Plasma Refractor

* Item
* HUD

As it looks when dropped.

As it looks when equipped.

## Class Perks

**Scavenger (Technician)**Convert weapon into a Mod Pack

**Efficient (Demolitionist)**50% less ammo consumed

## In-game Description

*The Plasma Refractor fires a beam of incredible potency, which splits upon contact with a surface, creating smaller projectiles that arc outwards from the original shot. A handy weapon in tight quarters and around corners.*

*Recently the weapon has recieved harsh criticism from a few outspoken marines, claiming the device is too weak to be useful. The lead scientist responsible for creating the gun has reportedly sealed himself inside his quarters several times, often for entire days, whenever he hears remarks like this.*

### Assembly Description

*A beam-based weapon that compresses plasma at a single point.*

*The beam passes through enemies, so fire at close surfaces to detonate plasma everywhere.*

## Tactical Analysis

The Plasma Refractor is a master assembly weapon of the plasma weapon line, requiring a **Plasma Rifle**, 3 **Power** modpack and 1 **sniper** modpack. It is a powerful opener weapon specialized in dealing massive damage over a wide area, but lack the rapid fire capability of the weapon used to create it.

The Plasma Refractor is a massively powerful plasma cannon with a somewhat quirky way of dealing damage. Basically, upon firing, a non-lethal beam of concentrated energy will strike the target and tagging it with a glowing light.After a short delay, the gathering energy will explode and send out a massive amount of high-speed plasma balls in a 360 degree radius from the point of initial contact. These plasma ball will then explode for the final time in a multiple, shotgun-like blasts upon contact with a surfaces or targets.

On the more complex details, The Plasma Refractor operates on a multiple stages. The first stage is the beam. The beam itself deals no damage and cannot stun any advancing foes so some precaution is required. This beam also counts as a hitscan projectile, thus will instantly reaches the target. On hit, a glowing orb will stick to the target and can move along with it, should the target is movable. The glowing orb then begins charging up, taking around half a second before explode and advancing to the next stage.

The second stage is the primary explosion, once the glowing orb explode, it will send out a single wave of blue plasma balls in all horizontal direction. These plasma balls has infinite range and will always fans out in the same pattern with no vertical deviation, much like the classic shotgun spread except on 360 degree radius. There is also a "smart" minimum height so that even if the initial shot happened to be at the ground, the subsequent plasma balls will still appears close to the ground and not getting absorbed by it.

The lastly, the secondary explosion. Once a plasma ball hit something, it will explode out in a smaller, **Plasma Shotgun**-like shots with projectile counts ranging from 4 to 7, and peppering the enemy for one final time.

The Plasma Refractor a very versatile weapon. It can either be used to quickly clear a large open area of enemies, or racking up a massive amount of damage on one large enemy due to the nature of its mechanic, as the bigger the enemy means the more surface area available for it to absorbs both the primary and secondary blasts.

Due to the blasts originates from the point of contact, not the player, it can be used to fire into a room and damage any enemies hiding behind the wall and blindspots.

The Plasma Refractor can be considered a more precised version of **BFG9000,** due to it being harmless to the user, an AOE capability and the wider variety of usage. As such it can be used as a substitute to both the BFG line and a safer alternative to the Rocket Launcher line.

The Plasma Refractor also have two glaring flaws, first is the delay before the explosion. Not being able to instantly deals damage means it is better used for setting the battlefield than reacting to an ambush, in which the player would most likely die were he to face off against mutiple high level hitscanners.

The second is the non-rapid fire nature and the slow reload speed, which is self-explanatory.

Due to still being counted as a plasma weapon, the Plasma Refractor is legible for a shot enhancement by the **Xaser Inc. Powerarmor**, it will now fires 3 bolts at once while still using the same amount of ammo, tripled the already powerful damage burst and potentially decimates an entire battlefield with one shot. A player can also "plant a bomb" on a boss enemy with a point-blank shot, ensuring all three bolts connected and destroys them with a few tries. With this upgrade, the Plasma Refractor easily becomes one of the best weapon in the game, if not the best, considering the efficiency of the amount of ammo use vs. damage output.

The Demolitionist's perk synergise with The Plasma Refractor. reducing ammo use per shot from 10 to 5

As a masterclass weapon with 4 modpacks required to assembled, The Plasma Refractor is unmoddable.

## Evaluation

### Pros

* Can fire-and-forget.
* Can liberally fire anywhere in a room to deal damage.
* Completely safe for a large AOE weapon.
* Can trickshot enemies behind walls and blindspots.
* Very efficient weapon on ammo used vs damage and damage distribution.
* Fast shot, Instant hit with the initial beam, very fast subsequent plasma balls.
* Very good damage.
* Very effective against big enemies.
* Infinite range.
* Can be further upgraded with an armor for massive damage increase.

### Cons

* Slow delay between shots.
* Slow delay before dealing damage.
* Slow reload speed.
* Horizontal explosion only.