Heavy Plasma (Hardmode)
A powerful support weapon, the Heavy Plasma can be researched following the discovery of the Plasma Rifle.
The single most powerful weapons in the alien arsenal (at least per shot). The Heavy Plasma is a dangerous weapon to encounter at all ranges, at close range its auto-fire will see little spared, and at long range its aimed and generous snapshot accuracies will allow for surprisingly accurate shots against your forces.
The weapon is at its strongest at close to mid-range, and while it can hit long range shots, these shots do tend to cost significantly more of an aliens time units to fire, resulting in less overall volume of fire.
This is a uncommonly issued weapon, nonetheless expect to see it anywhere aliens are found.
X-COM Operation Guide
This weapon is the successor to X-COM's Heavy Laser/Auto, and it functions surprisingly similarly to it.
Unlike the Heavy Laser/Auto, this weapon deals the highest damage per bullet available to any weapon (assuming usage of elerium ammo). Snapshots have comparably high accuracy of base 75% with a smaller TU cost of 30%, although Heavy Plasma snapshots don't have the same extended firing range of the Heavy Laser/Auto. Auto-shots are restricted to firing 3 rounds per burst however they consume less TU's to fire, allowing for greater manoeuvrability.
The weapon furthermore is fairly light to carry, weighing the same as a Rifle, combined with likely further weight reductions from the more advance terran power armour, this can allow a wielder to carry a larger inventory than ever before, even being more able to carry other weapons. The downsides to this weapon is it no longer has infinite ammo, but its clips do hold a generous 35 rounds. Its aimed mode is also subpar due to its high TU cost.
This weapon is in its prime in mid-range combat. It will likely be outperformed in close range combat by the Plasma Shotgun, and its accuracy suffers at long ranged compared to the Plasma Sniper. If a soldier is expecting to be involved in CQC, consider packing a shotgun thanks to this weapons weight reduction.
Statistics
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Ammo
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Firing Time Unit Notes
The following lists how many times a soldier can fire the gun by shot type continuously in any given round and the remaining percentage of any left over TUs that cannot be spent as a shot.
- Auto: 2 Salvos of 6 shots, 30% remaining TUs (enough for 1 snap)
- Aimed 2 shots, 10% remaining TUs
- Snap: 3 shots, 10% remaining TUs.
