I thought of this last night and realized that it would most likely never happen.

Many people have complained that the Pulsar-lines have received little to no attention and although a two-shot would be a decent nerf to it, why not apply an overheating system? The Pulsar and its upgrades seem to dictated that this should be a thing. It looks like it should be with a gun such as this that are able to expand bullets.

So how would this work?

The Overheating system would be applied universally first of all. This means that you cannot avoid it by just switching out to another variant of it. Now onto the actual mechanics of it; the Pulsar Line would receive this overheating mechanic via something like the charge bar: As you fire, it slowly starts heating up.

So what does this exactly mean for the Pulsar?

The rate of heating is applied to about a 4% increase per shot and increases the more universal damage bonuses you have up to 10%. As the player fires the weapon, the gauge is slowly filled up at a steady rate. There are three penalty thresholds:

-No Penalty (0% - 32%)
-Penalty 1 (33% - 65%) = Fire Rate is reduced and expanded shots are decreased in size. Overheating recovery rate is reduced.
-Penalty 2 (66% - 99%) = Fire Rate is heavily reduced. Overheating recovery rate is reduced.
-Penalty 3 (100%) = Bullets no longer expand and damage is decreased. Must fully recovery from overheat status before removing the penalties.

The penalties are an example and may be changed freely to whatever is desired.

The rate of recovery is completely dependent on the penalties in hand:

-No Penalty - Recover 2% every second.
-Penalty 1 - Recover 1.5% every second.
-Penalty 2 - Recover 1% every second.
-Penalty 3 - Recover 4% every second.

I can't really add anymore but I figured no matter how bad this idea is, I should suggest it because why not.