Gatling plasma

The Gatling plasma is a weapon in Fallout 76.

Characteristics
The Gatling plasma is a heavy energy weapon and is affected by perks in those two categories. It fires very rapidly with relatively poor accuracy. Rather than individual bullets or cells, it uses plasma cores, generally only found in higher level areas of the map. They can also be crafted. Reload is slow and the gun must "spin up" before it starts firing. While it has a very large magazine, each time the weapon is selected, it will be loaded with the number of shots equaling the number of cores in inventory. If not reloaded in advance, at the beginning of the fight it will shoot those 3 or 5 shots then have to reload and spin up before firing again. It will stay reloaded until another weapon is selected. When it is reselected, it will again be loaded with only a handful of shots.

While the reload animation looks like it ejects a core and inserts another, this does not occur. Reloading can be done frequently without losing any ammo. All cores always stay in inventory. Reload adds the number of shots based on the core in inventory with the highest percentage. When it fires, it uses shots from one of the lower percentage cores. When the first core is used up, it will be deleted and shots are then subtracted from another one. The reload sequence will not run until the shot counter reached zero. For instance, with one 90% core and two 50% cores in inventory, reload will show 250*90%=225 shots. When the Gatling is fired, one of the 50% cores will lower in percentage. After 125 shots, the first 50% core is used up. The core count will reduce from three to two and subsequent firing will subtract percentage from the remaining 50% core. This occurs without reloading. After the "loaded" 225 shots, that core will be down to 10%. The reload animation will play. The next 25 shots will use up that core. Afterward shots will decrease the 90% core. Reloading with only this core in inventory will add shots based on the percentage remaining.

Locations

 * Normally present in The Whitespring Bunkers armory. All but the final Enclave quest is required to access the vendor.
 * Can be found in Government aid drops at higher levels.

Bugs
When hip-fired or at a close target, the projectile has a tendency to clip through the target.