Plasma Caster: Your thoughts?

[pjz]

Actually it turns out that Bethesda acknowledges energy weapon damage isn't balanced well and JE Sawyer himself states there will be a patch to address this:

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1141220-screenshot-evidence-that-overchargemaxcharge-means-nothing-to-dt/ (JE Sawyer posts on the 2nd page).

 

No comment about ammo availability but it's a start at least.

[secksegai]

I felt in was in cannon, while its true that all the energy weapons have been dulled down in damage, the plasma caster is exactly how it was in the original fallouts, 1 shot at a time,

you mean in FO1 it used 10 microfusion cells per single shot???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

how in the name of Akatosh (wrong lore) did energy weapons ever attempt to supplant conventional weapons

 

must have been one extremely strong battery lobby

 

No it didn't use ten charges, nothing ever used more than a round at a time unless it was burst fire.

 

But then I feel this is the developers attempt at balance since there is an overabundacne of most ammo in the game, you have to remember that in Fallout your ammo is supposed to be a valued commodity, each shot would be like someone throwing away diamonds in real life, bullets are supposed to be like gems in fallout. In all other ways its just like its classic incarnation.

 

As I remember it, the plasma caster had a lot more bite back in the FO1/FO2 era. Oddly enough, my builds hasn't strayed too far from their FO1/FO2 counterparts, more or less mainly adapting to the changes as needed. But I think the general consensus is that guns dominate in FONV, which would go against lore and the majority of player experiences prior to FO3.

 

Bullets were never "gems" in Fallout for me, otherwise I would have focused on melee. I care enough to evaluate a cost of kill type ratio, (basically do I make more in loot than it costs me in ammo), but I never had a shortage in any game aside from the beginning as you naturally start out with so little.

 

Energy was always more powerful versus regular guns in previous titles - however weapons and ammo were a bit more rare. Also, in FO2 I'm sure plenty of us invested a number of mf cells for our highwayman.

 

However, the DT system tends to screw with everything since back in the day it was a matter of resistances as well as AC. It really bothers me that a gatling laser doesn't tear through deathclaws. While that can be addressed through modding, balancing weapons overall is a bit more difficult when having to account for DT instead of just armor resists.

[Auxois]

I'm not fond of the Plasma Caster. Damage needs to go up by about twenty, in addition to the DT-ignoring traits that energy weapons will supposedly have soon.

 

In Fallout 1 and 2, this weapon was known simply as the Plasma Rifle, and it was - especially in Fallout 1 - one of the most terrifying weapons in the game. Critical hits from this weapon could and often did instantly end fights. The upgraded version, the Turbo Plasma Rifle, was inarguably the best weapon in the first game, and is a serviceable end-game weapon in the sequel, along with the Pulse Rifle, Gauss Rifle, Bozar, and similar weapons.

 

In Fallout 3, Bethesda (correctly) redefined the Plasma Rifle as a proper "rifle", rather than the enormous underslung monstrosity that is now known as the Plasma Caster. However, in most situations, the Plasma Rifle - or a Multiplas Rifle - will be more effective. This is nonsense, IMO; the Plasma Caster should represent the pinnacle of energy weapons power, given the somewhat mysterious absence of the YK42B and the silliness of the Alien Blaster.

 

TL;DR The Plasma Caster needs more damage, better range, less ammo consumption, and the ability to ignore DT before it deserves to wear the mesh it does.

[pob255]

Well in fallout1 the only truly borked weapon was the assault rifle mainly because it shared ammo with the mini-gun so they gave it a very low base damage so that the mini-gun wouldn't be overpowered.

Ok the 14mm pistol was semi-borked but that was down to it only having 1 ammo type that was basically AP rounds and by the time you got far enough to find anything with enough armour to to make the 14mm AP rounds worth it you had access to far better weapons.

Apart from unique weapons all the rest of the guns followed a fixed set of rules.

 

In Fallout2 they added in a whole bunch of new weapons and ammos that didn't follow the rules setup in FO1 which lead to many unbalanced weapons, the Bozar being one of the more notable unbalanced weapons.

 

One of the things I liked about FO3 was that Bethesda seemed to look more to FO1 for the guns with a more limited base ammo types and overall I found it fairly well balanced. (and they did fix assault rifles so they where a viable weapon)

 

In FONV Obsidian seems to have made a bit of a hash of it, with more influence from FO2 and seem to have purposely weakened energy weapons below that of projectile weapons (in FO1 laser weapons where good but equalled by projectile weapons and plasma weapons where basically the best weapons) they've also seriously weakened fully automatic weapons and bumped up semi-automatic weapons to the point that quite a few semi-automatic weapons can now be fired far more rapidly than fully-automatic guns.

The whole thing seems to be not about balance so much as flavour, Obsidian seem to have decided upon a wild west flavour and have tweaked weapons to fit it.

[Azrael120782]

I thoght the Caster was a welding device? Then the millitary made it a weapon,but to me,if it was a welding device it should fire more of a plasma arc,not a bolt.