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Easier to kill people I guess...

The Deus Ex's P.E.P.S was a nice pacifist weapon.

Not very effective though.
Tranq darts were a lot easier to use, and they were common.

Stun gun seemed to be more common on the first mission. At first I wanted to do pacifist, but got bored of that a quarter of the way through.
Deus Ex also needs a free-roam mission mode. That would make it more interesting to play...

Anyway, back on topic.

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
Setting off flying bombs with lasers is pretty easy, blowing up non-explosive things with lasers is far harder...

It's easy because of aerodynamic stress on the missile, not because it's a bomb (the laser doesn't set off the warhead or anything). All you need to do is damage the outer shell a bit and let the extreme forces from moving through the air at ICBM speeds exploit that damaged spot and tear the missile apart. Or, alternatively, get enough radiation to fry the guidance electronics.

Railguns are where it's at in weapons tech at the moment.

Well, maybe for vehicles, if they can ever fix that pesky problem of friction eroding the barrel away after the first shot. It's a nice theory, but I prefer guns that can shoot more than once before I have to replace them.

 Mynameisalie wrote:
Anyway, back on topic.

Yeah. Let's ignore the power requirement issue and just focus on the problem that plasma is a gas. Congratulations, after spending obscene amounts of money on developing a portable fusion reactor you've managed to create a really expensive flamethrower, except it probably has even shorter range and a higher chance of burning the user to death.

Edit: wait, you want to get it hot enough to burn through tank armor. Make that 100% chance of burning the user to death with the waste heat (it doesn't take much in efficiency losses to cook a person at that point). You might as well just admit it's a suicide weapon and give everyone nuclear hand grenades.

What I think would be a good idea is basically a directed, powered up microwave. The device would blast the same radiation used by microwaves, only much more of it and all in one direction. Result: crispy fried terrorist.

It's gonna take a long time before bullets go out of style.

Yeah, energy and plasma weapons aren't really possible, until you figured out what to do with all that heat, how to produce the energy required in the first place to kill something, how to focus the plasma in such a way that it goes further than 3 feet, ect.

Now on a ship or a weapons platform it may be feasible. Rail or coil weapons (or sonic even!) are still more economic choices, however.

 Squigsquasher wrote:
What I think would be a good idea is basically a directed, powered up microwave. The device would blast the same radiation used by microwaves, only much more of it and all in one direction. Result: crispy fried terrorist.

They have that already...only, it's non-lethal now.

 Squigsquasher wrote:
What I think would be a good idea is basically a directed, powered up microwave. The device would blast the same radiation used by microwaves, only much more of it and all in one direction. Result: crispy fried terrorist.

Since when has a microwave ever made anything crispy? You'd just boil the target alive.

Fine. Instant boiled terrorist.

Wouldn't that make him pop?

 purplefood wrote:
Wouldn't that make him pop?

Yes, it would. Messily I might add.
Like a balloon full of salsa.

Whatever. Instant dead terrorist. Also his mates are going to feel cooperative when they see what the weapon can do.

Pop.

Not really instant either, you'd have to cook him on a lower wattage for longer if you wanted him to really pop. High wattage for a short time would just cook the outside.

ARGH.

Well anyway, the terrorist is going to end up dead or at the very least horrifically maimed. Safe to say it would NOT be a nice fate.

What if he's a masochist?

Just shoot him in the head with a normal gun... there is a very good reason we use those instead of microwaves.

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
Just shoot him in the head with a normal gun... there is a very good reason we use those instead of microwaves.

Very true. Projectile fire arms are the best thing we've got right now. They're cheap, easy to maintain, and easy to train on, and effective.

A laser/microwave/plasma based weapon would be a nightmare to handle in the field. Get some dirt in the wrong spot, a battery goes dead in a firefight, etc... they'd just be horrible. Now, having the know how to create them in the event of an alien invasion in which our standard weapons wouldn't work, I'm all for that, but for now I'll stick to the M-4.

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
Just shoot him in the head with a normal gun... there is a very good reason we use those instead of microwaves.

Uhhh... nope, we kill people with microwaves all the time. Probably more than with guns actually. I skimmed the title of a bizarre news article from a sketchy news site, so I know what I'm saying is true.

 LoneLictor wrote:

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
Just shoot him in the head with a normal gun... there is a very good reason we use those instead of microwaves.

Uhhh... nope, we kill people with microwaves all the time. Probably more than with guns actually. I skimmed the title of a bizarre news article from a sketchy news site, so I know what I'm saying is true.

More people have been killed with directed microwaves than bullets?

 Squigsquasher wrote:
What I think would be a good idea is basically a directed, powered up microwave. The device would blast the same radiation used by microwaves, only much more of it and all in one direction. Result: crispy fried terrorist.

I always thought they would "pop" rather than crisp. And we thought flame-throwers were bad.

Plasma works about as well as shooting hot steam at someone. In other words, you're going to scald yourself to death.

In all seriousness though, what happened to Tesla's non-lethal particle gun, why are we not working toward that end?

For the most part, Tesla was a kook towards the end of his life. Mind you, we have microwave emitters that work similarly I suppose. Nonlethal, and make targets feel like their skin is on fire. Downside, is that it eats juice like crazy and is nowhere near man portable.

 Laughing Man wrote:

In all seriousness though, what happened to Tesla's non-lethal particle gun, why are we not working toward that end?

For the most part, Tesla was a kook towards the end of his life. Mind you, we have microwave emitters that work similarly I suppose. Nonlethal, and make targets feel like their skin is on fire. Downside, is that it eats juice like crazy and is nowhere near man portable.

A kooky genius is still a genius though.

I'm still pretty sure sentient luminescent pidgeons don't decide to adopt people, and am equally confident in dismissing most of his other later "discoveries."

 Laughing Man wrote:
I'm still pretty sure sentient luminescent pidgeons don't decide to adopt people, and am equally confident in dismissing most of his other later "discoveries."

He loved that pigeon!

Ok, back on topic...

I think the best way one could expel the plasma out of the barrel is as a compact toroid. I'm not sure how to extend the time the plasma stays stable, but firing it at very high speeds or with a small shot would give the plasma time to actually hit the target. I've also had a bit of a mess around and have managed to draw up a basic diagram of a plasma-based weapon, more specifically the rifle version. Granted, it's man-portable, we don't have the tech etc. but that's what this thread is about. Inventing your own weapons technology that could be feasible, not whether it would fit a good budget or anything like that. Besides, the pistol would have to be even smaller still and I don't want to think about scaling down a plasma fusion reactor to that size.

Toroids of plasma are only stable when they have a magnetic core, the most stable plasma projectile would be a heavy plasma (such as iron) launched in a sphere. You have not got a working diagram of a plasma gun, you have a teenagers doodle of a plasma.

I'm really not certain we need any deadlier a weapon, at least not yet. Bullets are pretty much going to take you out of the battle, and we've pretty much sorted guns out already. Sure, there's some drawbacks and at some point in the future we'll end up needing more powerful weaponry, but we've already got some fairly good lasers on the way, and I'm really not sure that we'll ever perfect plasma weaponry into a single-man weapon.

Plasma weapons aren't even very effective, they're a total waste on infantry and only marginally better than conventional explosives for vehicles...