Laser rifles/Pistols. To recoil, or not to recoil?

[ThatZenoGuy]

I hear a lot of you guys (Or at least, a few) argue that the laser weapons in the FPS fallouts should not have recoil.

I can only retort by saying that Fallout was never all that realistic with weapon choices, a minigun can somehow be used to snipe people with 50 round bursts, a scoped 'sniper' is a burstfire weapon (Bozar), and industrial plasma casters are capable of besting (argurably non-canon...) military variants.

I would also like to point out that in 1-2, the laser weapons fired a 'lump' of red stuff, not so much a laser.

I have little doubt they could have made a laser sprite to show the weapon being like a real laser, but the choice they made indicates to me, that they operate more like a starwars 'blaster' or 'turbolaser', than an actual one.



A laser rifle seems to have recoil, despite being a 'laser' weapon.

I'd say yes, that FO3/NV/4 laser weapons should not have recoil, it just looks silly.

But it'd be cool to have a "FO1-2 style" laser weapon, with recoil.

 

[Lexx]

The laser rifle in Fo1/2 has recoil in its animation because it is actually the animation for the flamethrower. There is no specific laser rifle animation. Showing the red blob actually really saved some work, as exactly the same mechanic is used for throwing items. Instead of a grenade or spear graphic, it just shows the red line. From a "realism" point of view, it probably would have been better not to show a red / green graphic flying at all.

 

[zegh8578]

Nor should the laser beam splash and ripple in water
*throws chair at bethesda*

But yeah, most these issues are probably just less-work-to-be-done, which is kind of forgivable, both with the originals and the bethesdas

it probably would have been better not to show a red / green graphic flying at all.

Nitpickery, but are there green laser beams? Aren't the green ones all plasma? Plasma would indeed be a "blob" since they are practically fireballs?
I'm more curious about the purple blob that comes out of pulse guns (especially since the pulse rifle fires no blob at all)

 

[Lexx]

I meant the plasma with the green ones. No idea about pulse pistol / rifle, as I never used them. My guess would be they just forgot about it with the rifles, which would probably make it a bug.

 

[zegh8578]

I meant the plasma with the green ones. No idea about pulse pistol / rifle, as I never used them. My guess would be they just forgot about it with the rifles, which would probably make it a bug.

I never used the pulse pistols either, but XP-harvesting around Navarro exposes you to their effect, since Enclave troops almost always carry them (they'll attack with the assortment of top tier energy weapons)

I'm not sure how much of a bug the lacking blob for the rifle is though - when a pistol fires, the blob-animation follows, and then it hits your character, with a character-hit-animation - but with the rifle, the character-hit-animation is instant, suggesting a very fast projectile. I prefer it that way though, it makes the rifle feel very badass, while the pistol is a weird purple-blob-gun

 

[Radiosity]

In one of my own fictional settings for a novel serial I'm writing currently, I have lasers with no recoil... BUT, the weapon itself artificially simulates a kickback when firing simply because people were so used to this from regular firearms that it was nigh-impossible to get used to recoilless weapons. And then it just sort of stuck around like that and no one thought to change it when regular guns were mostly phased out.

 

[Hassknecht]

I never used the pulse pistols either, but XP-harvesting around Navarro exposes you to their effect, since Enclave troops almost always carry them (they'll attack with the assortment of top tier energy weapons)

I'm not sure how much of a bug the lacking blob for the rifle is though - when a pistol fires, the blob-animation follows, and then it hits your character, with a character-hit-animation - but with the rifle, the character-hit-animation is instant, suggesting a very fast projectile. I prefer it that way though, it makes the rifle feel very badass, while the pistol is a weird purple-blob-gun

I'd say it fires some sort of ball-lightning.
Which, incidentally, is actually how a useful plasma rifle would work in real life.
Alright, science time:
Plasma is fully ionized gas, meaning that it's so hot/has absorbed so much energy that all the electrons and nuclei that usually make up the gas are separate. That means the gas is now made up of free electrical charge, and the formerly neutral atoms that made up the gas are now charged. That again means that the plasma REALLY wants to expand because same charges repell each other. If you just took plasma and accelerated it out of a weapon using electromagnets you'd just get a really expensive flamethrower because the plasma expands and cools rapidly.
But the plasma is now also electrically conductive, because it's made up of free charges. So one way to make a proper weapon would be to form some sort of smoke ring from the plasma. Moving charges create electromagnetic fields, and one sort of motion in particular can create a stable configuration where the repellant forces of the plasma and the attractive forces induced by the plasma current are in equillibrium.
It's called "field reverse configuration" and is under study for use in nuclear fusion reactors.
Such a plasma smoke ring can then be accelerated and stay stable long enough to reach the target, possibly depositing a shit ton of kinetic energy and radiation in the target. Such a weapon is called Plasma Railgun. The US worked on such a device, called "MARAUDER". Details are still classified.

 

[IndignantHedgehog]

Nor should the laser beam splash and ripple in water
*throws chair at bethesda*

TBF, a strong laser could instantly evaporate the water the water, causing a ripple as the expanding gasses push the water away. Not to say that Bethesda actually did it right (it was more that they didn't change it compared to projectile weapons, and they ended up getting it semi-right). A broken clock and all that.

 

[zegh8578]

TBF, a strong laser could instantly evaporate the water the water, causing a ripple as the expanding gasses push the water away. Not to say that Bethesda actually did it right (it was more that they didn't change it compared to projectile weapons, and they ended up getting it semi-right). A broken clock and all that.

Yeah, I know about the instantly evaporate water possibility, but at best it's a coincidental near-save for them (it doesn't really appear as water that evaporates quickly.. )