Nuclear Onslaught

* Item

16 (Nano, Right)

8 (Sniper)

Very Slow (Nano, Right)

Medium (Firestorm)

Slow (Sniper)

900 (Nano, Right)

350 (Sniper)

## Class Perks

**Ammochain (Marine)**75% less ammo consumed

**Scavenger (Technician)**Convert weapon to a modpack

### Nano

Rapid-fires erratic bolts (Left gun)Fires a plasma blast for one ammo clip (Right gun)

### Sniper

Slowly fires powerful beams for 1/2 ammo clip each (Both guns)

## In-game Description

*What's better than one heavily modified Nuclear Plasma Rifle? Two, of course. Going akimbo with these weapons makes for a nearly uninterrupted stream of plasmatic fury, as by the time one rifle has depleted its ammo, the other has recharged its cell and is ready for another round.*

## Tactical Analysis

The Nuclear Onslaught is a direct upgrade to the **Nuclear Plasma rifle**. Statistic-wise, they behave the same: A self-recharging plasma gun capable of launching quick stream of damaging plasma balls. The Nuclear Onslaught however, is a pair of weapons with separate ammo count. As soon as one rifle runs dry, the player will automatically swap with another one and continue firing. The swapping process takes split-second to do so. If they're so choose, the player can manually swapping the weapon themselves with the secondary fire key.

Just like all self-charging weapons, there will be an extra downtime before the gun can start recharging whenever the player used up the entire magazine, as opposed to having 1 or more ammo left, in which there will be no downtime and the gun will begin recharging almost immediately after not being in use.

As with all Nuclear weapons series, Nuclear Onslaught gains benefit from The **Nuclear Armor** (or the more advanced version, the Nuclear Powerarmor) which halves the recharge time and rendered the ammo problem moot.

Nuclear Onslaught greatly synergies with **Marine** and his **Ammochain** perk, letting him fire 4 plasma shots for each ammo used, for a total of 64 shots, out of 16 magazine.

Nuclear Onslaught is a unique weapon and thus, has another advantage above the regular Nuclear Plasma Rifle in that the three exotic weapon mods can be apply to the weapon (only one) to gain an even more potent and unique effect. As of DRLA 1.1.5, Nuclear Onslaught is one of a few unique weapons that still can't be modded with normal modpacks.

## Modpack Analysis

**Firestorm** - Both of the Nuclear Onslaught rifles now fires a burst of 5 small plasma balls that dispersed in a **Plasma shotgun**-like manner. The damage per shot is reduced somewhat but still enough to destroys most low tier enemies in one shot. Aside from the benefits of having a larger firing cone at the cost of accuracy, the Firestorm Nuclear Onslaught is the only mode that can be fired indefinitely without requiring the recharging bonus from the Nuclear Armor, due to the slightly slower fire rate from the delay between each burst, this overall gives enough time for one gun to fully charge itself before the other one depleted.

**Nano** - A versatile upgrade that allows Nuclear Onslaught to fire two different types of shot from each guns. The right gun now fires a bigger and slower plasma ball (25 speed vs **Plasma Rifle**'s 30 speed) but deals a massive 900 points of damage per hit. While left guns instead fires a smaller but faster plasma ball (35 speed). These mini-plasma balls have a much stronger base damage than standard plasma balls but also have larger damage range as well (7-70 damage per shot VS Plasma Rifle's 5-40).

One shot from the right gun uses up all 16 units in the magazine and will automatically switch to the left gun once fired. The left gun uses one unit per shot but for some reason, will not automatically switches once the gun is empty, even with the 1-shot autoreload option turned on.

As the right gun uses all ammo in the magazine per shot, the recharge time will be slower than the right gun due to the added downtime.

For a **marine**, the ammochain perk only applies to the left gun, obviously.

**Sniper** - Turns the Nuclear Onslaught into a stronger **Railgun** but with plasma element and without the piercing effect*.* The shot itself is no longer a plasma ball but a beam of that deals non-randomized 350 damage per shot (vs Railgun's 200 damage), easily capable of gibbing all low tier enemies in one shot, along with the instant hit property like that of bullet weapons. Since each shot uses half amount of the max ammo, the player will automatically switch weapon in order to recharge and the recharging time is a bit slower than the fire rate, resulting in a tiny down time before the next shot is primed for firing again. Once the player paired the weapon with the Nuclear Armor however, this down time will be completely removed, allowing the Nuclear Onslaught to be fired in a semi-automatic manner forever.

## Summary

### **Pros**

* Self-recharging.
* Respectable Damage.
* Fast rate of fire.
* Fast Projectile Speed.
* Is a Nuclear Plasma Rifle without the annoying part.
* Versatile mod effects. Can be tailored to specific playstyle.
* (Firestorm) Can fire indefinitely.
* (Firestorm) Highly efficient. One ammo for 5 shots
* (Firestorm) higher base damage upclose. Potentially 5 times damage vs unmodded version using the same amount of ammo
* (Nano) Massive opening damage from the right gun.
* (Nano) highest damage of all rapid-fire plasma guns.
* (Sniper) Extreme damage.
* (Sniper) Extreme accuracy.
* Ultimate weapon when paired with **Nuclear Armor** or **Nuclear Powerarmor**.

### Cons

* Recharging time is still an issue if too trigger-happy.
* Is a plasma weapon. Useless against some enemies with plasma immunity.
* (Firestorm) inaccurate. worse accuracy than the unmodded version.
* (Firestorm) cannot stunlock anything anymore.
* (Nano) Long recharge time on the right gun
* (Nano) inconsistent damage from high damage range.
* (Sniper) Somewhat slow rate of fire.
* Considered a specialist weapon. Must be either a Marine (Unmodded, Nano) or a Demolitionist (Sniper, Nano) to be useful.
* Can be annoying to use without **Nuclear Armor** or **Nuclear Powerarmor**.