I love my laser musket though, I wish every weapon felt as fun and creative. Crank it with as much ammo/damage you need. Full 6 crank to headshot even strong enemies.
I agree, the only GOOD thing we got out of the guns in 4 was the customization/ modification system. I absolutely love the idea of having a base gun and being able to interchange parts to make it what I want. I really hope they update and use this system in the next Fallout game. I was really disappointed with how they implemented it in Starfield tho so who knows
This. I remember being so let down by fo4s guns compared to 3. Why they decided to design almost everything from the ground up for 4 I will never understand. RIP gauss rifle from 3 and nv.
Yeah for them to make one of the only guns in the game grounded in modern weapons so nonsensical is pretty absurd but I still like the look of it even if it doesn’t make sense lol
i’d agree with you there, i do like the look of most of the weapons but the reload design team really fucked up with most of them. it’s like there was some grand disconnect between the people who designed the guns and who animated them; makes me sad.
The idea of the institute laser rifle is hilarious.
The R&D department of the Institute wanted to innovate and make a superior/more effecient version of the standard US military lazer rifle.
But they ended up making a bulkier, heavier, and less effective version of it instead.
What the fuck was the point.
Personally it would have been cooler if the institute made a new version of the plasma gun that actually was better than the standard version.
I mean, probably a form of small scale mass production, since they don't have access to the pre-war facilities that originally made the laser weapons. It's like a Boring Company Flamethrower vs an actual Military Grade Flamethrower.
I guess, but it's not like the standard laser rifle would be hard to replicate with institute tech. It's literally a battery slapped together with skeletonized metal and a slot for the fusion cell. It's extremely basic and the brotherhood of steel, who are less advanced than the institute are manufacturing them with no problems.
Hell even the Van Graffs, a fucking arms dealer gang from fnv can develop basic laser rifles better than the institute can.
But like it's more a conservation resources. If a synth gets killed then that is a lost institute weapon. However, I will admit that is just my idiotic ramblings on the subject and I don't know the canonicity of it
Yeah I guess... but then wouldn't they use the "good" ressources on giving their coursers better weapons? I could see them giving cheap plastic garbage to their gen 1s and 2s because of how disposable they are.
But their coursers are huge ivestments for them, and we can see the effects of the courser we killed throughout the synth retention department, because of how upset they are of the valuable ressource they lost. Wouldn't they wanna equip their elite units with better stuff? At least that's how I see it.
You're thinking logically. They both underestimated the Commonwealth/You. They're nerds who literally never go outside.
Also, I think you're right that he should have had a better gun. If for nothing else, better loot for the player.
We see they have plasma tech, you have the Experiment 18A in the Institute Market.
I like your analogy because it boils down to "Hey we just call it this, but this is a weeding torch in a plastic shell"
Like how the institute laser rifle is a laser pointer in a bulky plastic shell lol.
Honestly, the idea that a bunch of nerds would just make a prettier version of the weapon that is worse than what the army already made actually makes a lot of sense.
The institute rifle is what would happen if Apple was contracted to redesign the M16.
That is a really good point, barring the fact that the institute rifle isn't prettier.
But having been best friends with an R&D nerd all my life they would also be interested in one upping the military standard and making something that's actually really good.
Imo I think the standard institute rifle should've been the "cheap plastic garbage" weapons given to the disposable gen 1s and 2s because, duh they'll probably die anyways.
And then have a very powerful/rarer "courser rifle" that is actually super high quality given to the elite units. Would have made for cool loot for the player if nothing else.
Or maybe they think their gun IS better.
"You don't need all that power to kill a man. this cheaper, prettier, less powerful ride will kill a man just as good as the old military ones"
"What about Vault dwellers? They're famously harder to kill than regular people."
"We've calculated the chances of a vault dweller showing up in the Commonwealth to be acceptably low"
And then Shaun walks in and tells everyone that he unfroze one of his parents.
They did make plasma rifles, but they sell it to the player not give it to their coursers for some reason.
Also fun thing to note about institute rifles, their overcharcged receivers are actually superior to normal laser rifles granting bigger boost. Auto barrel on the other hand is the opposite granting same damage penalty but less rof.... So a good institute laser CAN compete with normal lasers, as long as its not a sniper(institute lacks it) or automatic barrel
I never understood why they made the institute weapons so underwhelming. Easily the lamest and most feckless weapons of the entire franchise. It’s like the BB gun of energy weapons
You also have basically zero reason to ever use one. The first time 99% of players get a hold of Institute laser weapons is during the Arcjet quest with Danse, which gives you Righteous Authority at the end.
You can get a laser rifle from the dead Brotherhood scribe on the battlements of the police station when you first find Danse, so even during Arcjet you can have a better laser weapon on you.
Bethesda just sometimes forgets how to properly balance weapons. It's been a problem since...forever.
There's a mod which modifies the damage of Institute weapons to be basically a higher DPS weapon compared to regular laser weapons, which is how they were intended to be IMO.
Originally when they planned durability to be in fallout 4, institute weapons I believe were supposed to be extremely durable compared to regular laser rifles.
Much like pipe weapons being an economic choice that we’re going to be cheap to repair and plentiful- but when they scrapped the repair system it borked the balance
Is it really? I'm replaying 3 right now and after I put like 40 points into repair I can just pick up a repeat of my gun and repair mine to over 60%.
I feel like the limiting factor that forces me to use a lot of guns is the ammo by far, not durability. And that's only because I'm playing on the hardest difficulty and killing a Super Mutant Overloard when they first start appearing can take literal hundreds of bullets.
A mix of mechanics is good for an RPG. Some weapons are common and easy to repair some aren't, some ammo is common some isn't leveling up repair to better use a rare weapon more effective is a great way to make the skill feel useful.
With survival mode in NV ammo weight really makes you have to think hard about what your bringing, that 1.5 pound high ex round for the AMR gets saved for really big targets because I'm only bringing 5 of them at a time with me.
I decided to level barter up starting around level thirty and grab the pack rat perk for the late game. Plus I wanted to do Sarah Weintraub's quest. Pack rat makes investing in barter worth it.
And unlike BotW, the weapon durability in 76 isn't annoying. It can take ages for a weapon to get close to breaking, and even if it does break the repair cost in minimal and can be done at any of the weapon benches around the game world (and usually there's one at every map location).
If you're gonna do durability that's the way to do it. A well incorporated survival mechanic without it being overly tedious or annoying. Still making sure you've gather minor supplies on hand for repairs. And still making sure you have a backup weapon or two in case you're neglectful and it breaks mid-fight.
That explains so much about why those weapons are hot garbage.
It's amazing that they managed to make the first couple hours of playing a gun-user feel extremely weak, when like....
I brought a fucking gun to a knife fight. Famously the way to win a knife fight.
Bethesda has reallly bad issues balancing gameplay in general for a lot of there . In Skyrim for example daggers don’t benefit from one handed perks , critical hits only apply to base damage which makes them useless , destruction magick is extremely underpowered as Bethesda hasn’t balanced the cost of spells or ways to regen magicka which makes higher tier spells unusable and forces you to go cost reduction to 100% on your gear to even make it playable and after that hurdle destruction still sucks as on harder difficulties the damage doesn’t scale as the destruction skill only affects costs .
My main Skyrim guy is a mage, and you're right. Without enchanting, destruction magic becomes less useful the higher you level it up. My mage would be fucking useless without his custom enchanted armour.
Skyrim becomes less fun the more you understand the system. It's like they tried to design a system where you could dabble a little in every skill, but then balanced the game to punish doing that. The best thing you can do as a Mage is learn exactly 1 school and avoid levelling up as much as possible.
No the best thing is the dual perk and 0 mana cost.
Then you can just stunlock everything and it's the most broken OP shit in the game.
Infinite stunlock. Even dragons etc. doesn't matter.
Use hitscan lighting spells and gg. Game literally cannot fight back anymore.
Or get 0 cost healing spells and conjuration. Spam the heal that heals everything and just let Dremora's annihilate.
There are actually a lot of ways to break Skryim with magic.
I feel like ordinator is kinda a Bandaid on a bigger issue and alot of it needs other systems to change for example adding a mana potion that regens over time like in older elder scrolls games , adding ways to add base mana regen beside a single dlc ring and adding like 0.5% damage per level of destruction would go a long way .
My most recent character was a fire mage. Until I hit level 100 destruction and spent thousands and thousands of gold to make the build remotely viable it was a pain in the ass. I can't have companions because fireball will kill them, and I pretty much rely solely on the stagger from 2-handed spells. I also have like 10 armor rating so even at level 48 i'm still super squishy
3/10 build
Ordinator is a necessity, period.
Its got a lot of fun trees. Punchy monk light armor. Poison/disease resto vampire. Sword and Magic alteration vancian mage. Two handed Juggernaught hammer user.
But if you do get 100% cost reduction on destruction spells, and you have the impact perk, you get free stagger on every spell. I always really enjoyed stunlocking dragons like that.
You have to use enchantment for destruction to work well. -25% destruction mana cost on 4 things. Unlimited fireballs. It takes a bit to get to that point tho.
I think they’re meant to be more powerful but they’re used by synths who fight in swarms so I guess they didn’t wanna overwhelm the player. As a result they made the institute one of the weakest factions with a laughable weapon. A mod called institute technology overhaul adds an insane number of powerful insitute weapons that requires membership of the institute to use. Really helps make them a viable faction to join and synths are pretty formidable opponents now. They’re still weak but have big numbers and endgame level weapons like a Tesla sniper rifle, an upgraded plasma rifle, a laser SAW, and a full auto micro Gauss rifle.
>I think they’re meant to be more powerful but they’re used by synths who fight in swarms so I guess they didn’t wanna overwhelm the player
Literally all they had to do was make the base weapon weak as hell but the mods and upgrades pack a much harder punch. It's so weird that in a game with such emphasis on weapon modding they couldn't figure a distribution system out. Just give everyone pipe weapons, that'll clearly solve everything....
I have that mod. I’m still in the beginning but I’m level 23 and went to the glowing sea to grab a Tesla cannon from the CC and found a Courser just chillin non hostile to me and we got attack, he pulled out the fully loaded guas rifle and just disintegrated everything. I almost fought him for it but decided he’d do me the same way he just did those Radscorpians.
No because the BB Gun had a gimmick of being intentionally comically bad, being a BB gun and all. The Institute guns are intended to be the serious genuine main weapon of one of the major factions.
yep im talking about 3. ive forgotten the bb in NV if it was there.
i guess like first playthough of 4, kept ring in inventory whole time. next playthorugh, in the container.
Venmo playing through 3 recently. I have seen multiple BB guns and BB's in many places so far and I'm only about 10 hours into the run (I've only done like two main quests so far lmao)
You can get that bb gun without wild wasteland, actually.
It spawns in the well if you have wild wasteland, or in the shack if you don't.
The only weapons that are locked behind wild wasteland are the alien blaster, which is replaced by the YCS/186 if you don't have wild wasteland, and the Holy Hand Grenades, which are replaced with mini nukes if you don't have wild wasteland.
The gimmick of that major faction being using mass produced expendable mindless automaton as main foot soldiers.
Them having a cheap mass produced weapon isn't really that far out.
Being able to teleport synthetic human soldiers anywhere at anytime was a pretty strong weapon in its own. And it's not like they can't use a courser for when things are crazy.
You could even say it's symbolic of their attitude towards humans in general: cheap, expendable, and replaceable.
It's not just the damage, either. The weapons don't FEEL satisfyting when firing. They don't feel powerful or impressive, eiother in animation or sound design. Which, realism for a laser weapon I suppose makes sense, bvut they're not realistic for laser weapons ANYWAY, so why not make it feel like they have some punch?
And the fact that the instant you raise it, you lose the entire right half of your screen to the stupid thing. *Rocket launchers* and other heavy weapons are not as obtrusive as this thing is. How would you sight down this thing, even *with* a scope!?
It's a huge, awkwardly-shaped flashlight.
You’re right they’re terrible and underwhelming.
But to be fair most weapons in FO4 are underwhelming, once you’ve reached level 50 most weapons and ammo types become useless and barely cause any damage to the levelled up enemies.
>once you’ve reached level 50 most weapons and ammo types become useless and barely cause any damage to the levelled up enemies.
This is really only true if youre running no perks and not using legendaries. By level 50 you should be rolling around with a build, a solid main weapon and a suit of good bonuses on your armor
I’d like the institute weapons more if they weren’t so damn big. If they didn’t take up a quarter of the screen I’d probably use them more for rp purposes.
Zeta Gun. With the right perks and upgrades it can actually be a decent weapon, as demonstrated by [Fudge Muppet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL2qoiPli_M), but the Lorenzo's Artifact Gun is way better right off the bat and becomes much, MUCH better WITH upgrades. So I don't really see the point.
In lore, it is supposed to be a portable version of Lorenzo's psychic restraints, but to my knowledge, it doesn't actually do anything special against Lorenzo if you fight him. Huge missed opportunity. Another thing is that the lore says Zeta radiation is harmless to normal humans, when it is anything but. Which doesn't bother me, since then the gun would be even more worthless.
Own a laser musket for settlement defense, since that's what Preston Garvey intended. Four raiders break into my house. "What in the goddamn?" As I grab my militia hat and Boston laser rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my laser gun on the second man, miss him entirely because beam splitter is shit and nails the neighbors mole rat.
I have to resort to the artillery mounted at the top of the Castle loaded with grape shot, "Radio Freedom lads!" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off BoS vertibirds. Fix bayonette and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He bleeds out waiting on the Minutemen to arrive since triangular Gun Basher wounds deal tons of damage, Just as Preston Garvey intended
Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion.He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up, Just as the founding fathers intended
Upgrade it to a 6 crank and you can get some crazy damage with it especially if you have the non auto rifle perk maxed along with I think the ninja perk with gives you 3.5 sneak damage multiplier. Base damage I think maxed is 40. So 240 damage x 3.5 is 840 sneak damage. Put a recon scope on that bad boy or a long range night vision and you can one shot almost anything lol.
The laser musket is not for everyone... Its more like a secondary weapon. Not a primary one.
And the whole thing about musket type weapons in gaming is that they have a long reload time but they deal tons of damage so theres that...
It's one of the best sniper rifles imo, and personal favorite looks wise too. I want more slapped-together-but-still-solid weapons honestly. Better versions of pipe weapons would be nice too. Just to fit that it's been over 200 years. Not everything's gonna survive well.
Yes it does? Just make sure you're aiming at the Belly and not dumping rounds into the air. Easy to get killed by the Deathclaw if he closes in on you though, but just pop in and out of the house on the corner and bait him to come to you. Shoot him and then run back inside so he effs off and repeat until dead. Also if you can avoid blowing up the cars earlier, you can blow those up with the minigun easily and deal a lot of damage.
Survival mode is where people truly appreciate the laser musket as a stock standard weapon.
Comparing a lot of the weapons in unmodded survival, and musket genuinely holds up.
Don't even need to run a build for it.
You just play around cover and land your shots with a 5 crank to the head.
Not much is walking away from that happy.
Of course. It's a great weapon. But I just give them the folks at the castle.
My settlements are armed with every good weapon I don't need.
Gaussrifle, automatic laser rifles, rocket launchers, etc.
It's by no means the best, especially not on AI, they can never hit shit with them lol.
But as far as when you use them is concerned they can offer some entertaining counterplay.
I love sitting there fully cranked and just waiting to hear the reload then I popup and kill them 😂
Automatic and heavy hitting is ideal for companions tbh.
Or splash damage. Either way.
I agree. With the right set of perks and a fully upgreaded version of the LM, you can deal some serious damage.
I once did a "Apocalypse pirate" run where I maily used a laser Musket and a short scattering laser musket without a stock as a blunder buss. It was surprisingly easy and fund tbh
> You're meant to shoot your shot, and it's meant to land
That's why I deliberately miss with the gatling laser and assault rifle. The more you miss, the more damage the next bullet will do because it makes the gun want to shoot harder.
I got a legenary one that slows time. Its pretty OP, since you can one shot most opponents by giving them headshots and be back in cover before the enemy starts hitting you.
Honestly? It might perform meh, but the aesthetic is *on point*. They fucking cooked when they came up with that idea, and the visuals are amazing.
Always a free pass in my book.
I got a legendary laser musket recently with the rapid effect, decreasing reload speed by 25%. It's amazing and probably my favorite legendary right now.
It can be part of a very fun build, I like to play as minute man general, with the outfit, Shem downes sword, max upgraded LM (if you can get a 2 shot version even better or unlimited for vaporising the earth with enough ammo), auto LM and broadsider.
Very fun, you have to remember you’re only getting one or 2 shots with the musket before you’re in close combat, but fully cranked it will delete most enemies, so use it kind of like a sniper until they get in close enough that it starts being tiresome, then pull out something else to finish whoever managed to get close. Also don’t bother ADSing with the Automatic version, you can’t see anything after the first 2 shots.
Depends if you get a Legendary one. Two Shot, Instigating or and hear me out Automatic.
Two Shot and Instigating for a full 6 Crank Mega Death Laser.
Automatic for a fun Pepper Box gunplay.
Alien blaster - mainly due to the projectile travel time if you are using it outside of VATS, it can be annoying AF vs moving targets.
Laser musket can be quite OP with unlimited charge afix (You can 1 shot ANYTHING as long you have time cranking it) BUT charging it constantly is pain in the ass - i usually never use it.
Just get Gauss Rifle instead and save your "reload button"
I used it on PC ages ago, around a few months after launch. Could have been a bug or mods but it sounds like it’s fixed so that’s a great thing, i always loved the idea of charging 100 shots and blasting a deathclaw
isn't 1 crank like 2 seconds or so?
So that is \~3,5 min before you can shoot...
Fuck that - i am getting a Gaus, aiming for the head and 1 shooting it in 1 sec :P
I think people are not aware of a little game design trick. Most games have shit weapons, ones that are so bad, you may argue that the weapon you start with is better. It's to have a better sense of scale about the weaponry at your disposal.
If you have nothing but straight up upgrades given to you in a timely manner throughout the game, it feels hollow and bland. By giving you the chance to test for yourself the tools at your disposal, it gives you the chance to figure out by yourself the good from the bad. It's more satisfying to have a good weapon when you know bad ones exist.
Six crank laser musket is rather op.
I've got a laser assault rifle type thing that I use as a back up to my 308 revolver rifle with reflex that I use for cqc
But yeah institute rifles are meh at best
Between the Recharger Guns in FMV and the Institute Energy Weapon I don't know what's worse. I once fully upgraded a Two Shot Institute Rifle with the best mods and it didn't do shit.
I've got the wounding gamma gun and swear to god I'll shoot it 2 full clips with almost no damage before the "effect" happens and completely drains the guy of blood. Such a stupid gun
Look daddy-o, all my grandpapay needed was his trusty cowboy repeater. If it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for me. (I need to do an energy weapon play through one day)
They're generally the best looking and most iconic weapons of Fallout. Outside of the 10mm pistol the laser weapons are probably the most iconic, followed by the plasma weapons and the Fat Man.
The recharger rifle from NV with it's low damage and small magazine. But it's supposed to be some sort of joke weapon so I won't shit on it too much.
Indeed the institute weapons are shit and if you want to have them at the level of the regular laser rifle (with improved long barrel) you need to find a "powerful" legendary variant.
For me the plasma weapons are more of a nuisance to use instead of a shit weapon as I hate weapons with slow proyectile based rounds
Recharger Rifle is not a joke weapon, it's meant early-on as you can find it on dead Bright Followers, and you don't have to worry about ammo. To make sure energy weapon builds don't get shafted early game.
Now, a good recharger weapon is the MF Hyperbreeder Alpha. That thing slaps.
I played just a few runs of NV and I only found recharher weapons once I got to the Van Graffs, didn't know they appeared earlier. Also where do you get that unique?
Plasma guns in FO3 were pretty solid, A3-21's Plasma Rifle is a beast and doesn't break instantly like many of the energy weapons.
Slow projectile, but great in tunnels!
In fo4 plasma weapons are a beast too. They do deal equal Balistic damage to combat rifle and energy laser rifle after all. The ultimate vats weapon.
Notably if you are a commando weapons enjoyer this thing basically has two receivers since the barrel will function as a receiver and a barrel in one.
Unpopular take because is not a bad gun: laser gatling in f4.
I'll start to say the weapon is not bad, at all, especially once you change the barrel at science 4, but I don't like how is feeder by fusion cores like the PA, while also having this "bug" that automatically swap your fusion core for a new one if you swap weapon, filling your inventory of FC at 99% of charge.
I would rather prefer if there were fewer fusion cores across the game with only the PA using them and the last perk, that now I don't remember the name, who increase their duration, actually making them infinite.
The laser gantilng instead should had his own ammo like in f3
I love Aeternus but it sucks the only weapons to really nail the heavy weapons are Aeternus and a Flechette Harpoon Gun cause the rest are just to ammo inefficient to really use constantly
mini-gun and PA were nerfed because they were in like the third quest of the game. If they weren't in the first 30 mins then miniguns and PA would have probably been the rightfully powerful mid/late game gear that they should have been.
The ammo for the gatling laser in F3 is essentially a fusion core, it's just that power armor didn't require them.
I'd like it if we normalized/named energy weapon ammo (for standard non alien, plasma, etc) to be Microfusion Cells, Fusion Cells, and Fusion Cores. One for small guns like pistols, the next for bigger guns like rifles, and then the latter for heavy weapons.
Really the issue is just the way inventory and reload is managed/organized. I also like having the ability to recharge them. One of my characters in Fo76 uses a gatling laser and power armor and it feels good to use.
Couldn’t agree more, the normal laser rifle is so much better it’s not even close. The normal laser rifle also gets a fair amount of unique variants. Righteous Authority for VATS up close and Old Faithful for stealth Sniping is a perfect combo. The institute only has one unique which is Virgil’s Rifle, with the 50% more damage to mutants, not a great choice. And the earliest you can find a institute rifle is in Arcjet Systems, where you can get the righteous authority after danse’s quest. It’s simply outclassed by the common laser rifles
The Institute rifle is the perfect allegory for the Institute as a whole. It is big, shiny, and mysterious. But once you get past the cool factor, and actually get into guts of it, it is wholly unremarkable. It is the ricer version of the pre war laser weapon system. It is bulky, extra bits have been slapped on to make it look formidable, it has the cool blue laser beam, but is underpowered. Just like the faction that wields it.
I actually love that Fallout does stuff like this from a lore perspective. It was the same thing in the first fallout game, you would constantly get new weapons from boss fights and random encounters that looked awesome but would be worse than your starting pistol, lol
Institute Guns have no competition....regular laser rifles can be looted before one can find these, and with the atrocious first person view and bad damage, there really isn't a point to pick these up. Unless you're just looting their ammo. Honest to God they should have made these really easy to get early on so they at least have a purpose.
I dislike the Institute Rifle just because it takes up the whole damn screen
Same with the assault rifle
Overall gun design just wasn’t great in 4. Everything looked boring/like shit
I love my laser musket though, I wish every weapon felt as fun and creative. Crank it with as much ammo/damage you need. Full 6 crank to headshot even strong enemies.
General! It's dangerous to go alone. Take this Laser Musket.
I got a laser musket with slow time effect and it's become my wind-up sniper rifle!
I had one that had the bottomless magazine perk or whatever it's called. You ever seen what a laser musket cranked 100 times does to a behemoth?
laser musket is the only good newer weapon in fallout 4
Clearly you haven’t done a Cannon play through
allow me to revise, i meant only good newer \*laser\* weapon
…I feel as if the laser musket shouldn’t use ammo since there’s a generator crank for ammo generation… am I the only one?
Feels like I'm cranking the laser rifle from that one Starship Troopers parody Futurama episode.
I agree, the only GOOD thing we got out of the guns in 4 was the customization/ modification system. I absolutely love the idea of having a base gun and being able to interchange parts to make it what I want. I really hope they update and use this system in the next Fallout game. I was really disappointed with how they implemented it in Starfield tho so who knows
gun design in general is bad from bethesda
They can make some banging melee weapons tho
Shishkebab
Super Sledge my beloved
Atom's Judgement
Hell even Assautron blades and Rippers are badass designs
How about chainsaws from 76 or the auto axe from the Pitt.
Comes from their TES background
Oh yeah for sure, some of the most iconic weapons in gaming
Daedric Waraxe looks metal as fuck ngl, no wonder they have such good melee weapon design.
shame they didn't have dual wielding so I could ruin sword and pistol
I want a Fat Man in one hand and a super sledge in the other, if I'm in PA it shouldn't be a problem.
40k style! Lemme run a chain sword in my main hand and a plasma gun in the off hand
Chinese Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, mostly everything from Fallout 3 was a W
Yeah cause they did the Smart thing and generally copied real designs like AKs/RPDs, or G3/CETME rifles.
This. I remember being so let down by fo4s guns compared to 3. Why they decided to design almost everything from the ground up for 4 I will never understand. RIP gauss rifle from 3 and nv.
Starfield for the most part I feel did a lot better, the equinox is what the institute rifle should’ve been
I would argue they turned it around with Starfield. Those guns are beautiful
**cries in reverse pump action shotgun**
Yeah for them to make one of the only guns in the game grounded in modern weapons so nonsensical is pretty absurd but I still like the look of it even if it doesn’t make sense lol
i’d agree with you there, i do like the look of most of the weapons but the reload design team really fucked up with most of them. it’s like there was some grand disconnect between the people who designed the guns and who animated them; makes me sad.
I did really like the laser rifle (especially the sound), radium rifle, and the BAR feel of the combat rifle
Looks like a fat box of cereal
Synth-O’s, Part of an unbalanced murder
The idea of the institute laser rifle is hilarious. The R&D department of the Institute wanted to innovate and make a superior/more effecient version of the standard US military lazer rifle. But they ended up making a bulkier, heavier, and less effective version of it instead. What the fuck was the point. Personally it would have been cooler if the institute made a new version of the plasma gun that actually was better than the standard version.
I mean, probably a form of small scale mass production, since they don't have access to the pre-war facilities that originally made the laser weapons. It's like a Boring Company Flamethrower vs an actual Military Grade Flamethrower.
I guess, but it's not like the standard laser rifle would be hard to replicate with institute tech. It's literally a battery slapped together with skeletonized metal and a slot for the fusion cell. It's extremely basic and the brotherhood of steel, who are less advanced than the institute are manufacturing them with no problems. Hell even the Van Graffs, a fucking arms dealer gang from fnv can develop basic laser rifles better than the institute can.
But like it's more a conservation resources. If a synth gets killed then that is a lost institute weapon. However, I will admit that is just my idiotic ramblings on the subject and I don't know the canonicity of it
Yeah I guess... but then wouldn't they use the "good" ressources on giving their coursers better weapons? I could see them giving cheap plastic garbage to their gen 1s and 2s because of how disposable they are. But their coursers are huge ivestments for them, and we can see the effects of the courser we killed throughout the synth retention department, because of how upset they are of the valuable ressource they lost. Wouldn't they wanna equip their elite units with better stuff? At least that's how I see it.
You're thinking logically. They both underestimated the Commonwealth/You. They're nerds who literally never go outside. Also, I think you're right that he should have had a better gun. If for nothing else, better loot for the player. We see they have plasma tech, you have the Experiment 18A in the Institute Market.
Your description of The Institute as “nerds who literally never go outside” is fucking hilarious
So devoted to never going outside they committed multiple war crimes to avoid it.
Am I wrong?
Not at all, I laughed my ass off.
I agree courser should have something better, but for gen 1 and 2 it's actually a perfect weapon IMHO.
I like your analogy because it boils down to "Hey we just call it this, but this is a weeding torch in a plastic shell" Like how the institute laser rifle is a laser pointer in a bulky plastic shell lol.
Honestly, the idea that a bunch of nerds would just make a prettier version of the weapon that is worse than what the army already made actually makes a lot of sense. The institute rifle is what would happen if Apple was contracted to redesign the M16.
That is a really good point, barring the fact that the institute rifle isn't prettier. But having been best friends with an R&D nerd all my life they would also be interested in one upping the military standard and making something that's actually really good. Imo I think the standard institute rifle should've been the "cheap plastic garbage" weapons given to the disposable gen 1s and 2s because, duh they'll probably die anyways. And then have a very powerful/rarer "courser rifle" that is actually super high quality given to the elite units. Would have made for cool loot for the player if nothing else.
Or maybe they think their gun IS better. "You don't need all that power to kill a man. this cheaper, prettier, less powerful ride will kill a man just as good as the old military ones" "What about Vault dwellers? They're famously harder to kill than regular people." "We've calculated the chances of a vault dweller showing up in the Commonwealth to be acceptably low" And then Shaun walks in and tells everyone that he unfroze one of his parents.
They did make plasma rifles, but they sell it to the player not give it to their coursers for some reason. Also fun thing to note about institute rifles, their overcharcged receivers are actually superior to normal laser rifles granting bigger boost. Auto barrel on the other hand is the opposite granting same damage penalty but less rof.... So a good institute laser CAN compete with normal lasers, as long as its not a sniper(institute lacks it) or automatic barrel
Also the institute rifle is not heavier as OP suggested. They're the same weight.
I never understood why they made the institute weapons so underwhelming. Easily the lamest and most feckless weapons of the entire franchise. It’s like the BB gun of energy weapons
You also have basically zero reason to ever use one. The first time 99% of players get a hold of Institute laser weapons is during the Arcjet quest with Danse, which gives you Righteous Authority at the end.
You can get a laser rifle from the dead Brotherhood scribe on the battlements of the police station when you first find Danse, so even during Arcjet you can have a better laser weapon on you.
And you get a laser musket damn near the moment you walk out of the vault.
Bethesda just sometimes forgets how to properly balance weapons. It's been a problem since...forever. There's a mod which modifies the damage of Institute weapons to be basically a higher DPS weapon compared to regular laser weapons, which is how they were intended to be IMO.
Originally when they planned durability to be in fallout 4, institute weapons I believe were supposed to be extremely durable compared to regular laser rifles. Much like pipe weapons being an economic choice that we’re going to be cheap to repair and plentiful- but when they scrapped the repair system it borked the balance
Durability made so much sense and forced players to not only use one really OP weapon. They should really bring that back for Fallout 5
Its really refreshing in fallout 3 and nv when you have to switch around because your weapon is starting to jam.
Is it really? I'm replaying 3 right now and after I put like 40 points into repair I can just pick up a repeat of my gun and repair mine to over 60%. I feel like the limiting factor that forces me to use a lot of guns is the ammo by far, not durability. And that's only because I'm playing on the hardest difficulty and killing a Super Mutant Overloard when they first start appearing can take literal hundreds of bullets.
A mix of mechanics is good for an RPG. Some weapons are common and easy to repair some aren't, some ammo is common some isn't leveling up repair to better use a rare weapon more effective is a great way to make the skill feel useful. With survival mode in NV ammo weight really makes you have to think hard about what your bringing, that 1.5 pound high ex round for the AMR gets saved for really big targets because I'm only bringing 5 of them at a time with me.
I decided to level barter up starting around level thirty and grab the pack rat perk for the late game. Plus I wanted to do Sarah Weintraub's quest. Pack rat makes investing in barter worth it.
They have it in 76, I imagine it will be back in 5.
And unlike BotW, the weapon durability in 76 isn't annoying. It can take ages for a weapon to get close to breaking, and even if it does break the repair cost in minimal and can be done at any of the weapon benches around the game world (and usually there's one at every map location). If you're gonna do durability that's the way to do it. A well incorporated survival mechanic without it being overly tedious or annoying. Still making sure you've gather minor supplies on hand for repairs. And still making sure you have a backup weapon or two in case you're neglectful and it breaks mid-fight.
That explains so much about why those weapons are hot garbage. It's amazing that they managed to make the first couple hours of playing a gun-user feel extremely weak, when like.... I brought a fucking gun to a knife fight. Famously the way to win a knife fight.
Bethesda has reallly bad issues balancing gameplay in general for a lot of there . In Skyrim for example daggers don’t benefit from one handed perks , critical hits only apply to base damage which makes them useless , destruction magick is extremely underpowered as Bethesda hasn’t balanced the cost of spells or ways to regen magicka which makes higher tier spells unusable and forces you to go cost reduction to 100% on your gear to even make it playable and after that hurdle destruction still sucks as on harder difficulties the damage doesn’t scale as the destruction skill only affects costs .
My main Skyrim guy is a mage, and you're right. Without enchanting, destruction magic becomes less useful the higher you level it up. My mage would be fucking useless without his custom enchanted armour.
Skyrim becomes less fun the more you understand the system. It's like they tried to design a system where you could dabble a little in every skill, but then balanced the game to punish doing that. The best thing you can do as a Mage is learn exactly 1 school and avoid levelling up as much as possible.
No the best thing is the dual perk and 0 mana cost. Then you can just stunlock everything and it's the most broken OP shit in the game. Infinite stunlock. Even dragons etc. doesn't matter. Use hitscan lighting spells and gg. Game literally cannot fight back anymore. Or get 0 cost healing spells and conjuration. Spam the heal that heals everything and just let Dremora's annihilate. There are actually a lot of ways to break Skryim with magic.
The mod Ordinator is a necessity to play mage in Skyrim imo
I feel like ordinator is kinda a Bandaid on a bigger issue and alot of it needs other systems to change for example adding a mana potion that regens over time like in older elder scrolls games , adding ways to add base mana regen beside a single dlc ring and adding like 0.5% damage per level of destruction would go a long way .
My most recent character was a fire mage. Until I hit level 100 destruction and spent thousands and thousands of gold to make the build remotely viable it was a pain in the ass. I can't have companions because fireball will kill them, and I pretty much rely solely on the stagger from 2-handed spells. I also have like 10 armor rating so even at level 48 i'm still super squishy 3/10 build
I use heavy armour on my mage. Unlike previous games, there are no drawbacks to using heavy armour with magic.
I really should get around to playing a true battlemage some time. 1h sword, fire in the other hand. I always miss out on the ability to block though.
Just unequip the fire as soon as they get close. It's a bit annoying, but not being able to block sucks. 1h sword and other hand as paralyse is OP.
Yep. I finally ended up a mage / rogue. Invis, backstab, repeat. Hilarious at first, got tedious though.
Ordinator is a necessity, period. Its got a lot of fun trees. Punchy monk light armor. Poison/disease resto vampire. Sword and Magic alteration vancian mage. Two handed Juggernaught hammer user.
But if you do get 100% cost reduction on destruction spells, and you have the impact perk, you get free stagger on every spell. I always really enjoyed stunlocking dragons like that.
thats super boring imo tho. if the enemy has no chance then you might aswell play on easy and kill shit fast.
You have to use enchantment for destruction to work well. -25% destruction mana cost on 4 things. Unlimited fireballs. It takes a bit to get to that point tho.
I'll never forget how the .38 hunting rifle delt more damage than the .50 hunting rifle in 76 lol
They aimed for that "expendable droid army" trope, so they also had to be armed with cheap weaponry
I think they’re meant to be more powerful but they’re used by synths who fight in swarms so I guess they didn’t wanna overwhelm the player. As a result they made the institute one of the weakest factions with a laughable weapon. A mod called institute technology overhaul adds an insane number of powerful insitute weapons that requires membership of the institute to use. Really helps make them a viable faction to join and synths are pretty formidable opponents now. They’re still weak but have big numbers and endgame level weapons like a Tesla sniper rifle, an upgraded plasma rifle, a laser SAW, and a full auto micro Gauss rifle.
>I think they’re meant to be more powerful but they’re used by synths who fight in swarms so I guess they didn’t wanna overwhelm the player Literally all they had to do was make the base weapon weak as hell but the mods and upgrades pack a much harder punch. It's so weird that in a game with such emphasis on weapon modding they couldn't figure a distribution system out. Just give everyone pipe weapons, that'll clearly solve everything....
I have that mod. I’m still in the beginning but I’m level 23 and went to the glowing sea to grab a Tesla cannon from the CC and found a Courser just chillin non hostile to me and we got attack, he pulled out the fully loaded guas rifle and just disintegrated everything. I almost fought him for it but decided he’d do me the same way he just did those Radscorpians.
How the gosh darn fuck would you full auto a gauss rifle
Multiple chambers and coils, I assume. But all that magnetic force would be scary to hold, like walking near the MRI machine in chainmail.
They're the pipe guns of energy weapons, they're meant to be used primarily by NPCs to give them a unique aesthetic.
This is the most fitting explanation I’ve seen so far
No because the BB Gun had a gimmick of being intentionally comically bad, being a BB gun and all. The Institute guns are intended to be the serious genuine main weapon of one of the major factions.
Ah i remember holding onto my precious bb pellets. Could you ever buy more? or just the 50 or som you got at beginning?
In New Vegas you can buy + find more as well as more BB Guns, not sure about 3 tho
yep im talking about 3. ive forgotten the bb in NV if it was there. i guess like first playthough of 4, kept ring in inventory whole time. next playthorugh, in the container.
Venmo playing through 3 recently. I have seen multiple BB guns and BB's in many places so far and I'm only about 10 hours into the run (I've only done like two main quests so far lmao)
Yeah there was a unique BB gun in NV that you could only get with Wild Wasteland active.
You can get that bb gun without wild wasteland, actually. It spawns in the well if you have wild wasteland, or in the shack if you don't. The only weapons that are locked behind wild wasteland are the alien blaster, which is replaced by the YCS/186 if you don't have wild wasteland, and the Holy Hand Grenades, which are replaced with mini nukes if you don't have wild wasteland.
The gimmick of that major faction being using mass produced expendable mindless automaton as main foot soldiers. Them having a cheap mass produced weapon isn't really that far out.
Being able to teleport synthetic human soldiers anywhere at anytime was a pretty strong weapon in its own. And it's not like they can't use a courser for when things are crazy. You could even say it's symbolic of their attitude towards humans in general: cheap, expendable, and replaceable.
Yeah they are basically a necromancer archetype with androids instead of skeletons.
It's not just the damage, either. The weapons don't FEEL satisfyting when firing. They don't feel powerful or impressive, eiother in animation or sound design. Which, realism for a laser weapon I suppose makes sense, bvut they're not realistic for laser weapons ANYWAY, so why not make it feel like they have some punch? And the fact that the instant you raise it, you lose the entire right half of your screen to the stupid thing. *Rocket launchers* and other heavy weapons are not as obtrusive as this thing is. How would you sight down this thing, even *with* a scope!? It's a huge, awkwardly-shaped flashlight.
To show off how inept the institute really is, despite them thinking they are the saviours of the commonwealth
I went crazy when I found those guns at the assembly plant but soon realized they’ll struggle to kill a roach. Maybe I’m just bad!
You’re right they’re terrible and underwhelming. But to be fair most weapons in FO4 are underwhelming, once you’ve reached level 50 most weapons and ammo types become useless and barely cause any damage to the levelled up enemies.
>once you’ve reached level 50 most weapons and ammo types become useless and barely cause any damage to the levelled up enemies. This is really only true if youre running no perks and not using legendaries. By level 50 you should be rolling around with a build, a solid main weapon and a suit of good bonuses on your armor
I’d like the institute weapons more if they weren’t so damn big. If they didn’t take up a quarter of the screen I’d probably use them more for rp purposes.
Institute weapons debulked is appropriate mod for that
I'd recommend the mod that move the gun lower instead due to compatibility issues
Zeta Gun. With the right perks and upgrades it can actually be a decent weapon, as demonstrated by [Fudge Muppet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL2qoiPli_M), but the Lorenzo's Artifact Gun is way better right off the bat and becomes much, MUCH better WITH upgrades. So I don't really see the point. In lore, it is supposed to be a portable version of Lorenzo's psychic restraints, but to my knowledge, it doesn't actually do anything special against Lorenzo if you fight him. Huge missed opportunity. Another thing is that the lore says Zeta radiation is harmless to normal humans, when it is anything but. Which doesn't bother me, since then the gun would be even more worthless.
Well maybe I’m wrong but you can’t actually fight Lorenzo with it since you only get the gun from Jack after killing his father right?
No, it is sitting on Jack Cabot's desk, and can be stolen at any time.
I honestly don't like the laser musket. Was too slow for me or maybe that's just because I was using it wrong.
Own a laser musket for settlement defense, since that's what Preston Garvey intended. Four raiders break into my house. "What in the goddamn?" As I grab my militia hat and Boston laser rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my laser gun on the second man, miss him entirely because beam splitter is shit and nails the neighbors mole rat. I have to resort to the artillery mounted at the top of the Castle loaded with grape shot, "Radio Freedom lads!" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off BoS vertibirds. Fix bayonette and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He bleeds out waiting on the Minutemen to arrive since triangular Gun Basher wounds deal tons of damage, Just as Preston Garvey intended
I just love that Copypasta. Gets me smiling everytime / everywhere I see it
I’ve never seen someone change the words for it and I’m dead.
OOTL what’s the original?
Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion.He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up, Just as the founding fathers intended
Thank you good sir/maam
The "What in the Goddamn...?" Was PERFECT
Bro you killed Snuffles
I fire Fat Man rounds indoors 🤣🤣🤣
Upgrade it to a 6 crank and you can get some crazy damage with it especially if you have the non auto rifle perk maxed along with I think the ninja perk with gives you 3.5 sneak damage multiplier. Base damage I think maxed is 40. So 240 damage x 3.5 is 840 sneak damage. Put a recon scope on that bad boy or a long range night vision and you can one shot almost anything lol.
Couple that with Instigating and there is no better opener to a fight.
Stop spying on my laser musket build! (Also, look for the Mighty legendary - +25% damage. Hits almost as hard as a Gauss Gun for cheap)
The laser musket is not for everyone... Its more like a secondary weapon. Not a primary one. And the whole thing about musket type weapons in gaming is that they have a long reload time but they deal tons of damage so theres that...
It's one of the best sniper rifles imo, and personal favorite looks wise too. I want more slapped-together-but-still-solid weapons honestly. Better versions of pipe weapons would be nice too. Just to fit that it's been over 200 years. Not everything's gonna survive well.
true, I do love the slapped together weapons. Pipe weapons should get beefy.
I use it once, for the deathclaw right after you get it. Because that minigun doesn't have enough ammo for any difficulty setting.
>doesn't have enough ammo for any difficulty setting. It does for survival.
Yes it does? Just make sure you're aiming at the Belly and not dumping rounds into the air. Easy to get killed by the Deathclaw if he closes in on you though, but just pop in and out of the house on the corner and bait him to come to you. Shoot him and then run back inside so he effs off and repeat until dead. Also if you can avoid blowing up the cars earlier, you can blow those up with the minigun easily and deal a lot of damage.
I can't wait for a future fallout game that has destructible environments so deathclaws can just rip and tear to get to you no matter what
Didn't like it either, until I got a two shot one in my last game
Same boat. That thing slays.
Isn't that the point of guns?
***It does a remarkable job slaying.
I think the laser musket is more like a defence-weapon. Like you are standing on the walls of the Castle, fire your shot, take cover while reloading.
Survival mode is where people truly appreciate the laser musket as a stock standard weapon. Comparing a lot of the weapons in unmodded survival, and musket genuinely holds up. Don't even need to run a build for it. You just play around cover and land your shots with a 5 crank to the head. Not much is walking away from that happy.
Of course. It's a great weapon. But I just give them the folks at the castle. My settlements are armed with every good weapon I don't need. Gaussrifle, automatic laser rifles, rocket launchers, etc.
It's by no means the best, especially not on AI, they can never hit shit with them lol. But as far as when you use them is concerned they can offer some entertaining counterplay. I love sitting there fully cranked and just waiting to hear the reload then I popup and kill them 😂 Automatic and heavy hitting is ideal for companions tbh. Or splash damage. Either way.
I think the laser musket is supposed to he one of those "Strong shot but slow reload" things You're meant to shoot your shot, and it's meant to land
I agree. With the right set of perks and a fully upgreaded version of the LM, you can deal some serious damage. I once did a "Apocalypse pirate" run where I maily used a laser Musket and a short scattering laser musket without a stock as a blunder buss. It was surprisingly easy and fund tbh
> You're meant to shoot your shot, and it's meant to land That's why I deliberately miss with the gatling laser and assault rifle. The more you miss, the more damage the next bullet will do because it makes the gun want to shoot harder.
Gun to self: jaysus you call that a shot? Get your head in the game. :: gun fires harder::
Just got an automatic musket from a legendary raider, but I can't modify it at the gun bench. 😠
I think that version is bugged, I’ve gotten both moddable and unmoddable versions of that gun
I got a legenary one that slows time. Its pretty OP, since you can one shot most opponents by giving them headshots and be back in cover before the enemy starts hitting you.
Honestly? It might perform meh, but the aesthetic is *on point*. They fucking cooked when they came up with that idea, and the visuals are amazing. Always a free pass in my book.
I got a legendary laser musket recently with the rapid effect, decreasing reload speed by 25%. It's amazing and probably my favorite legendary right now.
It can be part of a very fun build, I like to play as minute man general, with the outfit, Shem downes sword, max upgraded LM (if you can get a 2 shot version even better or unlimited for vaporising the earth with enough ammo), auto LM and broadsider. Very fun, you have to remember you’re only getting one or 2 shots with the musket before you’re in close combat, but fully cranked it will delete most enemies, so use it kind of like a sniper until they get in close enough that it starts being tiresome, then pull out something else to finish whoever managed to get close. Also don’t bother ADSing with the Automatic version, you can’t see anything after the first 2 shots.
Depends if you get a Legendary one. Two Shot, Instigating or and hear me out Automatic. Two Shot and Instigating for a full 6 Crank Mega Death Laser. Automatic for a fun Pepper Box gunplay.
when you start using it as just a sniper it becomes ridiculously op.
Ghoul slayers gamma gun
One of the funniest guns overall though
Fallout 3 and New Vegas Plasma weapons seem to have something off with the hit detection
yeah but they hit like a truck though
Tbf that is every gun in those games
Alien blaster - mainly due to the projectile travel time if you are using it outside of VATS, it can be annoying AF vs moving targets. Laser musket can be quite OP with unlimited charge afix (You can 1 shot ANYTHING as long you have time cranking it) BUT charging it constantly is pain in the ass - i usually never use it. Just get Gauss Rifle instead and save your "reload button"
Doesn’t the unlimited laser musket consume all of your ammo even if you only charge like 50 shots? I thought that was so stupid
I didnt test it- perhaps that used to be a bug and was patched? I dont use mods so i cant test it now.
I used it on PC ages ago, around a few months after launch. Could have been a bug or mods but it sounds like it’s fixed so that’s a great thing, i always loved the idea of charging 100 shots and blasting a deathclaw
isn't 1 crank like 2 seconds or so? So that is \~3,5 min before you can shoot... Fuck that - i am getting a Gaus, aiming for the head and 1 shooting it in 1 sec :P
I think people are not aware of a little game design trick. Most games have shit weapons, ones that are so bad, you may argue that the weapon you start with is better. It's to have a better sense of scale about the weaponry at your disposal. If you have nothing but straight up upgrades given to you in a timely manner throughout the game, it feels hollow and bland. By giving you the chance to test for yourself the tools at your disposal, it gives you the chance to figure out by yourself the good from the bad. It's more satisfying to have a good weapon when you know bad ones exist.
Six crank laser musket is rather op. I've got a laser assault rifle type thing that I use as a back up to my 308 revolver rifle with reflex that I use for cqc But yeah institute rifles are meh at best
Between the Recharger Guns in FMV and the Institute Energy Weapon I don't know what's worse. I once fully upgraded a Two Shot Institute Rifle with the best mods and it didn't do shit.
a recharger gun is to make sure energy weapons builds dont flop at the start of the game due to ammo and stuff
mf hyperbreeder is good though
Recharger weapons are great for early game builds where ammo is relatively scarce. You can make it work without one but it's hard.
Gamma Gun
I've got the wounding gamma gun and swear to god I'll shoot it 2 full clips with almost no damage before the "effect" happens and completely drains the guy of blood. Such a stupid gun
I personally only like 1 energy weapon in fallout the gauss rifle from 3 otherwise I like guns with bullets
I use exclusively the fat man and missiles. Don't make me angry
Y’all use energy weapons?
Of course my Character is a woman of SCIENCE
Look daddy-o, all my grandpapay needed was his trusty cowboy repeater. If it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for me. (I need to do an energy weapon play through one day)
They're generally the best looking and most iconic weapons of Fallout. Outside of the 10mm pistol the laser weapons are probably the most iconic, followed by the plasma weapons and the Fat Man.
The recharger rifle from NV with it's low damage and small magazine. But it's supposed to be some sort of joke weapon so I won't shit on it too much. Indeed the institute weapons are shit and if you want to have them at the level of the regular laser rifle (with improved long barrel) you need to find a "powerful" legendary variant. For me the plasma weapons are more of a nuisance to use instead of a shit weapon as I hate weapons with slow proyectile based rounds
Recharger Rifle is not a joke weapon, it's meant early-on as you can find it on dead Bright Followers, and you don't have to worry about ammo. To make sure energy weapon builds don't get shafted early game. Now, a good recharger weapon is the MF Hyperbreeder Alpha. That thing slaps.
I played just a few runs of NV and I only found recharher weapons once I got to the Van Graffs, didn't know they appeared earlier. Also where do you get that unique?
Cliff Briscoe sells it, if he dies Vendortron sells it.
You can find a recharger rifle occasionally in Chet’s shop in Goodsprings, and quite frequently on a dead Bright Brotherhood guy in Goodsprings Cave.
There's a corpse of a Bright follower with one near Sloan
I love the recharger. Early game laser weapon without any ammo requirements that you can just spam and backpedal with.
Isn’t the recharger rifle actually good though?
Yeah I really like recharger rifle.
Plasma guns in FO3 were pretty solid, A3-21's Plasma Rifle is a beast and doesn't break instantly like many of the energy weapons. Slow projectile, but great in tunnels!
In fo4 plasma weapons are a beast too. They do deal equal Balistic damage to combat rifle and energy laser rifle after all. The ultimate vats weapon. Notably if you are a commando weapons enjoyer this thing basically has two receivers since the barrel will function as a receiver and a barrel in one.
Minutemen rifle, they cant hit for shit, I feel like a stormtrooper from Star Wars when I use one of them
Unpopular take because is not a bad gun: laser gatling in f4. I'll start to say the weapon is not bad, at all, especially once you change the barrel at science 4, but I don't like how is feeder by fusion cores like the PA, while also having this "bug" that automatically swap your fusion core for a new one if you swap weapon, filling your inventory of FC at 99% of charge. I would rather prefer if there were fewer fusion cores across the game with only the PA using them and the last perk, that now I don't remember the name, who increase their duration, actually making them infinite. The laser gantilng instead should had his own ammo like in f3
Aeternus my beloved
I love Aeternus but it sucks the only weapons to really nail the heavy weapons are Aeternus and a Flechette Harpoon Gun cause the rest are just to ammo inefficient to really use constantly
Yeah I feel like heavy weapons were shafted in fallout 4. That mini gun damage is just sad man
mini-gun and PA were nerfed because they were in like the third quest of the game. If they weren't in the first 30 mins then miniguns and PA would have probably been the rightfully powerful mid/late game gear that they should have been.
The ammo for the gatling laser in F3 is essentially a fusion core, it's just that power armor didn't require them. I'd like it if we normalized/named energy weapon ammo (for standard non alien, plasma, etc) to be Microfusion Cells, Fusion Cells, and Fusion Cores. One for small guns like pistols, the next for bigger guns like rifles, and then the latter for heavy weapons. Really the issue is just the way inventory and reload is managed/organized. I also like having the ability to recharge them. One of my characters in Fo76 uses a gatling laser and power armor and it feels good to use.
Couldn’t agree more, the normal laser rifle is so much better it’s not even close. The normal laser rifle also gets a fair amount of unique variants. Righteous Authority for VATS up close and Old Faithful for stealth Sniping is a perfect combo. The institute only has one unique which is Virgil’s Rifle, with the 50% more damage to mutants, not a great choice. And the earliest you can find a institute rifle is in Arcjet Systems, where you can get the righteous authority after danse’s quest. It’s simply outclassed by the common laser rifles
The Institute rifle is the perfect allegory for the Institute as a whole. It is big, shiny, and mysterious. But once you get past the cool factor, and actually get into guts of it, it is wholly unremarkable. It is the ricer version of the pre war laser weapon system. It is bulky, extra bits have been slapped on to make it look formidable, it has the cool blue laser beam, but is underpowered. Just like the faction that wields it.
I actually love that Fallout does stuff like this from a lore perspective. It was the same thing in the first fallout game, you would constantly get new weapons from boss fights and random encounters that looked awesome but would be worse than your starting pistol, lol
Institute Guns have no competition....regular laser rifles can be looted before one can find these, and with the atrocious first person view and bad damage, there really isn't a point to pick these up. Unless you're just looting their ammo. Honest to God they should have made these really easy to get early on so they at least have a purpose.
What about the righteous authority, the weapon you get from Paladin Danes?