Does Anyone Use the Gatling Laser?

[DwayneGAnd]

In the past, I have tried a build for the first two games with this weapon. Like the Miniguns, it can deal impressive damage when combined with both ranks of Bonus Ranged Damage, Sniper, and 10 Luck for getting criticals with each shot.

But in comparing it with the minigun in the first game, I found that the damage was reduced even when landing critical hits against enemies in armor, such as Brotherhood Paladins. The fact that it only fires 10 shots compared to the Minigun's 40 rounds in one burst may also have something to do with decreased damage. As I've stated in my thread for 'Tips for Making A Character From Someone Who Had No Idea" that Big Guns are better for burst fire builds.

In the second game, I found that this weapon was a bit lacking against Frank Horrigan and thus had to switch to the Alien Blaster to deal better damage against him.

From what I've seen in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the Gatling Laser is a much better weapon and can mow down the toughest enemies quite easily.

What I would like to know is if anyone out here has also made builds using the Gatling Laser in the first two games. What was your experience and should I trying making this type of build again?

 

[Brunzer]

No, there are several (big) guns that look cool, but perform underwhelming and are swapped out as soon as you get your hands on something better. Like the flamer or the m60. Problem with the gatling laser is that it's a late game gun, and you already have a whole arsenal of weapons to choose from. Whereas you might get some mileage out of a a flamer or m60 if you pick it up early form a random encounter around Redding.

 

[DwayneGAnd]

well, according to the Fallout wikia, if you have both ranks of Bonus Ranged Damage, tagged Energy Weapons from the start, get Better Criticals, and Sniper with a luck of 10, the weapon can devastate anything since all hits will be critical. Though against the toughest armor, you might need something like the Alien Blaster.

 

[Brunzer]

Yep, laser resistance is generally high for all armors except leather. It undermines the story in New Reno about the Salvatores somewhat and it's bad from a itemisation standpoint since sec&mfc ammo is more difficult to find than conventional munition. A light support weapon or even a bozar (toxic caves or NCR) can be found earlier in the game than the gatling laser and both outperform it, especially against armored targets.

edit: A perk that would ignore part of the laser resistance would have been great. As it stands an energy weapons build is, on average, weaker than a small/big guns build. Save maybe for the Alien Blaster, but that's almost an Easter Egg. Not something one is likely to find on his first playthrough.

 

[SharkClub]

The way bursts in Fallout and Fallout 2 work is that only a percentage of your rounds will ever have a chance to hit an enemy you're aiming at at anything past 1 hex of range, I think it's something like 40% but I haven't bothered looking into this stuff in forever.

So the Gatling Laser fires 10 rounds, and only 4 of them have the possibility to reach the target you aimed at, the other 6 will either disappear into the void or hit enemies clustered closely around the target. This is why Bonus Ranged Damage is less effective on a Gatling Laser than a Minigun. The Minigun fires 40 rounds which means 16 will have the chance to hit the target you aimed at. Two ranks of Bonus Ranged Damage is +4 damage per bullet hitting the target, 4*4 on a Gatling Laser is still only an extra 16 damage at ranges further than 1 hex, and only a bonus of 40 damage at 1 hex. For a Minigun this translates to an extra 64 damage at ranges further than 1 hex and an extra 160 damage at 1 hex, assuming all the bullets that are physically possible to hit do actually hit. Then you have things to consider like almost all late game armors having much higher Laser DR and DT than they do Normal.

Side note: The only weapons that can hit all of their rounds in a burst past 1 hex on a specific target you aimed at are actually shotguns, because of how the engine poorly/haphazardly simulates having "spread" on a shotgun. But you'll never really be able to take advantage of this fact with a shotgun because most of them only burst 5 or 6 rounds at a maximum and shotguns do not have any alternate ammo types at all until Fallout Tactics.

Also saying stuff like "but if you have Sniper then the weapon is good" is kinda pointless, considering you get Sniper so late that it's essentially a joke perk (as is Slayer) and it makes anything that it affects worth using. Laser crit bypasses are obscenely powerful because they ignore all the DR/DT of the target, but even if the Gatling Laser becomes a monster when you use it with Sniper; the Minigun, Avenger and Vindicator will always be even more monstrous with Sniper.