Something I've been thinking about for a while.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the main reason why I have difficulty giving any weapons but Guns a fair chance is silencers. Once you get your hands on even the puny Silenced .22 pistol, your caps and equipment problems go away. Generic Powder Gangers can be killed and their gear taken with no reputation or karma loss. Upgrade to a silenced Varmint rifle, and you can harvest armor-clad NCR and Legion soldiers without alienating their factions. With Jury Rigging, the cap gains are gigantic, since NCR armor worth 300 caps can be used to repair Combat Armor, Reinforced worth 8000 caps, and Service Rifles worth 700 caps can repair LMGs and Marksman Carbines worth 5200 caps- and the investment is minimal. Hell, I've been known to assassinate all NCR soldiers at the Mojave Outpost just to stop them from stealing the food and drink from the shelves- and not a point of NCR reputation lost.

On the other hand, with Energy Weapons there is no option for silent assassination that I can see- and that is the weapon group in which supply issues are the most acute. From time to time people mention that "some" Energy weapons are silent, but I'm yet to hear which ones. Grenade-in-pants is a deficient substitute- harder to pull off, you can't use it in a crowded room and the caps-per-kill investment is much more significant. Plus there's few non-Fiends wielding Energy Weapons.

I think there should be some sort of silencers for EW OR an anti-cheating measure against over-exploiting silencers.

LASER Weapons should be naturally "silent". The beam makes no sound (it may burn air on it's path, but the amount is so small it shouldn't make much more noise than a silenced gun), is not visible (or should not be visible unless in dusty envronment) and the mechanism in the gun shouldn't make much, if any, noise either.

But in games LASER = Pew pew

Good ol' SCIENCE at work there, possibly

And no silencers don't break the game. The sniper rifle and 12.7mm guns are the only good ones. 10mm is decent. The .22 and varmit rifle are terrible once you get to about novac, or once you get to level 10.

EDIT: the .45 pistol from HH is pretty good too. And also every situation does not call for silenced weapons.

But I'm not talking about combat here. I'm talking about the ability to harvest non-hostile, respawning generic NPCs for gear, with no consequences and virtually no caps investment.

No, because you can occasionally get decent armor from it. If you want power armor you will not be sneak attack sniping to get it. Either quests or killing.

The best armor I can think of is the NCR vet ranger armor, otherwise I have no other use for killing allies without them noticing.

Never even figured trying something like that. Like in Fallout 3; when in need, raid the raiders fiends :hehe:

They are silent. Ever been shot at by one from afar? You only hear a slight burning sound of whatever it hits.

The difference is that if a silenced pistol shoots at someone, they don't hear anything and they can't trace the shot. A laser is a giant [censored] beam of light that basically says "look that way."

A Laser beam is invisible unless it passes trough smoke or dust or something like that. And even then the beam is on for so little time the enemy wouldn't have time to see where it came from.

Still... IMO, for the sake of gameplay the "gun" should make some sort of discharge pop or noise ~even a camera flash makes noise.

Most lasers today are invisible to us as they pass through the infrared spectrum, but there are visible ones - http://www.rp-photonics.com/visible_lasers.html

Fallout definately has SCIENCE going for it on this one though.

no, but i do believe fylencers car flame quakers

I always thought the gun made the sound! I mean of course, the beam wouldn't make any noise other than a slight burning noise that would be undetectable to most, if not all types of enemies.

As for the beam being not visible, remember it's an incredibly high intensity beam, probably in the visible light spectrum, you know, like a Kipkay laser on steroids. Besides, the beam itself is quite long if you pause the game with the console or see a slow-mo cam in V.A.T.S.

The gun probably does make quite a lot of noise. It's a little hard to generate a beam that can burn a Super Mutant without making noise you know...
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Back on topic, no silencers aren't over powered. That's the point of a silencer! Silencers are supposed to keep you incognito when you're deep in enemy territory. I can't count the number of times my silenced Light in Shining Darkness(it's a mod that allows unique weapons to be modded) saved me when I was infiltrating the Fort. NUMEROUS times I tell you.

And you know what? You need a great sneak skill to do what you described anyways and by the time you have 100 sneak and 100 guns, you already have more than enough ways to make caps by gambling, stealing, or bartering. Really, silencers are for those who like to avoid combat or kill a member of a faction without losing reputation.

My point would be it's a single player game. You can't really cheat. You can work the in game exploits if you want. Or choose not to if you don't.

Seriously, what are you spending money on that you need to farm anything in this game. Sure the implants are a little pricey but I never had any problem earning enough money just killing regular bad guys. By Level 15-20 I usually have all the useful implants bought up and I only ever sell things because I hate to just leave expensive gear laying around to rot. Unless you've got some OCD compulsion to have a few sacks of money piled up just relax and enjoy the game;).

Huh, learned something new today, and it's only 3 am :hehe:

If you mean stealing armor than no. My first character did it with about 20 sneak. You just climb away from the NCR vet ranger. Shoot head with silenced sniper rifle. he will run around, shoot him again.



Isn't learning great?

For every one person who wants invisible lasers, you have a thousand who'd think it was stupid. You want to see energy weapons in action otherwise how can you tell the difference between it and a gun?

I'm glad Laser/Plasma is silent to make up for lack of energy weapon silencers!

Silenced guns are necessary for stealth builds. Far from being overpowered, without the benefit of long range attacks they seem underpowered to me.

But then again... I would never 'harvest' non-hostile factions. If anything, the ability to mass murder factions without karma/reputation loss is the game breaker.

If you think silencers are game breaking just wait till you find out about the Sierra Madre Vending Machine.

Killing NPCs for low-end gear to repair high-end loot... lol, so small-time.

Well, isn't the "gamebreaking" Energy Weapon equivalent the Recharger Pistol and Rifle? They have unlimited ammo, more damage then the Silenced .22 pistol, and a Recharger Rifle is sold by Chet in Goodsprings. And don't get me started on the Boxing Tape and Dynamite.