Hey,

My first character. Got him maxed in energy weapons. Got plasma rifle with the accelerator mod and am using max charge MFC. It's still taking 20-30 headshots in vats to kill super mutants. I don't remember energy weapons in fallout 3 being this underpowered.

Also the heavy incinerator does almost no damage. It takes almost two or three reloads worth of ammo to kill a single nightkin.

My guns skill is 17 and the light machine gun is doing more damage than my plasma rifle (which is nearly useless) with a maxed energy weapons skill.

Is this a bug, am I missing something, or are energy weapons intended to be this gimped?

I was vaporizing death claws with the multiplas rifle and an energy weapons skill at 85 on hard difficulty, so I was going to say the complete opposite. Alot of energy weapon damage comes from crit strikes, keep that in mind.

Half and half. They are some what "nerfed", but with a few perks and a weapon mod or two, they're amazing.

On a side note, am I the only one that was hoping that energy weapons would be VERY, VERY rare in New Vegas, but REALLY good, just like in Fallout 1 & 2? I remember selling all of my gear in those games to purchase one Energy Weapon and some ammo, then going ape [censored] on everybody.

This is kind of what I've been getting from other threads. I didn't spec for crits and I'm already at level 20, so it seems I might be SOL. I've only got 5 perk choices left.

Might re-roll and play guns. I just hate the thought of loosing progress.

I was shocked when Doc Mitchell simply handed me a laser pistol.

I've never really got into energy weapons. I've always been a fan of guns.

The Laser RCW is really really effective, I've found. It decapitates people in just a few shots. The Pulse Gun is also great on robotic enemies, killing them in one shot. Of course, I have 90 in Energy Weapons. Most other energy weapons aren't really worth using imo but those two guns are more than enough.

The main turn off for guns for me is keeping up with all the various types of ammo. I usually play with mods that add ammo weight in fallout 3, and now with hardcoe mode its official. I just find it annoying.

Anyway. Energy weapons needs lots of luck, finesse, and other critical enhancers to be effective. Would have been nice to know this ahead of time to have made sure to spec my character right.

Oh well.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1128359-question-about-energy-weapons-in-nv/

In my opinion, I don't think they're crap, but just severely nerfed. For instance, a Plasma Pistol should be just about in the same league as a 10mm Pistol when comparing Guns and Energy Weapons, but the 10mm outclasses the Plasma Pistol in every way conceivable. It almost makes me feel like I tagged Energy Weapons for nothing.

I do have good news though, if you're on PC. There's a http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1129210-relz-energy-weapon-de-nerf/ underway that is working on upping the power of Energy Weapons to where it doesn't feel so nerfed. It's still being tested, though.

Alright then. I guess we'll take the discussion over there.

I just stick to two or three guns, and that's more than overkill for versatility anyway.

The "Gauss Rifle Clone" destroys all in its path and uses MF cells if I remember right in FNV. It's my most prized weapon of all, and it's an energy weapon. Sends enemies flying backwards and wipes out most in 1 shot. I'll think of the real name when I play FNV next round.

Why would anyone anywhere want to use any other gun besides 'This Machine'?

*PING*


-Edit-
Unless you run out of .308 ammo.. which I frequently do X)

I have noticed that energy weapons lack a bit of the awe-inspiring power they had in FO3, but I wouldn't say they are as weak as you make them out to be. I was able to take down a nightkin with about 25 rounds from the regular incinerator, and my energy weapons skill is at 65. This doesn't seem to me an unreasonable amount of resources to spend on such a tough enemy, given my skill level.

Is the Prius a peice of junk? Yes... same goes with battery powered weapons.. i'd rather use a BB Gun with metal pellets.

a very good energy weapon is the rcw it looks like a tommy gun you can get it from the silver rush

This. "This Machine" is the Lincoln's Repeater of Fallout New Vegas IMO. Its an unstoppable force with a high guns skill. And FYI, it isnt hard to find .308 ammo. Contrera in Camp McCarren has over 800 rounds of it for sell most days.

I wouldn't say they're crap. Sure they're weak as hell, but they're also worth quite a bit. They bought me the AMR, that's for sure.

The only energy weapon I use is the Pulse Gun, and I think that one needs a bit of toning down. One shot to any robot.....

I could have accepted them more if they didn't have such ridiculous ammo consumption.
6 MFC to fire ONE Multiplas shot... Which is hard as hell to hit with if you're not using VATS....
3 EC to fire ONE Defender shot.... Which is hard as hell to hit with if you're not using VATS....
4 MFC to fire ONE Guass shot.... Which is only useful for the first enemy since it's so loud that it makes every other enemy in the area rush towards one's location.
45 ECP to fire ONE Tesla shot.... Which has one hell of a reloading time....

I just think that it was very uncreative of them to just raise the ammo consumption for the weapons.
Would rather have completely new ammo types instead.

And uhm.
I don't like to use VATS.
And Plasma weapons are not easy to hit with if you don't use VATS and use anologue sticks.
Laser weapons become inferior at higher levels.
Fire weapons seems to lose their touch at higher levels.
And the one-shotters, Gauss and Tesla, have ridiculous reloading times which are a pain in the ass when you're swarmed by 5 gecko's.

Seriously, for higher levels it seems that it's "meant" to use plasma weapons.
But plasma weapons are a pain in the ass to use because of their enormous ammo consumption and slow projectiles.
I feel that it's entire weapon class is very biased towards VATS usage.

So if you don't like to use VATS, like me, then the weapon class is really nerfed. (imo I guess)
I know they wanted to make them more accessible for players at the start, but if this is the downside they had to use to balance it then I'd rather have EW be rare as hell and really powerful rather than somewhat common and nerfed.

I got the Prototype Gun at the crash site it was hard and took a few tries cause even if I told Veronica to STAY PUT she would still disobey my orders and try to aid me when I was fighting a bunch of freakin Military Butler Robots/Sentry Bots. I used 2 Holy Frag Grenades. Which are RARE! they are in a Radioactive Church Cellar "Spoiler". The Crash Site i found a Plasma Cannon prototype which is EPIC. was hard to get Sniper Rifle criticals on all of them before they killed veronica I had to chase after her giving her Stimpacks it was very stressful on HARD MODE. I don't even use the Gun runs of Micro Fusion Cells. Couldn't use Vats had Steady Withdraws and Food Starvations. and crap.

Super mutants can be kind of ridiculous, depending on who you're fighting.

I was shocked when I stole EVERY ITEM FROM SILVER RUSH WITH ALL THAT SECURITY ON GUARD. I did the whole Sneak and Steal and grab and toss the item over her shoulder routine. I was even more shocked that these people Sold Energy Weapons!!!! Too just Any Wasteland Stranger....So what did I do I killed them all and don't feel bad about it. Only the Brotherhood has Permission to carry these type of guns. Doc your on my Shh-hit List now! Your lucky I needed that gun for the Brotherhood Gun Merchant Mission : You will get your Come upins!!!! Soon enough!

My Favorite Quest was the Church of Ghouls mission I was nice and helped them Course the right path instead of colliding them into eachother. The Nightkins was a Pain giving me stupid mission loaded with Bear Crap Traps under ground you have no way of seeing which 3 was glitched under the floor for me. Nightkins and there Stealthboys they are the Gayest Supermutants ever.

P.S. I haven't ran into any Super Mutants yet But I've killed Dozens of Deathclaws at a mere LV 12 the only weapon that works is my MODDED Sniper Rifle. XD Frags bounce right off them and back at you resulting in many Bizarre Deaths.

My First Raid was Vault 3 XD resulting in killing the Boss is one shot Critical with a Special Scoped Magnum of some kind that uses 7GOV40 or something type ammo. I got his Chainsaw and killed almost every Great Khan in that area, not with the Chainsaw now. My First Encounter was these Bada$$ glowing Flys which took me 20 minutes of dying to kill them all the laser tommy gun rcv helped. I got the RED AXE and that owned GREAT KHANS!!!!! I even killed some NCRS trying to break into there armory. that reminds me. Got to go! XD

O.o

say, i was noticing something a little unsettling about the energy weapons myself, specifically the laser rifle. i loved the laser rifle dearly in fallout 3 and little billy's wazer wifle was my primary weapon. i was geeked when i saw that you could put on mods and enhancements in this game and so i put on the beam-splitter and the focusing lens. what i want to know is: do these items wear your laser out faster? because i thought it was the overcharge ammo before, as i had used some of that too. but now i just have the regular old microfusion cells in there and i think my laser rifle was good and worn down after about 3 clips. am i doing it wrong?