GRA Tri-Beam Laser Rifle OR Sprtel-Wood Special 9700 + Maximum charge cells + Laser Commander + Camarader-e perk (Lonesome Road) + High crit rate


Holy balls the damage gets ridiculous. Good to see they worked to make energy weapons viable but wow it took some hunting to find out how.

Laser Commander is a base bonus on top of your crit, meaning it is NOT effected by crit multipliers. This is a double-edged sword however, cause while the Tri-Beam Laser would benefit more if it worked the other way, the Sprtel-Wood Special 9700, a weapon that typically wouldn't crit at all (0.04% chance crit multiplier, so 10 Luck only crits 0.4% of the time) suddenly crits every tenth hit. With all these modifications and ED-E as your companion, this weapon does 37 damage per hit and crits for 53 damage (total) every tenth hit, which is pretty damn often considering it's firing rate. You could even amp this more by getting Light Touch (raises it to 15% chance of crit, with a maxed base crit rate of 30% it would reach 16% chance of crit) and combine that with Better Crits + Lucky to be Alive OR Thought you died; Lucky to be Alive and better crits would make a critical hit for 70 damage whereas Thought You Died would make a normal hit reach 41. That combined with it's incredibly low spread makes this easily -THE- best possible DPS weapon in the game, if used to it's full potential.

The Tri-Beam Laser can get a 60% crit rate (maximum, with all perks, maxed luck and proper equips) and hit as high as 55 damage per hit per beam. (not including Thought You Died, that'd be another 10% extra damage) With a crit, that's 77 damage per beam. And yeah, 10 DT would always be ignored as well.



After getting this setup, the only weakness to these two weapons is finding the ammo to fill them, though the Lonesome Road CAN provide you with a stockpile of Overcharge cells; not AS strong, but still damn good.

Don't underestimate the power of the Holorifle while you're at it. And the MF Hyperbreeder Alpha.

But really, most energy weapons do their best when you are built to crit. Then they SHINE.

We shouldn't have to study on how to best improve EW just so that they can come close to Guns' proficiency which doesn't require any study.
It's nice you found a way to make them great, but if this was Obsidians intention, to make EW some kind of homework project to be good, then I hate it even more.
EW should be better than Guns in any weather, no matter the condition or variables.

That this kind of research is required to make them as good as they were meant to be in the first place is a horrible design decision for me.
Oh well, whatever.

Yeah I understand.

For instance silent mentioned the Holorifle. EVERYBODY knows about the Holorifle, because sadly, the Holorifle is better than all other energy weapons 90% of the time. That's kind of...boring compared to guns, where it's quite clear that there is no winner. Reload speed, Grunt, Cowboy, STR, Hand Loader and other various factors effect what the BEST gun is. Energy weapons by comparison, you struggle to find anything to compete with the Holorifle. YCS/186 and the Tri-Beam have their perks, but both are rendered inferior by one problem: ammo consumption. In hardcoe mode it's simply impossible to carry enough ammo to last a good amount of time for either. Another point is I still don't quite see Plasma being useful. With Fast Shot, perhaps? Either way, These three are the only ones I can name in the energy weapons category that could count as stand-alone weapons.
Still, it surprised me how kick-ass they were once I had ED-E's LR perk (and the stockpiles of ammo from LR).

First of all, congrats to your newly made discoveries. Yes, Laser weapons do rock. Regarding Plasma/Laser, Plasma is very good in VATS, since projectile speed is not an issue here, and there's a VATS perk for it, that reduces AP costs by good margin.
Still, I'm totally in the Laser camp, too. The weapons are just cooler, they fit my crit build better, and they allow for extreme attack ranges. My favs are the AER-14 as all-purpose tool, the fully modded Tri-Beam as emergency weapon, and the Laser RCW as ultimate critter disposal device.
The Holorifle is very efficient, but I don't like its looks, it needs all upgrades, even with them, its x1 crit-multplier doesn't let it perform better than the AER14 or not even to mention the Tri-Beam, it still has noticable spread even with mod, and its low ROF and small magazine don't quality it as a good crowd control tool.
All in all, the Holorifle is a pretty good package, but a real EW specialist will have better things to choose from.
Best suited for people who have EW as a secondary skill with no specific perks taken, and are set up for raw damage output rather than critical hits.
Now to my question: what consider you being enough?
A single MFC(the heaviest ammo type) is 0.1, so even carrying around 300 of them is just 30lbs, and 300 should last you quite a while.
Even with a Tri-Beam that's 100 shots, and there's not much out there surviving a singe blast from it. And there are quite some ways to reduce the wieght load significantly. If you process them into optimized cells (needs Vigilant Recycler, a must-have perk for any EW user), they're down to 0.06. If you take Pack Rat in addtion, it'll be down to 0.03 per unit.

Used the Gauss rifle through most of Lonesome Road, it blew away the mobs in one shot, including the deathclaws. Only one that took more than one shot, was Rawr. Had most of the perks you mentioned, except for the lvl 50 one. If I'd had the YCS instead of the plain gauss, it would have been even more sick- although not really necessary as I was OP already.

But that's still only a third of the shots you could have with a gun, and a Tri-Beam Laser will NOT one-shot everything unless we're strictly talking maximum charge. Otherwise, high DT opponents are more than resistant enough to tank a few hits. Very Hard difficulty amps this effect.
Maybe it's my own preference, but I personally don't like having to restock on MFC and hope the stores have them after every DLC. I prefer getting to a point where I have more than enough.

That's where the Holorifle shines. It's the most effecient damage-to-MFC ratio. Though I find that a simple Gatling Laser with Max Charge ECPs will eat almost anything alive. Though I suppose a Minigun with AP would work even better with that -25dt.

Also remember that with weapons the require multiple MFC/ECP/SEC when you miss with them you lose out on a lot of ammo.
Not everyone is super sayan on FPS games and not everyone uses VATS for every shot.

So if you are up against 6 golden geckos and they all die from one shot with the Tri-Beam and ou miss 5 times cause of their hectic movement speed and turns then you will have used 33 MFC on one small group of GG's.

If you use Max Charge MFC it means you'll have used around 82 MFC's.

Um........... I think the people complaining about Guns being better then energy weapones, don't really know what they are talking about.... If you have 100 EW skill, better crits, and a decent crit rate.... which you can improve with Police Mags, Fineese, Light Touch, Luck implant.. ect...

You will One Shot (or at the most two shot) anything if you get a Head shot, or sneak attack... With the YCS unique Guess Rifle... Or if you really want to see them go flying... Shoot up some pycho.. which there is no shortage... I am always well stocked on all chems....

I find most energy weapones though to be boring.... There are just so many different types of really cool looking Guns in the game.... My biggest complaint of Fallout 3, was that the fire arms in that game... were really lame... Cept for afew peices... Black Eagle and the Unque AK......

However in New Vegas.. There are some really fun EW peices, that do AMazing damage.... When I turned agaist Mr. House.... I put on some Brother Hood Armor... and loaded up on MF ammo and took the Tesla-Beaton Prototype... and would one shot everyone of Mr. Houses upgraded Securtrons in his Penthouse.....

As far as wieght goes... Getting hideouts and storing your stuff, is part of the game.... I keep all my EW and power armor in The Brotherhood Safe house, I keep all my Military Style weapones and explosives, such as All-American (favorit gun in game), Assault Carbine, This Machine ect, at the NCR safe house... And i keep all my Cowboy weapones in my Hotel room in Novac... I always play on hardcoe mode... and I never have problems with managing my carring wieght... and if it is a real problem for some players for their ammo.. i strongly recomend getting Rat Pack Perk... I really makes carrying alot of ammo easy... I got it my first play through and loved it... But now im going though the game again with out it.. and it isn't a problem... only carry what you need... and when your out of what you have... restock from a Hideout....

I never used the Lucky 38 very much to hold my stuff... Its so much of a hassle to get there.. with the other hideouts... you fast travle right to them, and your in and out... Instead og going the strips mains gate... then going into the lucky 38.. then going up the elevator... just takes to long...

In lore, energy weapons are supposed to be vastly superior to guns. In New Vegas, guns are much more versatile and are (generally) greater than or equal to energy weapons in terms of damage.

For example: Look at the LAER, (Elijah's advanced LAER) Plasma Rifle, (Q-35 Matter Modulator) Laser Rifle, (AER 14) and the Recharger Rifle.

Their guns skill counterparts are the Brush Gun, (Medicine Stick) Trail Carbine, Hunting Rifle, (Paciencia) Battle Rifle, (This Machine) Cowboy Repeater, (La Longue Carabine) Service Rifle, (Survivalist's Rifle) and the Varmit Rifle (Ratslayer)

It's fine that there's a greater variety of guns, but when you compare the Elijah's advanced LAER to Medicine stick, (the highest damage single shot weapon in each category) the two just don't compare:

Medicine Stick:
1.) Capable of around 110 Damage per Shot, and 200 Damage per Second
2.) Spread: 0.06
3.) Item HP: 200
4.) Ammo capacity: 8
5.) Crit. Damage: 78, Crit. Mult. *1

Elijah's Advanced LAER:
1.) Capable of around 85 damage per Shot and 330 Damage per Second
2.) Spread: 0.08
3.) Item HP: 50
4.) Ammo cap: 15
5.) Crit. Damage: 15, Crit. Mult. *1.5

If anything, the LAER is a weaker weapon than Medicine Stick, which lore wise is unheard of. Why would the US government spend the money and resources to create a LAER if they ended up being on par with or potentially crappier than lever-action carbines?

That's what people mean when they say energy weapons are under-powered in the new Fallout games, because they should be more powerful than their guns counterpart in terms of raw damage and damage per second, crit. rate, and (if it is a laser weapon) spread.


Edit: Longknife - Thanks for posting the stuff about the Sprtel. Wood, I knew how to make the Tri-Beam Laser Rifle (GRA) into a killing machine but I never really thought much of the Sprtel Wood. I have a reason to take it out of the storage trunk in the SINK now.

The way I look at it is Energy Weapons are much more difficult and require a lot more perks then Guns to be better, but they can be better. They are also a lot more expensive to feed and maintain then Guns. Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages.

Just to speak out AGAINST energy weapons to put them in perspective...

Why does the Holorifle stand out as being especially powerful among energy weapons? Because it's the only one with high damage-per-shot. (I'll get to YCS/186 in a sec)

It's important to understand how the damage calculations work. Those amplifiers you see on things like Cowboy, Laser Commander, Psycho and Maximum charged cells? Those are calculated in AFTER the enemy's defense is factored in. What this means is, first the game calculates your total base damage: this includes the basic damage, the crit damage AND crit damage multipliers. After that's totaled, that number gets reduced by damage threshold and damage resistance. THEN after those have been factored in, the remaining number is multiplied by whatever your total damage multiplier is.

What does this mean? Base damage is incredibly important. You could have a x15 damage multiplier on the end, but if only 2 points of damage survive the damage threshold and resistance filters, it won't really matter. And that's exactly the problem that Energy weapons suffers from. What's the damage on the AER14? 30. The Q-35 Matter Modulator? 40. Now to compare, what about the Survivalist's rifle? 48. Lucky? 30. The Medicine Stick? 78. The Hunting Rifle? 50. To top it off, most guns have armor piercing rounds, which knock off an average of 15 damage threshold.

Just compare the firing speed of those guns to the firing speed of the energy weapons. The Guns are RARELY slower than the energy weapons; worst case scenario they fire at the same speed, though the harder hitting energy weapons like the Q-35 Matter Modulator tend to fire slow.
And the ammo consumption? Guns always consume a single bullet and ammo is VERY easy to find. Everyone uses and sells guns, and any bullet can be broken down and remade into the bullet type you like. Energy Weapons, many weapons consume 2-4 bullets.
And custom load ammo? I'm not sure of the exact ratio, but I'm guessing you need 2-3 bullets to make a hand loaded bullet. Energy weapons? 5 for the highest damage cells.
And what about the overall versatily? With guns you just buy the type of ammo you want at any given time. With energy weapons, the only way to get the equivalent of armor piercing or hollow point is to convert them to overcharge or maxed charge, which costs a lot of cells AND breaks your weapons faster.
And crit rate? Crit rate is valuable to the point where you should almost always try to improve it, but you should NOT be relying on it, which is what energy weapons tend to do. Furthermore, several guns match (or beat) Energy Weapons on crit rate. Lucky is a gun you can rely on to crit, and it has a higher crit rate than any energy weapon.


So what energy weapons do pass the test and prove themselves to be viable options?

The Holorifle? Yes. No one is doubting the Holorifle. The only complaints about the Holorifle are that it's the do-all end-all energy weapon because it seems to put the others to shame.
The YCS/186? Well, it's exclusively a long-ranged gun. The need to reload after every shot means you can't really use it in close combat, so you can't FULLY rely on it. Can it snipe? Preference, imo. The AMR and YCS seem prone to doing meh damage UNLESS you get a headshot, and in my experience, the YCS has a bad habit of sometimes not hitting the target (but rather shooting through it). You know which weapon can snipe, won't glitch and handles crowds of people and close combat better? The Holorifle.


The Tri-Beam Laser? Here's a laser that suffers from damage threshold. Because the beam is split into three, that means the enemy's damage threshold and resistance are calculated in three times. For example, whereas the Brush Gun on an enemy with a DT of 15 would see a simple 78 - 15 = 60 damage equation, the Tri Beam laser sees a 25 - 15 = 10, THEN 10 x 3 = 30. If it were a single beam, it'd be the EXACT same damage as the Brush gun, but it's not, so the damage suffers from high DT opponents. Can this be fixed? Yes, with maximum charge cells, but now we have an ammo issue because we need 5 times the amount of ammo we needed before, and the Tri-Beam laser itself already needed 3 times the normal amount. I need 15 Microfusion cells to be able to fire ONE effective shot from my Tri-Beam Laser when facing a high DT opponent. 15 is 1.5 pounds, which very quickly adds up, when trying to collect the damn things.
In short, having enough microfusioncells to be able to use the Tri-Beam Laser effectively against high DT opponents is just NOT very likely at all until endgame. This means this weapon can't be relied on to take on every kind of enemy until end-game. You know which one can? The Holorifle.

Finally there's the Sprtel-Wood 9700. This will, like the others, suffer from DT. However, it's a DPS weapon, so this is to be expected anyways. Can it still be used on high DT enemies? Yep. You'll waste MORE ammo, but you can still kill them. Can you snipe with this weapon? Surprisingly, yes. It's got low enough spread that it can be done, though of course it's not optimal since this weapon has low crit damage and thus can't fully exploit a sneak attack critical like other weapons with high crit damage can. Is the ammo light enough that you can carry it in bulk? Luckily, yes; electron charge packs weigh a fourth of what Microfusioncells weigh.


So of all of those "good" weapons, there's really only two that I would say you can COMPLETELY rely on, which is pretty bad. If you were to ask me what you can rely on under the guns category? Medicine Stick, Trail Carbine, Sniper Rifle (and variants), LMG, Bozar, Survivalist's Rifle, etc etc etc etc etc.



THAT'S why there's complaints about energy weapons. Yes the examples I gave in the original post are nice, but this is end-game I'm talking about. Before I completed the Lonesome Road, they were far inferior to what they are now. So faced with that reality, why use them instead of going Grunt or Cowboy?

Scattered thoughts incoming:

Pew Pew has a 2.5x crit multiplier. But you do have a point in which Guns can match EW in crits. I just beat the Courier's Mile 3 times on very hard using only Li'l Devil. It was hilarious.

Energy weapons in this game remind me of shotguns in MW3. Initially they are horrible and aren't worth using when you could use an assault rifle. But once you suffer through the levels and get the damage proficiency and have the extended mag glitch it becomes a BEAST.

I was thinking about why the LAER only had a crit damage of 15 instead of something like 60. When you equip Prismatic lens to it the original beam splits into three beams. Each beam does less damage but each beam obtains the original crit damage which is 15 totaling to 45. Could you imagine if it had a base crit damage of 60? HOLY CRAP!

Well if there's anything to be said, I think it's that at LEAST the Sprtel-Wood 9700 is a viable (and very kick-ass) option, if not one of the most powerful weapons in the game. When I use the Tri-Beam Laser, I can't help but feel stupid knowing that I'm wasting valuable ammo when I could be using the Holorifle. The Sprtel-Wood though...
I just ran through Dry Wells with that setup using the Sprtel-Wood. I've never cleared Dry Wells in under 2 minutes before...

Still, while it's DEFINITELY cool and worth giving a try, it's just one energy weapon in a sea of failures. And I've had an equally impressive experience with guns: Medicine Stick + Implant GRX + Rushing Water + Slasher and stand in the middle of the Courier's Mile, drop everything as it charges at you before it can reach you.

On a side note, do the enemies in the Courier's Mile respawn? What about the loot in the crates? If so, I wanna see if the Sprtel-Wood can compete with the epicness of the above-named combo.

Yeah I'm still trying to figure out how to use Smitty's Special. When you crit the damage is glorious but really rare considering its fire rate. Maybe sneak attack crits?

Cleansing Flame is actually a nice energy weapon for low HP enemies. Especially for Vault 22 when those spore creatures lay in the ground and you can simply spray the grass area with fire. I have even burned a Mister Gutsy to death using only 5 flamer fuel. Hilarious!

The MF Hyperbreeder is also a neat energy weapon. Aside from its magazine ammo capacity and spread its awesome.

And lets not forget the Compliance Regulator. Nothing like completely immobilizing an enemy while you pummel them.

Or Sonic Emitter - Tarantula's insta-kill crit effect.

And yes, enemies in the Courier's Mile do respawn.

The Cleansing Flame was actually incredibly useful against Tunnelers for me.

Just looked at their HP. 0.5 to 1 sec burst of Optimized Fuel flames would inevitably kill them.

I always assumed they had high HP and didn't think of using Cleansing Flame. Probably would have made killing them much easier.

The thing that makes it so great is it works similarly to the Flare Gun. It doesn't scare the Tunnelers as much as the Flare Gun, but it does make them hesitate enough to get the job done.

Diviner..... I don't know what your talking about, when you say having problems with missing your mark with the YCS/186, I killed 24 death claws in 14 mins with it, and two shotted the Mother death claw in the head with the YCS/186.... and you don't need any EW perks for that..... granted i w was lvl 26 at the time......however... the YCS/186 is the best long range rifle in the game... for both guns and ew.... the reload is fast... and it is lighter then the Anti-material .50... it has a crit multiplayer of 2x..... the raw damage of it is the highest with 140 not to mention the gun has the lowest speard in the game for a long range weapone....... it never let me down.... and as far as repair goes.. give me break... just cough of up the caps to get it repaired, or use a repair kit.... which become unlimited after completing dead money....

But I love almost all the weapones in the game... the most fun in my opinion are explosives.. but not all people can enjoy those weapones like i can, becasue i have a really nice system.... There is nothing like taking a Fat Man to Cotton Wood Cove, and dropping Nukes... Looks amazing, and you see body parts going flying every where...

I think the makers of the game just wanted people to try out all the weapones, becasue most of them are fun to use... and with level 50 cap.. you can pretty much maximize the damage and usefulness of all of them.. Melee inculeded

The YCS/186 doesn't actually have the lowest spread of any long range weapon in the game. The Laser Rifle, AMR, Hunting Rifle, Varmint Rifle, Ratslayer and all three variants of the Sniper Rifle have lower spreads. Of these my personal favourite is the fully modded Hunting Rifle which is the most accurate long range weapon in the game. It has all of the things I prefer in a weapon I have to carry around the wasteland,it has less then half the spread it has 3 times the HP, uses one .308 round instead of 4 Mfcs, has a mag of 10, it weighs 2 lbs less and has the same crit multiplier.

Repairing the YCS/186 is difficult even with Jury Rigging and by difficult I also mean that you'll be either needing a hell of a lot of Weapon Repair Kits, that you could instead be using to improve weapons your selling, or a steady income of well over 20k caps to pay for repair. I know that the YCS/186 is a portable, long range cannon, but a sneak head shot with a Hunting Rifle with JSP rounds is still enough to put most things down for good. Just my preference.

Who just uses the same weapone through out the game? I usually swap out the weapones i use every hour or so... I only bring out the big guns for the big time missions.... The YCS/186 can do 165 damage with perks..... the hunting rifle only can do 62 with perks...... Hunting rifle crit = 124 damage.... YCS/186 crit = 330 damage.. with better crits.. it can do almost 400 damage, not to mention pycho buff, that will make you crit for more then 400..... I would like to see you kill the Death Claw Mother with just a hunting rifle...... well i take that back.. im sure it can be done with 4 or 5 sneak attacks...... When i killed her... I sneaked attack crit her right in the head.. then she came flying towards me, and when into Vats, and finished the job... two shots... over all....

You say you'll have to use alot of Weapon Repair kits? are you kidding me... if you have hgih repair.. it will only take 3 kits to bring it to 100% repair... and you can get free repair kits from the Dead Money vending machines in Elija's bunker........ And money is really no object... Am I the only one that gets 10k from each casino from black jack? not to mention the snow glob cash, and all the money you get from selling stuff..... I started to rake in the caps, once I had lvl 20 plus Casear Legion assasins coming after me that were caring Bush Rifles, and other goodies that sell for a crap ton.

You were right about the spread.. I miss read it.. but it doesn't matter.... The Scope for the YCS/186 is also the best in my opinion.. screw cross hairs when you have a nice dot...

The Tri-Beam is much more likely to score a critical hit, though. And when it crits, it's devastating.
Also you forgot to mention the optimized MFCs.
They do 1.3x damage, - 5DT, have only a very slight modifier on gun condition of 1.1, have a 40% lower weight, and they cost 3 MFCs to make 2 of them.
So, one effective shot is 4.5 MFC, not 15.
With the introduction of that ammo there's no need for Max Charges anymore.
You also didn't mention the Tri-Beam's much higher ROF.
Outside of VATS and Turbo mumbojumbo the Tri-Beam is just a way better tool for crowd control.
Besides, the Medicine Stick itself is a frickin expensive weapon. Not only it costs a fortune, enough to buy several thousand of MFCs just from the price difference between it and the Tri-Beam, also its ammo is scarce and expensive, and needs frequent vendor visits.
MFCs otoh are dirt cheap when bought as bulk. The Khan armorer often stocks bulk ammo in huge quantities. Sometimes you can buy 500 bulk MFC(or ECP/SEC) there.
And they only cost like 1 cap per shot. Bulk ammo is your friend. it's cheap and get's the job done in *most* situations.
When it is getting too hot, switch to optimized MFCs.






You have to be extremely wasteful on ammo and very lazy on re-supplying to make such a scenario come true.





"All of the good weapons"?
Ever used Cleansing Flame? with Pyromaniac eventually? I bet not.
What about Q-35? Very efficient, and with Better Criticals extremely powerful
The Laser RCW is a gorgeous weapon to deal with Cazadors and Nightstalkers
Pew-Pew is an Alien Blaster in Laser disguise.
The Tesla Beaton Prototype? I guess you've never tried that one, too.
The LAERs are amazing damage dealers in all situations.
The Hyperbreeder Alpha is wicked and does not need any ammo at all.
AER14 is incredibly versatile, you can clean out places like the Vertibird site or Gypsum with it from like 10 miles away, at distances where a Brush Gun wouldn't be accurate enough.
On such long ranges, projectile speed also becomes a matter. You have to factor that in when using a conventional gun.
With a Laser, it doesn't matter. You point at a moving target, you hit. It's quite a bit easier to hit things with a Laser at distances.

Your view is a bit narrowed on ammo consumption. There's more into it when it comes to judging a weapon, beyond pure statistics.
Yes you're right, when it gets to Jack-of-all-trades you better look into gunpowder weapons, such as Gobi or All-American.
But who's running around with only one gun?
I usually adjust my weapon loadout according to my actual needs. There's a weapon to each moment.



Because they are fun? Because it doesn't matter? Because usually you should have thousands over thousands of rounds of all types of ammo by end game?
Because Laser Commander or Meltdown(that one actually is so overpowered, it's not even funny) can keep up easily?
Just play around with them a bit longer, get familiar with the EW perks, and you'll see they aren't as useless as you picture them right now.

The Hunting Rifle is pretty good, but Gobi just trumps over it. With Better Criticals, its crit damage it almost twice as high, and it also has much better ROF.
The Gauss weapons do an incredible per shot-damage, but the need to reload after every shot is annoying.
To make Gauss Rifles really shine, you need to take Meltdown. If you do however, you're in for some hilarious carnage.
Just land a sneak crit on a Deathclaw standing in a pack and see what happens...

Are you living in opposite land?



Are you playing on hardcoe mode? It's really an issue when your character can only carry ~800 rounds (260 shots) along with him to tackle something like Honest Hearts or the Lonesome Road.


Now list off how many off those weapons break hella fast and/or use multiple rounds per shot. (and I don't really count flamer weaponry as energy weapons)



Which you can only carry a couple hundred of.