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SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?


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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

If your laser cartridges are re-usable' date=' you don't want your laser weapon to eject the shells. You might wind up with a laser sidearm that resembles a revolver.[/quote']

 

Of course; that's the whole idea. Besides, you can re-use your current brass; that doesn't mean everyone sweeps it up and re-loads their shells. Buying new ones is cheaper, unless you're a gun bunny / perfectionist. Same with the laser cartridges...

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

Of course; that's the whole idea. Besides' date=' you can re-use your [i']current[/i] brass; that doesn't mean everyone sweeps it up and re-loads their shells. Buying new ones is cheaper, unless you're a gun bunny / perfectionist. Same with the laser cartridges...

 

Oooooh. Now you've made my brain hurt with the image of a hobbyist

hand reloading laser shells !!! :eek::)

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

Nyrath' date=' good call on the Hammer's Slammers reference. While it's handwaiving, it does have the advantage of being visually cool and limiting the ability of the ammo to be "more suitable as a warhead"[/quote']

 

Actually, it isn't really handwaving; the physics he speaks of, while not technically workable now, is real / realistic. Most of Drake's Slammers stuff is, while not hard sci-fi, is at least solid. Powerguns replaced phasers as my SF weapon of choice as soon as I read the book.

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

Hammer's Slammers powerguns are a great solution to the energy problem.

 

From HAMMER'S SLAMMER

The problem with lasers was the power source. Guns store energy in the powder charge. A machinegun with one cartridge is just as effective — once — as it is with a thousand round belt, so the ammunition load can be tailored to circumstances. Man-killing lasers required a 400-kilo fusion unit to drive them. Hooking a laser on line with any less bulky energy source was of zero military effectiveness rather than lesser effectiveness.

 

His powerguns postulate that there is some as-yet undiscovered scientific principle that will allow a specially designed wafer of plastic with copper atoms to instantly convert into a bolt of copper plasma traveling very very fast. No 400-kilo fusion unit required, you can put this in a small handgun.

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

I was inspired by this thread to add some new material to my SF sidearm webpage

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3l.html

Note the new section on "dial-a-gun" and particle beam weapons.

The dial-a-gun will be most amusing for anybody who has attempted to create a Star Trek phaser in the Hero system.

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

I was inspired by this thread to add some new material to my SF sidearm webpage

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3l.html

Note the new section on "dial-a-gun" and particle beam weapons.

The dial-a-gun will be most amusing for anybody who has attempted to create a Star Trek phaser in the Hero system.

 

Nice to see other folks are getting something out of my thread.

 

:D

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  • 4 weeks later...
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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

I my Sci-Fi campaign there are about 8 standard types of batteries that power everything man portable that needs power. Running from tiny little watch battery type things up to backpacks so wouldn't have been much of an issue for us.

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

I my Sci-Fi campaign there are about 8 standard types of batteries that power everything man portable that needs power. Running from tiny little watch battery type things up to backpacks so wouldn't have been much of an issue for us.

I trust you used some variation of the standard Hero Games logarithmic scale?

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

I trust you used some variation of the standard Hero Games logarithmic scale?

 

 

Of course. Almost goes with saying. . Seriously, I just adapted the GURPs ultratech system to HERO mainly.

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

Hammer's Slammers is still one of my favorites, especialy the Power Gun. So powerfull yet it still has that touch of 'reality' to it. It's, in many ways, the most powerfull weapon type in the Universe, but it's not perfect, and thus isn't universaly used (ie: Star-Trek and Phasers).

 

As to the OP's question, I'd have to agree with your take. Weapon clips can't power 'appliances'. The 'clip' is delivering a huge quantity of power in a very short period of time. An 'appliance' (whatever they're trying to power-up) is designed to accept/use power at a given, measured, rate.

 

If that's not good enough for your players try this example: What they were trying to do would be along the lines of going out to one of those skeletal high-tension power towers and tapping into one of the cross-state transmission lines to power thier refridgerator. If you somehow managed to connect it to the line (without blasting yourself into next week) the moment you started the current flowing you'd destroy the 'fridge at the very least. The case of a 'clip' and the appliance would be the same situation, just much more so. Far more power in a far shorter period of time.

 

Sure, the engineer could arrange to get the job done, he'd just need more than 2 minutes and a roll of Duct Tape. In my example you need to use large Sub-stations and (down near the end-user) Transformers to convert that into usefull power.

 

As the article refering to energy weapons already pointed out, any sort of battery with sufficient energy density to be usefull in a weapon would be extremely dangerous. I'm sure that, in the interests of safety, they would come with safeguards to prevent accidental (ie: non-standard) discharge of thier energy.

 

And, when all else fails there's always Rule 0 ;)

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

I thought the clips were full of "blue smoke". Why should blasters be different than any other piece of electronic equipment?

Except for the electronic equipment on the bridge of the ST:TOS Enterprise. They appear to be full of Fourth of July sparklers and fireworks.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

My *Universal* power cells are cylinders of artificial layered-composite diamond crystal... They're extremely difficult to damage...

which gives me an absurd image of a marooned spaceman on a jungle planet. Once his laser pistol's power cell is empty, he can lash the cell to the end of a stick to make a makeshift club...

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Re: SFX Question... What's in those blaster clips?

 

which gives me an absurd image of a marooned spaceman on a jungle planet. Once his laser pistol's power cell is empty' date=' he can lash the cell to the end of a stick to make a makeshift club...[/quote']

 

That would actually work quite well, provided he had one of the larger cells... Cells that size, however, generally aren't going to be part of a pistol, as they would be larger than the handgrip... If he had a laser carbine, however, you might have larger cells incorporated into the weapon stock...

 

The cells are a molecular cage latticework, incorporating a system of diodes using carbon's semiconductor properties... The latticework contains Lithium Ions... As the cell charges, the Lithium Ions are forced out of a uniform distribution to cancel the electron charge... As the cell discharges, the Lithium Ions diffuse back through the latticework, and diffusion pressure is what gives the cell its potential to begin with...

 

Most laser weapons in my background, however, are beam weapons, due to the obscene amount of power storage in the Accumulator cells...

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