What is Better? Big Guns or Energy Weapons?

[Keter]

I am just wondering what type of gun is better overall? I can handle most of the encounters just wondering which one I should pick and how good that type is Overall.

[Johnny Casey]

Generally the bigs guns are better, because your attack will never miss. Most of the big guns are burst weapons that fires 10~40 bullet per attack, so it's near impossible to miss entirely and un-harm your opponent.

You'd be amazed how often you'll be missing your 95% chance to hit eyeshots in this game, essentially wasting 4 to 5 action points just for nothing. Relying your "chance" to hit anything rather than the players' actual skill! So tactical and immersive!

Energy weapons does have gatling laser, but laser type of damage sucks in this game.

[leithold315]

choosing between the two, i'd go for energy weapons because of the Pulse Rifle, which chews through Power Armor and makes short work of pretty much everything else. Bozar and the Vindicator Minigun are great (and arguably more fun), but for overall, I'd choose the pulse rifle.

[The Chosen Chad]

Energy Weapons does the most damages per shots from any weapons, but are a rarity. Laser based weapons are ♥♥♥♥ against Power Armor and Metal Armor (they will be the first type of Energy Weapons you will find for a long time before at least San Francisco, or if you manage to break into the Sierra Army Depot), so you will be using Plasma and Electric based weapons, which are even rarer.

Big Guns nearly never miss and with a proper build to do ♥♥♥♥ ton of damages, even without critical hits, you just need to stand at like one tile from your enemy and you will see big numbers popping up. They are more available to the player than energy weapons, what I usually do is simply kill Eldridge in New Reno and loot his corpse for a Bozar or a Minigun, or I go loot the Toxic Cave for a Bozar and a Mk2 Combat Armor.
Whats best with Big Guns is that you can also have access to AoE weapons like Rocket Launchers and Flamer to hit multiple enemy at once too.

[=CrimsoN=]

Kind of depends. Everything said above is true, but to add, personally I think energy weapons are great for characters with low strength (this applies to other Fallout games as well) as the energy weapons themselves typically have low strength requirements to use and thus you will experience less penalties. Also, energy weapon ammo weighs less. Of course, none of that really matters once you get power armor, unless you're playing with like 2 strength or something.

Big guns on the other hand are an excellent complement to a character with high strength. In fact, one of my favorite builds is a melee psycho big guns build. Where I rely on melee for the early game and big guns in the late game when the weapons and ammo are plentiful. But big guns ammo can use up your carrying capacity pretty quickly.

Honestly, either or is fine. But I wouldn't ever choose both for a single character since they are both relatively mid-late game skills and both do an insane amount of damage. Really just need to pick one. Based off what would complement your character.

[Johnny Casey]

I forgot to mention that burst fire in the base game is bugged, and corpses lying on the line fire on the target will mostly soak up all the shots instead, rendering 300 damage burst fire into about 30 damage instead.

I believe some mods attempt to fix this, although I'm not sure which exact one does.

[kveligotskiy]

weapon "power" distributed in game differently based on your progression(level and story)
in the early game and very late game, with optimized build small guns are the best, with big guns, in late game are very close second.
problem is that energy are very close third (gust enough to kill anything) at this point, and offer best utility in form of ammo abundance/weight needed.
there are some points in a game when small guns become outclassed by energy weapons, and everything else become way outclassed with big guns but ,again, ammo weight and abundance may be a problem. If you OK with spoilers i can compare notable small/big/energy weapons, with requirements and build considerations, but , if you are playing the first time - better stick to whatever you feels like it.
at the very end you will be invincible with any weapon type

[kveligotskiy]

Originally posted by =CrimsoN=:

Kind of depends. Everything said above is true, but to add, personally I think energy weapons are great for characters with low strength (this applies to other Fallout games as well) as the energy weapons themselves typically have low strength requirements to use and thus you will experience less penalties. Also, energy weapon ammo weighs less. Of course, none of that really matters once you get power armor, unless you're playing with like 2 strength or something.

Big guns on the other hand are an excellent complement to a character with high strength. In fact, one of my favorite builds is a melee psycho big guns build. Where I rely on melee for the early game and big guns in the late game when the weapons and ammo are plentiful. But big guns ammo can use up your carrying capacity pretty quickly.

Honestly, either or is fine. But I wouldn't ever choose both for a single character since they are both relatively mid-late game skills and both do an insane amount of damage. Really just need to pick one. Based off what would complement your character.

energy rifles tend to require 6 strengths , most guns apart several need less (like 4-5)
some big guns require 6 str also (including the ultimate one)

[=CrimsoN=]

Originally posted by kveligotskiy:

Originally posted by =CrimsoN=:

Kind of depends. Everything said above is true, but to add, personally I think energy weapons are great for characters with low strength (this applies to other Fallout games as well) as the energy weapons themselves typically have low strength requirements to use and thus you will experience less penalties. Also, energy weapon ammo weighs less. Of course, none of that really matters once you get power armor, unless you're playing with like 2 strength or something.

Big guns on the other hand are an excellent complement to a character with high strength. In fact, one of my favorite builds is a melee psycho big guns build. Where I rely on melee for the early game and big guns in the late game when the weapons and ammo are plentiful. But big guns ammo can use up your carrying capacity pretty quickly.

Honestly, either or is fine. But I wouldn't ever choose both for a single character since they are both relatively mid-late game skills and both do an insane amount of damage. Really just need to pick one. Based off what would complement your character.

energy rifles tend to require 6 strengths , most guns apart several need less (like 4-5)
some big guns require 6 str also (including the ultimate one)

I was mostly referring to the energy pistol lines though. Since they typically require around 3-4 strength to use and when paired with something like eye shots can be quite deadly. Besides that, the strength requirement for the rifle line is negligible anyway because by the time you're getting stuff like laser rifles and plasma rifles you'll also be getting power armor, which can boost your strength enough to use them.

[kveligotskiy]

Originally posted by =CrimsoN=:

Originally posted by kveligotskiy:

energy rifles tend to require 6 strengths , most guns apart several need less (like 4-5)
some big guns require 6 str also (including the ultimate one)

I was mostly referring to the energy pistol lines though. Since they typically require around 3-4 strength to use and when paired with something like eye shots can be quite deadly. Besides that, the strength requirement for the rifle line is negligible anyway because by the time you're getting stuff like laser rifles and plasma rifles you'll also be getting power armor, which can boost your strength enough to use them.

Plasma rifle is near new reno, laser can be picked up even earlier with some luck (take caravan from redding and pick one from the dead guard in one of the encounter)

[=CrimsoN=]

Originally posted by kveligotskiy:

Originally posted by =CrimsoN=:

I was mostly referring to the energy pistol lines though. Since they typically require around 3-4 strength to use and when paired with something like eye shots can be quite deadly. Besides that, the strength requirement for the rifle line is negligible anyway because by the time you're getting stuff like laser rifles and plasma rifles you'll also be getting power armor, which can boost your strength enough to use them.

Plasma rifle is near new reno, laser can be picked up even earlier with some luck (take caravan from redding and pick one from the dead guard in one of the encounter)

*slow clap*

[Dix Dark]

Small guns. Because of Gauss rifle. Instakill ANYONE in the eyes with luck 10 and all criticals perks.

Cleared Navarro with only a gauss pistol, because I can't shoot 2 times with the rifle for now. The rifle is even more devastating. And you don't need tons of ammo when you kill almost everybody with one shot.

[Vambran]

Energy weapons. They are lighter and require less skill points to use. Burst weapons seem to require massively more skill points to hit targets at range ( well hit with all shots fired )