Forum:Campaign For Energy Weapons

As I read through these forums i notice most people don't consider even using those glowing weapons that help make fallout what it is. A sniper *has* to be a gun, when the YCS-36 is hands down best sniper if it could be silenced. Or a lone ranger can't pull a laser rifle when push comes to shove. Just image a bunch of raiders approching a lawman, thinking he had only a little pistol, and he pulls a gatling laser and lights there sorry buts up.In new vegas especially with no major side using energy weapons (30 BoS members arn't really a fighting force when you think about it) they are hard to come by, but i can take a laser pistol into a fight with a deathclaw in single combat. Acually once i wanted to try something, i stormed dead wind cavern with a plasma pistol. They never saw it coming. They do more damage, more accuracy, very high DPS on some. And yet very little people acually use them. I have 2 things. One thing is why do so few people like energy weapons other is who here likes energy weapons and sees what im talking about. Just wondering. 174.109.137.71 21:23, June 5, 2011 (UTC)

To say that energy weapons are better than regular guns is a highly subjective statement. The effectiveness of any weapon is based on how you build your character. Your choice of traits, skills and perks is what determines how effective each class of weapons are. Its the beauty of Fallout, hell with the right perks and traits you can take down a Deathclaw with one punch if you’re an unarmed character armed with the right weapon. If there was only one group of weapons that were superior then everyone would simply play with those and the game would get really boring really fast.

The major reason I don’t like energy weapons is how the ash and goo piles never disappear. If you play the game long enough the Mojave wasteland becomes absolutely littered with them, especially if you visit the same areas often.

Another huge problem I have with energy weapons is that the one major supplier of them, the Van Graffs, (with patch 1.2.0) end up either dead or permanently hostel towards you if you do the companion quest with Cass. That forces you to either not do her quest or side with the BOS so you can have a steady supply of ammo.

Also you’re incorrect in saying the BOS is the only faction that use energy weapons, at later levels the Fiends are mostly armed with them as well. Which is kind of funny really, because they go from using varmint rifles to laser rifles, but the melee ones still run around with nothing but a pool cue.

Personally I like going with the whole western motif. I use lever action rifles and revolvers, with the one exception being the silenced sniper rifle for stealth kills. You’d be pretty hard pressed to find something that wont drop from one or two head shots from a brush gun or Ranger sequoia, and with my high luck/high critical built character I score critical hits damn near every time. ReapTheChaos 00:47, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

Prior to patch 1.3.0.452 energy weapons were pretty gimp and people avoided them except for the gauss rifle/YCS (without penetration the gatling laser is awful and it took me about 100 rounds with max ammo and 100 energy weapons skill to down each fiend when I tried it out, the RCW was better and took an average on of one clip each). Pre-patch energy weapons builds just didn't work. Now that they've been rejiggered they are competitive with gunpowder weapons except for silence and I agree that a plasma pistol can really dish out the damage (but I prefer the plasma defender), but there are gunpowder weapons which are just as good. A matter of taste though and now that the .45 SMG has been introduced there is even less reason to create an energy weapons courier (what, you didn't want to build a gangster with a laser RCW?) instead of a gunpowder weapons courier.75.67.224.12 02:45, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

i don't mind energy weapons and i do agree that the plasma pistol can be pretty kickass (though im with the guy above on the plasma defender) but without the right perks and a dedicated character guns just end up being the better option. energy ammo can be hard to come by and if you kill the van graffs and or B.O.S you end up going after the fiends just to scavenge ammo. the repair costs can also be a turn off, for example a plasma caster with zero CND can cost up to 14000 to repair! unless a patch comes out making energy ammo easier to come across and cheaper to buy and repair people are just going to end up siding with guns.brotherhood-overlord-6 1:20 june 6, 2011
 * Don't you have the Dead Money DLC? Every three days the drop box in the bunker spawns another 1100 Sierra Madre chips (100 chips and a voucher for another 1000) which will buy you 55 weapons repair kits.  If you're going through more than 55 repair kits every 3 days somethings wrong.  I have hundreds of them in my house and I use them to repair almost every weapon I pick up before I sell them. ReapTheChaos 03:52, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

also don't forget about ammo conversion. I'll go to Bardon at Hover Dam and buy about 1000 ecp's. Then convert that into about 400 mfc's.  It's cheaper and it's easy. Plus a lot of venders do carry different kinds of energy ammo if you buy it consistently and convert it to the type you need ammo isn't really a problem. Other than that get a Recharger Pistol and put the RCW Laser Recycler on it (you can) It's surprisingly powerful for being so cheap to maintain.Cpanda 07:07, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

Personally, i love to use holorifle, gauss rifle and plasma caster. In all my gameplay, i side with the bos, so i don't have the problem of the ammo, but if i were lazy, i will just use recharger pistol instead.

There are basically four type laser, plasma,fire,gauss(i count it ,since it is not rare,despite the fact that is don't have any type).

Laser is usually weak,although it is really fast and accurate.All laser weapon expect pew pew is difficult penatrate armor.lacer rcw,gatling laser is too fast, it use up your money faster than going to the casinos. Tri-beam laser rifle have the balance it don't use many ammo, fast and quite strong. I suggest people use pew pew when dealing with enemy far away.Tri-beam laser rifle do it's best job during close combat.

Plasma is stronger, slower and less accurate. Plasma defender is the the second fastest plasma weapon it is useful against weak or normal level enemy.If you can use more money, Q-35 matter modulator is also a good choice.Plasma caster is strongest more accurate and fast but not too fast as gatling laser. If you want to deal with big enemy plasma caster is the only choice.

Choicing fire weapon (expect Shishkebab) is easy.Personally i hate using Incinerator since i hate to wait and guess when the fire ball fall into the right place. I only use it to attract enemy. Flamer is a good choice to deal with annoying enemy, just walk away form him and keep shooting. I can't use it since i have the meltdown perk and it really hurt when the enemy die.

Since there are no choice, i will only show my view of gauss weapon. Gauss is best long range energy weapon and the only energy weapon for sniper.It is sometime not good to use it during close combat, since it have to reload everytime, and it is difficult to aim it when walking away since it only hit a really small area, even smaller than pistol.

If gauss rifle is sniper rifle than tesla canon is the missle launcher.It's ammo is easier to find and much chepaer, it is faster more accurate but weaker than missle launcher. I haven't use it before since i was scared by it ammo require before the patch by i think it is better than the missle launcher.

Holorifle is just like the brush gun. Strong, accurate, and not like brush gun it's ammo is very cheap.And the most important reason for me to love it, it is really cool.

Alien blaster is a cool weapon but it have a limit, no ammo supply, not a long term weapon.Eculid c finder is a even more cool weapon,but only cool, it is really not accurate because of it's long charge,and too slow, and 1 ammo per day ,it can only be use for fun or for war , not for us.I think pulse gun is reallly useful ,but only useful not strong. most of the time we won't encounter power armor and robot like fallout 3, if it is included in fallout3 i think is much more useful.


 * Laser rifle with scope and focus optics (not beam splitter which for some reason makes it a weaker sniper weapon) is a perfectly viable alternative sniper weapon to the gauss rifle, it isn't as powerful and the scope is less powerful but it can be used as an assault rifle if things go wrong and uses less ammo. 75.67.224.12 17:58, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

Though I prefer not to use energy weapons, my opinion on them is this. They should be the most powerful weapons in the game. If you think about it, why would they have invented them if they are less powerful than regular guns? That would be pointless. The trade off should be that you cant loot anything from a pile of ash/goo. Again if you think about it how does that make any sense? How can you reach into a pile of ash and pull out a weapon or set of armor? ReapTheChaos 15:49, June 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * If you are playing on PC, then you should definitely use this mod, Goo Be Gone -- it will solve all your ash and goo problems. --GobTheGoul (talk) 18:09, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

I will not enter into the discussion of guns X energy weapons, the two are very powerfull and flexible and depend a lot of how you construct your build. Energy Weapons shine at critical hits, but there's a lot of EW with low or normal critical chance that don't require a build with high luck, so it's up to the player wich path to follow. But I don't understand all the fuss about the Van Graffs.

The Van Graffs are a PoS group: they don't sell large quantities of ammunition, don't sell the good energy weapons until level 27 or 28 and don't have too much benefits to give. Hell, even if you help them you don't gain a disccount! I actually think the incoherence with the Van Graffs are these, even the Khans sell more EW ammo, so what's the main reason for siding with them? I also don't understand the statement that I need to side with the BoS if you I'm an energy weapons courier, apart we having this affinity, what else the BoS and the courier have in common?

I read this two statements thousands of times, I just wish to understand the arguments behind. Is the same thing telling that I need to side with the NCR if I use guns or side with CL if I'm a 12.7mm weapon's fan. Brfritos 21:33, June 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * My point was that if you’re an energy weapons user and you do Cass’s quest then you’re screwed. With the van raffs hostel/dead the only other group who well energy weapons on a regular basis is the BOS. ReapTheChaos 16:28, June 8, 2011 (UTC)
 * This is absolute not true, in fact, the main incoherence in the game is the Van Graffs are THE WORST tradders for EW. Khans armory and the NCR Quartermaster sell EW ammo by the dozens and Gloria has at best 30 MF, 40 EC and 200 ECP at any time. Also, Khans armory sell some unique weapons not usually founded in the main merchants, like Thermic lances, Ballistic Fists, Tesla Cannons and so on. You don't need the BoS at all. Brfritos 04:50, June 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * Whatever dude. I was simply trying to make a point on how its screwed up that if you do Cass’s quest you have to kill them and lose them as a merchant. I wasn’t trying to get in a major debate over who in the Mojave wasteland sells the best energy weapons. ReapTheChaos 07:21, June 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm also not debating who's the best merchant, but you said before that if you kill the Van Graffs you need the BoS. What I said is this is not true, only that. Also, this is the beauty of FNV, you have to choose if you want another merchant or a terrific companion, unlike most modern games, who gives everything to the player without a challenge and guide them by the hand like a 5 year old child. Brfritos 14:25, June 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm with Brfritos on this one, not much of a downside to killing the van graffs. they are only of marginal use as merchants after the early part of the game and by the time you get to point in Rose's quest to kill them they are not worth much.  Two other reasons the van graffs wind up dead in my games; 1. I don't like them, they aren't evil so much as cruel and that ticks me off even when I'm evil and 2. it is one fo the hardest battles in the game thus are an excellent opportunity to double check your build and make sure you can handle the final battle.  I do wish there were a way to keep the poor Silver Rush crier alive, I don't want to see him dead but he is a far better employee than the van graffs deserve and supports his employers.75.67.224.12 19:19, June 9, 2011 (UTC)

I personally just feel that there isn't enough of a variety of energy weapons to keep me amused by them, besides that, they all pretty much do the same thing: they either turn the victim to ash or goo and unless you have the meltdown perk it never gets anymore exciting than that. I like guns because there are so many different types with varied strengths and weaknesses. But the way that I play my characters, I find it to be really easy to get 100 in virtually all my combat skills, so I don't really have to choose one type over another. I do really like the fully modded laser rifle with the laser commander perk, but I don't use it that often because I DO have meltdown and it can turn a minor assassination into a major firefight very quickly. I think when the new dlcs come out, specifically old world blues, there will be a much broader choice for energy weapons users. Zac hemker 19:24, June 7, 2011 (UTC)

I've been using them on this play-thru; trying to make a build that can complete challenges. My fav is the Laser RCW, my Cazador griller. I agree with some of you that Old World Blues should add the perks and weapons to make EWs viable. I want a challenge perk/quest perk that will allow Vigilant Recycler to make silenced SEC. There should be a recipe to make Plazma grenades at a work bench. There should be a perk like Shotgun Surgeon or Piercing Strike for ECP ammo. There should be a weapon mod quest for a large magazine for Gauss rifle. Jury Rigging should not be so effective for EWs, would you really want to fire a jury rigged YCS186 ? Where is the Unique plazma defender ? Things need to get better, Energy Weapons are part of the Fallout experience. 99.194.142.163 22:32, June 7, 2011 (UTC)

But energy weapons ARE effective and have a good variety. What EW builds need to decide is if going with higher or normal luck. For example, the Laser RCW don't do much critical hits, so any level of luck can be used with this weapon. But if you have a high luck it makes more sense using the AER14 prototype or the Q-35, with usually 1 or 2 shots you kill most enemies with these. The Tri-Beam Laser is devastating with a high luck built and extremelly overpowered with the Laser Commander perk, destroying ANYTHING with a few hits, but if you don't favor laser and/or don't have high luck the Multiplas Rifle is a better option.

EW also have an advantage over guns that fewer people notest: you can craft any type of ammo without a perk since the beginning of the game. This makes a huge difference, you can be on par with thouger enemies much sooner, even with a humble plasma pistol. A plasma pistol equipped with EC Max Charge makes possible for a level 4 or 5 courier going to Hell's Hotel and picking the medicine book, something that a gun build will have a extremelly hard time because those nasty Reavers. And the Laser RCW/Gatling laser have an "Shotgun Surgeon" for the weapon, is called ECP Max Charge. ;) Brfritos 23:15, June 7, 2011 (UTC)

My biggest problem with EWs is the build options. I made a normal luck high endurance energy user. I figured fps energy weapons with explosives as back up. Well at level 30 when fighting Deathclaws this build was extremely underpowered. It would take nearly 10+ shots with the Q-35 to bring a Deathclaw from the Quarry down. I have a new character who owns with energy weapons because of her 10 luck and Better Criticals+Finesse. But I would run out of ammo fast on both builds do to a fps style of play. Cirt and VAT related perks make energy weapons op however I think they should be a more viable option for different gameplay experiences. Cpanda 23:31, June 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * Try using the Tri-Beam Laser if you pick the Laser Commander perk OR Multiplas Rifle if you don't OR the Plasma Caster OR the Grenade Machinegun with 25mm HE grenades. If possible equip the EW of your choice with over charge ammo and take a psycho before entering. Also, bring 10 to 15 WRK with you. Then return to Quarry Junction and tell us again what happenend. Brfritos 08:30, June 8, 2011 (UTC)

I could do that I could do all of that^. I would need about 15 wrk if I took out the tri-beam. You have to understand that's a lot of firepower you posted Brfritos and with enough willpower luck and reloads it would be possible to clear most of the combat situations in the game with the equipment you mentioned. Now the efficiency of use of said equipment ... that's important ... atleast to me. But I'm feeling frisky so I'll post some results in a bitCpanda 09:45, June 9, 2011 (UTC)

It would take around 8-10 tri beam shots to bring a Deathclaw down at lvl 28 from full health with 2 ranks of Set Lasers for Fun and Laser Commander. Hmm. And without the help of EDE tanking and Annebelle crippling I would of had to reload I know it. But things went over pretty well it was just kind of meh I guess. Thanks for the advice.Cpanda 10:16, June 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * The Tri-Beam Laser is highlly dependable of your luck, your critical hits perks and equippement for making faster kills. If your luck is 7 or less I think the Multiplas Rifle is a better weapon, usually my luck is 9 + Laser Commander perk + 1st Recon Beret + Light Touch + Finesse + Better Criticals when using the Tri-beam. The downside for the Grenade machinegun is the steep skill requirement and the fact that you need at least two levels of Demolition Expert for this weapon rule the battelfield. My opion of course. One tip I can give you is not entering the Quarry too fast, because you will attract too much deathclaws and the chance for being overrunned is high. Brfritos 14:38, June 9, 2011 (UTC)

Well first sorry i was gone so long (computer problems, loooonnngggg story) and second, i easily cleared out Quarry junction. Came in during the day, YCS with MC ammo loaded and a holorife with MC ammo. Both you get pretty easily (if you have dead money, it is basically forced you use Holorifle) and the ammo is less expensive. In sneak it was a one shot one kill anywhere one the body with YCS 36. 3/4s of the way done one of the deathclaws spotted me. I pulled out the holorife and killed 2 with one shot (thanks meltdown) and dispatched with the few who came running and sent the mother flying into the air with her babys running after her. Used exatly 39 rounds of ammo. Worth about 8 caps each. Used dead money repair kits and right as rain. And one more thing, I'm not saying energy weapons are better than guns, but they are equals especailly after the new patch. Energy weapons rule 174.109.137.71 17:23, June 14, 2011 (UTC)

I have to say Meltdown can be annoying but when it works I feel like a Sun Tzu or something. I find it adds that extra little layer of depth that makes it come under serious consideration for me when I make a EW user.Cpanda 14:02, June 15, 2011 (UTC)

I would've expected the majority of people to use Energy Weapons, Guns to me although good, seem fairly boring and not quite as powerful when compared to things like the Tesla Canon Prototype and YCS. I've been messing around with the Compliance Regulator a lot lately, managed to take out entire packs of Deathclaws with it without taking a hit. And you just can't beat Meltdown, what a perk. I guess my entire build is designed around VATs, Critical Hits and Energy Weapons so I'm fairly one sided here.