why didnt you mention plasma grenades in the clip? they might be one of the most realistic aproaches to plasma weaponry. unless you plan a video on space ship artillery or something.
I get around the issues of dispersal and density by using gravity field generators to launch what are essentially miniature fusion reactions at short to moderate ranges
@@ulforcemegamon3094 Yeah, I think that's the difference between hard and soft sci-fi; how much of the technology _could be_ explained by known science. Something like Warhammer 40K is Science Fantasy because not even the characters in the universe understand how their own technology works and some of it is *literally* magic.
@@Sue_Me_Too I mean sometimes it’s also discribed by some resources that they have in sci fi that we don’t for example in warhammer it’s the warp, which does get magic fuckery at times and I feel like the lore as to why people don’t know as well works great in warhammer (specifically just the imperium) is that the tech was lost to time and is only able to be used if the imperium has the stcs
Bonus Trivia: Almost every "laser" in the Star Wars franchise is, in fact, a pseudo-plasma weapon. The rest are particle beams. Actual lasers have never been used even once in the entire franchise.
Not pseudo. All weapon there use containers of special plazma gase as ammo cartridge and electromagnetism device inside weapon ionizes and fires the plasmoid. The same but ionizes liquid naquadah mineral make staff weapon in Star Gate.
I like the idea of a warhead that creates a plasma halo around the front end, protecting itself from some anti-missile defenses, and also giving it better armor penetrating qualities
I would not be surprised if the US has some Marauder-equipped Space Satellites. But also Near Atmosphere has a lot of Particles reducing the range of weapons significantly.
@@FranksFilmEcke MARAUDER actually depended on atmospheric effects to stabilize its projectiles, and wouldn't have worked in a vacuum. Also, it would require far more power to operate than you can currently pack onto any practical satellite; when they were testing it, they had to borrow DARPA's Shiva Star capacitor bank, usually used to power lasers for fusion research, to run it. Deploying such a weapon on a satellite would be impossible to keep secret; such a satellite would need an extraordinarily powerful launch vehicle to get it into orbit, and would be highly detectable once it's up there.
I like the depiction of plasma weapons in Nebulous Fleet Command, where they're basically Molotov cocktails of plasma used by the outer systems protectorate, a rebel faction of miners and haulers. The plasma is shot out with mass drivers in magnetic containers which smash against the side of Navy ships and basically melt their armour away so they can get in with high explosive and do some real damage.
@@nil981 HEAT doesn't do what the Protectorate wants, they want the armor burned away so the 100mm HEHC can do lots of damage, so they have 400mm plasma ampoules which destroys armor in an area allowing lighter weapons to break thorough and destroy the ship itself.
@@nil981 in that game the protectorate doesn't really have true military tech. They mostly jury rig their stuff to fight their enemies guerilla style. Also heat on naval scale seems not very useful.
@@ALPHA.Mods.1 I actually kinda wish Star Wars would just accept that the stuff they call laser cannons or turbolasers were actually just laser weapons instead of having some tibanna gas plasma explanation for everything, because like we already accept that there's non-diegetic sound is space and all the ships fly like they were in atmosphere, so why does it matter that weapons called laser cannons don't behave exactly like how laser weapons would work in hard sci-fi setting?
Containing plasma in an electromagnetic field is exactly how the Covenant do it in Halo. In the book, Halo: First Strike, upon discovering this while aboard a hijacked Covenant ship, Cortana quickly realized just how inefficient the Covenant utilize this technology by firing it as plasmoids. So, she alters the trajectories of the magntic fields to create a beam instead of plasmoids projectiles.
Haven't gotten to that book yet. I'm stuck listening to them on audible. The narrator they have is a dumbass who can't even pronounce Mjolnir correctly. He pronounces it as "ma-jol-nur".
Yep but as soon as the plasma is fired from the gun no more magnetic field for plasma unless you make it into a ring that's spinning inwards or pump the magnet field though the plasma in the form of a beam.
@@haminatorainz7227if the plasma is conductive, as it's traveling it would generate a magnetic field as it travels. Plasma has a net neutral charge, but could consist of two phases electrically separated by 180 degrees. Electric universe covers plasma discharges on a large scale, so their work would be best to use as proof of concept for plasma weapons.
Yeah, a game called “nebulous fleet command” which was featured in the footage towards the end of the video handled this quite well iirc. It’s basically contained in a bottle, then propelled and contained by an EM field once it’s launched. It takes the form of a (relatively) slower moving (but still fast) long projectile with a trail that almost functions like a Molotov cocktail on impact with other vessels-eating away armor so follow up shots from missiles and kinetic projectiles can do damage to the ship’s interiors.
You're actually right on- magnetic fields are caused by moving electrical charges. Which plasmas happen to be made entirely out of! The entire field is called magnetohydrodynamics. And there actually are certain ways you can shoot plasma so that it self-focuses. I had hoped he'd talk about it with the MARAUDER tech, but a toroid of plasma fired through a cool gas (ie an atmosphere) self-focuses because of its magnetic fields- the plasma on the outside of the toroid slows down, and Lenz's law does its thing and makes a magnetic field that confined the plasma. It's just that it's a very short and very violent and unstable thing, which makes it less than ideal for producing steady fusion power. (I studied plasma confinement and controlled fusion in uni).
Yes this is possible but not likely viable. Such a field would be very easy to disrupt and would be leeching power from the plasma at a very high rate. It could totally work if you could force enough power into the system but you are talking about magnetic fields stronger than the sun can produce and even then you are merely delaying the inevitable by a few fractions of a second.
I was trying to come up with a plausibly realistic mechanism to have ship to ship plasma bolt weapons in my writing but when your plans require non baryonic matter, magnetic fields strong enough to make a star blush, and or handwavium alongside abusing Hafnium-178m2 then you know you've reached your limit.
The trick is to not describe it too much. If you just say something brief like "Charged nanoparticles" then that's enough and the audience will get the idea.
In Atmo there is also the "Plazer", Plasma will follow the path of least resistance and or a charged stream, so fire a laser to bore a hole in the air ahead of your plasma bolt and the plasma will charge down the tunnel of less dense air to it's target.
It works in Atmo, but for Vacc you will need a low powered charged particle beam, so if you can't build high output Charged Particle Weapons yet just use a little one to get the most out of your Plasma.
I was actually about to comment a similar thing, if a laser couldn’t be used in atmosphere to carve a path and/or mess with particle charge the create a stable channel. For space maybe sufficiently enough sci-fi tech could fire a laser puls to clear a path, quickly followed by a directed EM stream to create a channel, then followed by the actual plasma bolt?
Wrong. Electricity will follow the path of least resistance. Using a pulsed laser to create a plasma channel through air is more of a lightning gun not a plasma gun. A long range taser.
Plasma cutter in Dead space is one of those "iconic" weapons in videogame history. Just finished the last achievement. Impossible difficulty & plasma cutter solo run.
Aye but was it the gun or the games animation system. Loved it even with the Pulse Rifle. Say what you will but I liked all three. Need to try Calisto Protocol. Gotta get my gamefly to work.
To be fair a fully upgraded plasma cutter it's definitely doable because that is a damn good weapon. I am a member of the line gun party everybody hates on it, but once it's upgraded it is damn good weapon
I'd be interested to know the feasibility of plasma weapons as they're presented in the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe. In that setting, they're more of a long-range incendiary device or high-end napalm launcher, using internal lasers to superheat plastic-foam cartridges to a plasma state before firing it at the enemy. Not particularly damaging against armored targets, but great for causing enemy units to overheat and extremely nasty against infantry and other soft targets.
My dad worked at Hughes Aircraft in the 80's and early 90's. Watching me play Doom when it came out on the PS1 he said "that supposed to be a plasma weapon?" He came home from work the next day saying he talked to some of the engineers during lunch about it. He said that the engineers said firing a ball of plasma is not so much "shooting" as more like using magnets to "squirt" the plasma out. Also they said that with current tech, the plasma just "splatters" when it comes in contact with air outside of the magnetic containment field. He said that it could be done but you would only get one shot as it would splatter everywhere an set everything on fire. Including the gun and whoever pulled the trigger. This was the 90's though so the only thing im sure of is the engineers used the words splatter and squirt for some reason.
One aspect of plasma that--given your enjoyment of radiators--I am surprised you overlooked was that it can transfer a lot of energy. Very useful in a boarding action, where you could use plasma weapons to dump a lot of heat into the opposing vessel and cook the crew. If you get close enough, into relative knife range, using plasma weapons to dump heat into the other vessel is a good way to make heat management an actually interesting part of the story.
Wouldnt laser weapons transfer the same energy far more quickly and efficently? And from further away? Also, I think that if you are in "knife fight" range, both ships should be dead.
Plasma actually transfers very little energy, because its density is so low. Its temperature may be super-high, but its density is so low that boiling water would transfer more energy at any sort of range.
What are you going to use as a source of atoms for the plasma, and then how would you keep them at a density that allows that energy to be transmitted rapidly? Think of trying to use a "gas bolt" weapon and then remember plasma is more diffuse at the same temperature as its gaseous state. The plasma in a star's core would indeed be powerful, but how can you maintain the pressures needed to use it? The only plasmic projectiles that could work are ones like the torroid pulses that travel at 30-70% of C. Fermi lab was working with them in the 80s, and today its a potential technique to initiate fusion so there might be a way to weaponize that process but again the range isn't even useful on a 1km scale let alone in space.
"...a good way to make heat management an actually interesting part of the story." If you want some interesting heat management consideration in a story read larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's, "The Gripping Hand."
Probably my favourite plasma weapon is the Plasma Siphon of Escape Velocity Override. Its 'shots' are short-lived clouds (the implication is they disperse quickly, though of course not as quickly as they should), and the way it works makes it fit as an emergency backup weapon in terms of verisimilitude: it draws byproducts from the ship's engines (hence "siphon") and releases them in the rough direction of the enemy ship. Certainly, you'd almost always prefer using phase cannons and SAE modules, but in the right situation....
One thing that didn't get mentioned is that when charged particles slow down they release their energy with radiation. Hitting a target like a ship with a particle beam could result with the crew being bathed in x-rays without actually putting a hole in the hull. Boarding crews could then go in without any resistance.
And you seriously think that a spaceship designed to go around in an environment where radiations and high energy particles are as common as water molecules in an ocean would be easily penetrated by the amount of x-rays a puff of plasma could produce? Moreover, if that same ships is also designed to survive planetary re-entry, the thermal energy from the plasma puff could have the same effectiveness as a hairdryer.
@@ObatongoSensei Maybe not, but I think an X-Ray Laser could get the job done. That'd be a fantastic weapon for a spaceship, not to mention you can use it for other stuff too.
@@Sue_Me_Too Yeah, but an x-ray laser is not a plasma weapon. By the way, most high energy photons and neutrons can be stopped by water, the most common molecule in the universe.
@@ObatongoSensei All I'm saying is that if the purpose of the plasma weapon is to make a burst of X-Rays _over there_ then it would be more efficient to just make the X-Rays here and shoot them over there as a Laser instead of making plasma first.
Self-containing plasma IS possible. This is (most likely) how ball-lightning works. It's just a difficult engineering problem, especially when you also want to magnetically accelerate the plasmoid to get it up to a high speed.
@@bernadmanny A self-containing plasmoid is the prevailing theory. How to get it into that state is currently unknown, but if nature can do it, so can we, eventually. It's a matter of time until a computer simulation hits the right magnetic field shape. Of course ball lightning is relatively slow-moving, so not immediately useful as a projectile weapon.
To expand on this theory, you could think of a lightsaber from Star Wars as a fancy plasma torch or cutter. According to basic Star Wars lore, the energy blade is nothing more than a condensed amount of plasma, emitted by the Khyber Crystal housed in the hilt and is projected by the 'blade emitter,' in which a magnetic field contains the 'blade.' A power cell is in the hilt to provide energy to the emitter and the magnetic field.
it simple realy you know how the earths core;s three or now four layers is like. well self contaning plasma is just like that. how you do it is bascly you super heat the plasma. then you use the lernzo elctromactnic force to ball up and stableize it. then you fire it out of a elctromactic coil or rail gun like you would a rail gun projectile. the main issue is you got to do it very very quick befrore it gets to cold.
I imagine you could probably do an encased plasma slug, so round with containment field, or a plasma filled slug, although I'm not sure there'd be any real benefit to it.
It's effectively a really really hot Molotov cocktail. Give it a way to penetrate armor before containment failure and you'll have a pretty nasty little warhead.
@@rapidrotation in theory it can irradiate the crew without the round fully penetrating the armour; in practice you'd need a rather big plasmoid and somewhat thin armour for it to have any noticeable effect, so you could just make your life simpler and use a bigger/faster slug or a nuke
I love how you dive into the realistic mechanics of sci-fi, but then encourage people to do what they want when it comes to storytelling. Great attitude. There is no wrong way to do sci-fi.👌
Feel like it's necessary to shout out the Expanse and the plasma warheads used on some torpedoes, which keep the plasma inside contained until they reach their target.
I read that modern day HEAT rounds create plasma, with their directed chemical explosive warheads, when they strike the armor of their target. While contained plasma is the ideal way to go with a futuristic sounding plasma warhead, it's still safer and easier to store and use that energy in the old fashioned way from what I can tell. Plasma missile/torpedo is still the way to go for future-cool sounding weapon though.
@@Sifeus Not with the new rules, that only happens if you actually fire on overcharge (for more AP and damage) and roll a 1. If you have your plasma guns fire on normal setting, then they are pretty much a straight upgrade to lasguns and boltguns since there is no risk over 'Gets Hot'.
The whole Covenant weaponry uses plasma. Except for needler guns. That... aren't guns but ok. It's just to say. By the way, Covenant use of plasma is way more realistic than 40k. I mean... There's something realistic in 40k? 🤔
Very informative! Now I'm envisioning plasma not as a projectile, but as a replacement for burning fuel in incindeary grenades. Or, an extention of that, the future equivalent of an armor-piercing incideary round: a railgun sabot that also contains a high pressure plasma. When the round deforms upon piercing the outermost armor, the plasma is released and expands into the space of every chamber along the sabot's path, burning organics and short circuting electronics.
you completely forgot a self confined totoidal plasma weapons, where the plasmas own spin in the toroidal shape creates magnetic fiel (as it is charged matter) that keeps it together.
While this is commonly proposed in science fiction, it is actually completely impossible under our understanding of plasma physics. Self-stable toroids just don't exist.
The drone weapons seem like the most plausible way to actually make a plasma weapon. A stream of plasma held in the field generated around the projectile. The plasma acts as a sort of shield and destructive device.
About vortex rings, if you run a current along the ring it's pretty much a Tokamak configuration (minus some helical fields). I'd wager it'd be stable for long enough.
Why not have a magazine filled full of tiny little magnetic containment devices. The weapon loads a containment device in the rail gun, the plasma is generated and then contained my the device from the magazine, then the rail gun fires sending the device with the container plasma to the target. I know it’s basically a regular rail gun at that point, but could adding the contained plasma add lethality? I imagine you could do this with a regular gun too btw.
All other things being equal, sure it’d do more damage. In addition to the kinetic energy, there's also the thermal energy of the plasma. Besides, even if you can’t actually pack in more energy due to practical concerns it's guaranteed to change the damage profile, which may be desirable.
@@justinthompson6364 I see the plasma as a heat, corrosive and electromagnetic payload. It's definitely worth it IMO if the defense is meant to protect against kinetic projectiles.
If you could get it to retain the charge, in theory you could make it more explosive than any conceivable chemical explosive. Just the pure mechanical force of too many electrons pushing on each other.
@@EgoEroTergum I know this is more far future/miracle tech, but micro fusion reactors could do it probably, as there is a form of fusion the extracts electricity directly from the fusion reaction, no need for steam or turbines.
@@justinthompson6364 very true. So many different types of damage packed into a single weapon would be more useful against a wider array of targets with potentially different defense technologies.
Another idea for plasma weapon: solid projectiles with plasma fuel in them, that ignite right before contact with the target. Which is basically what a HEAT round is. This could have great effects, like the plasma being an armor burner, but then another payload behind it. Which also exists currently. But calling them plasma weapons sounds cooler, and you could make them mini fusion reactions if you wanted to get more sci-fi.
I think the ideal ballistic weapon for a pressurized area would be something sub sonic yet high mass to still have significant killing power like the Russian 9x39 ammo for the VSS. I also think dead space had the right idea with the pulse rifle’s squash head ammo to liquify tissue through hydrostatic shock without piercing armor.
The explanation given in B5 for how they actually function doesn't really make sense, but my head-canon is just that the character explaining it (Garibaldi?) didn't actually know or care about the technical details... Really just interested in conveying "here's how to use it".
@@mzaite Fairly early in B5, I remember a scene where the commander asks one of the crew if something can be done, and the crewmember starts into a technobabble explanation... The commander cuts him off and says something to the effect of "I don't care how it works, just do it." Loved that! BTW: I say "commander" because I honestly can't remember if it was Sinclair or Sheridan. Might have even been Ivanova, but I don't think so... it would have been very in character for her though.
@@travcollier Earth Force was much more Air Force than Star Treck’s Navy style of having to qual in every system to be in charge. I dug that. Not everyone needs to know how the shitter flushes when it’s done by a robit.
From what I can tell the issue is making plasma bolts *look* like they do in the films, i.e. discrete blobs of light travelling at relatively slow speeds. To make a viable plasma weapon, you either need the bolt going so fast from close range (for space) an observer would only see a brief flash before it hit its target (like a gun), a charged beam using an electric field which cannot be broken, or contain the plasma in a likely opaque magnetic bottle until impact, basically looking like any other missile.
I mean, they already have that. Tracer rounds. Hell, the Germans and Americans in WW2 used red and green - which looked *exactly like* and inspired the blaster bolts from Star Wars. They're the reason you can see bullets at all when firing a machine gun; the belts go Reg, Reg, Incind, Tracer, repeat. So give your team extra-bright blue tracers to make it easy for conscripts, or give them yellow because the planet they were stationed on before was desert and they were low-light in that theater - whatever color you like T R A C E R S .
@@EgoEroTergum Eh, tracers still tend to move considerably faster than a plasma bolt you might see in sci-fi, close up it's going to look more like a very short lived beam due to persistence of vision (or the camera sensor!). And of course that's unlikely to scale to spaceship battles, there's generally no need for tracer rounds if you're not aiming the gun by hand. That said, I do remember the Expanse's PDC's using tracer rounds, probably for visual effect. They didn't resemble plasma bolts though, the fire rate was much higher and the length of the bolts was much shorter, more like lots of little glowing dots.
The halo arrays were kinda described however. Effectively using the power siphoned from another universe, a single halo ring unleashes a massive burst of I think gamma ray equivilient? A type of radiation that does not care what's in it's way, amplified to stupid high levels, if I recal.
What about Plasma shotguns? Given the limitations of plasma weaponry, they seem to be an almost ideal weapon type for the technology. Expansion is less of an issue since shotguns aren't about precision so much as increasing the probability of a hit through spread, and your only real concern would be giving the plasmoid a high enough muzzle velocity to give the weapon a decent effective range. Strangely, they seem to be very rare weapons in Sci-fi, The only ones I recall seeing being the plasma shotgun from Jet Force Gemini, and the Devastator shotgun from Star Citizen.
That reminds me of a fight scene in a Harry Dresden story, where a mercenary "guy" has a golf bag full of double-barreled shotguns that he brings to a fight against vampires. Each barrel fires an incendiary round that absolutely WRECKS the vampires, but also damages the barrels, so after two shots, he drops the now-glowing shotgun and pulls another one out of the bag. In the aftermath of the fight, he has to take time to go around and pick up his discarded shotguns, as some may still be useable, or at least the stocks and trigger housings are. Plus leaving expended firearms around the infield at Wrigley Field in Chicago with your fingerprints on them is a bad idea...
In Synthetik there is a plasma shotgun called PSG Emerald Sword. Does awesome damage and has strong slightly delayed ammo regeneration but extremely weak against shields and worst of all, ejecting the magazine is an incredibly hot event toasting your shields and setting you on fire meaning you need to rely on the ammo regen and the gun cant be shot empty because empty mag pauses the ammo regen forcing a manual reload. I avoid that think like a plague lmao
I just want to add there's definitely more than 4 states of matter. We added plasma first and said there were "4 fundamental" states but by really any definition of what separates different states of matter there's a ton more. Some lists I've seen say 22 some say 40. There's stuff like super critical fluids, Bose Einstein condensates, degenerate matter, time crystals, string net liquids, super solids, super fluids, and tons more. The idea that there's 4 is really just an over simplification that only works in common earth temperatures, and pressures.
The most reasonable way I could see for weaponizing plasma is as the payload for an impact fused warhead such as a missile or grenade probably wouldn’t need to be terribly power dense as the reaction could run on a potent oxidizer and not containing it is the stated goal.
Was worried about the clickbaity title but i liked how you provided ways that plasma could work. My attitude regarding scifi is that if it looks plausible, however miniaturized it is required then it's an okay inclusion. Also I do like the idea of plasma beam weaponry, it's just cool
Nice thing about covie ship based plasma weapons is that the magnetic field is projected and controlled by the ship. This allows the ship’s personnel to track and maneuver the plasma after it’s fired. There is also a nice tid bit in the lore detailing that there are tactics to disrupt the magnetic field or even take control of it from the enemy.
Fusion reactors are interesting in science fiction because there are over a dozen different ways to build one, and we in the early 21st century don't have that much of an idea what reactor design is best for what application (we're just trying to build *any* design with an an engineering Q greater than 1!). So there's a lot of scope for form and function.
@@g.williams2047 It is, though it's perhaps the most unrealistic aspect, nuclear power plants, fission or fusion, can't be made to explode like nuclear weapons. In the case of many types of fusion reactor, "overloading" it would cause plasma to touch the walls, contaminating it with unwanted ions and causing the reactor to immediately shut down. In other cases the thing would likely just overheat and destroy itself in an very anticlimactic and non-explosive fashion. Any explosion would be limited in size, and would be chemical or mechanical, not nuclear, either from pressurised steam or steam heated up so much it cracks into hydrogen and oxygen, which then react with an ignition source to form back into steam. Both of which would probably not be enough to completely destroy a spaceship. TL;DR: for hard sci-fi, don't "overload the reactor" because that's not a viable self destruct mechanism. If you have to blow up your ship, use a bomb, and have some justification for having it there (denying the enemy equipment or intelligence, failsafe in case of a loss of control, etc.)
When we finally figure out fusion power, people are gonna be so disappointed that its going to be just another method of boiling water to spin a turbine
I read somewhere that plasma can be stabilised by spinning it like a bullet, IIRC it was derived from research into ball lightning. So a plasma railgun is still a somewhat realistic concept.
I know you guys have said it before but I always appreciate the note that "realistic" does not equate to better. It is science fiction, after all, it's important to tell a good story above all else.
I know its been a thing for a long time now, but I really appreciate having the show/games name below for all the clips used. Also Rock and Stone for the DRG reference clips!
Couldn’t agree more. If you want perfectly realistic, you’re stuck to real life. That said, I still try to use as little handwavium as I can for stuff, so thanks for the physics.
8:40 those plasma weapons from nebulous: fleet command canonically use magnetic jars to contain the plasma, which is relatively plausible. but anyway, nice video
Something I've always wondered about plasma weapons that no one seems to talk about is: instead of using plasma, why not just use a completely different phenomenon to fire a "bolt" of some sort? Some ball lightning proposals act a bit like sci-fi plasma, and I would imagine there's other obscure "energy bubble" configurations out there.
Does it really matter? At the end of the day plasma is just a cool word and trying to come up with something plausible just so you can use it in your work and still be able to call it hard sci-fi is such a waste of time. Just embrace soft sci-fi or space fantasy and throw around plasma to your heart's content
Here's an idea: plasma torpedos. The torpedo is basically a container for a large amount of compressed plasma. You shoot the torpedo at an enemy spaceship, and the torpedo partially pierces the hull. While the back of the torpedo plugs the hole, the front opens up to release the plasma, which then expands out across the inside of the ship and incinerates the crew. Last I checked, there are no Geneva conventions in space, so we should be fine on that end!
But electron beams bloom and won't guide an effective mass of plasma. OTOH, diffuse electron beams at very high energies are basically Beta radiation weapons. And dense metal shielding will cause the crew to get strongly X-rayed on the other side of that shielding.
Rapid firing donuts of plasma sounds magical lol (I know this is way oversimplified; it's just a joke). Thank you guys for another fascinating episode. God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)
@@LeCharles07 they would be devastating as a CIWS, functionally unlimited ammunition, undodgable, kinetic impact, electromagnetic component; it combines almost all of the advantages of both lasers and railguns with few of the downsides.
2 things on this video I never realised I needed to see as much as I did. 1. The Enterprise flying over New York City dogfighting with JU87 dive bombers armed with plasma cannons. 2. Denise Richards in Starship Troopers.
An intriguing prospect would be to have plasma weapons meant specifically for use in extremely high pressure atmospheres, such as underwater or inside a large gas giant. Naturally, this would add in it's own giant yarn ball of complications, but it might be an interesting take seeing as that we have so little submarine combat in sci-fi.
Nebulous Fleet Command has an interesting plasma weapon - basically an accelerated cask that is launched at ships that melts/damages the plating of the area of the ship it makes contact with and shatters across. Glad it got featured at the very end of the episode.
One idea I had on my sci-fi setting as how plasma is used as weapon (not as main weapon but often used heavy or side weapon) was as the plasma is fired by acselerators it is coated by certain resin that contains the plasma in certain amount before it is burned or burst open by inpact.
One of the primary warship weapons in Ian Bank's culture series combines a fusion reactor with a teleporter. The teleporters transport plasma from the fusion reactors directly into/onto the target.
There are realworld counterpart to the plasma projectile - ball lightning. And since some of them explode on contact - if we are to replicate this - it would make an exelent weapon. And even if only current is delivered - it is still viable as an anti-personnel or EMP weapon.
I'm currently working on a scifi game and had trouble placing plasma weapons into a projectile, beam, munition trinity. In the end I decided they fit best into the beam category and now work like close range plasma torches, with low damage but wide beam, making them excellent at intercepting projectiles (point defence) and raking ships to heat hulls and ablate plating.
Another fun alternative for plasma weapons in realistic sci fi we actually see in the newest faction of Nebulous Fleet Command. Plasma contained in a physical projectile. a chamber made that can contain the plasma magnetically thats designed to shatter or explode on impact releasing the plasma onto the target, even better is if it from there functions alot like a shaped charge. the plasma contained in an basic easily broken container is actually fairly realistic by modern standards. while you run into it being less spectacular than proper plasmoids it does work. though at that point its a rather potent electrically charged incendiary
I came up with an interesting idea for a plasma weapon. Its actually more of a gauss rifle/coil gun with a small plume of superheated plasma on the end of the barrel. When the gun fires, the projectile is magnetized by the electromagnetic field of the coils in the barrel and the magnetic field of the now-magnetized projectile scoops up some of the plasma as it exits the barrel and carries it along to the target. It basically works in a similar principle to a flamethrower in that a flamethrower is just a squirtgun that squirts kerosene with a lit flame at the end of the nozzle. It could also have something resembling a non-lethal "stun" setting in that the user could switch the plasma off and shoot them with the projectile only. Said projectile would have the muzzle velocity of a BB gun, so it would hurt but it would cause any serious injures aside from possible permanent blindness caused by the projectile hitting them in one or both eyes.
It's funny, I actually did design a Plasma Rifle for my sci-fi tabletop rpg setting. The thing is, the weapon's basically more like a blob launcher that basically fires super-heated and charged plasmoid blobs at people, basically melting through what it hits for a period like an acid. The weapon does have a secondary function that overcharges and turns the attack into more of a chemical Flamethrower stream at the risk of overheating the weapon. Needless to say, the weapon is utterly horrifying against infantry units and has been deemed a crime against humanity by some factions in the setting.
Long ago I designed a plasma gun that actually fired a small bolt that generated the magnetic field to keep the plasma contained until it hit the target. The bolt would activate as it was fired, pass through a "plasma chamber" where it would pick up the payload, then travel on to the target. There are some very obvious issues with this but I was but a little nerd and hadn't thought them all through.
Having done a lot of research into plasma weapons for a thing I'm writing, I'm both pleased to see that I've come to a lot of the same conclusions you have, while at the same time being annoyed that this wasn't posted sooner so that I could have just watched this instead (I spent so many nights reading science way above my knowledge level XD). (And to the people who somehow keep finding me and asking about it, yes this is the "Exiled" thing I once mentioned, and it is moving forwards, but very slowly)
You might have plasma shells for gun or rail gun? like a plasma container that it charged while being shot and last a couple of second, containing the plasma. so basically a kinetic bullet with plasma release on impact (could be useful as armor percing). when the containement energy ran out it could like make some sudden release, like a flak. Plasma rail gun sound so cool.
I’m surprised you never touched upon the 40k settings operation of Melta weaponry (which, for all intents and purposes, is how most plasma weaponry would work).
So a plasma dagger or knife for point-blank use in Melee would be a good idea. Light saber although the enemies one can't block with their own only dodge.
My plasma weaponry is an adamantine shell containing a superheated plasmoid in an EM field. They are essentially an AP round that bursts inside the target when the shell is cracked on impact, releasing all the energy in close proximity or more often than not inside the enemies armor. But the pinch plasma weapon sounds like a great weapon as well.
in the tabletop game dropzone commander the faction of the scourge had a preference for plasma weapons, non of the other factions liked plasma weapons due to a short range over railguns, but the scourge compensated for this with all of their tanks being hover tanks, so they could close the distance rapidly, also they preferred urban combat which furthur aided in closing the distance
Most plasma weapons in fiction tend to have an electromagnetic capsule that encases the actual bullet when it’s fired solving the expansion issue. The covenant use a rudimentary form of this in their ships and Weapons. Cortana even jokes about it in halo first strike. The point is imagine a bullet but it has to be encased in something that’s what plasma bullets are. Plasma also burns and partially explodes what it hits so it’s dangerous. A graze will cause major burns though.
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Upvoted for the Look Around You reference
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The Butterfield Diet! Haw haw!
why didnt you mention plasma grenades in the clip? they might be one of the most realistic aproaches to plasma weaponry. unless you plan a video on space ship artillery or something.
I get around the issues of dispersal and density by using gravity field generators to launch what are essentially miniature fusion reactions at short to moderate ranges
"sounds reasonably high tech without stepping into the realm of magic" is a phrase I will save for deployment at a suitable future time
Ain't that hard sci-fi in general ? With some exceptions of course
@@ulforcemegamon3094 Yeah, I think that's the difference between hard and soft sci-fi; how much of the technology _could be_ explained by known science.
Something like Warhammer 40K is Science Fantasy because not even the characters in the universe understand how their own technology works and some of it is *literally* magic.
Lol y’all ever heard of Warhammer 40k?
I call such things "skiffy".
@@Sue_Me_Too I mean sometimes it’s also discribed by some resources that they have in sci fi that we don’t for example in warhammer it’s the warp, which does get magic fuckery at times and I feel like the lore as to why people don’t know as well works great in warhammer (specifically just the imperium) is that the tech was lost to time and is only able to be used if the imperium has the stcs
Bonus Trivia: Almost every "laser" in the Star Wars franchise is, in fact, a pseudo-plasma weapon. The rest are particle beams. Actual lasers have never been used even once in the entire franchise.
Except when they targeted the Enterprise and it forced them to go to yellow alert.
Turbolasers are lasers though right?
@@Souledex All the blasters, from a pistol to a death star, use lasers to initiate fusion. The projectiles are plasma.
Not pseudo. All weapon there use containers of special plazma gase as ammo cartridge and electromagnetism device inside weapon ionizes and fires the plasmoid. The same but ionizes liquid naquadah mineral make staff weapon in Star Gate.
@@Skyblade12 That's the regulation sir.
I like the idea of a warhead that creates a plasma halo around the front end, protecting itself from some anti-missile defenses, and also giving it better armor penetrating qualities
russia has this but it instead makes it invisible to radar
@@mrfigaloopierre9610 that's handy too
i never understood in starwars, why they didnt make a lightsabre warhead-missile...
So... A Stargate's Ancient drone weapon then. Because Kinetics Are Superior.
@@EgorKaskader well my idea was it would just explode
They did classify MARAUDERs further research once it started giving viable results which is an interesting tidbit.
I would not be surprised if the US has some Marauder-equipped Space Satellites. But also Near Atmosphere has a lot of Particles reducing the range of weapons significantly.
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@@FranksFilmEcke MARAUDER actually depended on atmospheric effects to stabilize its projectiles, and wouldn't have worked in a vacuum. Also, it would require far more power to operate than you can currently pack onto any practical satellite; when they were testing it, they had to borrow DARPA's Shiva Star capacitor bank, usually used to power lasers for fusion research, to run it. Deploying such a weapon on a satellite would be impossible to keep secret; such a satellite would need an extraordinarily powerful launch vehicle to get it into orbit, and would be highly detectable once it's up there.
@@yetanother9127 nothing to add, just wanna say MARAUDER
Plus there's the Outer Space Treaty
I like the depiction of plasma weapons in Nebulous Fleet Command, where they're basically Molotov cocktails of plasma used by the outer systems protectorate, a rebel faction of miners and haulers. The plasma is shot out with mass drivers in magnetic containers which smash against the side of Navy ships and basically melt their armour away so they can get in with high explosive and do some real damage.
🎆Perfection🎆
I think a conventional shaped charge explosive would have done a better job of punching through armor.
@@nil981 HEAT doesn't do what the Protectorate wants, they want the armor burned away so the 100mm HEHC can do lots of damage, so they have 400mm plasma ampoules which destroys armor in an area allowing lighter weapons to break thorough and destroy the ship itself.
@@nil981 in that game the protectorate doesn't really have true military tech. They mostly jury rig their stuff to fight their enemies guerilla style. Also heat on naval scale seems not very useful.
So plasma grenades
Right, realistic or not is less important than consistency. Make the rules and follow them!
Agreed. I just wish more SciFi IP holder would take this to heart.
coughs in Star wars
@@ALPHA.Mods.1 I actually kinda wish Star Wars would just accept that the stuff they call laser cannons or turbolasers were actually just laser weapons instead of having some tibanna gas plasma explanation for everything, because like we already accept that there's non-diegetic sound is space and all the ships fly like they were in atmosphere, so why does it matter that weapons called laser cannons don't behave exactly like how laser weapons would work in hard sci-fi setting?
Containing plasma in an electromagnetic field is exactly how the Covenant do it in Halo. In the book, Halo: First Strike, upon discovering this while aboard a hijacked Covenant ship, Cortana quickly realized just how inefficient the Covenant utilize this technology by firing it as plasmoids. So, she alters the trajectories of the magntic fields to create a beam instead of plasmoids projectiles.
FELLOW HALO BOOK NERD!
Chad.
Haven't gotten to that book yet. I'm stuck listening to them on audible. The narrator they have is a dumbass who can't even pronounce Mjolnir correctly. He pronounces it as "ma-jol-nur".
Was gonna say, a buncha settings have plasma being controlled through magnetic fields in some way.
Yep but as soon as the plasma is fired from the gun no more magnetic field for plasma unless you make it into a ring that's spinning inwards or pump the magnet field though the plasma in the form of a beam.
@@haminatorainz7227if the plasma is conductive, as it's traveling it would generate a magnetic field as it travels. Plasma has a net neutral charge, but could consist of two phases electrically separated by 180 degrees.
Electric universe covers plasma discharges on a large scale, so their work would be best to use as proof of concept for plasma weapons.
Yeah, a game called “nebulous fleet command” which was featured in the footage towards the end of the video handled this quite well iirc. It’s basically contained in a bottle, then propelled and contained by an EM field once it’s launched. It takes the form of a (relatively) slower moving (but still fast) long projectile with a trail that almost functions like a Molotov cocktail on impact with other vessels-eating away armor so follow up shots from missiles and kinetic projectiles can do damage to the ship’s interiors.
When it comes to the containment problem i always understood it as the plasma generating its own magnetic field to contain itself.
If that was the case, we'd had fusion energy by now!
@@Phootaba I feel like that level of control over magnetism goes beyond knowing how to simply perform fusion.
You're actually right on- magnetic fields are caused by moving electrical charges. Which plasmas happen to be made entirely out of! The entire field is called magnetohydrodynamics. And there actually are certain ways you can shoot plasma so that it self-focuses. I had hoped he'd talk about it with the MARAUDER tech, but a toroid of plasma fired through a cool gas (ie an atmosphere) self-focuses because of its magnetic fields- the plasma on the outside of the toroid slows down, and Lenz's law does its thing and makes a magnetic field that confined the plasma. It's just that it's a very short and very violent and unstable thing, which makes it less than ideal for producing steady fusion power. (I studied plasma confinement and controlled fusion in uni).
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Yes this is possible but not likely viable. Such a field would be very easy to disrupt and would be leeching power from the plasma at a very high rate. It could totally work if you could force enough power into the system but you are talking about magnetic fields stronger than the sun can produce and even then you are merely delaying the inevitable by a few fractions of a second.
Interesting. Firaxis' XCOM originally had blobs in EU/EW, but in 2 plasma weapons became Beams instead. An interesting thing to think about
The "old-style" weapons you can get in one of the DLCs for 2 kept the blobs, so it has both!
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
@@hoojiwana Hell yeah, personally prefer the original style with the new graphics
@@Ian501st I personally prefer the plasma beans instead as they are a far more realistic depiction of plasma based weaponry.
I was trying to come up with a plausibly realistic mechanism to have ship to ship plasma bolt weapons in my writing but when your plans require non baryonic matter, magnetic fields strong enough to make a star blush, and or handwavium alongside abusing Hafnium-178m2 then you know you've reached your limit.
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toroids (rings that look like balls) don't expand and when fired at high speed will explode on impact
I always preferred the geth route to plasma weaponry, myself. Charged superconducting toroids that split apart and arc on impact, causing plasma.
The trick is to not describe it too much. If you just say something brief like "Charged nanoparticles" then that's enough and the audience will get the idea.
I've always been a sucker for explaining things too much, though. I like technical details, sue me q.q
In Atmo there is also the "Plazer", Plasma will follow the path of least resistance and or a charged stream, so fire a laser to bore a hole in the air ahead of your plasma bolt and the plasma will charge down the tunnel of less dense air to it's target.
I remember the plasma rifles in the old 2300AD RPG. They were indeed plasers.
It's one of the cooler laser applications. In fact, lasers have even been experimentally used to guide lightning strikes with some limited success. 🤯
It works in Atmo, but for Vacc you will need a low powered charged particle beam, so if you can't build high output Charged Particle Weapons yet just use a little one to get the most out of your Plasma.
I was actually about to comment a similar thing, if a laser couldn’t be used in atmosphere to carve a path and/or mess with particle charge the create a stable channel. For space maybe sufficiently enough sci-fi tech could fire a laser puls to clear a path, quickly followed by a directed EM stream to create a channel, then followed by the actual plasma bolt?
Wrong. Electricity will follow the path of least resistance. Using a pulsed laser to create a plasma channel through air is more of a lightning gun not a plasma gun. A long range taser.
Plasma cutter in Dead space is one of those "iconic" weapons in videogame history. Just finished the last achievement. Impossible difficulty & plasma cutter solo run.
my first exposure was Decsent and Warhammer/Epic, to date myself
Rather it's a iconic "weapon"
Aye but was it the gun or the games animation system. Loved it even with the Pulse Rifle. Say what you will but I liked all three. Need to try Calisto Protocol. Gotta get my gamefly to work.
To be fair a fully upgraded plasma cutter it's definitely doable because that is a damn good weapon. I am a member of the line gun party everybody hates on it, but once it's upgraded it is damn good weapon
I mean the plasma cutter is literally the best weapon in the entire game.
Deep rock galactic in a Spacedock video? Amazing.
Rock And Stone!
For Karl!
Rock and Stone to the bone!
Did i hear a Rock and Stone?
That's It, Lads! Rock and Stone!
If you don't rock and stone, you ain't going home!
I'd be interested to know the feasibility of plasma weapons as they're presented in the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe. In that setting, they're more of a long-range incendiary device or high-end napalm launcher, using internal lasers to superheat plastic-foam cartridges to a plasma state before firing it at the enemy. Not particularly damaging against armored targets, but great for causing enemy units to overheat and extremely nasty against infantry and other soft targets.
My dad worked at Hughes Aircraft in the 80's and early 90's. Watching me play Doom when it came out on the PS1 he said "that supposed to be a plasma weapon?" He came home from work the next day saying he talked to some of the engineers during lunch about it. He said that the engineers said firing a ball of plasma is not so much "shooting" as more like using magnets to "squirt" the plasma out. Also they said that with current tech, the plasma just "splatters" when it comes in contact with air outside of the magnetic containment field. He said that it could be done but you would only get one shot as it would splatter everywhere an set everything on fire. Including the gun and whoever pulled the trigger. This was the 90's though so the only thing im sure of is the engineers used the words splatter and squirt for some reason.
Okay I think this "realistic weapons" series is my favorite thing Spacedock has done (not counting The Sojourn, of course)
One aspect of plasma that--given your enjoyment of radiators--I am surprised you overlooked was that it can transfer a lot of energy. Very useful in a boarding action, where you could use plasma weapons to dump a lot of heat into the opposing vessel and cook the crew. If you get close enough, into relative knife range, using plasma weapons to dump heat into the other vessel is a good way to make heat management an actually interesting part of the story.
Wouldnt laser weapons transfer the same energy far more quickly and efficently? And from further away? Also, I think that if you are in "knife fight" range, both ships should be dead.
Plasma actually transfers very little energy, because its density is so low. Its temperature may be super-high, but its density is so low that boiling water would transfer more energy at any sort of range.
What are you going to use as a source of atoms for the plasma, and then how would you keep them at a density that allows that energy to be transmitted rapidly? Think of trying to use a "gas bolt" weapon and then remember plasma is more diffuse at the same temperature as its gaseous state. The plasma in a star's core would indeed be powerful, but how can you maintain the pressures needed to use it? The only plasmic projectiles that could work are ones like the torroid pulses that travel at 30-70% of C. Fermi lab was working with them in the 80s, and today its a potential technique to initiate fusion so there might be a way to weaponize that process but again the range isn't even useful on a 1km scale let alone in space.
"...a good way to make heat management an actually interesting part of the story."
If you want some interesting heat management consideration in a story read larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's, "The Gripping Hand."
Probably my favourite plasma weapon is the Plasma Siphon of Escape Velocity Override. Its 'shots' are short-lived clouds (the implication is they disperse quickly, though of course not as quickly as they should), and the way it works makes it fit as an emergency backup weapon in terms of verisimilitude: it draws byproducts from the ship's engines (hence "siphon") and releases them in the rough direction of the enemy ship. Certainly, you'd almost always prefer using phase cannons and SAE modules, but in the right situation....
One thing that didn't get mentioned is that when charged particles slow down they release their energy with radiation. Hitting a target like a ship with a particle beam could result with the crew being bathed in x-rays without actually putting a hole in the hull. Boarding crews could then go in without any resistance.
They actually did mention radiation in the dedicated particle beam video
And you seriously think that a spaceship designed to go around in an environment where radiations and high energy particles are as common as water molecules in an ocean would be easily penetrated by the amount of x-rays a puff of plasma could produce?
Moreover, if that same ships is also designed to survive planetary re-entry, the thermal energy from the plasma puff could have the same effectiveness as a hairdryer.
@@ObatongoSensei Maybe not, but I think an X-Ray Laser could get the job done. That'd be a fantastic weapon for a spaceship, not to mention you can use it for other stuff too.
@@Sue_Me_Too Yeah, but an x-ray laser is not a plasma weapon. By the way, most high energy photons and neutrons can be stopped by water, the most common molecule in the universe.
@@ObatongoSensei All I'm saying is that if the purpose of the plasma weapon is to make a burst of X-Rays _over there_ then it would be more efficient to just make the X-Rays here and shoot them over there as a Laser instead of making plasma first.
Self-containing plasma IS possible. This is (most likely) how ball-lightning works. It's just a difficult engineering problem, especially when you also want to magnetically accelerate the plasmoid to get it up to a high speed.
But we don't know how ball lightning works
@@bernadmanny A self-containing plasmoid is the prevailing theory. How to get it into that state is currently unknown, but if nature can do it, so can we, eventually. It's a matter of time until a computer simulation hits the right magnetic field shape. Of course ball lightning is relatively slow-moving, so not immediately useful as a projectile weapon.
@@bernadmanny It works like the gasses that are released out of Uranus 😂
To expand on this theory, you could think of a lightsaber from Star Wars as a fancy plasma torch or cutter. According to basic Star Wars lore, the energy blade is nothing more than a condensed amount of plasma, emitted by the Khyber Crystal housed in the hilt and is projected by the 'blade emitter,' in which a magnetic field contains the 'blade.' A power cell is in the hilt to provide energy to the emitter and the magnetic field.
it simple realy you know how the earths core;s three or now four layers is like. well self contaning plasma is just like that. how you do it is bascly you super heat the plasma. then you use the lernzo elctromactnic force to ball up and stableize it. then you fire it out of a elctromactic coil or rail gun like you would a rail gun projectile. the main issue is you got to do it very very quick befrore it gets to cold.
I imagine you could probably do an encased plasma slug, so round with containment field, or a plasma filled slug, although I'm not sure there'd be any real benefit to it.
I was thinking plasma escaping behind the slug as propellent. With any left over exploding on impact. Short range anti-personnel weapon?
That is essentially what the Halo wars Rhino artillery is
It's effectively a really really hot Molotov cocktail. Give it a way to penetrate armor before containment failure and you'll have a pretty nasty little warhead.
@@LeCharles07 Is that really much better than the molten streams of metal current sabot rounds use?
@@rapidrotation in theory it can irradiate the crew without the round fully penetrating the armour; in practice you'd need a rather big plasmoid and somewhat thin armour for it to have any noticeable effect, so you could just make your life simpler and use a bigger/faster slug or a nuke
Love the DS9 references when you explain the phases of matter! ^-^
We had an electron cannon at work.
I feel an urge to go and bother a professor about this!
I love how you dive into the realistic mechanics of sci-fi, but then encourage people to do what they want when it comes to storytelling. Great attitude. There is no wrong way to do sci-fi.👌
great work Spacedock! this is very useful for both writing my science fiction and introducing my non-hardcore sci-fi fans to these concepts
7:36 8:47 DRG is something I wouldn't expect to see on Space Dock and yet here it is.
Rock and Stone!
A really good video. Well organized; informative; entertaining-in-the-right-amounts, and well edited.
The Fusion engine being the only hand-wavium (but not really) in The Expanse, I CANNOT WAIT for your upcoming video on that. I love the expanse!!
Feel like it's necessary to shout out the Expanse and the plasma warheads used on some torpedoes, which keep the plasma inside contained until they reach their target.
Yeah we could the same with rifle rounds that work like airburst
I read that modern day HEAT rounds create plasma, with their directed chemical explosive warheads, when they strike the armor of their target. While contained plasma is the ideal way to go with a futuristic sounding plasma warhead, it's still safer and easier to store and use that energy in the old fashioned way from what I can tell. Plasma missile/torpedo is still the way to go for future-cool sounding weapon though.
Aren’t the plasma warheads in the expanse just a type of nuclear fusion bomb weapon?
@@NefariousKoel HEAT and EFP rounds aren't plasma. They're just a rapidly formed jet of potentially liquid, metal.
@@botonslaught I've read that different explosive lens designs create different effects, from lance, to jet, to shotgun, and plasma.
The pinch plasma beam perfectly describes the Battletech PPC.
Massive halo fan, but when I think of plasma I think of the plasma guns from 40k.
I love rolling a 1 and having my space marine explode.
@@Sifeus Not with the new rules, that only happens if you actually fire on overcharge (for more AP and damage) and roll a 1. If you have your plasma guns fire on normal setting, then they are pretty much a straight upgrade to lasguns and boltguns since there is no risk over 'Gets Hot'.
The whole Covenant weaponry uses plasma.
Except for needler guns. That... aren't guns but ok. It's just to say.
By the way, Covenant use of plasma is way more realistic than 40k.
I mean... There's something realistic in 40k? 🤔
Gets Hot!
Ah, a fellow Tau fan
All weapons in Star Wars that use the term blaster and/or laser in them use plasma, not lasers.
Very informative! Now I'm envisioning plasma not as a projectile, but as a replacement for burning fuel in incindeary grenades.
Or, an extention of that, the future equivalent of an armor-piercing incideary round: a railgun sabot that also contains a high pressure plasma. When the round deforms upon piercing the outermost armor, the plasma is released and expands into the space of every chamber along the sabot's path, burning organics and short circuting electronics.
Love the use of the Doorkickers 2 soundtrack throughout the video.
you completely forgot a self confined totoidal plasma weapons, where the plasmas own spin in the toroidal shape creates magnetic fiel (as it is charged matter) that keeps it together.
While this is commonly proposed in science fiction, it is actually completely impossible under our understanding of plasma physics. Self-stable toroids just don't exist.
The drone weapons seem like the most plausible way to actually make a plasma weapon. A stream of plasma held in the field generated around the projectile. The plasma acts as a sort of shield and destructive device.
Now we need a video on realistic cryosleep/stasis.
About vortex rings, if you run a current along the ring it's pretty much a Tokamak configuration (minus some helical fields). I'd wager it'd be stable for long enough.
Maybe stable long enough to function more like a zappy-shotgun rather than a glowing-green-booger-thrower. No mosquito will challenge me now!
Why not have a magazine filled full of tiny little magnetic containment devices. The weapon loads a containment device in the rail gun, the plasma is generated and then contained my the device from the magazine, then the rail gun fires sending the device with the container plasma to the target. I know it’s basically a regular rail gun at that point, but could adding the contained plasma add lethality? I imagine you could do this with a regular gun too btw.
All other things being equal, sure it’d do more damage. In addition to the kinetic energy, there's also the thermal energy of the plasma. Besides, even if you can’t actually pack in more energy due to practical concerns it's guaranteed to change the damage profile, which may be desirable.
@@justinthompson6364 I see the plasma as a heat, corrosive and electromagnetic payload. It's definitely worth it IMO if the defense is meant to protect against kinetic projectiles.
If you could get it to retain the charge, in theory you could make it more explosive than any conceivable chemical explosive.
Just the pure mechanical force of too many electrons pushing on each other.
@@EgoEroTergum I know this is more far future/miracle tech, but micro fusion reactors could do it probably, as there is a form of fusion the extracts electricity directly from the fusion reaction, no need for steam or turbines.
@@justinthompson6364 very true. So many different types of damage packed into a single weapon would be more useful against a wider array of targets with potentially different defense technologies.
Another idea for plasma weapon: solid projectiles with plasma fuel in them, that ignite right before contact with the target. Which is basically what a HEAT round is. This could have great effects, like the plasma being an armor burner, but then another payload behind it. Which also exists currently.
But calling them plasma weapons sounds cooler, and you could make them mini fusion reactions if you wanted to get more sci-fi.
I always loved the PPG, and the consideration that you wouldn't want bullets flying around inside a pressurized metal cylinder, no matter how big.
I think the ideal ballistic weapon for a pressurized area would be something sub sonic yet high mass to still have significant killing power like the Russian 9x39 ammo for the VSS. I also think dead space had the right idea with the pulse rifle’s squash head ammo to liquify tissue through hydrostatic shock without piercing armor.
The explanation given in B5 for how they actually function doesn't really make sense, but my head-canon is just that the character explaining it (Garibaldi?) didn't actually know or care about the technical details... Really just interested in conveying "here's how to use it".
@@travcollier Garibaldi being half clueless tracks.
@@mzaite Fairly early in B5, I remember a scene where the commander asks one of the crew if something can be done, and the crewmember starts into a technobabble explanation... The commander cuts him off and says something to the effect of "I don't care how it works, just do it." Loved that!
BTW: I say "commander" because I honestly can't remember if it was Sinclair or Sheridan. Might have even been Ivanova, but I don't think so... it would have been very in character for her though.
@@travcollier Earth Force was much more Air Force than Star Treck’s Navy style of having to qual in every system to be in charge. I dug that. Not everyone needs to know how the shitter flushes when it’s done by a robit.
I do like the idea of making the plasma bolts toroidal and it might be fun to have soldier affectionately refer to them as donut or bagel cannons
From what I can tell the issue is making plasma bolts *look* like they do in the films, i.e. discrete blobs of light travelling at relatively slow speeds. To make a viable plasma weapon, you either need the bolt going so fast from close range (for space) an observer would only see a brief flash before it hit its target (like a gun), a charged beam using an electric field which cannot be broken, or contain the plasma in a likely opaque magnetic bottle until impact, basically looking like any other missile.
I mean, they already have that.
Tracer rounds. Hell, the Germans and Americans in WW2 used red and green - which looked *exactly like* and inspired the blaster bolts from Star Wars.
They're the reason you can see bullets at all when firing a machine gun; the belts go Reg, Reg, Incind, Tracer, repeat.
So give your team extra-bright blue tracers to make it easy for conscripts, or give them yellow because the planet they were stationed on before was desert and they were low-light in that theater - whatever color you like T R A C E R S .
@@EgoEroTergum Eh, tracers still tend to move considerably faster than a plasma bolt you might see in sci-fi, close up it's going to look more like a very short lived beam due to persistence of vision (or the camera sensor!). And of course that's unlikely to scale to spaceship battles, there's generally no need for tracer rounds if you're not aiming the gun by hand.
That said, I do remember the Expanse's PDC's using tracer rounds, probably for visual effect. They didn't resemble plasma bolts though, the fire rate was much higher and the length of the bolts was much shorter, more like lots of little glowing dots.
@@EgoEroTergum Normal bullets are boring
I like that you include footage from Nebulous Fleet Commander now.
that's a neat indie project!
I think an episode on exotic borderline-fantasy weapons like gridfire from The Culture or the halo arrays would be cool.
The halo arrays were kinda described however. Effectively using the power siphoned from another universe, a single halo ring unleashes a massive burst of I think gamma ray equivilient? A type of radiation that does not care what's in it's way, amplified to stupid high levels, if I recal.
That Brian Butterfield reference made you my favourite YT channel, instantly!
What about Plasma shotguns? Given the limitations of plasma weaponry, they seem to be an almost ideal weapon type for the technology. Expansion is less of an issue since shotguns aren't about precision so much as increasing the probability of a hit through spread, and your only real concern would be giving the plasmoid a high enough muzzle velocity to give the weapon a decent effective range. Strangely, they seem to be very rare weapons in Sci-fi, The only ones I recall seeing being the plasma shotgun from Jet Force Gemini, and the Devastator shotgun from Star Citizen.
I was thinking about that exact same thing watching this
Flamethrowers
That reminds me of a fight scene in a Harry Dresden story, where a mercenary "guy" has a golf bag full of double-barreled shotguns that he brings to a fight against vampires.
Each barrel fires an incendiary round that absolutely WRECKS the vampires, but also damages the barrels, so after two shots, he drops the now-glowing shotgun and pulls another one out of the bag.
In the aftermath of the fight, he has to take time to go around and pick up his discarded shotguns, as some may still be useable, or at least the stocks and trigger housings are. Plus leaving expended firearms around the infield at Wrigley Field in Chicago with your fingerprints on them is a bad idea...
Arca Plasmor in Warframe is a shotgun that shoots out an expanding wave of plasma.
In Synthetik there is a plasma shotgun called PSG Emerald Sword. Does awesome damage and has strong slightly delayed ammo regeneration but extremely weak against shields and worst of all, ejecting the magazine is an incredibly hot event toasting your shields and setting you on fire meaning you need to rely on the ammo regen and the gun cant be shot empty because empty mag pauses the ammo regen forcing a manual reload. I avoid that think like a plague lmao
I just want to add there's definitely more than 4 states of matter. We added plasma first and said there were "4 fundamental" states but by really any definition of what separates different states of matter there's a ton more. Some lists I've seen say 22 some say 40. There's stuff like super critical fluids, Bose Einstein condensates, degenerate matter, time crystals, string net liquids, super solids, super fluids, and tons more.
The idea that there's 4 is really just an over simplification that only works in common earth temperatures, and pressures.
Surprised there was no mention of the Asgard plasma weapons from the end of SG1/ last season of Atlantis 😮
I love the choice of music for this video. Door Kickers 2 is one of my all-time favorite games!
The most reasonable way I could see for weaponizing plasma is as the payload for an impact fused warhead such as a missile or grenade probably wouldn’t need to be terribly power dense as the reaction could run on a potent oxidizer and not containing it is the stated goal.
Was worried about the clickbaity title but i liked how you provided ways that plasma could work. My attitude regarding scifi is that if it looks plausible, however miniaturized it is required then it's an okay inclusion. Also I do like the idea of plasma beam weaponry, it's just cool
The plasma weaponry of the future war scenes in the Terminator franchise are a personal favorite of mine.
I always love the message at the end. There's always a place for hard sci-fi, high fantasy in space, and everything in between.
Just finished the Halo series, and have been playing the Dead Space remake.. Good timing for me to see this video.
Nice thing about covie ship based plasma weapons is that the magnetic field is projected and controlled by the ship. This allows the ship’s personnel to track and maneuver the plasma after it’s fired. There is also a nice tid bit in the lore detailing that there are tactics to disrupt the magnetic field or even take control of it from the enemy.
I’d love to see an episode on power generation. Can’t wait for the fusion reactors, too.
Fusion reactors are interesting in science fiction because there are over a dozen different ways to build one, and we in the early 21st century don't have that much of an idea what reactor design is best for what application (we're just trying to build *any* design with an an engineering Q greater than 1!). So there's a lot of scope for form and function.
@@Croz89 Yep. Love how you can do variations of them too, and blowing up a ships fusion reactor is always a fun story element too.
@@g.williams2047 It is, though it's perhaps the most unrealistic aspect, nuclear power plants, fission or fusion, can't be made to explode like nuclear weapons. In the case of many types of fusion reactor, "overloading" it would cause plasma to touch the walls, contaminating it with unwanted ions and causing the reactor to immediately shut down. In other cases the thing would likely just overheat and destroy itself in an very anticlimactic and non-explosive fashion. Any explosion would be limited in size, and would be chemical or mechanical, not nuclear, either from pressurised steam or steam heated up so much it cracks into hydrogen and oxygen, which then react with an ignition source to form back into steam. Both of which would probably not be enough to completely destroy a spaceship.
TL;DR: for hard sci-fi, don't "overload the reactor" because that's not a viable self destruct mechanism. If you have to blow up your ship, use a bomb, and have some justification for having it there (denying the enemy equipment or intelligence, failsafe in case of a loss of control, etc.)
@@Croz89 Thankfully what I'm writing isn't hard sci fi. After all, we have to make gravity come out of a horizontal floor somehow ;)
When we finally figure out fusion power, people are gonna be so disappointed that its going to be just another method of boiling water to spin a turbine
Thanks. I was also confused on the difference between that and laser weaponry.
I read somewhere that plasma can be stabilised by spinning it like a bullet, IIRC it was derived from research into ball lightning. So a plasma railgun is still a somewhat realistic concept.
I know you guys have said it before but I always appreciate the note that "realistic" does not equate to better. It is science fiction, after all, it's important to tell a good story above all else.
This is why we love fiction for it has some form of realism. But in the end we just love it by just how unreal it is.
I know its been a thing for a long time now, but I really appreciate having the show/games name below for all the clips used.
Also Rock and Stone for the DRG reference clips!
Couldn’t agree more. If you want perfectly realistic, you’re stuck to real life. That said, I still try to use as little handwavium as I can for stuff, so thanks for the physics.
8:40 those plasma weapons from nebulous: fleet command canonically use magnetic jars to contain the plasma, which is relatively plausible. but anyway, nice video
Something I've always wondered about plasma weapons that no one seems to talk about is: instead of using plasma, why not just use a completely different phenomenon to fire a "bolt" of some sort? Some ball lightning proposals act a bit like sci-fi plasma, and I would imagine there's other obscure "energy bubble" configurations out there.
Exactly! Or even use glowing hot molten metal slugs that will essentially look just like plasma bolts.
@E-Hamel No, I mean HEAT rounds shot at a rapid fire rate.
@E-Hamel I am aware.
A video on propulsion systems is coming up? I didn't know I needed that in my life until now.
Also for creators: Plasma isn't viable CURRENTLY, we might absolutely find a way to overcome the majority of these problems as we progress
🙃
Eh, the problem is that the mechanisms to make plasma viable, especially as typically depicted, make the plasma itself irrelevant.
Meanwhile I kill your approaching ships with shaped charged nuclear missile launchers as you approach with your plasma weapons.
@@Betrix5060 Shut up, gringo
Does it really matter? At the end of the day plasma is just a cool word and trying to come up with something plausible just so you can use it in your work and still be able to call it hard sci-fi is such a waste of time. Just embrace soft sci-fi or space fantasy and throw around plasma to your heart's content
Here's an idea: plasma torpedos. The torpedo is basically a container for a large amount of compressed plasma. You shoot the torpedo at an enemy spaceship, and the torpedo partially pierces the hull. While the back of the torpedo plugs the hole, the front opens up to release the plasma, which then expands out across the inside of the ship and incinerates the crew. Last I checked, there are no Geneva conventions in space, so we should be fine on that end!
I always had an idea of using plasma weapons with electron beams to keep them stable, like a train riding a rail
At that point though isn't it just a particle beam with extra steps?
But electron beams bloom and won't guide an effective mass of plasma. OTOH, diffuse electron beams at very high energies are basically Beta radiation weapons. And dense metal shielding will cause the crew to get strongly X-rayed on the other side of that shielding.
@@LordOceanus yes, but the power requirement will be much smaller, maybe. I’m no physicist lmao
@@Bacopa68 We could use relativistic electron velocities to prevent bloom, but then you get the same effect of a plasma weapon anyway lol
@@LordOceanus Because they don't want to, is that so hard to comprehend?
Double points for the Look Around You reference! Thanks Ants!
Rapid firing donuts of plasma sounds magical lol (I know this is way oversimplified; it's just a joke). Thank you guys for another fascinating episode.
God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)
I hope development leads us down the plasma doughnut machine gun dev tree. That would just be the most fun option.
@@LeCharles07 lol agreed
@@LeCharles07 they would be devastating as a CIWS, functionally unlimited ammunition, undodgable, kinetic impact, electromagnetic component; it combines almost all of the advantages of both lasers and railguns with few of the downsides.
2 things on this video I never realised I needed to see as much as I did.
1. The Enterprise flying over New York City dogfighting with JU87 dive bombers armed with plasma cannons.
2. Denise Richards in Starship Troopers.
In EVE online there are plasma rounds that are contained in shell designed to break on impact and deliver the plasma to the target
Yeah, I've always been a bit bothered about that! The Gallente weaponry are awesome, but don't really make sense 😔
Don't the Gallente also have Antimatter plasma rounds?
@@Catalyst375 Yepp! 😂
6:46 that is one of the most beautiful videos from smarter every day, VERY worth a watch
An intriguing prospect would be to have plasma weapons meant specifically for use in extremely high pressure atmospheres, such as underwater or inside a large gas giant. Naturally, this would add in it's own giant yarn ball of complications, but it might be an interesting take seeing as that we have so little submarine combat in sci-fi.
Nebulous Fleet Command has an interesting plasma weapon - basically an accelerated cask that is launched at ships that melts/damages the plating of the area of the ship it makes contact with and shatters across.
Glad it got featured at the very end of the episode.
One idea I had on my sci-fi setting as how plasma is used as weapon (not as main weapon but often used heavy or side weapon) was as the plasma is fired by acselerators it is coated by certain resin that contains the plasma in certain amount before it is burned or burst open by inpact.
“Look around you”reference drop fills me wit joy.
One of the primary warship weapons in Ian Bank's culture series combines a fusion reactor with a teleporter. The teleporters transport plasma from the fusion reactors directly into/onto the target.
There are realworld counterpart to the plasma projectile - ball lightning. And since some of them explode on contact - if we are to replicate this - it would make an exelent weapon. And even if only current is delivered - it is still viable as an anti-personnel or EMP weapon.
I'm currently working on a scifi game and had trouble placing plasma weapons into a projectile, beam, munition trinity. In the end I decided they fit best into the beam category and now work like close range plasma torches, with low damage but wide beam, making them excellent at intercepting projectiles (point defence) and raking ships to heat hulls and ablate plating.
Can't see anyone else that's mentioned it but I REALLY appreciated the little Brian Butterfield "bonbonbonbons" you threw in there. Top work 👍
Was not expecting the David Attenborough and Butterfield Diet references lol. Consider me pleasantly surprised.
Another fun alternative for plasma weapons in realistic sci fi we actually see in the newest faction of Nebulous Fleet Command. Plasma contained in a physical projectile. a chamber made that can contain the plasma magnetically thats designed to shatter or explode on impact releasing the plasma onto the target, even better is if it from there functions alot like a shaped charge. the plasma contained in an basic easily broken container is actually fairly realistic by modern standards. while you run into it being less spectacular than proper plasmoids it does work. though at that point its a rather potent electrically charged incendiary
Well done working Peter Serafinowicz and Plasma Weaponry into the same video.
I came up with an interesting idea for a plasma weapon. Its actually more of a gauss rifle/coil gun with a small plume of superheated plasma on the end of the barrel.
When the gun fires, the projectile is magnetized by the electromagnetic field of the coils in the barrel and the magnetic field of the now-magnetized projectile scoops up some of the plasma as it exits the barrel and carries it along to the target.
It basically works in a similar principle to a flamethrower in that a flamethrower is just a squirtgun that squirts kerosene with a lit flame at the end of the nozzle.
It could also have something resembling a non-lethal "stun" setting in that the user could switch the plasma off and shoot them with the projectile only. Said projectile would have the muzzle velocity of a BB gun, so it would hurt but it would cause any serious injures aside from possible permanent blindness caused by the projectile hitting them in one or both eyes.
It's funny, I actually did design a Plasma Rifle for my sci-fi tabletop rpg setting.
The thing is, the weapon's basically more like a blob launcher that basically fires super-heated and charged plasmoid blobs at people, basically melting through what it hits for a period like an acid. The weapon does have a secondary function that overcharges and turns the attack into more of a chemical Flamethrower stream at the risk of overheating the weapon.
Needless to say, the weapon is utterly horrifying against infantry units and has been deemed a crime against humanity by some factions in the setting.
Long ago I designed a plasma gun that actually fired a small bolt that generated the magnetic field to keep the plasma contained until it hit the target. The bolt would activate as it was fired, pass through a "plasma chamber" where it would pick up the payload, then travel on to the target. There are some very obvious issues with this but I was but a little nerd and hadn't thought them all through.
Having done a lot of research into plasma weapons for a thing I'm writing, I'm both pleased to see that I've come to a lot of the same conclusions you have, while at the same time being annoyed that this wasn't posted sooner so that I could have just watched this instead (I spent so many nights reading science way above my knowledge level XD). (And to the people who somehow keep finding me and asking about it, yes this is the "Exiled" thing I once mentioned, and it is moving forwards, but very slowly)
You might have plasma shells for gun or rail gun? like a plasma container that it charged while being shot and last a couple of second, containing the plasma. so basically a kinetic bullet with plasma release on impact (could be useful as armor percing). when the containement energy ran out it could like make some sudden release, like a flak.
Plasma rail gun sound so cool.
In Gamma World back in the 90s I had the weapon generate a narrow force field. The plasma would travel down that 'tube' until it hit a target.
I’m surprised you never touched upon the 40k settings operation of Melta weaponry (which, for all intents and purposes, is how most plasma weaponry would work).
This weaponized long ranged plasmacutter is essentially exactly the idea behind the 40k Melta weapons
So a plasma dagger or knife for point-blank use in Melee would be a good idea. Light saber although the enemies one can't block with their own only dodge.
My plasma weaponry is an adamantine shell containing a superheated plasmoid in an EM field. They are essentially an AP round that bursts inside the target when the shell is cracked on impact, releasing all the energy in close proximity or more often than not inside the enemies armor. But the pinch plasma weapon sounds like a great weapon as well.
in the tabletop game dropzone commander the faction of the scourge had a preference for plasma weapons, non of the other factions liked plasma weapons due to a short range over railguns, but the scourge compensated for this with all of their tanks being hover tanks, so they could close the distance rapidly, also they preferred urban combat which furthur aided in closing the distance
Something people always overlook: In sci-fi, realism is not better than non-realism.
Most plasma weapons in fiction tend to have an electromagnetic capsule that encases the actual bullet when it’s fired solving the expansion issue. The covenant use a rudimentary form of this in their ships and Weapons. Cortana even jokes about it in halo first strike. The point is imagine a bullet but it has to be encased in something that’s what plasma bullets are. Plasma also burns and partially explodes what it hits so it’s dangerous. A graze will cause major burns though.