I love energy weapons! and when I got new vegas the first thing I did was make an energy weapon based character. But new vegas turned my favorite weapon class into an underpowered , ammo consumming crap fest. ok, I understand why most of the more common laser weapons arn't the greatest, after all, you need to be a noob at some point right? But as I progressed, They still seeemed painfully under powered. One the first things I did was hunt down the unique laser rifle, thinking it would be an obvious upgrade, instead I found a weapon that consumed more ammo for little extra benifit...Other wepaons seemed to folow the same pattern, using large amounts of ammo per shot, making them a waste. I know making energy weapons consume more ammo makes sense, as the power need to fire some of the guns would logicly require more. But considering the rarity of the ammo type, and the inefectivness of most of the weapons, this only served to ensure the down fall of the skill. There are some exeptions, such as the Q-35 and the plasma caster ( by the way the plasma caster seems to degrade so fast, and miss so often, yes I have the stats needed to use it...) but even these are not enough. Energy weapons need there own strong vendor, that can be compared to the gun runners. The van Grafs have little caps, weapons, and ammo, and refresh rarley. The absance of a such a store makes the weapon class even harder to use. If the Van Grafs where raised to a status such as the gun runners, as they should have been from the start, in another MUCH needed patch, energy weapons would be much better off. Hopefuly some one with the power to ensure such a patch be made reads this, and agrees. Now you may proceed with the flaming and the trolling of everything I just said.

I'm playing an Energy weapons user at the moment and I really have no problems at all with it. I think a few weapons could be bumped up a bit in terms of their output but it's working very well for me I'd say. I'm also enjoying it more than my Guns character, the Energy weapons in this game just feel rather different to use which is great.

I do agree though that the Van Graff's could've used a bigger inventory of weapons.

The problem is the Damage Treshold system, and the fact that Energy Weapons have no equivalent to Guns Armor Piercing ammunition.

As for ammo, i'm on level 16 and have 1105 Microfusion Cells, about 500 energy cells, and about 700 Electron Charge Packs while still swimming in bottlecaps :blink: The Microfusion Cells alone weigh 110 (whatever unit is used in the game).

I don't think damage thresh-hold is the problem here, remeber the FOUR energy weapons in Fallout 3? Remember how crap they were? Underpowered, pathetic and expensive; then the DLC came with over-powered [censored] like Telsa Cannnons etc.

If it weren't for that god-damn glitch were goo and ash piles don't disappear I'd love them!

No i don't. Propably because i've been playing with overhaul mods for atleast a year now Such things will come for New Vegas too, until then a Gattling Laser is only good for Cazadores

Hrm I must be playing a different game as I've been sniping Deathclaws with a fully modded Laser Rifle (Beam Splitter, Optic Focus and Scope) with a fair amount of success.

Sneak attacks, i take it? Those AFAIK bypass DT completely, making it a viable tactic. Still, you can one shot them with Gauss Rifle, and possibly use less ammo doing so than with a Laser Rifle.

Well I've not yet got my grubby hands on a Gauss Rifle, so I couldn't say as to its effectiveness yet.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something about the sound and feel of using conventional guns that is much more satisfying in FO3 and FNV.

I had a bit of fun with the unique alien blaster in FO3, but ultimately I went back to regular old guns, nuka grenades, missles or the fat man once in a while for kicks.

I went with Wild Wasteland in FNV - does this mean that the Ratslayer gun replaces the Gauss rifle?

I don't know what game you're playing, man. YCVS or whatever the Unique Gauss is called, Plasma Caster, Plasma Defender are all aces.

No, that is there always. With Wild Wasteland...

Sigh... see... someone posted about this and now look? We have fifteen new "hate" threads. Just like radroaches I tell you.

Look, I think they svck too but I still use them because they are nostalgic for me. It's the first weapon type I picked up from fallout games and I still love them. As far as them svcking in Fallout 3? Are you insane? Did you even use the Metal Blaster with better crits and finese with 10 Luck? multiply that by nine, one for each beam and you get some rediculous crit killing machine that uses 1 unit of ammo. Or the Tesla Cannon that shreds apart anythingfor just one ECP. Or the Gauss that did over 100 DMG for one MFC. Or the Alien Blaster or Fire Lance. Or the Protectron's Gaze. The only thing that svcked is that plasma didn't have a gat laser equivalent, or a unique plasma rifle but other than that fallout 3's energy weapons were sick as hell.

This game has some pretty cool concepts like the RCW, caster, and Archimedes II as well as the multiplas. Are they perfect? Hell no. But new concepts and weapons hardly are when they first come out, give the game some time and see after a few patches if this problem hasn't been dealt with.

You think energy weapons svck? What about Explosives that have pretty much no useful perks at all except for Hit The Deck? The other two, Heave Ho only works for thrown, which you won't use much if you need to be precise or for one enemy, and splash damage gets you blowing yourself up even more... and explosives have the SAME DT issue as well as NEVER being able to crit so you know what, svck it up, buttercup.

You're not the only one with these issues and hell, i'm on PS3 so i'm pretty much screwed with no overhaul mods as a PC user has to their advantage. But i've learned to deal with it... I went to use Unarmed and Melee for another character and i'm loving it with my crit build... decimating everything that walks and I have unique moves that are pretty damn insane like the Khan Trick and Ranger Take down.

Learn to appreciate what you have. The aren't that bad, and you can kill things with them... tha'ts the point of a weapon, right? I used to be hot headed about this until I realized that shoot...I did have a lot of ammo for my EW's and you know what... the RCW and Q-35 DID manage to get me through a lot of quests unharmed...

What Fallout 3 were you playing? Energy Weapons were amazing in Fallout 3 (particularly the unique Plasma Rifle). Many of the small guns in Fallout 3 svcked, however.

I agree with the OP. Energy Weapons are definately less efficient to use than Guns, both in damage output and financially.

I've been playing a pure Energy Weapons character, and I've been getting by fairly well. I think my previous character, a guns sniper, was far more powerful, but I'm having fun.



Went solo with my sniper, but having ED-E with this character has been a help.

Fiends are very "generous" about donating energy weapons and ammo to my cause.

One observation: My load times with my EW character are noticeably longer than with my guns sniper. I think it's all the ash and goo piles I leave in my wake. They still don't disappear, just like Fallout 3.

Personally, what makes any particular weapon fun is less about the hard numbers and more about the bang-bang sound & animation vs. the pew pew pew sound / animation.

I hate to break it to you, they svcked in Fallout 3 as well.

Here here. In F3, I ran through the wasteland with a laser pistol, and a laser rifle. Not protectron's gaze, and wazer wifle either. I did fine. Sold everything else except the Gauss, which I carried in case of behemoth. The weapons were solid, reliable weapons, and the damage, range, and accuracy of the laser rifle let me use it as a makeshift sniper's weapon.

In NV, I tried the same. The first time I faced people in actual armor, suddenly I required crits to do any noticable damage to them, and god help me if they were carrying stimpacks and I couldn't get a spree of crits. Just because my lasers had no means of reliably punching through their armor. I switched to an incinerator and a flamer and only looked back sadly at my beloved lasers...because they just didn't work reliably.

An unreliable weapon is a bad weapon.

Yeah the weapons don't really pack enough punch to be good against high DT targets.
The usual response to it is get Gauss Rifle but one shouldn't be forced to play as a sniper just so one doesn't svck.
The game really needs for the plasma weapons to get either an increase in damage or a bonus thing were each shot automatically goes through DT or eats away at it.
Still waiting for that patch Josh. :mellow:

I have the Q-35, needs guass and plasma rifles to repair if you have Jury Rigged Perk I think. And 5K+ units in MFC. I'm a killer twitch player so missing not my thing with it without VATS. Sneak at 100% so yea alot my hits bypass DT. Also 100 in guns and i just use ALL AMERICAN (service rifle from vault 34) rifle for and close fights, kills Cazadors gun and running from them easily... again i hardly miss, no VATS.

But that's just me.

New patch info from sawyer from the thread Madcat has on OC Max charge damage vs. DT.

Source? Exact values of DT bypass?

Did he freaking read my suggestion of -5 DT on OC and -10 DT on MC?

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1141220-screenshot-evidence-that-overchargemaxcharge-means-nothing-to-dt/page__view__findpost__p__16708387

:celebration: I think i'll put my EW chracter on hold until that patch comes along, and play with my tank instead. I get to whine about explosives for a change :lmao:

Going to start a new EW character after the patch.
Hopefully it's balanced and doesn't make EW too powerful though.

Same. I wanted another energy build too but now I'll go Explosives + Melee instead...