How do crystallurgy weapons work? -> component descriptions

[Kamog]

Thanks, those are interesting explainations. Hmm, come to think of it, I don't understand how half the regular technology works, let alone the special racial technologies!

For example, what is a jacketed photon? Actually, I have no idea how any of the engines work, except for the ion engine! I am also unclear on how some of the weapons work, like the wave motion gun. What exactly is coming out of the gun when it is fired?

[Phoenix-D]

Contra-Terrene Engine: weird word for an antimatter engine. Make a explosion, push hot gases and energy out the rear of the ship. Like a rocket, but with a much bigger boom.

Jacketed-Photon: "harnessed light drive". Hmm. I read this as using photons like the ions in the Ion Engine

Quantum Engine: dunno

Wave-Motion Gun, Incinerator Beam, Ripper Beam: focuses fusion heat at the target. Think heat-ray, only the heat is SUN hot.

Phoenix-D

[Raging Deadstar]

This should turn into a thread where the components are described, it'd make writing fanfiction a lot easier

[spoon]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:

Quantum Engine: dunno

It's just an improbability drive. Watch out for whales.

[Ed Kolis]

Funny, I always thought of the Wave-Motion Gun as some sort of spatial distortion wave... I know it says "fusion beam" but a lot of the other descriptions are messed up - I just figured it had to be SOME kind of wave and a spatial distortion wave seemed appropriate for an uber-weapon...

And wasn't the Ripper Beam a form of combination tractor/repulsor beam in SE2? Sounds more appropriate for the name...

[Taera]

ok. im not any much good in physics but i had a good explanation to how HighEnergy weapons work. So here it comes.

Ripper beam is simple fusion cutter. A heat beam, short ranged too. Think laser.

Incentrator is more concentrated beam. And a lot hotter, too. Think heavy laser.

Wave-Motion gun is something different althogether. In fact it projects an extremly hot fusion beam but not thats the point - it bombards the target with decaying, dissolving particles causing even further damage from reaction caused by these particles multiplied by the extreme heat.
Think particle beam/laser.

How does that sound?

Good idea about writing descriptions for components. Anyone with good questions?

[Kamog]

OK, what's a fusion beam? I know what a fusion reactor is, it generates energy by combining deuterium / tritium atoms into helium, and part of the mass is converted to energy in the process. So does a fusion beam mean that it is a stream of particles that are combining to form heavier elements within the beam itself? That must be difficult to achieve, because it takes enormous pressures to bring the nucleii close enough for the nuclear fusion to occur, and that's not going to happen when the beam is traveling through open space. Maybe a fusion beam is simply a powerful laser that is powered by a nuclear fusion reactor?

So, do ripper beams and incinerator beams consist of a stream of particles, or are they a form of electromagnetic radiation which are waves? I suppose the question of wave vs. particle may be irrelevant because they are the same thing because of duality. Lasers are both waves and particles because photons (and, in fact all particles), are also waves - it just depends on the observation method or experiment that is used to look at it.