Judging from the vastly increased variety of energy weapons available that we've seen, I'm thinking that energy weapons may be a viable starting tag skill this time around, unlike most other Fallout games.

Devs, how easy will it be to gain an "entry level" energy weapon near the start of the game? Will we be able to keep pace with those who choose http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_weapons#Firearms?

consider energy weapons are still seen as being "fancy" weapons I doubt you can pick one up in the starter town, but a bit later in I′m sure they start popping up.

Apparently, depending on the result your get on the Rorscach(?) test at the start of the game, you get a different weapon, a Laser Pistol among them.

But the first weapon I'm trying to get is the Marksman Carbine. Or amybe the Recharger Rifle.

From the looks of things, the Recharger Rifle looks like it's cobbled together pieces. It may be a craftable.

You mean the player gets starting gear depending on what they're tagged skills are (though the Rorschach determines what your tagged skills are right?), like if you tag Energy Weapons, Doc Mitchell gives you a laser pistol to start out with.

Ahhh, goood ole Colonel Tigh http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Michael_Hogan.

Looks likely, while I understand the idea of making energy weapons difficult to obtain it is a little irritating, you have to tag a skill which will likely be useless for a huge portion of the game (less so in FO3 tbf). Having energy weapons as a viable choice alongside firearms makes a lot more sense, especially with the bug guns being split up so 'small arms' isn't just a poor mans energy weapons, they can get pretty tough too.

Since the weapons are now tiered, as well as how Obsidian has basically said before that they feel Energy weapons hasn't worked great before (due to its limited supply at the start of the game), I'm pretty sure they will feel more viable from the start this time around.

I kinda liked it that Energy weapons felt rare at first but I understand if they change it for gameplay reasons.

I could find Energy Weapons in FO3 in SuperDuper Mart in the very early part of the game. The weapon was about the same as the gun I had with me at the time. I see no reason as to why they should not be availible early on.

I was going to say that. There was this Laser pistol in SuperDuper Mart. But I have to agree that is kinda lame to find them earlier, in FO2 it wasn't easy and Energy Weapons were actually something wonderful and very powerful, usually rare or expensive that you would give up all your guns for one.

Which is kind of why it was frustrating to tag Energy Weapons at the beginning of the games. It's kind of annoying to have to wait over half the game to finally get a gun your character can actually be competent with. It'd be like tagging small guns, but then only finding melee weapons until halfway through your playthrough.

And you could pick up the laser pistol in Super Duper Mart, and I can't remember but maybe you could pick up a laser rifle off the dead brotherhood knights when you first go to GNR, but I can't remember how plentiful the ammo was towards the beginning of he game, since you didn't really run into many people using energy weapons.

In FO3 I saw no reason to drop my 10 MM for the Laser Pistol that was in the Mart, couple that with the rarity of the ammo, that kind of put the brakes on pursuing energy weapons for most of my characters. Later on in the game I would use a few energy weapons but by then my skill was so low relative to the other weapons, that I just never saw the need to use them.

I think what there should be is low level energy weapons at the beginning of the game if you choose to use them, but only the powerful fun ones later on in the game. The early weapons would offer no real advantages in damage/accuracy/range over the pedestrian chemical weapons that you can get early on. Perhaps tie this to the condition of the weapon as a low level character would not be expected to have a high repair skill to boost the performance through repairs.

E-weap ammo really isn't rare, it's just... expensive. Loot the Robco factory for all its worth to get a healthy stock of ammo early on. Only mole rats and roaches at that point.

Beyond that, the only things that the 10mm pistol has up on the laser pistol is ease of repair and a less sticky trigger (lessened with proper upkeep). Durability is superior, accuracy is superior, damage is superior, mag size is superior.

The gun I have problems keeping fed is the Assault Rifles. I'm swimming in E-cells and MF cells.

You could go with energy weapons in Fallout 3, it was just expensive and you didn't get nothing but a crappy laser pistol for quite a few levels.

I think that they will be more common early on as said above due to weapons being tiered but also because there are already more known energy weapons in the game then there was in F3. It allows them to have some common junk energy weapons early and then some much better ew's later.

It all depends on both how cheap small cells are this time and on thier being common enough badguys early on that actualy use laser pistols ands thus have both the weapon and its ammo on them.

It also depnds on how soon we can get ahold of plasma pistols as we will need those vs armored foes...

And finaly it depends on them not being as silly as the fo1-2 devs were on the weight of energy ammo.

Well as stated before and confirmed by J.S. himself, you can recieve a laser pistol at the very beginning of the game if Energy Weapons is your tag skill.

Also, I agree with Madcat's statement about Energy weapon ammo. I saw it as a more expensive resource rather than a much rarer one. I can recall trying to buy microfusion cells but was shocked at its price compared to 10mm or 5.56 (but its pretty obvious as to why its so expensive)

In FO3 I don't think it was too hard to find the ammo, just alot harder to buy it. When I focused on looking for energy weapon ammo it wasn't that hard.
I'm sure it'll be the same for New Vegas. You just simply have to know where to start looking.