The Holoshield Launcher is a weapon manufactured by Vox Industries in Deadlocked. It launches holographic shields which protect Ratchet from all incoming projectiles and serves as a barrier for enemies. The Holoshield Launcher can be acquired upon reaching Catacrom Four for 20,000 bolts. With use, it can be upgraded to the Omni-shield Launcher, which causes holoshields to shoot energy-based attacks back at enemies. When in challenge mode, it can be upgraded to the Mega Omni-shield Launcher for 750,000 bolts.
The Holoshield Launcher is a small blue and silver weapon with some yellow highlights and glowing blue areas on the front side from which shields are fired. The Omni-shield Launcher is slightly bulkier with more metallic highlights. The shields fired are blue and largely transparent, with metallic sides that project the barrier inbetween them. It is a technologically improved version of the Gadgetron Holoshield Glove, and uses patented quantum technology to allow the user's shots to pass through while blocking enemy fire.[1]
Gameplay[]
The Holoshield Launcher in action.
The Holoshield launcher is the only defensive weapon in the game, and its shields are the best option to defend onself when overwhelmed by enemy fire and in need of cover. Though they only block enemy's projectiles passing through and not the enemies themselves, they do apply any effects from omega mods onto the enemies. Outside of this, they do not deal damage, and the weapons upgrade by absorbing attacks instead (where quantity seems to matter far more than quality).
A maximum of four shields can be placed at a time (or five/six if fired fast enough using five/ten Speed Mods). Attempting to fire more causes the weapon to lock up, which can only be remedied by waiting for less than four shields to be active. Shields can overlap with each other as well, although this has no practical benefit. When a shield is about to expire, its sides will flash red and begin to make a warning noise.
When upgraded to the Omni-shield Launcher, its holoshields will shoot back at nearby enemies when hit with energy-based attacks. These attacks do not deal a lot of damage, but can generally be considered better than nothing (and allow a better attack vector for the more direct-offensive omega mods). The best omega mod in practice is generally the Shock Mod, which is a simple and cost-effective way at getting rid of swarmer-type enemies. Any other mods are generally ineffective due to the limited damage dealt by the shields. Similarly, the only genuinely useful alpha mod is the Ammo Mod.
The Mega Omni-shield Launcher at higher levels produces shields with an incredibly long lifespan, of up to 54 seconds at maximum level. This turns into a downside as the launcher cannot replace old shields until they have expired on their own. This can result in inconvenience waiting many seconds for the shields to expire, or not being able to defend oneself using the shields if advancing before the shields expire. The Omni-shield Launcher at level 10 suffers somewhat from this flaw as the shields last 28 seconds.