Has anyone given it a try yet?

Hit and miss. Trick is to charge it right up then go to VATS to deliver max charge, mind you if you can hit moving targets with it out of VATS you're a better shot than me so try that.

Works best on humans I think, though good also I found (in panic) for crowd control on swarms of bloodbugs - arcs from one to the next so you can do some serious pest control.

mine shows crazy distance like in mid-300's, but I cannot snipe anything with it! and you can't tell where it hits due to arc dancing everywhere.

but kool, fun and new!

Charge it, go in VATS, cancel VATS. Now the rifle is charged all the time and no need to hold the button. I need to test this further to see if the damage is for a charged shot or not.

I am using a new character and I randomly found a laser musket with 6 cranks, it also deals more dmg to humans, so it's awesome. But I had to put it appart because it consumes the 6 fusion cells, while the Tesla Rifle only consumes 1 even after you charge it. Laser musket seems to be more accurate, and better for long ranges, but Tesla Rifle sounds better to me, it haven't given me troubles yet except for lower VATS hit chance. And I tested the traps mod, it's works kinda like molotovs since it leaves an area of effect that deals dmg for a short duration and it's also powerful.

Good luck hitting anything

Mine has absolutely no range to it despite saying it has great range. It's only use is as a shotgun as far as I can tell.

it needs more mods

That would be nice too. I'd like shock pellets similar to the K-Volt from Crysis. The K-Volt and Typhoon were probably two of my favorite guns in an FPS.

yes i was thinking the same thing but target tracking ones so you can still hit multiple targets

So far I love the Tesla Gun, I just love the visual effect and electrifying ghouls and raiders into blue dust feels REALLY satisfying playing a intel science build lol I use the charged shotgun mod because I like that powerful feeling of blowing an enemy way into an electrical ash pike after a full charged shot

BUT THE ASSAULTRON HELMET IS THE BEST ITEM IN THE DLC. Also the Handy buzz saw has a really cool finishing animation that's really easy to do since all you have to do is hold down attack and then power attack right before you finish them off, My Mechanist is no push over in melee

I like the tesla rifle a lot. I haven't had any huge range issues. I don't use vats typically and I find it easy to hit my targets

Yeah, it seems to work best as a hip fire weapon. .. In vats it just seems to go off the rails quite a bit. I like it though.. does good damage against them pesky robots. Not so great against human enemies. It's kind of like the pulse mine/grenade in that area.

I find it rather underwhelming. The numbers are making it to seem like it does a good amount of damage, but when actually using it doesn't reflect those numbers what so ever. 325 damage and it's barely making a dent? That can't be right.

I am using the shotgun version though, and I've heard better things about the long barrel and automatic version, so I'll have to give that a try. And yes, this weapon certainly could use more mods.

Level 44 and with the long barrel I 1/2 shot most of the robots, rust devils, and easily regular raiders.

I like full auto weapons so I went with the full auto mod. It does pretty good damage so far. I need to find a group of enemy's that are close together to see what kind of havoc it can reap in that situation. I tried the assaultron head and it seemed weak to me. I hit one of my settlers with it and didn't kill them. They are only wearing the flannel shirt and jeans ant normal unmoded leather armor. The full atuo Tesla gun killed him with the first shot.