Purpose of the Plasma Gun and Shotgun?

[Rickystickyman]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I can't really think of any circumstances where using the Plasma Gun or shotgun really saved me any time on killing enemies. The rate of fire on the Plasma Gun is so slow that it seems to balance out to do around almost the same DPS as the Boltgun.

Also, because the game encourages you to be running around non-stop (or you can cheese it by sitting in a corner with the Heavy Bolter), I find the shotgun to not be very useful because getting into close-range is actually fairly detrimental in this game as enemies with machine guns will tear you apart. By all means, the game wants you to stay away from enemies as much as possible.

In theory, I assumed the Plasma Gun might do more damage against armored units or something, but the kill time felt like it was about the same.

[bioxid]

plasma gun is one of my favourite. if you keep firing, it kind of speed up with the risk of burning yourself.
Also, i have noticed that some guns perform better on some monster.
for example, plasma kill pink monster in one shot, if you fire twice and gib the corpse, it does not spawn the 2 blue monsters.

Also, with machine spirit, plasma gun get a big speed up improvement and remove the overheating.

SHotgun is absolutely savage against monster without armor.
With machine spirit, it feels like cheating too, and pelets bounce.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

I use the shotgun to take out the blue horrors that rush at close-range, of which there can be quite a few of them rushing at times. Doing so conserves regular bolter ammo, of which one can run low in some of the larger battles.

For Plasma I will use typically on the initial fireball-casting enemies, as they are slow moving and take a lot of damage to kill.

[General Melchett]

Originally posted by Rickystickyman:

Maybe I'm missing something here, [...]
In theory, I assumed the Plasma Gun might do more damage against armored units or something, but the kill time felt like it was about the same.

The plasmagun does do more damage to armoured units like Chaos Marines and Terminators, it also does splash damage. So you can gimp a group of nurglings or blue horrors with one shot. Stops you wasting bolter ammo.

The shotgun is best used for tighter areas, which you may not have come to many of yet, but in such places it's really good for advancing around corners. It's also good for hitting 1-2 nearby enemies that would take additional moments to focus your bolter on.

[Savior8801 (P-L)]

The shotgun is great if you have a few minor enemies clumped close enough together to fit in your reticule, even at a surprising range. I think of it as the second half of the bolter, pretty much constantly switching between them to deal with minor threats and conserve more precious ammo. The plasma gun is insane with the machine spirit, just hold that trigger down and watch all mid-high tier baddies melt... along your plasma rounds, unfortunately.

[Rickystickyman]

Originally posted by bioxid:

plasma gun is one of my favourite. if you keep firing, it kind of speed up with the risk of burning yourself.
Also, i have noticed that some guns perform better on some monster.
for example, plasma kill pink monster in one shot, if you fire twice and gib the corpse, it does not spawn the 2 blue monsters.

Also, with machine spirit, plasma gun get a big speed up improvement and remove the overheating.

SHotgun is absolutely savage against monster without armor.
With machine spirit, it feels like cheating too, and pelets bounce.

Okay, I think I wasn't understanding how Machine Spirit worked. Everytime I got it it was with the Boltgun so I assumed it was a Boltgun only upgrade, much like Kraken Rounds or whatever they are called.

Also, with the plasma gun, I think I was firing slowly, by only clicking when needed, instead of holding down the trigger, so the DPS seemed to be fairly low.

[Delta_Assault]

You use the plasma gun on tougher enemies.

[2LambBuna]

plasma gun is good for chaos marines and terminators

[Tsar Platinum]

Plasma Gun is the best weapon in the game imo when you slap a Machine Spirit on it.

Hold down left click and watch it delete Terminators, Bloat Drones, Plague Toads, etc. It ♥♥♥♥♥ hard and deletes most things pretty easily. The ammo is pretty abundant too.

Shotgun is alright for clearing out normal enemies.

[Rickystickyman]

Alright, I tested it out with the Machine Spirit and everyone was correct. Plasma Gun with Machine Spirit is genuinely useful and can mow down tough enemies.

That being said, Plasma Gun WITHOUT Machine Spirit still doesn't seem to do much higher DPS against tough enemies.


On another note, I'm finding the Chainsword rather useless. Does it have any uses later into the game? Doom and Space Marines made Chainswords work because they heal you, but in Boltgun they don't, which simply leaves you vulnerable. The chainsword was fun in the first 3 missions, but after that it seems to be a liability.

[Meowdison]

Chainsword is good for its lunge and taking out low health people, but otherwise its very dangerous to use.

[MrLuckless]

The plasma gun takes the slot for what would normally be a rocket launcher type weapon, having a blast radius that also damages you if fired to closely. Use it on big targets or groups of targets for best results. Point at feet and jump for a good time.

The shotgun is for light targets at close to medium range, can be swapped out quickly for faster firing. Paradoxically not good against hordes, as the boltgun and heavy bolter do that better. Use liberally to spare bolter ammo.

[bioxid]

Originally posted by Rickystickyman:

Alright, I tested it out with the Machine Spirit and everyone was correct. Plasma Gun with Machine Spirit is genuinely useful and can mow down tough enemies.

That being said, Plasma Gun WITHOUT Machine Spirit still doesn't seem to do much higher DPS against tough enemies.


On another note, I'm finding the Chainsword rather useless. Does it have any uses later into the game? Doom and Space Marines made Chainswords work because they heal you, but in Boltgun they don't, which simply leaves you vulnerable. The chainsword was fun in the first 3 missions, but after that it seems to be a liability.

try this : continue to tap the melee key once you have lunged.
Enjoy the kill.

[bertpigeon]

OP your original quote includes the line "cos the game encourages you to run about a lot" but i don't get that from this game at all. In fact i get that your supposed play it like a cover shooter. Strafing doens't let dodge projectiles cos enemies lead and projectiles are so fast you don't have time to change direction. So your encouraged NOT to run around and fight head on I find.

Is my game broken because i never see any comments about not being able to strafe around projectiles.

[Mastodon_2]

Once you get the machine spirit for the plasma gun, then you will realise why it exists. If you don't find the machine spirit then I agree, it does feel clunky, you just need to pop in and out of cover and reload to manage the overheating.

[StronkiTonki]

Plasma deletes Chaos Marines, even without Machine Spirit.
Just make sure you don't tap the shoot button, since it has a little reload animation similar to the Plasma Rifle in the original Doom.
Hold down the fire button and fire 5 shots to quickly take care of Chaos Marines. (Shooting more than 5 will speed it up at the cost of losing health)