Disintegration Pulse Emitter

The Disintegration Pulse Emitter is a tough, high-damage ESC 1 Transhuman weapon that can decimate enemy forces at close range. Its special ability allows it to damage all enemy targets within its effective range, making it very proficient at securing chokepoints and holding back enemy advances.

Story
The need for a cheap yet powerful short-range weapon is what drove the creation of the Disintegration Pulse Emitter shortly after Transhumanity entered the Arena Conflict. The first incarnations of the weapon were spawned from a prototype defensive structure that used energy pulses to destroy incoming enemy projectiles, known as the Defense Pulse Emitter. While it was a novel idea, the structure's short effective range and limited usefulness against anything other than physical projectiles barred it from entering the Transhuman arsenal, and it never left prototyping. However, many of the technologies used by this prototype structure were repurposed when the Transhuman military was looking to create a less costly alternative to the Hyperthermium Sprayer, which had been one of the only weapons in the Transhuman arsenal explicitly dedicated to close-range combat for quite some time. Most of the technology present in the Defense Pulse Emitter was retained in its militarized counterpart, but there were some distinct changes that had to be made if it was to serve the role of a short-range weapon in the Transhuman arsenal. The pulse emission technology, which tears apart matter at the molecular level with proton-vibration macroradiation, has had its power greatly amplified, making the weapon now capable of dealing significant damage to enemy infrastructure. Since these emissions are normally indiscriminate in what infrastructure they damage when being released, newly-developed "smart particle" technology has been incorporated into the primary emitter. Via a thin molecular drone swarm, pulses can intelligently bend around Transhuman infrastructure, leaving it intact while they simultaneously damage all enemy infrastructure in the weapon's range.

The greatest draw of the Disintegration Pulse Emitter has always been its paltry effective range. Unfortunately, dramatically increasing the strength of the emitter's energy pulses also increased their instability, causing said pulses to lose cohesion and disperse rather quickly after being released. Attempts at refining emitter technology to keep pulses stable for longer have not been very successful, as most attempts also reduce the strength of the weapon, sometimes to the point at which it is no longer usable. The most promising prototypes of a new emitter weapon, which make use of experimental quark-neuron cohesion field technology, exist at the Gadthiir Military Research Facility, and are known as Devastator Pulse Emitters.

Gameplay
One of the greatest threats to a Transhuman player in the early game is another equally aggressive player, and thankfully, the Disintegration Pulse Emitter exists specifically to keep Transhuman players safe from fast enemy advances by dealing high area damage and locking down important parts of the map. With high durability and damage output, Disintegration Pulse Emitters are tough frontline weapons that easily hold back enemy forces if they fire repeatedly. This functionality is especially important when playing against other aggressive races, such as the Halax or Psipsid Combine, who can match the territorial extent of Transhumanity even in the early game thanks to their teleportation and Psi capture abilities, respectively. On maps with tight chokepoints, a well-placed Disintegration Pulse Emitter can completely bar an enemy player from accessing the rest of the map if it is built early on. Even if a Military Block is not located on your frontline, it helps to have a Disintegration Pulse Emitter on every Military Block you have built. This allows said Blocks to keep themselves safe if your territory starts to shrink, and can help diminish the effects of invasive enemy superweapons like the Psi Nova. This means that Disintegration Pulse Emitters can remain useful long after you upgrade past ESC 1, as their short-range area denial is a crucial advantage Transhuman players won't want to sacrifice.

In addition to area denial, the Disintegration Pulse Emitter can serve a support role by hampering enemy weapons and shields with the Crippling Disintegrator Pulses upgrade. This upgrade allows the weapon to apply damage debuffs to enemy weapons it hits and disable enemy shields, making it much more destructive overall. Not only does this upgrade improve the Disintegration Pulse Emitter's ability to hold back enemy advances, it also allows it to take on a secondary support role by weakening enemy forces at the frontlines that your other weapons can then pick off. This becomes especially important in the late game, when some races, particularly the Druko, gain access to a multitude of new defensive options that allow them to better resist Transhuman assaults. Combined with other powerful short-range weapons, the Disintegration Pulse Emitter is a force to be reckoned with.