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Technology - Direct Fire Weapons The technology discussed here is primarily human-centric. Where deviations in usage or capability exist, they are noted at the end of each subject. Beamlaser Weapons – The earliest practical laser weapons. The continuous beam type laser is relatively weak when compared to other direct fire energy weapons, as the amount of energy delivered per unit of time is much lower. Beamlasers are very accurate in comparison, as the beam can be ‘walked’ into the target if the initial discharge misses or is not properly focused for the target’s range. Beamlasers are usually incorporated into anti-missile point defense turrets. Beamlasers also see use in asteroid mining operations, as the lower energy beam can slice up chunks of rock and metal with a high degree of precision. Laser weapon maximum effective range is a function of the beam’s frequency and the size of the beam director array. Laser frequency bands range from 1 micron IR lasers, 500 nanometer blue-green lasers, 100 nanometer UV and 10 nanometer UV lasers, 1 nanometer and 100 picometer X-ray lasers, all the way down to a 10 picometer gamma ray laser. Humans and Ratalshas are incapable of generating a laser beam with a wavelength smaller than 10 nanometers without using a nuclear explosion as a source, and cannot yet utilize gamma ray lasers even using nukes. The Dhaoghissi and Quilah can use 1 nanometer X-ray lasers without nuclear explosions, and can deploy bomb-pumped gamma ray laser weapons. The Lantere have never demonstrated their laser capabilities, though the Dhaoghissi have reason to fear them nonetheless. Pulselaser Weapons – The next evolution in the laser is the pulselaser, which delivers a rapid fire series of high-energy beams. As the amount of energy delivered per unit of time is much higher, the odds of defeating armor are much higher than for beamlasers. Pulselasers typically require larger powerplants than other direct fire weapons, as their instantaneous energy demands are also much higher than for most other weapons of a similar class. Like beamlasers, starship pulselasers use the same frequency bands. Most bomb-pumped lasers are considered pulselasers because the nuclear explosion that generates the x-ray or gamma pulse will destroy the weapon itself within a microsecond of detonation. Particle Beam Weapons – Particle beam weapons fire streams of heavy atomic nuclei at velocities of at least 0.5C, inflicting excellent damage and good penetration without requiring the large powerplants of similar class pulselasers. Most particle beams incorporate a relatively low-power laser for use in an atmosphere, with the laser beam creating an ionized path through the air to allow the following nucleon beam to pass without interference. This technique is known as ‘rifling,’ and is standard for all fighter and starship class weapons. Particle beam weapons without laser rifling are useless in the atmosphere. Particle beam weapons also create deadly ionizing radiation effects at their impact points. Plasma Weapons – Plasma weapons fire superheated (100,000ºK) bolts of ionized matter (usually hydrogen, although many fighter class plasma weapons have induction fans and compressors to allow any surrounding atmosphere to be drawn in as additional fuel) accelerated by magnetic fields. They are crude, brutally powerful, and very short ranged. They also require large powerplants to operate. Plasma weapons are often the main weapons of heavily stealthed attack craft, which take advantage of their low observable profiles to close to the short ranges where these weapons are effective. Most plasma weapons used in the atmosphere have a laser generate a tube of near-vacuum to travel along in order to increase their effective range. Gauss Weapons – Magnetically accelerated projectile cannons firing high velocity slugs of a nickel-iron alloy sheath surrounding a dense core made of lead or depleted uranium, and with a brilliant magnesium flame tracer segment in the projectile base. Gauss weapons are easy to maintain and hard hitting, but are limited by the amount of ammunition they can carry. They also enjoy some success in shutting down the gravity drives of enemy vessels by overloading the distortion field with more mass than they can compensate for. Because of the low relative velocity of gauss cannon slugs, these weapons have very limited effective ranges when compared to other starship weapons, and find use only on Human and Ratalshan spacecraft. The velocity of fighter class gauss weapons is deliberately set below 6 km/sec, as projectile speeds higher than this will cause the slugs to vaporize from atmospheric friction. Meson Weapons – By combining mutually annihilating streams of high energy electrons and positrons, mesons can be produced at near light speed, where due to relativistic time dilation effects, extends the time period in which these extremely short-lived particles can exist. Matter is considered transparent to the type of mesons produced, but when they decay, they decay into high energy particles which interact strongly with matter, causing powerful explosions and deadly radiation effects to the crew. By tightly controlling the velocity of the meson beam, it is possible to ‘time’ the exact moment that the meson beam will decay within the hull of the target spacecraft, effectively bypassing the heaviest armor. Naturally, meson weapons are very difficult to target effectively, making them useless against small, agile fighters and strike craft, but when used by these small ships, it makes them very effective “giant-killers.” |
