Tesla Cannon (Fallout 3)

The Tesla cannon is a weapon in the Fallout 3 add-on Broken Steel.

Characteristics
The Tesla cannon is a shoulder-mounted energy weapon that fires powerful blasts of electricity, powered by electron charge packs. It can be fired only once before reloading.

The questline of Broken Steel includes having to find a Tesla coil for this weapon in order to help the Brotherhood of Steel build it.

Durability
The Tesla cannon can fire a total of about 563 shots from full condition before breaking.

Variants

 * Tesla cannon (Beta)

Locations
There are a total of 13 Tesla cannons, or 14 if one counts the Beta Tesla cannon, but only a maximum of 11 (12 with Beta Tesla cannon) can be obtained in one play-through.
 * The first Tesla cannon can be acquired upon the Lone Wanderer's initial arrival at Adams Air Force Base. There will be a resupply crate directly to the player character's left near the wall upon exiting the Presidential metro.
 * Once one leaves Adams Air Force Base, if they did not blow up the Citadel and return there, two Tesla cannons can be found in the Citadel laboratory after finishing the quest Who Dares Wins, on a table in front of Liberty Prime's docking bay.
 * If one blew up the Citadel, they can find two Tesla cannons in the Citadel armory. If one did not blow up the Citadel they can pick the lock to get into the armory but there are no Tesla cannons there.
 * If one returns to Adams Air Force Base after Who Dares Wins, they can acquire eight more Tesla cannons (four in perfect condition, four in poor condition):
 * The first pair are before the Lone Wanderer reaches the hangars. Traveling northeast from the Adams Air Force Base entrance towards the hangars, the fourth open-topped military truck in their path has a resupply crate in the back with a good and poor condition cannon and electron charge packs.
 * The second pair of cannons (along with some electron charge packs) is in a resupply crate between the first and second hangar on the way toward the mobile base crawler by the base of an Enclave barricade. To be clear, these two hangars are to the player character's right once they reach the airfield portion of the base, near two parked vertibirds.
 * The third pair are in a resupply crate by the ramp leading to the covered catwalk between the second and third hangar on the way to the crawler.
 * The fourth pair are at the base of an Enclave barricade, between the crawler and the air control tower. The crate is inside the ring of sandbags underneath a Brotherhood of Steel paladin.

Related quests

 * Shock Value
 * Who Dares Wins - Given during quest.

Bugs

 * If the player character kills an enemy with the splash damage effect alone, they may not earn XP for the kill, but this can use this to one's advantage. If a good character is killed by the shock damage after-effects it will result in no karma loss or hostility from nearby non-player characters. One will also not receive any fingers or ears for enemies killed by the cannon's splash damage.
 * Occasionally while in third person the Tesla cannon will float off of the Lone Wanderer's back and stay suspended in mid-air. This makes it impossible to use in the third person and V.A.T.S. and the Tesla cannon will still work in the first person. (This will fix itself after a while. However, there is nothing that one can do to fix it manually.)
 * The Tesla cannon will not destroy a vertibird in a single shot, unlike the console versions of the game.