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We all know that Imperial plasma is unstable and that explode sometimes.
But I have never read a text that say how do plasma explode, then I saw in video games how it shoots constantly?
And then in "Fire Warrior" and "Space Marine" I saw that you must vent plasma after few shots or it will become unstable and explode.
So I wonder...is the main reason that plasma explodes simply Marine or Guardsman in a heat of battle that forgoten to vent it?

IIRC the main reason that Imperial plasma tech explodes is that they've more or less welded the variable power setting stuck to 11. For comparison, the Tau plasma rifle is based on a similar technology, but less potent to prevent it from melting it's user. This is reflected in-game as S6 but without Gets Hot!

Venting is a necessary safety measure, but even if you do it the Plasma Weapon can still easily explode. Imperial plasma technology is very crude to Eldar/Tau standards.

the magnetic field containing the plasma fails, the weapon basically vaporizes, and spews plasma in every direction. which is what happens if you don't vent properly.



Note that is NOT what Gets Hot represents. Gets Hot represents the weapon overheating and burning the wielder/making the weapon unusable for the rest of the battle. the user then leaves as his weapon is gone/he needs medical attention.

Plasma weapons will explode if they overheat too much and the mechanisims become stressed. You can also rig the weapons to deliberatly explode, but this is only done in extreme desperation as Plasma weapons are expensive.



Basically, if you don't vent, your gun will explode.

This is all for infinity plasma weaponry thou, vehicle mounted plasma weaponry has enough space for coolant systems and dose not overheat.

Mm, I think it's unfair to say Imperial plasma technology is inferior to its Eldar/Tau counterpart. I'd say, it's actually better. It's more powerful. The problem is that most forge worlds can't make it correctly anymore so...It's got that unreliability factor. But I think the base technology they're using is actually better (Even if they have no idea wtf the theory behind it is anymore).

But yeah, I think Gets Hot! is to represent a failure of the gun. The containment of the plasma fails or the cooling mechanisms malfunction. Personally, I believe that any marine or guardsman lucky(?) enough to be using a plasma gun would be EXTENSIVELY trained in using it since the tech is now so rare and it performs such an important battlefield role. I think the Imperial commanders would value their plasma tech more than to let some newb who'd forget to vent use it.

The safety problem has nothing to do with them not making it properly. Its always been like that.


the Imperium has decided that safety isn't a huge deal and that the extra power is more desirable.

the Tau and Eldar on the other hand consider safety to be a priority and as such forgo the extra power.

You decide which is better.

Grey Templar wrote:The safety problem has nothing to do with them not making it properly. Its always been like that.

the Imperium has decided that safety isn't a huge deal and that the extra power is more desirable.

Disagree. The Imperium didn't exist when plasma guns were designed and first built. It's a STC so DAoT. Highly doubt it got hot back then when they did it right.

You never know.

some weapons today will malfunction if you don't do something right. they could have seen the need to vent as a small price to pay for the power. its such a small issue, that could be forgotten in battle.

True. Still, I don't think the ancients "got it right". Some techs just have drawbacks.

You can't have a "clean" nuclear bomb, for example.


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Ninja'd

Eh, doesn't sit with me. I feel like overly idealistic, innocent mankind from the DAoT wouldn't use a weapon that could just vaporize the user. Besides, they actually understood how plasma technology works and how to properly make it. They didn't just go, "Meh, angry machine spirit took revenge, shoulda prayed harder." Besides, the fact that it's stated a billion times that plasma technology is in decline and poorly understood by the current AdMech implies that it used to be better...What's better than the current plasma weapons...plasma weapons that don't kill the user, right.

Brother Coa wrote:We all know that Imperial plasma is unstable and that explode sometimes.

They overheat. I haven't read where they actually explode, aside from catastrophic failures-- and in that case, boltguns can also explode. Perhaps MORE violently.

BrainDeleted wrote:Mm, I think it's unfair to say Imperial plasma technology is inferior to its Eldar/Tau counterpart. I'd say, it's actually better. It's more powerful.

That's GW once again failing to get the game to match up with the fluff. Fluff (specifically, the Eldar Codex) flat out states that Eldar plasma technology is superior to Imperium plasma technology. But as usual, GW, in its infinite wisdom, is incapable of getting that onto the tabletop.

Grey Templar wrote:the magnetic field containing the plasma fails, the weapon basically vaporizes, and spews plasma in every direction. which is what happens if you don't vent properly.



Note that is NOT what Gets Hot represents. Gets Hot represents the weapon overheating and burning the wielder/making the weapon unusable for the rest of the battle. the user then leaves as his weapon is gone/he needs medical attention.

Plasma weapons will explode if they overheat too much and the mechanisims become stressed. You can also rig the weapons to deliberatly explode, but this is only done in extreme desperation as Plasma weapons are expensive.



Basically, if you don't vent, your gun will explode.

That doesn't make sense, if the weapon becomes unusable then surely after the gets hot rule if you survive i.e you are a space marine and survive a gets hot result, does that mean you cant use the weapon anymore? in game you can, as long as you survive the hit yourself.

I always wanted the gets hot rule to change, instead of simply exploding any time you roll a 1 it should be if you fire your weapon TWICE i.e rapid fire setting any time you roll a 1 you get a wound, if you simply fire 1 time it shouldn't do anything, it doesnt make sense for it to get hot if you only fired 1 single shot but it does make sense if you fire multiple times like rapid fire

In 4th ed if you fired your weapon twice it was twice as likely to overheat. This unfortunately made plasma weapons pretty bad.

I never thought that made much sense the fact that they don't explode. Because surely for the weapon to overheat that means the electromagnetic field that is generated around must have failed, as the plasma has no contact if it is contained in it, guessing they use an electromagnetic field as that is pretty much the only way of containing plasma. And then you have more worries on your mind than than your weapon turning to molten slag, as the electromagnetic blast of one side of the field failing, as there is nothing to keep the other dimension of force in check, as I typed, electromagnetic blast, and therefore kinetic, means that in a way it would explode. It would not in fact combust, but the force coming off it would mean it effectively explodes.

Although it is hard to know as the workings of an IOM plasma weapon is not really known. But it is easy to guess, as, if we had the insane amounts of power min such a small object, and the computing power to calculate quite how much electromagnetic force we need in each dimension of the object. Then it might be possible to make one in this day and age.


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yevix wrote:

Grey Templar wrote: Note that is NOT what Gets Hot represents. Gets Hot represents the weapon overheating and burning the wielder/making the weapon unusable for the rest of the battle. the user then leaves as his weapon is gone/he needs medical attention.

That doesn't make sense, if the weapon becomes unusable then surely after the gets hot rule if you survive i.e you are a space marine and survive a gets hot result, does that mean you cant use the weapon anymore? in game you can, as long as you survive the hit yourself.

I always wanted the gets hot rule to change, instead of simply exploding any time you roll a 1 it should be if you fire your weapon TWICE i.e rapid fire setting any time you roll a 1 you get a wound, if you simply fire 1 time it shouldn't do anything, it doesnt make sense for it to get hot if you only fired 1 single shot but it does make sense if you fire multiple times like rapid fire

A 'death' in the game does not actually mean a death. Just a bad or even mortal wound. As Grey Templar said, leaving the user in need of medical attention.


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ph34r wrote:In 4th ed if you fired your weapon twice it was twice as likely to overheat. This unfortunately made plasma weapons pretty bad.

Ya got ninja'd.

So "Get Hot" is weapon being overheated in battle and due to high temperature it wounds the user. This sound like not venting weapon and making temperature raise to the critical point were the gun malfunction.

This make much sense to me because if the weapon was exploding like I heard here they wouldn't mount it on ships and tanks ( Stormblade ).

It seemed like half the responses where not about forgetting to vent , but the the venting and containment systems failing. So they probably do vent the plasma, but even when properly vented the systems take on a lot of wear and tear causing the gun to vent improperly.

Thing probably dangerous though. I actually see it burning off the arms of a guardsmen when it over heats.

yevix wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:the magnetic field containing the plasma fails, the weapon basically vaporizes, and spews plasma in every direction. which is what happens if you don't vent properly.



Note that is NOT what Gets Hot represents. Gets Hot represents the weapon overheating and burning the wielder/making the weapon unusable for the rest of the battle. the user then leaves as his weapon is gone/he needs medical attention.

Plasma weapons will explode if they overheat too much and the mechanisims become stressed. You can also rig the weapons to deliberatly explode, but this is only done in extreme desperation as Plasma weapons are expensive.



Basically, if you don't vent, your gun will explode.

That doesn't make sense, if the weapon becomes unusable then surely after the gets hot rule if you survive i.e you are a space marine and survive a gets hot result, does that mean you cant use the weapon anymore? in game you can, as long as you survive the hit yourself.

I always wanted the gets hot rule to change, instead of simply exploding any time you roll a 1 it should be if you fire your weapon TWICE i.e rapid fire setting any time you roll a 1 you get a wound, if you simply fire 1 time it shouldn't do anything, it doesnt make sense for it to get hot if you only fired 1 single shot but it does make sense if you fire multiple times like rapid fire

The model surviving Gets Hot can be for any number of reasons. The model was able to safely control the venting gasses/prevent the weapon from exploding.


It isn't a perfect explaination because the game has to abstract.

nomotog wrote:It seemed like half the responses where not about forgetting to vent , but the the venting and containment systems failing. So they probably do vent the plasma, but even when properly vented the systems take on a lot of wear and tear causing the gun to vent improperly.

Thing probably dangerous though. I actually see it burning off the arms of a guardsmen when it over heats.

Plasma weapons are capable of firing quickly, and on high power settings.

The higher the setting and the faster you fire, the faster heat builds up. If you don't take your time between each shot properly, like say a Guardsman firing fast enough to avoid being eaten in the next moment by a Tyranid Warrior, you are likely to overheat and injure yourself or damage the weapon.

BrainDeleted wrote:I feel like overly idealistic, innocent mankind from the DAoT

Those two adjectives definitely do not apply to humanity during the Dark Age of Technology.

back in second edition chaos plasma weapons didn't suffer any firing penalties as they were built better.

Also Plasma Cannons had 2 fire modes a sustained fire mode and a over charged shot (bit like space marine) although it took a turn to charge up.

Yeah, it isn't called the Dark Age of Technology for nothing. Mankind was mostly comprised of techno-barbarians, Science was worshipped as a god, and mankind almost destroyed itself with the invention of the Iron Men.

nomotog wrote:Thing probably dangerous though. I actually see it burning off the arms of a guardsmen when it over heats.

The thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't even need to be that bad. All that the overheating event needs to do is make the user combat ineffective. That can happen even if the user has no long-term problems. For instance, a severe first degree burn typically makes the victim's skin painful to the touch - to the point where it's nearly impossible to perform even minimal concentration (of the type needed to point your weapon in the right general direction). I can see that easily happening as the result of a weapon overheating. The victim will be fine in a week, but in the meantime there's nothing that they can do except scream and hopefully stagger to the nearest aid station.

Grey Templar wrote:Yeah, it isn't called the Dark Age of Technology for nothing. Mankind was mostly comprised of techno-barbarians, Science was worshipped as a god, and mankind almost destroyed itself with the invention of the Iron Men.

The techno-barbarian part is AoS...You know, when mankind didn't understand technology anymore and had regressed to barbarian status but still had access to weapons of immense power.

I don't know, I always viewed the 'Dark' Age of Technology as a golden period in man's history. Sure, it came crashing down with the age of strife...But it must of been one hell of a time before that. The men of iron didn't go all terminator till shortly before the AoS and worshiping science as a god??? First of all, this sounds like a typical mystification of an age long gone by not so enlightened historians (Almost every historian in the Imperium). As in, they didn't literally worship it as a god, sounds like they were probably atheist but science was what they were devoted to, i.e. they're god....Even if you take it literally, which I wouldn't, so what? Slightly better than corpse-kebob god on my scale of religions.

Personally, I figured man before experiencing the full horrors of the universe as he has in the 41st millennium would be pretty hopeful and optimistic. Especially when he was on top of his technological game and expanding at record pace. I don't know what makes you think a civilization in the midst of staggering expansion and technological growth wouldn't be optimistic and idealistic......They would only stop being such once the curtains came crashing down with the men of iron revolt and the AoS. Sheesh, can't be all grimdark without some golden age before hand, really.

Just remember it was only called a 'Dark' age in retrospect. The people living it (The midst of it not at the end when things went south) probably called it paradise.


/endthreatjack


If the weapon did over heat and the armor save was failed but the model had ≤2 wounds...What would we consider this scenario in fluff terms? It overheated and hurt him but didn't explode....Since the model can still fire it afterwards, seems like a full meltdown isn't right.

"Dark Age" really just refers to not much being known about it. Like our own, when more information becomes available the title drops away.

Eumerin wrote:

nomotog wrote:Thing probably dangerous though. I actually see it burning off the arms of a guardsmen when it over heats.

The thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't even need to be that bad. All that the overheating event needs to do is make the user combat ineffective. That can happen even if the user has no long-term problems. For instance, a severe first degree burn typically makes the victim's skin painful to the touch - to the point where it's nearly impossible to perform even minimal concentration (of the type needed to point your weapon in the right general direction). I can see that easily happening as the result of a weapon overheating. The victim will be fine in a week, but in the meantime there's nothing that they can do except scream and hopefully stagger to the nearest aid station.

No it doesn't need to be that powerful, but this is 40k. Excess violence is one of the main themes.

Kind of a side question here, but what about the plasma flasks. Can they explode from improper use?

Sort of off topic, but I realized the IoM doesn't use autonomous robots kind of the same way with Dune. The robots turned on their masters eventually, humanity did win out, but learnt its lesson.

I guess the lack of technology is why the IoM is do inefficient, and the fact that they use DSL.

ph34r wrote:In 4th ed if you fired your weapon twice it was twice as likely to overheat. This unfortunately made plasma weapons pretty bad.

Didnt prevent anyone from spamming Las/Plasma squads everywhere.

even though venting is good plasma guns can explode because of the level of technology. Considering the level of tech of the imperium by our standards high but to eldar or tau very low.