instead of firing a concentrated piercing bolt that pierces targets, it fires a large explosive bolt that doesn’t pierce but explodes on impact making it possible to kill hordes or elites in an aoe than neeing to be precise, but to balance the weapon out it cannot do critical damage and causess self blast damage when fired too close, and when fully charged at high heat it fires a more powerful bolt that’s close to the pre-buffed hive ganger rocket launcher, so best to be used at range and can only fire 3-4 shots before needing to cooldown or 1-2 fully charged shots or it will explode from overheating.
and imagine a new perk for both weapon marks called cooling baubles, where getting grenade kills, or charged shot kills against elites, or under the effects of a sim grant 35% less heat generation making you able to use the gun more often than worrying about the overheating getting out of hand.
Honestly, changing the current plasma gun from high damage single shot and splash charged shot would free space in the weapons for a massively cleaving meltagun.
That’s how i always imagined it from Space Marine 1, was always a bit splashy with fun combo of peeling armor then swapping to my storm bolter … I miss my storm bolters -.- and multiple range weapons perk… (new vet Keystone 2 range weapons 75% ammo?)
full on agreed it would be great to have both, one for headshots and high piercing, and the other for pure blasting apart hordes or multiple targets without needing to aim precisely.
coming back to this I full on agree, either rework the plasma gun to have an aoe blast, or give it a variant with an aoe blast with higher heat generation.
speaking of that I think 4-5 normal shots before needing to cool down would feel more fair since it would be more forgiving if you panic fire at a horde or an elite firing at you.