For the most part, I love the weapons and their effects, in FO4. But............. I absolutely detest beam weapons, firing 'speed of light' rays, which arrive on target visibly slower than bullet weapons, which are hitscan. Also, it is utterly ridiculous that silent beam weapons make as loud of a bang on firing as a .50 caliber sniper rifle, and cannot be silenced in any way. I don't know if enemies can actually 'hear' your beam weapons firing, or not... but I sure can, and it bugs the bejeebus out of me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I guess we have Star Wars to thank for all the lazy laser beams and noisy light.

I'm right there with you. I avoided energy weapons on my first playthough because it was a stealth mod and they are neither silent nor invisible.

FWIW, did you know that laser beams powerful enough to do actual damage DO make a sound? At least through atmosphere, they do. Not pew-pew, but snap-snap like tiny lightning bolts. Lasers powerful enough to do damage ionize the atmosphere (and the stuff they hit) and make miniature peals of thunder. I would imagine that the more powerful the laser, the less minature those pops would be.

Ok, I can acknowledge that. So at least make it some kind of different and interesting ionization-snap sound, cuz I doubt even real military lasers being fired sound just like a .50 rifle going off... oh, and what's with the huge kicking recoil, eh??

Yeah I was all excited when I found my first Plasma Sniper Rifle. Then I tried it. The 'bolt' of plasma moved so slow that the target actually walked out of the way before it could hit. Unless the target is bolted to the floor (leaning against a wall or otherwise motionless) this weapon is a complete joke. Had to scrap that thing.

I would also say that beams shot AT you should hit you with light\photons first, then you would hear the sound. I know I can detect the speed of sound from things making noise at long distance. guessing at 100 yards and I know that weapon range is in contention here, but it looks like that distance from a lot of my encounters in game.

another oddity is that Synth troops fire what seems like suppressed laser rifles. I rarely hear their shots, but see them.

I'm quite sure now that "range" means how far the bullet travels. Then it disappears. Tried a few tests at Revere Satellite Station, with a .50 with 197 range and long-range scope. From the hill on the western side beyond the street I shot at a supermutant standing still a few times. The head was clearly visible in the scope. No reaction at all after each shot. Then I moved further to the station and from a point a few metres nearer I suddenly hit the supermutant.

That the ballistic weapons show no trajectory can be explained with a little bit of love. If you are a hunter you perhaps know the distance scoped rifles are often zeroed for. It's the point where the projectile while not leaving the sight of line for more than a few centimeters passes the sight line the second time. I don't know the term in English for it. At this distance which depends on the rounds ballistic performance you can just centre the crosshair and don't have to take gravity into account. If it is a high velocity bullet which travels in a rather flat trajectory like most modern rounds. For example for a .308 with a 150 grain bullet and 860 m/sec V0 this range is about 170 metres. However in real life bullets of course do not disappear after this range.

That's kind of what I was getting at. It's called "zero" in English, too. A typical .308 setup would be to zero for 5 cm high at 100m in order for bullet drop to make POI at the crosshairs at 200m and 15cm low at 300m.

Hell, I had a heck of a time just hitting anything with a dropping arrow in Skyrim. No wonder there's so many NPC's running around there with arrows in their knees.