Fat Man (Fallout: New Vegas)

The Fat Man is a weapon in Fallout: New Vegas.

Characteristics
The tactical nuclear catapult returns in Fallout: New Vegas. It has the same appearance to the Fat Man in Fallout 3, but unlike its predecessor, its effectiveness is governed by the user's Explosives skill, rather than phased-out "Big Guns" skill.

The Fat Man is an effective mortar/artillery weapon, allowing the player to bombard a large area with good precision and ceadly amounts of force. Although, most type of power armour can withstand mini nuke blasts, even direct ones, and it can easily kill or cripple a low to medium level player in one shot.

Mods

 * Fat Man Little Boy kit: Decreases its weight by half (30 lbs. to 15 lbs.)

Locations

 * A Fat Man can be found on a dead prospector in Cottonwood Crater with a few golden geckos surrounding the crater. Cottonwood Crater can be found at the south of the map on top of a mountain at X-15.5 Y-1 (counting colored ticks, not individual ones), to the east of Searchlight Airport. When coming for the airport, you have to make your way around the mountain a little in order to get up to the top.
 * There is also another one with a mini nuke in the Quarry Junction (in a radioactive puddle of water), though it is guarded by a lot of deathclaws, including a mother and the alpha male.
 * Another is located in Nopah Cave on the dead body of a super mutant master. The cave contains fire geckos which can swarm you and do a lot of fire damage. Upon return several days later, this super mutant master will be found alive with another Fat Man and only a small amount of health. He continues to respawn every few days thereafter.
 * Can be bought from the Brotherhood Armory in Hidden Valley after you are granted full access.
 * A Fat Man and 3 mini nukes can be pickpocketed (or looted) from a Boomer while they are sleeping in one of 3 tents to the southeast of the mess hall & munitions storage at Nellis Air Force Base. If killed, this Boomer respawns every 3 days, providing a steady source of mini nukes.
 * Can be bought in the Boomer munitions manager in the mess hall & munitions storage at Nellis Air Force Base in good condition. However, the player first needs Pearl's permission to trade with him by gaining fame with the boomers.
 * A Fat Man can be found on the body of a super mutant master near a cazador nest directly south of Jacobstown. You go here to gather cazador eggs during the quest Bleed Me Dry. The area is accessible by going west from Red Rock Canyon, over some very steep trails (the player might need to do some tricky jumping on the rocks in the side of the trail to get up the initial slope).
 * Two Fat Man catapults can be randomly purchased from Blake at the Crimson Caravan Company.
 * At high levels one can be found on a legionary blacksmith at The Fort.


 * It can also be obtained after Hardin replaces McNamara and you ask him the option "I want to join the Brotherhood" and subsequently completing the quest he asks to be completed, afterwards, he will induct the Courier as a Paladin and can be bought off the Armory for 1800 Caps.

Behind the scenes

 * The names of Fat Man and its mod Little Boy are references to the code names of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Japan in World War II. Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima while Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki.
 * Just like in Fallout 3, the weapon is renamed the Nuka Launcher in the Japanese translation of Fallout: New Vegas due to its relation to Japanese history. However, the Little Boy mod still has the same name.

Bugs

 * There is a glitch where sometimes if you kill an enemy and equip the Fat Man, then go pick up the dead enemy's gun, that gun will be converted into mini nukes and will remain in your inventory. This can also be done with the alien blaster and almost if not all other ranged weapons(for the fat man this always works with energy weapons, so its favorable kill a fiend with a Laser RCW and take his ammo which means that you can get up to 60 mini nukes at a time. (tested Xbox 360,works if done correctly) Note: in order for this glitch to work you have to pick up both the amunition and the gun.
 * Sometimes when a second mini nuke is fired to a distant location, an explosion will not be seen.
 * There is a bug where non-hitscan projectiles with explosions on impact do not apply projectile damage, only explosion damage. Since the Fat Man does not shoot hitscan projectiles, it is affected by this bug.