Plasma Launcher

English 

“	Parabolic Plasma projectile launcher which explodes on impact.	„
	~ In-game description

T3 Plasma LauncherT4 Plasma LauncherT5 Plasma LauncherT6 Plasma LauncherT7 Plasma LauncherT8 Plasma LauncherT9 Plasma LauncherT10 Plasma LauncherTX-1 Mega-Launcher

Type	Hardware
Purpose	Mid-range combat, Denial-of-area, AOE damage
Tier Available	3

The Plasma Launcher is a type of hardware cube that fires explosive plasma shots that detonate on impact. Plasma Launchers are available from Tier 3 onwards, and can be unlocked after acquiring the Top Mount SMG T3 or the Top Mount SMG T4. The in-battle symbol of a Plasma is a circle.

Overview

Unlike the SMG or Rail Cannon, all non-mega Plasma Launchers, up to 6, on a robot fire plasma bolts in a simultaneous volley. The TX-1 plasma launcher fires two volleys with a slightly randomized delay of .5-.9 seconds between the first and second volley. The reloading period that follows the volleys is three seconds with one cannon, with each additional cannon adding roughly half a second to the reload time. The plasma bolts are affected by gravity and will travel in a ballistic arc toward the ground as they travel. Upon impact with any solid matter (such as rocks, dirt, the walls of the sky box, or other robots) the bolts detonate, dealing damage to any enemy robots within a certain radius. When the plasma bolts reach their maximum range they fizzle out mid-flight, and do not deal damage.

As Plasma Launchers become progressively higher in tier, damage, explosive radius (except TX-1), gun size, mass, price, armour, robot ranking, and CPU requirement. Plasma Launchers increase in size on T5, T7, and T9, requiring more clear space around them to place. Plasma launchers from even tiers (T6, T8, and T10) remain the same size but receive improved statistics.

When a Plasma Launcher fires, it generates significant recoil. This fact is magnified by the volley fire nature of plasma launchers. Low mass robots are particularly sensitive to recoil effects and can be uncontrollable for several seconds after a plasma volley. Although wheels, thrusters and hoverblades can compensate for recoil, the best method of mitigating its effect is to make a massive robot. It is possible to limp a crippled robot short distances when it has no remaining movement cubes with the recoil from plasma launchers. This recoil effect can help if a robot has crashed or tipped over and has lost the ability to reverse out to jiggle them free, a very useful trick if an aircraft has lost its reverse thrusters and is jammed into terrain.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Great damage at medium range
• Projectile arc allows for indirect fire
• Indirect damage for when shot misses but is close to target
• Good for slow airborne robots
• Good for ambush tactics
• Best for engaging multiple targets in a confined area
• Easy to intimidate foes with high first strike damage
• All weapons fire simultaneously
• Very effective with the "Shoot and Duck" strategy
• Accuracy unaffected when moving
• Only weapon that can completely destroy multiple bots in one shot
• Best against protonium
• The Overclocking increases fire rate

Cons

• Long-range combat requires impressive skill
• Projectile travel time must to be judged carefully
• For aircraft, height needs to be calculated
• Slow projectile speed
• Slow reload time, leaving the robot mostly defenseless in close range combat with an SMG
• Slow turning rate
• Fast bots dodge it easily and hovers can hover over the AOE of a plasma
• Hard to hit fast airborne targets due to slow projectile speed
• Heavy recoil
• Can only be placed on the bottom or top side of a block
• Because of high splash damage, good opponents tend not to cluster when confronted with a plasma

Mechanics

Splash Radius Increases with Time

Plasma splash damage radius expands over the first 0.8 seconds of its flight, going from very small, to the maximum available. Long-range volleys that have at least one second of flight time will have maximum splash radius compared to shots fired at shorter range.

Damage Transfer

Plasma damage transfers according to the Barrier Protection of the cube it hits. Because of this, tank treads and helicopter blades are the most effective functional cubes for blocking plasma blast damage.

Protonium Crystals

The protonivity (scaling factor for the amount of damage dealt to protonium crystals) is 175% in the new meta. In other words, the amount of plasma damage absorbed by protonium crystals is 1.75 times of regular plasma damage otherwise. Plasma launchers have the second highest protonivity, second only to rail cannons (280%).

Placement

Plasma Launchers have limitations applied to their placement on a robot and can only be placed on the ventral and dorsal surfaces of a robot (Top and bottom). This is to prevent their placement on the sides of the front, rear, left, or right faces. This can be partially circumvented by building a bot upwards rather than flat.

Top Guns

Top guns are good for mid to long range exchanges, but require the robot to be short or hover close to the ground to strike nearby targets. They may even be unable to hit targets that are in contact, usually because they're being blocked by the robot they're mounted on. Top guns are completely unable to fire on targets below the robot, which makes them unsuitable for air-to-ground combat without very high pilot skill as it requires flying upside down to fire on targets.

Belly Guns

Belly guns are good for mid to close range exchanges, but require a robot to have a height advantage to strike at targets at long range. This height advantage can be achieved by using high terrain features, hovering high above the ground, or by being airborne. Belly guns are unable to fire on targets above a robot and are ineffective as anti-air weapons, unless a robot is above the target or the guns are maneuvered to face the target.

Strategies

Using Plasma Launchers

Plasma has a lower raw dps compared to SMG, however the reload time can be used to the plasma bots advantage. Hiding between shots has no detrimental effects on dps but mitigates a lot of incoming damage, thus it is possible to out-dps an SMG. Perfecting this technique together with aiming means mastering the weapon. Because of this it is useful to use a kind of locomotion which allows a quick move into and out of cover and increased use of electroplates. With higher Over Clock level, however, this becomes less and less effective as the reload speed is reduced, not the damage. Movement speeds are increased sufficiently to allow rush-down style moves as well. Healers should be aware that a plasma bot will hide in cover again and again during an extended fight, unlike an SMG.

In the event a plasma robot is caught in a close exchange with no backup, then it is best not to fire a premature volley without accounting for the slow traverse speed and wasting the shots. It pays to exercise patience: observe the actual facing of the plasma launchers, spend time allowing accuracy to build, and finally fire an accurate volley (with whatever plasma launchers that remain) rather then getting shot to bits while they reload after missing a wild shot. A single well placed plasma shot can destroy a robot or disable it.

Highly mobile plasma robots such as plasma hovers and speeders are very good for ambush tactics, even without the support of their team mates. Combining with high speed, high turning rates, and multiple jammers can make them unexpectedly agile in close quarters, and very effective at swarming or harassment tactics. Highly mobile robots can turn the whole robot to bring guns to bear, rather than wait for them to turn, which can significantly improve aiming time.

Well armored flying bots that use plasma are usually able to take a few shots at the enemy reactor in Battle Mode even while under heavy SMG fire. This typically puts decent dents into the reactor because of the high protonivity of the plasma. Many fast or flying plasma bots opt to do little other than repeatedly head straight into the enemy shield and take a few shots at the reactor, chipping away at its health over time.

Counter-Strategies

While plasma robots are not unable to fight at long ranges, forcing them to do so puts them at a disadvantage. The plasma bolt's arc and travel time become increasingly large issues at long distances, not to mention that targets become harder to spot and may have opportunity to move out of the way. Highly mobile robots can dodge, hovercraft and aircraft can duck under or pop over incoming volleys, while walker robots can just jump clear.

When assaulting plasma robots it is recommended to aim for movement cubes and immobilize them, or cause them to become uncontrollable and spin out. Stability is key to all plasma robots, especially airborne bombers. Not being able to aim properly due to a loss of control renders the guns only useful for desperate, last-minute shots.

Pay attention to the plasma launcher cooldown, after a plasma robot fires a volley there are a few seconds to act freely without retaliation. Use this time to run away, return fire or get a better position.

When in close and medium range with a plasma robot, keep moving, and move quickly. The relatively slow traverse time of a bot and slow projectile speed means that rapid movement may exceed the ability of a plasma launcher to track a target. Though this strategy may not prevent a robot from being hit, it can significantly reduce the damage taken. One strategy is to bait the robot to shoot so their cooldown starts and you can rush them down safely.

Any plasma bot in near your reactor in battle mode should be destroyed immediately as they are the second greatest danger to the reactor, next to nano disruptors, due to their high protonivity. A single crippled plasma bot sitting at the back of the base, firing into the reactor, will quickly accumulate chip damage.

Statistics

Plasma Charging
Plasma Ready

Guns	Firing Interval (seconds)	DPS (Tier 10)
1	3	6224.0
2	3.4	11000.5
3	3.8	14820.6
4	4.2	17934.6
5	4.6	20433.0
6+	5	22614.7

Note: The sounds for each even-tiered plasma launcher are the same as the odd-tier directly below them. This is due to their former role as S-type variants.

Image	Tier	Damage	Blast (m)	CPU	Barrier protection	Health	Mass (kg)	Ranking	Price	Price	Firing Sound	Impact Sound
	3	1402	13	18	17%	1039	13.4	131	982	55
	4	2411	14	20	18%	1801	15.1	393	2226	80
	5	3859	15	22	19%	1990	16.8	1169	4835	125
	6	5784	16	24	21%	4747	18.5	3443	9534	185
	7	8142	17	26	22%	7192	20.2	10072	17729	295
	8	10775	18	28	23%	10373	21.8	29288	34472	490
	9	14075	20	30	24%	14206	23.5	84728	61341	820
	10	17218	21	32	25%	18423	25.2	244019	111851	1355
	TX-1	12614 (x2)	21	300	30%	31260	37.8	16677182	111851	1355	-

All plasma launchers have a resistivity of 30%, including mega launchers. When fully overclocked, they have a fire rate of 3 seconds. All plasmas have a protonivity of 175% and a heal rate of 1. All plasmas are unlocked with teir-1 tech points, so the t3 launcher is unlocked with t2 tech points, and the t4 launcher is unlocked with t3 tech points.

• Note: TX-1 Mega Launcher does 12,614 damage but fires two shots, dealing a total of 25,228 per plasma launcher.
• Note 2: The second volley of shots will fire between 0.5 to 0.8 seconds after the first, with the spacing between each shot of the second volley being randomized. This random time is different for each launcher.

Obsolete

There used to be a T1 and T2 variant of the plasma launcher. They were removed, but their audio files are still in the game:

T1,T2 plasma fire
T1,T2 plasma impact

Trivia

• Prior to the patch DotM3 the area effect damage from plasma volleys does not stack on a single cube, striking a target with multiple bolts only dealt more damage if each bolt hit a different block on the robot. This was largely unknown to players.
• Plasma in real life is a high energy ionized state of matter, and will not stay in a ball without some form of containment.
• Plasma cannons were added at 11/03/2014
• Plasma and tesla blades are currently the only non-hitscan weapons in Robocraft.
• Plasma is also the only weapon currently in Robocraft which can't be placed on its side.
• For a while, the AoE damage of plasma was about 33% bigger than its visual appearance. This has since been fixed.
• Plasma Launcher is refereed as Plasma cannon in the game code
• * The general name for Plasma Launcher is refereed in code as KUBE_Plasma_cannon