Heavy Plasma (EU2012)

For the original UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994) version, see Heavy Plasma

Heavy Plasma

We've struggled to maintain a test environment that minimizes the safety risks involved in these experiments, but at the same time does not limit our...imagination, when it comes to new developments. With those logistical issues handled efficiently enough by the engineering team, we proceeded in our initial prototyping. Although we spent a great deal of time studying the alien's own heavy plasma rifle, there were still a number of questions surrounding its enhanced functionality. Maintaining an acceptable level of energy efficiency, while also increasing the weapon's output, was not an easy task. The primary constraint of increasing the output was the added weight involved by the inclusion of a larger power cell. While this issue may not have affected some of the brutish soldiers employed by the aliens, there are limits to what our soldiers can realistically carry. However, by redesigning the power management system to reduce waste energy generated during the firing process, we've managed to strike a balance between all of these concerns. I should mention however that heat buildup continues to be a concern, and our troops will have to be aware of this when firing the weapon in rapid succession. Having successfully test fired our prototype, as well as a modified version of the alien's own variant, we believe it should now be possible to both manufacture these weapons, and adapt any we manage to recover from the field.

Source: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) Research Archives

Heavy Plasma (EW DLC)

We've struggled to maintain a test environment that minimizes the safety risks involved in these experiments, but at the same time does not limit our...imagination, when it comes to new developments. With those logistical issues handled efficiently enough by the engineering team, we proceeded in our initial prototyping. Although we spent a great deal of time studying the alien's own heavy plasma rifle, there were still a number of questions surrounding its enhanced functionality. Maintaining an acceptable level of energy efficiency, while also increasing the weapon's output, was not an easy task. The primary constraint of increasing the output was the added weight involved by the inclusion of a larger power cell. While this issue may not have affected some of the brutish soldiers employed by the aliens, there are limits to what our soldiers can realistically carry. However, by redesigning the power management system to reduce waste energy generated during the firing process, we've managed to strike a balance between all of these concerns. I should mention however that heat buildup continues to be a concern, and our troops will have to be aware of this when firing the weapon in rapid succession. Having successfully test fired our prototype, as well as a modified version of the alien's own variant, we believe it should now be possible to both manufacture these weapons, and adapt any we manage to recover from the field. The constraints that ordinary soldiers face are... reduced... when considering our MEC Troopers, for whom we can manufacture a full-sized particle beam weapon.

Source: XCOM: Enemy Within DLC

Description

The Heavy Plasma rifle uses an expanded power supply and cooling mechanism to allow for a much higher rate of fire than anything we've fielded previously. Capable of suppressing enemies, if the Heavy has appropriate training Like all LMG variants, expends ammo quickly

Source: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012)

Notes

Research Required	Heavy Plasma
Base Costs	§250 Alloys:30 Elerium:30 Engineers:25
Base Damage	8-10
Critical Damage	14-16
Critical Chance	0%
Range	Medium
Abilities	None

• Heavy Plasmas can only be used by Heavy soldiers.
• While their critical chance is limited when compared to Plasma Sniper Rifle or Alloy Cannon, the Heavy Plasma can be a very useful weapon in suppressing enemy targets, if the Heavy has appropriate training. The Heavy Plasma also doesn't suffer from the range restrictions of the mentioned weapons and can be used either on enclosed urban or open UFO maps.
• This weapon is also be used by Muton Elites and it can be captured to offset its high building costs. However, the Muton Elites will typically only appear some months after you're able to research and build this weapon. Therefore, you may want to take priority in detecing and bringing down the Overseer UFO, and capturing one or two Heavy Plasmas from the Elites that always are on board.
• On the Enemy Within DLC it also allows to build the Particle Cannon MEC Primary Weapon at Engineering.