Gatling Lasers, Fusion Cores, Repair Bobblehead and Nuclear Physicist

[kawaksallas]

I think the whole system with Gatling Lasers is somewhat broken

let's see if I can explain

Gatling Lasers use Fusion Cores as ammo. Nothing new here. So as a control scenario, I did a test with a fresh character, with a Gatling Laser and a Fusion Core in the inventory.

with 1 full fusion core in the inventory, the gatling laser fires 500 rounds.
with 2 full fusion cores in the inventory the gatling laser fired 500 rounds, reloaded, and then fired another 500 rounds

Now I got myself the repair bobblehead - Fusion cores last 10% longer. 500 rounds + 10% = 550 rounds, right?

well...

with only one fusion core in the inventory, the ammo count says it's have 500 rounds ready. So the game doesn't taken the repair bobblehead perk into consideration?

I fired the 500 rounds, doing so drained the ONLY fusion core I had

to my surprise, after the last round fired, I reloaded ANOTHER fusion core that came from nowhere. Remember, I had only one in my inventory.

This new fusion core have 9/100 capacity, and had exactly 50 rounds to fire, the same 50 rounds from the repair bobblehead perk. Why it had to to this? Why the fusion core doesn't had 550 rounds to begin with?

I repeated the same trial with now 2 full fusion cores in the inventory

after the initial 500 rounds fired, it reloaded - I checked to see what fusion core it selected - it should be the another full one?

No, again the game give a 9/100 fusion core out of the blue and selected that core, but now it don't have 50 rounds, instead it had another 500

again, a 9/100 fusion core with 500 rounds selected, the full one left alone

so I fired these 500 rounds from a 9/100 core

but as soon as I fired the first round, the game then changed the core I was using - it now used the full one. What?

after 500 rounds fired I had now 2 9/100 cores with 50 rounds left. I fired it up, the two were consumed.

So what have we learned? a full fusion core have 500 rounds to be used from a gatling laser, and aparently it cannot have any more than that - with the repair bobblehead, after the full core was drained, the game gives you a 9/100 core with 50 rounds left.

with this behaviour in mind, I leave the repair bobblehead alone for now

Now to focus on the Nuclear Physicist perk

first rank says fusion cores lasts 25% longer - so 500 + 25% = 625

again the same behaviour = with 1 full core on the inventory, ammo count shows 500 rounds, after fired a received a 19/100 core with 124 rounds left, 1 round less than the 125 granted from the 25% bonus

second rank of this perk says fusion cores lasts 50% longer - so 500 + 50% = 750

yet again, after the initial 500 rouns I reloaded with a previously inexistent core with 33/100 and 249 rounds, again 1 round less than the 250 the perk should grant

to complete the show, let's add the repair bobblead on top of that
 
500 + 50% from the two ranks of Nuclear Physicist + 10% - it now should have a total of 825 rounds to fire

it turns out the game completely renagate the bonus from the repair bobblehead while you have the Nuclear Physicist perk

I fired the 500 rounds from the full core, it reloaded a new one with 33/100 with 249 rounds, as if I didn't have the bobblehead at all

note that I run these tests with one and two cores in my inventory, during normal gameplay a player may have 20, 30, 40 - the game then keep using the full ones, leaving a bunch of 33% cores left

edit - note again that I didn't mentioned level 3 of the np perk, fusion cores last double - but it's the same thing happening

also I didn't mentioned the aeternus, the unique legendary gatling laser introduced by nuka world. It's supposed to have the never ending effect but it doesn't work that way at all. I'll do more tests with it later.

 

why the game cannot fire more than 500 rounds from a full core with all perks?

 

[gameboytj]

Yeah i know, its such a pain...

[kawaksallas]

Now let's talk about the Aeternus  - Unique gatling laser with the never ending legendary effect

Keeping in mind the fustercluck with gatling lasers and fusion cores, but let's focus on the never ending legendary effect and what it does

 

"Unlimited Ammo Capacity"

 

reading this one could understand as "cool, a weapon that fires and doesn't consume ammo"

sadly, it's not how it works

 

A better description of the effect would be "Unlimited Clip Capacity" , say you have 500 fusion cells and every 30 shots you need to reload. With this effect, you never have to reload you laser rifle again - but it stills consume you fusion cells, after 30 shots you have 470 remaining. The best usage of this effect would be in a double barrel shotgun that can only fires 2 rounds between reloads.

 

Now, how do you think this effect works on a gatling laser? Some users report that on gatling laser, this effect grants TRUE unlimited ammo - that is if you have a fusion core, you can fire forever. However there is no evidence of this in the game files that I could find (and please correct me if I'm wrong).

 

Let's talk about the logical effect of this perk as we understand it - excluding perks and bobbleheads, gatling lasers fires 500 rounds per fusion core. Say you have two cores in your inventory your gatling laser should be able to fire 1000 rounds without the need to reload a new core after the first 500 ones - but at the same time, it stills consumes that core and the end of 1000 rounds, you should be empty of fusion cores.

 

And how it works in-game? Here's a well explained video of it

 

 

Confusing to say the least

[MadCat221]

The bug fix is simple: boost the lasergat's ammo capacity to what Repair+Nuclear Physicist x3 would make it... 1100.  Without them, the charge will still be 500. With partial perkage regarding fusion core power draw, it works accordingly. Reloading produces the proper partial charge left in the core.  Only buggy bit is acquiring one of those perks while you have a LaserGat equipped, but even then it's not a big deal because reloading does not affect charge percentage of the removed core re-deposited in inventory.

I learned of this fix from this mod: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14689?

[kawaksallas]

Currently I've been using this one http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/18874/? and it does the job, however the author says you must get the bobblehead before any of the np perks otherwise no deal - so there's something wrong there still

[MadCat221]

I wrote down some notes on my testing of this fix, and posted them to the ticket: https://afktrack.afkmods.com/index.php?a=issues&i=22322

I'm guessing the maker of the mod you're using didn't try reloading while equipped after adding perks or something, because I stripped out all the fusion core perks and then just re-added Nuclear Physicist 1.  Like before, it stayed at 500, but reloading put it to 625 (25% of 500 as per the perk description) without putting any partially used core back in my inventory. I'll pick apart the perks in the CK and the bobblehead addition method to make sure something's not baked in from adding. I also shot it a bit, 24 shots.  601/625 = 0.9616, and 96% charge remaining was what the removed core reported when back in my inventory. I think it's working fine, barring my finding something out in the picking-apart.

 

EDIT: After reading the description on that mod some more, I went back and found an ancient save before I ever got the Repair bobblehead. I added all three perks in, and there was no problem with it going all the way to 999 on the counter without the Repair bobblehead perk present.

[kawaksallas]

thanks for taking a look

 

now what about the aeternus? it should be TRUE unlimited ammo or what?