Salvaged Assaultron head (Automatron)

The salvaged Assaultron head is a weapon in the Fallout 4 add-on Automatron.

Gameplay
The salvaged Assaultron head is a unique pistol-type energy weapon that consists of the severed head of an Assaultron converted into a powerful hand-held laser gun. The Sole Survivor holds the weapon by the spine and neck cabling due to a lack of proper grip.

Similar to the laser musket, it must be charged before firing by manually reloading the weapon. This can be done up to five times for each shot, increasing the damage with each extra charge. Firing it in V.A.T.S. will also default to one charge when unloaded, but the head can be manually charged to the desired level prior to V.A.T.S. with no additional action point cost.

Charging the Assaultron head involves no visible action by the shooter. The faceplates open and the weapon glows a brighter shade of red as it is charged. The animations of the weapon are nearly identical to those of live Assaultrons when charging their head laser weapon. The weapon has a lighter weight than the laser musket and utilizes the Gunslinger perk as opposed to the Rifleman perk.

The salvaged Assaultron head is found with the legendary modification "Charging" which makes the weapon deal radiation damage to the user. It is the only energy weapon in the game that directly injures the shooter as well as their target. Every time the Assaultron head is fired, it inflicts 50 points of radiation damage on its user regardless of the charge level. This irradiation is affected by any Radiation Resistance the user has.

Location

 * Found in a steamer trunk shortly before exiting Fort Hagen hangar, after the fight against Ivey.

Bugs

 * It seems to not take into account radiation resistance. This is a permanent bug, if it happens, it will happen for the rest of the game. On PlayStation 4, this bug will always occur if the player has the Penetrator perk.
 * Throwing a grenade when armed with the salvaged Assaultron head will sometimes irradiate the user as if they had fired it.
 * Sometimes the Assaultron head will never hit anything in V.A.T.S. regardless of displayed hit chance. Even criticals will miss completely. So far the only fix seems to be reloading an older save or restarting the game.
 * The Assaultron head can be glitched in such a way as to deal effectively infinite damage, causing any hit to kill any enemy on a single charge. This may only occur in conjunction with the above bug preventing V.A.T.S. from functioning with the weapon. This is a permanent effect for the save it occurs in.
 * The Assaultron head can be charged an unlimited number of times, with no noticeable effect on damage dealt. This bug may only occur in conjunction with the above infinite damage glitch. This is a permanent effect for the save it occurs in.