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In Fallout 4, there are a couple weapons that can be 'charged' before being shot. Namely, I can think of the Gauss Rifle and the Laser Musket. How is the damage calculated for these? More specifically:

  1. Is the damage shown on the weapon info from a fully-charged shot? For example, the Fallout Wiki for the Gauss Rifle shows it has unmodified (by weapon mods or perks) damage of 110. Does that mean a fully charged shot will do 110 damage?
  2. How does it calculate the damage for a non-fully charged shot? Does a shot not charged (or cranked, in the case of the Laser Musket) at all do a certain percentage of the fully charged/cranked damage, that increases up to a max of the 100% damage value the longer you charge/crank? If this was known, it might be easier to determine the fastest way to deliver damage. (eg. I can take 4 non-charged Gauss Rifle shots, or 2 partially-charged shots in that same time. Which should I do?)
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    I don't know about the Gauss Rifle. As far as I can tell with the Laser Musket, that damage is for one charge. I've been operating under the understanding that each charge is that much more damage on the final shot, which seemed consistent with the highlighted area on the enemy's damage bar. Also, when you switch the capacitor for more cranks, the listed damage doesn't go up.
    – DCShannon
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 22:03
  • @DCShannon I'm not sure it's damage per charge with the musket. (i.e.: A 6x crank might not actually deliver 6 times the damage of a single-crank shot.) The Gauss Rifle has substantially lower base damage than a 6x musket shot should, by that logic, but it still well-outperforms that musket. (At least, in my experience. Nukapedia's Gauss Rifle article seems to disagree Might be my perks though..)
    – Iszi
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 20:15
  • @Iszi I'm not sure that's correct, actually. If the Fallout Wiki page on the Gauss Rifle linked in the question is to be believed, with all associated perks in play... "Its raw damage output per shot is outclassed only by the 6-crank laser musket and the Fat Man and its variants during general combat". With a silencer and stealth, it's reported the Gauss rifle can do more... I can't personally substantiate this statement, but based on the language surrounding that note, it leads me to believe someone did some research on it.
    – king14nyr
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 20:23
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    Saw this on the Nukpedia Legendary Weapon Effects page, talking about the Neverending mod: "as the musket uses its "clip" to store the crank charge, and this mod sets the clip size to the amount of ammo in your inventory, the mod effectively removes the crank limit. Since the damage of the weapon is based on how many cranks you can give it, this gives that single shot a devastating amount of damage. For example, at 200 cranks, a single shot can do about 30,000 damage."
    – DCShannon
    Commented May 3, 2016 at 18:32

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Okay so this is what I've got

While watching my friend play It looked like a fully charged shot would do the full 110 damage while if the shot was only 50% charged it would only do 55 damage. For the Laser Musket from what I've seen in videos and questions online it looks like each crank increases the amount of damage by 100%. So each crank increases the damage by 30.

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  • If you modify your answer to include the question regarding double charged laser musket shots I'll grant the bounty before it expires.
    – PausePause
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 16:55
  • @PausePause I did my best.
    – Robbie
    Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 19:43
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Gauss Rifle Damage Tested:

Damage of Gauss Rifle without charging = 50% damage listed
Damage of Gauss Rifle in VATS = 100% of damage listed
Damage of Gauss Rifle charged = 100% of damage listed

Zippy99009 comments on How does laser musket damage work:

Final damage is (base damage x number of cranks), and is doubled for the two shot legendary. So a 5 crank capacitor can do 40, 80, 120, 160, or 200 damage per shot for you.

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