Particle Beams, Hth, & Grenades

[Arjuna]

Just a couple of ideas. I'm sure that several have been mentioned before; they are by no means original and have all been used at some point either in real life or in science fiction.

 

Firstly:

Particle Beam Weaponry

The plasma rifle's UFOPaedia entry for XCOM 1 says that it's a powerful weapon based on accelerating particles from within a minute anti-gravity field. However, that's not what plasma guns are. Plasma is the fourth stage of matter, superheated gas (1 million degrees C or something).

However, if we take it a step further, we can fire just subatomic particles. Particle beam weapons basically grab charged particles from the atmosphere, like ions, mesons, whatever. Then it superheats them so that they're "excited", then spits them out with a miniature particle accelerator, just like the ones at CERN or other real-world research facilities, except that it's not a circle, so it just shoots straight.

PBs should have unlimited ammo because it uses particles from the atmosphere. Alternately, it could have a power supply that burns out after so many shots (makes sense, it takes a lot of power to run this sucker). However, due to the time it takes to heat the particles, it shouldn't be autofire and snap/aimed shots should be expensive. This would be like a heavy weapon, highly accurate and very powerful, but cumbersome. If the particle beam strikes a wall under a certain value (like thick metal or concrete or alien alloy), it would probably punch through it, limiting the weapon's X-COM use at terror sites.

Perhaps this could also be made a single-shot disposable anti-tank weapon like the LAW, and it would be cool to mount it on a tank.

Still not sure if this should be a human or alien weapon. Since plasma guns appear to operate on the principle of particle acceleration, maybe you'd have to go all the way through the plasma research to get these, and maybe research a cyberdisc (live or dead) to get its anti-grav/magnetic thingy.

 

Hand-to-hand weapons:

Anti-Matter Rod - like a stun rod, but destructive. It has a blade on the end containing a very small amount of anti-matter in a magnetic containment sphere. Once the rod stabs an alien, it injects the anti-matter, which immediately detonates once touching normal matter, i.e. the alien. A nasty single-use weapon (blows up the rod).

Molecular Edged Blade - An extremely high-carbon alien alloy weapon. The blade is so sharp it is only one molecule thick. This would be the standard combat knife of aliens, or perhaps Mutons or other warrior races could carry massive swords with such blades.

 

Grenades:

Neutron Bomb - The USA has been working on this project since the 60's. It's a very dangerous weapon that indiscriminately obliterates organic matter with radiation, but leaves weapons, equipment, and everything else intact. Handy for capturing alien weapons or taking out armored aliens. Problem with neutron bombs is their low area of effect, but this can be a boon at terror sites.

Stun Bomb - Identical to the small launcher's ammo in every way except it's primed and thrown like a grenade. Perhaps a proximity variant could be made.

Spider Mine - Alien proximity grenade that sprouts legs and runs to its target. It's designed to attack only humans and ignore aliens, but captured spider mines could be rewired to reverse that.

[T-1]

Particle beam: the power generation requirements would be enormous. Sounds like a job for xenium.

 

Anti-matter Rod: Suicidal. If you (read: your troops) want to do some suicidal stuff, get a little more anti-matter, otherwise this is a one shot blaster bomb that costs at least one of your troops, AND can easily explode it's dropped or improperly stored, etc.

 

Molecular Edged Blade: Effective melee weapon, but there are storage problems, because such a blade would cut through literally *anything* easily, so it'd have to have some kind of magnetic container when it wasn't being used or something. Also maintainence would be a problem

[Arjuna]

Particle beam: okay. Use xenium. Alien-made weapon.

 

Anti-matter Rod: I intended to use a VERY SMALL amount of anti-matter. A gram will detonate half of downtown Rome (they tried it in a book by Dan Brown), but say a milligram would be enough to blow up an alien's internal organs without placing your troops in danger.

 

Molecular Edged Blade: have some kind of sheath that folds down over the weapon (but not touching it, just shielding it) when not in use. And as this is an alien weapon, it's made of very powerful alien alloys. Though I realize these are not invincible, surely the aliens have some kind of fine-tuning laser thingy to sharpen it, since they're capable of making the blade in the first place. These would likely beyond the ken of human ingenuity to manufacture, but maybe you could raid an alien base and capture manufacturing facilities.

 

Just some ideas.

[T-1]

Rod: Yes, I know. The blasterbomb probably uses less than a milligram. Even a few atoms would be too much for close range combat. Also, it would explode outside the alien, the antimatter/matter reaction isn't delayed at all. Also you didn't address the storage/transportation/etc. question. I think you'd prefer a stun-rod simple because this is only 1-shot.

[Adun_Toridas]

1. At last someone understands the power of PB!!! (even thought is a human tecnology...)

 

2. Mmmm would´nt it be a quite complicated?

 

3. Yes like SW Jedis!!! only problem would be storage...

[Robo Dojo 58]

Particle beams: Sounds neat, kinda like the disruptor weapons. But capturing and manipulating the particles won't be an easy process, and will likely require micromanaging with delicate technology. The alien tech doesn't seem to be that advanced. Instead they use magnetic forces to handle bulk amounts of plasma juice, and psi power seems to handle the more delicate stuff.

 

The anti-matter rod is just crazy. By the time you can safely contain the antimatter, the unit will be too strong and bulky to break on command. And if you make it weak enough to break with a lunge, the containment would likely not hold under any circumstances. If you make the containment too small, a little vibration could potentially set it off. Frankly, the raw antimatter itself is too dangerous to be handled like that, which is probably why the aliens prefer to acquire it on demand from their Xenium. Perhaps the rod should do the same?

 

Molecular blade- It could be possible to make one with modern tech. Lasers definately are accurate enough to sharpen them close enough. Storing it shouldn't be a problem, you don't have to touch the sharp part of the blade just to manipulate it. The handle is a safe place to hold it, and a safe place to hang it. Besides, if the blade falls straight down, it still has to wedge its way through the floor. If it does that, then the handle will stop it. IIRC, the alien alloys have a complex inner structure, so you won't be able to get it as sharp as a molecule, but you can get it really close.

 

Neutron bomb- With the current state of these weapons, I doubt you'd be able to make them the size of a grenade. Maybe as a heavy det-pack, though. These weapons have a very delicate balance to work out, and I don't think it'd be possible to simply add Xenium to make them smaller. Such research could take a long time, possibly beyond the extent of the war.

 

Stun bombs- pretty neat. I doubt aliens would use them, though. Since they use stun tech to capture civilians, I doubt they would be planting a stun mine in someone's bathroom, or throwing stun grenades through windows and making a scene. Stun grenades and stun mines would be pretty useful for non-lethal warfare. Not like it really matters, since no one cares about alien rights, we can simply blow them up. (Also, would the aliens take hostile prisoners? Hmm...)

 

Spider mines- pretty nice, but it doesn't seem to fit with how the aliens are. Such a mine would likely be controlled by psi influence, and to maximize the effectiveness of their psi they'd probably want to control bigger things.

[[Blehm 98]]

neutron bomb would have to be extremely lethal and expensive though, because even a small bomb could kill a human instantly....

[Adun_Toridas]

1. PB is not as complicated weapon. The principle is not particles onto an antigravity field, but that they are launched by a particule accelerator onto the target.

 

So it becomes a beam, an Ion Beam that goes to the target and destroy it by acummulating energy on it. Furthermore, great Beams should be able produce an EMP and Rad wave on their paths.

 

2. So PB as this article sais (i´ll have to post it AGAIN) is a US project and a very powerful weapon.

 

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchro...ug/roberds.html

 

3. Heavy PB might have autofire (And LOTS of weight so the soldier will not be able to pick up anything else without loosing TUs).

 

4. Even thought PB should have slightly lesser damage than plasma, to tell the truth, it´s more destructive... but let´s balance the game.

[Robo Dojo 58]

Okay, I guess I was really, really wrong about PB weapons.

 

Any electricity-producing device, such as a battery or generator, is a primary power source. The requirement of the particle-beam weapon, however, is for a prime power source that can produce millions to billions of watts of electrical power, yet be as lightweight and compact as possible. A conventional power station could provide the needed power levels, but it would be neither small nor lightweight. There is also a need for mobility in many of the envisaged applications; a power station would not meet this requirement. Some typical prime-power candidates are advanced-technology batteries, turbine-powered generators, or an advanced magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generator using superconducting circuitry. Whatever the primary source might be, a sizable advance in the present power-generating state of the art will be required, particularly for the endoatmospheric weapon.

That's a hellava lot of power that you'll need. Will a Xenium power source be able to handle this? I know antimatter rules and all, but it also has to be small and light enough, and handle tons of power without exploding and such. What sort of scale would that be? Will it be something that troops can carry, an X-Caps weapon, or will it be a main warship weapon? Since the aliens prefer plasma weapons for their troops, I dunno.

 

It sounds like it would make a great base defense. A base could potentially have a Xenium power source dishing out particle beams at incoming aliens. That'd be fun to have.

 

Don't forget, there's a progression of tech throughout the X-COM games. We wouldn't want our anthropod friends to be busting out the disruptors only to have the agents with hyperdimensional quantum reformulators. Okay, maybe we wouldn't be that advanced...

Edited January 17, 2005 by Robo Dojo 58

[[Blehm 98]]

, imagine starting the game with devastators researched and a whole bunch in stores and going on your first mission....

[Qonfused]

ehhhh, plasma consists of super heated sub-atomic particles. And in plasma weapons accalerate the plasma by magnetics.

So a plasma weapons acctualy is a kind of particle beam. it just doesnt use random particles from the air.

 

PS: that article is 20 years old.

Edited January 17, 2005 by Qonfused

[Adun_Toridas]

Plasma is a muzzle, PB a beam. The difference is that PB are single particles that streams the target, while plasma is a muzzle that kill the target by overheating it. So, the PB really requires less energy that plasma, by the way that we don´t require extra energy to maintain the muzzle in optimus conditions until hittin´ the target. However, the PB only needs an accelerator to fire the particles.