Experimental Plasma Charger

"Bullets are so last year. Instead, why not incinerate your enemies from the inside out with a highly experimental anti-matter-powered gun firing supercharged plasma bolts? What's the worst that could happen? (If you find out, please report to R&D)"

- Weapon description

The  (shortened to EPC) is an unlockable secondary weapon used by the Driller. It is a semi-automatic futuristic plasma pistol with two spinning gyros on the bottom. It feeds from a large battery contained inside the weapon with no obvious loading port. The weapon has several aesthetic qualities which indicate to its highly experimental and potentially unsafe nature, such as the exposed wiring and electrical crackling heard when firing shots.

The EPC feeds from a single large ammo pool and has an overheating mechanic. It boasts two firing modes; Regular Shots by tapping the fire button and Charged Shots by holding the fire button down and releasing. Either firing mode will produce purple plasma blasts which are considered projectiles and must physically travel through the world before they hit a target. Both firing modes will produce heat, measured by a gauge on the weapon. If this gauge peaks the weapon will overheat and become inoperable for a short duration.

A charged shot can't deal weakpoint damage.

Understanding the weapon

 * Battery Capacity is the weapon's ammo capacity. By default a Regular Shot uses 1 ammo while a Charged Shot uses 8 ammo.
 * Maximum Heat is how much you can fire your weapon before it overheats. By default Charged Shots produce 0.4 heat, Normal Shots produce 0.13 heat. The maximum heat value is 1 which cannot be changed.
 * Cooling Rate is how fast your weapon cools down the accumulated heat (be it overheated or not). The base value is 0.4 heat per second so you’ll recover from overheating (1 heat) in 1 / 0.4 = 2.5 seconds
 * Charge Speed is how long in seconds it takes you to prepare a Charged Shot. No heat is generated while charging, only while holding the Charged Shot.
 * Heat Buildup When Charged is how fast heat is generated when holding a fully-prepared Charged Shot. The base value is 2, which means that if you hold a charged projectile starting from 0 heat you will overheat after 0.5 seconds.

Normal and Charged Shot Breakdown
Normal Shots
 * Damage type: 50% Kinetic / 50% Electric
 * Friendly Fire Modifier: x0.1

Charged Shot
 * Single target:
 * Damage type: 65% Electric / 25% Fire / 10% Disintegrate
 * Friendly Fire Modifier: x0.2
 * Weakpoint Damage x0
 * AOE:
 * Damage type: 65% Explosive / 25% Fire / 10% Disintegrate
 * Maximum Damage Radius: 1.5 m
 * Radius: 2 m
 * Minimum Area Damage: 33%

Heat Buildup When Charged and interactions with TCF

 * Holding down the charge will generate 2 heat per second, that means you have 0.5 second to aim before you reach max charge and can shoot the Charged Projectile. With Heat Shield that time can be increased to 1.25 seconds.
 * Since TCF reduced the cost of a Charge Shot to 0.25 heat, it means you have 0.75 / 2 = 0.375 seconds to shoot the Charged Shot before the weapon overheat. If that time seems too low, you can consider using a mod or overclock to increase it.
 * Using the T2 mod Heat Shield, you will have almost a second to react. (0.75 / (2 x 0.4) = 0.9375 seconds)

Flying Nightmare
Flying Nightmare (FN) causes Charged Shots to pass through all targets, dealing maximum direct damage when they are touched by it and piercing straight through them. The downside is a reduction to charge speed and a reduced area-of-effect on the Charged Shot. FN Charged Shots with the Flying Nightmare mod will never detonate - they pass cleanly through enemies and dissipate with no explosion upon contact with the world.
 * Damage: Converted from the Charged Shot direct damage, affected by mods and overclocks.
 * Damage type: 65% Electric / 25% Fire / 10% Disintegrate (inherit single target charged shot damage type)

Thin Containment Field
Thin Containment Field (TCF) allows Charged Shot projectiles to be shot in flight by any team member, creating a significantly more powerful explosion. It deals 240 Fire damage with a set 3m damage radius, coupled with a rippling effect across the player's screen when viewed directly. Manually detonated TCF Charged Shots can also destroy terrain and can be used to break minerals off of walls. TCF Charged Shots which collide with the world or an enemy will detonate normally.


 * Damage: 240 Fire
 * Full damage radius: 3 m
 * Damage radius: 3 m
 * Friendly Fire Modifier: x0.5

Plasma Burn
Plasma Burn will cause every normal shot from the Experimental Plasma Charger to apply Heat to an enemy based on the amount of damage dealt to it. Mods which increase the damage dealt by the EPC will henceforth increase the amount of Heat. Enemies with full Heat meters will be afflicted with the On Fire status. the amount of Heat is 5 + ( damage x 0.25)

Persistent Plasma
Persistent Plasma is an Unstable Overclock which causes plasma particles to linger in the spot where the Charged Shot projectile was detonated. It is similar to the Plasma Trail modification for the Breach Cutter. The downside is a penalty to direct damage caused by the projectile.


 * Damage: 5
 * Damage type: Fire
 * Interval: 0.2 - 0.3 s
 * Full damage radius: 3 m
 * Damage radius: 3 m
 * Duration: 7 seconds default duration, with an additional +0.6 seconds added only one time if any enemies either enter or leave the field.

Mastery
Each modification that is purchased advances a mastery bar by one unit.

Mastery unlocks:
 * Three modifications – First Stripe Weapon Paintjob Icon_Skin_First_Stripe.png
 * Seven modifications – Deepcore Weapon Paintjob Icon_Skin_Deepcore.png
 * All (14) modifications – The Company Special Weapon Paintjob Icon_Skin_The_Company_Special.png

Skins
Full gallery of skins can be seen at Weapon Skins.

Trivia

 * As the name implies, the Experimental Plasma Charger is essentially a prototype weapon which has not been fully tested. Unlike most weapons which Deep Rock Galactic purchases from suppliers, the EPC is a product of their own Research and Development division.
 * Upon completing the assignment required to unlock the EPC, Mission Control will tell the player that R&D are "very excited" with the weapon, and he advises caution as a result.

Cargador de plasma experimental