Hey , im new at this game and i wanter to know your opinion about energy weapons and normal guns just thes pros and cons of each one, and your personal opinion too..

Guns
Pros: lots.
Cons: meh.

EW
Pro's: meh.
Cons: "I want to play as a Guns character instead".

A little bit over simplified but that's about it.

Guns have too many Pro's but not enough Con's.
And EW has an equal amount of Con's as they have Pro's which in the end makes Guns better.
And explosives only have Con's while not having any Pro's to make up for it.

Balance == Fail.

Yup.

I haven't made an EW character since the new patch though. I'm sure that helped a bit.

Not so much, laser/plasma pistol/rifle are still crap so the start of the game is still boring as hell for an EW character.
And the ammo consumption is still bad, less bad, but still bad.

I'd say the main difference is in variety. Lots of guns to choose from, not so many EW.

EW are more specific in use because of that.

Both, imo are very effective at killing stuff.

EW have top notch for most types of weapons.

Guns have useful set of low to mid tier weapons.

Have you actually used energy weapons sense the patch? It sounds like you never bothered.

A laser rifle with the scope and the focus optics is a match for a marksman carbine easily. More damage per shot and fires almost as quickly. With its higher critical rate it can easily surpass the weapon. And of course its available by Novac long before the marksman. And the plasma pistol is a perfectly serviceable weapon capable blowing the early game enemies to pieces until you can each Nipton and pick up a laser rifle. The pistol can fire sixteen times before reloading letting you unleash much more damage in that time then you could with a six shot .357 revolver. [which reloads after six shots]. Even using bulk ammo.

Hell most of those early game guys are so weak anything is a perfectly serviceable weapons.

Energy weapons have a higher critical chance then there gun counterparts, and the perk laser commando greatly magnifies that in the case of laser weaponry.

For example lets take the AER14 laser rifle. Luck 10, Finesse, Bone's hat, Set Lasers for Fun[2]* built to destroy, and laser commando you have a 74% chance to critical with it. The gun its self deals 40dmg a shot without critically hitting while using regular energy cells.

In Plasma you have the caster which is not only ammo efficient but incredibly deadly. The multiplass is more damaging but less ammo efficient [but in the end ammo won't be a problem just don't wipe out the major suppliers]

The recharger pistol is also surprisingly deadly weapon. If it was available early in the game it be the only weapon you needed all the way to Vegas.

I would have to say is that when you are starting for the first time you are going to go for the Guns because:

• More gun to be seen
  
• Have more ammo then the EW Cells
  
• They are basically the main weapon everyone has
  
• Easier to use and find.

I started with a Gun person and got the achievment for it and now I am going to do a EW person and then a Melee and then a Unarmed...
But yeah Guns is better for the nooby people. :fallout:

I think that both Energy Weapons and Guns are good.

For Energy Weapons, you may have to use Max Charge ammo against more powerful opponents. I used a Plasma Caster with Max Charge ammo and I wiped out the Deathclaw Promontory without much problems. Energy Weapons also have very powerful criticals, so if you want to focus on critical hits, Energy Weapons are a good choice. (Although I use Energy Weapons without maximising critical chance)

Guns have more variety, but they use a larger variety of ammo types as well, unlike Energy Weapons, in which many weapons share the same ammo type. Some late game guns such as the Brush Gun can be more powerful in terms of damage than Energy Weapons, but their ammo is rare and expensive.

In a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5NfMGo_M0w&feature=watch_response, an Energy Weapons character can one hit Deathclaws, and a Sneak Attack Critical with a certain secret Energy Weapon can kill the Legendary Deathclaw in one hit.

Explosives aren't useless, I managed to kill 2 Deathclaw mothers, 1 Deathclaw Alpha Male and 2 Deathclaws with two shots of Annabelle with HE Missles.

Yes, I did play on a new character.
Haven't reached Van Graffs yet so I can't comment on the high level weapons yet, which is why I commented on the low level ones.

Well it doesn't sound like you've given the laser rifle much of a shot and its available fairly early.

two of the most powerful weapons, alien blaster, and pulse gun are energy weapons. most of my kills are done in vats. AB is good at quickly killing death claws. and the PG is good at quickly destroy bots.

sooo... you havnt had experience with a EW charactor.

i dont care what you say, if you havnt gotten to freeside, i dont think that you played on that char for long enough to decide that guns are good and EW are... meh.
lemme ask you, how long have you played a guns character? how long have you played an EW character?
it seems as though you completed the game with guns, and decided to test out EW.

The real question when deciding between Guns and Energy Weapons is...

Are you a science fiction fan? Do you like rayguns? Do you like the idea of disintegrating your enemies into piles of ash or melting them into puddles of goo? The recent patch improved balance so energy weapons and guns are both equally viable options, neither has a massive advantage over the other, so it is more a case of which you think is more fun.

Some people prefer real-life guns, they like using a lever-action rifle or a good old fashioned six-shooter, and blowing off heads and limbs with bullets. But if your favourite movies and TV shows tend to be stuff like Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, then you'll want to go Energy Weapons.

There is something quite satisfying about travelling across a Mad Max style post apocalyptic world, going up against some bandits armed with crude gunpowder weapons, and you vaporise them with your futuristic laser.

Energy weapons are far rarer, and energy ammo is rare too, but since the patch most of them do more damage per shot than their Guns equivalent. (The exception is the laser pistol, which is weaker than all the Gun pistols, but is far more accurate and fires 30 shots per reload.)

If you are low on energy ammo you can buy a box of 100 cheap "bulk" energy ammo from a shop, that does 0.85 normal damage... and your energy weapons will still be more powerful than they were with normal ammo before the patch!


IMPORTANT:

In the vanilla game there is a bug where the Van Graff family at the Silver Rush - the only shop that specializes in energy weapons - won't restock and never has anything more interesting than laser and plasma rifles, when at high levels they are supposed to stock gauss rifles and tesla cannons and stuff like that. I dont' think the recent big patch fixed it.

There's a mod that looks like it might fix it. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38679

I've yet to test it myself yet, but the reasoning seems sound.

(There are other mods that "fix" it by simply removing the level restrictions so all the energy weapons are available, but the mod I linked to should fit it so that the shop works as intended.)

Yes, I have.


70 hours Guns, around 110 hours EW.
First EW char, pre-patch, 80 hours.
Second EW char, post-patch, 30 hours. (I'm on a hold at the moment so I can play some Undead Nightmare and Torment.)


I'm an EW fantast, it's my favorite weapons class in every Fallout game.
And it's the first one I started with in FO3 and first one I started with in New Vegas.

The problem with the plasma pistol is id say that its dps is too high and its dam is too low. It should prolly be taking 36 ap to fire and its real time fire rate should be slower then 1 shot a second.

Before patch they held there own if you used the right weapon for the right job, or just took a laser RCW as your main gun, a multiplas as a close - medium hitter.
A plasma caster or gauss rifle as a big guy, end game boss killer, and a plasma defender as a back up that can kill multipule deathclaws with the right perks.
Hell any weapon was great to use for killing most things pre patch normal hardcoe,, as long as some thought went into its use.
Post patch yet to try, but as they added rather than removed stuff to stats and placed more items in game, I see them as more than holding their own.




:violin: just kidding as well as all below is a joke.
I vote all EW's get given 100000000000000000 damage and one shot only.



Damn I take it back, with the Torment playing comment, you now are to be given everything you wish for ( as long as you like the game and declare it the beast ever ) not kidding.

I love the game and yes it's the beast ever!

EW were far worse than Guns pre-patch, at the moment they're probably a little worse still but the gap is far smaller than it used to be.

I forget if they did this, but if they haven't, one of the things that really needs to be done is lowering the cost of MFCs to 1 cap; the 2-cap price was rather outrageous considering that they didn't actually do significantly more damage than a 1-cap Guns bullet.

Damagevise, energy weapons are on par with guns after patch. Perhaps even slightly better. I tried plasma rifle on giant radscorpions with EW skill of 50 and it slices through them like through butter. Even with standard ammo.

However they are still slightly rare, you have problem to find spare ones for repairs till mid game. And even then you will need to rely on repairkits mostly. They wear very fast (have low HP). Improved ammo is extremely costly to craft and tears your gun even faster than normal one. If you use hardcoe, ammo weights ton.

explosives arent worthless just how the perks designed for them doesnt work is annoying and trully biased.Dem expert splash damage hit the deck all 3 major perks either partially work or not at all as in splash damage hit the deck

explosives are worthless; after factoring dt. Having the most expensive ammunition out of all weapons, and does squat against DT.

Probably bugged too, watching a 100 cap missile or mini nuke doing only 20 damage on direct hit against a gecko. If that isn't worthless. I don't know what is.

Energy weapons - and energy ammo - are expensive. That unfortunately is the price of a high-tech weapon is a post-apocalyptic world. And the reason why 90% of wasteland inhabitants use normal Guns.

However, if you are primarily an energy weaopns character, then you can sell all the guns and bullets that you come across and buy every ounce of energy ammo available.

I haven't played post-patch (just come back from abroad) but pre-patch I found it a struggle to have enough microfusion cells, but there was plenty of small energy cells. With the plasma pistol damage upped to 33 (making it powerful even if you use weak "bulk" ammo), and the plasma defender ammo usage lowered from 3 to 2 per shot, it should be perfectly viable to play mostly using energy pistols, and pull out a microfusion-powered rifle for when the going gets tough.

Recharger rifle and pistol are great at preserving ammo for more dangerous targets. If only ironsights would not be so horribly off. But then ironsights are off nearly on all weapons.

The problem with enrgy weapon is rather obvious if you go back and listen to what sawyer said about them before the game came out... lasers the dps fast fire faster then guns. Plasma higher dam slower fire.

But then look at what they do..

The mods for lasers.. up damage not rate of fire. The mods for plasma up rate of fire not dam...

Now look at the guns themsevles...

The laser pistol is only ever so slightly faster then a gun and no mods.

The rcw.. is about the speed of most smgs or machineguns.. its one mod.. just makes its ammo cheaper.

The plasma pistol.. isnt slow to fire. Yes its damage is ok now with its rate of fire... but it shouldnt be firing that fast now should it?

Defender.. great gobs of sillyness its even faster firing.

Plasma rifle...its dam is again likely just fine with its fire rate.. but should it be firing that fast?

The special plasma rifle fires realy fast... but yet again arnt plasma weapons about dam NOT dps?

Plasma caster fires realy fast..... why?