Confirming Quality: "Wave Cannon" ("Mara&quot

[Tom]

I'd help if I knew the first thing about Physics.

Unfortunately, my liberal arts degree and my aversion to math don't help.

All I can say is be easy on the criticism: Not all of us are very smart when it comes to futuristic technology.

 

[Zakalwe]

Oh it most certainly is:

focused waves of subatomic particles

What particles?

carefully calculated oscillation

Explain what you mean.

before firing

How is it fired?

The oscillation of the sub-atomic particles themselves works against the localized particles in the target to collapse the wave-function on a quantum level, releasing bursts of heat during the collapse and de-stabilization of particles, particularly in atomically dense areas of the internal structure.

Nice statement, but it doesn't help me at all. You have yet to explain what the oscillation is, and without this we can't understand why or how it 'works against the localised particles' and causes them to collapse.

As such it is very vague and need precision and explanation.

I can't really give advise because this weapon is effectively a particle beam which is trying to get through armour without interacting with it. This is - in my opinion - impossible without using some strange technology like 'phasing'.

I'm going to Church now, I'll continue when I get back. God bless.

 

[Vesper]

Firstly, Uso, you are not one to be talking about names, you are still pushing items named after breakfast items.

But on to the tech.

First thing here is that the particles being used would be known,even after one shot. Heck, their energies would be know after one shot. This is because each particle has a unique decay product (for example, a Neutron decays into a proton, a electron, and a gamma ray).

As was said previously, the neutrino is right out a viable particle for this weapon, since it does not react with either the electromagnetic force nor the strong force, allowing it to breeze by immense volumes of matter. As Jatsu said, neutrons are what you want to use here. They allow you to penetrate lighter armors with ease.

My big problem here, as it seems with others, is what you are doing with these oscillations. As I understand it you seem to be trying to match the wave of the nuclei within the target's hull. Fundamentally, this seems workable, because, assuming you could match the waves, you could get the neutrons to pass through with no resistance. However, in reality the armor is not a ideal body and its constituents do not all oscillate with the same frequency. This means it could not penetrate the armor in its entirety. It would probably have difficulty passing through a few layers of the crystal before the oscillations where different. That they are neutral would help them get further (the oscillations would stop helping, as I said last sentence, very shortly into the material), but the kind of dense armor used in military starships would stop it before it got through I believe. PA and fighters are another matter though.

Now, you could arbitrarily increase the energy of the neutron, giving it more penetrating power, but as it its energy increases it becomes less effective in damaging hardware. This is because the most lethal energy range for neutron radiation for organic life and most electronics is between .9 and 2.1 MeV (mega electronvolts).

As was said earlier, the oscillations will not aid it in any way when it comes to shielding, since most forms of it in this setting are based on spacetime warping. So for acting shielded targets you probably just want to ramp up the neutron energy as far as the weapon can safely go (just realizing that if you penetrate it, it is really not going to do much of anything to the ship or crew)

With the range, I would agree that it is extremely short (keeping in mind any form of realistic space combatants would consider distances in the tens of km as "point blank", normal engagements taking place at hundreds or thousands of km with ship weaponry), but given the purpose of the weapon (which seems to be for taking out strike craft and PA) it is acceptable, if not desirable. Still, because most armor used by militaries in this setting use a godtech propulsion system to ignore inertia, whatever ship mounts this better be horrendously fast if it wants to actually get in range to use it. Personally, I would rephrase it to say that the oscillatory effect is only useful within a few km(since the particles would eventually start to do there own thing) but that the raw neutron beam was effective at several hundred or thousand km. Do keep in mind (though I know creators of PA on the board have not) that organic beings have a limit on how accurately they can aim at something, putting a upper limit on targeting by such things well below what most weapons effective ranges are.

 

[OsakanOne]

As I understand it you seem to be trying to match the wave of the nuclei within the target's hull. Fundamentally, this seems workable, because, assuming you could match the waves, you could get the neutrons to pass through with no resistance.

The idea is that the particles will occilate, colide with the armor and through some sort of mystical undecided process, the occilation will either rise or fall to impact either the opposite armor of the impact vector or the inards of the target.

I'm starting to think the design needs some serious revision and I'm not sure I have the understanding of the physics involved to get this right.

So for acting shielded targets...

It'll be working in conjunction with a seperate weapon as a sort of two-pronged solution. One as a shield buster, the other to shred the target up. The main consern with the shield buster as a semi-conventional weapon is the time it takes for ammunition to regenerate and gravitonic fields to stabilize between rounds. But that's another subject.

whatever ship mounts this better be horrendously fast if it wants to actually get in range to use it.

It's an NPC plot device that makes most fighters appear quite sluggish. It can hop a good 200YL confidently and emmit a sort of jamming signal that makes FTL technology far less efficient (which is quite important to the overall plot itself as it'll backfire at some point).

organic beings have a limit on how accurately they can aim at something

It's not an organic being. It's a... [Possible Spoiler] { It's a four stage dynamic computer making use of a range of processor types (Von Neumann (managment), Quantum(highly constrained tasks) and an artificial neural-pathway(storage) with a deliberation proccessor (a specialized neural computer arch-type). }





Anyway, I think the term Americans use is a Catch-22.

I can either explain everything down to an atomic definition and and suck the mystery right out of it (noone knows why a UFO can accelerate like it does. We make speculation and observation but we don't have one in captivity to take apart) or I can be relatively loose and let your minds fill in the gaps.

When you see claws the size of bicycle tires, you're left wondering just what they're attatched to...

I really apreciate your help.

 

[MissingNo]

People, people. This person is reletivly new in regards to the entire science.

I would say, instead of firing so many questions why don't we try and HELP with this peice of technology?

*stunned silence* I say Cora wins a few internets with this. Seriously.

I am trying to help. By that I mean I try to understand what the person is trying to accomplish, and then I try to help them toward it. Though I can't right now due to time constraints, I will make some suggestions that might work.

How is it fired?

Quote:
The oscillation of the sub-atomic particles themselves works against the localized particles in the target to collapse the wave-function on a quantum level, releasing bursts of heat during the collapse and de-stabilization of particles, particularly in atomically dense areas of the internal structure.


Nice statement, but it doesn't help me at all. You have yet to explain what the oscillation is, and without this we can't understand why or how it 'works against the localised particles' and causes them to collapse.

As such it is very vague and need precision and explanation.

I can't really give advise because this weapon is effectively a particle beam which is trying to get through armour without interacting with it. This is - in my opinion - impossible without using some strange technology like 'phasing'.

Thomas is right. And I already noted all of this missing and vague information in my first post, which Osakan never answered. In fact, I think he side-stepped all of the really important questions, including some of the ones that he looked like he answered.

Well, here's a solution: I'll think up a weapon while I'm at work that achieves the same results, but it might work somewhat differently. You can pick that apart, but I think the science will hold together better.

I'm not entirely sure. I set out with a rough goal and tried to get the physics to work afterwards. Unless the technology were dissected, there would be no way of knowing just how it works: Only speculation.

Osakan, as people have mentioned, just because the tech is a mystery In Character doesn't mean that you are able to fudge on the details Out Of Character. Someone tried that once before and the results were not pretty. And you can't make a weapon and bend physics to fit it. You should always go the other way, make a weapon and then bend it to fit physics, it results in fewer debates (or at least shorter ones) of this type.

Quote:
Aah~ Well, I'm by no means an expert, I just did a few hours reading on atomic stability, wave-form, ZPE and quantum eventuality.


BUT, even with a few hours of reading, this rather well though out piece of equipment was made. So, instead of treating this like an Inquision hearing, why don't we put all our heads together, yes that even inclused you Uso asuki, and try and make this thing work properly. Most of the science is there. There's just some parts that need to be better explained.

Cora, no one can make a weapon this complex off of a couple hours of reading and expect it to work. I had to read the entire database and then do research (and I still need to do research on some things) before making something. Also, reading something and understanding what it says are two different things.

The overall idea of these weapons is to push a sense of awe onto the reader. The sort of thing where you rub your eyes and ask "is this even possible?" without a suspencion of belief.

The entire fictional world we have here is based on suspension of disbelief...what we want to be careful of is not to break it with outragous or uncharacteristic effects or items.

I gotta go...once again, my posts should not be taken as attacks. I'm just trying to figure this out so I can help.

 

[OsakanOne]

I think I got mixed up with the term "Suspension of belief".

My bad.


I really appreciate all the help you guys are giving me.
Hopefully, my next submission (within the next few hours) should be a little closer to conventional science.

 

[MissingNo]

Okay. After spending the day thinking over this weapon, it occured to me your weapon has already been built: the pulse phaser, used by the USS Defiant on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

"...Energy from the power cell is gathered, amplified, and processed...Once processed in the prefire chamber, the energy is then released through the emitter crystal as a focused beam of collimated energy in the form of subatomic particles called nadions."

So yeah...first, this presents a feasible version of your weapon, but it also comes across as a derivative, since the Star Army has already had contact with the Star Trek universe on a couple of occasions.

Secondly, I did come up with some basics for another weapon that may or may not be acceptable as a replacement. If you're interested, IM me (leave an offline message if I'm not around when you are). Since Wes is on right now, I'll talk it over with him as well.

 

[Zack]

I was simply pointing out the double standard for the approval critera clearly demonstrated by Cora, I'm not knocking the name of the weapon.

 

[Zakalwe]

A great essay on Particle Weapons:

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airc ... berds.html

I recommend that anyone interested in sci-fi weaponary reads it.

I hope it will be useful to you.

 

[OsakanOne]

Thanks, Zakalwe. I'll have a go at this concept again some time.