Laser rifle (Fallout: New Vegas)

The AER9 laser rifle is a weapon in Fallout: New Vegas.

Characteristics
The laser rifle has no iron sights, but compensates with excellent zoom. It can be upgraded by a scope, making it less effective in close quarters but because of its good accuracy, it can be used as a mid- to long-range weapon. The laser rifle makes a decent starting weapon but with all mods, it is extremely powerful, even at high level. Much of its late game power comes from critical hits, as outside of V.A.T.S., each of the 3 beams produced by a beam splitter can score a critical hit. Conversely, it is weaker in V.A.T.S., as only one critical hit per shot can be made.

Modifications

 * Laser rifle focus optics, adds 3 damage
 * Laser rifle scope, adds a long range scope with 3.5x magnification
 * Laser rifle beam splitter, fires three grouped beams per shot, with 30% greater combined power than a single beam.

Variants

 * AER14 prototype, the more powerful unique variant that fires a green beam.
 * Tri-beam laser rifle, a laser rifle that fire three beams at once.
 * Van Graff laser rifle, a weaker laser rifle provided to Silver Rush guards.


 * The Disintegrator, a developmental test weapon that does extreme amounts of damage.

Locations

 * Fiends often carry them.
 * Hidden Valley bunker - Torres may sell laser rifles.
 * Found on the dead Brotherhood patrols during the quest Still in the Dark.
 * Nipton - one can be found lying beside a dead wastelander by the small trailer park.
 * Nipton houses - one can be found inside in the bathtub.
 * Silver Rush - Gloria may sell laser riles and numerous can be stolen.
 * They can be randomly found on dead Bright followers.
 * They can often be purchased from Quartermaster Bardon.

Behind the scenes
The markings on theses rifles as well as their descriptions hint at the types of lasing mediums used in each variant. The 1064 nm wavelength (frequency converted to green, 532 nm) of the AER14 prototype strongly indicates that it is a Nd:YAG (neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet) laser while the ~650 nm wavelength of the AER9 laser rifle indicates that it is likely a Ruby, InGaAs or HeNe laser.