The downside is that this mod requires heavy investment in the Gun Nut perk and won't be available until the player reaches a fairly high level, a point where the minigun will most likely find itself outclassed in most respects by the Gatling laser. The latter significantly increases the minigun's per-shot damage, range, and accuracy at the cost of a sharp drop in firing rate, all of which makes the weapon a lot more cost-efficient and effective at mid to long-range. Investing points in the Scrounger perk and installing the tri-barrel modification helps to alleviate this issue to some extent. This and the fact that only a select few enemies wield miniguns makes it difficult to keep the weapon supplied without spending a lot of caps at arms dealers. As can be expected from a motorized rotary gun, it burns through ammo reserves at a high rate, even more so when equipped with accelerated barrels. It requires a moment to spin up before it actually starts firing, but makes up for the delay with a high rate of fire and large ammunition capacity.
Miniguns can be found as mounted door guns on Vertibirds or as a handheld heavy assault and support weapon. The minigun is a motorized Gatling-style rapid fire weapon commonly employed by the military, or other lesser factions that managed to acquire such a weapon.