Plasma Guns - Page 2

AlexanderHowl · 01-28-2018, 09:02 AM

Plasma also acts like a living thing and will fight any foam of guidance. Beyond the barrel of a weapon, it will go anywhere, and it is just as likely to strike back at the person firing it as it will hit the designated target. Storing high temperature plasma beyond a few seconds in anything smaller than a main battle tank also seems to be superscience.

The most realistic version of a plasma gun would instead be an array of hundreds of small lasers diodes that deal damage through heating the surface of the target into an explosive plasma (damaging the target and anyone nearby). It would actually be a very efficient weapon at origin, though atmospheric losses would limit its range. In effect, it would be a low range, high damage version of a pulse laser.

Ulzgoroth · 01-28-2018, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Plasma also acts like a living thing and will fight any foam of guidance. Beyond the barrel of a weapon, it will go anywhere, and it is just as likely to strike back at the person firing it as it will hit the designated target.

Are you talking ball lightning or something? There's nothing about plasma that would enable it to 'resist' the 'guidance' of being fired at high velocities away from the shooter and toward a target.

clu2415 · 01-28-2018, 12:55 PM

Clearly you’ll have to wear protective gear to fire this thing. How much would it warm up the surrounding air? What effects would the plasma pellet’s passing have on, say, a shrubbery or an unprotected human? What kind of forces would the target experience when the plasma pellet expands?

AlexanderHowl · 01-28-2018, 01:47 PM

Charged plasma is insanely difficult to contain, especially in the amount necessary to cause damage, just look at the last fifty years of plasma physics research. Solar flares occur when the sun's plasma escapes the gravitational and magnetic confinement of the sun. A sidearm is not going to have any chance of guiding or even containing charged plasma without superscience.

As for the effects of plasma on everything else, it really depends on energy levels. 1 kJ of energy is enough for a laser to be deadly, but that is because of its ability to penetrate. Superscience plasma bolts would probably require 1 MJ of energy, meaning that they would cause a line of 1 burn damage from the weapon to the target, setting paper and dry leaves on fire.

Ulzgoroth · 01-28-2018, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Charged plasma is insanely difficult to contain, especially in the amount necessary to cause damage, just look at the last fifty years of plasma physics research. Solar flares occur when the sun's plasma escapes the gravitational and magnetic confinement of the sun. A sidearm is not going to have any chance of guiding or even containing charged plasma without superscience.

Directing is probably a bit easier than containing. But I hope nobody is imagining that the OP's plasma packets could be anything but superscience.

Also, there's no reason to assume this to be significantly charged plasma, unless the confinement technology requires it to be. It's still hard to contain - Agemegos's post included the pressures involved...

Agemegos · 01-28-2018, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Directing is probably a bit easier than containing. But I hope nobody is imagining that the OP's plasma packets could be anything but superscience.

Superduperscience at least!

Flyndaran · 01-28-2018, 03:40 PM

Ah, but how quickly cooled will it get with all the pseudoscience hand-waving?
I kid.
This whole thing seems to rest more on justifying the use of the word plasma than actually dealing with the effects of real plasma.

warellis · 01-28-2018, 04:06 PM

It's probably just using the standard scifi plasma which is generally generated within a firing chamber of some type and then shunted out the barrel, wrapped in some form of magnetic containment that degrades slowly enough over the distance the plasma is accelerated that it is contained until it hits something.

Normally in fiction, said plasma is hot enough that even near misses will cause flash burns and such on targets or, if they're in some form of armor, often heat it up uncomfortably. If it's a near miss I mean.

Ulzgoroth · 01-28-2018, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Ah, but how quickly cooled will it get with all the pseudoscience hand-waving?
I kid.
This whole thing seems to rest more on justifying the use of the word plasma than actually dealing with the effects of real plasma.

That seems like a pretty fair statement about everything pertaining to plasma weapons.

Minuteman37 · 01-28-2018, 04:34 PM

The Plasma is "bottled" at a fusion reactor so to speak, and the energy loss while "bottled" is marginal. In terms of energy storage it may leak faster then a normal battery, but the shelf life is manageable for a smallarm.

The "bottled" plasma is then thrown by whatever means at the target, cracks and vents it's contents.

That's pretty much how I envision this thing working.

01-28-2018, 09:02 AM	#11
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Plasma Guns Plasma also acts like a living thing and will fight any foam of guidance. Beyond the barrel of a weapon, it will go anywhere, and it is just as likely to strike back at the person firing it as it will hit the designated target. Storing high temperature plasma beyond a few seconds in anything smaller than a main battle tank also seems to be superscience. The most realistic version of a plasma gun would instead be an array of hundreds of small lasers diodes that deal damage through heating the surface of the target into an explosive plasma (damaging the target and anyone nearby). It would actually be a very efficient weapon at origin, though atmospheric losses would limit its range. In effect, it would be a low range, high damage version of a pulse laser.

01-28-2018, 12:55 PM	#13
clu2415 Join Date: Jun 2016	Re: Plasma Guns Clearly you’ll have to wear protective gear to fire this thing. How much would it warm up the surrounding air? What effects would the plasma pellet’s passing have on, say, a shrubbery or an unprotected human? What kind of forces would the target experience when the plasma pellet expands?

01-28-2018, 01:47 PM	#14
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Plasma Guns Charged plasma is insanely difficult to contain, especially in the amount necessary to cause damage, just look at the last fifty years of plasma physics research. Solar flares occur when the sun's plasma escapes the gravitational and magnetic confinement of the sun. A sidearm is not going to have any chance of guiding or even containing charged plasma without superscience. As for the effects of plasma on everything else, it really depends on energy levels. 1 kJ of energy is enough for a laser to be deadly, but that is because of its ability to penetrate. Superscience plasma bolts would probably require 1 MJ of energy, meaning that they would cause a line of 1 burn damage from the weapon to the target, setting paper and dry leaves on fire.

01-28-2018, 03:40 PM	#17
Flyndaran Untagged Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon	Re: Plasma Guns Ah, but how quickly cooled will it get with all the pseudoscience hand-waving? I kid. This whole thing seems to rest more on justifying the use of the word plasma than actually dealing with the effects of real plasma. __________________ Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.

01-28-2018, 04:06 PM	#18
warellis Join Date: Jan 2014	Re: Plasma Guns It's probably just using the standard scifi plasma which is generally generated within a firing chamber of some type and then shunted out the barrel, wrapped in some form of magnetic containment that degrades slowly enough over the distance the plasma is accelerated that it is contained until it hits something. Normally in fiction, said plasma is hot enough that even near misses will cause flash burns and such on targets or, if they're in some form of armor, often heat it up uncomfortably. If it's a near miss I mean.

01-28-2018, 04:34 PM	#20
Minuteman37 Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Kenai, Alaska	Re: Plasma Guns The Plasma is "bottled" at a fusion reactor so to speak, and the energy loss while "bottled" is marginal. In terms of energy storage it may leak faster then a normal battery, but the shelf life is manageable for a smallarm. The "bottled" plasma is then thrown by whatever means at the target, cracks and vents it's contents. That's pretty much how I envision this thing working.