Ah the A3-21 Plasma Rifle; it is one of the strongest weapons in fallout 3 not only that but you can get it relatively quickly as well it’s also stylish to boot.

So do you want one?

Do the quest ‘The replicated man’ which involves searching for an escaped android from the commonwealth. The android is chief harkness, of rivet city but you will need to find clues that link the android to pinkerton, who can be found in the lower half of rivet city, before you can confront him about it.

When you have confronted him about it, offer to kill the scientist who wanted you to find him, and he will give you his plasma rifle, which does more damage than a regular plasma rifle and is more valuable. you can also get a perk from the scientist and the plasma rifle, by repeating the step above, but instead of killing him, turn in the android and you will be able to keep both rewards, although harkness will disappear from the game.

Too much work?

You could make your own A3-21 Plasma Rifle. If you’ve been paying attention to the pictures in the article or indeed if you’ve actually read the title you might of noticed pictures of the A3-21 Plasma Rifle all over the place. This replica rifle was done by the very talented Ryan Palse (CitizenStrips) and painted by his wife Dena Palse.

Check out some pictures of the finished project.

Here’s some work in progress .

… and here is the in-game model and the replica together so you can compare.

If you’re interested many more can be found here or alternatively you can visit Ryans’ Flickr account here and check out his other projects