Soma Prime

The Soma Prime is the Primed version of the Soma assault rifle. It primarily features greater magazine size and ammo reserves, as well as slight increases to physical damage and status chance.

Characteristics
This weapon deals primarily damage.

Advantages:
 * High fire rate, achieved after a wind up time of 5 bullets.
 * Fourth-highest critical chance of any primary weapon.
 * Rewards critical headshots more due to its high critical chance.
 * Tied for the highest critical multiplier bonus ratio of all primary weapons with its non-prime variant.
 * High accuracy.
 * Increased maximum ammo capacity.
 * Large magazine size.
 * Two polarity slots.

Disadvantages:
 * Very reliant on its high critical damage potential due to its very low base damage
 * Ill-suited against Object-based health as it nullifies any critical hits.
 * Low damage.
 * High fire rate generates high recoil, hindering accuracy.
 * Long reload span.
 * Inefficient in ammo economy.

Comparisons:


 * Soma Prime, compared to the Soma:
 * Slightly higher base damage (12.0 vs. 10.0)
 * Slightly higher damage (1.2 vs. 1.0).
 * Slightly higher damage (4.8 vs. 4.0).
 * Slightly higher damage (6.0 vs. 5.0).
 * Significantly larger magazine size (200 rounds vs. 100 rounds).
 * Significantly larger ammo capacity (800 rounds vs. 540 rounds).
 * Slightly higher status chance (10.0% vs. 7.0%).
 * Faster spool-up to maximum fire rate (5 bullets vs 8 bullets).

Weapon Loadouts
See the user build section for builds using this weapon.

Tips

 * A critical-focused build using Point Strike and/or Critical Delay combined with Vital Sense and/or Hammer Shot is the best way to mod this weapon to take advantage of its high critical chance to increase its otherwise meager base damage.
 * Firing in short bursts and landing headshots will significantly increase its efficiency.
 * Reload time can be shortened by using a melee attack when the reload timer reaches about 3/4ths. This works because the magazine is updated at this time instead of at the end, making the remaining time extraneous.
 * Due to the weapon's high rate-of-fire combined with its low base damage the Soma Prime can be ammo inefficient. Using Rifle Ammo Mutation and/or Rifle Scavenger can be used to recover a steady supply of ammo. Alternatively, ammo can be instantly replenished using Team Ammo Restores.
 * An excellent mod for this weapon is Split Chamber. Any extra bullets fired have their own chance to land a critical hit, thus increasing the damage output and ammo efficiency vastly more than it seems in the Arsenal tab.

Trivia

 * The Soma Prime was one of the first Prime items which had colourable gold parts. This trait was shared with the Vasto Prime, Nova Prime and the Pyra Prime Syandana.
 * The ring-like formation through which the Warframe holds the weapon with its left hand rotates while firing, making this one of the few primary weapons that have firing animations.
 * Like its non-Prime version, the Soma Prime's clip passes up through its receiver as it fires, with the portion of the clip consumed indicating the amount of ammo left.