Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

A particle beam is the most rapid firing gun possible, with the bullets being individual subatomic particles and the rate of fire being in the trillions of rounds per minute.

Would that therefore be Enuff Dakka?

You can always twin-link and gatling the bleedin thing, so no. The only way to get "enough dakka" is to teleport the enemy to a dimension made entirely of just-fired bullets.

Edited by dvorak on Aug 21st 2019 at 11:52:15 AM

Okay here's a question, say for sake of argument, Gundam level particle cannons (massive ranges, near light speed velocity, punches through hulls like a hot knife in butter) suddenly existed in a setting more along the Expanse in terms of combat (missiles and PDC defense), would this change anything major?

Everyone in the expanse dies.

Likely within half a day, at most. Maybe longer if they were being more diligent.

Particle beams would pretty much flip the missile-spam tactics of The Expanse on their head. Beam weapons, being relativistically fast, would be able to swat missiles down at far greater ranges. However, keep in mind that in UC Gundam most battles are fought at very short ranges due to how minovsky particles affect radar and lidar. At one point in Gundam:the Origin we have the Federation Fleet loose track of the Zeon fleet.

Making up imaginary particles to justify close-range mecha combat tropes is tight.

Honestly, Mobile suits would sort of work even without minovksy jamming. With no means of defending against particle beam weapons it doesn't make any sense to field large warships that could be killed in one or two shots. Thus, you have the scale of a mobile suit which is just large enough to mount a fusion reactor. As for the form Zeon wanted something that could use AMBAC and still function in a terrestrial environment. As the tech for Mobile Workers had matured while building the Space Colonies a giant humanoid form was easy to make.

Well you need a bit of fiction to go with your science if you want science fiction. Otherwise you just got Science, which while cool isn't always the best for a story alone.

But in short a particle beam gun that could do what ships in Gundam do would completely overturn all combat then.

Yeah, effective particle beams would be a game changer, even if their range sucked. Forget energy shields, you wouldn't need them. That said, you cant intercept a laser with a P beam, and cold kinetic rounds are very hard to detect, so not everything changes.

So even nerfing the range still makes them a game changer. Good.

I'm working on a game with the Expanse RPG and I want to use it to screw up the setting by introducing a working particle gun on a ship.

A nasty surprise, that is.

Scientifically speaking, could there be different types of energy weapons, or would they all work exactly the same way just on different scales? Assuming all power requirements are met

That's like asking if there could be different types of guns, or do they all operate the same just at different scales? Well, it depends on how you look at it.

Eh, not exactly. If energy weapons are indeed possible, in real life, they'll likely only work one way, and one way only as opposed to say guns, when you can have different caliber slugs, as you're simply just physically decreasing or increasing the bullet.

A laser is an energy weapon. Or do we mean something else by that term?

I'm assuming they're talking about energy weapons such as the Thanix Cannon in Mass Effect or the weapons used by the Covenant in Halo.

Your.... not simply increasing or decreesing the size of a bullet in a conventional weapon, that alone kinda shows the bad information being argued from here.

Even if you exclude every thing that isn't a "gun" as in, no cannons (they do there damage via payload more often then by kenetic energy though that is an option), no rocket launchers (where the projectile flings itself rather then being flung by the device), no grenade launchers (cannons but low velocity).... and restrict it soley to kenetic energy, which negates rounds like HE, HEAT, and various other payloads....

You still have a bunch of diffrent ways to do that, you have bullets, you have armor peircing bullets which have a sheet of hard material comtained in a sheet of soft, sabot rounds which are more like miniture arrows, and various typyes of buckshot.

There is an imense amount of verity in the amount of things humans throw down range, and I would fully expect said verity to be carried over into energy weapons, although to a bit less of an extent since you would need to fundamentally change the weapon to change the behavior, rather then just the ammo.

Based on real world physics and what we know of it. Certain energy weapons would behave differently.

For example:

• Lasers would predominately be a thermal transfer weapon to cut or pierce.
• Particle beams are basically More Dakka: Subatomic Edition. A combination of kinetic energy and others.
• Plasma would behave either very explosively or like a lightning strike in that it suddenly overloads or fries the target with a huge dump of energy.
• Antimatter would basically be Explodium! Ultimate Edition! Everything vanishes in a very very bright flash!

Edited by MajorTom on Aug 22nd 2019 at 9:06:53 AM

So my dad just watched a trailer for a Morgan Freeman movie, the start has a swarm of drones about the size of pigeons loaded with explosives, destroying absolutely everything around them.

Is that what the Microdrone would be like?

Which movie was this?

Link? Or the movie title at least?

https://youtu.be/isVtXH7n9lI?t=30 with specific time spot for the drone swarm.

😂😂😂😂😂😂 that trailer.

There’s no way the Secret Service could be that incompetent. What the hell.

There's no way a drone that size would pack that much boom.