Fat Man (Fallout 3)

The Fat Man is a handheld tactical nuclear catapult found in Fallout 3.

Description
The Fat Man can be found in various places in the game. Because of its nuclear payload, it is by far the strongest V.A.T.S. enabled weapon in the game, perfect for taking out multiple enemies or heavily armored units - and in normal use, you'll be encountering both. The Fat Man has an estimated range of 150+ yards and will fall if shot in the air; be aware that the blast zone will be irradiated for a short time.

It should be noted that the Mini Nuke projectile is very heavy, and if simply fired straight ahead in a straight line, it will travel fewer than a couple dozen feet before falling to the ground and detonating (causing you to be caught well within the very damaging mini-nuclear blast). For best results, the Fat Man should be fired only in V.A.T.S. mode at high skill levels (which automatically compensates for the projectile's downward trajectory), or at an upward angle to catapult the mini nuke further so that it impacts at a farther, safer range.

Locations



 * The first location one may find this gun is right outside of GNR, during the "Following in His Footsteps" quest by picking it up from a dead Brotherhood soldier. With this, the player can acquire the Fat Man fairly early in the game. Note that this Brotherhood soldier is found by the fountain near where you fight with the Super Mutant Behemoth you encounter during this quest, along with 8 mini nukes.
 * The corpse of the Brotherhood soldier will not appear if, by any of the many ways, the normal GNR quest is skipped and Sentinel Lyons is not encountered.


 * A Fat Man can also be found in Evergreen Mills, in the basement armory of Germantown Police HQ (behind an average locked door), or at the Talon Company fort.


 * One can be found at the end of the Old Olney Sewers (Along with Prototype Medic Power Armor) after battle with a number of Deathclaws.


 * One can also be found in Fort Constantine alongside the T-51b Power Armor and two Mini Nukes. You will need all 3 of the special keys from the You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head Quest to access the room.


 * One can also be found in the ruins of the White House near a skeleton. Next to the Fat Man are three Mini Nukes. The White House can be accessed from a utility manhole south of the building on Penn Ave.


 * Flak and Shrapnel in Rivet City has also been known to sell one at times.


 * Another can be found equipped by Talon Mercenaries in the Capitol Building during or after the fight with the Super Mutant Behemoth.


 * In a random encounter, a dead scavenger is carrying a Fat Man and a Mini Nuke.

Variants

 * Experimental MIRV - An incredibly destructive weapon, the MIRV fires an ungodly 8 Mini Nukes in a single shot. This means that the player must be willing to pay out a hefty 2,000+ caps per shot! Alas, the awesome firepower of this weapon cannot be matched by anything else in the game, and so if you have the cash then the MIRV can prove incredibly useful.

Operation: Anchorage

 * Towards the end of Operation: Anchorage (quest) four American Soldiers with T-51b Power Armor will pull out Fat Men that can be knocked out of their hands and kept using the inventory glitch, thus adding 4 new Fat Men into the game.
 * If you have a high enough sneak level these four Fat Men can be pick pocketed from the soldiers, while they are using Miniguns (before you disable the pulse field). However if you want to steal more than one of anything from the American Soldiers, you should follow these steps.
 * (1) Unequip all of your clothing, even if you have silent running it still seems to be a contributing factor.
 * (2) Enter sneak mode and make sure you are completely hidden, as well as being perfectly behind the person you are trying to take from.
 * (3) Make sure you do not have any stolen items in your inventory, such as other Fatman or Miniguns; essentially anything that you stole from a friendly unit. You can drop these items and set them in a safe place until after you have taken the item. For some reason if you are carrying any stolen goods the soldiers seem to always catch you.
 * (4) Be sure to create a new save before you drop any items, and before you go to steal from the soldier. This is to prevent the items from disappearing for any reason, and to save you the trouble of repeating these steps.

The best opportunity to steal a Fatman is when the four or so soldiers are in the square behind sandbags and some concrete barriers. This is the first area they stop to wait for you, and will not move on until you proceed towards the metal structure with the stairs. Your second opportunity to steal any weapons is when they are standing behind the razor wire in front of the pulse field. Sometimes it is necessary to cary a few extra R91 Assault Rifles to plant into their inventory with a single round, while at the same instance after you place the rifle and round you should re-enter the steal menu and take all of there 5mm ammo. When the soldiers proceed to the razor wire any of the soldiers you planted the weapon on will switch to it, allowing you to take their Miniguns as well as the Fatman. The third and last opportunity to take a couple Fatman, is right after the T-51b soldiers knock over the gate to the oil facility. Two of them will wait behind the door until you enter the building, at this point repeat the four steps above to take the weapons. (Tested Xbox 360, in four instances)

Bugs

 * V.A.T.S. incorrectly calculates extra damage for a headshot. The Fat Man does not do extra damage with headshots.
 * If you equip the Fat Man with a Mini Nuke loaded, then drop all Mini Nukes in your inventory, the nuke will still be loaded into the Fat Man. Although the weapon still cannot be fired.
 * If you shoot it too close and cripple your arm while reloading the Fat Man will become invisible in third person view (can be fixed by loading an earlier save file, Xbox 360)

Controversy

 * The name and image of this weapon are references to the Fat Man atomic bomb that was dropped in Nagasaki, Japan. Because of its relation to the real historic event, the weapon was renamed to the Nuka Launcher in the Japanese version of Fallout 3. It is, however, still referred to as the Fat Man in dialogue. Mr. Burke was also removed from the game, and therefore the quest for destroying Megaton was removed as well.

Behind the scenes

 * The launch mechanism of the Fat Man is pneumatic. Coupled with the heavy projectile, this accounts for the short range of the weapon. This type of launch system was first pioneered by the British PIAT anti-tank weapon of WWII, where the projectile was launched from a similar cradle-like contraption using a mechanical spring system (though in the case of the PIAT, was used to detonate a small propelling charge), which had the similar properties of short range and lack of accuracy. This system is known as a spigot mortar.
 * Fat Man was the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan by the United States on August 9, 1945, at 11:02 a.m. It was the second of just two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare and was the third man-made nuclear explosion. The name also refers more generically to the early nuclear weapon designs of U.S. weapons based on the "Fat Man" model. It was an implosion-type weapon with a plutonium core. Early artwork for the Fat Man also included a minature version of the B-29 bomber the 'Enola Gay' attached to the top of the Mini-Nuke, the 'Enola Gay' being the plane which dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.
 * The weapon was made in the pre-war era as it appears in the Operation:Anchorage add-on. It is used by a squad of Powered Armored Soldiers to destroy a large gate of a Chinese outpost.
 * The Fat Man is likely based off of an actual weapon, the M-388 Davy Crockett, developed by the United States during the Cold War.

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