Plasma gun



The plasma rifle is a fully automatic weapon that fires blue-white balls of plasma. It shares the player's stock of plasma cells with the BFG 9000. Each plasma ball inflicts 5-40 points of damage.

The plasma rifle first appears in the level E2M1: Deimos Anomaly in a secret area, and in fact appears in all the levels of The Shores of Hell. It first appears in a non-secret area on E2M5: Command Center. When picked up, it contains 40 cells (80 on the I'm too young to die and Nightmare! skill levels).

Due to its high damage rate (three times that of the chaingun), the plasma rifle is effective against nearly any opponent. A continuous barrage will stop an Arachnotron in its tracks, and even reduce a Baron to about half his normal movement speed and attack frequency. Attacking flying monsters in open areas can be inefficient, however, as the first few hits push the enemy rapidly backward and to one side of the stream.

Although the plasma rifle does not inflict blast damage, firing it in close quarters demands a certain amount of concentration owing to its "auto-aiming" feature, which may steer the plasma a few degrees away from center &mdash; and possibly right into a wall &mdash; if the nearest monster is not directly in front of the player. For example, using the plasma rifle on the Cyberdemon in E4M2: Perfect Hatred, without placing oneself in his line of sight, requires aiming at a point slightly to his left.

Appearance statistics
The IWADs contain the following numbers of plasma rifles: