A new advancement in the area of Dark Energy Reactor technology has been made, making the Dark Energy Assault rifles easier to mass produce. As a result, they are now used widely by the Synth Soldiers and new dark energy weapon has been derived from this. With Hardlight rifles now being used as Designated Marksman weapons and Sniper rifles, this is widely considered the end of the plasma era. This is a somewhat deceptive label, as while Ground Combat has mostly replaced plasma, space combat still makes heavy use of plasma weapons. Regardless, it's dominance is considered to be over. On top of this, the Triarii have succeeded in creating a rapid fire hardlight weapon. As a result, this has replaced some weaponry that Plasma once had dominence in, such as heavy machine guns