Making the FCP work...

[Mike]

Just noticed the FCP threads, and how they got locked because folks went crazy with the ad hominem attacks. When folks do that at work, I get them all in a room, get them arguing, give them a couple pots of coffee, then lock the door, find some real engineers (as opposed to politicians), and get down to business. If you can't stand your ideas not working or people not liking what you did, engineering is the wrong line of work for you. Blame is not a deliverable.

Step 1 is answering the basic questions. Why is this device needed, what role does it fill, and what does the operator have to do?

No-FCP-02 ... The No-FCP-02 is a powerful and advanced pistol developed by NovaCorp. ... This results in the disintegration of the target, and a reasonable energy as part of the atoms energy is released.

So, basically, we want to turn part of the target into a nuclear warhead. Sweet. The ultimate god-weapon; there are no defenses.

The bolt interacts with the air so as it flies it creates the interesting effect of being immediately followed by an ever moving small explosion, and the bolt itself glows bring blue thanks to the release of electromagnetic energy in the visible light spectrum.

This is also energy that isn't being delivered to the target, and also energy that can affect the weapon user.

The weapon does not actually use a battery or ammunition. It collects energy from the energy released in the barrel during firing, and this is more than enough to fire the next shot.

I'll assume that you haven't yet specified how this doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics.

This means that the weapon has an unlimited payload. It does need enough energy to fire the first shot, to start the effect rolling, but enough energy to do this is stored in the capacitors, and that recharges from the excess energy collected. The capacitor is charged by the factory when first purchased. It takes 2 seconds to recharge enough to fire another shot.

Heaven help you when that capacitor shorts. That is the usual failure mode for a capacitor.

The shell of the gun is made of perfect diamond, but is shaded chrome with metallic paint, and has wooden side to the stock. It also comes in a black version for field use, or if the user just like it that way. It uses a combination of advanced material shielding methods, including using amorphous metals and intercalated graphite's to shield the wires, and conductive polymers as wires. This makes it largely immune to EMI (Electromagnetic Interference).

You're letting a marvel of perfection like this go for only 5 Ms? It might be worth it to buy the thing just for its parts...

Range: 1km

Wow. Just wow.

Near-perfect aim, high damage, high rate of fire, low risk to the user, unlimited ammo, no known or feasible defenses, no quirks, limitations, or problems... Seriously, why shouldn't we scrap every weapon ever made, and just use this?

Seriously, though, and getting back on track... how has this been used in RP so far? Please post links. If we know how it's been used, and why, we could come up with something that has similar RP effects without having to be a god-weapon.

Or I can just shut up, go away, and let this horse be put out of its misery. Your call, guys.

 

[Zack]

https://stararmy.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/v ... php?t=1174

The second FCP thread where derran debunks it

https://stararmy.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/v ... php?t=1152

Original FCP

I'll spare you the links to where it was used in RP but I'll sum it up. A few people are carrying the weapon around and one mentioned using it on the test range.


The weapon also violates conservation of energy because breaking apart the atoms should take more energy than the energy the atoms release when broken apart unless your firing the weapon under certain conditions (like through a block of heavy matter)

 

[technococcus]

My vote would be to just change the weapon to a plasma arc-style handgun and just melt parts off the target instead of disintegrating them. That ought to leave a relatively similar effect without it being broken beyond all feasibility.

The problem I have with statted RPGs like D&D is too much restriction by the rules on such things as new weapons, cause everything gets forcibly damage-balanced most of the time. But here we have the opposite problem; cases of noone even trying to balance things and people tossing around theoretical Doomsday devices. Strive always for balance, my friends, and a good time shall be had by all.

Also, Bravo Mike, for your thoughtful comments and good points.

 

[Mike]

Loading…

stararmy.com

The second FCP thread where derran debunks it

https://stararmy.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/v ... php?t=1152

Original FCP

Got those already, and read them. Low thrust/weight ratio.

I'll spare you the links to where it was used in RP but I'll sum it up. A few people are carrying the weapon around and one mentioned using it on the test range.

But has anyone used it "for real" yet? Sounds like no, and as long as we fix this before people start tacnuking everything in sight, we should be good.

The weapon also violates conservation of energy because breaking apart the atoms should take more energy than the energy the atoms release when broken apart unless your firing the weapon under certain conditions (like through a block of heavy matter)

If that were true, then nuclear power (fission and fusion) wouldn't exist. Your mistake is that you forgot to factor in the nuclear energy stored in the atoms before and after the reaction. Put that in, and it will conserve energy and mass (taking good old E=mc^2 into account). The holy grail of a fusion reactor now is to get more energy out than you put in, not counting energy stored in the atomic nuclei.

The "regenerative" energy system in the barrel scares me. That's a lot to expect of a barrel.

I agree that some kind of heavy matter is going to have to factor into this in the end, though. That means ammo.

My vote would be to just change the weapon to a plasma arc-style handgun and just melt parts off the target instead of disintegrating them. That ought to leave a relatively similar effect without it being broken beyond all feasibility.

I think we can preserve the effect of setting off a mini-nuke on top of the target, but at the cost of it becoming a projectile weapon. Or we could go the plasma weapon route, but it's not going to have 1 km range (except in space), since plasma weapons will dissipate energy (into the atmosphere) with range. They dissipate energy in space as well, but much slower (interplanetary/interstellar gas is much less dense, but the beam-spreading effect of range will come into play).

Also, Bravo Mike, for your thoughtful comments and good points.

Just want to see if this can be made to work.

It seems like what we really want is a weapon that fires at something near relativistic velocities. That's going to take a lot of power for even a small mass (I'm guessing you'll push picograms or nanograms per shot). Might be able to do it with neutrons, but they're tricky to control. Basically, you're throwing particles at this insane speed, hoping that they collide with atomic nuclei in the target, either fusing with or blowing apart the nuclei by overcoming the weak force. Unfortunately, if you bring reality into the equation, this will have little to no real effect on typical armor atoms (e.g. iron), for the same reason that fission fuel tends toward the high-mass extreme of the periodic table, and fusion fuel tends toward the low-mass extreme. However, interactions with exotic matter types is undefined; maybe this weapon works best when used against high-tech (read: unbelievium or equivalent) armor, but doesn't do much to low-tech armor?

It's going to be a trick putting all that in a pistol. Everything's going to have to be pretty small. Like insanely, God-bless-nanotech small. A rifle would have a much higher chance of working. It's the power supply that's bothering me.

This is starting to remind me of an item in a recent Scientific American. Researchers created cold fusion on a small scale by firing deuterium nuclei at a deuterium-containing target, creating small-scale fusion reactions. It took more energy in than it released, though, so it's not useful as a reactor, but they were looking at it as a possible new type of thruster for attitude control in space.

Anyway, I've got to get back to real work now...

 

[Cora]

I think this weapon is just not needed.

The game already has about thirty twelve billion existing weapons that does the exact same thing as this gun. That being making sure most of the target is not where it was when they were fired upon.

 

[Jadg Wolf]

I think this weapon is just not needed.

The game already has about thirty twelve billion existing weapons that does the exact same thing as this gun. That being making sure most of the target is not where it was when they were fired upon.

Indeed. And I asked Wes if I should make another FCP thread, but he said that he just locked the other one so he could get everything straight, and then he'd reopen and post his thoughts.

 

[Mike]

I think this weapon is just not needed.

I can't say I disagree.

Indeed. And I asked Wes if I should make another FCP thread, but he said that he just locked the other one so he could get everything straight, and then he'd reopen and post his thoughts.

Ah, so that's what is going on. Noted.

My work on this project is suspended until further notice.

Have fun! ^_^

 

[Wes]

After reviewing the arguments, I'm going to have to say that if this technology could even exist, it sure as heck wouldn't be in a pistol form, especially not before larger forms were proven and tested. The FCP references in the RP need to be either removed or they will need to refer to something different than the weapon proposed. The references were made before the weapon was accepted anyway, sort of forcing me to accept them and I gave in, when I shouldn't have.

Let's work on something that makes more sense and is more balanced. I'm trying to tone down the technology to a plateau or even decrease the tech level a bit over time as wars and other factors take their toll until the RP has a sort of World War II feel to it instead of everyone having to whip out a physics paper just to shoot someone.

(Edit: Fixed minor typo)

 

[technococcus]

*applauds*

 

[Zack]

*cheer*

 

[Sypher]

OK, so I have used it in an RP what do I change it to??

The problem is that now Thomas is pissed of and also that there are no shops on the Destiny that sell lots of weapons, like Wicked Arms.

 

[Wes]

You can just say that it was a pistol. If you want to name a specific one, you can use one of the common ones, I suppose.

 

[Sypher]

Ok then. It's just that in one of the threads I have used it in a major way and have talked about it quite a bit. I'm not sure I can change all of the dialogue around it, it is avery huge passage.

https://stararmy.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/v ... php?t=1499

 

[Wes]

I changed FCP to an NSP (Human version) sold through the NovaCorp store. I have also changed all other FCP references in RP to "pistol" or "NovaCorp pistol."

(I'd also like to take a moment to praise phpBB's excellent search function, which actually works as opposed the one on the old ezBoard Star Army used to use)

 

[Sypher]

Thank you very much for that Wes, really appreciate it.

 

[Mike]

everyone having to whip out a physics paper just to shoot someone.

Death of a thousand paper cuts. My favorite kind. ... Sorry, had to say it.

All said, the weapon's name sounds cool, and there's nothing stopping a marketing department from putting it on a weapon that works in a much different fashion.

 

[Zakalwe]

Not that it matters in the slightest, but I accept this verdict.

The FCP was a marvel of my imagination, but like so many other things I come up with, it was ripped to shreds before my disbelieving eyes, leaving only rags, rags which have now been banned from existance in such a way that they never in fact existed.

Going to go after my Arachni drones now?

I thought we where managing to come together quite well at the end, discussing different ways it would work, but I guess the flaw was so funadmental that systametic existance failure was the only way to go.

However, I am considering applying the same princible to close combat weapons, where the disintergration range of the neccesary particles would not be as catastrophic. However, wishfull thinking has ever been my greatest weakness, combined with an annoyingly low IQ.

And so I bid you farewell FCP, brainchild and beloved, may you fine route in kinder climes, where you can survive.

 

[Wes]

Let's make a new FCP. It wouldn't have to be called FCP, and it wouldn't work as the FCP was originally envisioned, but we can at least recycle some of the ideas discussed in the threads and the artwork. It'd be a shame to let all this go to waste and NovaCorp not have a pistol to show for it.

 

[Zakalwe]

I'm intrested. I'm currently working on a Xaser pistol, although I would like to create a new one, utilising a new form of energy to damage, a different effect than Xaser.

I'm working on it.