What's the point of the Plasma Blaster?

[Malidictus]

Is it just me, or is the Plasma Blaster absolute garbage? What, really, is its point other than making me confuse it for the Blaster Launcher thanks to the similar-ish names? What does it do that the other Powered Weapons don't do? Let's consider what else I can put in my SPARK/WAR Suit Heavy Weapon Slot.

A Blaster Launcher: Both the Plasma Blaster and the Blaster Launcher do the same amount of damage, except the Blaster Launcher has absurd range, a large spherical AoE and the ability to auto-path to its target around terrain. The Plasma Blaster, in comparison, is a single line which I've personally found next to impossible to actually line up through multiple targets. This seems like a bum deal.

A Shredstorm Cannon: While the Plasma Blaster and the Shredstorm cannon appear to have the same cone range, the Shredstorm Cannon deals more damage, has a far wider cone (IS a cone in the first place) and shreds 4 points of armour. Due to its length, firing it from the correct spot can rival the Blaster Launcher for destructive potential. Meanwhile, the Plasma Blaster does less damage, covers less area and doesn't shred armour. This seems like a bum deal.

Hellfire Projector: The Hellfire Projector actually does marginally less damage than the Plasma Blaster, doesn't penetrate through cover/walls and is ineffective against robotic units. However, the Hellfire Projector also ignites organic enemies for bonus damage and covers the area in flames, denying mobility. Against organic enemies, it's a tactically useful weapon. The Plasman Blaster, on the other hand, just does a little more damage, typically to a single target. This seems like a bum deal.

So... Under what circumstances should I even use the Plasma Blaster, then? Because from my perspective, it just sucks.

[DownSouth05]

After experincing the Plasma Blaster once, I stopped wasting time even researching it.

The Hell Fire projector sounds cool, but the short range of all flame based weapons requires the user to be too close to the enemy which puts them in danger as they have to move away from the squad, or the whole squad has to move with them and then everyone is too close to the enmey. So, IMO its also a waste of time and resources to bother with.

The Shredstorm cannon is my choice as it does more damage to more targets and it destroys cover as well.

The Blaster Launcher equipped by a higher ranked user ( more accurate targeting ) is more useful as LOS is not required.

[Malidictus]

Yeah, I don't use the Hellfire Projector, either, but it still seems less useless than the Plasma Blaster. At least in theory, it can hit multiple enemies, set them on fire, panic them and it leaves fire on the ground. It does SOMETHING.

I've been experimenting with Rainmaker lately (chiefly trying to let my Grenadiers use it) and it DOES seem to improve the Plasma Blaster quite a bit. It widens the beam to 3 blocks width, as opposed to 1 block width. But even then, what's the point? I can see literally no reason to use the thing over the Shredstorm Cannon or the Blaster Launcher, with or without Rainmaker.

And incidentally, whoever hard-coded all the SPARK abilities to such an extent, shame on you!

[talemore]

Maybe the blaster was supposed to ignore armor instead of shredstorm having both advantages. We'll never know for sure if and what purpose the plasma blaster was supposed to do than being different than another superweapon.

[Insufferable Smartypants]

Sometimes its about the right tool for the job. You can kill a duck with a nuke, but maybe you want the meat and not just a pile of dust and a couple of singed feathers.

Plasma blaster can hit an enemy (or even a couple of enemies) that are right smack in the middle of friendlies or mission-critical targets that you don't want dead. It's absolutely a situational weapon, but having that ability can be nice from time to time.

[Nasarog]

It's the right tool for the right job. THink of it as a sniper shot that can hit multiple targets in a single line.

[Malidictus]

Also - has anyone noticed that the in-game "range" display for most of the heavy weapons is absolute nonsense? They're all listed as having a range of 25, which near as I can tell means nothing. That's because the weapons' AoE shape (Radius, Cone, Line, etc.) are set in the skills that these weapons grant, and those skills pull their AoE stats from a completely different config file.

Take the Shredder Gun, for instance. XComGameData_WeaponData defines:

SHREDDERGUN_RANGE=25
SHREDDERGUN_RADIUS=12

And that's what gets displayed in the armoury UI. Unfortunately, the weapon's actual are of effect is defined as:

ConeEndDiameter = default.SHREDSTORM_TILE_WIDTH * class'XComWorldData'.const.WORLD_StepSize;
ConeLength = default.SHREDSTORM_TILE_LENGTH * class'XComWorldData'.const.WORLD_StepSize;

where

SHREDDER_GUN_TILE_LENGTH=15
SHREDDER_GUN_TILE_WIDTH=5

Basically, the above means a 15-tile-long cone with a 5-tile-wide far side. Its range would actually be 15 and it should display an "Angle" stat instead of a "Radius" stat which means nothing. Incidentally, the angle in this case would be ~15.21 degrees. I think, that calculation is done in World Units, not Tiles in-engine.

Point is, the stats lie for no reason.

[DownSouth05]

I have to agree about the stats being way off. For instance the Shredder gun and the Shredstorm Cannon both show a range of 25, yet the cannon will reach well beyond what the base gun can hit.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Skinny_Legs:

I have to agree about the stats being way off. For instance the Shredder gun and the Shredstorm Cannon both show a range of 25, yet the cannon will reach well beyond what the base gun can hit.

With some further investigation, I discovered that some weapons do actually display their real stats. Anything that's a radial AoE - Rocket Launcher and Blaster Launcher - will use the same stats for range and radius as it displays in the UI. You can trust the stats on those Heavy Weapons. Anything that's a line AoE - Plasma Blaster - will use the same stat for range as it displays in the UI. It won't use its radius stat whatsoever, however. You can trust the range stat, but disregard the radius stat, essentially.

Everything else is a cone and uses entirely separate stats defined in their own separate config file. Sometimes the real stats match, sometimes they don't. For anything that's a cone - both Flamethrowers, both Shredder Guns - you can safely ignore both the Range and the Radius numbers from the UI. Their actual numbers are the following:

SHREDDER_GUN_TILE_LENGTH=15
SHREDDER_GUN_TILE_WIDTH=5
SHREDSTORM_TILE_LENGTH=25
SHREDSTORM_TILE_WIDTH=6
FLAMETHROWER_TILE_LENGTH=15
FLAMETHROWER_TILE_WIDTH=5

*edit*
Here "tile width" refers to the width of the cone at the end of its range, though I don't know if that's straight-line length of arc length. Haven't dug in deep enough. These stats are given in tiles, but they're calculated in Unreal Engine World Units.

[learnedhand]

The point of the plasma blaster is to raise the cost of the op shred storm cannon and blaster launcher. Dilute the pool make it harder to get the endgame stuff or be blessed by rng.

Seriously though, I'd take plasma blaster over the flamethrowers anyday. The useful thing about plasma blaster is it goes through walls/cover so there are plenty of situations when that can be really useful.

[Aranador]

I modded the blaster to have 3 shots.

[Malidictus]

Three shots sounds a bit much, especially when it can be extended to a line three blocks wide with Rain Maker, but two shots might not be a bad idea. I wonder if making the ability ignore armour might also help. Either way, though, I generally got my answer from this thread. Thank you everybody.

[Aleera]

It has it's uses.
It ignores any and all armor.
It's a surgical tool compared to the heavy area destruction the others do.

I for one never bring the blaster launcher. It's excessive, destroys cover I would use in 2 turns. And on missions where you have to get supplies, it's a liability.

[Algol]

The addition of the Lost gave the Hellfire Projector and Plasma Blaster a new life. Both don't count as explosions and both can clear out large groups of the Lost with the Plasma Blaster beam being actually possible to line up. Aaaaaand that's it:)