The Minigun vs Gatling Laser

[Caboose{CHANNNGE}]

Is it just me, or does the minigun (non exploding) seem like complete garbage on hard/very hard/survival? It seems to have the same rate of fire, less range, accuracy and worst of all its damage is 1/3 of the Gatling laser with overcharge mod installed. And they have the same size of magazine.
And while one might argue that fusion cores are rarer than 5mm I would argue that it would cost the same amount for 500 rounds of 5mm at a vendor as it would for a single fusion core, if not more. Unless I just got really lucky and happen to have gotten hundreds of fusion cores from buying from vendors and finding them all over the place.
I guess the one argument is that you find the minigun really early on and it would be a bit OP to have it actually be worth something that early. But then the easy solution would be to be able to modify the reciever, similar to the gatling laser and require a high level 'Gun Nut' perk to build and install. I would recommend a receiver mod to make the gun do similar if not the same damage as the gatling laser, because as is it is almost useless mid-late game. Whether or not this is in the form of a player made mod or an official game update doesn't matter much.
Thoughts? Agreements? Disagreements?

[wordwaster]

the basic mini gun was never a "great" gun in modern fallout games.

[Von Faustien]

Originally posted by wordwaster:

the basic mini gun was never a "great" gun in modern fallout games.

or the old ones fallout 1 had any weapon but energy weak by end game and 2 had a lot of big guns better than the minigun

[Greb]

Both of them seem to gain damage by slowing the rate of fire which is kinda counter productive. Seems the minigun fires faster with the Tri-Barrel than the Gatling Laser does with its associated mod which I don't recall at this very moment. This is the reason for the lower damage on the minigun compared to the Gatling Laser, anyway.

Getting one with Explosive Bullets, Two-Shot, or Furious is pretty damn decent though. Have you used a Gatling Laser though? It feels incredible lack-luster, like a giant laser shotgun that's using up the last squeezes of energy from a battery, chugging out lasers randomly for no real reason. I'd sooner use an Institute Rifle with beam-splitter and automatic configuration instead of a Gatling Laser - not to mention it uses Fusion Cores for ammo.

This is Bethesda not Obsidian, they chose to make energy weapons do more damage and generally be superior to guns instead of placing them on equal footing, and it shows with the damage, I guess.

Gatling Lasers used by NPCs seem to be extremely powerful and "useful" in their hands but as soon as you use one, it's...well it's crap. I wish it was more like the Gatling Laser from 3 and NV, especially when you could eventually make it fire literally a straight beam of death with little spread at higher levels.

In default, no ranks on Heavy Gunner, no mods attached, the Gatling Laser is better, but when you've got a minigun with a decent Legendary mod, with mods attached and Steady Aim and Heavy Gun ranked up, it's unbeatable and extremely satisfying.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=557863403
I admit I haven't had the pleasure of finding a Gatling Laser with a decent Legendary Mod in the game world yet, they seem pretty damn rare enough as it is anyway, so I can't really test it in comparison to my HE Vulcan Cannon, but I'm going to still assume the minigun is better, even without the explosive mods. It just shreds.

[Caboose{CHANNNGE}]

I bought a standard Gatling Laser as soon as I found the BoS. And as I said fusion cores are not a problem in my game since I bought/found so many so quickly. But as it is without mods it does 42 damage per shot with overcharge (not even the one that lowers its RoF, that would bring it to 90) while the minigun does 14. I will agree to the highest extent that the Minigun proper just feels, sounds and looks better, less pew pew more BANG BANG. And while I would love to use it, there is simply no comparison especially since I have not found any of the legendary miniguns or gatling lasers. But just their base models as is, the galtling laser comes out on top in every way. And I checked, it costs 1000 caps for 500 rounds of 5mm (with the dealer perk and others) and around 330 for a fusion core.

[Yung Dab]

i made a post about this before but with cap collector rank 2 and 10 charisma from clothing and just base charisma my fusion cores in my game cost me 240 caps. atomic physics in the intellgience tree doubles the duration of fusion cores. this applies to the gatling laser as well. i tested it and shot 500 rounds from the gatling laser and had ~55/100 left in the fusion core (the extra 5 from the repair bobblehead). i have modded my charisma to be higher and have not seen the price drop below 240 caps for a fusion core so i assume thats the lowest it can get. Even so that means that im paying 240 caps for 1000 rounds for a gatling laser that does 200 damage (mine does 194 cause heavy gunner bloody mess etc. etc.) which means im paying 1 cap for 4 rounds that do AT LEAST five times more (probably even more) than the gatling guns 5mm. in just sheer terms of ammo effeciency i dont see the point of using the minigun once you reach the gatling laser.

even if you DONT have charged barrels since that requires some high level science/gun nut if you have atomic physics and the repair bobblehead it would still be more ammo effecient. Id have to do the math but what would make or break it between the minigun and gatling laser is the price of the fusion cores. say your level ~18-20 and you get your first gatling laser. if you have low charisma, no atomic physics, that means fusion cores are probably pretty expensive and they also dont give as much ammo. then the minigun might be more worth it. but in the end it comes down to the fact that no matter what you do 1000 5mm rounds will ALWAYS cost at least 1000 caps.

[Greb]

I can't see anyone reliably killing anything more than close-medium range with the Gatling Laser without wasting huge amounts of ammo compared to that minigun of mine. It engages targets at extreme ranges, instantly turns them into soup in just a few shots, and often cleans out entire rooms with one short burst. It rests at 57 damage per shot, fires much more accurately than a Gatling Laser and much faster too, even with the Tri-Barrel which lowers fire rate for the sake of better accuracy and control.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=557308656

I know you mentioned comparison to a default minigun WITHOUT explosive rounds, and I fully agree - any rapid fire weapon is fairly lackluster without the straight up +15 damage per shot the explosive rounds mod gives. Without that, or Furious and possibly Two-Shot, I'm pretty sure the Gatling Laser will win in most contests.

'course, like I said I haven't come across a decent enough Gatling Laser to test it, but I have a feeling the minigun would win overall. It's just a shame the game doesn't display DPS, only damage per shot. The Gatling Laser appears to BLAST a scattering of lasers at someone, whereas the minigun fires a concentrated stream of damage extremely quickly. I suppose it's like comparing a jackhammer to a wrecking ball in terms of destroying a wall or something, right?

To each their own, of course. Would you be so kind as to post a picture of your Gatling Laser? I'm not interested in comparing damages and stuff, I'd like to compare Rate of Fire and Accuracy and Range to see how the comparison fares there.

[Fallenliam]

I'm playing on very hard and have a fully modded HE minigun. It does 45 dmg plus the 15 splash. Litterally kill everything with one vats shot. Legendarys sometimes live due to their healing factor. Just to put this into prespective i killed 5 deathclaws using vats in the glowing sea in a row without being hit. 5 deaths claws one legendary two glowing two normal. Found them one after the other not in one big group. No reload needed no chems needed. I'm lvl 50 and im melting everything i fight with it. I will note that i haven't found a gatling laser yet. (i havnt gone to the institute or joined the BOS.)

[Yung Dab]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=558578905

its 194 at night time the 5% from a magazine changes it

and the gatling laser with charged barrels shoots as many shots in vats as it does with standard barrels meaning one vats to the torso does ~1750 damage (9 shots). and with more accuracy, less fire rate, and more range id like to know what gatling laser you were using that makes you think they are so inaccuracte compared to a minigun 0.o

EDIT: excuse me its 10 shots with normal 9 with charged. thought id post it in case i got some techincal nazis.

[Yung Dab]

Originally posted by shadow26k:

i havent used a mod for fusion cores or anything but when i use my gatling laser it never uses any fusion cores at all. when im in power armor i can see it draining but i can spray my gatling laser all day and never lose a fusion core.

copied and pasted my post from the gatling laser infinite ammo bug post lol

when you reload a fusion core into the gatling laser it ALWAYS puts in a 100/100 one (unless you no longer have any 100% ones). ejecting the other one and leaving it to sit there in your inventory with ie: 26/100. so if you use the gatling laser a lot youll see your ammo page full of half used cores. also some people dont realize this but the atomic physics perk in intelligence and the repair bobblehead both increase the ammo available from 1 fusion core for the gatling laser. thus making it impossible to use up a full core in 500 shots. it makes for a looooong ammo inventory tab

if you look at my screenshot above youll see i have 291 cores available to use. probably 140 of those are 100/100 the rest are all varying

[Caboose{CHANNNGE}]

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/398928573625360970/B97EB008D23935DEBFB8CFC6EE2F117C51F7A6EC/

[The Senate]

I would like to point out that Final Judgement (Maxson's Gatling Laser) has 25% more attack speed. With the charged barrels, it does more damage per second than a minigun with explosive rounds.

Minigun with tribarrel, explosive rounds and perks: (57 x 177) ÷ 60 = 168.15 DPS

Final Judgement with Overcharge and charging barrels and perks: (145 × 90) ÷ 60 = 217.5 DPS

[Chaaaaaabok]

Originally posted by A Person:

I would like to point out that Final Judgement (Maxson's Gatling Laser) has 25% more attack speed. With the charged barrels, it does more damage per second than a minigun with explosive rounds.

Minigun with tribarrel, explosive rounds and perks: (57 x 177) ÷ 60 = 168.15 DPS

Final Judgement with Overcharge and charging barrels and perks: (145 × 90) ÷ 60 = 217.5 DPS

Why are you comparing Final Judgement against a tribarrel minigun? There's no point in having tribarrel if you're just using the minigun for the explosive prefix. Accelerated barrel all the way.

[Max Steiner]

Miniguns, (and all its itterations) are worthless. Assault rifle, automated, with quick reloaded, extended mag is the way to go. 80 rounds, without that excruciating spool up time. And, the 5.56 ammo is, well, not to plentiful, but plentiful enough. My weapon of choice when clearing the room.

[Caboose{CHANNNGE}]

Well sure, but nothing quite matches Power Armor like a Minigun with explosive rounds does :P

[SIlverblade-T-E]

SO far I've had now I think three WOUNDING miniguns in my many plays
shame as I always go a rifleman or pistoleer
but OMG hot DAMN does a wounding minigun *SLAUGHTER* any damn thing, MUHAHA ;)

think I'll give it to Danse....