Are Plasma Weapons More Powerful?

[Chenni]

Are Plasma Weapons more powerful compared to bullet and laser based weaponry? When I look at plasma stats it has like two 80 damage (one with crosshair and one with lightning). Does it mean it does 160 damage in total?

[Nish-Ki]

yeah to an unprotected target it's 160 damage, leather would negate the Lightning damage and metal will negate the crosshair damage, it's like an all round weapon plus it's fires Neon Green and splats @_@. Makes a mighty fine sniper too

[LAZERFACE]

Plasma does not kill everything.

[Astasia]

The trade-off is they fire really slow projectiles which makes it nearly impossible to hit a moving target at any sort of distance. It's basically a melee gun, especially since the flamethrower mod is the strongest option.

[Chenni]

Originally posted by Astasia:

The trade-off is they fire really slow projectiles which makes it nearly impossible to hit a moving target at any sort of distance. It's basically a melee gun,

yeah noticed it. Quite good for close quarters tho, ram people with pain train, then plasma them.

Originally posted by Indra's Lightning:

yeah to an unprotected target it's 160 damage, leather would negate the Lightning damage and metal will negate the crosshair damage

Thanks makes sense now.

[giga aids superspreader]

they kinda are better than lasers damage wise, because they do both ballistic and energy damage. the tradeoff is that the projectiles actually take time to get to the target, so i would either recommend splitter or automatic barrel because long range killing is out of the question. a splitter could do high damage against people with armor if it has the Penetrating Legendary effect (ignores 30% of all resistances) but even though the splitter would be good at killing multiple people and the automatic would have obscenely high dp/s (dmg/second) it's not a bad idea to use a sniper barrel the same way. using it with a reflex sight and a recoil compensating stock and the overcharged capacitor (obvious) and if it has the Penetrating legendary effect, it is a pretty good weapon.
if you max all perks specific and get some magazines and bobbleheads, i've seen you can get the base damage up to 190+ (if it has a sniper barrel)
EDIT: plasma projectile travel time isn't effected in VATS.

[GoreTiger]

Out of the three, Plasma is the strongest. But of course, The round is a bit slow so you need to lead your targets,

Don't waste time with the Automatic barrel. Go with the Sniper power and wreak Havoc.

[kaffekoppen]

Yep, I find they are best in VATS but then a proper plasma gun is pretty great. In VATS all the charging from sniper barrels (for all energy weapons) is done automatically too.

I actually don't remember if plasma sniper barrels need to be charged like laser sniper barrels, but that waiting mechanic totally kills those barrels for me for non-VATS usage.

[GoreTiger]

Originally posted by kaffekoppen:

Yep, I find they are best in VATS but then a proper plasma gun is pretty great. In VATS all the charging from sniper barrels (for all energy weapons) is done automatically too.

I actually don't remember if plasma sniper barrels need to be charged like laser sniper barrels, but that waiting mechanic totally kills those barrels for me for non-VATS usage.

No, Plasma sniper barrels don't have to charge.

[kaffekoppen]

Well that's something. I really hated that for laser weapons.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Plasma could be considered the "Daedric" of Fallout 4. They're the strongest shot-for-shot, and the weapons are light, however they come at a cost of slow projectile velocity. The ammo is also quite rare, meaning you'll either want to max out for shot-by-shot damage (Sniper config, scope optional btw) or Panic Max DPS, which would be Flamer or Automatic (Automatic is better with certain legendary buffs like Two-Shot)

[Anvos]

Not really deadric equivalent, Gauss and Gatling laser easily out class it and round travel time gives assualt rifle an edge in ranged if you don't need energy.

Its great if you want a rather all purpose weapon but bad at long range due to travel time and split damage type doesn't reallly help against things you'd want energy damage against.

[Shad]

Plasma Is alien zeta technology and presumably more powerful than lasers which is man-made.
If we're talking actual damage, then weapons like the gauss rifle can do tons of damage, even more so than a maxed out lever-action rifle from far harbor.

[TwinChops]

Originally posted by The Man Shad:

Plasma Is alien zeta technology and presumably more powerful than lasers which is man-made.
If we're talking actual damage, then weapons like the gauss rifle can do tons of damage, even more so than a maxed out lever-action rifle from far harbor.

No Plasma is not Zeta made ... its just superhot hydrogen.

[Shad]

Originally posted by TwinChops:

Originally posted by The Man Shad:

Plasma Is alien zeta technology and presumably more powerful than lasers which is man-made.
If we're talking actual damage, then weapons like the gauss rifle can do tons of damage, even more so than a maxed out lever-action rifle from far harbor.

No Plasma is not Zeta made ... its just superhot hydrogen.

Winchester Arms specifically gathered its designs from the zetans, thus plasma is zetan technology repurposed by them.
And no It's not, It's superheated "plasma" because It's its own state of matter, they take plasma in its raw form, superheat it through conduction tubes, held together by electromagnetic holders, and is shot out of a superconducting barrel.

[Anvos]

Originally posted by The Man Shad:

Plasma Is alien zeta technology and presumably more powerful than lasers which is man-made.
If we're talking actual damage, then weapons like the gauss rifle can do tons of damage, even more so than a maxed out lever-action rifle from far harbor.

This is hard to say since plama weapons were still highly in the prototype stage and lore implies laser weapons still had alot of room to improve and were only just starting to replace ballistics as main weapons.

Also how useful zetan stuff was is hard to tell since there is also a high degree of retro/outdated tech even by fallout human standards mixed with their high tech stuff and their guns are more disintigraters than plasma.

Not to mention the gauss rifle already shows humanity was capable of magnetic containment type weapons without zetan stuff so wether it actually was based on or just decreased develpement time could be debated.