Laser Shotgun

A common laser-based weapon, known for its relatively low accuracy, but significant damage. A shotgun is essentially a ZPM connected to a large capacitor and a common IR/microwave maser excitation chamber. These let off a burst of about 75kJ of thermal energy in a quarter second, then take about 8 ticks to fully recharge. Some models have capacitors which can charge in only 2-3 ticks, but these tend to burn out rather quickly, so it is common to replace them after each firing. Used capacitors can be ejected by a number of mechanisms, including the popular 'pump-action' design which ejects a used cap at the same time as slotting a fresh one (just charged from the ZPM) into place.