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Handheld Plasma Cutter

sada sakue

Inactive Member
Sorry if something similar has already been proposed, but I looked around, and couldn't find the (in my opinion) best cutting tool Mankind would create if it has the technology to do so :

Behold the almighty Handheld Plasma Cutter, Model IV. ("why Model IV ?" you may ask. Well, it looks cool !)

Producer Information

Designer : Emrys Industries
Manufacturer : Emrys Industries
Price : 2200 K.S. (delivered with 2 gas magazine and forward grip)
Component costs :
- Spare gas magazine (200 KS)
- Standard magazine valve (100 KS)
- High flow magazine valve (350 KS)
- Tube (500 KS)
- Polymer Frame (200 KS)
- Rear gaz intake chamber (to connect a larger gaz canister, when used in a workshop) (700 KS)
- Forward grip (200 KS)
- Thight holster, with 2 magazine pouches, and front grip pouch. (50 KS)
- Battery cell (30 KS)
- Battery charger (50 KS)

Nomenclature :

Name : Handheld Plasma Cutter, Model IV
Type : Powertool
Role : Cutting throug metal and other hard materials.
Lenght : 22cm/8.7 inch
Weight : 1700g/3.7lbs (without mag)

Looks :

The HPC-4 is intended primarily for field operations. It was necessary to make it light and small enough to be carried by an operative (usually by Technical Sentries) who needed a fast, precise and reliable cutting tool. The pistol-like design was the best alternative. The frame is made of high temperature resisting polymers, while all the internals are in ultra-high temperature resistive alloy, to ensure near perfect reliability and solidity. The forward grip allows for more stability and precision, and is also protecting the operative's hand of projections.

hpc-4.gif


With the forward grip detached, the HPC-4 would fit a Type 28A Nekovalkyrja Service Pistol hoslter.

Gaz magazines are designed in a way to fit a standard Type 28A Nekovalkyrja Service Pistol battery magazine.

Operation :

Open the small trap located at rear of the gun, insert the battery pack inside it, close the trap, put the gas magazine inside the magazine well, lock it with the small lever located on the rear grip, disengage the safety witch located near the front grip by pulling it down, press trigger, cut. The plasma beam is 5cm/2 inches long, and 1cm/0.4 inches wide.
When done cutting, pull the safety lever up to engage it, unlock the magazine and remove it.

The cutting speed depends of the material, and varies from 5cm/s (2 inch/s) when used against copper and other "smooth" materials, to less than 0.5cm/sec (0.2 inch/s) when used against high temperature resistive alloys. Some alloys can't be cut at all.

Warning : Even when there is no magazine inside the gun, there may be some plasma left inside the heating chamber. It is recommended to empty this chamber by pulling the trigger until there is no more plasma coming out of the gun. (usually, a 1-2 second pull will be enough.)

ALWAYS empty the gaz chamber

NEVER remove the battery pack until you're sure there is no plasma left in the chamber, it will cut the magnetic field holding it there, and will let it leak out of the gun.

NEVER USE IT TO CUT ANY COMBUSTIBLE THINGY (like: wood, gas, clothes... That's kinda intuitive.)

NEVER USE IT IN HIGH-OXYGEN LEVEL ENVIRONMENTS, Oxygen is an extremely good comburant in high concentrations, and you may end making the whole room go boom.

NEVER POINT IT AT SOMEONE (well, unless it's someone you'd want to kill, burn, or something like that)

OLY USE EMRYS INDUSTRIES BATTERY PACKS AND GAZ MAGAZINES

Warranty void if open, and usual stuff.

How the hell does it work ? :

Glad you asked : An ionised gaz is stored inside the magazine, when you pull the trigger, some gaz is released into a heating chamber located in the rear part of the gun. Once heated enough (usually 1-2 seconds), it will transform into plasma, heating itself to extremely high temperatures, enough to vaporize things on contact, and will be propulsed by a magnetic pulse outside the gun (that's why we need a battery pack). When the trigger isn't pulled, another magnetic field will hold the plasma inside the chamber. There is no need to heat the chamber again after the first shot, since the plasma already there does the work.

Usually, a gaz magazine contains enough gaz for a 35 seconds burst, and the battery pack hold enough power to burn 10 magazines (more or less)

Customisation :

Only a few parts can be tweaked on the gun, without resorting to a complete redesing : The gaz magazine valve and the tube. The heating chamber can be modded to use a gaz canister when working in an industrial environment.

The valve can be replaced by an high-flow one, which will allow more gaz to be pushed inside the chamber, expelling the plasma faster, which will result in a longer beam (8cm/3.2 inches), but will greatly increase gaz consuming (a magazine will only last 10 seconds).

The tube can be replaced by a thinner or larger one, increasing precision, or making a larger cut.

The modding of the heating chamber, to allow the use of an external gaz canister, consist in simply replacing the chamber with one with a premade gaz intake. It's impossible to mod one itself, since the chamber is made of extremely hard materials, and require specific tools, quite expensive, to work with. Some precautions must be taken when using an external gaz canister, since the gaz pressure is usually higher than the one in gas magazines.
 
Talk to Kettsune.

And from the operation section, with the HEY STUPID DON'T DO THIS, it sounds like you were in the Military ^_^ It's good
 
Heh, thanks ^^

I got inspired by those useful advices you can find on some products packaging, like "may cause sleepiness" on sleeping pills, or "do not use to clean babies or animals" on washing machines.
 
Et en anglais, le gaz est "GAS" ecrit.
 
Hm. First time I've ever been refered to in a design topic; probably because of Roger's propensity to carry one of these tools around.

Design looks okay, though shaping it like a pistol has a number of drawbacks. Admittedly, the point of shaping it as such is to be able to use the existing NSP-28 holster rigs, but in all honesty, I'd rather have a unique rig for this sort of a thing; not the least being the unwillingness to pull the wrong one in a firefight. Also, you really need more handspace away from the plasma dispensing nozzle unless you want to come away with an amazing set of burns every time you use the thing (which I suspect Roger does anyway).

A 35 second burst is a little light for a cutting tool like this, but I suppose that can be explained by its field use aspect. I'd personally prefer something bigger but longer lasting; perhaps something in a form factor similar to a modern day propane torch.

I DO like the fact that the plasma output can be customized. There are times where you don't want to make a giant cut in something. I also like idea of a safety on the thing to prevent misfires (though rest assured that's the first thing to go on Roger's).

Other than that, cool description. I'd been waiting for someone to describe what the hell it is that Roger does most of his field work with. Price for this would probably be up there in the thousands of KS. (Equivalent to a high end rifle, I'd say, maybe a tad less).
 
Kett said:
Admittedly, the point of shaping it as such is to be able to use the existing NSP-28 holster rigs, but in all honesty, I'd rather have a unique rig for this sort of a thing; not the least being the unwillingness to pull the wrong one in a firefight.


Thinking the implication is that one would be carrying this INSTEAD of the pistol.
 
Kett said:
Hm. First time I've ever been refered to in a design topic; probably because of Roger's propensity to carry one of these tools around.

Design looks okay, though shaping it like a pistol has a number of drawbacks. Admittedly, the point of shaping it as such is to be able to use the existing NSP-28 holster rigs, but in all honesty, I'd rather have a unique rig for this sort of a thing; not the least being the unwillingness to pull the wrong one in a firefight. Also, you really need more handspace away from the plasma dispensing nozzle unless you want to come away with an amazing set of burns every time you use the thing (which I suspect Roger does anyway).

The pistol design has mainly something to do with compacity and good handling. Remember it is supposed to be wielded by combat infantry, who is already equipped with a pistol, a rifle, ammo packs... It is manly designed to quickly cut panels to gain access to the electronic behind, or make a hole in a door...

Concerning the burns, the forward grip has a heatshield mounted, to prevent projections. I don't know how to describe it, i'll draw something. Admittedly, since it is a *detachable* grip, you could use the gun without it, but no sane person would.

A 35 second burst is a little light for a cutting tool like this, but I suppose that can be explained by its field use aspect. I'd personally prefer something bigger but longer lasting; perhaps something in a form factor similar to a modern day propane torch.

Concerning the burst lenght, I deliberately chose to make it low. Small size has some drawbacs. Remember that we are talking about pistol-sized clips here. If you wanted longer burst, you could always use the external gas intake and bring a small canister with you, but that would cancel the "compact" advantage.

I DO like the fact that the plasma output can be customized. There are times where you don't want to make a giant cut in something. I also like idea of a safety on the thing to prevent misfires (though rest assured that's the first thing to go on Roger's).

Other than that, cool description. I'd been waiting for someone to describe what the hell it is that Roger does most of his field work with. Price for this would probably be up there in the thousands of KS. (Equivalent to a high end rifle, I'd say, maybe a tad less).

I originally thought about 2000 K.S. (it is a really specialized tool using expensive materials) but it may be too high. It is a tool intended for military use, which means lots of soldiers to equip with. Maybe the Army would get lower prices than civilans. I don't know.

Yuuki said:
Et en anglais, le gaz est "GAS" ecrit.
Ah, thanks, I edited it ;) (and you would say "le gaz s'écrit GAS" in french, there is a lot of awkward rules and admitted usages. You tried to wrote "le gaz est ecrit gas" which is grammaticaly and syntaxily (?) correct, yet you should say "le gaz s'écrit gaz" as in "gaz writes itself gas". Don't ask me why.)


EDIT : Added a picture
 
Yuuki said:
Kett said:
Admittedly, the point of shaping it as such is to be able to use the existing NSP-28 holster rigs, but in all honesty, I'd rather have a unique rig for this sort of a thing; not the least being the unwillingness to pull the wrong one in a firefight.


Thinking the implication is that one would be carrying this INSTEAD of the pistol.

They fit the same holster, but they don't look the same, and if you're careless about what equipment you carry in battle, you deserve to get killed :)

EDIT : Updated the first post slightly, added prices. What do you think about them ?
 
As far as the tech goes I don't see anything wrong with this although you should try and use something other than Zesuaium in the weapon because that material really can't exsist under the current laws of physics and is only kept for continuality purposes.
 
Ah :/

I'll just not specify which alloy it's made of. If we can build plasma cutters with our current technology, my guess is that a civilisation who mass produces gigantic starships, genetically enhanced organic creatures from scratch and fusion reactors may know how to build a ultra-high temperature resisting alloy :)

Oh and, i still need to find a manufacturer for it. I don't think it's the kind of tool which would be empire-specific.
 
Is there anything stopping this being approved? It's a decent tool after all, and not reasons were given for it not being approved.
 
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