Which is easier to produce, ballistic ammo or energy ammo? (lorewise)

[Moraelin]

The one thing that makes absolutely no sense there is the fact that "fusion generated" electricity is no different from any other form of electricity. You don't need to buy different batteries to store solar power than to store that from coal power plant, for example.

 

So it really makes no sense to call a power cell a "fusion cell" if no fusion is involved.

[TheOriginalEvilD]

Seems to me that at the very least, the materials for reloading ballistic rounds would be far easier to come by than energy ammo. That alone may make all the difference.

[minngarm]

Seems to me that at the very least, the materials for reloading ballistic rounds would be far easier to come by than energy ammo. That alone may make all the difference.

You can make a battery with a number of acids and ceramic. So not necessarily.

[TheOriginalEvilD]

 

Seems to me that at the very least, the materials for reloading ballistic rounds would be far easier to come by than energy ammo. That alone may make all the difference.

You can make a battery with a number of acids and ceramic. So not necessarily.

 

 

Can you make a battery that will fire a laser powerful enough to kill a Behemoth? C'mon.

[minngarm]

 

 

Seems to me that at the very least, the materials for reloading ballistic rounds would be far easier to come by than energy ammo. That alone may make all the difference.

You can make a battery with a number of acids and ceramic. So not necessarily.

 

 

Can you make a battery that will fire a laser powerful enough to kill a Behemoth? C'mon.

 

sure why not?

[Moraelin]

Well, TBH, I kinda doubt that you'll do that with lithium batteries. And I'll do the maths for you.

 

The smaller problem is that you'd need something like 10 KJ per shot for a serious military-grade laser weapon, capable of penetrating armour and such. Preferably split into something like 50 micro-pulses of 200J each, to allow the vaporized material to clear the hole. Otherwise, you've essentially created 'plasma armor' in front of the hole you're trying to drill. The vapourized material superheats and ends up opaque to your laser light when it heats to plasma.

 

This would be a hideously effective weapon, if it penetrates, because the pulses are in the microsecond range and the vaporization of material is rather explosive inside the hole. A pinpoint flesh would wound be forced to expand to a couple of inches by gas pressure alone, so you get massive tissue destruction, cracks in bones, and the mother of all hydrostatic shockwaves. And if you drill through a skull, well, you might well explode it.

 

For a 100% effective laser, 10 KJ is about 3 Watth-Hours, so a pretty good laptop battery will give you something like 15 to 20 shots max. It will also be heavy, especially if you want to carry replacements.

 

But powerful lasers tend to be rather spectacularly inefficient, so even with future tech, maybe halve that?

 

The much bigger problem is not the battery CAPACITY though, but the CURRENT. Each of those 200J pulses has to be in less than a microsecond each, and ideally they'd be spaced 10 microseconds or so apart, so it hits the same hole even on a moving target. You need to pump that energy very fast out of the battery and into the laser, and energy divided by time is power.

 

To wit, even with a 100% efficient laser (which ain't gonna happen, but let's be generous) we're talking at least 200 MEGA-Watt power sucked during a pulse. Even if your battery array gave you something like 200 KV voltage (which is already in the very dangerous range), you need to 1000 A of current during a pulse. No chemical battery will give you THAT kind of current.

 

If you're going chemical, you'll need an ultra-capacitor bank to store the power for a pulse, then suck the power from the capacitor during a pulse. Currently, the best ultra-capacitors give you something like 100J/Kg, so to get 200 J per pulse, that's 2 kilos (about 4.5 pounds or so for you non-Stormcloaks... err... I mean, Imperials) of ultra-capacitor for a pulse. Well, that's doable so far.

 

The problem is that your problem doesn't stop there. After the first pulse, you have to recharge the capacitor for the next pulse, in 10 microseconds. That still leaves you needing to draw 20 MEGA-Watts for that, and no battery is good enough for that.

 

Now we could do that, if we stored the whole 10 KJ for a shot in the ultra-capacitor, and the battery only had to recharge the whole thing between shots. Even at a cyclic rate of fire of 600 RPM, that gives you 100ms to charge the banks, and we're down to basically 100 KW power needed. Hell of a battery, but within plausible SF range for a change.

 

But now the problem became the capacitor. At 100J/Kg, to store 10KJ between shots, the capacitor pack would weigh 100 kilos. (Or about 220 pounds for you Imperials.) That's not an infantry weapon any more.

 

I mean, hell, even if you drop the energy per shot by a factor of 10, which is barely cutting the mustard for non-armoured targets, just the batteries and capacitors get you somewhere around 25 pounds. Add the rest of the weapon, and, yeah, you'll probably want a tripod. Seriously.

 

So, yeah, methinks that the only reasonable way to pull that stunt is with some kind of battery that can actually give you something like 20MW in a burst. You're not gonna get that with lithium batteries. Sorry.

[Raycheetah]

I wonder where the old Electron Charge Packs (Fallout 3, New Vegas) might theoretically have fallen into this range? Clearly removed from canon, as they have been replaced by Fusion Cores as the bulk ammunition for the Gatling Laser:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Electron_charge_pack_%28Fallout_3%29

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Electron_charge_pack_%28Fallout:_New_Vegas%29

 

Still, for some reason, I miss my ECPs. =-[.]-=

[Moraelin]

Well, the name "electron charge" kinda makes it sound like an ultra-capacitor, but to be honest that would have to be one HELL of an ultra-capacitor.

 

Or, of course, it could be just that Beth was just pulling names out of the rear :p

[minngarm]

I wonder where the old Electron Charge Packs (Fallout 3, New Vegas) might theoretically have fallen into this range? Clearly removed from canon, as they have been replaced by Fusion Cores as the bulk ammunition for the Gatling Laser:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Electron_charge_pack_%28Fallout_3%29

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Electron_charge_pack_%28Fallout:_New_Vegas%29

 

Still, for some reason, I miss my ECPs. =-[.]-=

I'm fairly sure the core is the EC. and the EC pistols used is merged into the MF. There was never any real reason for the pistol and rifle to use other charges in the first place anyways.

 

From what I get from the past games is that the rifle and pistol use a battery, and the gatling uses a small power source (last one is from FO4 of course.)

 

As for the charge the battery stores that is simply done with mcguffin acid for energy storage. Meaning that the real world has no way to store that sort of energy in such a small form so you have to make up a substance that can. So mcguffin acid can be made with your regular house hold chemicals, or rare chemicals, or it can simply be recharged after depleted endlessly.

 

Hard to think the energy weapon's still in use would have ammunition if not one of the above were true lore wise.

[vroix]

Thank you for all the answers.

I guess it's okay to think the fission cell has some kind of component that is stronger than lithium and that component can be made just like the gunpowder can be made.