Pulse Gun (Fallout: New Vegas)



The pulse gun is a weapon in Fallout: New Vegas.

Characteristics
The pulse gun is an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) based weapon, similar in principle to that of pulse grenades and pulse mines, it delivers additional bonus damage to robots and those wearing power armor.

When fired, the pulse pistol suffers from a small delay before discharging, due to it building up the charge for the pulse. This results in the need to continue aiming on target after pulling the trigger to ensure a hit. As a weapon, the pulse gun is only effective against robots and power armor opponents, since it only delivers a small amount of impact damage otherwise.

Because of the amount of impact damage and the EMP bonus damage being constant, it is essentially unaffected by different ammunition types, perks, chems and energy weapon skill level. Additionally, the pulse gun is also ineffective against NCR salvaged power armor, mainly due to the fact that the armor has had all its joint servomotors removed and is no longer power armor in the traditional sense.

Durability
The pulse gun can fire a total of about 495 times using standard cells, the equivalent of 99 reloads, from full condition before breaking.

Location

 * Located inside a locked chest in the Vault 34 armory. The door to the armory must be unlocked using the terminal in the overseer's office. The chest can be opened with a lockpick skill of 100, or with Col. Blackwell's key found in a filing cabinet in Pearl's barracks at Nellis Air Force Base.
 * Prior to patching, it could be bought from the Silver Rush and, in an extremely rare encounter, found on a Fiend, albeit in poor condition.

Bugs

 * Sometimes found on a Fiend outside of the Strip, east of Horowitz Farmstead inside an abandoned home.
 * The Fiend that is holding it can also respawn, providing more than one Pulse Gun.