Fallout 4’s recent next-gen update came with more than a simple resolution bump—it also comes packed in with a fair amount of previously paywalled Creation Club content, including the unreasonably powerful Tesla Cannon.
You may remember the Tesla Cannon from its first appearance in Fallout 3‘s Broken Steel DLC, where it turned the energy weapon balancing on its head by being the best option in nearly every situation. The Fallout 4 iteration is every bit as broken, but the Best of Three quest attached to it makes you earn it. Pack your Radaway and plenty of ammo because today, you’ll be venturing into the Commonwealth’s most dangerous region.
How to get the Tesla Cannon in Fallout 4
Like most other Creation Club quests, Best of Three will start the second you walk out of Vault 111 to begin Fallout 4 proper. Just like in Fallout 3‘s DLC (perhaps fitting, given the weapon’s origins), you start the quest by listening to a Mysterious Signal on your Pip-Boy radio, which will give you an objective marker deep in the southern Commonwealth. It’s a bit of a trek from Vault 111, but just follow the marker until you reach the settlement Somerville Place, where you’ll find a dead Gunner tucked behind a tree.
Play the holotape on his corpse, and you’ll find out about a strategy the Gunners used to keep tabs on each other using scavenged Pip-Boys. Luckily, you have a Pip-Boy! When prompted, connect your Pip-Boy to the dead Gunner’s to get the location of the next guy in the chain. Yes, this is going to become a trend. This version of the Tesla Cannon is far superior to any existing modded take on it, so you’ll just have to stick with it.
Unfortunately, getting to the next Gunner won’t be as straightforward. You might notice that the objective marker is guiding you right into the Glowing Sea, so make sure to bring either Power Armor (strongly recommended) or a hazmat suit so you aren’t barbecued as soon as you get close.
This time, your goal lies at the bottom of the partially submerged Hopesmarch Pentecostal Church. It’s absolutely lousy with feral ghouls, however, so I advise standing on the roof and throwing grenades down into the church to clear with minimal danger. When the ghouls are taken care of, you’ll find the next Gunner slumped against the pulpit. You already know the drill—search his body for loot and download the next set of coordinates from his Pip-Boy.
Another set of coordinates, another objective marker. Fortunately, this one is only a short jog, and the enemies along the way are easily avoidable. The next Gunner will be at the control terminal of Relay Tower 0DB-521, giving you an excuse to activate this radio tower if you haven’t already. Either way, get ready for a fight before you download this one’s Pip-Boy data. While the place may appear to be about as serene as the Glowing Sea gets, larvae inside the Gunner’s body will explode and spawn a handful of deadly Bloatflies as soon as you interact with him. It’s disgusting and far too easy to be caught off guard by.
This final (I promise) set of coordinates doesn’t point you to a single point on the map but rather tasks you with following the Gunner Signal Remnant radio station. It’s a painful revisiting of the base game’s Greenetech Genetics signal-following quest. If you’ve played through the main story of Fallout 4 already, you know what a colossal pain in the ass this kind of quest is, so I’m just going to remove the aimless wandering for you and tell you that your destination is Skylanes Flight 1665, just southwest of the radio tower. More specifically, there’ll be a fourth Gunner corpse in the burnt-out fuselage of the plane. Just like the last one, prepare for a fight before you download his data…
As soon as you read the Pip-Boy data, you’ll be attacked by Caroni, the sole survivor of the Gunner group you’ve been tracking this whole time. Rather than the standard Gunners you’ve been up against thus far, however, Caroni will be wielding the Tesla Cannon you’ve been on the hunt for! This is a tough fight, especially if you’re only wearing a hazmat suit—the Tesla Cannon is just as busted in the hands of an NPC as it is in yours, and one or two shots can easily kill you in seconds. Use the plane wreck as cover to kite him or close the distance in between his volleys of shots.
I played this quest as an Unarmed build and swiftly learned that rushing him is by far the best strategy. Don’t even think about disarming him, as he will inexplicably pull a second Tesla Cannon from absolutely nowhere and keep attacking you without missing a beat. If all else fails, just outsource the job to a particularly tanky companion and watch the fireworks.
With Caroni dead and gone, all that’s left is to claim your prize. After that long and bloody trek through the wasteland, hearing that legendary weapon jingle play made me want to cry tears of joy, a feeling that only persisted once I got some hands-on time with the Tesla Cannon and realized how utterly broken it was. This thing uses the extremely common fusion cell ammo to pump out damage worthy of an endgame heavy weapon, roasting human-sized enemies in a few shots and letting you feel like a Chris Hemsworth-esque god of thunder.
You will, of course, need levels in the Science! perk to upgrade it to its fullest potential, but its power makes its base form viable even for a character without so many points in Intelligence. As a nice Easter egg for longtime fans, you can even customize the weapon to look and function just like the unique Tesla-Beaton Cannon from Fallout: New Vegas, letting you cosplay Father Elijah himself (but hopefully without the whole genocidal plan).
This quest is one of the longer and meatier ones added in Fallout 4‘s new update, but there are plenty of other goodies to claim. Why not set your sights on something far spookier and get your power-armored hands on the Halloween workshop pack next?
