How long will it be before we have laser rifles? We can already melt things with them, so it's only a matter of time before they turn them into guns. It would be insane if they did since they would be perfect for sniping people. There would be no wind resistance, bullet drop, or dodging it. It would just be a straight beam that goes to where you point it at. The only problem would be if it hits a mirror, would it fry it or reflect back at you? Or what about a prism? Would the beam split up and kill a bunch of people in a death rainbow? That would look pretty cool.
Lasers
Liam King
Caleb Clark
They're putting lasers on ships and planes because they generate a shit ton of power. Man portable power isn't really there yet.
Joshua Howard
lasers are good for setting shit on fire, not causing internal damage desu
>a wound from a man portable laser rifle would be small and self cauterize thereby not causing blood loss
>infact the only advantage energy weapons would have is no recoil or ballistics to manage at range
Nicholas Clark
Even if we manage to make all that power portable to produce a lethal laser, why would we choose that instead of using that power into a even fasterer slug thrower?
Bentley Jenkins
the fallout gauss weapons never made any sense as all you do is replace the power source and never load a projectile in
Jacob White
Due to energy storage tech it would be a very large and heavy device to be able to deliver energy on target similar to a gun or cannon. Think magazines that weight 20-40kg.
It would be extremely hot after one shot, you would need lots of coolant or to exchange some components after every shot, or wait a long ass time I guess.
Long shots could be weakened and distorted by anything that blocks or distorts visibility. So the user could still have challenges at long range.
Christopher Jackson
The Magazine on the left side of the Gauss rifle apparently carries a shit ton of 2mm diameter slugs. The justification for only reloading the fusion cells is that the rifle carries so many projectiles, reloading in combat isn't likely.
Robert Ortiz
I like some of the FO4 mods.
Camden Gutierrez
This. It's like mass effect 1 guns where they shot tiny shavings from a block of Tungsten at several decimal points of c using mass effect. Thereby never needing to reload but having to watch heat. The later games are gears of War clones and so they needed a way to have limited ammo to shit on really cool lore, so THERMAL CLIPS.
Robert Ortiz
They wouldn't work in rain, fog, etc, they'd only work in clear weather, as the tech stands now. Other than that, hell yeah for irl hitscan.
Lucas Hill
Don't the Mings already have a prototype?
Michael Ortiz
Enclave is the most aesthetic faction
Lucas Rogers
They say it can set clothes on fire and it ought to reliably blind people. Not really a war winning weapon.
Alexander Green
Thats a hell of an advantage, I could see them being used as sniper weapons just because of that
Tyler Ward
It’s a lahti
Benjamin Jackson
>*throws dust in the air*
Heh nothing personelle
Christian Thomas
Apparently the normies didn't like having to wait for cooldown in the first game so Bioware came up with the retarded "hurr the side shooting the most downrange wins" and made thermal clips. I sincerely doubt any real serviceman would take a weapon with limited "ammunition" versus a weapon he can shoot as much as he wants with periodical cool down
Juan Phillips
What about something like future mods to existing weapons?
Ryder Morales
I feel like this is possible if its done right
Blake Bennett
it would boil the water in your blood and that part of your body would explode
Tyler Russell
Yoooo I love that movie. But seriously a shield would be dope
Ethan Gutierrez
Never. I dunno what futuristic ground weapons will be like but unless you're fighting in dimensions completely unlike our own lasers are basically shit.
Blake Morales
>laser rangefinder (already common)
>close range wireless communication (RFID)
>timed fuse (again, fairly common, just need to work the size down)
>calculate average bullet speed, distance to target, time in air
>send time to timed fuse
>small charge inside bullet
Pretty sure a couple of dedicated guys could rig up a prototype in a weekend.
Jeremiah Jones
We already do it now, you can slap rails and lights and other stuff on old guns that when those guns were out would have been considered futuristic. I don't see any reason for the trend to stop, new chamber and barrel to fire exotic ammunition, 3d printing and additive manufacturing is getting better steadily which can if done right lead to miniaturization of things like fusing systems. Range fused frag rounds would no be as effective as they're shown to be in Elisium but I think the technology is doable for the near future, "futuristic" (IE developed decades ago but still no industry to manufacture it) ammo like telescoped rounds or caseless will probably be a common thing modular current guns will be altered to eat in the future due to the obvious and significant advantages of those ammo types.
John Sanchez
>needs to store an explosive strong enough to cause meaningful damage with the limited volume of the bullet
>needs to send info much faster than what current RFID does, the XM25 did this by communicating through the chamber in much slower semi-auto
>timed fuse chip has to receive this information faster and takes up more room to make a bigger, faster processor which will take up room for your already small explosive charge
It works in a much less cool platform right now, so the possibility is there, but it'll probably be a good 50 years before the technology is viable enough to seriously take a crack at.
Carson Moore
I could see man portable lasers in niche applications, but if you have a power source compact enough for a laser you probably have enough energy stored in it to make a decent explosive, so just chuck the magazine instead.