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RoadToRuin wrote:

Warpig1815 wrote: I'm Honestly suprised no-one has come up with this before - Imperator Titans anyone?

Our list was trying to stick to weapons, a titan is a vehicle. Besides do you know how to pilot a titan?

No, but there again, do you know how to make a plasma pistol? In any case, the OP's question is 'how does a plasma pistol work?' NOT 'what weapon is best in a zombie apocalypse?'

I was just following on from:

Melissia wrote:

Ailaros wrote: Sure, but really, if we're talking zombie apocalypse, the best weapon is

A Leman Russ Punisher and an ammo train

You're just telling us to get an assault rifle or HMG.

That was pretty much the idea yes.
Why would you need anything more?
Big flashy weapons are hard to keep a stock of ammo for.
Anything too futuristic and you wont find ammo.

Why not use something thats more than up to the job?

 Ailaros wrote:
Sure, but really, if we're talking zombie apocalypse, the best weapon is an eviscerator. We already know that a chainsaw is a premiere anti-zombie weapon. Now imagine that that chainsaw is 12 feet long and can instantly cut through a wall...

Bite proof bodysuit with forearm mounted spikes is what you want. Especially good for conserving energy.

40k weapons? flamers, lasguns, bolt weapons.

Bolt weapons don't get written up right I reckon. A single bolt round when fires hits its target then explodes. That explosion then kills several beings surrounding the target. Bolt rounds are after all mini grenades. The trick of using a bolt weapon properly is being able to place the rounds in such a fashion that your resulting explosions don't overlap too much.
Take your smaller-sized zombie horde for example. 50 zeds are heading towards you, you fire off a five shot burst with your bolter, blowing to pieces half the zeds. A second burst takes out the rest.
Efficient use of ammo, major drawback is that ammo might be hard to come by. Lasguns are semi-auto at best so you really want to have distance at the start of a fight against zeds. Major advantage is that so long as your power cell isn't damaged you can recharge an unlimited number of times. Hand flamers have good close in killing power. Much better than modern flamethrowers, the promethium reduces the zeds to ash near instantaneously. You could have a problem with larger numbers of zeds though and there is a danger of burning yourself badly or fatally if you have to use the weapon at very close range. Like bolt rounds, resupply might also be a problem.

 Ailaros wrote:
Lasguns have almost no stopping power, though. Who cares if you have infinite ammo if you need to discharge a whole "clip" just to put a single one down?

It's the same reason a shuriken catapult would make a crappy weapon - zombies don't mind a light shredding.

In the grimness of the dark future, strength three means fifty percent chance to kill or incapacitate a tough, military trained (possibly brainwashed?) soldier in armour that is more effective than dragon skin armour used nowadays.
Also, this is not call of duty, one shot with anything .22 and up will incapacitate you (teenagers are sometimes incapacitated for ten minutes by BBs, I've seen it.) Yeah there are stories of guys getting shot by 7.62 rounds and they continue fighting but this is very rare. And they still have a hole in them. A hole through their brain will kill you 99.99 percent of the time.


As for the plasma gun, It charges a gas (hydrogen in 40k) turning it into a plasma. This is then charged up for a few seconds. after that, it is accelerated down the barrel using electromagnets and we assume that the force is enough to make the pressurized gas hit the target before basic gas laws take effect dissipating the plasma. I believe this is a two trigger system. The first trigger pull starts the charge and pulling it again accelerates the gas. This is why plasma weapons are known to overheat, the charge is manual, too short mean no wound, too long means the chamber breaks down. Why wouldn't it have a failsafe? well with such an array of enemies, it takes less time to manually assume the charge needed than to turn a dial to the correct charge.

My personal Zom-Poc Sci-Fi Arms-list would not include plasma because the number one rule of an apocalypse weapon is that it must be reliable. Number one on my list you ask? You didn't ask? Well, here it is anyways. Purple lightsaber and the force.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cadbren wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Sure, but really, if we're talking zombie apocalypse, the best weapon is an eviscerator. We already know that a chainsaw is a premiere anti-zombie weapon. Now imagine that that chainsaw is 12 feet long and can instantly cut through a wall...

Bite proof bodysuit with forearm mounted spikes is what you want. Especially good for conserving energy.

40k weapons? flamers, lasguns, bolt weapons.

Bolt weapons don't get written up right I reckon. A single bolt round when fires hits its target then explodes. That explosion then kills several beings surrounding the target. Bolt rounds are after all mini grenades. The trick of using a bolt weapon properly is being able to place the rounds in such a fashion that your resulting explosions don't overlap too much.
Take your smaller-sized zombie horde for example. 50 zeds are heading towards you, you fire off a five shot burst with your bolter, blowing to pieces half the zeds. A second burst takes out the rest.
Efficient use of ammo, major drawback is that ammo might be hard to come by. Lasguns are semi-auto at best so you really want to have distance at the start of a fight against zeds. Major advantage is that so long as your power cell isn't damaged you can recharge an unlimited number of times. Hand flamers have good close in killing power. Much better than modern flamethrowers, the promethium reduces the zeds to ash near instantaneously. You could have a problem with larger numbers of zeds though and there is a danger of burning yourself badly or fatally if you have to use the weapon at very close range. Like bolt rounds, resupply might also be a problem.

Bolters are semi auto too. Also bolts are small missiles not grenades. But you are right, A bolter belongs on the awesome zombie killing weapons from sci-fi list. I was even thinking combi-flamer maybe?

Just to chime in on a glance ..

cadbren wrote:Bolt weapons don't get written up right I reckon. A single bolt round when fires hits its target then explodes. That explosion then kills several beings surrounding the target.

Going by GW's description, the standard bolt round explodes after it has penetrated the target.It's a weapon intended to slay resilient and/or heavily armoured foes, after all, not for "crowd control". Needless to say, that means the effect on surrounding targets is somewhat negated by this.

However, there is so-called "Metal Storm" ammunition, which is a bolt round with a proximity detector, specifically designed to detonate prematurely, saturating the area with small fragments.



Oh, and (again, in GW's fluff) lasgun shots have an "exploding" effect upon hitting their target (which I imagine qualifies as a sort of stopping power).

In reply to the title it fires a superheated gas filled shell that turns to plasma when given acceleration typical of a bullet.

I think the "how a plasma gun works" debate has been discussed several times already but to be very brief I think a plasma weapon is essentially a mini fusion reactor which propels a "bolt" of plasma toward the enemy with electromagnets, contained in some kind of space magic "bubble" to stop the heat dissipating immediately after it leaves the barrel, otherwise you have a meltagun.

In a zombie apocalypse Id choose a lasgun with a solar charging station, no contest.

 vodo40k wrote:
I think the "how a plasma gun works" debate has been discussed several times already but to be very brief I think a plasma weapon is essentially a mini fusion reactor which propels a "bolt" of plasma toward the enemy with electromagnets, contained in some kind of space magic "bubble" to stop the heat dissipating immediately after it leaves the barrel, otherwise you have a meltagun.

In a zombie apocalypse Id choose a lasgun with a solar charging station, no contest.

Ditto. It's as close as you can get to unlimited ammo.

Although an Exitus rifle would have an advantage, in that you can be further away, I think the Lasgun would be my first choice... Plasma weaponry is way down on my list, along with sonic weaponry, pointy sticks and harsh language...

Hellguns, if some sources are true regarding the fact that you can store millions of shots in them fancy back packs.

Otherwise its the lasgun, no contest.

According to FFG Plasma weapon does not need external batteries - it have internal ones that could support a lot of shots. Plasma though use some chemical reagents based on the oxygen and fluorine (mind you both are very agressve, so they could be the main source of the weapon energy), and would run out of it long before it's internal batteries get discharged.

 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
Although an Exitus rifle would have an advantage, in that you can be further away, I think the Lasgun would be my first choice... Plasma weaponry is way down on my list, along with sonic weaponry, pointy sticks and harsh language...

Ah, but with sonic weapons, you can make zombies do this -