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[Xantalos]

Meanwhile, we at M15 are the paragon of ARM's core tenets. FUBAR and back in under 20 turns, or at least under 30.

Or, as was put by you I think, it went from the 8 stooges to The Reckoning to the 3 stooges in about 10 turns.

[Beirus]

As much as I want to have said that, it wasn't me. Seems like Mesk should get a promotion though. He did a lot. A lot of beneficial things, to be specific.

[Xantalos]

He actually saved some people, didn't he?

[Yoink]

<.< What about me?! Sheesh.

[Beirus]

He actually saved some people, didn't he?

Saved my character twice. Once from Stacy's brilliant digging strategy and once from the bombardment.

[Xantalos]

And Jobasio, being the only competent cowardly guy. He even endured upwards of a minute alone in the APC with Xan. That deserves a medal on its own.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It just occurred to me that all three of our science teams on Heph are currently lounging about doing nothing !!SCIENCE!!y at all.

Would anyone object if I assigned two of them to some of the projects I wanted developed? Specifically, the miniaturization of the FEL, and the development of a manipulator-less plasma generator?

[Parisbre56]

May I ask why do you need a manipulator-less plasma generator?

And what advantages the FEL has in game terms? I remember you saying that it can do charged shots, which sounds useful. Is that its only advantage?

[Empiricist]

I think that FEL are also more efficient than other types of lasers if project rho is correct.

[Sean Mirrsen]

A manip-less plasma generator has the advantage of being buildable for cheap, and in large quantities, without relying on highly dangerous and volatile production facilities that are best used for something else. It isn't going to be useful for a ranged weapon, as the self-contained plasma ball is exclusively a manipulator-enabled feature, but what I want to do with it is make a CQC weapon for extreme armor penetration, for our larger exosuits, battlesuits, and theoretical larger mecha. Plasma is about the only thing a synthflesh monstrosity like the Avatar of War is really vulnerable to besides powerful space magic, so having a weapon that can, provided you can actually close the distance, literally punch a limb off the thing, would be very helpful.

It also has a very secret use that I won't try to go for unless I succeed with it.

As for the FEL, its secondary advantage is being more powerful and/or efficient than standard lasers, at least once it warms up, as well as being able to cycle the beam inside the lasing chamber to build up power. Its primary advantage, the way I see it, is being able to fire laser beams all across the EM spectrum, from microwave to X-Ray, enabling a number of different uses besides "heat this spot up till it melts". At least part of it is non-lethal, like low-power infrared or microwaves being used to deter civilians, and some of it is purely side-effect territory like using visible-light frequencies as a big-ass nuclear-powered flashlight bright enough to sear your skin off, but some can be used for unique purposes, like wide-angle microwaves that will wreck havoc on any metals and absolutely wreck any fine electronics, or X-Rays that will deal massive critical damage to living organisms (that are partially transparent to them) even at low power that won't harm machinery as much.

Its tertiary advantage is being heavy and sturdy enough to brain a mastodon with it (its primary part is a thick block of magnetic metal segments), but I tend not to advertise it that much.

[Parisbre56]

Yeah, that sounds good.

I'm not sure about whether or not the plasma would be a better and/or cheaper close quarter weapon than something chemical. Its simply superheated gas, after all (or that is what I assume, unless you want to use cold plasma). You'd probably need to heat it to ridiculously hot, at which point we come to the question "how do you cheaply contain it, if it is so hot it can melt through a battlesuit?" You could have it charge up and then fire so that the gun only has to contain the plasma for a limited amount of time, but that would make the weapon hard to use, unless you use capacitors so that the gas is superheated as it exits the barrel in short bursts.
The only way I see this working is creating some sort of plasma "bullet" that is expended to create the plasma and contain its heat and energy long enough for the plasma to be used. That way, you could have a plasma thrower that works with "bullets" which are destroyed to create the plasma. And you could use the bullets standalone, to open doors or as grenades for example.
But even then, doesn't plasma dissipate very quickly? So you'd probably have to get to short range to have a chance to use it, like some sort of plasma blade. Unless you can somehow magnetically contain it (or maybe envelop it in some sort of polymer that can contain it long enough to reach its target). Or maybe you could accelerate so much that dispersion doesn't have enough time to happen, but at that point it would be less plasma thrower and more ion cannon.

As for other advantages... You could maybe somehow magnetically accelerate it? But I don't see any advantage in that, other than that you could spray it farther or control it with magnetic manipulators or maybe shield yourself from it. I suppose it would be slightly harmful to unshielded electronics.

In my opinion, a plasma grenade or a plasma shell would be much better. It requires no containment since the energy is all released at once. And you could do something crazy with it, like fitting the grenade with a tesla saber so that you can create an "ion storm" cloud.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The idea is a "plasma stake". It would basically use metal rods as the plasma source, plasmarizing them with high electric current and microwaves, and magnetically containing the resulting plasma cloud. The containment happens only for a short time, as the intent is the same as a kinetic amp - it needs to be activated at a precise moment to coincide with your melee attack. At most a few seconds after the "stake" is formed and contained, it must be released, using magnetoplasmadynamic effects (the same as used in MPDT and VASIMR plasma thrusters) to maintain the shape of the short-lived plasma "jet stream" for about three feet, which is enough to pierce almost any armor short of actual battleship plating. If the front of the stream pierces to a depth greater than the MPD containment effect, the rest of the stream will "bloom", expanding into a cloud and dealing extra internal damage.

Plasma has the simultaneous benefit of extreme temperature, high heat capacity (especially dense metallic plasma), and extreme chemical reactivity due to to being an extremely hot ionized metallic substance. In ER, at least, this is the case with Plasma Projectors - it's the only way to explain their extreme effectiveness at eating through anything in the projectile's path. The same effect replicated through conventional means will have great use as a melee weapon if it can be made compact enough to mount on a humanoid combat machine.

I.e., this one:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Pancaek]

Eh, well, action made. Shockwaves for everyone.

Also just realized that Pan is now a torso with one arm. Didn't really get much use out of that brand spanking new synthflesh body before it got utterly wrecked, though it certainly kept him alive.

[Unholy_Pariah]

I am so stealing one of those Kulak's if you build them, just a heads up.

[Parisbre56]

Ah, yeah, good idea. If it can be made cheaply, it should be a good weapon. And good utility for opening reinforced doors more precisely, unlike kinetic amps.

You should check to see if you could incorporate secondary uses to it, like electricity gun or dart launcher. I think it's nice to think about secondary uses, modability and versatility for anything one builds, since our soldiers will have more to face than direct combat.

Edit: And someone should really check for non-lethal weapons effective against synthflesh.