Gauss Rifle (Fallout 3)

The Gauss rifle is an advanced sniper rifle included in the Fallout 3 add-on Operation: Anchorage.

Characteristics
This rifle uses a series of electromagnetic fields to propel 2mm rounds at tremendous speed. It has a knockdown effect that will knock enemies off their feet following a Critical Hit.

Unlike the German M72 Gauss rifle, which uses 2mm EC magazines containing both batteries and ammunition, this gun requires the user to load in the microfusion cells needed to magnetize each pre-loaded round contained in the magazine attached to the side of the weapon. Each round produces a small "explosion" on impact, dealing minor splash damage.

The Gauss rifle has greater reliability per shot than the Victory Rifle for knocking down enemies, but its buggy V.A.T.S. performance and low magazine size limits its usefulness in close-quarters combat.

Durability
The Gauss rifle can fire a total of about 375 shots from full condition before breaking.

Variants

 * Sim version (Operation: Anchorage add-on) - A sim-only version of the weapon which differs only in health (essentially non-degrading).


 * Gauss rifle - There is a beta version of the Gauss rifle that uses the model of a laser rifle and features a five round magazine. It does only about 25% of the damage of the final version, but has a 100% knockdown chance. It is only obtainable through console commands.

Locations
In the Capital Wasteland: In the Anchorage Reclamation simulation:
 * One is located in the VSS Armory after completing the Anchorage Reclamation simulation, along with 300 microfusion cells.
 * During The Guns of Anchorage quest, a paratrooper gets shot down by Chinese soldiers, and leaves behind a Gauss rifle. However, the gun will be removed from your inventory once you complete the quest.
 * One can be obtained from the Quartermaster at the U.S. Army field headquarters after successfully passing a speech check (requires at least 50 Speech).
 * One can also be found on an American power armored soldier during the fight with General Jingwei.

Bugs

 * The scope on the Gauss rifle, like on the sniper rifle, is not perfectly zeroed. The shot will travel up and to the right of the target at extreme distances.
 * Occasionally, shots dealt from the Gauss rifle will not do damage, regardless of the type of hit it was (crippling hit, critical strike, sneak attack critical). However, it can still knock down enemies and cripple them.
 * This weapon does not deal proper damage when in V.A.T.S. Any hit will do exactly 95.244% of the maximum damage, regardless of enemy DR, critical hits, or sneak attacks. This means that, with 100 energy weapons, a Gauss rifle shot will do 95.244 points of damage with every V.A.T.S. shot. This is still lower than free aiming, and no bonuses are applied to headshots.
 * If your character is knocked down, either by a gas explosion or a frag grenade, the Gauss rifle may go flying. It will stay wherever it lands, and pulling the trigger will cause the rifle to fire from wherever it landed. This can also be achieved if the impact of the rifle's shots are too close and knock the weapon out of your character's hands. Holstering the weapon has no effect. Equipping another weapon will fix the issue.
 * If you have any type of power armor equipped at the same time the rifle is equipped, the air tanks and valve on the armor will disappear. This is because it has the "hide backpack" flag marked, despite not having a backpack component like other weapons with this flag (minigun, Gatling laser, etc.).
 * Critical shots to the target's weapon will still knock them down.
 * Critical shots that do not kill will occasionally cause the target to fall through the map.
 * Sometimes in V.A.T.S when firing there will be a slight delay for firing but the firing sound will be normal, like when you reload and the sound for reloading is already done.
 * Sometimes if you fire the Gauss rifle straight down when standing, the camera will be switched to third person and the rifle will be knocked out of your hands until the reload animation finishes. It usually takes more than one shot since it doesn't always do damage.