Why have Bethesda turned the Gauss rifle into an energy weapon?

Laser pistol, shoots a concentrated beam of light.
Laser rifle, shoots a concentrated beam of light.

Plasma pistol, shoots a "Gloop" of super heated plasma.
Plasma rifle, shoots a "Gloop" of super heated plasma.

Gauss rifle, shoots a spherical BULLET!!!!

Fail!

Here's a quote from Emil Pagliarulo from the other thread discussing the Gauss Rifle.

Well, its not exactly a typical firearm after all...

I would rather carry around a battery CHARGED to fire 1000 shots...
Than 1000 shots, all preloaded into the gun....

That would be one heavy gun, it sounds more like Big Guns now to me....

Also, the original 2mm EC clip in Fallout 2 looks like it contains both a battery and rounds.

Well, it does rely more on magnetic energy to fire the round than the standard combustion you get with a Small Arms gun. I don't think it's all that terribly odd of an idea for it be in the Energy Weapon class. (I could be wrong, but in real-life, my understanding is that it's less the impact of the actuall bullet in a Guass Rifle that does the damage, so much as the transfer of energy- given, this is much of what you get in a regular gun, but it seems the principle is somewhat different.)

Does seem like they had to do some cramming to get it to fit in the game, though. If they wanted an Energy equivalent of the Sniper Rifle, they could have just come up with something else, too. Doesn't really seem like it needed to be a Guass Rifle necessarily.

EDIT:
Nevermind. Yes, they had a chance to invent something totally original here.

... well, they didn't need to. There's already an energy sniper rifle, it's called the Wattz 2000 Laser Rifle. It's design is more or less a sniper rifle, afterall. But whatever. The Gauss Rifle being an energy weapon isn't that big of a deal to me. It's low ammo amount does though, but eh.

Energy weapons are pretty weak, they could use something that does some good damage.

I can think of about 5-6 good weapons that already exist for small arms.

The ratio of Energy Guns weapons to Small Guns weapons is pathetic. It could do with some padding.

They could have brought back pulse weapons, and made the Wattz 2000 the sniper EW.

I really do wish they would bring pulse weapons back. Glad fans are doing that though.

Truthfully if the ammo for the Gauss rifle were the slugs instead of the energy cell, I'd feel more like I'm loading a high-tec BB gun then a railgun-esque weapon.

the pulse weapons in fallout 2 annoyed me to no end because the target was turned to ash which did not count as a container and thus everything was on the ground in a fairly random fashion of course they could just fix that.

The 2mm EC clips in FO2 contained both an energy cell and rounds.

wellthere were si many people asking for a guass rifle

The explanation still doesn't make much sense for the distinction, laser rifles fire laser beams at enemies, while plasma rifles fire bolts of plasma, in both cases, they fit as energy weapons due to using energy based means to cause damage. A Gauss rifle, however, fires a solid projectile, it does use an electrically powered firing mechanism, but the energy is just a means to shoot the bullet, the thing you're shooting is the bullet itself, so it's a projectile weapon. Granted, it isn't exactly a conventional firearm either, so the small guns category does not necessarily fit, but it certainly doesn't make sense for it to be an energy weapon.

There was really no need to use the Gauss rifle if Bethesda wanted more energy weapons to play some roles that are left unfulfilled, after all, as has been noted, the Wattz 2000 seems like it could make a good sniper rifle, and Bethesda could always bring back pulse weapons, or they could even well... you know, do something original? Bethesda put new laser weapons and a new assault rifle and new models of robots in Fallout 3, so why should it be so hard to do a few actually creative energy weapon ideas?

Yes, it makes sense. The Gauss Rifle uses energy to fire. Batteries, condensators, resistances, electronic stuff to regulate the process. In that regard, its maintenance and usage has more in common with Energy Weapons than Small Guns, which are based on mechanical principles.

Well, I haven't found the Gauss Rifle in Fallout 3 yet, but I would have rather had the ammo as it was in Fallout 2. From the reasearch I have donw, there is no energy charge in when using a Gauss Rifle, its an electrical current that passes through the Slug. The current then interacts with Magnetic Fields and accelerates the bullet.

Also, I don't like the damn Pulse Weapons....Woulda made a massive amount of cash from them though...(If I had picked them up!)

Truthfully the energy weapon skill never made much sense to me. I mean, firing that little pulse pistol is probably different then firing that laser gatling.

They should just put them under small guns and big guns, which would make more sense. Then they could just make it harder to get those stats.

And that "solid projectile" have the same trajectory profile as energy weapons.

If anything I always found odd the Guass weapons not being energy weapons, I suppose the reason is they were the "upper" level of projectile weapons as the pulse weapons were the "upper" level of energy weapons.

Surprised nobody's brought up the fact that the Chinese propaganda posters make it seem that the Gauss Rifle itself is of Chinese origin. If that's the case, then did the US find a manner to adapt them to use Microfusion Cells? Because my understanding had always been that the reason the Chinese didn't field energy weapons and Power Armor is because they lacked compact fusion technology that the US had in abundance. If they already had fusion technology on the scale of MFCs, then how is it they never managed to successfully build their own PA before the bombs dropped?

China worked on their own power armor prototypes as well, although they weren't as successful as the American ones. And the stealth armor was also powered in some way.

The original Gauss Rifle (the M72 from Fallout 2) was actually invented by the Germans, and it didn't use MFCs - it used 2mm EC clips, which contained both rounds and a battery. And there was a Chinese Gauss Minigun in Fallout Tactics.

I don't think that only the US had fusion technology, given that the Gatling Laser in Fallout 1 was built by Heckler and Koch, the german company that makes real-life weapons such as the MP5 submachine gun. The Gatling Laser was powered by microfusion cells. So that's a German company building weapons powered by microfusion.

I think it is more the case that America had the monopoly on fusion power - they invented it, and other countries had to buy it from the US or steal it or obtain it by other means. It is feasible that the Chinese managed to get ahold of some microfusion technology, and were in the process of reverse engineering it, but they were lagging behind America which already had it for several years and had fusion-powered cars etc.

It's also possible that the Operation Anchorage gauss rifle is a german weapon, just like the Fallout 2/Tactics gauss rifle. Since germans could use microfusion in gatling lasers, they could use it in gauss weaponry too. Perhaps the Germans are selling indescriminatly to both sides in the conflict? I'd find that surprising, but perhaps possible.

Don't forget that there might still be an East Germany/West Germany divide in the Fallout world, or even Germany united under communist rule.