KC'S NV GPT

[HanoverF]

I think the point he's making is anti-material you can kill most stuffs in one shot, but you have to spam fire energy weapons in a normal (non-sneak crit) encounter that makes them degrade quicker.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

So, is there any way to do quests for the Legion without making Boone throw a temper tantrum? I dumped him at the Lucky 38, did the bunker quest for Caesar - except I did the House outcome and upgraded the robots - and went to visit him afterwards, at which point he threw a hissy fit. I was going to kill House for Yes Man anyway, so I figured I'd get Caesar's props for doing that, but now I'm worried that Boone will shit himself and leave. My friend did House's route as well and didn't have a problem with this, anyone know what the deal is?

 

[Rhalle]

The Gobi Desert Sniper rifle is seriously overpowered.

Easily the best weapon in the game. Regular sniper rifle ain't too shabby either. Personally I prefer either to the anti-Material rifle.

Boone + Gobi +1k rounds of hand-load.308 and you can basically run into a nest of Deathclaws in your underwear and he'll have your back.

Loading him up with armor-piercing 5.56 and the All-American is a winning strat as well.

 

[Relay]

But (certain) energy weapons benefit significantly more. Each weapon adds a certain amount per critical and has a certain critical multiplier. The Q-35 has a 2x multiplier and does 3x damage on criticals, while most guns only have 1-1.5x multiplier and only deal 2x damage on criticals. Most of the rest of the laser weapons DO suck ass even with high critical chance though, the base damage just being too low. Many of them still only have a 1x multiplier on chance or a 2x multiplier on damage, which makes it look like whoever made the energy weapons didn't get the memo about energy weapons relying on criticals.

The Q35 is a shitty weapon that's only good as a starter energy weapon for people who just got out of novac. It does lots of damage with criticals because its base damage is abysmal and it's slow.
On the other hand, you know what is as slow as a Q35 but that has a far better base damage AND has a huge critical multiplier ? The sniper rifle. 5x multiplier, it's like a permacrit if you built a high luck character. You see, some guns have higher crit rate than EW.

Degrade rate really doesn't matter at all. Weapon repair kits cost about 15 caps to craft and repair 1000 caps worth of a weapon. The weapons don't really degrade that much faster anyway. Gauss rifle has only slightly less durability then the anti materiel rifle while doing more damage, and the plasma caster has significantly more durability.

I like the fact that I have to repair them less often and have more guns lying around (consider the jury rigging perk). Energy weapons just aren't worth spending points when guns do almost everything better and feature absolute variety.
There's only three really nice energy weapons like you already mentionned, which are the starter Q-35, the Plasma Caster and Gauss. And the Gauss uses five fucking energy cells to pack its punch. (not to mention, energy weapon suck so much they had to make the gauss an energy weapon to make the investment more worthwhile... in Fallout 2 the Gauss Rifle is a gun because it's shitting bullets. Yes, it uses energy cells to propell them but it's not shooting a plasma or a laser, it's a goddamn BULLET.)
Guns are useful from the beginning to end. A Varmint with scope and silencer can one shot some human targets while sneaking, going on a killing spree and that's the first rifle you can get. I just don't see the appeal of a class of weapon that feels mostly like industrial tools gone rogue.

Since there isn't much skill points to distribute in that game investing in energy weapons takes quite the dedication to the stupid plasma.

 

[Black]

Yeah, weapon degradation isn't really a problem, even with Build to Destroy trait. You might have a problem if you're using max charge ammo for energy weapons, which has like 1.5 or more weapon degradation.