Line Gun

The IM-822 Handheld Ore Cutter Line Gun, known simply as the Line Gun, was a wide-beamed mining tool of the same broad family as the Plasma Cutter, built to cut heavier ore than lighter equipment could manage. Like the cutter, it was carried as an improvised weapon by survivors of the Necromorph outbreaks, including Isaac Clarke aboard the USG Ishimura.

Function and design#

The Line Gun was built for heavy cutting work. Where the Plasma Cutter was suited to softer minerals, the Line Gun was made for the heavier ore the cutter could not get through. Its primary function fired a broad horizontal beam of energy, working on the same principle as the cutter's sideways mode but across a far wider line, capable at full width of spanning around two meters, with the beam narrowing or widening to suit the space available.

The tool is thought to have used a thermal cutting system. The electrical charge it fired was converted into thermal energy when it struck a target, producing tunneling fractures and expansion in ore slabs that sheared them away from asteroids for extraction. Surfaces struck by the beam were left with a red-orange glow that faded after a few seconds, and pushing the tool harder shifted the beam's color from blue toward orange, both of which pointed to heat as the cutting mechanism. The beam traveled at a speed visible to the eye, slower than the near-instant bolt of the Plasma Cutter, and it could carry through narrow gaps or dissipate against a space too tight to pass.

The mine function and use#

The Line Gun's secondary function deployed a laser device. In its earlier form this was a timed mine that, when it detonated, threw out a display of lasers that cut through anything nearby, a tool a miner could set amid loose rock or debris. The mine took time to arm, so it was best laid ahead of where it was needed. In a later configuration aboard the Ishimura the secondary function was reworked into a stationary laser trap that damaged whatever crossed its beams and could be set with multiple beams to cover an area, the device recoverable afterward if it went unused.

Carried as a weapon, the Line Gun put its width to obvious use. The broad horizontal beam could pass through several Necromorphs at once and, against a charging Slasher or a Pregnant with its arms raised, could cut through both arms and the head in a single shot, which made it a favored tool for clearing a crowded corridor or for bringing down the regenerating Ubermorph when its limbs needed to be taken quickly. Its laser mines were equally hazardous to the user, and a survivor had to take care not to step into the beams of a device of his own.