A few months ago a started an Energy Weapons Trooper character and hes just now reached level 33. This entire time I've been having massive ammunition problems, which are beginning to really tick me off...

I used to use normal ammunition but it wasn't packing enough punch (I play on Hard) so I switched and converted most of it to Overcharged. The problem is, I can only find bulk ammunition, and I currently only have charged! You can't convert those into others! Basically I have like 1,500 Energy Cell Bulk, 1,000 MFC Bulk, and a like 1,000 of each Overcharged (Which I'm saving for the final battle). I've gone to around 6 or 7 shops that cell EW ammunition and all I've found was a few packages of bulk and maybe 100 MFC/ Energy Cells. I am completely out of Electron Charge Packs and have absolutely no way to get them, its really starting to frustrate me... You don't eat up gun ammo that quickly!

My second major problem with energy weapons is how they consume ammo... I recently attained Pew Pew, which I was greatly excited to use, and greatly disappointed upon attaining... It has 30 ammunition and it fires 2 shots... WTH?!? What a freaking waste of ammo! The power of this thing does not, in the slightest, make it worth using. It eats up Energy Cells like like Elephants do Peanuts! The Plasma Defender I can deal with, because it kinda fits for the power. Same with the Gauss Rifle (Even though this causes ammunition problems), and most of the other guns. But Pew Pew uses 15?!? I don't understand why they can't all have reasonable costs... The Gatling Laser is 1 per shot, why can't they all be like that?

Energy weapons are the worst (And most fun) weapons to use, unfortunately. With Guns I could do quite a few runs before I had to grab more ammuntion but due to the weight vs ammo cost of each weapon, I might run out of ammo for a single weapon in ONE DUNGEON! This is ridiculous with 9 strength (290 Carry Weight). Alright, well thats about all I have to say, this might be a little late for complaining but I felt like it needed to be said.

No, EW is miles better than explosive. With addition of Holorifle, you can throw all your Gunz away.

You can convert energy cells, so at vendors just buy any type and turn it into whatever you use at workbench.

Pew Pew is a ammo hodge, it isn't suppose to be your "bread n' butter" weapon.

And no, I don't found guns any better in very hard; after patch Plasma weapons does very well.

A lot of fiends drop ECP if you feel like grinding

I have to question what perks and stats you have, all the problems you describe never happen for me. Large stockpiles of energy ammo can be found a the silverrush, the hooverdam quarter master and oddly enough the Khans armorer. Pew Pew deals about as much damage per shot as the alien blaster and can achieve a 100% critical rate, that's why it costs so much to fire. Are you investing in Luck and other critical boosters, energy weapons tend to have a higher critical rate so you need to take advantage of that. The regular laser rifle has about as much fire power as the much hailed Marksman Carbine, the unique laser rifle the AER14 is an absolute beast, its quite postible to have a 70 to 80% critical chance with that weapon.

From the sounds of your post, the problem still lies with you don't know how to use them yet.

Also the laser beam splitter mod is still bugged so don't put it on any laser rifles.

I'm actually having no problems with ammunition. I personally use a combination of Bulk and Max Charged cells: Bulk for regular use; MC in the event of needing more damage for enemies added via mods. The combination works out pretty nicely for me. At the start of a playthrough, I really have to be cautious about my ammo. However, at my character's current stage, it really is no longer a factor.

Have you tried force resetting the vendors? I.E. Saving near one, exiting the game, and reloading? That is suppose to force reset vendors to have new stock. I usually do that a few times just to stock up on certain types of ammo and be on my way. The Khan Vendor's for Bulk Energy Cells where as the Van Graffs are for everything else.

As for the Pew Pew, it has it's advantages and disadvantages. I'll just quote what I said on a previous thread:



Contrarily to what you said, I think it does a nice job at damage. If it can sneak attack kill a Deathclaw on Hard, I say the damage is right. That may just be me though. It's not recommended as a primary weapon, and honestly, never should due to said ammo consumption.

Overall, I think they fit the bill really nicely for me. They aren't useless, especially not after patches. Heck, there's even a patch coming up that make them even more powerful though it's probably more geared towards Explosives.



Hey, it's got double the crit chance since each beam has a chance to crit. It's a trade-off, albeit to a bug, but hey, I'm just used to using it so much that it doesn't really bother me.

I noticed this in one of my recent games, but I think the problem was partly due to the mods I had running, I think one of them reduces the posible ammount of ammo in normal boxes and vendors.

overcharge ammo is rare and not necessary anyway, i use EW and never run out of ammo, convert energy cells to microfusion cells, even buy energy cells, to convert to microfusion cells, the doctor at novac always has energy cells for sale, the merchant in the dinosaur has some all the time, gunrunners, the great khans armory merchant has tons of ammo, the ncr seargent at the dam has plenty, the old guy in primm, you have to make rounds to the merchants, i always had a huge stockpille of all energy weapons ammo, but use other weapons sometimes and you'll have loads of all kinds of ammo. hit up all the merchants, trading post 188, old prospectors den merchant, even the goodspinrgs merchant has a little energy weapons ammo.

The splitter is supposed to increase the damage by 30% and divide the damage among two beams, which is an advantage against foes with a low DT. But a disadvantage against armored enemies as the DT is applied to each beam. However, thats not what it does it divides the among 3 beams without increasing the overall punch, the extra chance to critical is meaningless as each critical deals only 1/3 of what it used to. So there IS zero advantage to using the modification.

Meh, for NV they're screwed, I just hope they get them right in FO4.

You're switching between 2 and 3 here so I'll just assume you mean 2 along with "a half" instead of "a third" as the Splitter Beam splits into two, not three.

Again, I've gotten so used to using it that it doesn't really affect me. Then again, it's a Splitter Beam on an AER14 nowadays instead of a Laser Rifle. I have noticed the damage reduction, obviously with the Laser Rifle, as foes that I was suppose to break DT, withstood shots with the Splitter Beam. 'sides, I thought I saw somewhere that criticals bypass DT. I could be wrong of course, I could of read it incorrectly or I could just be spouting BS.

Edit: Just think of me as an illogical person who pays no mind to disadvantages.

Edit #2: Hmm.. well now that I read the mod description again, it could be 2 or 3 beams. Creates two beams to me sounds like just splitting one into two, not making a new beam and splitting that. Also, I would like to note that WMX, Weapon Mods Expanded, takes the former as it adjusts the value of the Splitter Beam to make it 2 beams, not 3, so this is where my point of view / experience is based off of.

I have extensively tested just about every single Energy Weapon I could find and I currently stick with YCS Gauss Rifle, Plasma Defender, and the Gatling Laser. I know how to use Energy Weapons, I tend to stick with headshots, though, which is why I have YCS. I don't have any problems with combat, I destroy the majority of enemies outright with "Nuclear" critical hits (Meltdown ftw) 70% of the time when not sneaking. I have every Energy Weapons perk I could get, I guess I just don't need to use so much Max Charged ammo so I have stuff for conversion. The Gatling Laser just eats all my ammo away! And as for Pew Pew.. I was kinda expecting a good side arm so I could ditch the Plasma Defender I've been using since level 8. I just can't stand weapons with low clips... I toss all the low clip weapons on Borderlands, lol.

And as for those people having adequate stockpiles of EW ammo, I disagree. I have found maybe 300 or so total OF ALL TYPES of ammunition at all the vendors. Maybe I just have horrible luck when it comes to inventory spawns.

Regarding the Explosives patch. I'm rather excited for that because I want a reason to go back to my Explosives/ Unarmed character named Brick.

Last, my biggest problem with the ammo is the weight. Damage per Weight of Ammuntion is much lower then Guns. A single shot of a sniper costs .05 in weight where a shot with the Gauss Rifle costs .4. Therein lies my biggest aggravation. I know that a single shot with the AMR costs .5 BUT that weapon is much easier to get headshots with for some reason.

For some odd reason, the Beam Splitter sometimes produce three projectiles instead of two (bug).

As for 30% increase in damage, it does works out if you consider critical (i.e. +30% damage in total). However it is misleading, I think they just need to fix up the text into "producing 2 laser beam to increase chance for critical).

And no, critical don't bypass DT, it is add on top of damage before block by DT, so it could pass through 80% absolute resist; unlike ammo multiplier which is done after DT, and overrided by 80% absolute resist.


Gatling Laser is horrible compare to Laser RCW, seems to me you haven't try everything yet. And what about Incinerators? they are very fuel efficient, dealing DOT and AOE damage, capable of rapid fire and long range barrage. Then we have is Multiplas, a very brutal weapon that one shot most things to goo.

300 is more than enough, really. Of course you can't compare that to 7k 5.56m and 3k .308, but EW cells is suppose to be rare.

Gauss rifle have a very small and fast projectile that can pass through hit boxes at times (a bug from FO3 actually).

As for ammo weight, it is pretty minor consider you don't have much to begin with, however I would like to see if patched.

The Heavy Incinerators damage just didn't add up in my loadout. You are correct about the Laser RCW, however, I was considering trading out the GL for it.

Actually, on your Pip-Boy, it details as 3 vanilla-wise. The value that the Splitter Beam works on is pretty much dividing how many beams you want to have. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y123/celica62/New%20Vegas/SplitterBeam1.png. The Vanilla says two while WMX says one. This relates into x3 and x2 on your Pip-Boy respectively and the damage scales as well per added beam. That's how the current Splitter Beam should work. So obviously, you can be crazy and make the AER14 have 10 beams but if you aren't doing crits every hit, it's a bit pointless. For the heck of it,http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y123/celica62/New%20Vegas/enb2011_2_28_23_50_40.jpg, which translates to a value of 9 in FNVEdit. Note that with 2 beams, it's 35.9 damage.

Honestly, if they didn't say creates two beams for increased damage, and just said splits the darn thing into two while keeping the damage and/or doubling the crit, I would buy that a lot more and we wouldn't be addressing whether or not it's a bug... They still need to fix it to match the description though.

And I guess I heard wrong. I swear though, with the WMX AER14, it really doesn't matter haha. It rips through anything and everything, even with Splitter Beam, even the Super Mutants in Wasteland Defense which are pretty much the Albino Radscorpions of Fallout 3 if you want a comparison health wise.

I would use energy weapons if whenever I got a critical hit there wouldn't be a permanent pile of goo/ash.

Well whenever I get one body parts and green lights fly everywhere

And does it really matter how the splitter works?!? Use the Tri-Beam laser rifle if you want splitters, if not stick to the normal one.

...Of course it does. If it's a feature by the game, it needs to work properly as described in the description. Shutting out viable options isn't the way to go in a RPG.

Not sure hot it "didn't add up". It isn't a one-shot weapon, but a multi-role multi-purpose butter-toast weapon. Of course, now that you are in the later stage of the game, with everything available, you wouldn't want to drag a 15lbs weapon if you can help it.


Because each of the 10 beams can crit for 35 damage?

In the end, the Beam Spliter Mod do work to a degree, making Laser rifle a worthwhile early-mid game weapon.

To find ammunition, check out:

Cliff Briscoe in Novac
The Pawn Shop in West Vegas
Great Khan Armorer (a LOT of Electron Charge packs)
Brotherhood of Steel after you've joined them.

Though yeah, energy weapons vs. armored opponents can be annoying. Very few energy weapons can shoot through DT without it being a huge problem.

Nah. Even with just 2 beams, which is what WMX has it at, and I intend to continue to use it at that, it kicks butt with MC ammo. 10 beams was just for ____ and giggles, just to note how the Splitter Beam gets it beam count.

Yeah right MC cells, not punny bulk ammo.

Bulk ammo is for mercy killing / humiliating; MC ammo is for legitimate foes. Legitimate foes come far and few and most of them are from mods. Deathclaws are literally between bulk and MC ammo for me though I tend to use MC ammo more against them.

I don't count sponges "legitimate", so far MMMs just mere elongate the wonky combat (which was short in vanilla so it is harder to feel). If I need to satisfy my murder thirst in form of NV I just teleport myself to the Villa.

My point is I made this thread to discuss what I disliked about energy weapons and you guys are going off talking about an argument thats been going on for a VERY long time... Probably gonna get flamed for saying it but thats what I'm thinking. How about I come to your thread talking about how explosives are underpowered and start talking about how High Velocity missiles are pointless?

Villa's pretty standard overall though once you get the hang of the Ghost People compared to your weapons. Challenging at first but it becomes standard play afterwards for me. This is after Bear Trap'ing and somehow Police Pistol'ing through Dead Money on separate characters. 3rd one is Spear'ing for the most part though the Holorifle is taking over at the end. I wonder how the AER14 fares against Ghost People.. probably as well as the Holorifle.

Sponges are half-legitimate. Of course, I rarely bring out the Super Mutants. Ghouls are probably the more reasonable enemy in Wasteland Defense but only slightly more reasonable. Then again, it's probably because I put a heavy handicap so more Ghouls = more damage taken. I think the Ghoul Leader is ~500 - 600 HP-ish. Half a Sponge in essence. Next down the ladder would be BoS enemies...



I know you're trying to re-rail this thread and all but we're just having side conversation here. You haven't seem to read the recent posts as we pretty much went away from it to what we're talking about now.

Also your example is flawed in the sense that you're talking about explosives in general and therefore, mentioning high velocity missiles is making it more specific.

...Honestly, sorry if you want your thread to be on topic. If you want Valke and I to take it somewhere else, fine..