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The YCS/186 is a unique weapon in Fallout: New Vegas.

Background

This section is transcluded from Gauss rifle. To change it, please edit the transcluded page.

The Gauss rifle is a coilgun, a type of projectile accelerator, which uses electromagnetic coils configured as a linear motor to accelerate ferromagnetic or conductive projectiles to extreme velocities. Though these weapons historically suffered from a number of difficulties, focused on discharging the coils in sequence or providing enough power for the coils, these design issues were overcome by German scientists in the 21st century and entered limited service. This class of weapons is named in honor of the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, responsible for formulating the math underlying the magnetic acceleration principle of coilguns.

Characteristics

The YCS/186 is a unique variant of the Gauss rifle. It looks like a standard Gauss rifle, but 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 shade of 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. Its only drawback over the base model is a slightly increased weight, at 8 pounds instead of 7.

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 it does 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.

Durability

The YCS/186 can fire a total of about 495 times using standard cells from full condition before breaking.

Ammunition typeDurability
ShotsReloads
Standard495495
Bulk584584
Optimized450450
Over charge329329
Max charge195195

Variants

Comparison

Legend 
Weapon name (current weapon is highlighted)- Weapon name (melee or unarmed)Attacks in V.A.T.S.- Attacks in V.A.T.S.
Weapon name (current weapon is highlighted)- Weapon name (gun, energy or explosive)Action point cost- Action point cost
Damage per attack (damage per projectile)- Damage per attack (damage per projectile)Damage per action point- Damage per action point
Damage per second- Damage per secondWeapon spread- Weapon spread
Area of effect damage- Area of effect damageMagazine capacity (shots per reload)- Magazine capacity (shots per reload)
Effect damage & duration- Effect damage & durationDurability (number of attacks before breaking)- Durability (number of attacks before breaking)
Bonus effects- Bonus effectsWeight- Weight
Attacks per second- Attacks per secondValue in caps- Value in caps
Critical chance % multiplier- Critical chance % multiplierValue to weight ratio- Value to weight ratio
Critical damage- Critical damageSkill required- Skill required
Critical effect damage & duration- Critical effect damage & durationStrength required- Strength required
With all mods attached- With all mods attached
Weapon name (current weapon is highlighted)Damage per attack (damage per projectile)Damage per secondAttacks per secondCritical Chance % multiplierCritical damageAction Point costDamage per action pointWeapon spreadMagazine capacity (shots per reload)Durability (number of attacks before breaking)WeightValue in capsValue to weight ratioSkill requiredStrength required
Gauss rifle 120
3603x2604030.035(1)39573000428.6755
YCS/186 140
4203x270403.50.02754(1)49583000375755

Location

The YCS/186 Gauss rifle is found at the mercenary camp east of Brooks tumbleweed ranch. A hostile mercenary with reinforced combat armor or reinforced combat armor mark 2 is carrying this weapon and will attack the player character on sight.

If the player has the Wild Wasteland trait, the mercenaries are replaced with aliens who have the alien blaster instead, making the YCS/186 unobtainable during gameplay.

Notes

  • 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 YCS/186 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 use 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 after having already retrieved the alien blaster. This only applies if you have the Wild Wasteland trait.
  • It has the highest base damage of any non-explosive weapon in the game.

Behind the scenes

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.

Bugs

  • PCPC Playstation 3Playstation 3Playstation 3 Xbox 360Xbox 360 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]
  • PCPC Playstation 3Playstation 3Playstation 3 Xbox 360Xbox 360 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.[verified]
  • Xbox 360Xbox 360 In very rare circumstances the projectile will not fire at all, but still depletes the loaded ammunition. Possibly similar to the aforementioned bug. [verified]
  • PCPC Xbox 360Xbox 360 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]
  • PCPC Playstation 3Playstation 3Playstation 3 Xbox 360Xbox 360 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]
  • PCPC Xbox 360Xbox 360 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]
  • Xbox 360Xbox 360 The weapon may become stuck at maximum condition. Even using max charge ammunition won't reduce the weapon's condition. [verified]
  • Xbox 360Xbox 360 The weapon may stay scoped in the center of the screen after scoping. [verified]
  • PCPC Playstation 3Playstation 3Playstation 3 Xbox 360Xbox 360 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 criticals. This means, that with an Energy Weapons skill 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 projectile's "explosive" effect: the projectile is the only hitscan projectile that is also marked as explosive, which affects its V.A.T.S. damage calculations. [verified]
    • The displacer glove, which applies a similar visual effect on impact, is not affected by this bug, as it is not marked as explosive.

Sounds

SingleShotVB ReloadVB
JamVB

Gallery

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