I thought these guys were supposed to be the most technologically advanced faction in the game, their laser weaponry is absolute garbage compared to a standard laser weapon! I mean how are these guys even a threat? I get that synths have more combat prowess than the average wastelander but come on, unless your up against a courser you shouldn't need more than a merc or two to take down half a dozen of them. Danse can take down scores of em

...lack of field testing and experience...maybe...they do seem pretty active and have a lot of operations, but maybe that's just recently...

Their greatest strategic advantage is their infiltration capabilities so maybe that's where they have put their focus...

I have read somewhere that they have a faster rate of fire instead, so that in the end they have the same damage output than laser weapons. Didn't check those calculations myself though.

Weak?

Play the game in Survival mode. I keep receiving legendary drops on almost every 4-5 mobs. Some weapons are AWESOMELY good!

A balance which doesn't work as soon as you throw damage resistance in to the mix since DR give progressively better protection the better the ratio vs. the damage. So a 12 damage automatic that delivers 200 shots per minute is going to do much less damage (around 1000 damage) against armour with 20 energy resistance, than a 240 damage superlaser which shoots 10 (around 2300 damage) even though their damage potential on paper seems equal.

I'm pretty sure the first and second gen synths we see scouring places are designed more as mass-produced shock troops than highly advanced individual units... I mean, an Assaultron is a more deadly opponent than a single synth. But rarely do you encounter just a single synth. By that logic, it would make sense for the Institute to mass produce a ton of cheap but efficient weapons for their synths to use. The Institute Gun is highly modifiable, only just barely weaker than a standard Laser Rifle, and presumably much easier to mass-produce and maintain.

I just wish Coursers had more advanced gear themselves, although they can still do a lot of damage with an Institute Gun.

SPOILERS!!!!!!

You'll need to play the institute faction to understand why.

The institute wants to help the Commonwealth, and has not developed much into weaponry. However, SPOILER ALERT, very late in the institute quest line, you get to chose to either produce more synths or develop better weapons.

Well when you think about it, prior to the coming of brotherhood, these guys had no reason to really develop anything heavier and armour piercing since the usual raiders/gunners and what not are not really that well protected, so the institute laser weaponary was probably enough.

Tho if you side with the Institute at the end, they ask you as a Director wether they should focus on weapon manufacturing or synth production and if you answer weapons, they hint that they want to move on to plasma weaponary. There's also a chick scientist who is developing plasma weaponary in her spare time.

Which we never get to see sadly. I was hoping some of the stronger versions of synth, like assaulters/eradicators would show up with heavy armour and plasma weaponary, but it didnt happen.

There are spoiler tags. You can get them either by highlighting the text and clicking the green button third from the left up top. Or by putting [spoiler.] and [/spoiler.] around the text. (remove the periods)

They aren't weak. They are weaker then standard laser weapons but not by that much. True, they have lower damage per shot but they also have higher fire rate.

Institute Rifle

damage: 23

shots per minute: 66

damage per second: 25,3

Laser Rifle

damage: 36

shots per minute: 50

damage per second: 30

Difference in DPS is just 16%.

Their automatic modification however svcks. Same rate of fire but half the damage of standard laser. They do however offer some mods which standard lasers do not if I recall correctly.

As noted above, with DR the difference in damage becomes greater. Against 20 DR the Institute Rifle will only deliver about half the damage, resulting in 12,7 dps, whereas the Laser Rifle will deliver about two thirds of the damage, resulting in 20 dps, the difference in dps is now 37%. So the institute rifle only delivers 63% of the damage, while expending 32% more fusion cells making it a considerably weaker weapon.

.... Nope, they got the same mods.

Two Reasons:

First, they're made out of plastic. No, seriously. Try scrapping one. You get 4 plastic.


Secondly: their lasers are that weak for the same reason they're not running around in X-01 Power Armors or don't have Animated PA Synths: Because up untill the BOS they've never needed anything stronger.

Gen 1s & 2s are all about swamping an enemy with disposable tin soldiers. You don't want to give such soldiers high end weapons because more likely than not they'd just wind up getting scavenged.

Coursers also don't need anything overly strong: Their tactics and stats make up for their crap weapons. And speaking of crap weapons, that's pretty much the other reason why they don't have stronger weapons. Because 93 times out of 100 their weapons were still stronger anyway. Seriously, when most of your opponents are just weilding pool cues and pipe guns and MAYBE the occasional laser pistol. And its not like the waster's armors were any better either. At worst their enemies had some slag slapped on a frame they'd dare call "power armor" or some rusty set of mismatched pre-war armor some gunner/raider boss had to make himself look badass.

Worst thing they'd ever have to fight before Maxon graced the Commonwealth with his presence was gunners. Who are just raiders with pre-war toys instead of pipe rifles. And... well, we see just how well they fare against a Courser: Not very well. Whenever they did face enemies with superior weapons, it was always in the hands of "the boss" rather than being deployed en-mass.


Of course, then come the BOS/SS with their fancy weapons and PAs. They had more advanced weapons deployed among their soldiers and power armors were no longer just a "big boss" deal but a regular soldier staple. Now the ball game has changed.

Yeah I agree with the others, its because the main focus of the institute is not warfare, so they have no need to develop any heavy firepower for there gen 1s, because they are just scare tactics units meant to scare of wastelanders.

That's true although your calculation is off. Laser rifle does only about 20 damage against 20 DR which is close to 60%, not 2/3. That makes 16,6 DPS. Therefore difference is 76%, not 63%.

However that's still plenty of damage if you are at the receiving end so I would not say institute weapons are weak. Institute synth with rifle can kill you in 8 seconds while he would require 7 if he had laser riffle (given you wear 20DR worth of armor and have 100 hit points). That's not that huge practical difference. One second more.

Weaker then standard laser weapons yes, but not weak.

No idea what you're talking about lol, on Survivor or modded damage you can get one shot easily

Because they know nothing of combat and the top side world.


They design weapons for an expendable Army of robot soldiers who have no concern over life or death.


You defeat your enemy by numbers alone. Plus you give expendable weapons to expendable soldiers and when the majority of the Commonwealth wears Leather or metal armor the institute rifles do fine.


They did have plans for plasma rifles though.


Also the BoS T-60 lore wise is impervious to laser rifles and practically all small arms ballistic fire. Until the BoS comes along the Institute have never battled an opponent who could get shot by laser rifles all day and laugh.


If you join the BoS there is a knight getting an initiate to shoot her to test the T-60 and after 8 shots she reports no damage or wear to her armor.

If by "help the Commonwealth" you mean "let the Commonwealth die to make things more comfortable for the Institute"

Their relatively weaker weapons are simply because of how isolated they are: they have no intention of using the Commonwealth for anything more than scrap collection, and suffer a resource and power shortage. They can mass-produce weapons (and soldiers), and dead is ultimately dead, but they're working with limited means.

I am just pointing out that trading damage for rof is usually a bad tradeoff in the game, because you make progressively less damage against armour, spend more ammo and it is more difficult to hit with 20/20 shots on full auto than 5/5 shots on semi auto. More of a comment on game balancing than the institute rifle in particular really...

I think this is a good explanation. Their all theory, with very little practice. Their infiltrators may get into the occasional, small scale firefight but they have no idea what it is to go against deathclaws or a detachment from the BoS. If they continued or scaled up their interaction with the surface I think their weapons would evolve pretty quickly.

It's so that when their useless Synths gets blasted to pieces, highly advanced and powerful weapons won't fall into the wrong hands, namely yours.

I have Rifleman maxed and a few other sneak and luck damage perks. I find it hard to beat even a non-legendary Gauss rifle. I did finally find a synth rifle that had +50 (+100 with perks) rad damage and gave it a spin. Even on targets with no radiation resistance it did less damage than a standard laser rifle. Either the resistances in vats are off, there are some damage bugs, or some damage types are just better than others period. I mod all my weapons to max non-auto states.

I've tried a lot of different weapons. I'm finally down to a 2-shot .45 rifle (yes, there is a more powerful receiver but the .45 does most of what I need), Deliverer, endless Gauss (may swap out if I find a 2 shot), and a special tooth.

Why is the institute's weaponry weak? Because their synth armor are usually pretty tough. Balance in motion. Also it is the reason I have not seen any BoS member yet using a plasma weapon when they should have them in their stores.

That's not entirely true. Armour does decrease effectivity of weapons doing lower damage per bullet, true. But it's not linear regression. Armour works more effectively against damage which is higher then armour DR value itself. When damage is lower, proportion of damage which is negated does not equal to ratio between damage and armour. That to certain degree negates disadvantage automatic weapons have and they can still outperform their semi auto counterparts in DPS at the end. This is especially true against very heavily armored targets sine it does not really matter if weapon is doing 10 or 20 damage when damage resistance of armor is 200. Difference between 10/200 or 20/200 is negligible.

Weapons with single shot damage high enough to make difference against heavily armoured targets (means 100-200 or more) have terrible fire rate and you don't want to use them in close encounters. If you are under attack by pack of ferals and you have only gauss rifle, then you are pretty much dead. There is not one size fits all in Fallout 4 and high fire rate have it's uses.

And then, lot of automatic weapons have armour piercing mod. Unfortunately I have no idea how exactly does it work. Do somebody here have any info?

I am finding again and again, that at close ranges, the most dangerous enemies are usually those with automatic weapons. Although it always is situational. Sometimes shotgun to the face is more dangerous

I have to say I quit like how armour works in F4, so far it's best armour system in any Fallout. previous Fallouts were all quit a mess since they worked with absolute not relative numbers. The obvious indicator that it's well designed is fact that there are no hard caps like in F3/NV. Whoever came up with this new system deserves praise. So kudos to developers!

Even a simple pocket knife is an effective weapon in the hands of an efficient wielder.


I think they make great energy machine guns and sniper rifles and I usually add a fire effect for extra damage

Since A3-21 had a special Plasma Rifle in F3 I expected plasma to be their weaponry of choice... I was a little dissapointed by the lasers we got...I wonder if they are based of Electricity like the LAER weapons in Big Mt since they are both blue laser weapons