Dart Gun

The Dart Gun is a small guns craftable pistol in Fallout 3. It is built from a paint gun, toy car, Radscorpion poison gland, and surgical tubing (each labeled and pictured below). The paint gun serves as the framework for the gun, containing the launch mechanism for the darts, and the paint can which contains the Radscorpion poison. The surgical tubing launches the darts and is attached to the toy car's wheels in order to propel the darts smoothly.

Building
See Schematics - Dart Gun.

Strategy



 * The Dart Gun is best used for sneak attacks.


 * Low level players may find this critical for fighting Yao Guai and Deathclaws. With their legs crippled, they cannot use their pounce attacks.


 * Great for players with a stealth boy, or the silent running perk.


 * The critical damage bonus for humanoids is presumed to be +76 (12 + 64 poison), or +82 (with the better criticals perk). Note: don't expect a big critical bonus for robots, monsters, or super mutants.


 * Sneak attack critical head shots will silently 1-hit kill most Raiders and Ghouls. Add in the 64poison/8sec effect that follows and one shot can total for as much as 160 damage.


 * The Dart Gun is silent, and functions the same as a silenced 10mm pistol in that when you miss you often don't alert any enemies, so you can feel pretty safe setting up several long range 50% V.A.T.S. head shots, even if the first one misses it won't alert the enemy and ruin your sneak attack for the next.


 * The Dart gun can be used to easily stop Deathclaws and Behemoths in their tracks, allowing you to finish them off (with a different weapon) while their legs are crippled.


 * As a result of it being a silent weapon, when sneaking around, double or triple darting a single enemy often won't result in attracting attention. The enemy himself doesn't know what happened, so it doesn't go directly into attack mode (like when hit with a rifle), instead it searches for you in  mode, then drops dead from poison effects a few seconds later. Upon its death you snap right back to  status because the only thing looking for you just died.


 * It is the only weapon stealthy enough to let a hidden player silently kill multiple Raiders in one batch of V.A.T.S. (without giving away his position). Starting characters can kill three, but as many as ten silent kills in one V.A.T.S. can be performed utilizing +AP edibles and equipment (See: The Fallout 3 AP Bonuses table).


 * Well equipped humans (NPCs, Brotherhood, Enclave) may use stimpaks when they're poisoned.


 * Darts seem to do full damage against Power Armor, the piddly 6pts of weapon damage is reduced, but the 64pts of poison still take effect. Yeah, who knew you could penetrate power armor with rubber tubing and children's toys!


 * Really shouldn't be used against any of the following: Robots, Turrets, Super Mutants, Brutes, or Masters which either soak up or ignore poison dmg. (Although non-mechanical enemies will still be crippled.)


 * Darts are typically sold by most weapons dealers. Lucky Harith is always a good bet for 10 darts at a time. After making friends with the vampire family, Karl of Meresti Trainyard will often sell 100 darts at a time.


 * If you give this gun to a companion he/she will cripple the enemy allowing you to make the kill. Xbox360 Note: Star Paladin Cross appears to be the only companion willing to equip the Dart Gun. Her default ranged weapon (the Laser Pistol) is the weakest of all companion weapons, (most have a base damage of 50+) and might explain why her character A.I. favors the Dart Gun.

Trivia

 * It appears to be launched as a crossbow, not with pneumatics. The paint gun works as the trigger and as storage for the radscorpion venom.

Glitch

 * Sometimes while you're firing the Dart gun, the Surgical Tubing (which is the part of the weapon in the schematics that shoots out the Dart) just stays there and it looks that the Dart itself shoots from the weapon. Also when you're reloading, the pulling part of the weapon had already been pulled and the dart that supposed to been shot is still there. I happened to me couple times. There's no interference on any condition to the weapon but it looks odd.