Experimental Plasma Charger

Purchased for:

 — Weapon description

The **Experimental Plasma Charger** (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 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.

## Modifications

### Modifications

The new modifications tier lists:
There are five tiers of modifications and each tier has two to three upgrades. Only one modification can be equipped per tier.

## Overclocks

Overclock calculations happen after modifiers.

## Stats Breakdown

### 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
* Material Flags: Armor, Weakpoint, Frozen

**Charged Shot**

* Single target:
	+ Damage type: 65% Electric / 25% Fire / 10% Disintegrate
	+ Friendly Fire Modifier: x0.2
	+ Weakpoint Damage x0
	+ Material Flags: Armor, Weakpoint, Frozen
* AOE:
	+ Damage type: 65% Explosive / 25% Fire / 10% Disintegrate
	+ Maximum Damage Radius: 1.25 m
	+ Radius: 2 m
	+ Minimum Area Damage: 33%
	+ Material Flags: none

#### 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)

### Unique Modifications

* 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.
* Full damage radius: 3m
* Damage radius: 3m
* 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)

### Unique Overclocks

**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 type: Fire
* Interval: 0.2 - 0.25 s
* Movement Speed: x0.8
* Full damage radius: 3 m
* Damage radius: 3 m
* Duration: 7 seconds
	+ *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
* Seven modifications – **Deepcore** Weapon Paintjob
* All (14) modifications – **The Company Special** Weapon Paintjob

## 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.

 This page is possibly not up to date.

 This page is possibly not up to date. It was last updated for Update 34: Modest Expectations