Tesla Cannon (Fallout 3)

The Tesla Cannon is a weapon that fires extremely powerful blasts of electricity, capable of knocking Vertibirds out of the sky with one shot. It is powered by Electron Charge Packs.

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

Locations
There are a total of 13 Tesla Cannons, or 14 if you count 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 your initial arrival at Adams Air Force Base. There will be a resupply crate directly to your left near the wall upon exiting the Presidential Metro.


 * Once you leave Adams Air Force Base, if you did not blow up the Citadel and return there, 2 Tesla Cannons can be found in the Citadel Lab after finishing the quest Who Dares Wins, on a table in front of Liberty Prime's docking bay.


 * If you did blow up the Citadel, you can find 2 Tesla Cannons in the Citadel armory.


 * If you return to Adams Air Force Base after Who Dares Wins, you can acquire 8 more Tesla Cannons (4 in perfect condition, 4 in poor condition).
 * The first pair are before you reach the hangers. Traveling northeast from the Adams Air Force Base Entrance towards the hangers, the 4th open-topped military truck in your path has a resupply crate in the back with a good and poor condition weapon and EC Packs.
 * The second pair of cannons (along with some EC packs) is in a resupply crate between the first and second hanger on the way toward the Mobile Base Crawler by the base of an Enclave barricade. To be clear, these two hargers are to your right once you reach the airfield portion of your base, near 2 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 Mobile Base Crawler.
 * The fourth pair are at the base of an Enclave barricade, between the Mobile Base Crawler and the Air Control Tower.


 * It is possible to get more of these weapons. At Adams AFB, travelling through the Deathclaw cage area propmts a battle between Enclave troops and Brotherhood of Steel Paladins on the other side of the repulsor field.  The BoS paladins have spawned with Tesla Cannons for this editor (on 2 out of the 4 troops).  If you run through the buildings to get there, you can loot the BoS paladins with the weapons they use and also holotags which can be given to Scribe Jameson for caps  You have to be quick though, as the bodies disappear quickly (about 10-15 seconds).


 * There is an odd unique Tesla Cannon (see Beta Tesla Cannon) outside of the map during the Death From Above quest.

Appearances
The Tesla Cannon was added to Fallout 3 with the release of the Broken Steel downloadable content pack in May 2009.

The Tesla Cannon was also to be featured in the canceled Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2, bearing a striking resemblance to the weapon in Broken Steel. Described as a "high-powered mass-cannon throwing tessellated plasma forward in an orgy of death and destruction" in the FO:BOS2 design document, it was to be the so-called "uber-weapon" of player character Maxus. "Uber-weapons" were to be unique weapons for each PC which had to be assembled from 5 parts over the course of the game. One of the five parts for this weapon was a Tesla Coil.

Bugs

 * If you kill an enemy with the splash damage effect alone, you may not earn XP for the kill, but you can use this to your advantage. If a good character is killed by the shock damage after effects it will result in no karma loss or hostility from nearby NPC's. (Xbox 360)


 * Star Paladin Cross may sometimes automatically equip the Tesla Cannon, even if the player does not set it into her inventory and if the player does not have it in theirs. (Xbox 360)


 * In the PC version of the game, people may notice that the Tesla Cannon doesn't do as much damage as it's supposed to, according to the descriptions (i.e. not knocking down a vertibird in one, but 5-7 shots instead).


 * I have had an encounter where I used the Tesla Cannon on an enemy (Deathclaw) and it was shot up into the sky, and never came down. Fawkes still went crazy trying to shoot it, but could not kill it. It was invisible above the sky.