So, what is the highest power we could cram into a laser or gauss rifle sized package using a blueshard battery? Assume only a few shots (3-5 or so) and that it works in pulses.
Same question, but for a pistol sized weapon. Same parameters otherwise.
Depends on two things 1. what is the size limit you have on the shard and 2. Does the rifle have to survive the shooting? A "Burner" rifle can be much more powerful.
I'd like to know for the following four designs please:
1) a pistol that still can be fired one-handed, blueshard size so that it still fits into one hand comfortably and isn't too heavy to get a decent shot off. Shard would be in the grip (and maybe partly protruding into body, depending on how much space is needed for optics and whatnot). 5 Shots, can be reloaded.
2) a pistol that still can be fired one-handed (same size as previous), blueshard size so that it still fits into one hand comfortably and isn't too heavy to get a decent shot off. Shard would be in the grip and partly in body. 1 Shot, needs no reload (aka is destroyed after use).
3) a laser rifle sized weapon, shard a big as can fit into a stock or magazine size of an assault rifle or something. 10 Shots, can be reloaded.
4) a gauss rifle sized weapon, shard a big as can fit into a stock or magazine size of a weapon that's still wieldable without an exoskeleton. 1 Shot, needs no reload (aka is destroyed after use).
1 About as powerful as a rifle.
2. About twice as powerful as a cutting laser.
3. About cutting laser power, probably higher actually.
4.So propane tank sized shard strapped to a rifle. One shot with something like that is probably good enough to go straight through a battlesuit. The gun is gonna melt to molten slag in the process though.
Can I tinker if I don't have a character?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCI15QojoA((@RC: Try a battlesuit/exoskeleton usable one next. Or maybe a one time use gauss rifle/cannon as a sort of extreme anti-tank weapon for use against one of our own battlesuits.
Oh, and you've got 3 twice.))
Okay, take a blackship-equivelant ship. A ship that can travel to other star systems and hold a few men (let's say around 6-10), equipment for them, communication systems, some weapons, etc. Then replace its armour with hexsand in the following configuration:
The red, green and blue things are hexsand. They can open and close as necessary to reveal sensors, engines, doors and whatever else needs access to the outside of the ship.
The design is simplified, assume it has whatever shape makes it easier to function. Or perhaps a shape that will allow it to fly better in atmosphere. It's not necessarily egg shaped.
With that design, only the plates that need to be opened are opened, allowing maximum protection and stealth for any given circumstance.
Finally, give the ship a self sustaining gravity or vector automanipulator or a combination of the two (whatever is the most efficient) that can be used in combination with the acceleration automanipulators (the ones used to allow the ship to accelerate to jump speed) to move the ship in stealth mode, without use of its engines. Make it at least strong enough to allow it to land on an earth-like planet without need to use engines until the ship is close to the ground. Stronger if I can get away with it.
Also make sure it has accelerometers/gravity sensors and that its flight computer is good enough to allow it to fly around without external sensor data to the best of its ability so that it can fly around while in stealth mode reasonably well.
Could we build something like that? Could our black ops teams use it? Any problems with it?
Looks theoretically possible and potentially useful.
Collective effort around my idea created a new weapon design. Here is a final and illustrated description, starting here was the discussion on this concept. Piecewise, have a look, please.
So lets see if I got the idea right. You have a metal thing in a chamber. This metal thing is accelerated via gauss coils into a kinetic amp. This amp amplifies the impact force, which is used to fire a bullet made of sharkmist.
Correct?
By the way, what is wrong with clones (on the observable physical/social level, without taking complicated secret space magic rules and such into consideration)? Is there, perhaps, any noticeable degradation of intelligence? Can wetware AIs be made of cloned brains?
And what is the difference between cloning, vat-growing (like sods) and bioforge-printing a person/a brain? Are they all practically the same person, or would there be noticeable differences (or lack of differences due to much better duplicating tech) in mind, personality, thoughts, abilities, etc.?
Cloning a single individual through one iteration is fine. We use that crap for sods, after all. The problem is when you start having clones of clones. There are degenerative effects. Especially when you start increasing their maturation rate so they're actually useful.
Well, bioforge doesn't "Grow" things. It prints them on a molecular level. One is a biological process, the other is advanced 3d printing.