Two Shot Plasma Pistol > all?

[Zawarudo]

I got the overseers, a hand made rifle and a plasma gun, all with the 2 shot trait... the only one I am missin here is a 2 shot gauss rifle :P

I dont know whats going on, but the pistol range beats all my scoped rifles, a huge beating!

While the other 2 guns deal around 200 - 250 damage, so does the plasma pistol except, it deals around 200 balistic and another 200 of energy damage... for ~400 damage in total...

After modding it with an improved short barrel, inside a power armor with agility bonus I can shoot 9 times on vats... it shoots more than the other guns with REFLEX sights... (much lower range and accuracy).

A gauss rifle could probably beat it? Tho it will never let u shoot 9 times in vats, I believe.

[Doombringer]

I posted this in you other thread as well:
Plasmagun gets a +75 Accuracy Bonus, almost all other guns get +0.
That bonus might only affect the value displayed in pipboy, but not actually help in VATS...
(That could explain why it isn't working like expected.)

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Two shot plasma is insane, a lot of people swear by the thrower, which is good, but I prefer just going full auto, pepper out some quick bursts and you have a truly devastating mid-range weapon.

[Slaughterer]

Not even close, all energy weapons have an innert 10% odd chance to do zero damage and another 15% odd chance to miss.

Whereas ballistic weapons don't (except shotgun).

With Ace Operator the OG does 25 more damage/shot *before* counting the 30% armour penetration bonus from Rifleman 5. So it's over 40% more dps than any plasma weapon already.

And that unique AK47 that increases damage with every shot? That's a 15%, stacking to 150% and maxing out at a base 130...so within like 6 shots it's doing significantly more than any gun in the game due purely to that stacking mechanic.

And yes, enemies become big enough 'bullet sponges' at later levels that this actually matters.

[Zawarudo]

Messaggio originale di Pure_Phoenix:

Not even close, all energy weapons have an innert 10% odd chance to do zero damage and another 15% odd chance to miss.

Whereas ballistic weapons don't (except shotgun).

With Ace Operator the OG does 25 more damage/shot *before* counting the 30% armour penetration bonus from Rifleman 5. So it's over 40% more dps than any plasma weapon already.

And that unique AK47 that increases damage with every shot? That's a 15%, stacking to 150% and maxing out at a base 130...so within like 6 shots it's doing significantly more than any gun in the game due purely to that stacking mechanic.

And yes, enemies become big enough 'bullet sponges' at later levels that this actually matters.

The plasma gun already doubles most balistic weapons damage. It has 2 types of damage, the balistic (which by itself is already superior to the overseers) and the energy damage (which has the same value). They deal more than double damage.

An overseers with sandman and ace operator should give you a bonus 75% damage increase on sneak attacks with supressors. Its not even close to outperform a plasma weapon which can also benefit from rifleman rank 5.

Tho turning a plasma weapon into a rifle might seriously increase the action point cost...

[Slaughterer]

Mate you clearly didn't read my post. I've used the plasma rifle - it missed the same raider 6+ times both aimed and in VATS.

You can get really unlucky with slow firing energy weapons like the musket or plasma rifle and even though it says "480 damage" or w/e it doesn't honestly matter when it's so unreliable.

Especially not in survival.

[Zawarudo]

Messaggio originale di Pure_Phoenix:

Mate you clearly didn't read my post. I've used the plasma rifle - it missed the same raider 6+ times both aimed and in VATS.

You can get really unlucky with slow firing energy weapons like the musket or plasma rifle and even though it says "480 damage" or w/e it doesn't honestly matter when it's so unreliable.

Especially not in survival.

I do agree they can be "tricky" to use down the sights. Slow and big shots... Now concerning vats, in my experience so far they didnt fail me like you say.

Actually my 2 shot plasma pistol has been doing a great job, headshoting like a beast! I love the green goo, it sucks to search for those legendary enemies.

Not saying u are wrong, until now it didnt fail me like you say. I hope it continues like that :P

[Slaughterer]

You are one lucky bastard, my friend. Cash in on it while you can, go roam some high level areas and farm doz legendaries <3

[ghpstage]

Messaggio originale di Sir Badargo:

The plasma gun already doubles most balistic weapons damage. It has 2 types of damage, the balistic (which by itself is already superior to the overseers) and the energy damage (which has the same value). They deal more than double damage.

An overseers with sandman and ace operator should give you a bonus 75% damage increase on sneak attacks with supressors. Its not even close to outperform a plasma weapon which can also benefit from rifleman rank 5.

The suppressor allows you to literally spam sneak attacks, both against single and multiple targets. So if you are facing very tanky targets, or numerous reasonably tough ones then being able to spam large numbers of attacks with up to 4.8 times the damage can give even a combat rifle an immense damage advantage compared to a plasma.

Then there's the energy DR 'bug'. Something that gets worse with increasing numbers of multipliers, and at the extreme end can see a .38 type pipe gun hit harder than an overcharged improved laser sniper against a target with higher ballistic DR....

Examples, all automatics, all sneak attacks.
Laser sneak damage against Danse
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504388969
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504390689

Suppressed pipe gun sneak attack against Danse
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504388827
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504388760

Suppressed Combat rifle sneak attack against Danse
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504389098
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504389041
The laser is round about the same as the pipe here, and the pipe has less than half the DAM. It gets completely blown away by the combat rifle to an extent that Sandman simply cannot explain while Danse has a lot more ballistic DR, so whats happening?

Energy DAM only uses weapon base damage when calculating DR efficiency, so for an O/C improved automatic laser thats 40. none of the displayed DAM, the sneak modifier of 4.2, nor any other buffs mean anything.
Meanwhile the ballistic use modified damage, which includes sneak modifiers and the like, here its at least 46*4.8*1.05(VATS from awareness2)*1.05(scope perk) = 243

While the effects of DR aren't linear the pipe gun having >4.5 times the DAM/DR makes a mockery of the apparent difference in raw damage between the two, and the combat serves to show what its like when the two are ahem, 'equal'.
The example is on the larger side, but its not too abnormal at high levels if you don't bar yourself from using sneak attacks. It can get much, much higher too.

Obviously as a plasma gun has a large ballistic component (roughly equal to Combat Rifle w/o AO IIRC?) of its own this isn't going to cripple it, and you can safely expect greater damage from it compared to a combat even when used for a sneak attack like this. But it does mean that considering the energy DAM to be 'equal' is to overrate it dramatically.
Combine this with the usefulness of suppressors i'd take a combat over plasma in any case which didn't bar sneak attacks.

Plasma does get some nasty crits with the photon booster however, which is good because they are a waste on lasers.

[Pronoun Paladin ☯]

Depending on what your fighting the Radium Rifle with explosive damage seems to be the best. You get over 100 damage from ballistic, if you spec to make radiation better it boost radiation damge to over 200. And then you can increase the 15 points of explosive damage by a fair amount with the explosive perks.

I don't know the exact numbers...and I'm playing on Survival so that effects damage.

[Zawarudo]

Messaggio originale di ghpstage:

Messaggio originale di Sir Badargo:

The plasma gun already doubles most balistic weapons damage. It has 2 types of damage, the balistic (which by itself is already superior to the overseers) and the energy damage (which has the same value). They deal more than double damage.

An overseers with sandman and ace operator should give you a bonus 75% damage increase on sneak attacks with supressors. Its not even close to outperform a plasma weapon which can also benefit from rifleman rank 5.

The suppressor allows you to literally spam sneak attacks, both against single and multiple targets. So if you are facing very tanky targets, or numerous reasonably tough ones then being able to spam large numbers of attacks with up to 4.8 times the damage can give even a combat rifle an immense damage advantage compared to a plasma.

Then there's the energy DR 'bug'. Something that gets worse with increasing numbers of multipliers, and at the extreme end can see a .38 type pipe gun hit harder than an overcharged improved laser sniper against a target with higher ballistic DR....

Examples, all automatics, all sneak attacks.
Laser sneak damage against Danse
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504388969
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504390689

Suppressed pipe gun sneak attack against Danse
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504388827
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504388760

Suppressed Combat rifle sneak attack against Danse
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504389098
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1504389041
The laser is round about the same as the pipe here, and the pipe has less than half the DAM. It gets completely blown away by the combat rifle to an extenet that Sandman simply cannot explain while Danse has a lot more ballistic DR, so whats happening?

Energy DAM only uses weapon base damage when calculating DR efficiency, so for an O/C improved automatic laser thats 40. none of the displayed DAM, the sneak modifier of 4.2, nor any other buffs mean anything.
Meanwhile the ballistic use modified damage, which includes sneak modifiers and the like, here its at least 46*4.8*1.05(VATS from awareness2)*1.05(scope perk) = 243

While the effects of DR aren't linear the pipe gun having >4.5 times the DAM/DR makes a mockery of the apparent difference in raw damage between the two, and the combat serves to show what its like when the two are ahem, 'equal'.
The example is on the larger side, but its not too abnormal at high levels if you don't bar yourself from using sneak attacks. It can get much, much higher too.

Obviously as a plasma gun has a large ballistic component (roughly equal to Combat Rifle w/o AO IIRC?) of its own this isn't going to cripple it, and you can safely expect greater damage from it compared to a combat even when used for a sneak attack like this. But it does mean that considering the energy DAM to be 'equal' is to overrate it dramatically.
Combine this with the usefulness of suppressors i'd take a combat over plasma in any case which didn't bar sneak attacks.

Plasma does get some nasty crits with the photon booster however, which is good because they are a waste on lasers.

Thank you! Your post was very informative!

I didnt know energy weapons suffered of such a nasty bug omg 0.o

[Zawarudo]

Messaggio originale di ☯ Father:

Depending on what your fighting the Radium Rifle with explosive damage seems to be the best. You get over 100 damage from ballistic, if you spec to make radiation better it boost radiation damge to over 200. And then you can increase the 15 points of explosive damage by a fair amount with the explosive perks.

I don't know the exact numbers...and I'm playing on Survival so that effects damage.

Now that you mention it, I wonder if a radium rifle benefits from nuclear phisicist (double radiation damage I think).

[White Knight]

OP, I carry lots of stuff, and that includes numerous weapons to use against different enemies, or under different circumstances, etc.

I have about three rifles, a combat shotgun, a laser and a plasma rifle, etc.

Energy weapons are great, I use them a lot.

Availability of ammo fluctuates, so I can't just rely upon using my fav weapon all the time. So I rotate through them. At this moment, I'm back to my .308 silenced rifle because I used up all my plasma rounds. Before that, I burned through the fusion cells.

Lasers do have a random element built into their aim, there's no denying that. They also can be fired as quickly as you can pull the trigger, so I make up for it with volume. It's also hit-and-miss wrt to whether it will affect the target. Without exploiting every perk available, etc. they can be kind of crappy at times.

I have a .38 pipe rifle from the start of the game that I keep for garbage-shots (radroaches, grenade bouqets, taking out lights, etc.); my laser rifle is the next in line for crap. To get better with lasers, I suspect some perks are required?

Plasma is a different story. I haven't met the enemy that can brush off plasma hits yet. My plasma rifle is upgraded for use in sniping. It's got some recoil that makes the scope hard to use for successive shots, the animation is distracting and blocks your view, and the time delay means the sniper has to be able to lead effectively. It also has a near infinite range.

I just took out the Satellite Array, just North of County Crossing, with my plasma sniper rifle, from County Crossing (with a medium scope). I take a bead on a Super Mutant, fire two or three shots as quick as I can and then look for my next target before the first plasma bolt hits.

My .308 and .50 cal weapons couldn't make the distance. Plasma was the only weapon that could do it...and it did it very well. A single Mutant Hound was able to close the distance and threaten me at melee range. Fortuantely, the plasma rifle is just as good when being hip-fired (although the accuracy suffers...or maybe that's just me?).

My guess is that all of the weapons can be useful and deadly, in the right hands.

[Pronoun Paladin ☯]

Messaggio originale di Sir Badargo:

Messaggio originale di ☯ Father:

Depending on what your fighting the Radium Rifle with explosive damage seems to be the best. You get over 100 damage from ballistic, if you spec to make radiation better it boost radiation damge to over 200. And then you can increase the 15 points of explosive damage by a fair amount with the explosive perks.

I don't know the exact numbers...and I'm playing on Survival so that effects damage.

Now that you mention it, I wonder if a radium rifle benefits from nuclear phisicist (double radiation damage I think).

It does. It increases the damage you do with radiation. The explosive damage is also changed wit the explosive perk. And there's riflemen. This is my go-to at level 104 right now. You don't even have to hit them, just shoot the ground near them.