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Approved Submission r23 PDW

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Please use appropriate OP format as well as put text beneath headers and before bullet lists or other headers.
 
Okay, last night I was getting nothing but 502 errors. I've made edits to headers and bullet lists. How'd I do?

EDIT: at the advice of @FrostJaeger I have added a beam diameter measurement. I guessed at 15mm
 
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For colors it comes in basically any of the colors in the UPLE lineup. Technically the quirks can bump the maximum damage output to tier 5 and even 6 when hitting the right target but it's the scale that's meant to balance it out. The damage is confined to a very small point. So if an unarmored target got hit by the tier 6 UV laser it would still only put a hole in their foot, like it can't explode a human on contact.

ALSO: my bad, I started the thing in 39 and missed.

@Alex Hart I took a random guess. I'm not really laser savvy. Do you have a better idea for a beam size? Maybe somthing that would be comparable to a .223?
 
15mm diameter is pretty small. In imperial measurements, that's about half an inch. It's close to the size of a finger (Depending on how big your fingers are I guess).
 
So I did some research and it looks like Boeing's YAL-1 laser system generates a beam a penny's width in diameter. In light of that, the beam size for this seems more reasonable.
 
@Ametheliana I have added to the damage description:
* A special note should be made regarding damage rating. While the highest damage rating is rated quite high the scale of the damage is quite small. Shooters must use this weapon to strike vital organs and critical components to utilize the full potential of this weapon. The laser is incapable of causing any more than a hole in a victim along with injuries similar to the ballistic damage of a .223 bullet.

@Alex Hart thanks for looking into it. It was the best estimation I could come up with.
 
As a laser it super heats matter as it passes through and that causes rapid expansion. Like a .223 it won't blow a person apart but it'll definitely result in hospitalization like any gunshot wound would. Many people I've met with combat experience have commented on how the .223 round has a tendency to not drop an enemy immediately unless it hits a vital organ, spine, or something similar. I've personally met a retired mercenary who's company switched to AK-47s or 7.62 converted AR-15 rifles for the boost in stopping power. It seemed like a fair estimation of a laser passing through.
 
Lasers tend to not pass through things. Lasers also require as big of a focusing device as possible.

Today-lasers focus their energy on a single spot to heat it up. It is really more like holding a small blowtorch near your target than firing a bullet. You'd use the weapon to burn their skin/clothing/etc like a flame thrower. This would be your DR Tier 1 laser.

A more-powerful laser is also a terrible weapon for 'bulleting' someone. As more heat is put into one spot on your target, you end up vaporizing the surface and turning it into a dense plasma which helps dissipate and absorb the laser blast. Lasers in this more powerful range tend to pulse, turning on long enough to blast away some material, then turning off to let the plasma dissipate, then turning back on again hundreds of times a second. These things are really slow at cutting through things but they'll take chunks out of people or armor. They might be your DR Tier 2 laser.

A more-more-powerful laser doesn't care about that plasma forming, it just keeps dumping energy into that plasma to make it hotter. Rather than drilling through a target, the point of impact just becomes a rapidly expanding cloud of gas. It would feel like a grenade went off on the point of impact. This is what happens for your Tier 3 onward laser until you hit Tier 15 where you're just firing the deathstar at things.

The Beam of the YAL-1 is also a lot larger than a penny. The car-sized lens at the front generates a car-sized beam which is then focused down to about a penny in size when it reaches the target. Because of how lasers work you need to have as large a lens as possible to be able to focus the beam. For the range of a normal gunfight you'd be looking at a lens maybe 4-5 inches across like an old handheld camera (They focus light for a picture, its literally the same technology that would be used in a laser). These are sci-fi space lasers though so feel free to do whatever. You could always just have a small lens and make up for it by pumping in a lot more juice.
 
So a small lens with a ton of power should turn a small patch of skin into plasma while the rest of the body remains intact, right? The goal of this gun is to poke really hard. Not like aether and plasma where things burst apart or cook, but just pierce.
 
I'M AN IDIOT!!!!!
The greatest strength of using universal battery cells has been completely missed by the receiver of this gun.
I'm going to make an adjustment.

EDIT: complete. Art will be updated later.
 
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Zack said:
Lasers tend to not pass through things. Lasers also require as big of a focusing device as possible.

Today-lasers focus their energy on a single spot to heat it up. It is really more like holding a small blowtorch near your target than firing a bullet. You'd use the weapon to burn their skin/clothing/etc like a flame thrower. This would be your DR Tier 1 laser.

A more-powerful laser is also a terrible weapon for 'bulleting' someone. As more heat is put into one spot on your target, you end up vaporizing the surface and turning it into a dense plasma which helps dissipate and absorb the laser blast. Lasers in this more powerful range tend to pulse, turning on long enough to blast away some material, then turning off to let the plasma dissipate, then turning back on again hundreds of times a second. These things are really slow at cutting through things but they'll take chunks out of people or armor. They might be your DR Tier 2 laser.

A more-more-powerful laser doesn't care about that plasma forming, it just keeps dumping energy into that plasma to make it hotter. Rather than drilling through a target, the point of impact just becomes a rapidly expanding cloud of gas. It would feel like a grenade went off on the point of impact. This is what happens for your Tier 3 onward laser until you hit Tier 15 where you're just firing the deathstar at things.

The Beam of the YAL-1 is also a lot larger than a penny. The car-sized lens at the front generates a car-sized beam which is then focused down to about a penny in size when it reaches the target. Because of how lasers work you need to have as large a lens as possible to be able to focus the beam. For the range of a normal gunfight you'd be looking at a lens maybe 4-5 inches across like an old handheld camera (They focus light for a picture, its literally the same technology that would be used in a laser). These are sci-fi space lasers though so feel free to do whatever. You could always just have a small lens and make up for it by pumping in a lot more juice.
Click to expand...
I feel like this explainer post was super helpful and if we could find a place for it on the wiki that would be lovely, too. Maybe on an article in the technology: namespace that's about laser weapons, or something.
 
What if the laser was fired inside a gravity beam? What if it only fired a gravity beam... new ideas have formed.

Okay, here it goes. So the highlight of FMS lasers has always been their penetrative ability so rather than retcon I had an Idear. Can I get this approved here?
 
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