Charge rifle

Futuristic assault rifle that fires packets of energy at short to mid-range. This weapon packs a significant amount of power per shot while maintaining a high rate of fire, but is hampered somewhat by its relatively low range.

The Charge Rifle currently has the second highest DPS of all equippable weapons in the game, topped only by the Minigun, but is more effective than the Minigun in most situations due to its much higher accuracy and lower warmup and cooldown times. For this reason, charge rifles are an ideal counter to heavily-armored enemies like Centipedes if you don't have access to EMP or Frag grenades. Charge rifles can be seen equipped by elite mercenary raiders in the mid-late game onwards, but can also be purchased from traders, or crafted at a machining table, once charged shot is researched.

Due to the range limitations , it's not the worst of ideas to mix in a few colonists with assault rifles or survival rifles to pick off enemies at longer ranges, while the charge rifles generally rip enemies to shreds at closer ranges.

Trivia

Charged-shot weapons are also referred to as Tokamak weapons in the fiction primer. They fire projectiles coated in a matrix of magnetically-contained charged particles. On impact, the energy in the particles is released in a very efficient explosion. These require high amounts of power to fire and are powered by hex-cells at small scales (like Charge Rifles), or fusion reactors in the case of large cannons.

Weapons