Firelance

Firelance is a weapon in Fallout 3. It is the unique variant of the alien blaster.

Characteristics
In addition to its 100% critical chance and high damage, the Firelance sets its target on fire upon strike, causing 2 points of damage every second for 5 seconds. Both the Pyromaniac and Xenotech Expert perks affect this weapon and it uses the rare alien power cells as ammunition.

Durability
Firelance can fire 63 shots, the equivalent of 7 reloads, from full condition, before breaking.

Variants

 * Alien blaster - The common variant in Fallout 3.
 * Captain's sidearm - A unique, cleaner, shinier alien blaster used by the Alien captain.

Locations
The Firelance can only be obtained in the "Unidentified Flying Debris" random encounter or through console commands. See Fallout 3 random encounter locations (Type A) for locations where this event may take place. The encounter occurs only once per game(character play through).

This weapon is perhaps the rarest weapon in the game as it has no guaranteed location where it will always be found. When paired with the complication that a player needs to be alert to the event that spawns it, and that the weapon and its ammunition scatter randomly across the location of the event, the recovering of the weapon can be difficult or even impossible even to an observant player.

Behind the scenes

 * The Firelance is a reference to an identically named martian weapon appearing in the Wasteland paragraph book, in the red herring Mars plot.
 * Both the Firelance and the alien blaster resemble Commander Adams' pistol from the 1956 movie the Forbidden Planet, both in design and firing. The "bullets" disperse in a very similar way when they hit solid objects, such as walls.

Bugs

 * If the event occurs while passing through a rocky part of the Wasteland, the Firelance may drop onto rocks and not be retrievable by Dogmeat, as he often gets stuck in them. (the same with ammunition)
 * It is possible that the spacecraft can glitch and leave 24 power cells and a Firelance stuck in the sky in addition to the regular 24 power cells and a Firelance on the ground.
 * Sometimes the Firelance will get stuck in the air, with no easy of way of retrieving the weapon without console commands.

Sounds
Огнестрел