Talk:A3-21's plasma rifle

Victoria Watts
Victoria Watts was a terrible gameplay mechanic. Her sole function deprives the player of any large rewards or story elements. By following her recommendations the PC simply ignores the incident indefinitely. I originally agreed to help Zimmer just to continue without doing any harm, but was so concerned that by leaving the option opened, the opportunity to do anything would disappear. Sure enough, Harkness mysteriously disappeared from Rivet City without my doing anything. So I gave him the piece of the android to disuade him from taking Harkness to prevent this, and while this kept Harkness around (so I could figure out who the android was), I never got the option to find it out.

I disagree. It's called narrative misdirection, and is used quite often in magic and various forms of art. You are getting the story through the eyes of your PC, and (s)he can't see everything with perfect clarity. Victoria is behaving in a lifelike manner, asking you to do what would be best for her -- not for you (from her viewpoint, it doesn't matter a damn whether you get some plasma rifle or not). Making the rifle here easier to get would be seriously unbalancing, in that one could drift in at a fairly low level and then acquire one of the strongest weapons in the whole game. It's a rare object; it is correspondingly not easy to find. The two attributes, "rare" and "not easy to get" go together in a well-balanced game. I'll criticize the game's designers till the cows come home for some of the dumb things they did, but this was decidedly not one of them.
 * Indeed. It was 3 days before I learned that I could figure out the identity of the android, and a week before I learned I missed one of the most powerfull energy weapons in the game.
 * Well, this is far from the only quest where you can complete early and effectively short-change yourself, but yes on the whole this is a lousy dead-end element. If you take the decoy piece from her and then don't use it, she just sits around in the market endlessly saying "don't you have something you need to do?" Really would love to slap a slave collar on her and send her on her way.

If you want everything handed to you on a silver platter.... well, there's console commands, I suppose. Wunengzi 21:15, August 22, 2010 (UTC)

Bug regarding invisible tip?
Who is it that keeps complaining about the clear green tip on the gun? That is supposed to be there.

Bloody Goo
""*If you acquired the Bloody Mess perk, and your killing shot is a critical hit, there is a chance the body both explodes into bloody chunks while turning into the goo.""


 * Really? I've seen times when plasma critical-strikes just turn into blood and guts with that perk, no goo (xbox360). [[Image:Ash_Nuke.jpg]] AshRandom (Talk) 19:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I can verify this. I've shot something in VATS before and watched it fly into meaty chunks while simultaneously turning into goo. Pretty trippy. --Solbur 19:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I am going to cry, I went to zimmer first because I thought it would be evil to talk to hark, SO I DONT GET THE GUN GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. that is SOOO BS!!!!
 * good thing you saved [[Image:Ash_Nuke.jpg]] AshRandom (Talk) 04:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I hate this weapon with a passion - it's just too good. Makes it a no-brainer. Coelomate 21:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Well if you want a really challenging game, set the difficulty to very hard and just use unarmed all the time. ;). 81.147.67.155 11:23, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

52 DMG
I have a lvl 20 character with 100 energy weapons skills and 10 perception and for me, this weapon says 52 DMG at pristine condition. I've tried adding this to this page several times but someone keeps changing it, why?
 * The comment of the reversal says "Regular damage with max stats is 50, 52 stems from Bloody Mess perk". // Porter21 U 17:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, OK, that makes sense

So good...
I've been relying on the Xuanlong Assault Rifle on my previous games, but I figured by just ignoring Fort Independence altogether and instead selling 100% repaired Laser Rifles (easy 700 caps right there) etc. to traders you get the caps you need to keep this weapon in excellent shape. By sponsoring Crazy Wolfgang and giving him a RobCo jumpsuit you can get his repair skill up to 80. Later in the game when the Enclave arrives, you can just use their Plasma Rifles to do it yourself...

By just using this baby and changing to the Alien Blaster for Behemoths and Ant Queens, you're good for the whole game.

Dcruze 00:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Thats not right is it? Crazy wolf gang has a repair skill of 85% by default after you've sponsored him.--Greig91 00:54, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

His repair skill is 75 (80 with the jumpsuit), but at skill 75 he repairs items to 85%. At skill 80 he repairs items to 88%. Dcruze 01:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone else realized this has the same damage as the lincoln repeater but a slightly higher crit rate and a much better max condition, not to mention it uses ammo that is much more common late in the game? Doesn't that make the repeater almost useless unless you don't want to invest in energy weapons? That's sad... I liked the repeater.


 * Ha! Suck on that, Lincoln's Repeater! You lose! OH! What?! You ain't got nothin'! Zhu-Rong FOR THE WIN!!! Nitty 03:03, September 4, 2009 (UTC)


 * No, the repeater is 100% accurate outside of VATS, more accurate at longer ranges, and doesn't litter the game with permanent globs of goo. While A3-21's is better close quarters, Lincoln's remains better at range, so you may as well keep it for the reason.


 * Oh yea, after I made the transition to very hard and couldn't one hit everything I realized how terrible it was outside of VATS at long range. 68.192.9.90 23:34, November 10, 2009 (UTC)

Story Plot

 * Since Harkness has access to this piece of advanced technology that only the Enclave are known to have, it is possible that the Institute is under the control of the Enclave, or simply does trade with them (This would not be the first time the Enclave has done trade with outside factions). Or possibly the Institute developed them.


 * Another theory is that the Institute captured one and developed and modified them.


 * Considering that plasma weapons ARE NOT exclusively Enclave tech and were available in FO1, before Enclave came out of hiding. And found in FO2 in one military base and one armory both of which were sealed up before the Great War. Harkness's possession of a plasma weapon is not evidence of any Institute/Enclave connection.


 * Examples of non Enclave controlled plasma weapons within Fallout 3 existent before the enclave came onto the scene are used by every Mr. Gutsy, and if plasma weapons are already outside their control then an institute who is already inventing technology greater than existed pre-war it is not unreasonable they could reverse engineer plasma tech off of Mr. Gutsys.

Moved from article archive, somebody created this so it has been moved to talk because it is speculation. Deleting it entirely is pointless as this really isn't gibba gabba. Kingclyde 02:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)kingclyde


 * I agree. Though Mister Gutsy is armed with a plasma weapon, the systems for it are probably "external" to the gun (IE: powered by the Gutsy's core systems).  The Enclave plasma rifle and plasma pistol however are self-contained.  It should be noted that the Enclave plasma rifle is considerably more compact and easier to handle than the P94, which indicates a significant advancement, something that the Enclave is feasibly able to do.  The Institute's relationship with the Enclave is unknown and is purely speculative, while the evidence that the Enclave developed these new plasma weapons is of more substance (IE: only used by Enclave, only two instances besides A3-21's being two rifles in locales that would indicate that they were captured by the BOS/Outcasts).  I remember one of the scribes chattering about the Enclave's plasma rifles at some point, I may go delving through their dialog system in the GECK to verify sometime.  --MadCat221 02:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Two A3-21's Plasma Rifles
So after I got my this weapon from harkness, I gave it to charon. I also gave him a power armour and a power helmet. It's been about 10 hours game time since I put it on, and I took a look today. Strangely, He now has one perfect condition A3-21's Plasma Rifle and a miniscule amount of degradation on another A3-21's Plasma Rifle. Both are worth over 2100. Glitch? He appears to be wielding the power armour, but its not seen when I click the option "Let's trade equipment". Is it meant to duplicate?


 * Appeared to be a visual glitch, I was only able to remove one of the rifles

Yeah, same thing happened to me on the PS3, when i get F03 for the 360 i'll test it with other followers. Fall-in:The Post Nuclear Role Playing Guy 03:13, September 4, 2009 (UTC)

Disappeared?
I put my A3-21 PR in a locker in my megaton house at some early point in the game. now it's gone! i'm at lvl 20 and trying to get all my stats to 100 i got the rifle by revealing to harkness his actual identity and then got the wired reflexes perk by convincing him to turn himself in to zimmer... i've checked my followers and they dont have it, i've also checked every one of my loaded containers in my megaton house.. WTF! i want my uber laser!!! lol i've heard of lockers making weapons and items disappearbut this is the first time it's happened to me. anyone know how i could get it back if this is the case? (unless i've left it somewhere in the wasteland so some scavenger could trade it for an ipod) thanks in advance.--220.245.39.68 05:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)Chris4026(X360)

The lockers in your house are not owned and some respawn. So there's a chance that either it was deleted when the container respawned, or (and yes this does happen) one of the brotherhood of steel came and took it. There's more info on it here My Megaton House --Antipilor 22:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * According to the My Megaton House article, this appears to be fixed. Make sure you're up to date on patches.  It won't fix the existing issue, but it might prevent it from happening again.  Of course, if you're on the PC, you can spawn the item from the console. --ShadowRanger 22:59, September 29, 2009 (UTC)

hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahhahaha

That's not very constructive, anonymous... Anyway I use the locker next to the door in My Megaton House. My last game was 70+ hours and nothing ever disappeared from it (never respawned). --ArmeniusLOD 21:43, September 27, 2009 (UTC)

Notes Section

 * "A3-21's Plasma Rifle is the single most valuable item available in Fallout 3 (next to the Experimental MIRV)."

This is wrong. Vengeance has a value of 2400, which is second to the Experimental MIRV's 2498. 24.131.81.55 05:11, June 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed. Thanks. Hey, any time you have solid info, feel free to make the changes to the article yourself. Just leave a reason in the edit summary box. It's a wiki - dive in.--Gothemasticator 05:15, June 29, 2010 (UTC)

can one of you give me list for all the improved weapens just the names

Rate of fire compared to Novasurge
In comparison to the MPLX Novasurge, I find this weapon to have a faster rate of fire even though the page says that it's 2 compared to the Novasurge which has it's rate of fire listed as 3. I apologize if I'm mistaken EarthboundD 20:29, September 4, 2011 (UTC)