The problem with this is that the energy weapons that are paying 2-3 caps for a shot don't do 2-3x more damage per shot when compared to their Guns counterparts.

And you guys said EW should be expensive?

This is true... I started an energy wep person and I got upset really quick because when i was killing stuff with energy weps ... I was KILLING stuff, ya know... and when I I ran out of energy cells cause there weren't many around and I didnt know where to get them I was using my SUPER weak 9mm and my so-so Weathered 10mm cause I didn't put ANY points into my gun skill. so I started over and went for guns now I am enjoying the game WAY more. After this I will play a EW guy or a Sneaky Assassin guy.

The other problem with energy weapons and explsosives too is to play those characters you have to metagame the game. guns it flows free from the enemies you fight but not energy weapons and 3 days between shop refills and chet often still only having 12 rounds of energy ammo early on.... and he often never gets a recharger rifle for sale until waay after thats a moot point.

Since the patch a started a new character and grabbed the Q-35 early on.... it 1-3 shots everything I have fought so far, but the toughest stuff I have fought are ghoul reavers or glowing ones (1 shot kills). The extremely high crit rate and low ammo consumption make it super nice. PewPew also works pretty damn well, I use it as a hold-out weapon and have only shot bulk ammo with it....with bulk ammo it does more damage per shot than the Q-35 using max charge, but 15 cells per shot and only 2 shots per clip are brutal.

EDIT: got the YCS and it melts face.... low ammo consumption but also low clip size. I guess you can not have it all.

You can get recharger rifle at the beginning now (post patch) without buying it from Chet.

I like guns better for a couple reasons:

- Bloody mess goes better with guns than with energy weapons since energy weapons don't make a mess just a pile of goo/ash. So it is a gore thing, the more gore there is makes the world feel more hostile to me. I get more satisfaction from seeing an enemy just blowup into red bits than disentegration.

- I grab the hand loader perk everytime. I just like the immersion value I get from making my own ammo and buying casings, powder and primer. You can make EW ammo also but it's not really the same thing to me since EW ammo doesn't have sub-parts. By breaking down the guns ammo you don't use you will eventually gather up enough sub-parts to essentially "convert" ammo just like you can with EW.

- I really like the "true" iron sights they have added for guns. Not all EW have iron sights, they have a similar sighting to FO3. Also, I love scoped rifles and the there are only two EW that either have a scope or can attach a scope and the laser rifle, while nice at the start, got really old after having to repair it after every 3rd kill.


YCS is badass though, especially with meltdown. I accidently overwrote my EW build char who I got up to lvl 26 before the overwirte. I do miss being able to take out a squad of enemies with one shot ( I took out all of 1st Recon with one shot - I just wanted to take out Sterling but forgot I had meltdown, lol ). So eventually I will do another EW build but the YCS alone is not enough for me just yet.

Unfortunately those ironsights are off for most of the weapons (including cowboy repeater and hunting rifle). You will be missing all the time if using them. Unless you fire point blank that is.

Opinion: Energy Weapons [censored]ing svck.
Opinion: Guns [censored]ing RULE.

What, what, what??? That would explain a lot, especially with the Hunting Rifle - I can't hit the broad side of a barn at 10 feet without a scope. Cowboy gun doesn't seem as bad for me though.


Also, is it randomly off or is pip off by a set amount of pixels? I guess what I'm getting at is, is there a way to adjust for this offset?

They should have multiple animation, like EVE did. I agree that in that regard the animations are a bit lackluster.


It's quite the oversight to be honest. Though a lot of iron sights are a bit off, the fact that several EW lack them is rather odd.

I no longer have the game so can only talk pre patch:

The game was as unbalanced as Gabriel has said. The guns were far superior. I guess I never cared since EW have too much of a Star Trek/Star Wars dorkish feel to them for my tastes.

Give me lead ripping flesh every time.

I believe J.E. Sawyer said in some older thread that, due to time constraints and other problems, some of the energy weps lack iron sights. So I guess some enterprising modder can pick up the ball that the developers dropped.

Am I completely satisfied with EWs now? Mostly. My only major beef is energy consumption with some weapons. A Tesla Cannon scarfing up 45 ECPs a shot is a bit too rich for my blood. Sure it's got that AoE and residual electrical damage thing going for it, but it's not really worth the energy expended, imo. I can get a very similiar effect and at a greater distance with 1-3 shots from my Laser Rifle and Meltdown.

If you intend on creating an EW character, you're going to have to accept the fact that exclusively using EWs from levels 1-10 will not necessarily be very enjoyable. You will be able to get by with an Incinerator or Flamer until your character's up to speed. You're going to have to snag some EW-specific perks in order to optimize your gaming experience.

Nor is getting a secondary combat skill, like Melee or Unarmed a bad idea either. You don't need ammo to smack some of the lower tier enemies around.

According to lore, EWs should be relatively rare, somewhat delicate and tricky to maintain but potent instruments of destruction. In game it's a question of balance and giving players with different play-styles viable options. As a result, we have EWs that degrade faster, on average, than guns, have more expensive (and heavy) ammo, and are damage-output-wise on par with guns.

I'm having a pretty good time with the laser and plasma rifles this time around, compared to pre-patch they didn't appear to have much of an effect.

To test it just make this: Go to 3rd person view. Press button to aim (get in to ironsights mode). If you on PC it is right mouse but. Without releasing aim, return in to 1th person. Crosshair should be visible and you can see how much off is your gun. Best done in crouch mode.

There is actually fix on nexus. It fixes some of the guns. Don't know however if it works with latest patch: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35161

Good advice, thanks. I'll give that a go and see just how bad it is.