I just came up with this idea after reading through the plasma thrower thread and thought up my own interpretation of a plasma weapon.
Designed during the second Skrith war, disregarding the trend of most other weapons going back to conventional firearms, this weapon was designed solely for combating the non-Skrith enemy, particularly the Cryons.
The weapon is rather cumbersome, with the gun itself being huge in addition to a back mounted generator used to create the plasma.
Using a rotating set of electro-magnets, plasma is pumped into the containment area (rotating electro-magnets) and is compressed by pumping more plasma into the containment fields. The shaped plasma is then released as a slow moving, semi-solid projectile that is affected by gravity.
It's density decays quite quickly, but a denser charge lasts longer. Density decay limits it's range quite noticeably, with the plasma ball eventually dissipating to a harmless gas.
It is capable of variable charges by dumping more plasma into it manually or through an automated process.
At a minimum charge the result is a damaging, yet short ranged, plasma spray, (Think of it almost as an energy shotgun) with slightly longer charges reaching distances comparable to a shotgun, though with less damage.
Maximum charge results in a fairly slow projectile flying for a good distance before dissipating, with a slight gravitational pull. When hitting a solid object, the plasma splashes over the surface, giving it a medium-small splash radius. The splash radius of a fully charged shot would probably be about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the G5's splash radius.
Over charging is not possible with this gun normally, with safety devices stopping the flow of plasma and storing the charge if too great. However, to those that feel it necessary, the safety overrides can be switched off, yielding incredible results at great risk for personal injury. (Think something like the Doom 3 BFG charged
)
Also, these projectiles are capable of catching targets on fire even if they aren't petrol-soaked. The duration of the flames is rather short, and the flames are of more mundane scale; no plasma flames coming off of them, just regular fire.
[size=14px]Pri. Fire:[/size]
Automated charging process, making it effectively an automatic weapon, but with variable fire rates, though no fire rate being very high. It constantly feeds plasma to the containment field and automatically releases it at set intervals.
[size=14px]Weapon fire mode:[/size]
Switches between 3 speeds, higher speeds pump less plasma and do less damage and having less range. Fastest speed leaves the shots coherent enough to be usable at decent ranges (no flamethrower-like fire mode, more like auto shotgun).
The speeds would be 1 shot every 3/8 seconds (25% charge/shot), 1 shot every 3/4 seconds (50% charge/shot), and 1 shot every 1 1/8 seconds (75% charge/shot).
High Speed: 160 Shots per Minute
Medium Speed: 80 Shots per Minute
Slow Speed: 53 1/3 Shots per Minute
[size=14px]Alt. Fire:[/size]
Manual charge, described above, hold in to pump more plasma into the containment field, releasing the trigger fires the plasma. It takes 1 1/2 seconds to fully charge a shot.
[size=14px]Special Function:[/size]
Tap to toggle the safety over rides. The gun is capable of charging over the recommended levels, up to a max of 200%. Charging any amount over even 100% is risky (possible, yet rare, chance of explosion at any point during charge?), and charging over 175% is just plain suicidal, but learning how to master this can prove to be a powerful asset.
With safety overrides on, your charge is held at 100% and slowly dissipates over time, regardless of whether you hold alt fire in or not. Pressing any fire button will release the charge. Pressing Special Function will also release the charge.
[size=14px]Damage:[/size]
Since the Ballistic Weapons seem to have a rather complex damage system that's over my head, I'll not give exact figures, just an average number of hits to kill a 100 HP, 0% Armoured player.
Minimum charge: Pretty weak, not enough to kill anyone in a single hit, but perfect for setting aflame pools of gas and the damaging tightly grouped packs of enemies. If you work at it you might be able to kill someone in maybe 10-15 blasts close range without charging the plasma ball.
Maximum charge: Could very easily kill someone one hit, though not always. 2-3 blasts will kill an armoured target, generally.
Supercharged: Death to any target. Instant ash. Vapourizor. Death incarnate. Bring a broom and dustpan.
[size=14px]Ranges:[/size]
I'm doing this in Unreal Units (UU) because I can easily get a good idea how far it is in game. For reference on this, just check out the Target Practice Level the RS guys released.
Minimum charge: About 256, with its damage being very low at the extreme distance.
Maximum charge: About halfway between 2048 and 4096 methinks. Damage is very low at maximum distance.
Supercharged: The shot is wildly unstable. Ranges go down when hitting 100%. Ranges decrease at the rate they initially increased. 200% releases a highly damaging, incoherent plasma cloud at extremely short range.
[size=14px]Special Function 2:[/size]
Deploy Plasma Cannon. (Turret mode)
When deployed, it unfolds into a much larger weapon. Braces that hold the electro-magnets unfold to form the stand for the tripod (or equivalent) and somewhat freely swinging arms are what's left to hold the containment field, but the result is a much more stable shaped-plasma projectile. The arms swing inwards to allow less charged plasma to be denser while the arms swing out to allow larger projectiles. Larger projectiles end up being less dense than smaller ones, and therefore have less range.
The rate of change in ranges for the projectiles is more slight. When overcharging, the arms swing outwards to their max extent, causing stress on the arms and making the projectiles more dense, increasing the range. The chance of self destruct in this stage is much greater.
The rate at which the plasma is pumped into the containment field is much greater than the normal mode, safety preventions (that are hardwired in, no disabling) only allow the faster charge rate when deployed because it poses less of a risk to the user when charging so fast due to the extra room for the containment field.
It takes 1 second for the gun to be charged to reach its safe max, instead of 1 1/2 seconds.
Max safe charge is 150% more than normal, max super charge is 125% more. (I think)
Pretty much the new maxes would be (using the same scale as the normal mode) 150% for safe charge and 225% for super charging.
The fire modes stay the same, with fire rates increasing to keep the same percent charges.
In a nutshell:
Same fire modes (but faster), faster charge rates, doubled max safe charge, increased max overcharge, ranges start out long then go shorter range and back up in range supercharged, and a greater risk of injury in super charge mode.
