Poll: Fallout 3: Energy weapons or Small Guns?

[SantoUno]

When I first started playing Fallout 3, of course I went for Small Guns since that's all that you can really use at the beginning. Not to mention all the weapons you can use for different situations, like busting out the shotgun in close range or the sniper rifle to sneak attack someone from afar. However it was a pain in the ass to be carrying one of every Small gun with me at all times. Yeah, I loved having every weapon on me at all times.

I never payed much attention to the energy weapons since the Laser Pistol kinda sucked and I never got the Plasma weapons.

Then someone told me that apparently the energy weapons are stronger, so on my next character I decided to specialize in Energy weapons and did not raise Small Guns even once.

I started seeing the results. Hellfire troopers were hard as fuck to take down with the Shotgun or Chinese Assault Rifle even when I got Small Guns to 100 and kept shooting their head, but my trusty Plasma Rifle took them down in a few hits. Also the rest of the Enclave soldiers went down with just 1-3 shots of my also trusty Laser Rifle.

Not to mention now I only carry both Laser and Plasma pistols and rifles which gives me much more weight to spare.

Lastly, it just feels cooler for me to use Energy weapons.

So asking all of you, do you wait to obtain Energy weapons and just rape with those or do you keep using Small guns for the variety or ease of use or whatever?

 

[Matt_LRR]

Oh man, the named plasma rifle is godlike.

-m

 

[Doctor What]

I went through that same thought process. I used mostly small guns and sometime I brought out a3-21's gun and saw how good it was. Especially on the Base Crawler. So my next character used a mix of them, and my current character uses only energy weapons. It's turned the game from being survival "horror" to me and more like a 1950's B movie.

 

[JWRosser]

Energy Weapons are so common and pretty powerful it's quite hard not to use them...

 

[Savagezion]

Small guns and big guns for me. I run an assault rifle, shotgun, and a sniper rifle. Then I also run a minigun and some other big gun like a fat boy.

 

[Amnestic]

Neither. Go Explosives+Big Guns, only using explosive weapons from the big guns (i.e. missile launcher+fat man, not minigun+gatling laser).

Or do what I've just started: A Pacifist run. I intend to complete the game killing only the bare minimum of enemies: The Radroach at the start, the Super Mutants at the Jefferson Memorial and I might also possibly have to kill the Enclave right before the end of the game but I think I can speech check my way out of it.

I'm on my way to GNR at the moment, and it's a lot of fun. Making a crapload of money off all the guns and ammo I'm never going to use.

 

[BourneGamer]

I don't use the energy weapons all that often, just a plasma or laser pistol (for lighting up gas leaks). I always found energy weapons difficult to use in real time, so I simply went with where my own personal skills lay with the small guns.

 

[Dorian6]

I like both.

always loved taking a sniper rifle, going into V.A.T.S. and shooting a dude from a mile away. Especially when the camera would follow the bullet and make the bad guy's head explode on contact.

and i actually never rly had to raise my Energy Weapons skill. I always ran to the saucer crash site picked up the Alien Ray Gun and just started disintegrating people.

 

[C95J]

In my Lvl.30 playthrough, I started w/ small guns, but then moved onto energy weapons because they were so much more powerful, and fun to use

 

[vallorn]

I maxed both. Not that hard, man. Fallout 3 is a very easy game.

Me too.

Energy weapons is good for the Alien Blaster, since the ammo is so limited, which makes you not want to miss with it. I like using it whenever I'm too lazy to take the time to kill a high health enemy.

tryed the alien guns from the DLC? theyre almost as good and you can get 1000's of ammos for them. >

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[L4hlborg]

You get more small guns at the start, so I choose it first. Then I just start adding lots of points to energy when the weapons start appearing. I still keep a few good smaller guns with me, since it's good to have more than one weapon type.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Small Guns are great right up until Overlords start absorbing your ammo. After that it's A3-21's Plasma Rifle all the way.

 

[Serenegoose]

I mainly went with small guns, since in Fallout 1, it's the way to go. Energy weapons are perfectly viable though, what with them turning up almost instantly once you leave the vault. I prefer the feel of the small guns, though nothing will beat the 10 round burst of the SMG in fallout 1. The first time I blasted a mole rat into a leaky sack of meat is not to be forgotten.

 

[Dexiro]

I find Energy weapons are more useful a little later in the game, or as soon as you can get hold of a Plasma Rifle really.

I say that because Laser Pistols must be the shittiest weapons in the game, you'd do more damage shining a flashlight at someone.

 

[Syphous]

I just hate energy weapons. It's why I never got into Halo. Ballistic guns are just way more fun with less blue jizz. However in Fallout 3, by end game, you pretty much need energy weapons sadly.

 

[Vilhjalmir]

Energy weapons are more fun I think, buuuuuut Small weapons show up a ton more during the early stages of the game. If you want to try something challenging, try going Melee, no Stealth, and no gun or explosive skills at all. Thats the only way I played that honestly gave me some trouble on occasion.