Hey all.

I've been thinking of doing another play through with a Energy weapons build. But I've heard from a few people that Energy weapons have been nerfed.

I was wondering if this was true, and if so, would it be worth it to use this mod:
http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35240

I'd like my energy weapons to be balanced though. Which is why I'm still deciding if I should use this mod or not.

Thanks

If you think about playing on anything above Normal Energy Weapons are absolutely worthless to be honest. This mod is not even enough to change that.
Playing on Very Hard and being level 26, having every relevant perk for Damage including the Better Criticals one or Laser Commander for example, I still need 4 shots, with the first one being a sneak critical strike, from the Unique Gauss Rifle using Max. Overcharge ammo. They just do 0, and I honestly mean 0 damage against anything with a tiny piece of armor.

Do yourself a favour and just play Guns again or go Melee/Unarmed, at least that way you can actually kill something

I've only played normal, but I find them fine. Lack of armor-piercing ammo is kind of annoying, but I found the unique plasma rifle and gauss rifle to be quite powerful, though ammo weight for energy weapons is somewhat painful in hardcoe. In previous games energy weapons and ammo were often more difficult to come by and therefore deservedly more powerful, but in FNV you can have two laser pistols before you leave Doc Mitchel's house and a plasma pistol soon after, so I don't believe their relative strength is too much of an issue.

This is all on normal though. Due to the way damage threshold works, I can easily see the lack of armor piercing ammo being a real issue on harder modes (Though to my knowledge, all harder modes do is scale enemy damage and HP up and/or your damage and HP down, which is just going to lead to that kind of pointless bullet-sponge effect that often just makes things more boring, not more difficult.)

Nah, there's definitely issues. Lategame, with Better Criticals and Max Charge ammo Tri-beams, the QM-35, Plasma Casters, Multiplas and Gauss Rifles fit the description- lethal weapons restricted by the relative rarity of ammo (and its absurdly high weight). Early and midgame, though... the Recharger Rifle is useless, the Recharger Pistol is doubly useless but never spawns, and laser pistols and rifles are puny and plasma is too slow, inaccurate, slow-firing and fires screen-blockingly-large green blobs. Fully upgraded laser rifles are tolerable and RCWs are pretty neat, but energy weapons don't really take off until high level & lategame, when you get a sudden exponential boost as you get almost flat x2 from Max Charge cells and then a further doubling from the crazy guns the Brotherhood has to offer. I jumped from having ~80dps to ~300 over the space of half an hour.

You forgot the Meltdown perk

I stand by my opinion of them on normal, but must say I never used half of the items mentioned. I didn't even see rechargers until New Vegas. I pretty much just went Laser Pistol -> Laser Rifle -> Plasma Rifle -> QM-35 -> Gauss Rifle and that was it. I never even used anything but basic MF-Cells and the Gauss Rifle still killed most things in one hit. I did wish I had max charge for the "last boss" though. The 2000 cells I was carrying at the end of the game didn't help me there, and I decided to just talk it out.

The vast majority of energy weapons are terrible, even on Normal. Here's the reasons why:

-Plasma Rifles and Laser Rifles are statted as low-level weapons, which would be fine if you could get them at a relatively early point in the game, but you don't. You get initial access to energy weapons at the same time you get access to the (far more powerful) better guns.
-Energy weapons eat ammo like CRAZY. 2 rounds per shot for the Plasma Rifle is an absolute joke. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that Energy Weapons ammo is perversely a) more expensive and B) harder to find than Guns ammo. So, not only do they require more ammo, but it's harder to get that ammo.
-Damage of most Energy Weapons is crap. Plasma Caster and Multiplas Rifle are the only really viable ones; the Plasma Defender is ok too, but it eats ammo super fast. So does the Tri-Beam Laser Rifle. And don't even get me started on the Recharger weapons, there's a funny joke.

In short: Energy Weapons are too weak for the point in the game at which you gain access to them; they are too ammo intensive (and their ammo is harder to get!) and they simply don't do enough damage.

Use the Plasma Caster or don't even bother, essentially.

So is there gonna be a modder who could volunteer to balance energy weapons like giving better damage rebalancing the ammo consumption and such?

I had a total weapon overhaul in the works but i will revise it for energy weapons only and release it tommorow. The difference is i will be only rebalancing health, damage, and ammo use of the guns.

Untrue. The Yangtze Memorial has a grave that ALWAYS has a random energy rifle in it, so you can easily get either a plasma or laser rifle as soon as you exit Doc Mitchell's House.



Even the Plasma Caster has issues. It decays super-quick and it's almost impossible to find outside of the one that's located in the Silver Rush. Gun Runners almost never sell it (even if they did, it would be expensive as [censored]), and neither do the Van Graffs. Brotherhood of Steel might, but since you typically have to kill them to advance the plot, that hardly matters.

The Tesla-Beaton Prototype (or any Tesla Cannon) would be godly if not for the fact that it eats ammo like crazy (40 for cannon, 45 for Beaton) and is even harder to repair than the Plasma Caster because Tesla Cannons are even rarer.



That's only half the problem, really. The other side of it is that there's a serious lack of variety for energy weapons compared to most other weapon choices. The way it's set up, you go from pistols, to rifles, to heavy weapons, so if you're a fan of either pistols or rifles, or if you have low STR, you're JWF at endgame.

Most of the problem is merchant lists, you wont see plasma casters or tesla cannons until 21+ and even then it's all RNG and you have to wait in four day intervals hoping the vendor will spawn the wanted item. But yes it's true other than heavy weapons the only energy weapons that are rifles that are worthwhile are the multiplas rifle and the tribeam laser. The Multiplas when it crits outside of vats is hilariously OP, the ability to gib deathclaws is lolsy. Laser and Plasma pistols/rifles scale very poorly, and have very few upgrades that make the weapon worthwhile. The Laser rifle gets a damage boost and a scope and once you get laser commander the weapon is still good. The plasma rifle eats up ammo, has a very low base hp and does a very small amount of base damage. If i were to buff energy weapon damage up to Fo3 values i doubt they would even shine as much as endgame guns with handloaded ammo but it's a step to at least make them more viable.

Really? Never noticed that, my bad.

Fact is that they're still incredibly inaccessible at that level, though; ammo and repairs will be extremely scarce.

And yeah, if the Tesla Cannon didn't eat a literally insane amount of ammo a shot it'd be fine. That's the issue with half the energy weapons, honestly; their damage is fine but they eat way too much ammo. I still don't understand the logic that made them go from 1 ECP to 45 (!!!) ECPs.

I found it kind of weird that you couldn't use fission batteries or something to make your own "handloaded" energy ammo, so perhaps adding recipes for it that are accessed through the appropriate perk is a step in the right direction.

For me, energy weapon is two thing notice.

1. YCS/186, very easy to take in early game, if you have Varmint Rifle + Silencer, in long range shot. (and it's eat 4 MF instead 5 MF on regular)

2. Purse Gun, primary output is EMP, thought Robotics enemy not so popular like FO3, but battle in Vault 22 (some area), you know it. (eat 5 E-cell)

tha't all.



The lake feature in all energy weapons tree is: NO Silencer, make long sniper shot make crown enemy notice very soon.

Guns, like Ratslayer, Varmint, 10mm Pistol, Sniper Rifle, Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle.....all have silencer... this made sniper-type player very enjoy to kill enemy in long range.

I was going to suggest a correction as either a perk or as a natural effect of the weapons"

Melt Armor
Required Level 8, 60 Energy Weapons
Now energy weapons will melt your enemies armor, making them easier to hurt!
Effect: -1 DT for 10s, cumulative for every hit from laser weapons, and -15 DT for 30s when hit with plasma weapons.

As a perk, it is somewhat similar to Shotgun Surgeon, but a bit more powerful.

It's effects would make most Laser weapons effective against almost any enemy, but may be slightly too powerful for the
Laser RCW and Gatling Laser, effectively stripping any enemy of its armor in less than 1 second.

For plasma weapons, this gives a nice synergy with the otherwise useless Quick Draw, and gives a decent bonus to followup
shots.

If this is a general property of weapons then enemies with energy weapons become very scary, but in a good way.
ED-E and Arcade Gannon gain in combat utility.

I'm considering making atleast a personal mod to fix this up a bit, energy weapons are really underpowered imo.

I'm gonna play through the game with an Energy Weapons char and see what needs to be done to make them useful, then I'm going to do that. I did it for http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42328, it should be a cakewalk for New Vegas.

a bit off topic, are there any mods that change the combat to real time or speed it up alot. i tried playing it but i cant stand the clunky combat system even on the fastest mode.

Fastest mode? Hard/Very Hard don't make combat faster, they just reduce your health and increase the enemy's health, making it slower.

The Deadlier Combat module of Hardercore increases the damage-per-shot of the workhorse energy weapons (laser/plasma rifle/pistol). The rates of fire are also lower to keep the damage-per-second from being out of line, but the damage-per-second is still higher than it was. The main point is lowering the shots / ammo per kill.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1132530-relz-hardercore/

I think he's talking about Fallout 2 here. Nope, sorry buddy. Personally I think the Fallout 3/NV system is way clunkier than Fallout 2. You have to choose between real-time and simulated turn-based and press tons of buttons, in Fallout 2 you have full control of movement, combat and inventory with a couple of mouse clicks. There IS however a mod that lets you use the middle mouse to change weapons, the scroll wheel in your inventory, etc. It's included in another, much bigger mod called the Restoration Project, you should definitely check that out for a fresh, totally new Fallout 2 experience.

As someone above pointed out, if and ONLY if you use MAX CHARGE ammo will you be able to have energy weapons that compare to (and in some respects exceed) end-game guns.
You need 100 Science skill to convert regular energy ammo into max charge, however.
The main advantages to Energy Weapons at that point are high-critical damage, low AP costs, and homogenous ammo supplies (You can have a lot of different types of guns all running off the same ammo type, very convenient).

IF they are maxed out, they are DEFINITELY useful, and you can certainly utilize them to great effect; but only in the end-game. Early on, they're pretty close to worthless.

This is how they were in the first two games as well, you'll recall.

Energy weapons are meant to be powerful end-game treats.

(The fact that the Energy Weapon skill includes guns of such great variety as Flamers, the Pulse Gun, Gauss Rifles, and the Alien Blaster shouldn't be overlooked as well)

I think I may tackle the Energy Weapon Problem, I already started to with the mod linked to in the OP.

My plans:

• Boost plasma/Multiplas Rifle/pistol damage, maybe also boost RoF a bit too. Those seem to be the most anemic of the bunch IMO.
  
• Boost laser damage. Basically, lasers have ammo efficiency and RoF, while plasma has brute damage. Per shot, plasma does more than its comparable laser weapon, but lasers do more damage per ammo consumed.
  
• Make a handloaded equivalent... maybe "Perfect Voltage Balance" (PBV abbrev on the HUD)? You find that incredibly small margin of optimal voltage and amperage for superior energy weapon munitions.
  
• Make a few weird ammo types exclusive for rifle/caster plasma weapons, since the could run on the excuse that they don't use the electricity per se but the plasma that the MF cell produces, and you can do weird stuff to it (like the "Unstable MF Cell" in my Plasma Rifles Awesomefied mod)
  
• Reduce the Tesla ammo consumption. I thought using one ECP in FO3 was a bit weird. However, I have yet to find one and play with it, so decisions on what to do with it are pending...
  
• Boost up the damage that ARCHIMEDES II does. 150 damage in the explosion. I wanted to completely annihilate the Deathclaw mother. I did more damage with a Gauss headshot ferchrissakes. :facepalm:

I just had my first real spin with the Jack In The Gauss blowing heads off the Deathclaws infesting the quarry, and I think it's just fine as-is.

Ah, I've already started on the Incinerator/Flamer and Recharger Rifle, thought they could be made a lot better with alternate ammo types and weapon mods.

Haven't found a Tesla cannon yet, but the Tesla Beaton is... okay. It's effectively an AoE gauss rifle, except with no zoom and it costs ~1.5 weight per shot, and weighs too much itself. Just not general purpose enough to justify lugging it around, really.
A lot of the energy weapons suffer from that. Gatling lasers in particular are underwhelming against anyone with armour (including radscorps and deathclaws) and a bit heavy to lug around solely for shooting Fire Geckos.

The Archimedes has one good use- it can kill everyone in Caesar's tent in one shot (as they all bottleneck up in a tent door as they run towards you).

The predicament with energy weapon ammo types ties in with their homogeneous supply advantage: how do you make special ammo types when all you have to work with is voltage/amperage/resistance/various other electrical measurements?

Plasma weapons that feed off MF cells may be able to get around it by saying that it feeds not off electrical power but from the raw plasma the MF cell produces, which is my rationale for the "unstable MF cells"

I'd be interested in such a mod, but I don't use energy weapons anywhere often enough to take on balancing it. My characters tend to all end up as small guns / explosives nuts.