On a side note, fun consequences of losing mass are:
-All your weapons loose mass too, therefore becoming just as effective as if they were made out of Styrofoam. Sharpened, and burning Styrofoam, but still Styrofoam.
So, like adamantine?
Adamantine is so sharp that it can cut individual atoms. The plasma saber isn't.
You're right, it just melts everything. Or vaporizes, more like.
Plasma isn't that hot. Probably fairly low density even without the field, in order to prevent it from frying the mech through irradiated heat.
I'd imagine that the heat of plasma varies greatly from plasma to plasma. However, some plasma is the temperature of the Sun, and since stars are the only natural source of plasma I am aware of, I generally assume that plasma is within a fair margin of solar temperature. Certainly, it should be over the roughly 1300-1400 degrees it takes to melt steel; otherwise, it would presumably just be called "gas".
And I'm not a futuristic engineer; I'll let them deal with plasma weaponry, however they figure it out.
A) Still, an energy blade without any kinetic energy backing it up is pretty pointless. Additionally, due to conservation of energy, any shots fired from the pistols during weightlessness would drop out of the air the moment they leave the field.
1. Wrong. A lightsaber is a lightsaber, no matter how light. When you're burning material out of the way, density doesn't matter.
s. You are making assumptions; when you manipulate density, you're screwing with physics on a pretty fundamental level. Heck, since lower density at the same volume requires a loss of mass, your weapon already violates conservation of energy!
1. Still wrong. Your Lightsaber is quite pointless if a simple gust of wind can send it flying in your face. Remember, an object with nearly no mass is very easy to move, even if you're using a magnetical field to contain it. In fact, because you're probably containing it by rotating the plasma and attracting it with magnets from the middle, the entire thing would function as a gyroscope. Thereby, preventing the mech from making any sensible movement, as the gyroscopical forces would counteract any movement.
2. The weapon works by disturbing the Higgs field somehow. (Which is, theoretically impossible). This means that it effectively creates a field within objects have less mass, and a field outside where it does. There's nothing there to suggest that suggest an additional breakage of physics, therefore I'm referring to default rules
1a. Don't gyroscopic forces depend on mass? Otherwise, spinning atoms would immobilize everything with their spinniness.
1b. That reduces accuracy, but not efficacy!
2a. Not being familiar with higher-level physics, isn't momentum basically a derived thing from mass and velocity? INHO, it would make just as much sense to say that the velocity stays the same as the momentum, so long as it stays constant.
2b. You admit that it's already impossible. Why are you bothering with those laws of physics?
1a. They do. Forgot about that. (Silly people screwing around with physics)
1b. In the event that gyroscopic forces existed, they would massively overpower the nonexistent kinetic energy. However, now that they don't exist, I realize that neither does the centrifugal force (not that that one ever existed, but anyway) as such, said plasma containment system would result in the plasma converging on the magnet, ie, the robot frying itself. (Alternate plasma containment systems require magnets outside the plasma field, and are therefore problematic)
2a. There's a very significant difference between velocity being constant, and momentum being constant. For example, when you shoot a giant mech with a high speed bullet, it will barely move. Momentum remained constant, velocity barely changed. If however, the mech had no mass, then we get into really complicated physics, which I don't quite understand. Anyway, the mech would fly away at a very high speed
2b. Because that's the entire point of this discussion. The Question I'm asking here is, what if this entire thing didn't run on Handwavium?
1b. If we accept "Screws with density," we should be able to accept some kind of plasma containment field.
2a. Yes, there is a difference. I just don't see why one is inherently more "right" than another, since the whole discussion relies on us chucking out a good bit of the laws of physics relevant to this discussion (ie, conservation of mass/energy). Heck, by your interpretation, reducing mass would increase speed, so the mech would accelerate to near-lightspeed the moment he turned his field on, because his mass would have suddenly decreased, so his velocity would need to increase to compensate. The problem comes into play when you realize that there is no constant speed--what would he be spontaneously accelerating relative to?
2b. Um, it has to run on Handwavium to some extent.
C) Thanks to the fact that the exhaust from the thrusters also hasn't got any mass, you're not going anywhere. Also, thanks to Archimedean lift you'll be floating up into the higher atmosphere. And You'll hurt yourself heavily when coming down.
1. He's going exactly as far as he would without the change in density.
2. Not if he fires thrusters downward!
3. Unless your field projects several hundred/thousand feet upward, and is turned off once they reach that point, they would have nothing to worry about. Still might not, depending on mech design.
I don't think you understood what I said.
1. The bubble of air surrounding him has a lower density than the rest of the air. Hence it floats upwards. Speed depends on the original mass of the craft.
2. Doesn't matter in what direction it happens to occur. Action = Reaction, and when the original action has no kinetic energy (m=0), neither does the cou nterreaction.
3. I'm assuming the field is centered around the mech(would be pretty pointless otherwise), also, it's not my field.
1. Your point? Also, if it affects the air, then only the air would rise; the air would have lower density as well.
2. Wait, this reduces mass to zero? That screws everything up...
3. Definitely affects air, then. Anyways, if he keeps the lowered mass as he descends, his terminal velocity will be miniscule.
1. The mech and the bubble of air both have a mass zero. Both would rise upwards. The bubble of air probably would undergo a lot of turbulence, and the rise wouldn't be very smooth, but you don't need a lot of energy efficiency when the mass of an object is zero.
2. Yup mass-less
3. He doesn't. In fact, after the overdrive ends, it reverts to default, not the standard reduced mass.
1. Again, the air would still be applying as much less force as the mech requires to be lifted.
2. Okay, yeah...we get lots of zero propagation and divide-by-zero stuff, we need to ignore physics completely to make this work at all. Seriously, zero mass means zero force can accelerate you, and that any finite force would instantly accelerate you to lightspeed.
3. It's a limited-time thing? ...Yeah, he's in trouble.
On a side note, I just realized something. When that thing goes massless, it looses the centripetal force of gravity, will rapidly drift towards space because of the Earth's rotation. (And the even bigger problem, that it is no longer attracted to the sun, and will be flung out of that orbit too)
On the other hand, air resistance will keep the mech moving along with the atmosphere, and its zero inertia means that it would just go along without even affecting the movement of the air. Geez, zero mass is crazy.
Anyway, this should probably the end of this pointless exercise in uselessness, before we derail the trait.
But it's so much fun! And I didn't see this until I had typed up everything else!
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Topic: Earth Defense Mecha Forces: defending the earth is serious business(OOC/Full) (Read 12093 times)