Laser Weaponry: Worth it?, Cool, but worth the Nuyen? Options

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, maybe you are right . . SHUT UP! ^^
Rule of Cool trumps your realism physics!

[Zen Shooter01]

If the game designers intended for lasers to be silent and invisible, I think they would have said so.

[HappyDaze]

If the game designers intended for lasers to be silent and invisible, I think they would have said so.

Just like commlinks. Everyone assumes they work as quietly as an I-Phone, but they should make loud 'computing noises' becasue if the designers intended them to be silent they would have said so. And In SR, flashlights make a loud humming sound...

[Jaid]

If the game designers intended for lasers to be silent and invisible, I think they would have said so.

if lasers are silent and invisible, you don't need to say that lasers are silent and invisible in your game rules; that's just how it is. just like you don't have to specify that doors can open and close. that's what doors do. nobody says "hey, they never specified that this door can open and close, so it must not open and close".

[CodeBreaker]

What is your reasoning behind lasers making sound? I can agree that you might get the low hum off of the power pack, but other than that I honestly cannot think of one. And the only reason any laser system would be visible would be if they were both using a wave length in the visible spectrum and it was moving through some kind of cloudy stuff. And honestly if I was going to weaponise a laser system I would specifically make it so that it did not use the visible light spectrum. The only downside I can see from doing so would be that you would need to use a smartgun system to easily target an enemy, but honestly in the Sixth World I imagine all Military Grade weapons are designed for smartgun intergration.

[Adarael]

Depending on the laser's power and focus, it's possible the laser's effect on the target itself might produce a sound. Given a fast enough flash vaporization of tissue and clothing, it might produce a rapport similar to a firecracker - if the gas expansion was supersonic.

It is also likely lasers would be more visible to IR due to heating of any dust or vapor along the beam channel. Note that I say "more" - atmospheric conditions would still dictate how visible. It's also possible that extremely powerful lasers - ones that are probably out of the scope of Shadowrun - would create a visible effect as the air along the beam channel was ionized. I don't remember where I put the paper I read on that, but given that I think you'd need more than 1gW of power for that, I think we can safely say that any beam visibility would be eclipsed by whatever was struck by the beam utterly exploding due to thermal expansion.

[Traul]

Lasers don't make any noise by themselves, but the Ares licence compels you to make a loud PTEW! sound with your mouth whenever you fire. Hence these guns are much more succesful on the black market than the official one.

[Heath Robinson]

What? Everyone who's anyone knows that laser weapons go FREEM!

[Falconer]

Adorel has it correct.

Muspellsheimr has no clue how weaponized lasers work.


The thought that the beam is invisible is good. Though I'd probably say if someone tossed smoke, or fog... it could be detected, especially by thermal vision. Anything strong enough to be a weapon is strong enough to have some thermal blooming.


Making them make a sound or be outright visible is silly. The guns aren't all that great, they're really neat though. They have some advantages and also some real drawbacks. An exotic weapons skill to use them to start. Hard to get power packs w/ very limited shots/pack is another. I don't think they need any more outside nerfing as their 'entry requirements' are already pretty high.

[TBRMInsanity]

The thought that the beam is invisible is good. Though I'd probably say if someone tossed smoke, or fog... it could be detected, especially by thermal vision. Anything strong enough to be a weapon is strong enough to have some thermal blooming.

If the laser is in the visual spectrum then yes it could be visible depending if part of the laser light id scattered. If it happens to be in the UV range then no it wouldn't be visible. Thermal may pick up the focal point.

[Falconer]

Do you know what thermal blooming is TBMR... obviously not from your reply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lensing

Thermal blooming is when ANY LASER heats the portion of the medium through which it passes (including air). If it's denser in particulate matter, then you'll lose more energy. That energy goes somewhere, if it appears as heat... then you see my point about thermal vision being the most likely to see traces of a laser shot in smoke.

Not only that, it's possible for higher energy photons to produce multiple lower energy photons when freed/excited electrons return to ground. The simplest case is when it bucks it up to one state, then immediately returns producing another photon of the same energy in a different direction. The more complex case, is when it returns to a lower state but not the ground state (possibly more than once) before returning to the ground state. With this method and a proper medium, it is possible for any high energy photon to produce visible photons even though the laser itself isn't visible. This effect doesn't work well in simple atoms like hydrogen.. as the states are very limited and you need precise wavelengths to absorb. But when the spectral absorbtion bands are large, it indicates there's a large number of free energy states. So there is more than just scattering of the lasers wavelength.

[Ravor]

Ok so in the grand scheme of things, although it's possible that lasers could be invisible to the naked eye, is it possible to build a weaponized laser that is visible?

[Generico]

Ok so in the grand scheme of things, although it's possible that lasers could be invisible to the naked eye, is it possible to build a weaponized laser that is visible?

Yes but only if
A: It is absurdly bright and inefficient (It ionizes the air in its path causing it to glow)
B: There is dust, mist, or other matter in its path (The particles ether directly scatter the beam, or incandess due to the heat)

If you really want lights and sound, you can create a hybrid laser/electron beam sometimes called an "electro-laser"
In this case the sole purpose of the laser is to sparsely ionize the air, which then acts as a conductor for the electrical discharge.
Still inefficient, still awesome.

Because who doesn't want to shoot lightning?

[Stahlseele]

Most Magical Types it seems ^^

[Dakka Dakka]

Most Magical Types it seems ^^

That is probably more due to the fact that most mages don't want to use any indirect combat spell. It's not a problem with lightning. Only having a chance of temporarily disabling technological devices isn't an advantage either.

[KarmaInferno]

If i's a high enough power laser, would the air superheating along the beam path make a noise?

If you really want lights and sound, you can create a hybrid laser/electron beam sometimes called an "electro-laser"
In this case the sole purpose of the laser is to sparsely ionize the air, which then acts as a conductor for the electrical discharge.
Still inefficient, still awesome.

Because who doesn't want to shoot lightning?

You can even use it to block doorways!




-karma

[Warlordtheft]

They explained the sound, too. As a way of addressing the issue of 3-dimensional combat, the sensors use sound to represent nearby craft. The sound is based on the craft's radar signature, which is why Vader's TIE Bomber sounds significantly different from the TIE Fighters despite using the same engines.

OT-Vaders craft wasn't a Tie-bomber, but a predecessor to the TIE-Interceptor. It als had a hyperdrive, which is usually lacking on most Tie-fighter designs. The tie bomber (as appeaered in empire strikes back has two pods-one for the pilot and engine, the other for the payload.

Ok-I'm bumping my geek factor of N^2. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[TBRMInsanity]

I don't understand why you would want a visible laser anyway. The best weapons are ones that the enemy doesn't know where you are when you shoot at them. You can't see a bullet fly through the air, why would you want to see a laser fly through the air. Your basically saying "LOOK OVER HERE!!! THIS IS WHERE I AM!!!! COME GET ME!!!" Its LOCO!!!

@Falconer
Yes mother! I know what thermal blooming is. I just don't think the laser would leave that distinctive of a trail through the air to be visible more then a few nano-seconds after it was fired.

[Shrike30]

I've got a character who's been running an Ares Redline as an underbarrel weapon on a submachinegun for a while... tucking the battery pack into the underside of the stock (or plugging the hip pack in there) seems to work pretty well. The MP Laser 3 is a recent addition to his armory, but it's racked up a couple of kills so far without much trouble. Adds a quieter option to a character who usually runs towards gas vented automatics with every single round in the magazine being a tracer.

Half impact armor has some situations where it becomes very, very handy; anything involving multiple layers of armor (target is inside a car, for example), high-end spirits (yes, stick-n-shock works here too), some critters, SWAT or milspec armor, someone who's thrown on a few PPP components... at closer ranges, at least, you're essentially guaranteed a Physical hit. Damage attenuation can annoying, but the pistol-sized laser uses SMG ranges (it's only at -1 out at 40 meters, and it's the only pistol that can reach 80 meters, much less 150), and the rifle-sized one uses sport rifle ranges (doesn't even take a penalty until after 100 meters, only -1 out to 250). It's not all that big of a deal.

[Knight Saber]

Ok so in the grand scheme of things, although it's possible that lasers could be invisible to the naked eye, is it possible to build a weaponized laser that is visible?

In a Car Wars novel, it described the vehicular lasers as being invisible, but that they were mated to a lightshow laser for visibility, to put on a better show for the audience. One could do that in SR, mounting a laser scope on your gun. Get people used to seeing the beam in a fight, and then turn it off for an unexpected, invisible shot.

[KarmaInferno]

In a Car Wars novel, it described the vehicular lasers as being invisible, but that they were mated to a lightshow laser for visibility, to put on a better show for the audience.

Given how lasers actually work, that makes no sense at all.




-karma

[Stahlseele]

Do something else: Use your LASER as your LASER-Pointer if your LASER is an Under-Barrel-Modification of the MAIN-Weapon ^^
Top laser-pointer shows up . . nothing happens . . BOTTOM laser-pointer shows up, carves out a nice big hole in the target.
And THEN comes a full spray of Tracer-Rounds to add Insult to Injury ^^

[KarmaInferno]

Do something else: Use your LASER as your LASER-Pointer if your LASER is an Under-Barrel-Modification of the MAIN-Weapon ^^
Top laser-pointer shows up . . nothing happens . . BOTTOM laser-pointer shows up, carves out a nice big hole in the target.
And THEN comes a full spray of Tracer-Rounds to add Insult to Injury ^^

Hm. Kinda what they did in the Superman comics.

They reasoned that red sun energy sapped a Kryptonian's power temporarily. So they made a gun that fired a high powered red sun laser at the same time it fired an armor-piercing round. The red sun energy would weaken the invulnerability for moment, long enough for the bullet to penetrate.

But that's kinda off-topic. As you were!



-karma

[Stahlseele]

Nuh Hu! I wasn't! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) *bllllll*
There's several LASER in that Posting and one Weapon.
Perfectly On Target < = Pun very much intended.
Basically, Laser-Weapons are usefull for the surprise-effect.
And imagine what it would do to certain things out there that have the LIGHT Allergy.

[crash2029]

I think I can offer a rule here: Lasers are invisible and inaudible, except when they aren't. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

In my opinion lasers are worth it if you really like them. I do. I think I'm gonna make a laser gunslinger. I think his name will be Jim, though most people call him... Jim.