Why I feel Plasma Drill is not worth playing.

1. Self failing with less than a Mad Science 3. Playing a number of cards to increase your mad science allow you to succeed playing Plasma Drill, but that heavily adds to the investment in playing the card.
2. 5 value puts heavy restrictions on what gadgets you can build in your deck.
3. Playing it boots the MS who must then either trade it to another dude who will also boot, or you wait to use on a subsequent turn. There are some means of managing this cost such as Marty It adds heavily to the comburance of playing Plasma Drill.
4. 4 Gr to buy and another 1 to use. 5GR to make your opponent either discard a deed, or pay up maybe 2 or 3. While you might keep zapping their deed every turn, that’s a hefty cost.
5. This incredible investment to hurt your opponents wealth a few ghost rock is not enough to make Plasma Drill worth playing on it's own, so you have to then further invest in cards like The Place or more Plasma Drills to make it worth it.

To end it all, I would simply suggest playing more stud dudes with influence and cards with movement abilities. Parking a dude on their deed costs them more than using Plasma Drill most times. Since Plasma Drill leaves your dudes booted on their deed or in TS, you’ll have to fight it out the same as you would over simply putting your dude on their deed.