Vindicator minigun (Fallout 2)

The 4.7mm Vindicator minigun is a big gun in Fallout 2.

Background
The Vindicator minigun's exorbitant price, its late availability, as well as the use of superlatives and references to German engineering skill in its in-game description, suggest that the weapon was intended to be to Big Guns what the Gauss weapons (described in similar terms) were to Small Guns, i.e. high-tech weapons with unrivaled performance stats in their category. However, it appears that the developers brought the Vindicator's stats down at some point in its development, presumably to avoid creating a superweapon that would make the end game too easy.

This would explain the discrepancies between the gun's description and actual stats: it has a slower rate of fire than the standard minigun, even though these weapons' respective descriptions expressly claim the opposite to be the case; its ammo capacity is only 100 rounds as opposed to the 5mm miniguns' 120, even though the high-tech ammo used by the Vindicator supposedly brings dramatic improvements to magazine capacity; and its range is shorter than those of the other miniguns despite being touted as the "ultimate minigun."

Characteristics
The Vindicator has the slowest fire rate of all the miniguns in the game, capable of firing four 25-round bursts before the magazine is empty. This relative slowness is counterbalanced by higher damage per round and better armor penetration. The Vindicator averages 24.5 hit points per round on unarmored targets, and the fairly scarce and expensive 4.7mm caseless cartridge it uses has an armor-piercing effect. This allows the weapon to retain a relatively high percentage of its lethality against armor.

It has the second-highest damage output in the game after the Avenger minigun, but fares much better against armor, delivering devastating damage against any protective gear from leather jackets to hardened power armor. The Vindicator is particularly deadly with critical hits due to its combination of high damage output with armor-piercing ammunition. However, the Bozar outperforms it in non-critical damage against the two very heaviest types of armor found in the game.

This weapon's disadvantages are that it has the shortest range of all the machine guns in the game, 30 hexes as opposed to 35 to 40, and its 4.7mm caseless ammunition is quite rare to be firing away at 25 rounds per attack.

Due to its relatively high rate of fire and the fact that its damage output consists of the combined effect of Base Damage + ammo's Damage Modifier, the Vindicator benefits more than most weapons from the Bonus Ranged Damage perk, which can be taken twice. Each level of this perk adds two points to the weapon's base damage of 14-19, which is then multiplied by the ammunition's Damage Modifier of 1.5, jacking the gun's average damage per round from 24.5 to 30.5. Multiplied by the number of rounds per burst, the increase is significant. With two levels of Bonus Ranged Damage, the Vindicator becomes the most powerful burst weapon in the game against all armor, though the Avenger still holds the edge in maximum damage on unarmored opponents.

A high-level, burst-fire optimized character with 10 Agility, 2 Action Boy and Bonus Ranged Damage, Bonus Rate of Fire and Fast Shot, armed with this weapon, can dish out 3 extremely high-damage bursts in a single combat turn. If the character has 10 Luck and Sniper, each of those bursts will be critical, meaning all but certain death, often by four-digit doses of damage, to three enemies in a turn. This is one of the few character-weapon combinations that allows killing even the End Boss single-handedly in one turn.

Locations

 * This variety of minigun itself can be acquired on-board the Enclave Oil Rig, or sometimes bought in San Francisco.