Real plasma weapons

[SirDanest]

I noticed there are energy weapon color mods, changing the color of the beams and such.

It got me thinking, if I wanted realistic (as best as we can guess the future of energy weapons,) what colors would be the best, if any?

Red (and invisible lasers) exist. The institute lasers, despite disappointing stats, are probably supposed to be a little more advanced. Plasma is a green probably just because it's sci-fi and not from any science.
What colors might actually be the most realistic? Is there any way to really extrapolate the future of lasers and plasma here?

[WastelandAssassin]

as someone who has actually done experiments with plasma (as part of an advanced Physics lab in university) , I don't think there is a specific color to plasma

the color of plasma depends on the materials in which it is formed

the experiments I did had pink - purple plasma , but I doubt most people will find this concept appealing for a destructive weapon

but I'm pretty sure different materials will provide a variety of different colored plasma

 

and speaking of lasers , you can find lasers in many colors

if you were to extrapolate the ones most likely to be used as weapons , there are two opposite considerations

on the one hand , the more energetic the laser , the deadlier it will be

on the other hand , it would require more energy to use

but the basics about this is that the more energetic the laser , the shorter the wavelength . red is the longest wavelength on the visible spectrum , while violet is the shortest . therefore red laser is the weakest one (although the easiest to facilitate , as it requires the least amount of energy to use)

 

I hope this didn't confuse you too much , and yet give a decent explanation without going into actual physics (it's really not the easiest thing to explain , especially regarding plasma)

[SirDanest]

I know the science behind lasers well enough, and that plasma is a fourth state of matter. But I'm trying to just predict what color future weapons might actually use. The navy's laser is invisible to the human eye, for instance, but not all lasers are as "colorless." I have a feeling the color of future military lasers and plasma would be more than just "I like this color." Or a random choice.
So if we were trying to be as realistic as possible while still involving deadly handheld lasers, what color would a brotherhood laser beam actually be? :smile: Would it just be up to the personal preference of the weapon maker?
If that is the case, then I could see an argument for a weapon mod that is not just a paint job but an alteration of the energy projectile color!

Edit:
I think an option to change the laser color would be interesting: an infrared laser,being "invisible" might have advantages over one that screams "I'm over here!" especially at night.
Raider: "Whoa, why did Bubba just get his head sliced off and set on fire?"

Also I'd think the new white lasers might be more powerful since they're combining several colored rays into one as I understand it. But I don't know. Maybe institute lasers should be white?

Edited February 26, 2018 by SirDanest

[WastelandAssassin]

read what I said about lasers

the color of lasers is due to the wavelength of it , which is directly related to it's energy

now , if we are strictly going with what may be in the game , you will obviously need the lasers to be visible

therefore , the weakest lasers you will get are red , while the strongest you will get are violet

so if following this logic , the blue lasers the Institute uses should be far more powerful than the red ones the Brotherhood use (they should be about 1.25-1.5 times as powerful approximately)

 

I would assume that if lasers were actually weaponized (beyond how they are used today , that is) , they would still probably be kept to wavelengths above the visible spectrum

this is mostly due to energy constraints , rather than for having the laser invisible

though there is no real way to speculate just how advance this will ever be (and I honestly don't see weaponized hand held lasers in the foreseeable future)

 

as for plasma , this is far more difficult to discuss

the properties of plasma depend on so many factors , it would require a sizable amount of information to estimate the expected color of plasma

so I doubt there is any way to create a meaningful discussion on this

and you should consider the fact that the closest thing to weaponized plasma we have is probably plasma cutters , not anything close to plasma emitters , especially not outside of confined environments

 

I hope that gives you some more information

if you really want to see something more substantial , just look at light spectrum (especially the visible spectrum) , and the equation for photon energy and it's relation to wavelength (and this will explain the energy color relation)

as for plasma , I'm afraid it's far more complicated than simply being the 4th state of matter (which is in fact an incorrect statement , the are countless states of matter called phases , which determine the qualities of substances due to many different factors . I'm afraid the plasma - gas - liquid - solid picture is way oversimplified , and plasma is just far more complicated than just a heated gas) . you could try to read about this , but I hope you can trust me when I say it's really not basic (it's quite complicated physics , as someone who had to study it's basics)

[SirDanest]

Ah, ok. I tend to rely too much on skimming wikipedia sometimes for information, which oversimplifies a lot of the science.
Youtube has a video purported to be the first militarized laser in the US navy and it appears to use an visible beam from what I can tell. But then... youtube. Could be nonsense.
It doesn't absolutely have to be hand-held lasers that I'm talking about anyway... Operation Anchorage at least implied (though it was a simulation) that there are tank-mounted energy weapons. Maybe lasers will someday be used as weapons in space, in the far distance future. I can imagine that their range could be exceptional in space.

Interesting: This video has hydrogen plasma as purple, very pretty color I think.

Edited February 26, 2018 by SirDanest

[WastelandAssassin]

you are absolutely correct , I forgot about the Chimera tanks from OA

but I wouldn't assume you knew about these , as this is a FO4 discussion

 

I wish I knew more about the navy laser weapon , but the details are surely classified , so we can't really know the energy of such a laser

though even if it looks invisible on video , it might not actually be outside the visible spectrum (it depends on environmental effects such as humidity and temperature , as well as the thickness of the beam and such . a beam that might seem invisible in the video might be 100% visible in a darkened lab room , for example)

 

again , I suppose the biggest limitation is due to energy constraints , especially for a hand held device , which will require a power source a human can carry (along with other equipment of course)

I actually appreciate the fact that Bethesda went with red lasers thus far , as being the weakest along the visible spectrum (and there is no way they would have removed the spectacle of seeing the laser beam , by using invisible ones)

which actually makes the fact that Institute blue lasers are weaker than old red lasers even more of sin (aside from energy considerations , it's post war tech , and should be far more advanced)

but Bethesda are often lazy , and the game doesn't have to make any sense

 

on a small side note , I remember hearing a lecture about a proposed device that is a small solar sail with tiny censors . this device is supposed to be launched into space via a giant 100GW laser that was also proposed in that lecture

upon hearing this , me and my friends immediately started considering the military applications of such a thing , which kind of reminded us of the laser weapons from C&C (and if you consider just how much energy 100GW is , you can imagine how much disbelief was expressed during that lecture)

so this idea is being proposed now already , though I really hope to never see such a laser built in my life time

if you are more interested , the following link it the initiative's site http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/3

[krwada]

It would be a pink beam. I have worked with nitrogen plasma in university. It glows a nice bright pink.

 

The earth's atmosphere is 70% nitrogen.

[Deleted40542685User]

I think it would be black, if it is clear then the beam density is low. It would also have any color, depending on what ionizing radiation is produced from the material that the beam is interacting with (Air, Steel, Aluminum..). Just a theory.

[krwada]

OK ... in an earlier post, I had commented that a nitrogen plasma glows a nice bright pink color. Also; I noted that the earth's atmosphere is 70% nitrogen.

 

Here is a very nice Youtube video showing what a

looks like.

 

As you can see ... it is a nice bright pink color. Actually, this video is an atmospheric plasma discharge. That means the plasma is being discharged into the atmosphere.

 

Anyhow ... I cannot see how a plasma discharge weapon can turn a person into a pile of goo. I think that maybe this is some kind of artistic license. In reality, a plasma discharge will cause very severe burns.

[SirDanest]

I don't know how realistic it is, but the wiki mentions that the fallout weapons use hydrogen for their plasma weapons, and the video I linked seems to show it as purple-violet.
i'm pretty sure the goo piles are artistic license, or something retro-engineered from aliens. :)