How can I figure out the unmodified base of a weapon?

Question

I'm finding lots of already modified weapons, and it's becoming rather annoying to compare them to my own modified weapons. Mods can have a pretty large effect on the stats of a weapon, and it's hard to see if a new weapon would be an improvement over my current one if I would add the same mods as I have right now on the current weapon.

What I'm interested in is finding out which weapon the modified one is based on, to see if it is something I already own or something better. Alternatively just seeing the stats of the unmodified base would work as well to compare them to my own weapons.

Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

The base of the weapon is displayed in the name of the weapon, accompanied by names for some of the mods. Let's agree to not look at the mods (like powerful, hardened, recoil compensated). They do not tell you anything in that regard.

After that, you need to discard the non-obvious mod words in the name. Whether a weapon is a pistol, a rifle or a sniper rifle largely depends on the stock and the scope you have attached to it. That usually leaves one word that identifies it.

A few examples:

• Lead Pistol/Rifle/Sniper rifle boil down to a Lead weapon.
• 10mm
• Combat Shotgun
• Combat Rifle/Sniper Rifle
• Laser Pistol/Rifle
• Laser Musket

Answer 2

You kinda just have to learn the weapons and make judgement calls. The base item always has the same stats, so the answer to "is this weapon better than my identical current one discounting mods," is no, they're the same.

Mods are the only thing that change weapons, and you can take them off one and put them back on another of the same type, so if you have a tricked out 10mm pistol, and get a legendary one, you can take the mods of the tricked out one (by replacing them with standard "mods") and sticking them onto the legendary.

A non exhaustive list of ballistic weapons includes: 10mm pistol (semi or auto, depends on the reciever mod)

Pipe pistol (semi or auto)

Revolver pipe pistol

Pipe pistol/rifle (semi or auto)

Pipe Revolver

Pipe Bolt-action

Double barreled shotgun

Assault shotgun

Hunting rifle (which becomes a Sniper Rifle with mods)

Assault rifle

Battle Rifle

Sub machine gun

Minigun

So if you see a Hardened Auto Marksman Pipe pistol and a Calibrated Tactical pipe pistol, they're both pipe weapons, and therefore the same. You can pull the mods off and rearrange them however you wish.

Note that the pipe weapons can share most mods, and the difference between a rifle and a pistol is the stock/grip mod attached.

I also cannot reiterate enough that Sniper Rifles are Hunting Rifles with mods. There is even a .50 reciever for the Hunting Rifle, and a muzzle break, and with enough mods that piddly .308 pop gun looks suspiciously like an AMR from New Vegas.