Do energy weapons make enough sound to alert enemies or are they essentially "silenced"? I want to make a stealth energy character, but wasn't sure if the up close and personal route would be an option.

I just checked the geck. All energy weapons are tagged "silent".

-gunny out.

They're noisy enough to alert enemies. No energy weapon is classed as 'silenced'. You can still sneak-snipe but, but for close-range silent kills you'll need another option. I find a pair of spiked knuckles works wonders for this, even with a low unarmed skill.

edit: I'm intrigued by that Gunny, as my experience with them would contradict that, and I play a lot of sneaky-silent-kill-type characters. Hmmmmmm.

I checked 'em all just to make sure. Even the gauss and flame weapons the "silent" box is checked.

-Gunny out.

Interesting. I'm not sure that setting's doing what it's supposed to be doing. I've just been doing some testing of my own:

Take one stealth-boyed, NCR-garbed Courier, plant in Ranger Camp Echo. There are three rangers, two regular and one vet, at the outset they're all yellow on the compass. Courier crouches six feet from vet and shoots him in the head w/silenced sniper rifle. Result: 1 dead vet, 1 still-[hidden] Courier, two remaining rangers still yellow on compass.

Now, same scenario repeated but w/Gauss Rifle instead, and the result: 1 dead vet, two remaining rangers now red on compass, and [caution] status for Courier. Got the same results with the Multiplas too.

I suppose the stealth-boy and/or the faction armour may be affecting things somehow, I don't quite have a perfect high-sneak-and-EW character I can test this with (most suitable candidate is spoiled by having Meltdown.)

Gunny, use sure it is check silent on the 2nd tab of the weapon stat sheet no the 1st? the one on 1st tab is VATS....

I don't care what box is checked as its obviously wrong. Energy weapons are not silent in gameplay.

Well, neither is a 'silenced' weapon, for that matter- they all make some kind of noise that you can hear, ingame.

Rangers see through disguises.
It's possible that its not the fact that the weapon made a noise.
Merely that someone died and then the rangers picked up the disguise and became hostile?

Well if you think about, silenced weapons still make a quiet noise, yet they're "silent"

I don't think so. I repeated this over and over with both a silenced sniper rifle and a gauss/multiplas. Using the former, the other rangers never went hostile and I remained [hidden]. Using the latter, every single time they became hostile and my status moved to [caution].

Based on my experiences with the game, I think the only truly "silent" weapons (i.e. weapons that enable consequence-free sneak-kills) are the following: sniper rilfe + silencer mod; varmint rifle + silencer mod; silenced .22 pistol; 10mm pistol + silencer mod; any unarmed waepon up to and including the ballistic fist (despite the racket it makes); and most-if-not-all melee weapons (I say 'most' because I haven't tested the chainsaw and thermic lance, they may work differently). The silenced .22 SMG should probably go in this category too, but so far the results I've had with it have been a bit spotty, I'd need to play around with it a bit more to say for certain.

put it this way u can use energy weapons to do sneak attacks and enemy's don't jump on u but instead go into [ caution] ; u lose reputation if there are members of that faction near the target and u killed it with an energy weapon


weapons with silencers only attract the attention of the target

don't be a smart[censored] you know what I mean, the silenced guns don't alert enemies, energy weapon do.

theres no way that works right,the loud bang the guasse is heard by enemies from long distance,maybe the laser pistol.

Wasn't trying to be. I just assumed you were concerned about the actual audible noise that energy weapons all make in spite of the fact they are considered 'silent', and I was pointing out that silenced projectile weapons also make a certain amount of audible noise ingame, too. I'm not a mindreader, sorry.

The main two I'm curious about were the Compliance Regulator and Pew Pew, I wouldn't think a laser weapon would make much sound, but I'd hate to dedicate a build to it only to see it fail.