Range

Range is a weapon statistic that determines how far the equipped weapon can be thrown, shot, or used.

Fallout and Fallout 2
Range in the first two games is expressed in hexes. No matter how skilled with that weapon, one can never fire it beyond that distance without the help of an appropriate perk or other special ability.


 * Unarmed and melee weapons have a range of 1 hex.
 * Spears and sledgehammers have a range of 2 hexes.
 * Thrown weapons have a range of up to 15 hexes.
 * Firearms have a range determined by the weapon's quality and ammunition. For example, the pipe rifle can deliver a 10mm round at a range of 20 hexes, while a 10mm pistol can put it in a target at 25 hexes. Shotguns vary greatly, from the sawed off with just 7 hexes of range to the Pancor Jackhammer with 35.
 * The greatest range of 50 hexes belongs to dedicated marksman weapons, like the sniper rifle, PPK12 Gauss pistol, and the M72 Gauss rifle. This max range is represented by the female Vault dweller on the image to the right.

Note that unless the games are patched with high resolution patches, it's impossible to scroll far enough to use sniper rifles and the like at max range, due to the camera being constrained to a limited range around the player character.

Fallout 4
Range is a weapon statistic that determines the furthest distance that a particular weapon will deal its maximum damage outside of V.A.T.S. and additionally affect the chance to hit a target when using V.A.T.S. In effect, it represents not the maximum, but effective range.

When it comes to hitting targets, range is virtually meaningless in real time shooting; any missile launcher with a low range stat will still reach targets that ballistic or energy weapons with a far higher range cannot. However, range will drastically affect damaging targets: Once outside effective range, the damage will suffer significant fall-off.


 * Rifles tend to have the longest range modifiers, with the exception of shotgun-type weapons that fall off fairly quick.
 * Pistols used with the Gunslinger perk (Ranks 2 and 3) can compete with rifles, usually at the cost of lower accuracy. When applying range mods to weapons, one can test it by going into V.A.T.S. and selecting settlers or turrets, turrets being the better choice due to being stationary; queued shots will indicate less damage once one is past the range limit.

Fallout 76
The game retains the effective range mechanics of its predecessors. Past effective range, damage will suffer significant fall-off.

Range is calculated by the following formula:


 * 12(Base + Mod1 + Mod2 + Mod3 ....) = Range

The Base value is always 1 and the Mod# values are granted by the max range curve tables attached the weapon mods. For readability purposes, the base range stat on weapon infoboxes will always be the sum of the base and the default barrel modification. In this case, the Standard short barrel (Mod1) uses the short range template making the Mod1 value 9.

12(1+9) = 120

So our new weapon range is 120 units.

Out of range multiplier
If a weapon hits a target that is further than it's max range value, it will deal reduced damage based on a multiplier.

Standard refers to every single weapon that is not otherwise listed here.


 * ¹ only affects the on-hit damage ( 1).