An upgraded plasma cannon will take down the doors in a few shots, as will an upgraded scatter blaster.

I've found that the best way (for me) to open the door is to make a low, slow pass and use the ship's photon cannon on it. Works wonders!

Also a fun to take out the drones and quads with the ship. Damned drones can take a lot of damage, not to mention that they're tiny and hard to see. Good flying and targeting practice, tho. Got a couple of screenshots with a drone jammed between the ship's wing and fuselage. Tough litle critters.

My experience with the boltcaster was, that the moment I added an upgrade adding ricochet, the shots would simply bounce off of reinforced steel doors. I consider this to be a bug.

Adding to dashiichis good advise about the plasma launcher, it really does absolutely insane damage. I am able to take down a walker with a few well aimed shots with an all S Class upgrade setup.

And besides the geology canon it really is the best weapon for accidentially killing yourself by blowing your feet off.

Also, the grenades can bounce back, if an upgrade provides for that functionality (does damage to doors, nonetheless, when properly aimed). Which makes for great fun.

I use a combination of the plasma launcher and the blaze javelin. I've never used the blaze javelin before NEXT, so I don't know, if it always was as powerful as now, but I am able to one-shot the armored sentinels, provided I manage to hit them precisely in the center of their glowing eye -- but maybe it's just some critical hit chance (again, using S Class upgrades and the C class Mass Accellerator).

Also, the blaze javelin is great for longer range shots, and easily recharged with (condensed) carbon, instead of requiring pre-fabricated ammunition. Drawback is, that currently neither the combat scope and the blaze javelin can't be used at the same time, nor any other secondary weapon I've tried.

And it need's time to charge up for powerful shots, so you need to try and keep a little distance between the thugs and yourself. But when you plan on using the plasma launcher, keeping your distance really should become a habit, anyway. As should looking up into the skies, before right-clicking yoiur way out of menues, if you didn't remap the secondary weapon to another key :o)

Isn't the ricochet described in the description of the module? In that case you should report it on their zendesk at https://hellogames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Yes, it is mentioned. That's how I knew the modules actually added ricochet to the bolt caster.

The buggy behaviour came into play, when I couldn't deal any damage at all, not even a tiny bit, to reinforced steel doors.

I doubt, that this 100% projectile reflection rate, rendering a powerful weapon into less than a can opener by adding a very expensive perk, works as planned. Especially, since you can't see beforehand, if the module adds ricochet -- at least not without buy-try-and-reload.

I'm fine with the reinforced steel doors posing a challenge, if ricochet is enabled, otherwise. And the fireworks look great :)

AFAIK all S-rank upgrades to the boltcaster add ricochet :/

I honestly can't call it a bug, because that's what I thought ricochet means. Bouncing off an object.

That you can't tell if an upgrade adds ricochet is a bug on the other hand.

Shots still bounce and do no damage to reinforced doors and Sentinel debris in 1.58.

Since the NEXT update I can no longer 1 or 2 shot the reinfored doors with a plasma grenade. I have 3 S upgrades to the plasma grenade. It took me some time to figure out a way to do it. Now I always make a manual save first. Then stand off to one side, maybe a 15* angle and get just close enough that the doors damage icon appears. It now takes 4-6 plasma grenades for me to crack the door. I killed myself many times before I figured it out.

I've used Dashiichi ship and photon cannon method and it works too. My hauler flys like a hot air ballon, terrible, and was awkward when the manufactoring center was next to a mountain.

The only thing my boltcaster does is kill biological horrors with some ricohets. Maybe I''ll try some the blaze javlin, its just the high cost of nanites for all the S upgrades makes it hard to take a chance on something new.

Good Luck Interloper.

maybe do a test run in creative? you only need 1 nanite to purchase the s class upgrades and while it takes some time to get the upgrades it is far cheaper and less likely to harm your regular save. also you can test all the weapon types at once to see what works best.

Thanks scimuse, good idea.. I forgot about the other modes and creative. A good way to try it out without the risk. Thanks.

Problems with reinforced doors ?? With my Plasma Launcher + only 3 upgrades to it I'm in the building within 15 seconds...Without shooting once to any sentinel.

I have an A class experimental Mutlitool with ~+29 to damage so take this with a grain of salt but with 3x S class plasma grenade upgrades I get through reinforced doors in 3x shots every time.

OTOH, I have managed to kill myself more times than I can count using it and by orders of magnitude more often that I died from day 1 through the day prior to the release of NEXT. Plasma launchers with 3x S class upgrades will one shot any player even with 6x S class defense class upgrades.

If you're using a rifle and not getting through reinforced doors with an upgraded plasma launcher in 6-7 shots something is wrong.

I have a lightly modded Scatter Blaster that can take the door out in 4 shots. So, it's not the issue of being able to open a door. This issue is that the upgrade to a certain weapon, the bolt caster, removes functionality, not improves it.. Since the ricochet is an automatic addition with A & S class upgrades, they're effectively useless (and a waste of resources) to acquire.