I have two questions for this board I was hoping someone would be able to answer. I was doing some wiki searched, trying to find the answer to my questions but to no avail. So here we go:

1. Energy Weapons and their "fuel":

What exactly was the development of energy weapons utilized for. I understand in sci-fiction that energy weapons are usually the go to weapon but in the fallout universe, was energy weapons developed to be better than the ballistic counterparts? In an old game, Mechwarriors, the benefit of laser weaponery was to eliminate the need to carry risky ammo payloads and produce similar results. Was energy weapons just not developed enough to eliminate the expenditure of energy "batteries"? And lasers were suppose to be advance weaponery, however, is it due to gameplay that they are similar in damage to gun counterparts?

And if humanity was capable of understanding fusion energy, could they not produce it on a larger scale to remove or ease the need of fossile fuels? And with the lack of a strong, reliable output of energy in the future, won't the fusion cells become extincted?

2. Future of Survival skill and food:

Do you think the healing properties of food in New Vegas and the survival skill will be cannon and continue in future games? I reckon that it is radiation that gave food healing properties? What is your thoughts

Energy weapons, ignoring their viability for now, should not be that much more powerful than ballistic weapons. While they have the advantage in how much time it takes to get to the target (speed of light for a laser) those same weapons need some time on target to create the heat needed to damage the material. This may not be a large increment of time, but it is certainly more than any impact from a bullet.

To the Viability issue, seeing how much energy is required to make a weapons grade laser, I can't see how anyone could haul around a Laser Pistol that would be more than a pointer in power. 50 to 100 KW seems to be the power needed to make a laser beam into a weapon. It's not so much how much power the weapon makes, it's more how long can the weapon apply that power to the target? So, much larger energy levels are needed to make a laser do something to the target in the short amount of time that the target will sit around and let that happen. Bullet impacts are on the order of Megawatts, according to this chart:

http://home.earthlink.net/~jimlux/energies.htm

Even with advanced technology, that much electricity requires the same amount of electrons as it does today, and that means a physically large power source. Maybe the Gauss Rifle with enough capacitive energy storage could be an alternative to a bullet in a gun, but I can't see how Plasma or Lasers are even a viable weapon in the game, if more than one shot is fired.

As for food giving healing properties, it is just giving the body the energy it needs to heal and to cope with the damage from the injury and to heal. It's just sped up in the game as a game mechanic.