Charged particle beams

Charged Particle Beams is an upgrade available to the Black Hand subfaction of Nod. It grants Confessor Cabals with a significant power boost and shredder turrets with increased rate of fire and accuracy in the form of green particle beams. It costs 1000 credits to purchase at the Tech Lab. It replaces Nod's Spitfire laser capacitors and the Marked of Kane's Supercharged particle beams.

If both a Black Hand Tech Lab and Marked of Kane Awakened infantry are available, the Awakened will be affected by the upgrade and gain the particle beam to replace their machine gun attack. This beam is surprisingly powerful when used by the Awakened, even against vehicles and structures, as the machine gun becomes a particle beam launcher similar to that of unupgraded Enlightened. The easiest way to do this is to play the Tacitus Regained mission, build the Black Hand tech tree after the player gets a Black Hand MCV, and research the upgrade. The player will already have access to Awakened since he starts out with the Marked of Kane. This anomaly was removed in the unofficial 1.02+ patch.

Changelog

 * Kane's Wrath patch 1.01:
 * cost/research time decreased by 66%/50%
 * damage bonus to Shredder Turrets decreased 60%