Experimental Plasma Charger
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This page is possibly not up to date. It was last updated for Update 34: Modest Expectations
 Unlocked through an assignment
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Requires Driller  15
Purchased for:
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| “ | Bullets are so last year. Instead, why not incinerate your enemies from the inside out with a highly experimental anti-matter-powered gun firing supercharged plasma bolts? What's the worst that could happen? (If you find out, please report to R&D) |
| — Weapon description |
The Experimental Plasma Charger (EPC for short) is an unlockable secondary weapon for 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
There are five tiers of modifications and each tier has two to three upgrades. Only one modification can be equipped per tier.
| Experimental Plasma Charger Modifications | ||||||||||||
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| Mod | Effect | In Game Description | Price | |||||||||
| Tier 1 |  Increased Particle Density |
+5 Damage | "Improves the damage caused by the normal shots." |
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 Larger Battery |
+24 Battery Capacity | "The good thing about clips, magazines, ammo drums, fuel tanks ...you can always get bigger variants." |
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 Higher Charged Plasma Energy |
+15 Charged Damage
+15 Charged Area Damage |
"More bang for the buck! Increases both the direct and area damage of the charged projectile!" |
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| Tier 26
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 Heat Shield |
x0.4 Heat Buildup When Charged | "Reduces how fast the weapon overheats when holding a charged shot." |
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 Overcharged Plasma Accelerator |
x1.25 Normal Projectile Velocity | "You need to be a physicist to understand how it works but this little wonder increases the velocity of the EPC's normal projectile." |
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| Tier 310
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 Improved Charge Efficiency |
-2 Charged Shot Ammo Use | "Each charged shot uses less energy." |
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 Crystal Capacitors |
x2.5 Charge Speed | "Prepare a charged shot much faster." |
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Tweaked Radiator |
+0.2 Cooling Rate | "Increases the rate at which the weapon sheds heat, letting you shoot more rounds before overheating and also recovering faster from an overheat." |
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| Tier 414
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 Expanded Plasma Splash |
+1m Charged Effect Radius | "Greater damage radius for the charged projectile explosion." |
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High Density Battery |
+24 Battery Capacity | "The good thing about clips, magazines, ammo drums, fuel tanks ...you can always get bigger variants." |
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Reactive Shockwave |
+15 Charged Damage
+15 Charged Area Damage |
"More bang for the buck! Increases the damage done within the Area of Effect!" |
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| Tier 518
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 Burning Nightmare |
+Burning Nightmare x0.3 Effect Radius |
"A modified containment field causes regular and charged shots to heat up the target proportionally to the amount of damage dealt. The modification also makes the charged projectile pass through all enemies dealing damage while it flies but it no longer explodes on impact." |
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 Thin Containment Field |
+Thin Containment Field x0.8 Shot Heat Generation |
"A weaker containment field produces less heat for both charged and normal shots. Be aware that any high-energy impact will destabilize the charged projectile, causing a large area implosion." |
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 Plasma Splash |
-10 damage +10 area damage |
"A simple modification to the containment field causes it to rupture outward on impact damaging all things in a small radius even through heavy armor." |
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Overclocks
Overclock calculations happen after modifiers.
 Experimental Plasma Charger [Expand/Collapse]
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| Overclock | Effect | In Game Description | Price | ||||||||
Energy Rerouting
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"A masterwork of engineering that improves charge speed and energy efficiency without affecting overall performance!" |
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Magnetic Cooling Unit
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"A high-tech solution to cleanly improve the cooling rate. The result is an increased number of shots that can be fired before overheating, a faster recovery from an overheat and an extended duration that a full charge can be maintained." |
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Heat Pipe
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"By channeling exhaust heat back into the charge chamber a shot can be charged faster while using less energy. Unfortunately this process generates a lot more heat." |
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Heavy Hitter
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"Some extensive tweaking to how the shots are prepared can increase the pure damage of the weapon but at the cost of more heat per shot and a reduced battery size." |
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Overcharger
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"Pushing the EPC to the limit will give you a significant increase in charge shot damage and a boost in the size of the explosion but at the cost of thermal efficiency and energy consumption." |
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Persistent Plasma
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"By changing how the plasma is layered within the charged projectile a slow and persistent discharge can be achieved upon impact. However this does reduce the instant damage done." |
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+16 Battery Capacity 
x2 Charged Shot Heat Generation
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
- Direct Damage:
- Damage type: 65% Electric / 25% Fire / 10% Disintegrate
- Friendly Fire Modifier: x0.2
- Weakpoint Damage x0
- Material Flags: Armor, Weakpoint, Frozen
- Area Damage:
- 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
| Unique Modifications | ||
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Burning Nightmare |
Burning Nightmare (BN) causes Charged Shots to pass through all targets, dealing maximum direct damage when they are touched by it and piercing straight through them. The downside is a reduction to charge speed and a reduced area-of-effect on the Charged Shot. BN Charged Shots will never detonate - they pass cleanly through enemies and dissipate with no explosion upon contact with the world.
The damage conversion is bugged and causing the projectile to deal more than 100% of its total damage when contacting enemies. |
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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. |
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Plasma Splash |
Plasma Splash decreases direct damage of normal shots, and adds area damage to normal shots. |
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Unique Overclocks
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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. |
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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.
Gallery
- Tier-5 Burning Nightmare Modification
- Tier-5 Thin Containment Field Modification
- Tier-5 Plasma Splash Modification
- Persistent Plasma Overclock
Trivia
- The weapon's reload interaction consists of the Driller tossing it into the air, where it spins once vertically before falling back into his hand. This animation is also present with the Gunner's BRT7 Burst Fire Gun and the Scout's Grappling Hook.
- 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.
- The upgrade "Burning Nightmare" in tier 5, before Season 03: Plaguefall, was called "Flying Nightmare".
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This page is possibly not up to date. It was last updated for Update 34: Modest ExpectationsUpdated for U34