» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:32 am A side note: A strong contributing factor to the nerfyness of energy weapons is the fact that their ammunition is uncommon (you will have to buy most of what you use; and it's expensive), and there is no "benefits only" energy weapon ammo. You can break down gun cartridges and remake them into better flavors with only a small cost in materials: making high energy ammunition costs either 3 or 5 times more in resources for a damage increase coupled with rather serious maintenance problems. So the issue with Energy Weapons isn't only the weapons, it's what goes into them as well.
Energy weapons: Pistols
Plasma defender: Energy's alternative to the .44 Magnum. Except it isn't. It does a similar amount of damage, but is hard to use at long range, expensive to repair (unless you have the overpowered Jury Rigging), breaks fairly quickly, and consumes a painful 3 E-cells per shot. Becomes a moderately-to-highly powerful weapon if you use Max Charge ammo (several Guns do more damage, but none can match its cyclic rate), but now you're burning the equivalent of 15 E-cells per shot. One of the better all-around energy weapons which is just sad.
Plasma pistol: A total joke. Hard to hit with, and compared to a .357 pistol, does less damage while costing considerably more in ammo.
Laser pistol: Energy's equivalent to a 9mm pistol. It does less damage than the 9mm but not a huge amount less, and like all the laser weapons it has a good rate of fire and very high accuracy. This one is more of a tradeoff than a redheaded step child. Except for the ammo bill, which still involves paying quite a bit more than its tactical relative on the Guns side.
Energy weapons: Rifles
Gauss rifle: powerful, very long range. What's not to like? This is pretty much the poster child of energy weapons, and it is undeniably one of the better ones. But it's still rare, extremely inconvenient with the constant reloading, and while it packs more single-hit power than anything that doesn't blow up, it costs more to use and has less sustainable damage output than its tactical cousin the sniper rifle. Loaded with Max Charge ammo this is basically the answer to Deathclaws, for which you are spending the equivalent of 25 MF-cells per shot and good luck finding parts for this thing.
Laser RCW: Finally, an undeniably inarguably good energy weapon! This thing absolutely rocks... as long as you're shooting at something that doesn't have any armor. Fairly low damage per shot coupled to a blistering rate of fire and high accuracy, easy to get parts for, and it uses the cheap-and-cheerful ECW as ammo. Guns has the SMGs, but with their wild inaccuracy they just can't keep up. Plan on giving yours a name. You'll be seeing a lot of it.
Laser rifle: From the high to low. This weapon is literally pointless. The RCW does the same damage, weighs less, uses cheaper ammo, and shoots a hell of a lot faster. You can add a scope and some bling to the barrel, but why do you care about +3 damage when the RCW shoots cheaper ammo ten times faster.
Plasma rifle: From low to total joke. The Cowboy Repeater does a similar amount of damage, with longer effective range, cheaper ammo, common replacements, and less weight.
Recharger rifle: The damage on this is predictably pathetic, but the fact that you will never need ammo for it is a nice bonus. Well, no, not a bonus it's really the entire point. Worth carrying to dispatch all the minor enemies in your path that aren't threatening enough to spend your expensive ammunition on. Also fairly cheap to repair, thankfully, since this thing wears out at a fast pace with all the trigger-time it takes to kill things. Curiously heavy.
Multiplas rifle: it's.... a very very expensive plasma shotgun. Inaccurate, decent damage married to miserable rate of fire and obscene ammo consumption. Like the plasma rifle, it's rendered basically irrelevant by the Cowboy Repeater, which only shoots 1 bullet a time but shoots them fast, far, and cheap. Might be worth carrying for room by room clearing thanks to its high up-front single-shot power, but this is the only thing it's good at.
Tribeam laser rifle: See "laser rifle", and add more sarcasm.
Energy weapons: Big stuff
Flamer: A pretty good weapon if you don't have Pyromaniac, and an amazing weapon if you do. Consumes oceans of fuel and wears out kind of fast, but this will work on just about anything. Less good for big targets, completely unstoppable on hordes of small ones. Guns doesn't really have anything like this at all.
Gatling laser: This weapon wanted to be the Laser RCW but got lost along the road. It has a ridiculous rate of fire, but the low damage just ends up costing you a lot more ammo to accomplish the same thing that the RCW does. The only thing that saves its guns-brother the Minigun is the 5mm AP ammo.... which the gatling laser can't get.
Incinerator/Heavy Incinerator: Like the flamer, good if you don't have Pyromaniac, and amazing if you do. This one is very ammo efficient, and is basically an automatic "I win!" if you can get the high ground on an opponent. The lethality and ease of use of this thing is what the Grenade Launcher wants to be when it grows up.
Energy weapons: uniques
Spoiler
Plasma caster: A fine weapon. It is powerful, accurate, and only uses 1 of your precious MF cells per shot. This is basically what the plasma rifle should have been.
Pulse gun: overpowered for what it does, and utterly useless otherwise. Guns has nothing like it, but the sheer twinkynes of this makes me hesitant to call this a "win" for Energy Weapons.
Pew Pew: The laser pistol and the sniper rifle had a baby. Does good damage, but burns ammo at an absolutely horrifying pace and is unsuitable for close quarters fighting due to the constant reloading. This one wins the "fastest way to waste money" award: if you convert your E-cells to Max Charge E-cells, you can spend the equivalent of 65 rounds per shot to accomplish what the AMR does with one!
Buy yourself a gauss rifle. Or get a:
YCS/186: An incremental upgrade over the gauss rifle with no negative side effects. Known to the State of California to cause head explosions.
AER-14 prototype: Didn't you already throw away your laser rifle? Why are you even looking at this thing. Go pick up an RCW, it will annihilate anything that this weapon is capable of scratching.
Q-35 Matter Modulator: Better than the plasma rifle in every way, which makes it easy to overlook just how mediocre this weapon really is. The Trail Carbine does more damage at a longer range, costs less to shoot, and has specialty ammo available that won't melt your gun. Again one of the better "all around" energy weapons which is just sad.
Tesla-Beaton cannon prototype: Do you want a godly weapon offering unparalleled damage that leaves your opponents splattered across the landscape, at the cost of having to reload after every shot? Yes? Then go buy a gauss rifle.
Plasma caster: A fine weapon. It is powerful, accurate, and only uses 1 of your precious MF cells per shot. This is basically what the plasma rifle should have been.
Pulse gun: overpowered for what it does, and utterly useless otherwise. Guns has nothing like it, but the sheer twinkynes of this makes me hesitant to call this a "win" for Energy Weapons.
Pew Pew: The laser pistol and the sniper rifle had a baby. Does good damage, but burns ammo at an absolutely horrifying pace and is unsuitable for close quarters fighting due to the constant reloading. This one wins the "fastest way to waste money" award: if you convert your E-cells to Max Charge E-cells, you can spend the equivalent of 65 rounds per shot to accomplish what the AMR does with one!
Buy yourself a gauss rifle. Or get a: YCS/186: An incremental upgrade over the gauss rifle with no negative side effects. Known to the State of California to cause head explosions.
AER-14 prototype: Didn't you already throw away your laser rifle? Why are you even looking at this thing. Go pick up an RCW, it will annihilate anything that this weapon is capable of scratching.
Q-35 Matter Modulator: Better than the plasma rifle in every way, which makes it easy to overlook just how mediocre this weapon really is. The Trail Carbine does more damage at a longer range, costs less to shoot, and has specialty ammo available that won't melt your gun. Again one of the better "all around" energy weapons which is just sad.
Tesla-Beaton cannon prototype: Do you want a godly weapon offering unparalleled damage that leaves your opponents splattered across the landscape, at the cost of having to reload after every shot? Yes? Then go buy a gauss rifle.
So let's recap. We have the gauss rifle, the RCW, and the fire throwers, which are very fine weapons and kill whatever you point them at in an efficient manner. But the thing is that they are all specialist weapons. The gauss is a sniper rifle of sniper rifles: You can kill just about anything with one shot, but you better hit with that one shot because you can only shoot once ever three seconds. The RCW is an energy-SMG that rips apart soft targets but is not capable of appreciably damaging things with tough armor/skin. And the flame weapons are either short-range panic buttons or artillery. And then you have all the other energy weapons. Some of them are decent all-arounders which can't quite match Guns, but most are several shades of pathetic. They work; they will kill the enemy; but compared to Guns, they cannot kill as quickly or cost-effectively. The only way to make most of the energy weapons shine is to min-max your character for critical hits, and in the end you're left with weapons that are as effective (not more effeictive) than regular old bullet-throwers... but cost you a lot more in perks and stats to get there, and a lot more in caps to buy their ammo and repairs.
With the exception of the specialist weapons, very expensive novelties.
