Lasers: Are they silent? Are they visible?
- Thread starter Todg
- Start date
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
That would be a big laser. Most are an order of magnitude or two smaller.
True, both ABL and THEL will be Chemical Oxygen Iodine Lasers, and the exhaust will have significant thrust.
But purely electronic (diode?) lasers are now under development and will be deployed within ten years.
EDIT: Oops, the THEL is a deuterium fluouride laser. Same mechanisms, though. It looks like neither weapon will be widely deployed without solid-state lasers
But purely electronic (diode?) lasers are now under development and will be deployed within ten years.
EDIT: Oops, the THEL is a deuterium fluouride laser. Same mechanisms, though. It looks like neither weapon will be widely deployed without solid-state lasers
My 0.02cr;
Do LASERs make a noise? As per the tech-link the ignition and point of "impact" would make some noise, but, again as per the link, it's dependent upon how much energy is in the system, the medium through which it travels, and the "firing" mechanism.
CLC verse DEI; our group monkeyed with CLC and CLC-like concepts. Like with some of the players who posted here we had issues with the whole "backpack" setup
My solution was spawned from the LASER pistol from "Mission on Mithril." IIRC the description of the LP says that it's a body-pistol sized weapon that needed to be hooked up to a LASER carbine power pack, and had the power/ammo consumption.
Again, our group, OK me
, had issues with a Walter PPK sized weapon sucking energy through a cable from a battery back pack. The Solution; create a batter-magazine that fed a limited number of shots to the weapon, and was fitted into said weapon like a regular pistol mag.
There's not too much "real" or TNE (FF&S) description for how the magazine worked, so much as it was a mitigation of game mechanics to create something our group felt was needed. To this end I toyed with the concept of high-energy magazines (not neccesarily batteries, but magazine sized power packs) that generated (or stored) and delivered the power needed for a X-number of shots.
As was pointed out earlier on this thread there's a need to make something work in the framework of the game verse using contemporary understanding of science or electrical engineering (not electronic engineering) as a basis for technology some several thousand years on. This being so I reasoned that using nickel cadmium technology was a poor baseline to extrapolate future technology, but this is not the only instance as can be seen from the tech level examples in the LBBs and TTB.
ROF; going back to CT and MT rules a weapon could empty its magazine in a single combat round, or so it was in the abstract. I think more elaborate and detailed systems took into account actual ROF, but using the more abstract system the power demand is essentially linear. The longer you held down the trigger on a LASER weapon (rifle, carbine, pistol) the more "shots" streamed from the weapon. Given the short life span of a LASER beam (in Traveller anyway) I would think it very reasonable to empty a pack in a single combat round. I'll have to bone up on my TNE combat rules for LASER weapons.
There were two schools of thoughts on how this manifested its effects in the game environment. The first school of thought was it was a single beam that itself consisted of X-number of "shots." This verse a machine-gun like effect where each shot was essentially a "flash" or flashing beam. Hence a series of shots would be a series of flashes, or maybe even a strobe like effect.
I have more to say, and in a more coherent way (it's well after 2AM here), but I'm getting a little punchy
Do LASERs make a noise? As per the tech-link the ignition and point of "impact" would make some noise, but, again as per the link, it's dependent upon how much energy is in the system, the medium through which it travels, and the "firing" mechanism.
CLC verse DEI; our group monkeyed with CLC and CLC-like concepts. Like with some of the players who posted here we had issues with the whole "backpack" setup
Again, our group, OK me
There's not too much "real" or TNE (FF&S) description for how the magazine worked, so much as it was a mitigation of game mechanics to create something our group felt was needed. To this end I toyed with the concept of high-energy magazines (not neccesarily batteries, but magazine sized power packs) that generated (or stored) and delivered the power needed for a X-number of shots.
As was pointed out earlier on this thread there's a need to make something work in the framework of the game verse using contemporary understanding of science or electrical engineering (not electronic engineering) as a basis for technology some several thousand years on. This being so I reasoned that using nickel cadmium technology was a poor baseline to extrapolate future technology, but this is not the only instance as can be seen from the tech level examples in the LBBs and TTB.
ROF; going back to CT and MT rules a weapon could empty its magazine in a single combat round, or so it was in the abstract. I think more elaborate and detailed systems took into account actual ROF, but using the more abstract system the power demand is essentially linear. The longer you held down the trigger on a LASER weapon (rifle, carbine, pistol) the more "shots" streamed from the weapon. Given the short life span of a LASER beam (in Traveller anyway) I would think it very reasonable to empty a pack in a single combat round. I'll have to bone up on my TNE combat rules for LASER weapons.
There were two schools of thoughts on how this manifested its effects in the game environment. The first school of thought was it was a single beam that itself consisted of X-number of "shots." This verse a machine-gun like effect where each shot was essentially a "flash" or flashing beam. Hence a series of shots would be a series of flashes, or maybe even a strobe like effect.
I have more to say, and in a more coherent way (it's well after 2AM here), but I'm getting a little punchy
More LASER commentary;
Our group was pretty big on LASER weapons. We liked the traditional slug-throwers, but recognized the potential of LASERs, albeit somewhat late in our campaigns.
For every slug thrower (or chemical cartridge weapon) we came up with a LASER equivalent. The only exception being that we never came up with a LASER-shotgun.
We had LASER LMGs (LASER Light Machineguns), LASER SMGs, LASER assault rifles (some variance in dice damage from the regular LASER rifle... and I think we had a 203-ish device slunder under the barrel as optional equipment), and a host of other LASER based weapons.
Even so our group still preferred to use their tried and true hardware, though we were able to incorporate the new weapons with some unique and interesting effects in combat.
I can't remember all the details of we made them work in the game, but typically their damage and range modifiers were superior to their slug-throwing counterparts. I felt it important to include LASER weapons because traditionally they've always been a staple of sci-fi. What would a space opera be without the infamous "ray gun?"
That and I also thought it important to steer the group away from high energy weapons. LASER variants of traditional sidearms and longarms proved to be the ideal solution. And they weren't always reliant upon a backpack sourced of power, as I described in my previous post.
Our group was pretty big on LASER weapons. We liked the traditional slug-throwers, but recognized the potential of LASERs, albeit somewhat late in our campaigns.
For every slug thrower (or chemical cartridge weapon) we came up with a LASER equivalent. The only exception being that we never came up with a LASER-shotgun.
We had LASER LMGs (LASER Light Machineguns), LASER SMGs, LASER assault rifles (some variance in dice damage from the regular LASER rifle... and I think we had a 203-ish device slunder under the barrel as optional equipment), and a host of other LASER based weapons.
Even so our group still preferred to use their tried and true hardware, though we were able to incorporate the new weapons with some unique and interesting effects in combat.
I can't remember all the details of we made them work in the game, but typically their damage and range modifiers were superior to their slug-throwing counterparts. I felt it important to include LASER weapons because traditionally they've always been a staple of sci-fi. What would a space opera be without the infamous "ray gun?"
That and I also thought it important to steer the group away from high energy weapons. LASER variants of traditional sidearms and longarms proved to be the ideal solution. And they weren't always reliant upon a backpack sourced of power, as I described in my previous post.
Sorry all. I didn't mean to shut down the discussion here. 
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Here is an article about proposed new weapon systems, it includes lasers so it has some relevance to the discussion at hand 
. Plus a whole lot more
. Plus a whole lot more
On a special called "Voyage to the Milky Way," which ran on PBS a few years back, one of the segments showed Dr. Leyk Myrabo of Rensaeleer Polytechnic Institute experimenting with lasers as an alternative form of propulsion. He was using an infrared laser that made a distinctly loud mechanical noise when activated. And as he demonstrated, you wouldn't want to be in the path of this thing! The beam was invisible and propelled a small model with a parabolic mirrored base to a height of several dozen feet.
