Capital-grade Plasma Weapon development

[Charistoph]

Going by a few comments in the General section under the Plasma Rifle topic, it would seem that there is an interest in something a bit... larger than a Large Laser to put on Warships.

So, with that in mind, what stats would you like to see in capital-grade plasma weaponry?  How many sizes should there be?  How massive should they and their ammo be?  Should there be sub-capital plasma weaponry as well?  Should they be able to perform bombardment functions?

Annnnnd.... go!

[Red Pins]

Not just no - HECK, NO!

Seriously.  What medium would you use to transfer heat like that in space?

[Alsadius]

Seriously.  What medium would you use to transfer heat like that in space?

Plasma :P

Seriously, the idea of a Mech-sized plasma rifle is that it heats foam to a plasma and fires that at enemies, and it's the scorching hot plasma itself that transfers the heat. The same mechanism would work in space - if anything, it'd work better, because you don't lose heat to the atmosphere. The downside is that longer ranges mean more dispersion of the plasma, which might reduce the impact when it hits. I might want plasma weapons to play with range vs damage in the same way as a snubby PPC or a heavy Gauss.

Going by a few comments in the General section under the Plasma Rifle topic, it would seem that there is an interest in something a bit... larger than a Large Laser to put on Warships.

So, with that in mind, what stats would you like to see in capital-grade plasma weaponry?  How many sizes should there be?  How massive should they and their ammo be?  Should there be sub-capital plasma weaponry as well?  Should they be able to perform bombardment functions?

Annnnnd.... go!

Are we thinking of this as something in the heavy anti-fighter role(like a naval laser), or something aimed at full-up WarShips? In both cases, you have a harder role to fill - aero units don't track heat as neatly as mechs do, and the fun secondary effects (anti-infantry, lighting fires, etc.) aren't relevant in a space battle.

Perhaps make it an AOE anti-fighter weapon? Hit a whole squadron at once, not just single units, because of plasma spread. A standard-sized PR hit against each fighter in a squadron might be worthy of a mount the size of a sub-cap weapon.

[Ruger]

Plasma :P

Seriously, the idea of a Mech-sized plasma rifle is that it heats foam to a plasma and fires that at enemies, and it's the scorching hot plasma itself that transfers the heat. The same mechanism would work in space - if anything, it'd work better, because you don't lose heat to the atmosphere. The downside is that longer ranges mean more dispersion of the plasma, which might reduce the impact when it hits. I might want plasma weapons to play with range vs damage in the same way as a snubby PPC or a heavy Gauss.

Star Trek already did it...reference Romulan Plasma weapon in Bird of Prey in "Balance of Terror"...

Ruger

[Charistoph]

Not just no - HECK, NO!

Seriously.  What medium would you use to transfer heat like that in space?

You do know that a star's state is plasma, right?  Those stellar eruptions that bring out such beautiful arcs of energy are plasma.

Seriously, the idea of a Mech-sized plasma rifle is that it heats foam to a plasma and fires that at enemies, and it's the scorching hot plasma itself that transfers the heat. The same mechanism would work in space - if anything, it'd work better, because you don't lose heat to the atmosphere. The downside is that longer ranges mean more dispersion of the plasma, which might reduce the impact when it hits. I might want plasma weapons to play with range vs damage in the same way as a snubby PPC or a heavy Gauss.

That could definitely be a factor.  We already  see that in other weapons right now.

Are we thinking of this as something in the heavy anti-fighter role(like a naval laser), or something aimed at full-up WarShips? In both cases, you have a harder role to fill - aero units don't track heat as neatly as mechs do, and the fun secondary effects (anti-infantry, lighting fires, etc.) aren't relevant in a space battle.

Perhaps make it an AOE anti-fighter weapon? Hit a whole squadron at once, not just single units, because of plasma spread. A standard-sized PR hit against each fighter in a squadron might be worthy of a mount the size of a sub-cap weapon.

Sure.  Not only is mass a consideration, but what rules and roles its going to play on the warship.  It could even be set up using both concepts you brought up.  Short Range, it does devastating power to one ship.  At Medium, it does less damage, but across 3-5 craft.  At Long range, it does minor damage across a whole squadron.

We're more or less starting from scratch at this point, and this is as much about brainstorming concepts and seeing what sticks on to the walls.

[Maingunnery]

I can easily see it as an alternative ammo for Naval ACs.
Gimme some of that Heat-Flak.
 >:D

[Empyrus]

Make it like a snub-nose weapon, because there is no such weapon in BT capital ship weapons as far as i'm aware.
High damage in short bracket, reduced in medium and long and extreme. Simple thing would be 40 damage with 10 reduction per range bracket, down to 10 at extreme range. High-ish power draw (ie heat sink requirements), middling range, probably lighter than NAC/40. Ideally, it would be a dedicated close combat weapon on WarShip scale.

Heat transfer doesn't really work in rules (i'm not overtly familiar with aerospace rules but i know capital ships don't track heat really), but it could have that effect against smaller targets still. Though given the high damage values capital weapons have, i'd say any heat transferred to the target is kinda irrelevant...

[dragonkid11]

Capital ship do track heat. It just that the increased heat is calculated next turn.

Which mean that rather than devastatingly overheat a spacecraft, you just get less gun on you at the next turn.

Firing it on a dropship with low heatsink number is going to affect its combat ability. Heck, maybe even work as a 'non-lethal' option by threathening to cook the crews alive if they don't surrender.

Firing it on fighter is going to absolutely ruin their days though.

[Charistoph]

So should it have different sizes, i.e. Light/Medium/Large/Caliber, or should it be a one size system?

Should it be like the Rifle and patterned after the Naval Lasers?

[truetanker]

Half the range of a NAC/40 and a third of the damage but target gets a roll vs critical hit. Ammo should be close to the NAC/40 round or so...

Just thoughts...

TT

[KaiserDunk]

Comparing the energy output of a star vs a plasma cannon is kind of like comparing the output of a garden hose to the Atlantic Ocean.   The vacuum of space is a wonderful giant heat sink, so it seems to me that it would wick away the heat of a plasma cannon with no problem, while a star is essentially a giant nuclear fusion reactor that is permanently set to overload every second of every day.   A star has the energy output to eject superheated plasma out, while a plasma cannon output is over in just a twitch of a lamb's tail by comparison.   PPCs eject charged particles that cause damage by interfering with the molecules of the target, and lasers do the same with excited photons.   To me, plasma cannons just would not be suited for use in space because all they do is generate a burst of heat energy.

[idea weenie]

Comparing the energy output of a star vs a plasma cannon is kind of like comparing the output of a garden hose to the Atlantic Ocean.   The vacuum of space is a wonderful giant heat sink, so it seems to me that it would wick away the heat of a plasma cannon with no problem, while a star is essentially a giant nuclear fusion reactor that is permanently set to overload every second of every day.   A star has the energy output to eject superheated plasma out, while a plasma cannon output is over in just a twitch of a lamb's tail by comparison.   PPCs eject charged particles that cause damage by interfering with the molecules of the target, and lasers do the same with excited photons.   To me, plasma cannons just would not be suited for use in space because all they do is generate a burst of heat energy.

Space is composed of vacuum, a very good insulator.  The concern would be how radiative the material is vs its heat density.  This would be affected by the material the plasma is made from, as well as the surface area relative to volume.

The Capellan Plasma Rifle gets 10 shots per ton, so I am assuming the Capital version's ammo will be 1 ton per shot.  Given the chart, I would expect the Capital Plasma Rifle to do damage to Dropships, Jumpships, ASF, and Battlemechs, while doing heat to Warships.


For actual values, we could compare Naval grade weapons with existing Battlemech weapons to get a better idea of stats.

[marauder648]

To keep the plasma together wouldn't you need to basically have it surrounded by some kind of field, perhaps a magnetic field like some PPC's use?  That way when it hits either the magnetic field would have degraded allowing it to land and splash or hold together and give it a bit of a kinetic punch.

[Maingunnery]

To keep the plasma together wouldn't you need to basically have it surrounded by some kind of field, perhaps a magnetic field like some PPC's use?  That way when it hits either the magnetic field would have degraded allowing it to land and splash or hold together and give it a bit of a kinetic punch.

Why not allow it to expand a bit? Then it would likely count as FLAK, but at the expense of reducing range.

[marauder648]

Makes sense, perhaps give it two firing modes.  Concentrated - Anti-ship/DropShip weapon.  Dispersed - Anti fighter with only being able to reach short range in capital scale.

Basic difference, the strenght of the magnetic field holding the plasma shell or bolt.  On dispersed the field is weak and unstable and degrades very quickly before failing and filling an area a good few hundred meters across with Plasma.  Rules wise..dunno, roll on the SRM table for however many fighters are left and what ever number is hit say...3, then 3 fighters are hit by X number of damage.

Ideally it would do a fixed amount, say 20 - 25 to a fighter hit (it is plasma after all, you don't want that coming into contact with anything as there's not going to be much that can withstand it at least on a fighter scale) but its offset by its short range as firing at anything longer than short range results in it dissipating.

Otherwise in anti-shipping mode make it basically act like a NAC-25 or something to save rules bloat (maybe give it the ability to always cause a crit, its plasma and its stuck to your hull or the interior of a ship, this is bad)

[HobbesHurlbut]

To keep the plasma together wouldn't you need to basically have it surrounded by some kind of field, perhaps a magnetic field like some PPC's use?  That way when it hits either the magnetic field would have degraded allowing it to land and splash or hold together and give it a bit of a kinetic punch.

The PPC doesn't project its magnetic fields with the particle projectiles, it is there to hold and form the projectiles but not to act as a "shell" for them once they leave the projector.

[Maingunnery]

Battletech PPC's are the fast ion projectors, using the forward kinetic energy of the ion stream, not really what regular people would associate with Plasma.

The BT Plasma cannon, doesn't seem to have any post-barrel containment and seems to rely on high velocity to keep the plasma together for damage.

Examples of Slow Scifi Plasma can be found in the Star Empire section of Welcome to the Nebula California. These bolts of plasma have some handwavium to hold themselves together, but are extremely slow (even Jumpships can dodge them).

[marauder648]

Ahh my mistake, I recall reading something about a..tank's(?) particle cannon that fired it as a magentized 'shell', I'm probably wrong but that's nothing new :D

[UnLimiTeD]

I've been wondering this for a while now. I've also been wondering why no one ever did that.
Options could be both large scale Anti-Ship, and smaller anti-fighter.
And there's probably no need to do anything besides scaling it up.
Let's assume we just increase the entire weapon's size by a factor of 5 - then we'd have a 5 capital hit plus notable heat. Then multiply that by 10 for better power supplies and mass acceleration, and we might already have doubled the range. Not sure if that'd be medium or long capital range, but it'd be a decent subcap anti-fighter weapon.

Regarding mechanics, if we assume dissipating plasma (though I don't know why we would - the physical damage of a plasma rifle is kinetic energy, so that stuff is darn fast), I sure like the idea of a falloff, but why not have it deal cluster damage with an inherent bracketing?
If the weapon dealt 40 std., we could just assume it to be an array of plasma rifles with longer barrels, and the weapon could bracket just by itself to hit fighters.
After all, any actually new weapon should have some kind of unusual mechanics.
Hitting multiple fighters at once would require massive ammo expenditure and imply a very short range; we already have screen launchers.

[Charistoph]

Regarding mechanics, if we assume dissipating plasma (though I don't know why we would - the physical damage of a plasma rifle is kinetic energy, so that stuff is darn fast), I sure like the idea of a falloff, but why not have it deal cluster damage with an inherent bracketing?
If the weapon dealt 40 std., we could just assume it to be an array of plasma rifles with longer barrels, and the weapon could bracket just by itself to hit fighters.
After all, any actually new weapon should have some kind of unusual mechanics.
Hitting multiple fighters at once would require massive ammo expenditure and imply a very short range; we already have screen launchers.

I think it has to do with pressure.  Interplanetary space has such an extremely low pressure that it is considered non-existant in most cases.  The plasma discharge could definitely be described as high pressure.  Mechanically speaking, it is about trying to do something effective with it to a range that is desirable.

I do like the idea of cluster damage if we want to make this a grape shot style weapon.  Or at least, it is clustered if it hits anything smaller than a Dropship.  If it differentiates between the two style targets, it would represent the target being hit by that expanding plasma cloud.  Dropships would be hit to full effect for the range, but fighters and small craft would be limited in how much hit them directly, but it would hit far more of them.  The only problem with all of this is that could involve a lot of rules bloat in a game which is already heavy on the rules.

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, I expect, in actual space combat, and with the speeds involved, that a "close formation" of fighters is still spread out over several kilometers.
A screen launcher could fill space with enough debris to hinder them - it fires 10 tons of something, after all.
A cloud of low density plasma?
I have my doubts. And while I could see a use for a plasma weapon that is essentially a screen launcher that causes heat, an actual screen launcher firing plasma cells is a more reliable approach.
Yes, density in space is pretty much 0, so the plasma can expand. But drag in space is also 0.
If a plasma rifle, standard scale, mounted on a fighter or whatever, can reach medium standard range, I would assume arraying 10 of them and adding a 10x longer barrel with an order of magnitude more power would accelerate the plasma to speeds that would still allow it to hit something with actual kinetic energy at least out to medium capital, preferably long.
It's a question of whether we want it capital or sub-capital scale.
A heating cloud of plasma hitting multiple fighters sounds more like a warship sized flamer.

[Maingunnery]

The simplest way to handle this would be to target squadrons.
The underlining assumption would be that if they are close enough to count as a squadron, that they also are close enough to all be be hit by the plasma.
So then all members of a squadron get x amount of damage and x amount of heat.

[Charistoph]

The simplest way to handle this would be to target squadrons.
The underlining assumption would be that if they are close enough to count as a squadron, that they also are close enough to all be be hit by the plasma.
So then all members of a squadron get x amount of damage and x amount of heat.

And as I mentioned before, it could be set up so that it hits with few clusters at close range, but each damage cluster is high, while each successive range band sees the clusters increased, but the damage per cluster decreased.  Each cluster would be assigned to only one ship in the squadron.

So, just putting numbers on to the board to be massaged and to present the concept, say, a Light Naval Plasma Rifle (I do so hate that the AP is called "Cannon" and the AT is "Rifle") is set up at Short Range doing 3 Damage in 3 clusters, and at Medium Range, it does 2 Damage in 4 Clusters, and Long Range doing 1 Damage in 6 Clusters. 

Or to write it another way, at Short Range it does 3 Damage per ship to 3 ASFs in the target unit; at Medium Range it does 2 Damage per ship to 4 ASFs in the target unit; at Long Range it does 1 Damage per ship to 6 ASFs in the target unit.  If the unit has fewer number of ASFs in the target unit, this damage is lost.  Small Craft are treated as ASFs for damage.  Against DropShips, Jumpships, and Warships, the damage profile is 4/3/2/-.

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, it'd still have a -5 to hit them in the first place.
Though again, to hit a squadron, the ball of plasma would have to be several hundred meters wide.
How much damage can that really deal unless you expect 5 tons per shot?
And why would a weapon deal far more damage to ASFs than to larger ships? It hits them with far less, after all.

[Charistoph]

Well, it'd still have a -5 to hit them in the first place.
Though again, to hit a squadron, the ball of plasma would have to be several hundred meters wide.
How much damage can that really deal unless you expect 5 tons per shot?

Right now, it's more about brainstorming and coming up with ideas.  Throwing things against a wall and seeing if they stick.

And why would a weapon deal far more damage to ASFs than to larger ships? It hits them with far less, after all.

What do you mean?  I wrote it (remember this is just a starting point to start massaging numbers) so that it does less damage per ASF than heavier craft, but more damage to a squadron over all.  I just didn't want to go overly crazy with the numbers so it was an ultimate weapon.

[Maingunnery]

Well, it'd still have a -5 to hit them in the first place.
Though again, to hit a squadron, the ball of plasma would have to be several hundred meters wide.
How much damage can that really deal unless you expect 5 tons per shot?

A lot of the mass of a plasma weapon ammo is for pushing the atmosphere out of the way, which isn't an issue in space.
Also I would expect the plasma of capital plasma weapons to be hotter, which would also help.

[Starfox1701]

Ok you got 2 factors on the effectiveness of the weapon. Speed of the bolt and the volume/density of the bolt. The faster you can lunch the bolt and the smaler the volume of and more dense the plasma The longer the effective range. As noted it will be dissipation of the bolt not thermal degradation that will limit range.

For a capital scale weapon I doubt that the same material uused as ammo on the mech scale will be effective. I actually recommend modifying the romulan plasma torp weapon as your starting point. Take a 400 rated fusion engine aerospace type with associated reaction mass tankage. Instead of having the drive plasma exhausted out a thruster have it feed into a magnetic containment chamber. This chamber functions as the prefire chamber. Once the first chamber is full the weapon moves the plasma on mass into a set of constriction coils. The bolt is formed here.  Once compressed to maximum density the bolt is moved into the accelerator coil assembly and fired.

Assuming you can get Gauss levels of projectile volocity you should be able to get NAC 40 to NAC 30 levels of effective range before bolt dissipation significantly degrades damage potential.

[Atarlost]

A lot of the mass of a plasma weapon ammo is for pushing the atmosphere out of the way, which isn't an issue in space.
Also I would expect the plasma of capital plasma weapons to be hotter, which would also help.

The problem is that heat capacity is proportional to density.  You get 5 or 10 or 1000 tons of plasma spread across the volume of a space hex and it's going to be pretty darn diffuse.  Diffuse plasma also cools faster by radiation so you actually have worse than inverse square damage falloff. 

[marcussmythe]

Adding heat to increase the damage it does is a red queens race - the hotter the plasma, the more quickly it will defuse.

If anything, Id more want to go the other way - throw more and more mass out.  But its still going to want to spread, and any heat energy that could be loaded into the plasma is going to be a pittance compared to the kinetic energy delivered by having a lot of something hitting a target while going really really fast - some of which will very shortly thereafter turn into heat, and heat in quantities that (I believe, but have not done nor could easily do the math) will radically exceed the heat energy you could stuff into a plasma.

Which is perhaps a long winded way of saying ‘worrying about the physics of a plasma cannon is a great way to stop having a plasma cannon and ending up building a laser, particle weapon, or kinetic kill weapon’ - so lets think about what makes a plasma weapon cool.. beside just saying ‘Fireee Plasssma Torpedooeesss’ - which is admittedly cool!

Maybe its AOE, and so drops damage with range, but at the same time doesnt take range penalties?  Maybe it spreads across the target, hitting multiple facings?  Maybe it applies a Damage Over Time effect?  Maybe it -does- add heat to these non heat tracking units, forcing them to abort fire on some weapons, or to fire less weapons next round?  Maybe it burns through armor and applies part of its damage straight to SI?  Maybe it covers -lots- of the targets surface, ruining weapons and sensors?

What would be a fun to play game effect, that would add something cool/missing to the space game, that at the same time wouldnt rewrite the space game into being all about our new shiny toy?

[Charistoph]

Adding heat to increase the damage it does is a red queens race - the hotter the plasma, the more quickly it will defuse.

If anything, Id more want to go the other way - throw more and more mass out.  But its still going to want to spread, and any heat energy that could be loaded into the plasma is going to be a pittance compared to the kinetic energy delivered by having a lot of something hitting a target while going really really fast - some of which will very shortly thereafter turn into heat, and heat in quantities that (I believe, but have not done nor could easily do the math) will radically exceed the heat energy you could stuff into a plasma.

Which is perhaps a long winded way of saying ‘worrying about the physics of a plasma cannon is a great way to stop having a plasma cannon and ending up building a laser, particle weapon, or kinetic kill weapon’ - so lets think about what makes a plasma weapon cool.. beside just saying ‘Fireee Plasssma Torpedooeesss’ - which is admittedly cool!

Maybe its AOE, and so drops damage with range, but at the same time doesnt take range penalties?  Maybe it spreads across the target, hitting multiple facings?  Maybe it applies a Damage Over Time effect?  Maybe it -does- add heat to these non heat tracking units, forcing them to abort fire on some weapons, or to fire less weapons next round?  Maybe it burns through armor and applies part of its damage straight to SI?  Maybe it covers -lots- of the targets surface, ruining weapons and sensors?

What would be a fun to play game effect, that would add something cool/missing to the space game, that at the same time wouldnt rewrite the space game into being all about our new shiny toy?

You got it.  Battletech may be a harder sci-fi game than Warhammer 40K, Star Wars, or even Star Trek (in some areas), but it's not so hard that we can't make up something interesting and have it associated with similar magi-tech level to projecting lightning across a void or a significant net gain fusion generator.

[UnLimiTeD]

Maybe make it a sort of machinegun?
Array a lot of Plasma Rifles together, with a longer acceleration tube, and fire them in bursts, then give them a laser blast after they leave the barrel.
I think it'd cause an interesting visual or a sort of burning whip in space. ^^

[I am Belch II]

I could see a plasma weapon being better at Armor because of the heat. I'm sure it's less heat then a laser.

[Maingunnery]

I could see a plasma weapon being better at Armor because of the heat. I'm sure it's less heat then a laser.

A laser would apply its energy with a far higher focus, which is better for armor.
While plasma would envelop an ASF, overwhelming any heatsinks, but only singeing the armor.

[UnLimiTeD]

So the aim is actually more of a plasma cannon, and not a rifle?

[Charistoph]

Maybe make it a sort of machinegun?
Array a lot of Plasma Rifles together, with a longer acceleration tube, and fire them in bursts, then give them a laser blast after they leave the barrel.
I think it'd cause an interesting visual or a sort of burning whip in space. ^^

I hesitate on this mainly because it doesn't reflect an actual capital-grade weapon any more than strapping 10 AC/10s together to make a NAC 10.  What you're talking about is more of a Plasma Rifle Array.

So the aim is actually more of a plasma cannon, and not a rifle?

One of the things I hate most about the plasma weaponry is the dichotomy in the nomenclature.  The Cannon is a lighter weapon and does little to heavy equipment, but the Rifle roasts both.  Cannon would actually fit better for a naval-class weapon than a heavy flamethrower.

It's almost too bad that the universe cannot create and eject an electromagnetic bubble to contain the plasma in its journey.

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, it's more a subcap plasma rifle, with integral bracketing.
I think that an actual capital plasma rifle would be pretty much a light N-PPC with extra heat caused, at the cost of using ammo.
I guess that's just feeling a bit uninspired.

[Atarlost]

Which is perhaps a long winded way of saying ‘worrying about the physics of a plasma cannon is a great way to stop having a plasma cannon and ending up building a laser, particle weapon, or kinetic kill weapon’ - so lets think about what makes a plasma weapon cool.. beside just saying ‘Fireee Plasssma Torpedooeesss’ - which is admittedly cool!

What makes Battletech plasma weapons cool is that they are hot.  Since large craft don't track heat the way mechs and ASF do, capital scale plasma weapons aren't cool.  The fact that they're more physically absurd the longer you want their range to be reinforces that lack of coolness. 

[Charistoph]

What makes Battletech plasma weapons cool is that they are hot.  Since large craft don't track heat the way mechs and ASF do, capital scale plasma weapons aren't cool.  The fact that they're more physically absurd the longer you want their range to be reinforces that lack of coolness.

That's what makes plasma weapons cool to you.  Not everyone is under the same standard.

[idea weenie]

What makes Battletech plasma weapons cool is that they are hot.  Since large craft don't track heat the way mechs and ASF do, capital scale plasma weapons aren't cool.  The fact that they're more physically absurd the longer you want their range to be reinforces that lack of coolness. 

True.  You'd have to start making a second total for heat received in a turn, and require that to be handled by heat sinks the next turn.

The other option could be letting Plasma weaponry try for critical hits on enemy units.  No damage, just chances for critting.  Even then it might be a temporary effect due to the plastic plasma eventually cooling on the surface of a fire control radar, and not affecting it as much.

Of course if you manage to hit and then get a critical it on a fighter's life support with a capital plasma weapon, you have crispy fighter pilot.