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So after thinking about the Rad Carbines and such, I am itching to ask about My favorite weapon, the Arc rifles! How do you think this things could work? would it be feasible to shoot electricity like that? How does it effect Tanks and other vehicles it shoots at, like Ork Vehicles? What would it do to power armor or Crisis suits? or what would it do to a regular human?

I imagine it works along a similar principal as plasma weapons. Plasma weapons use a magnetic field to contain the plasma bolt as it is fired, essentially creating a magnetic tunnel for it to travel down.

An Arc Rifle could work similarly. It uses a magnetic field to create a tunnel, down which a small stream of plasma flows. This plasma then provides the path for the electricity to travel down, and obviously the gun is grounded in some way. So it would work like a wireless Taser.

As for effect on targets, same as getting hit by lightning I imagine. Any electronic components would get fried, impact burns/fire, and cooking of the fleshy bits and nervous tissue.

Through the power of Magnets!

You ionize something like nitrogen and use magnets to project it in a straight line effectively creating a wire in the air, you then dump a crap ton of current down that 'wire'. This is the mechanism used by IRL prototype weapons made to test the concept.

Probably they work like the lightning guns on the Thallax, where a laser creates a charged path and then the weapon dumps the electricity at one end, allowing it to arc down the path and ground on the target.

I imagine they are a lot like the lighning guns in Unreal Tournament.
Lightning weapons would be really easy to defend against irl because of the cage of Faraday, so they are not feasible as weapons at all I think. You could just wear chainmail and rubber boots, and no lightning can hurt you. and against any metal vehicle, no matter how lightly armoured, it is not going to do anything at all.

Only if said chainmail was insulated from your body.

Nobody outside ignorant (and swiftly regretful) cosplayers and unfortunately designed fantasy characters ever wears chainmail without full leather padding underneath.

True enough, but regular padding isn't sufficient to insulate you to where you can just laugh it off. You'd need to deliberately design it to be insulated for it to be done correctly.

But if the powers akin to lightning, wouldn't it still get damaged?

It could potentially ignite the padding, as while it doesn't conduct electricity very well it can still get heated up by it.

The padding may not be a conventional conductor but air is an even worse one. Throw enough electricity at something and it'll conduct wherever it pleases, though at some point you start super heating the air and it becomes a plasma weapon.

Electricity only travels through air where there's an ionised path, it can't just brute force its way across, lol.

Yeah, although normal atmospheric air does have ions. Thats why electricity jumps in our atmosphere, but in others it might not(although an atmosphere with no ions would be very very odd)

The ions have to be localised for it to make the jump, though. There have to be enough close together to make a suitable path.

Which is why you ionize the path the arc is going to travel... and if you are wearing chainmail, that only becomes so much more shrapnel blowing into your body when the guy standing next to the guy with the arc-rifle shoots you with a bolter.

This on top of the fact that lightning is damned hot, so if the electrical discharge doesn't kill you, it might just flash-fry you.

I just started skitarrius and it describes the arc guns and mauls burning flesh and "boiling" brains when the prime is shooting them. putting aside this novel is kinda like "Movie-Skitari the book" would this be feasible if the shots are almost as powerful as lightning?

Electricity can definitely do that.

Okay, and now how would, say, a Lightning strike effect something like a tank? Would it burn out the engine and make it unable to move? ignite fuel? destroy circuitry?

All of those things potentially. Even if all vital components are shielded, the lightning itself could heat up the hull and cause physical damage. Sensors could be blinded, temporarily or permanently.

 Grey Templar wrote:
All of those things potentially. Even if all vital components are shielded, the lightning itself could heat up the hull and cause physical damage. Sensors could be blinded, temporarily or permanently.

No. Assuming that the vehicle is shielded according to the cage of Faraday (which is really just as simple as being enclosed by metal), nothing will happen. In RL, aircraft, ships and cars get hit by lighting very often, and nothing happens. It might fry the electronics, but shielding those as well is not that hard.
The only thing lightning is going to be effective against is unprotected objects and people. In RL, it would be very trivial to protect against. That is why lightning weapons will never be viable (at least, not on a large scale and against advanced opponents).

What lightning guns are effective as is terrifying poorly equipped rebels and rioters by showing them horrible violent deaths - flamethrowers are more effective all round.

I think it would be highly similiar to this.
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Arc_Projector

Alright, so how would those weapons hurt the vehicles like it does in game?

They wouldn't, but GW thought lightning-guns would be cool, so they did.

You are best-served by not thinking too hard or looking too closely at the tech in 40K. Most of it either doesn't function at all or is inferior to devices currently in existence.

 Psienesis wrote:
They wouldn't, but GW thought lightning-guns would be cool, so they did.

You are best-served by not thinking too hard or looking too closely at the tech in 40K. Most of it either doesn't function at all or is inferior to devices currently in existence.

That goes for science fiction in general

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They wouldn't, but GW thought lightning-guns would be cool, so they did.

You are best-served by not thinking too hard or looking too closely at the tech in 40K. Most of it either doesn't function at all or is inferior to devices currently in existence.

That goes for science fiction in general

I suppose, but sometimes It's fun just to ask about things