Tech Level news: so, you can buy a Gauss Rifle now

[mr beer]

Sadly not a particularly practical weapon but it is a man portable Gauss Rifle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAHKS0nVlL4

https://arcflashlabs.com/product/gr-1-anvil/

[Ulzgoroth]

Up to 75 m/s muzzle velocity.

That's in the territory of archery speeds, not firearms.

Cute, but definitely not a significant implement.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Up to 75 m/s muzzle velocity.

That's in the territory of archery speeds, not firearms.

Cute, but definitely not a significant implement.

Damage-wise, due to projectile mass it is apparently equivalent to a .22 at full power (but .22 Short or .22 Long Rifle?), which can potentially kill someone. So, a genuine weapon, but I'd call it 'Experimental,' rather than 'Emerging.' We're not in TL9 yet, but it does bring us a step closer.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Damage-wise, due to projectile mass it is apparently equivalent to a .22 at full power (but .22 Short or .22 Long Rifle?), which can potentially kill someone. So, a genuine weapon, but I'd call it 'Experimental,' rather than 'Emerging.' We're not in TL9 yet, but it does bring us a step closer.

In the interview with Forgotten Weapons, the cofounder of the company notes this is more "prototype" and "proof of concept" than a practical weapon. As for .22 Short or LR, I believe in the same interview the guy from FW refers to it as being roughly comparable to .22 Short.
EDIT: Muzzle energy appears to be around 100J, comparable to the .22 Short's 95J. Probably less penetration, even if it manages to hit face-on, given the projectile is over twice as wide.

As I mentioned in the Geek Culture thread, that interview gave me a better idea for how I want gear rifles (rifles that store mechanical energy, as from a handcrank, and use it to accelerate a projectile) to function. I may be making a thread on that later...

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Up to 75 m/s muzzle velocity.

That's in the territory of archery speeds, not firearms.

Cute, but definitely not a significant implement.

I see your point, but I'm not sure I'd want to get shot by it all the same.

[The Colonel]

I seem to recall hearing that we were more likely to see practical mortars and grenade launchers using coilgun technologies before direct fire weapons become a thing since they don't need as much muzzle velocity and the whole smoothbore thing is already accounted for. But this is still interesting - it is, after all, flashless, silent apart from that weird click and has a reasonable ROF.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I see your point, but I'm not sure I'd want to get shot by it all the same.

I think 100J is roughly comparable to the amount of energy in the punch of a trained (but probably not competition-level) martial artist. Steel is harder than bone - it's obviously harder than flesh, but a trained martial artist is going to punch so that he or she hits with the first two knuckles - so it's going to hit "harder." I suspect surface area ends up being roughly comparable to that trained punch - while surface area would be lower (increasing pressure, and thus depth of wounding) if the projectile hit face-on, it currently tends to tumble quite a bit.

So, overall probably a bit harder than a well-trained punch. Call it 1d cr (maybe 1d-2 pi++, but I don't think this will typically have any penetration of note). That's not going to be pleasant, and getting hit in the wrong place can certainly be lethal. It's not a practical weapon, given its weight, 3-second charge time, and poor accuracy (in addition to its low power), but it's certainly not something to treat as a toy.

[Fred Brackin]

If that weight was loaded and including battery (which it doesn't) it would at least match the weight of the TL9 Gauss weapon in UT.

So we're at least one revolutionary improvement in the tech away from tL9 numbers.

I'm probably going to call us "officially" TL9 when laptops go to 10 TB of storage.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If that weight was loaded and including battery (which it doesn't) it would at least match the weight of the TL9 Gauss weapon in UT.

So we're at least one revolutionary improvement in the tech away from tL9 numbers.

I'm probably going to call us "officially" TL9 when laptops go to 10 TB of storage.

While it's not typical, you can do that in a modern mid-size laptop. An 8 TB 2.5" SSD and a 2 TB M.2 SSD can be had off the shelf and fit into some 15" mid-price machines.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I seem to recall hearing that we were more likely to see practical mortars and grenade launchers using coilgun technologies before direct fire weapons become a thing since they don't need as much muzzle velocity and the whole smoothbore thing is already accounted for. But this is still interesting - it is, after all, flashless, silent apart from that weird click and has a reasonable ROF.

Well, it apparently generates a magnetic pulse strong enough to warrant warnings about using them around sensitive equipment, which means pretty trivial to detect with with electronics.