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 (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.
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
Mod
Effect
In Game Description
Price
Tier 1
Increased Particle Density
+5 Damage
"Improves the damage caused by the normal shots."
1000
Credits
20
Enor Pearl
Larger Battery
+24 Battery Capacity
"The good thing about clips, magazines, ammo drums, fuel tanks ...you can always get bigger variants."
1000
Credits
20
Bismor
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!"
1000
Credits
20
Bismor
Tier 2 6
Heat Shield
x0.4 Heat Buildup When Charged
"Reduces how fast the weapon overheats when holding a charged shot."
3800
Credits
25
Jadiz
15
Umanite
36
Enor Pearl
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."
1800
Credits
12
Enor Pearl
18
Bismor
Tier 3 10
Improved Charge Efficiency
-2 Charged Shot Ammo Use
"Each charged shot uses less energy."
2200
Credits
30
Magnite
20
Enor Pearl
Crystal Capacitors
x2.5 Charge Speed
"Prepare a charged shot much faster."
2200
Credits
30
Croppa
20
Jadiz
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."
2200
Credits
30
Umanite
20
Enor Pearl
Tier 4 14
Expanded Plasma Splash
+1m Charged Effect Radius
"Greater damage radius for the charged projectile explosion."
3800
Credits
25
Croppa
15
Jadiz
36
Bismor
High Density Battery
+24 Battery Capacity
"The good thing about clips, magazines, ammo drums, fuel tanks ...you can always get bigger variants."
3800
Credits
15
Bismor
Reactive Shockwave
+15 Charged Damage
+15 Charged Area Damage
"More bang for the buck! Increases the damage done within the Area of Effect!"
3800
Credits
25
Jadiz
15
Umanite
36
Enor Pearl
Tier 5 18
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."
4400
Credits
40
Croppa
110
Jadiz
60
Magnite
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."
4400
Credits
40
Croppa
110
Jadiz
60
Magnite
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."
"A masterwork of engineering that improves charge speed and energy efficiency without affecting overall performance!"
7300
Credits
100
Jadiz
65
Umanite
130
Bismor
Magnetic Cooling Unit
+0.1 Cooling Rate x0.7 Heat Buildup When Charged
"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."
8900
Credits
95
Croppa
80
Jadiz
125
Umanite
Heat Pipe
-2 Charged Shot Ammo Use x1.3 Charge Speed x2 Charged Shot Heat Generation x2 Heat Buildup When Charged
"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."
7450
Credits
95
Jadiz
125
Umanite
60
Bismor
Heavy Hitter
x1.6 Damage -32 Battery Capacity x1.5 Normal Shot Heat Generation
"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."
8100
Credits
60
Magnite
105
Umanite
140
Bismor
Overcharger
x1.5 Charged Damage x1.5 Charged Area Damage x1.2 Charged Effect Radius +2 Charged Shot Ammo Use -0.1 Cooling Rate
"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."
7050
Credits
95
Croppa
60
Enor Pearl
120
Bismor
Persistent Plasma
+Persistent Plasma -15 Charged Damage -15 Area Damage
"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."
8150
Credits
75
Croppa
130
Jadiz
95
Magnite
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
Unique Modifications
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 with the Burning Nightmare mod 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.
Normal Shot: +10 Heat / +25% Damage as additional Heat
Charge Shot: Converted from the Charged Shot direct damage, affected by mods and overclocks.
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.
Damage: 240 Fire
Full damage radius: 3m
Damage radius: 3m
Friendly Fire Modifier: x0.5
Material Flags: none
Unique Overclocks
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: 8
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.
Gallery
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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.
Unlocked through an assignment
15
Experimental Plasma Charger [Expand/Collapse]
