Fallout weapons discussion thread.

One of my favorite death animations comea from fallout 1 when you score a critical hit against a centaur with a plasma rifle-SPLOOSH!!!

But im curious to know if such a weapon could even exsist. A weapon that could twist your very matter so that it changes its form from solid to liquid. Pretty sure a plasma gun would only be able to do so much as to have its projectile go through you and not liquify your flesh.

L.A.S.E.Rs!
 
One of 2 things can happen if a laser hits you:
1.cuts through you(like in the movies)
2.you explode(also... Like in the movies...)
3.um...not melt i guess??

What movies do that?

"In order to cause damage to the absorbing material, the electromagnetic energy of the laser pulse must be converted to thermo-mechanical energy. We have developed a computational model that allows the calculation of damage resulting from a laser pulse of any duration or energy due to temperature rise, explosive bubble formation, and shock wave production. We have discovered that the system exhibits chaotic dynamics….

We also discovered resonant effects in laser absorption and damage that allow the duration between pulses to be tuned to channel a greater or lesser fraction of the absorbed energy into shockfront and bubble production. This allows the delivery of large amounts of laser energy to produce strong thermal effects while suppressing unwanted pressure effects, or vice versa"
https://www.wired.com/2008/05/when-laser-me-1/
Sounds a lot like 'melting' can be produced with extreme high end Laser weaponry, like a tank-mounted laser or a heavy laser weapon.​
 
What movies do that?

"In order to cause damage to the absorbing material, the electromagnetic energy of the laser pulse must be converted to thermo-mechanical energy. We have developed a computational model that allows the calculation of damage resulting from a laser pulse of any duration or energy due to temperature rise, explosive bubble formation, and shock wave production. We have discovered that the system exhibits chaotic dynamics….

We also discovered resonant effects in laser absorption and damage that allow the duration between pulses to be tuned to channel a greater or lesser fraction of the absorbed energy into shockfront and bubble production. This allows the delivery of large amounts of laser energy to produce strong thermal effects while suppressing unwanted pressure effects, or vice versa"
https://www.wired.com/2008/05/when-laser-me-1/
Sounds a lot like 'melting' can be produced with extreme high end Laser weaponry, like a tank-mounted laser or a heavy laser weapon.​

But wouldn't the beam have to stay within the target for some period of time before it can actually start melting? The beam in fallout nv lasts for a fraction of a second and then dissappear, I assume that in reality it would last for an even shorter period. Also if it did start to melt, i doubt that it would affect the entire body (although that probably varies on the size and strength of the laser).

Im sorry for talking outta my ass but i REALLY AM CURIOUS to know if it would melt human if one were to be struck by it.
 
But wouldn't the beam have to stay within the target for some period of time before it can actually start melting? The beam in fallout nv lasts for a fraction of a second and then dissappear, I assume that in reality it would last for an even shorter period. Also if it did start to melt, i doubt that it would affect the entire body (although that probably varies on the size and strength of the laser).

Im sorry for talking outta my ass but i REALLY AM CURIOUS to know if it would melt human if one were to be struck by it.

It would depend on how much 'energy' is in the beam. If you can somehow hit someone with megawatts of Laser energy, that might be enough.
 
It would depend on how much 'energy' is in the beam. If you can somehow hit someone with megawatts of Laser energy, that might be enough.

Ok, but an energy weapon that could melt in a single blast. Some sort of matter-distabilazer or some such 'thingy'.
 
It would depend on how much 'energy' is in the beam. If you can somehow hit someone with megawatts of Laser energy, that might be enough.
Not in a single blast. That would just explode the target really good due to rapid thermal expansion of the evaporating material at the target.
Melting or turning into ash a full human body doesn't work.
 
Would something like the Gauss Rifle even work in real life?
And if it could, how different would it be from the video game equivalent?
 
Would something like the Gauss Rifle even work in real life?
And if it could, how different would it be from the video game equivalent?

It's been done numerous of times, the only issue is the battery, I believe. We just don't have the energy source compact enough to blast metal ball/nail/etc at high velocities enough to instantly kill humans. The difference would be the absolutely little to no recoil (unlike the Gauss Rifle in the Fallout series, which seems to have ridiculous recoil), and no sound erupting from the barrel as the metal object is flying out, or flash erupting from the barrel. If we ever did construct a battery source that was compact and created a whopping amount of power, Gauss weaponry would probably be the highest evolutionary state for conventional firearms (right possibly before Railgun technology), after that? The next step is plasma/energy weaponry. I'd bet our first weapon of Gauss technology would be a Sniper Rifle-based weapon, since it's godly in those terms: No sound, no trail, no bullet casing, no flash, doesn't need to be suppressed, and it's firing rounds that can possibly punch through walls and continue onward (depending on the battery), doesn't need to chamber a round each time it's fired, little recoil, hell, you could probably turn it into an automatic sniper rifle that punches through walls.

Edit: that or, an automatic rifle that can wreck havoc while at the same time, cheap on the 'ammunition' it uses.
 
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Would something like the Gauss Rifle even work in real life?
And if it could, how different would it be from the video game equivalent?
There's two (maybe three) possibilities for an electrogmagnetic rifle, the Gauss rifle (or coil gun) and the Railgun. "Gauss rifle" usually means a gun that accelerates a ferromagnetic projectile using magnetic fields. This can be done in a single stage, so you'd only need a single electromagnet, but of course that would limit its power. If you put several electromagnets in row behind each other (like a linear particle accelerator) you can increase the acceleration, but you'd have to be careful to switch your fields on and off in time. The biggest issues here are the magnetic properties of the projectile and the inductivities of the electromagnets. For extreme acceleration (from zero to around Mach 2 at least in a meter or so) those accelerating magnets need to be really strong, but on the other hand, really strong electromagnets require a lot of power to be switched on or off (changing the current in a coil changes the magnetic flux, which induces a counter-acting curret in the coil). And the projectile needs to be properly magnetized in a very short time in order to be effective, but the rapidly changing magnetic field would then induce eddy currents in the projectile again counteracting the external magnetic field. AC electromagnetics are a bitch.
Railguns on the other hand work simply by placing a conducting projectile between two charged rails so that it shortens them out. The current through it will yield a Lorentz-force that will accelerate it along the rails. Here we only need a conducting projectile and a fast powersource capable of delivering super high currents fast. The mechanical problem here is just the stability of the rails themselves, because the electromagnetic forces during a short are trying to rip the rails apart, and the high abrasive forces you get from sliding a projectile along the barrel.
Both designs require big power sources, which is the main problem for scaling them up. Gauss guns also suffer from other problems, as I've said.
@Zerginfestor: No, they'd suffer from huge recoil if you want any sort of stopping power. F = ma, can't fool old Newton. You want to accelerate something? Better be prepared for the recoil. Also, yes, there'd be sound erupting from the barrel, your projectile will be going at supersonic to hypersonic speeds, so sonic boom. Flash, too, maybe, if it's fast enough to ionize the air by heat of friction.
Here's a military railgun prototype:

And here's a "small" amateur one:
 
Both designs require big power sources, which is the main problem for scaling them up. Gauss guns also suffer from other problems, as I've said.
@Zerginfestor: No, they'd suffer from huge recoil if you want any sort of stopping power. F = ma, can't fool old Newton. You want to accelerate something? Better be prepared for the recoil. Also, yes, there'd be sound erupting from the barrel, your projectile will be going at supersonic to hypersonic speeds, so sonic boom. Flash, too, maybe, if it's fast enough to ionize the air by heat of friction.

Huh, I think it's the amateur videos of the Gauss rifles shown on youtube that lead me to believe that there would be no recoil, since the weapon was capable of puncturing through laptop screens, while the man holding it had no showing of recoil upon his arm. I thought the lack of recoil would be the round simply traveling through the coils of the Gauss rifle and simply accelerating from a hovering standstill and as it travels through the barrel, increases in speed until exiting, but it makes sense that in order to actually kill humans with it, it would have to increase in acceleration definitely faster from standstill and outwards, which can result in some 'hot dayum' recoil. Oh, derp, I goofed, I was thinking of gunpowder and not the velocity of the round when it came to sound, stupid me. Dunno about the round capable of ionizing the air and creating a flash, but I can see that a Gauss Rifle wouldn't be too far from a regular gun, just more expensive in the actual piece, but at least your ammunition is, possibly, dirt cheap.
 
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