As you probably know by now, energy weapons do not compare very well to guns. Guns tend to be cheaper to repair over time, their ammo costs less, their ammo is generally more powerful, their ammo is more versatile, their mods are more versatile, and their weapons often do many things well at the same time.

In contrast, most energy weapons tend to be niche weapons, only doing 1 or maybe 2 things well, but are terrible at other things.

A big problem is that while the ammo is common, it costs so much more in expenses to fire them at full capacity. To fire Multiplas Rifle, for example, costs 45 caps. In contrast, to fire gobi, a better weapon in 9 out of 10 situations, costs only 6 caps.

The overcharge and max charge conversions do not offer fair conversions and actually give you drawbacks, while .308 jsp is a perfect 1:1 conversion and has no drawbacks to speak of.

Energy weapons don't have a single good VATS weapon against high DT targets. Both Tri-Beam Laser Rifle and Multiplas - the two best VATS weapons - suffer greatly once DT is factored in. What this means is that Pew-Pew is the ONLY option against high DT targets. In the meantime, Guns rule the entire VATS landscape. There are half-a-dozen guns that are better in VATS when the DT is 20 or higher. It's not at all balanced.

To put it bluntly - something's wrong.

I've thought about this a lot as I was writing my weapons FAQ, and I think some of the imbalance comes from guns having Gobi/Sniper Rifle+. If you took away these weapons, they'd be a bit more comparable. But I don't think you'll be able to do that at this point. So here are some recommendations that will really improve the situation. I don't claim these recommendations to be perfect, but the current situation is obviously bad that it's better than what is already there.

The only weapon that I think is balanced correctly is the YCS/186. It's the only one you guys got just right. It does more damage for less caps than all of the other weapons, yet it's still pricey to use it.

Economic Fixes - Quick
This might fix a lot of problems and balance issues immediately. It's not the recommended course, but if you only had 5 minutes to spend on this... then this is "a" solution that would mostly work:

1. Consider making Energy Cells cost 1 cap instead of 2.

2. Consider making MF Cells cost 2 caps instead of 3. If you do this, make sure the YCS/186 uses 6 cells instead of 4 so that it costs the same to fire it. Like I said, you got the balance right.

Economic Fixes - More Balanced
These fixes would do a more thorough job at fixing the actual problems. They do not assume the above fixes.

1. To make overcharge ammo, you should spend 5 regular cells to get 4 overcharge cells. This is a perfect trade, and you still suffer durability so it's still worse than the .308->.308 JSP conversion.

2. To make max charge ammo, you should spend 7 regular cells and get 4 max charge cells. This is also a perfect trade. I see absolutely no problem with this.

3. Multiplas Rifle should use 3 MF cells, not 6. In its current state, paying 45 caps for a max charge shot is honestly not worth it unless you are sneak attacking legendary death claws. How many of those are there? Considering Gobi and Sniper Rifle+ cost 6 caps, I don't have to tell you that this is not balanced.

4. Plasma Defender should use 1 Energy Cell... maybe 2... but certainly not 3. For a weapon that is not much better than a Weathered 10mm using .10mm JSP, you pay way too many caps to fire it. Gun users pay 1.5 caps per shot to use Weathered 10mm with JSP ammo... why should the energy user have to pay 6 caps for?

5. Pew-Pew seriously needs to use less ammo. Even with regular cells, it costs 30 caps to fire this weapon. The thing is, the damage for regular cells is abysmal for the cost you pay.

This Machine with plain old .308 ammo does 446.88 effective DPS while Pew-Pew does 485.16... but the gun user only pays 4 Caps! If you want to pay 6 caps to get .308 JSP, This Machine does 670.31 DPS. In order for Pew-Pew to compete, it needs to upgrade to max charge ammo for 75 caps a shot. Then, it will finally deal 801.56 DPS to surpass This Machine. Are you saying we need to spend 69 more caps to do 150 more DPS?

Solution: Pew-Pew should use 5 EC's instead of 15. It would still cost 25 caps to fire at it's max setting, which is still much higher than the costs of .308, .50 or .45-75 gov't ammo. At least you don't have to pay 12,000 caps just to fire 400 shots like you do now... for what seems to be very little benefit over what gun users get for just 6 caps a shot.

6. Fix Plasma Caster to fire in VATS correctly so that it doesn't miss or do low damage. Also make it fire correctly in 3rd person view.

7. Bump Q-35's base damage from 32 to 42. Next, bump it's critical damage from 65 to 75 OR change the critical modifier from 2x to 2.5x. For a standard rifle, the current state of Q-35 is pretty bad. It doesn't do ANYTHING well. It merely acts as a weapon to use while you are leveling to eventually get the caps to pay for better weapons, or be able to meet the requirements for Plasma Caster. Bumping these stats would greatly improve things, because right now, it doesn't even beat out This Machine, let alone contend with Brush Gun, Gobi, Sniper Rifle, Ranger Sequoia and a host of other weapons. Energy weapon users need a good, all-around weapon that you don't need to repair all that much, does good in vats, regular combat, etc. This kind of versatility in at least 1 weapon is desperately needed.

That's it

There are other changes, but I think these changes would greatly improve the situation. It's not that you can't win with energy weapons - it's just not balanced compared to picking guns. If you pick energy weapons

I'm sure there's a lot on priority list to fix in Fallout: New Vegas, like broken quests, crashes to desktop, and other things like that. Even still, I think fixing the game balance is an important thing to add to the list if it isn't already. And truthfully, these changes would take next to no time to implement probably.

Thanks for listening.

I'm sorry to say, but I doubt the devs are going to do anything with the mechanics of the game anymore concerning their patches. At the most, we might get a tweak to some Energy Weapons, but I'm doubting that.

If you're on PC, then perhaps a future overhaul mod might implement these features or something like them. You never know.

If console, then I'm sorry.

Care to link http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1139081-an-itemized-rant-against-energy-weapons/ and give the rest of the community some credit as well?

If I recall, I was the one who participated in much of the rant and gave these suggestions.

Most likely, after all J.E. Sawyer did chime in in the "Itemised rant" thread and unless i misunderstood, said they're working as intended.

As for mods, such an overhaul, "http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1139899-wip-future-weapons-today-energy-weapons-megamod/", is already being worked on by The Talkie Toaster, MadCat and your evil twin so you can expect something great

The way I read it, he said that maybe low end energy weapons (ie the ones people are complaining about) are little weak, especially plasma.

Since you brought up my thread, nobody ever did give good feedback on my http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1139081-an-itemized-rant-against-energy-weapons/page__st__80__p__16663416&#entry16663416. The standard bread and butter weapons should be the baseline and the uniques should build off that, not the other way around.

One other thing I would suggest is to drop the crit multiplier on the SR/Gobi. I don't see any reason for something to have over x3 multiplier, and even then the SR/Gobi is not the weapon I would give it to. A x2.5 multiplier would have been more than enough for the Gobi, and probably a x1.5 for the standard SR. That would distinguish the two a little more, with the SR being a better sneak/alpha weapon and the Gobi being better at closer ranges and VATS.

In the end though a lot of the problem comes from DT itself. Switching from raw DR to raw DT did not really solve many (if any) balance problems with the combat and introduced a slew of new ones. A gatling laser should not be reduced in effectiveness by 80% because a guy is wearing football pads and a skirt. DT without DR shouldn't have happened.

The funny thing is, the Cowboy weapons, being relatively slow firing and slow loading, were given high damage values to make them viable compared to modern weapons. But this also makes them rather too effective against armor. Does the .44 Magnum, a handgun round, really have more penetrating power than even the lightweight 5.56mm, an intermediate (rifle) cartridge that usually requires chicken plates to stop? At least shotguns are reasonably ineffective (unless you use slugs)... oh wait, Shotgun Surgeon...

I think you're probably right. I don't see them making any major changes to game balance in future patches, but hopefully, in future Fallout games, they should make some changes to bring energy weapons more in line with guns, because right now, they're not.

As it stands, energy weapons suffer from a number of disadvantages compared to guns. They're less common, which, given the repair mechanic used in the game, mains maintaining them is more difficult, their ammunition is less common, and added to that, most of the energy weapons that do enough damage to actually be effective against enemies with high damage threshhold use more than one unit of ammunition per shot. Now, these things make sense, in and of themselves, because since energy weapons were presumably a reletively new technology at the time of the war and conventional firearms still seemed to be the standard at the time, one would expect them to be less wide spread, so one would expect there to be fewer of them lying around the wasteland. And the lack of ammunition for them is a direct concequence of this, as if there's fewer energy weapons, it's only logical that there would be less ammunition for them too. And some energy weapons consuming more than one unit of ammunition per shot makes sense because with guns, each shot requires one bullet, not including weapons like the sawed off shotgun that are double barreled and fire more than one shot each time you shoot them, of course. But with energy weapons, each energy cell, microfusion cell or electron charge pack contains a certain amount of power in it, and it's possible that some powerful energy weapons would need more power for each shot than others. And these disadvantages would all be fine, if energy weapons had some advantage to make up for them. But, they really don't. Energy weapons don't do anything guns can't, maybe there are a few specialized weapons like the pulse gun and recharger rifle that have special abilities which guns don't have, but in general, whatever energy weapons can do, guns can too, and generally, they don't do it any better than their gun counterparts. I've yet to see a single energy weapon in the game that was significantly more powerful than guns, in fact, in most cases, the only ones that do decent damage are plasma weapons, which are less accurate at range than guns, by comparison, with guns, you have some very powerful weapons that are also very effective at range. The only real advantage energy weapons have is that there's only a few types of ammunition for them, which means you don't have to deal with finding a rare type of ammunition you've never bothered to carry before if you want to switch over to a weapon that uses it, and aside from the disadvantages I've already listed, energy weapon users need to deal with less versatility, both in the weapons available and ammunition types.

What I'd really like to see, though, is a major revision to how energy weapons work, they should be less like guns with less variety and different firing effects, and more like a weapon class unto itself, with its own strengths and weaknesses, and should be just as viable a choice as guns, but not identicle, but obviously, this sort of thing isn't going to happen until a new game is released, as completely overhauling the way a certain class of weapons works is beyond the scope of what a patch could do, maybe a mod could also do this, but I'd imagine it would be easier for the developers to do it since they have more freedom to change the game's source code, and can thus do things that would be difficult or impossible for modders to do, at least not without roundabout scripting, and really, the subject would be more suited for Fallout General Discussion.

We have two threads about energy weapons being crap already:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1138549-energy-weapons-nerfed/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1140278-an-itemized-rant-against-energy-weapons-part-2/

If you look at what sawyer says on the topic it makes sense that they were trying to make lasers realy fast firing and plasma realy slow but powerful.. and that last minute tweaks to the game might have made for a bit of an oopsy.

I wouldnt be swhocked if they do tweak some things to get the weapons working the way they ment them to. BUT I think other bug fixing will have to come first before they get to much of that.

Plasma Caster with Highspeed Electrode and Max Charge

Makes anything else seem like BB Gun

Cowboy weapons too slow? Brush Gun is super fast AND it's powerful.

This Machine is a fantastic general purpose weapon. Even if Gobi or Sniper Rifle+ didn't exist, I don't see anything like This Machine for energy weapons. Plasma Caster is the closest thing, but it's for primary non-vats combat. Multiplas is good for sneak attacks, close combat and vats against targets with low DT. But energy weapons has no answer in VATS for high DT targets.

In contrast, This Machine does it all. The sheer versatility is amazing, even if it the damage is not as high as Brush Gun. Not to mention, .308 JSP ammo is so easy to make.

That was why I suggested making the q-35 modulator better, as it would fill this hole.

This is not really true. I won't argue that the plasma caster is a good weapon. It's economical since it only uses 1 MF cell, and it's fast. But it has several disadvantages. You can't use it in VATS (shots miss, hit the ceiling, do terrible damage). Even though it has a high rate of fire, it's effectiveness really falls when you factor in DT. It only keeps afloat with weapons like Gobi when you use Max Charge ammo.

Let's pull a chart from my guide. If our character has 10 luck, finesse, better criticals, is wearing the 1st recon baret, etc., this is what the dps would be against a target with 30 dt:

   .---------------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.---------.   | WEAPON              | AMMO       | CRT %  | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | AVG DPS |   |---------------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|---------|   | Plasma Caster+      | MF MC      |  20.0% |    61.25 |  231.88 |  410.11 |   | Pew-Pew             | EC MC      |  75.0% |    85.50 |  228.00 |  384.75 |   | Gobi                | .308 JSP   | 100.0% |    45.00 |  180.00 |  318.21 |   | Sniper Rifle+       | .308 JSP   | 100.0% |    48.00 |  187.50 |  300.00 |   | Plasma Caster+      | MF OC      |  20.0% |    43.75 |  165.63 |  292.94 |   | Pew-Pew             | EC OC      |  75.0% |    63.00 |  168.00 |  283.50 |   | Plasma Caster+      | MF         |  20.0% |    35.00 |  132.50 |  250.70 |   | Pew-Pew             | EC         |  75.0% |    51.75 |  138.00 |  232.88 |   | Brush Gun           | .45-70 SWC |  20.0% |    73.95 |  237.08 |  220.63 |   | Gobi                | .308       | 100.0% |    30.00 |  120.00 |  212.14 |   | Sniper Rifle+       | .308       | 100.0% |    32.00 |  125.00 |  200.00 |   | YCS/186             | MF MC      |  40.0% |   192.50 |  376.25 |  180.08 |   | Ranger Seq.         | .45-70 SWC |  30.0% |    66.70 |  201.55 |  180.02 |   | Q-35 MM             | MF MC      |  40.0% |    11.20 |  166.25 |  175.73 |   | This Machine        | .308 JSP   |  20.0% |    52.50 |  198.75 |  174.82 |   | Brush Gun           | .45-70     |  20.0% |    56.25 |  196.88 |  174.67 |   | Multiplas Rifle     | MF MC      |  20.0% |    36.75 |  853.13 |  170.02 |   | Ranger Seq.         | .45-70     |  30.0% |    50.00 |  166.25 |  142.59 |   | YCS/186             | MF OC      |  40.0% |   137.50 |  268.75 |  128.63 |   | Q-35 MM             | MF OC      |  40.0% |     8.00 |  118.75 |  125.52 |   | Multiplas Rifle     | MF OC      |  20.0% |    26.25 |  609.38 |  121.44 |   | This Machine        | .308       |  20.0% |    35.00 |  132.50 |  116.55 |   | All-American        | .556mm AP  |  20.0% |    10.45 |   47.50 |  107.16 |   | YCS/186             | MF         |  40.0% |   110.00 |  215.00 |  102.90 |   | Q-35 MM             | MF         |  40.0% |     6.40 |   95.00 |  100.42 |   | Tri-Beam            | EC MC      |  45.0% |    19.76 |   56.05 |   98.43 |   | Multiplas Rifle     | MF         |  20.0% |    21.00 |  487.50 |   97.16 |   | Riot Shot Gun       | 12G Magnum |  20.0% |    17.87 |   49.11 |   96.47 |   | Mysterious Magnum   | .44 SWC    |  20.0% |    17.40 |  108.75 |   86.95 |   | Riot Shot Gun       | 12G        |  20.0% |    15.54 |   42.70 |   83.89 |   | Mysterious Magnum   | .44        |  20.0% |    15.00 |   93.75 |   74.95 |   | Tri-Beam            | EC OC      |  45.0% |    14.56 |   41.30 |   72.53 |   | All-American        | .556mm     |  20.0% |     5.20 |   35.00 |   66.96 |   | Tri-Beam            | EC         |  45.0% |    11.96 |   33.93 |   59.58 |   | Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50 Match  |  20.0% |    92.00 |  230.00 |   53.55 |   | Anti-Materiel Rifle | .50        |  20.0% |    80.00 |  200.00 |   46.57 |   | Weather 10mm        | .10mm JHP  |  20.0% |     7.92 |   51.98 |   46.01 |   | Weather 10mm        | .10mm      |  20.0% |     4.80 |   31.50 |   27.89 |   '---------------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'---------'

As you can see, Plasma Caster doesn't make everything else look like a BB gun. In fact, it's moderately balanced with guns. I dunno about you though, but I'd rather have the scope, the crit multiplier and a better vats weapon with gobi even if the dps is slightly lower. It's not like gobi's rate of fire is that much worse than a Plasma Caster. It's actually really fast. In practice, I'd say Gobi is still better.

The situation isn't THAT bad for energy weapons though. The real problem is that you'll pay more caps for the same results. It's kind of sick that Pew-Pew, for 75 caps, is losing to plasma caster, which only takes 7.5 caps... 10% of the cost. You'll have to pay a whopping 45 caps to get only 170.02 DPS with a Multiplas Rifle.

In VATS, the situation is much worse:

   .--------------.------------.--------.----------.---------.--------.--------.   | WEAPON       | AMMO       | CRT %  | BASE DMG | CRT DMG | # ATKS | DAMAGE |   |--------------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|--------|   | Pew-Pew      | EC MC      |  87.5% |    85.50 |  228.00 |      3 | 630.56 |   | Gobi         | .308 JSP   | 100.0% |    45.00 |  180.00 |      3 | 540.00 |   | Brush Gun    | .45-70 SWC |  25.0% |    65.25 |  228.38 |      5 | 530.16 |   | Ranger Seq.  | .45-70 SWC |  37.5% |    66.70 |  201.55 |      4 | 469.08 |   | Pew-Pew      | EC OC      |  87.5% |    63.00 |  168.00 |      3 | 464.63 |   | Brush Gun    | .45-70     |  25.0% |    56.25 |  196.88 |      5 | 457.03 |   | This Machine | .308 JSP   |  25.0% |    52.50 |  198.75 |      5 | 445.31 |   | Pew-Pew      | EC         |  87.5% |    51.75 |  138.00 |      3 | 381.66 |   | Ranger Seq.  | .45-70     |  37.5% |    50.00 |  166.25 |      4 | 374.38 |   | Gobi         | .308       | 100.0% |    30.00 |  120.00 |      3 | 360.00 |   | Q-35 MM      | MF MC      |  50.0% |    11.20 |  166.25 |      4 | 354.90 |   | Multiplas    | MF MC      |  25.0% |    36.75 |  301.88 |      3 | 309.09 |   | This Machine | .308       |  25.0% |    35.00 |  132.50 |      5 | 296.88 |   | Q-35 MM      | MF OC      |  50.0% |     8.00 |  118.75 |      4 | 253.50 |   | Multiplas    | MF OC      |  25.0% |    26.25 |  215.63 |      3 | 220.78 |   | Q-35 MM      | MF         |  50.0% |     6.40 |   95.00 |      4 | 202.80 |   | Multiplas    | MF         |  25.0% |    21.00 |  172.50 |      3 | 176.63 |   | Weather 10mm | .10mm JHP  |  25.0% |     7.92 |   51.98 |      7 | 132.54 |   | All-American | .556mm AP  |  25.0% |    10.45 |   47.50 |      6 | 118.28 |   | Tri-Beam     | EC MC      |  52.5% |    19.76 |   19.76 |      5 |  98.80 |   | Weather 10mm | .10mm      |  25.0% |     4.80 |   31.50 |      7 |  80.33 |   | All-American | .556mm     |  25.0% |     5.20 |   35.00 |      6 |  75.90 |   | Tri-Beam     | EC OC      |  52.5% |    14.56 |   14.56 |      5 |  72.80 |   | Riot Shotgun | 12G Magnum |  25.0% |    17.87 |   17.87 |      4 |  71.48 |   | Riot Shotgun | 12G        |  25.0% |    15.54 |   15.54 |      4 |  62.16 |   | Tri-Beam     | EC         |  52.5% |    11.96 |   11.96 |      5 |  59.80 |   '--------------'------------'--------'----------'---------'--------'--------'

Here Guns just dominate. Sure, Pew-Pew is the king, but 69 caps less, you can basically get a far superior/more versatile weapon. Outside of Pew-Pew, guns dominates this list handedly.

Op: because you have spare time to do a wall of text that doesn't really do much you claim full credits for asking the dev to patch EWs?

I agree completely. You should try out your suggestions in the geck and release them as a mod, since most of the problem seems to be coming from prices/ammo usage/conversion rates it would be easy to edit those.

More like Cowboy weapons are supposed to be slow, and thus have high damage, but they are double broken because at the last minute they were buffed to shoot fast too. Probably because only real men can use them (100 guns and strength 8). Pansy nerds use energy weapons.

Still, when you really get down to it, the best guns in this game are mostly old-school weapons. The WW2 M1 Garand is significantly better than most of the modern AR/DMR selection. So it is not just energy weapons that come off badly in comparison. Cowboy >>> Commando >>> Space Marine is the setup.

Obviously. Though my nerd has strength of 6

Nobody should care about crediting somebody who asked a question. It's ridiculous. Game balance discussions are ephemera.

OP:

I thought EW had enough utility to use them all the way through to the end of the game. I sort of wish they had more oomph or cost less, but I can't really say they are unbalanced because I was able to use them and they did work. They weren't as "fun" as guns though, which kind of disappointed me. If they lit people on fire 10% of the time that would make them more interesting to me.

Yo mystic, why do you have the Riot loaded with magnum buckshot on your chart when you're shooting something with 30 DT...? Re-do that with slugs, man. Nobody uses buckshot against DT (or I hope not anyway).

Thanks folks and the OP for bringing this up. I have yet to in FO3 or FONV use energy weapons and i have 7 FO3 characters and am currently working on character number 3 in FONV as i figured they were a bit too dainty. I am prejudiced against energy weapons as an old school boy i still think there is nothing better than "some lead to the head to makem dead".

Honestly i think there should be away to recharge the energy cells by going to a location like Helios, the solar array at Nellis, Hoover Dam, or a few other locations where there is a large amount of electricity. Just like i have to go to a bench to reload my brass, if you could recharge your cells by plugging them into a bench type item this would fix alot of the cost involved with energy weapons. If recharging cells is cheap/free (needing just faction to utalize the energy benches in the faction locations) this would IMHO make them a bit more plausable to use, add some depth, lower the cost which would balance them in comparison gunpowder based weapons. I do not know as an individual who does not like the energy weapons concept anyway, never uses them in the first place, i maybe just making noise, but if costs are signifigantly more to use energy weapons that is more than enough of a deterent for me to avoid them all together.

Asai

I kinda agree. But caps aren't that hard to come by in FO:NV.

Plasma Caster svcks since it's bugged in third person, heYo!

Looks like a list of changes in a mod..........