Usually found mounted on large capital ships. Produces a ruinous amount of damage that cannot be withstood by ships' defenses for long.
A Plasma Cannon is a large, arcane weapon which is difficult to manufacture and maintain. Those captains who can afford to do so are rewarded with one of the most devastating weapons platforms employed in the Sector.
Plasma Cannons are related to Graviton and Phase Beams, in that they use the properties of brane physics to deliver their payloads. A plasma cannon shell is a microfusion bomb which uses gravitic and baryonic lens to focus its energy inward. The resulting explosion creates plasma which is contained by a temporary mini-universe anomaly, while magnetic drivers mounted on the forward pylons accelerate it toward the target. The containment field lasts only a couple of seconds, which is usually enough for the anomaly to reach a target. If the convex hull of the field is not breached by ordinary matter/energy delivering least 9 kN, the higher brane will absorb the destructive plasma, and it will vanish from our dimension forever.
–In-Game Description
The Plasma Cannon is a large energy weapon. It is the weapon with the highest OP cost in the game. It cannot target fighters.
Notes[]
The Plasma Cannon is a high DPS, flux-expensive energy weapon that fills the role of a general-purpose weapon that is versatile in a variety of combat situations. The nature of the weapon's flux costs makes it such that the AI finds it difficult to use the Plasma Cannon and other weapon mounts in tandem with a safe and efficient approach. That being said, Safety Overrides addresses the shortcomings involved with the flux cost/flux dissipation dilemma, and can make this weapon a terrifying threat on smaller ships that otherwise wouldn't be able to fire it for long, such as the Sunder. The Champion would similarly benefit when overdriven. The Odyssey and Paragon both possess robust flux pools in combination with their large energy slots, and therefore are excellent candidates for a Plasma Cannon in-slot.
Heavy Machine Guns are excellent partners to the Plasma Cannon for Safety Overridden builds.
