I don't really understand the point of switching plasma for CNT-goo.
IMO plasma doesn't have any problems in its science. And what discussions are you talking about? About the plasma weaponry most are about its balance compared to other weaponry instead of its science. Have I missed something?
Plasmathrower won't happen since keeping plasma together is extremely hard and the aliens actually have to enclose theirs inside a heat-resistant plastic ball to keep it together. Unlike the liquid/gas fuel of flamethrower, plasma will just expand everywhere, possibly killing the user too. Raising its speed helps but not nearly enough for it to be effective in the flamethrowers range. A two meter long gun with the effective range of three meters is not a good idea. If you do want to hit something hard in that range, plasma blade is a better idea.
Ps. Welcome to the forums! Hopefully I didn't scare you off already...
Well, there is the problem that the plasma weapons as described simply cannot work.I haven't been around here for long enough to see that on the first page. And I have not digged for that.
And I was referring to discussions such as this one where the problem is hashed out in detail:
http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=1600.0
The devs were seeking a solution then and from my point of view there's no time like the present to offer a possibility.... ;)
Your "research report" is hard to read IMO.
So, lemme see if I can construct a diagram to explain your idea visually, zapkitty...
Is this correct? Did I miss any details?
I think I get it now. So the basic principle is that this weapon is a nanoengineered alien water balloon containing superheated alien material that bursts on contact. Seems to work okay.
That just leaves the question of fire modes. Particularly the "Ball" mode on the plasma blaster. Is this done by adjusting the composition of the core material? Something about the shell? Or is there some other mechanism that I'm not aware of?
Well, as the "Ball" mode uses 10 rounds of ammo per shot I'd suggest we take it literally... 10 pellets are heated in the firing mechanism and fused into one humongous projectile, primed and tossed at the target where the 10 bundled cores go off at once. The weapon's certainly big enough for that.
the plastic casing etc reduces the coolness factor imho.
why not just say the plasma holds itself together like ball lightning, and worry about the reasoning when the real mechanism of ball lightning is discovered.
[...]If the plasmoid explanation for ball lightning holds up it gets around this because the theory (and the relatively few observations) do not describe the balls as acting as projectiles.ball lightning has been described to move around.
And the plasmoid hypothesis indicates that actual damage comes from a charge carried by the plasmoid structure, and not much from the plasma itself.... and that charge is presumed to be lightning-related.
i can put it short:
afaik, really, you do not know.
afaik you do not know what it moves after, you do not know how much damage it could be engineered to inflict, no clue at all.
[...]Only thing confirmed about it is that it moves erratically and that's one good nail in the coffin.there are very few things that move truly erratically.