

3. So, what do you think how many skill points would be minimum to have in traps if you want to use explosives eficiently.
Knowing a range of minimum and max needed skill points in traps would be nice, so I could play with possible builds.


If I knew these answers I could also figure if there's a way to put perks Light Step (Less chance to set off a trap)  and Demolition Expert (Extra damage and no failures with explosives) to good use.

Thanks in advance!

p.s. Be gentle, I only started playing FO few days ago (yes I know demo is not the easiest way to start with for a newb, but this is not the point of thread).

[TheGreenHand]

Well, I'm fairly sure with a higher traps skill, a dynamite won't go off prematurely.  And you need traps for the demo profession.  Other than that, I see no use for it.

[GroeneAppel]

As far as I know they increase explosive damage and chance to go off on time (which can be made 100% accurate with a perk)

It would be nice if they would add something like making animal traps and getting some mats from it, Would make a trapper a real profession.

[Floodnik]

What previous posters said + it decreases the visiblity of an explosive you put on ground. If you have enough traps skill, noone will see your explosive. Arm it, leave it somewhere - then just watch people running around blow

[Godspeed]

All those theory-crafters I've seen around and none knows shit about explosives? Herpa derpa 
Maybe a dev could shed some light on the topic 

[Swinglinered]

Sorry to keep you all waiting!

Traps skill is directly related to damage.

As in VS-Bluesuit it seems to be more or less the actual Trap Skill = Damage.

So armor/distance from blast are the defense.

There is no "To-Hit", and it's been a while since I've seen crit damage, and that's with Luck 1 and HUNDREDS of explosions.

As for "invisibility on the ground", I found that attempting to transfer bombs via ground to accomplices is difficult because the damn thing dissapears! Except for guards, who seem to be able to see that stuff easily.
So use a container/Trade Mode to transfer.
Or use cows/slaves for other attempts.

I just run up and fkin bomb people, or used to. People just don't cluster like they used to! I wonder why...

[Mayck]

1. Since there isn't C4 anymore traps skill affects only usefulness of dymanite (its also needed for crafting grenades). As far as I know Traps adds bonus damage which is equal to your Traps skill (if base damage of dynamite is 30-50, then with 120%traps you would do 150-170 dmg).
Traps also affects the distance from which dynamite set by you can be seen (it also depends on perception of potencial victim). The formula should be something like this [Detection Distance(in hexes) = 10 + 3*PE(of the victim) - (Traps/5%)]
So to set up an explosive that will be completely invisible even for guy with 10PE + Sharpshooter(2PE) you need 235% in traps (not completely sure about it, it may also be 236 or 231)

2. a) I never manipulated with explosives if my skill was under 120%, but I never failed (exploded) when setting up a bomb, but with higher skill you get better chance of your explosive exploding on time (you can also take perk for that)
I was never able to defuse my own bomb so I think that defusing chance depends if traps skill of the "defuser" is higher then traps skill of the "bomber"  (there may be a roll on Luck included)
b) you can't miss and there is no crit chance on dynamite

3) if you want just to suicide troll in NCR traps over 100 should be enough
if you want to be efficent and do some serious damage I'd recommend 205 (invisible for 10PE chats) or 235(invisible for 12PE chars)
if you want traps powerbuild then 300 (invisible explosives and more then 320 dmg for unarmored targets)

PS: I also forgot to mention that guards miraculously detect you placing explosives on the ground everytime... (they kill you, but they leave the explosive on the ground if your traps skill is high enough)

[Godspeed]

Now there's some lovely answers! Thank you.