If you are an energy weapon fanatic at the beginning of the game follow these simple steps

1. Go Through Doc Mitchell's stuff and find the laser pistol, you may also recieve one from him when u leave
2. If you have the Gun Runners Arsenal (GRA) go to chet and buy the plasma pistol or laser pistol (sell all guns that you wont use)
3.Buy mods for either of them or just repair the laser pistol u get for Doc Mitchell's house with the weapon repair kits from the Couriers stash DLC
4. Side with the powder gangers in the fight for goodsprings after you talk to Sunny Smiles
5. In the fight kill Doc Mitchell and take his laser pistol to repair youre own.
6. go find the powder gangers corrctional facility and do all there quests up to the NCR invading the prison do that one as well
7. When the NCR invade leave the facility and wait a couple hours go back and kill the guards and the main boss (if they are not already dead)
8. Take the energy weapons off the dead bodies and make repairs to your own weapons
9. Go through Primm and do what you want to do there
10. Head to Mojave Outpost and have Major Knight repair ur weapons

as you head through the game always be on the look out for energy weapons a couple good stores to get some:
The Silver Rush In Freeside (you will unlcok more weapons from doing there quests)
Cliff Briscoe In Novac
Mick and Ralph's in Freeside (after u say u dont work in casinos)

Also energy weapon ammo is not hard to find at all and if u want to keep ure weapons in good condition u should follow these steps and dont listen to Drake Evlin Below He Hate on Everbodies comments i see him post something on almost every one of them

Also Always look for dead Bright followers along the as you go through the game also always talk to traveling merchants and see if they have any energy weapon ammo.

Hope this helps from your friend MrRager

I agree with the concept of the above but not a lot of the details. You don't have to do certain quests a certain way just to have decent [energy] weapons. In particular I disagree with the comments about killing the Doc and doing the whole NCRCF thing. Totally unecessary:

In vanilla NV starting with Energy Weapons seems pretty hard for two reasons:

1. There are few weapons available so self-repairing *seems* impossible.
2. Ammo *seems* hard to find.

They key to an EW character (as many have said) is that your 3 most important skills are Energy Weapons, Repair and Science, to open up perks like Scrounger, Vigilant Recycler, and Jury Rigging later in the game. High repair also just flat out works better whenever you do your own repairs.

To address point #1 about weapon/self-repair availability, with 50 repair you can use a workbench to build weapon repair kits from spare parts that you find lying around, or you can even buy all the required parts for about 20 or 25 caps total and make kits. Even at 40 repair (or 30 with Comprehension) you can use magazines to help you in the early going. It's very easy to do if you plan your workbench session and have all the parts and a magazine.

So, when you have your laser or plasma weapon your focus should be to collect Duct Tape, Scrap Electronics, Scrap Metal, Wonderglue, and Wrenches to make repair kits. You don't need to kill Doc Mitchell or any Powder Gangers to find this stuff. You could kill Geckos and sell the hides and buy the parts pretty easily. Or you can just go loot ruins. Most interior ruins locatiosn have lots of this stuff. And to keep from falling short on certain components just always check the merchants and buy whatever they're selling and save it for later. These parts are cheap. Wonderglue is the most expensive at around 10 to 15 caps depending on your barter.

In the long run, it should be rare if ever that you pay a merchant to repair a weapon. It gets way too expensive later, as well. You can make sufficient repair kits and use them in cases when you need a repair but have no matching weapon to use for the repair. Save the repair kits for a rainy day, in other words.

Okay, on to point #2 and that's ammo. Early on just buy a box of bulk energy ammo and use it if you run out of the good stuff. You'll most need this during Sunny's Gecko tutorial since they give you so little to start. I believe Chet always sells at least one box of bulk EC ammo. Use the good stuff first and the bulk if you run out. Always pay attention when you are looting to check for ammunition in boxes, desks, lockers, etc. Be persistent there's actually quite a lot of EC ammo between Goodsprings and Primm if you turn over some rocks. Also, your high science and repair skill will help you get perks like Scrounger and Vigilant Recycler later. (And don't forget about the standard recycling recipes you start the game with.)

So to sum it up, you need to be more careful with your resources as an EW player.

You need to always actively look for ammo in places you're looting, and at merchants, because the supply is tight compared to bullets.

And you always need to be on the lookout for those repair kit components from the very start. Save them and never sell them. And buy them whenver merchants sell them. Then when you find your first plasma rifle, your high repair skill and kits will keep it healthy even if you can't find a lot of additional copies of the weapon to do the repairs, but when you do find them its a bonus.

It's totally unlike being a guns player who finds a dozen 9mm/10mm pistols between Goodsprings and Mojave Outpost and is in a constant state of self-repair nirvana.

I suppose you could say that, at the start of the game, an EW build is to a Guns build what hardcoe mode is to normal. It's not that hard but you do have to play smarter. (Thus I have proven EW players are smarter lol j/k)

p.s. If you should find a Recharger Pistol early on you are a lucky person. The best place to find one of these early is on the corpse of a Bright Follower. There's one at Nipton Road Gas Station, another north of Wolfhorn Ranch, and a whole bunch of them at Repconn Factory near Novac. Bright corpses are your best early bet for a really good energy weapon, if you are lucky you'll get the recharger pistol early. So yeah, that was a good comment about those guys they kind of blend in to the background unless you know where to look they're easy to miss.

Another Bright Follower that's really close to Goodsprings is located under I-15 heading toward Sloan. After fighting the Powder Gangers, if you continue north you'll come to a small ravine under the road that's crossed by a short bridge. The Follower is under that bridge.