Spring RTS Engine

The 1000 molecules of a plasma explosion would ascend away from you... Their Blasts will blot out the sun..

(just thought Id mention that plasma weapons are not possible, not because of current constraints but because of the property of plasma itself which is of course very hot gas.. essentially to sum it up, plasma shot by itself as energy sphere thingy would act like very hot gas, and rise rapidly as well as expanding rapidly, it would have very little mass and thus absolutely no penetration power, and next to no range, only useful as a very short ranged flamethrower sort of weapon and even then still not as effective as more conventional flame weapons.. If you fire it contained in some sort of canister you have 2 more issues, one it will eventually cool down being highly unstable, and two it requires an intense magnetic field to contain it, well if you can make portable super powered magnetic fields that can be powered and installed inside a small missile or tank shell, what the hell are you doing wasting that on delivering superheated gas.. do something more dangerous with it..)

i throw this in, it might be interesting.

Plasma isn't specifically very hot gas. Wiki has a fairly decent article on it. So when you check Caradhras link, it's worth a look at the crossreference to 'plasma' as well.

People also said the computer 'mouse' would be a failed attempt at computer manipulation.

I think it's a bit unfair to speculate the possibility of plasma weapons. If conventional guns with bullets didn't exist, I would have laughed when someone told me you could kill someone easy with an object propelled by burning something inside a hand held tube.

elliotkr wrote:I think it's a bit unfair to speculate the possibility of plasma weapons. If conventional guns with bullets didn't exist, I would have laughed when someone told me you could kill someone easy with an object propelled by burning something inside a hand held tube.

That's simple physics...

rattle wrote:

elliotkr wrote:I think it's a bit unfair to speculate the possibility of plasma weapons. If conventional guns with bullets didn't exist, I would have laughed when someone told me you could kill someone easy with an object propelled by burning something inside a hand held tube.

That's simple physics...

I think you missed the point of that statement.

people are still talking about this... why?

elliotkr wrote:

rattle wrote:

elliotkr wrote:I think it's a bit unfair to speculate the possibility of plasma weapons. If conventional guns with bullets didn't exist, I would have laughed when someone told me you could kill someone easy with an object propelled by burning something inside a hand held tube.

That's simple physics...

I think you missed the point of that statement.

No I didn't. Simple handgun = bullet in tube propelled by explosion of gunpowder. The effects of gunpowder are known. Cannons are known. Handguns are miniature cannons (more or less).

You can't really take handguns for comparision in this case.

Smoth wrote:people are still talking about this... why?

I like to split hairs...

By now you've split the hair so much the next step is nuclear fission.

KDR_11k wrote:By now you've split the hair so much the next step is nuclear fission.

Geek moment!

Does that mean I'm a genius?

right and if we can project a magnetic field all the way to the target WTF are you doing using that to guide plasma at it.. taking in mind that plasma has a very low density being more excited than gas, and since it has low density it has lower mass per volume than any solid and thus has less penetration..

Fanger wrote:right and if we can project a magnetic field all the way to the target WTF are you doing using that to guide plasma at it.. taking in mind that plasma has a very low density being more excited than gas, and since it has low density it has lower mass per volume than any solid and thus has less penetration..

I was wondering that myself...

Plasma weapons exist and have been used in armed conflict. The trick is that they are not in the plasma state of matter when they are fired, only when they impact the target. While there may be more examples, i'm refering to the HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) tank maingun ammo type.

For extra funny points, there is research into electromagnetical shields (triggered on impact) as a defense against plasma armor penetrating weapons. This, too, for tanks.

right, but.... YOU cannot have plasma of and by itself shot from some sort of cannon using a magnetic field work properly.. no glowy balls of death flying across the field, the only way to have plasma be of use is to cause it to happen on impact as you have stated, but plasma weapons as they are normally portrayed WOULD NOT WORK.. nuff said...

Actually, flamethrowers are plasma weapons in a way ;p

Ball lightning anyone?

Fanger wrote:and thus has less penetration..

Plasma wouldn't rely on penetration to do damage, it would utilize heat energy.

Of course, there's still the problem of air resistance.

That is why scifi games are not realistic in most cases. Which is totally fine.

imbaczek wrote:Actually, flamethrowers are plasma weapons in a way ;p

I'm pretty sure that most flamethrowers operate on simple combustion and don't generate plasma.