I heard some people discussing how UFOs shoot plasma, when they don't appear to have any weapons. It got me thinking, and I came up with a cool idea which I've been tossing around in my head the past few days and developing. I already have mechanical lore written up on how it functions, and I have also drawn some (rudimentary) tile artwork to put it into the game. I was saving it as a reveal for my upcoming mod, but after hearing more people talking about the topic I figured I'd share what I have early. It not only provides a method for UFOs to shoot plasma, but actually makes it very alien as well. If you like it, perhaps you can sample my idea and put it into your own mods? One of the things I like best in this community is when we agree on the fanon and sample the same thing into multiple mods.
If any of you make upgrades to my idea, I'll be sure to slip them into my mod!
The basic idea is that the UFOs have a "plasma emitter" which is a bulb of high-power focusing components which accepts the hot, prepared plasma and wraps it into a gravity bubble which it then sends off in a direction determined by the firing computer. It uses no barrel, but rather the same mechanisms which control the UFO's direction of travel control the direction of fire. The power to run it is drawn from the powergrid system running redundant through the UFO hull and (as referenced in the UFO Construction UFOPedia report) uses the hull itself to shape the gravity waves. The plasma is stored as a "cold" substance which is fed into the initiators at the ends of the array. It is heated until it goes into gas (super critical) phase, then run through the heating array at high pressure until it goes well past the plasma point. You can see the mechanism on the top of the UFO in my example image.
I made it into a mod you can plug in and play! It took a small effort which was difficult for me, but I did it because I love you. The mod is designed to be used with vanilla or modded OXC but I didn't put much time into balancing anything. It's really just a demo. If you install it, it'll add new ingredients to your plasma beam and fusion ball recipes. It will also increase Elerium yields from landed sites a bit, and cause you to get some Elerium from crash sites.
As always, I welcome any discussion relating to the topic, and I hope to hear your interpretations, suggestions for revision, and relevant technical expertise.
