Proposals/Obsolete Proposals/Encased Plasma Round

I was thinking about ShipIt's comment about how there should be more reverse engineering for weapons rather than just using alien weapons. --H-hour 19:45, 28 May 2012 (SAST)

What about this premise for a new ammo:

Since the aliens use plasma a lot, they have also developed their armour to be good against it. The armour is primarily effective because it melts slowly under heat. Since plasma disintegrates quickly, it is able to withstand the momentary heat with little damage.

Phalanx scientists develop a miniaturized shape charge that fits into a rifle's bullet size. This round has a small plasma core, a tip that fragments on impact and a soft outer casing. When the bullet hits a hard target (alien armour), the tip fragments and the small plasma core slams into the armour. The soft outer casing forms a sealed shell around the plasma core, trapping the heat so that it burns through the armour and thereby delivering the full force of the plasma's heat onto the target.

This weapon could be more effective against armoured aliens than a regular plasma rifle, but slightly less effective against unarmoured aliens, because the actual amount of plasma is much smaller. The only difference is that with this round, it is actually penetrating the armour more.

This would make deploying the plasma rifle for phalanx less effective immediately (so they are at a disadvantage longer). The new ammo could require that a plasma weapon and alien armour be researched, putting a longer research trajectory in front of it that means the player does not get the full plasma benefits right away. And it could also provide a mid-game relevance to the assault and sniper rifles.

This proposal would require the following changes to other aspects of the game:

• Alien Armour rebalanced to be effective against plasma
• Figure out some mechanism for this weapon to work better (right now we only have _light, _normal, _heavy for plasma, maybe we need something else).
• Alien Armour tech write-ups adjusted

Weapons available/not available:

• Pistols: no. caliber is too small to house the plasma core
• Assault rifles: yes
• Machine Gun: yes
• SMG: no. caliber too small
• Shotguns: no. need directional projectile for collapsable tip to work.
• Sniper Rifle: yes.

Research Prerequisites:

• Alien Armour
• Plasma and the Grenade Launcher
• OR: all plasma weapons (grenade, pistol, rifle, blaster) to delay it's in-game time?