Name: Nightingale Plasma Rifle
Owner: Galactic Systems Union
Creator: Blizzard Tech

Development Thread: https://convergencerp.rpg-board.net/t1173-gsu-weapons-development

Type: Automatic Rifle
Ammunition: Plasma
Rarity: Common

Strengths:
The Nightingale uses superheated, ionized gases as its ammunition - which is plasma. The plasma fired by the weapon is extremely hot and is able to burn through flesh instantaneously. It is devastating against energy shielding and can reduce objects or armour made out of metal to molten slab under concentrated fire.
The Nightingale is also an automatic weapon, which means it can be fired in sustained bursts to ensure maximum effectiveness against the enemy.
Each plasma bolt is tightly compressed and guided by a magnetic field generator. Upon impact, the field drops and the plasma is explosively released from its confines, which adds more damage on top of the initial impact. The radius of the explosion is one meter approximately while objects and unprotected organisms in the immediate vicinity are likely to receive severe burns.

Weaknesses:
The Nightingale fires plasma rounds which are extremely hot. As such, sustained fire (tested to be at around 15 seconds) can cause the weapon to overheat. An automatic failsafe installed in the rifle causes the weapon to abort firing and dump waste heat through small vents located on each side to cool the weapon down, which lasts for 5 seconds and can leave the user open to attack.

Description:
The Nightingale is an automatic weapon with a maximum effective range of 500 meters. The weapon utilises a battery pack integrated into a "magazine" that is inserted into the underside of the weapon, directly below the trigger. The battery pack allows for approximately 5000 shots to be fired before depleting. Initial designs had integrated a self-renewing battery pack that could recharge on its own but it proved to be too unreliable due to slow recharge rates. The battery pack, once depleted, can be replaced by new ones in a similar way to how loading a new magazine into a rifle works.

The weapon features magnetic field generators that shape and guide the plasma bolt towards its target. The generators siphon power off the battery pack in order to do this and allow for 960 bolts to be fired a minute. After the bolts reach the maximum range of 500 meters, the magnetic field collapses and disperses the plasma.

The rifle also features an ammunition counter located on a diagonal section of the rifle, above one of the side vents. A smart-link system connects the Nightingale to the user's HUD should they have them which displays for them the rifle's ammunition count as well as its targeting reticule. The Nightingale is composed of a material that represents carbon fibre but has the strength and density of titanium referred to as Kalgenite.

Approved