Poll: Fallout 3: Energy weapons or Small Guns?

[Daipire]

Small guns.

Without expansions, that is...

 

[mexicola]

Energy weapons ftw! I just whish it had a energy shotgun, that would be awesome.

As far as I remember there is a energy shotgun of sorts. It's just a unique laser rifle that looks the same but fires multiple beams with each shot that scatter a bit.

 

[Nexus424]

I just max them both out but I do favor the energy weapons. I just love some of the creativity in the small guns...

*hugs railway rifle* Toot-Toot...awesome.

 

[MR.Spartacus]

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

I maxed out EVERYTHING! In Fallout 1 having a high energy with an Alien Blaster/Turbo Plasma rifle meant you were King. In the first one you had to go out of your way to find enemies with powered armor. Fallout 2 balanced things out a bit. In fallout 3 I didn't worry about maxing out anything early.

 

[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.

What exactly are you going to use that money on, if not guns or ammunition?

Booze, hookers and maintaining a healthy addiction to at least three types of alcohol and four types of chems.

Also I have the Owned! mod, which allows me to buy up houses, most of which are easily over 1000 caps each (with some being over 5000 caps) so there's that too.

I made it to GNR and watched the Brotherhood take down the Behemoth. It took them *forever*. For an elite fighting force they are seriously shit shots. Next challenge: Speech checking Three Dog so I don't have to make my way to the Museum of Technology =_=

I'm not just doing the main quest. I've also done four parts of Moira's quest as well - Radiation (easy), Minefield (less easy, but still doable. That sniper doesn't run out of ammo), Super Duper Mart (Kinda tough. I made it to the food without being seen but the medicine involved me dashing around, weaving and bobbing) and Cripple Yourself (easy). Sadly, I won't be able to finish her questline as Mole Rats necessitate killing another creature, an act which I cannot abide by.

I also convinced Leo Stahl to quit his drug habit. Good job Leo!

The Owned! mod only leads to more useless money, sadly. Still a good mod. I salute your pacifist run of the game, but what are you going to do about the end of the main quest? You'll have to do something about the *SPOILER* anti-climactic boss fight. *END SPOILER*

I'm not entirely certain (and I will need to double check) but there may be a way to speech check my way through it and just convince them to leave if I choose the right dialogue. If not, I'll have to kill three people in addition to one radroach and a handful of necessary super mutants. :/

 

[Cowabungaa]

Oh man, the named plasma rifle is godlike.

-m

You can get it very early on, shame you can only find plenty of ammo for it until later in the game. So I used to save it up for the dangerous encounters, which promptly weren't so dangerous anymore.

Hence why I'd max Small Arms first, which is what I did, and then go for Energy Weapons. It'll take a while before you find the really good energy weapons, but damn they're awesome.

 

[Merkavar]

im not to fussed about energy/lazor weapons. i prefer bullets and stuff

 

[Ekonk]

The energy weapons from Mothership Zeta were fuckin' sweet.

Although Mothership Zeta itself was kinda dumb.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I generally don't tag weapon skills, going instead for support skills such as Repair, Science and Medicine. During the early part of the game I'll put spare skill points into Small Guns, and generally I'll still be at Small Guns 100 before the Enclave turn up. Once the Enclave turn up, of course, my spare skill points go into Energy Weapons.

So - early game, Small Guns. Late game, Energy Weapons.

 

[Stollos]

Big Guns or bust.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh shocktrooper RP: winterised t51-b power armour with Eugene running around in 3rd person mincing shit up like it was nobodies business, with bodyguard Charon in Hellfire armour and t45 helmet with an Infiltrator. Good times. Would also throw on the ghoul mask and bandana/headwrap when there were ghouls around. They are superior beings to humans after all, being able to live longer and immunity to radiation and whatnot.

 

[TimeLord]

Energy weapons means the Plasma Rifle and Alien weapons from the DLC make the game hilarious fun!

 

[pavaoc0p]

energy weapons for me, but i completed the main quest only with small guns. then i started operation anchorage, got the gauss rifle and said fuck you small guns

 

[Scarecrow]

energy wepones are far cooler. That's all that matters.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

'BANG!' beats 'PEW PEW' for me anytime.

 

[Wereduck]

Small guns work just fine until you get to the armored hostiles in the end game. At that point you really need plasma and a respectable energy weapons skill.
If you go to the mothership early on with a strong science skill you can get both unique rayguns (don't know if you need 50 or 75 offhand), take the gunslinger perk and make it through the whole game using energy pistols and putting no points into small guns. To my astonishment, the Novasurge (super plasma pistol) does more damage than A3-21's rifle. Also, the atomic pulverizer (super alien pistol) in VATS works beautifully as a sniper plus it's a powerhouse at close range too & you leave the ship with enough ammo to use it on every hostile for the rest of the game.
However, it was a royal pain to get through the early levels with nothing but a worn-down nub of a laser pistol so I don't recommend an energy-exclusive build. For availability of parts and ammo it's got to be the slug-throwers.

 

[ultrachicken]

Energy weapons were unfortunately better than small guns (other than lincoln's repeater). I would have preferred to use small guns, since that makes the game seem much more post-apocalyptic, but that was just a formula of death.

Don't flame me!

 

[Blemontea]

I think ill have to choose energy weapons, but i rarley use them along with small guns mostly because i carry a railroad spike rifle with me all the time along with the Chinese assault rifle, and the hunting rifle, if things get desperate ill pull out the Gauss rifle but before that ill usually pull out the chain gun or grenades etc. so its not my bag really.

 

[Yureina]

I use Small guns for the early levels, but then convert to Energy weapons when the Enclave show up.

 

[voetballeeuw]

Small weapons definitely, that and bloody mess= AWESOME. Plus don't small weapons do more damage, while Energy weapons are more accurate.

 

[10zack986]

Real men use a plain old baseball bat.