LAER

The LAER ("Laser Assisted Electrical Rifle") is a weapon in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Old World Blues.

Characteristics
The LAER resembles a mix of many existing energy weapons; the barrel looks like the pulse gun, the microfusion cell is held in a basket on the bottom like a plasma rifle, the stock is similar to a laser rifle, and it displays vacuum tubes similar to a recharger rifle. It also offers very high damage (on par with the plasma caster) for low ammunition consumption making it a great all-round weapon.

Drawbacks of this weapon include its low critical hit damage and low item HP, so the player may have to rely on the Jury Rigging perk or weapon repair kits, especially if using over or max charged ammunition. It's worth noting that it has a very high spread for an energy rifle, equivalent to the laser RCW, limiting its usefulness at longer ranges.

When compared to its variant, Elijah's advanced LAER, the standard model could be viewed as the more practical version as it has 50% more HP, although it does shoot slower.

Durability
The LAER can fire a total of about 370 times using standard cells, the equivalent of 19 reloads, or 14 reloads when modified with the auxiliary recharger chip, from full condition before breaking.

Modifications

 * LAER mod - auxiliary recharger chip - recycles one round per four shot.
 * LAER mod - prismatic lens - splits the beam into three beams increasing total damage by 30% similar to the Laser rifle beam splitter.

Variants

 * Elijah's advanced LAER

Locations
Seven LAERs can be found in total:
 * One can be found in the Big MT north tunnel, toward the northernmost side of the lower level below the force field.
 * Another one can be found at the X-8 research center on Gabe's corpse.
 * One can be found at X-7a "Left Field" artillery launch on the corpse of the unique sentry bot, RY-589 Ultimo bot.
 * Another one is in the Forbidden Zone dome, in the second floor room, just left of the brain tank.
 * One can be found on top of the X-13 research facility. In order to reach it, the player character must jump down from the cliff to the north. The cliff can be climbed by jumping up a pile of rocks just to the west of the Big MT west tunnel.
 * Another one is in the X-42 robo-warfare facility on the corpse of the giant robo-scorpion.
 * The last one, along with various energy weapon ammunition, is in the same room as above in a chamber connected to the exit platform. It is on a table in the middle of the room, and it is in good condition. This one requires a force field to be disabled in order to gain access to it.

Behind the scenes

 * The LAER use the same electric beam weapons technology also developed in the Secret Vault.
 * It was at first a cut energy weapon of Fallout: New Vegas, appearing in the concept art section of the Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's edition complete with its own icon in the game file.
 * The name implies a function like modern attempts at making electrolasers which use lasers to create a conductive plasma conduit in the air and then discharge an electrical differential across the conduit. While practical devices do not yet exist, the concept has been proven and the effect on the target is dependent upon the amount of energy delivered. At lower powers the effect would be much like a stun gun and higher energies being more like a bolt of lightning.

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