About this mod
Upgrades the Tesla Cannon so that it can now actually CHAIN between targets, as it was suggested from the game files but which doesn't actually happen the way it would have been intended in Broken Steel. The Tesla Beaton Prototype is turned into a continuous beam attack weapon, as I imagined from its name.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
The Tesla Cannon's electrical blast attack, going by some unused records in the game files, was supposed to be able to be able "chain" between several targets. Instead, at release its explosion flag was removed and it ends up having an attack with no are of effect whatsoever. While this is fixed by YUP on that end at least so that it can blow up TTW Enclave vertibirds, the part about chaining is still absent, and requires designing a system around it for it to work as envisioned. Which yeah, is kinda what this does, bringing these weapons to what I believe should be a top Energy Weapon tier.
The Tesla Cannons now deal splash damage over the area of their electrical blast, and apply their further electrical damaging effect over time to all the targets caught in it. But that's only the beginning now. From the point of impact, additional blasts are fired to any nearby targets in the vicinity, causing slightly lower damage but also having an area of effect, and linked with you as the one responsible for them of course. Suffice to say, fired at a big pack these weapons can now cause much more damage than before.
But I know what you're thinking, collateral damage out of whack. Well, yes, if you decide to fire it where you shouldn't. If firing it out of combat, innocent bystanders will get chain blasted as you'd expect, and you'll have to deal with the assault charges. But when firing it in actual combat, the script is smart enough that the electric blasts will not chain to actors not engaged in combat with you. The blasts placed at enemies may still scrape nearby allies, but at least they won't get direct hits. Your companions and yourself are also safe from receiving a chain blast from your own attacks. But of course, neither you or them are safe from an enemy's Tesla Cannon attacks!
You can easily customize the power of all this with a pair of global values in the configuration ini, or in the console while in-game (set <global> to <value>):
- migTeslaRange is how far from the initial blast an actor can be to get caught by a chain blast. Default is 650, about 30 feet.
- migTeslaChains is the max number of chain blasts that can be produced. Default is 4.
Plus, the feature from FO3/TTW is restored so that Tesla Cannons can blow up vertibirds in one shoot. This includes the few vertibirds that appear in FNV, so you can now easily give the President a piece of your mind before he lands. Be sure to aim for the cargo hold area, other parts of the vertibirds don't seem to register hits very well.
This goes for the regular Tesla Cannon, and for Elijah's Jury-Rigged version found in Big MT. To kinda balance this stronger damage mechanic, and because the animation doesn't really fit otherwise, they now consume all electron charges in the clip with each shot, instead of allowing several attacks per reload. The Tesla Cannon consumes 20 ECP per attack while Elijah's consumes 15.
The unique Tesla Beaton Prototype weapon has been changed to work quite differently. I always felt these three weapons ended being more of the same, and the prototype's name suggested me something different. The Tesla Beaton now fires a continuous, precise and long ranged electrical beam, which ramps up damage per second very fast, ignores DT and DR and can even tear straight through targets in a line, hitting them all at once. It is very demanding on weapon condition however, so you'll be sure to need weapon repair kits aplenty.
The Beaton by default uses a looping sound from OWB as displayed above. Since these can be prone to some issues, an (outdated) optional version is offered with electricity sparking sounds in rapidfire instead. You be the judge.
The weapons' durability has been increased by default however. And a patch is included for compatibility with Weapon Mods Expanded. Installation/uninstallation as standard should be fine in all cases. Enjoy.