Should the laser weapons in Fallout have recoil?

Abstract

The post-apocalyptic world of the Fallout series features a wide variety of technologically advanced weaponry, including laser weapons. This paper aims to establish whether or not these weapons should recoil upon firing as they do in the game. This will be done via two methods, the first of which is based off in-game damage values and comparison to the real-life counterparts of the in-game ballistic weaponry. The other method is through the determination of the vaporisation energy of the largest creature it is capable of disintegrating. It was determined that the laser weapons should not have perceivable recoil based upon their in-game damage. However, when considering their ability to disintegrate targets, the recoil was calculated to be of such large magnitude that the weapons would be unusable.