Plasma Colour Research & Spire Surge

When designing the weaponry for Blackout, we discussed what colour the weapons should produce in terms of energy and what type of ammunition the weapons should fire, we settled on a plasma type of energy since it's re-occurring across the sci-fi genre. We started considering the colour during the design of the plasma sword, since we'd already carried out colour research that spans across the entire game we needed to also see what colour real plasma produces and what/why it produces certain colours, we ideally wanted to find a type of plasma that fit in with the colours we chose across the entire game. We'd already decided as a team that orange and purple were going to be primary colours, we decided on the weapons having a orange aura about them with a grey pixel styled casing, one of the connotations we came across was that orange means energy so we thought it felt nicely with the weapons producing alot of energy and it relates the alien planet in Blackout being organic. We wanted either a lifeforce/poisoning type of energy surging across the alien planet, like the planet was breathing or slowly dying so we wanted to use purple for that, it represented both power and toxicity and it also works well with orange as you can see in the following images, here are some research on plasma colours and orange and purple relativity:

Gas that produces certain coloured Plasma

Gas that produces certain coloured Plasma

We looked at the official colour wheel showing tertiary and secondary colours, on the colour wheel the opposing colours compliment eachother, here are multiple takes on the official colour wheel showing complimentary colours and how purple relates to both yellow and orange, purples primary complimentary colour is yellow, however its also shares relativity with orange as its opposite it on the colour wheel:

Here are some official Science forums illustrating what gases produces certain colours for both display and physical uses, we liked an orange/redish colour for the plasma blade/guns and since most plasma cutting tools are used for precision it works in tandem with our guns/melee weapon being precision instruments, here is an article on an official welding webpage demonstrating how a industry plasma cutter works, you'll also see that the cutting plasma emits an orange aura: