Fallout 3: Energy Weapons

The Game Room
1

So, I’ve played through Fallout 3 once, after a few abortive learning attempts of the first six or seven character levels, and decided on using Small Arms. Ammo was abundant, as were weapons to use for repair. By the time I ended the main storyline at Lvl. 17, I had been using the same four guns (Hunting Rifle as my main, Chinese Assault Rifle for close quarters fighting, 10mm Submachine for easy-on-VATS finishing, and occasionally the Combat Shutgun for crowd control), for about 10 levels. My hunting rifle was probably picked up after about 10 minutes outside the Vault.

The mark of a truly good game, I immediately wanted to replay it, but differently and, maybe, a bit better. And I didn’t want to just be a carbon copy of my first game, so I decided on trying Energy Weapons. Sure, I knew that it would be a lean start, that it’s not for a while that they start appearing with enough regularity to be viable, but damn. I have just had the Laser Pistol I could get from the Super-Duper Mart, and I’ve gone back to small arms, just to have something that will actually be okay to fire, since I’m always short energy cells.

I know that late-game, Energy is abundant, and it will be little issue at that point, but for now, I’m playing the exact same weapon layout I was before with Small Arms.

For those who have played Energy Weapons, how do you contend with the early drought, and when does it start getting good? I can’t exactly wait for the Wazer Wifle to come if I’m padding out the main storyline with side-quests, but there’s just not much before then. Right?

P.S. - I’m playing on console, so no fair saying “just mod it.” If the real answer is “Small Arms are king, live with it,” live with it I shall.

2

Well, when I did my run as an energy weapons specialist, my game had a crapton of mods added, which may have helped (it certainly helped repairing the first few weapons you do get - energy weapons don’t decay as fast as small guns, but they’re much rarer too. Thank god for repairs with scrap metal !).

Mostly I used my energy weapons for long range kills since they’re very accurate, and relied on mines, grenades and melee weapons to deal with crowds and dungeons. Open up by turning one or two guys into dust from max range, then pop a couple grenades in V.A.T.S., finish the wounded with Shishkebab swings.

I’d suggest doing the Superhero quest from Canterbury Commons early, too - it’s relatively easy (heck, if you’re good at speechifying or have the Lady Killer perk there’s no combat) and you get Protectron’s Gaze, a nifty “laser shotgun”, very useful at close range.

You might also want to hurry the Wasteland Survival Guide quest : the RobCo Facility is full of dead 'bots, and they all have some Cells on them. The Vault Tec headquarters and the Nuka Cola plant are two other spots where robots spawn, specially Protectrons which are easy kills - a couple blasts to the dome, and boom they go. Or hell, just sick Dogmeat on 'em. ISTR the “dead” Vault with all the ghosts and crazy people in it also has quite a store of Laser Rifles.

Finally, you could just take the easy way, and either 1) pump your Small Arms to 40-50 and use those while building a stockpile of Energy Weaps 2) pump your Big Guns to 40-50, build yourself a Rock-It Launcher, fill it to the brim with empty soda bottles and let it rip, again while building your stockpile of Cells.
However, since you’re on the xbox and can’t mod the vacuum cleaner sound away, I wouldn’t recommend n°2 unless you really *want *a splitting headache :wink:

3

The “Replicated Man” quest gives you one of the best unmodded weapons in the game. Solve it the “non-evil” way to get it, although you can get both good and evil rewards with some creative questing. The “Mothership Zeta” addon also has plenty of energy weapons, as well as the Gauss rifle from Anchorage.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, it is quite hard to screw yourself before the end. There is no reason why you can’t become a master at small, big, and energy weapons by the end. Feel free to up your small guns in the meantime.

4

There’s also a great Plasma Rifle you can get by complete the android quest in Rivet City. I used that from about Level 8 all the way until level 20. Then I got some better weapons with the add-ons. Early on, when ammo is short, I like to just use it when there’s a really tough enemy, like a super mutant, deathclaw, or giant Radscorpion. Raiders and various animals got the assault rifle or shotgun until ammo was more abundant.

5

I usually start out pumping small guns and then start pumping energy weapons when I’m rolling in energy/mf cells. Once you get the A3-21 with a lot of ammo you are unstoppable.

6

Another vote for getting A3-21’s plasma rifle ASAP. Even when I had a mountain of cells, I wouldn’t always use it because it feels like overkill most of the time.

7

It’s really quite easy to keep yourself in energy cells by selling all the assault rifles you won’t be needing and buying ammo. Nearly everyone stocks energy cells, and the cost isn’t bad. Microfusion cells are a bit tougher, as they’re kinda pricy and fewer people have them, but in the early going using a laser pistol for most things and saving the mfc’s for bigger nasties works pretty well and later on the Enclave guys drop all the rifle ammo you could possibly want.

Laser pistols are fairly commonly stocked by merchants as well, so it’s not too tough to work up to having one in top condition. For rifles, if you’re maintaining good karma the Talon company mercs that come hunting you frequently carry laser rifles (and Talon Company HQ is a good source of energy ammo, though not a comfortable place for a low level character). And of course there’s A3-21’s plasma rifle, though generic ones for repair can’t be commonly had until you start running into Enclave troops.

8

If you have The Pitt expansion you can get the Metal Blaster very early on (collect 50 ingots in the scrapyard). It’s a laser shotgun and is one of the more powerful energy weapons in the game. If you use it outside of VATS mode each beam (I think there are 7 total) has it’s own chance to critical hit. Ammo still might be tough to find but you’ll need less of it to kill things.

9

My absolute number one weapon is the Plasma Rifle. But ironically for me, having completed the main game and the Broken Steel main quest (I am up to about level 35) I am now finding the situation reverts back to Plasma Rifles being scarce (since you get them off enclave soldiers)

I have three questions about the A3-21 Rifle (which I have largely forgotten since it’s ages since I did that particular quest, with a previous incarnation of my character)

  1. How much better (and in what way) is it than an ordinary PR?

  2. Does it degrade? (I assume yes. I have one thing that doesn’t degrade- my awesome winterized power armour)

  3. If it does, can it be repaired with ordinary PRs? (Again, I assume yes)

10
  1. Slightly better DMG and better Hit Chance
  2. yes, but slower then the normal PR
  3. yes
11

I take it the clip still holds 12? That’s a con for me. (If you’re in a large firefight, of which there are many, you are vulnerable while you’re reloading that weedy clip)

12

There’s a mod out there called “Weapon Mod Kits”, which adds a number of modification kits you can add to pretty much every gun in the game, though not all kits can fit on all guns. Can’t fit silencers on energy weapons, for example. In any case, there’s an Extended Magazine kit, and it does work with most E. Weaps including the named ones.

13

Modifying something like clip size is trivially easy to do yourself using the GECK tool, as well. Change the degradation rate or allow repair with garden gnomes and tin cans while you’re at it if you like.

14

I don’t like that level of modification… The temptation to go too far is too high. Like making my character invincible, or my PR have no degredation and a clip size of one million.

I prefer things to improve legitemately.

15

So make your own mod that changes the plasma rifle clip size to 16, leaves degradation alone, and allows repairs with, say, fission batteries (reasonably but not excessively common, and kinda heavy to lug around). Or whatever. Or I can make the file and email it to you in about as much time as it takes to describe it.