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The Gauss rifle, also called a coil gun, is a device used to propel a ferromagnetic projectile by accelerating them through a process of magnet induction. The Gauss rifle (and Gauss gun) are named after German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, who formulated mathematical descriptions of the magnetic effect demonstrated by magnetic accelerators.
The YCS/186 is a unique variant of the Gauss rifle. It looks like a standard Gauss rifle with a sandy or rusted texture along the barrel and main body and it sports black stripes on the wooden stock. It has 4 more coils around the barrel, possibly explaining the greater weight and damage, while remaining the same length. The lens of the scope is tinted an unusual red. The YCS/186 uses 4 microfusion cells per shot, instead of the normal 5 of a standard Gauss rifle, it is slightly more accurate and has 20 more item HP than the standard variety.
Like the standard Gauss rifle, it boasts several advantages over the anti-materiel rifle. In addition to its increased damage output, it tends to cripple limbs on a direct hit, providing you do not kill the enemy immediately. When using max charge microfusion cells, this weapon can deal a devastating 210 base damage. With all related perks, this can be increased to 247.8 per shot.
If the player has the Wild Wastelandtrait, the mercenaries are replaced with aliens who have the alien blaster instead, making the YCS/186 unobtainable during gameplay.
Like the Gauss rifle, the magnification is 3.5x for the scope of this weapon.
Companions may pick up this weapon without the player noticing. Check companion inventories if the weapon cannot be found after assaulting the mercenary camp.
The mercenaries may not be hostile when you approach them. Killing them to loot the YCS/186 results in no gain or loss of karma.
A single shot in Hardcore mode will use 0.4 pounds of ammunition, costing at a combined value of 12 caps per shot.
Because the Gauss rifle uses 4 microfusion cells per blast (which only accounts the fact that you fire once), it's only possible to get 1 empty microfusion cell from firing the Rifle, the same with all energy weapons that uses more than 1 cell per shot.
It is not possible to obtain if you change your traits at the Sink Auto Doc in Old World Blues if you have already retrieved the alien blaster. This only applies if you have the Wild Wasteland trait.
The DMG points, and the DPS of the weapon can vary greatly depending on the Player Character's Energy weapons skill, the type of ammunition used, and Perks taken.
The YCS/186 is a reference to the now-defunct "Your Console Sucks" section of the The Something Awful Forums. Additionally, 186 was the forum ID number of YCS.
pcxbox360ps3 The Pip-Boy's displayed damage per second (DPS) for the gun doesn't account for the need to reload every shot, unlike other single shot weapons such as the missile launcher. This is due to the game mechanics not taking into consideration the weapon's use of more than 1 microfusion cell per shot. [verified]
pcxbox360ps3 Extremely rarely a projectile is fired, but no hit is detected although the projectile can clearly be seen to travel through the target. On the Xbox 360, this occurs primarily at long-range and most frequently against deathclaws and is very rare to happen on anything else (9/10) times it is mistaken for the glowing blue corama around it hitting the target instead of the fragment therefore dealing no damage but being mistaken for going straight through the target. [verified]
xbox360 In very rare circumstances the projectile will not fire at all, but still depletes the loaded ammunition. Possibly similar to the aforementioned bug. [verified]
pc An incorrect normal map texture is specified for this weapon when it is equipped by the player, resulting in highly irregular shading across the weapon. Additionally, the weapon uses lower-resolution textures than most other weapons found in the game. [verified]
xbox360pcps3 The impact power of the gun is very high, resulting in the enemies being knocked through solid objects and into the terrain or through the game world (falling beneath it) making retrieval of their bodies and any goods impossible. Surprisingly Meltdown does not exacerbate this problem, but somewhat remedies it by changing the trajectory of the corpse or causing the impact force of the shot to dissipate when the energy explosion occurs. [verified]
xbox360 Sometimes if given to a companion (i.e. Arcade Gannon) it may disappear from their inventory and they will not have it equipped either. [verified]
xbox360 The weapon may become stuck at maximum condition. Even using max charge ammunition won't reduce the weapon's condition. [verified]
xbox360 The weapon may stay scoped in the center of the screen after scoping. [verified]
pcps3xbox360 The Gauss rifle in Fallout: New Vegas is almost identical to the one found in Fallout 3, and thus suffers from similar bugs, including the one that affects its damage output when fired via V.A.T.S. When used in V.A.T.S., any hit will do exactly 95.244% of the maximum damage, regardless of enemy damage threshold, critical hits, or sneak attack critical. This means, that with an Energy Weaponsskill of 100, the Gauss rifle shot will do 114.29 points of damage with every V.A.T.S. shot. This is still lower than free aiming, and no bonuses are applied to head shots. The damage bug is related to the Gauss rifle's "explosive" visual effect, which affects its V.A.T.S. damage calculations. Removing the effect via user-created mods is currently the only known solution to the issue. Notably, the displacer glove, which applies a similar visual effect on impact, is not affected by this bug. [verified]
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