Both laser and institute weapons are crap compared to Plasma/Ballistic.

depends on what you are fighting. If they have Metal Armor then ballistic is actively resisted but Energy does full damage. Also Plasma does Energy and Ballistic Damage in this game for no reason

This is incorrect. Your usual gen I and gen II synth soldiers may seem weak compared to US as a player and Bos Knights, but they are more than enough to dispatch muties, raiders , gunners and what not. Remember, even Kellog had a healthy dose of respect for them ( even tho he did dispatch three of them easily ) and considering the number of raider bodies you see every time you enter a synth infested dungeon, you realise that these guys aren't a joke.

Mind you, again, they feel weak cause they're up against you, but numbers and technological advantages do wonders on wasteland. And all the while these guys were lead by scientists who have little to no combat experience or knowledge on war tactics. Now, strap them some heavier armour, upgrade their combat protocols and give them plasma instead of lasers, create a dedicated war division with leaders and what not, and voila, you got yourself some necron immortals.

If you read the terminals they have only begun designing plasma rifles to surpass the laser rifles. It was slotted for after phase III and would require time to make an effective modern plasma rifle design.

i guess I missed that entry, gotta do another run through the place to read their immense amount of terminals

I imagine we could see this coming to realisation in a DLC. Synth shock troops clad in some type of heavy armour and wielding plasma weaponary, maybe even improve plasma beyond current standards. It would be a very [censored] situation indeed for Bos if they develop Synths who can stand toe to toe with Bos Knights.

It would be interesting, especially since plasma is the one true weakness of power armor. I believe only the Enclave Advanced Power Armor Mk II was capable of withstanding plasma fire.

well that is what Tesla Armor was made for. When lasers or plasma fly towards the armor they are intercepted and dispersed by the electrical surges...unfortunately Bethesda decided the tesla coil upgrade was a close range damage effect...because screw good ideas

Excellent point. It would be awesome to see some signs we didn't wipe out the institute completely and their focus has been war ever since so advanced weapons and armor the world has never seen.

standard laser gear has way more modifications

Not on the phone app. Like the report button, that tech is too advanced for us.

Its mass produced to be cheap and disposable. They don't want wasteland adventurers hunting down synths for better guns. That's why the weapons they issue to synths in the field are inferior.

Not really, Plasma was no more effective then ballistic weapons against power armor. Where it PA was really strong was laser weaponry because the U.S believed that to be the area of weapons development the Chinese were working on. Enclave power armor brought the plasma resistance almost up to the level of its laser but it certainly wasn't a weakness of any kind. Your thinking of the Pulse Rifle which was electrical and ignored 80% of the targets armor.

There is nothing in game to indicate that A3-21's plasma rifle was of Institute origin.

Son of a [censored] it worked:) synths are garbage just take one leg off and there right arm and you get one soft kitten

yeah because I'm sure that institute courser who decided to flee from the commonwealth stopped at the local high tech weapon shop and bought a highly upgraded Plasma Rifle and then decided to never use it once they wiped their memory...yup totally logical