[CmdKewin]

you can make a beam of charged particles curve, all you have to do is run it through a magnetif field.

Why do i smell Cathodic Ray Tubes here?

Oh, wait......

[Col. Fishguts]

Spill-over could easily be caused by imperfect focusing mechanisms in the beam cannon itself. If the cannons don't get the beam tight enough, it could spill over enough to loke like those in game.

Every laser de-focuses over distance, but this results only in a blurred and wider spot where the laser hits.

If there are no particles to disperse light of the laser you won't see the beam, unless it hits you in the face.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Couple of quick observations. 

1.  Space is not empty.  It may be very thin but there is a lot of gas.

2.  Where in FS2 does it say laser? (other than the targeting laser)  It say beams.  Beams of what?  Well that is left up to the imagination.


Theory time:

Light contains both matter and energy.  Wouldn't it be theoretically possible to increase the amount of matter to energy ratio?  Would you get a slower beam with more mass that is possibly visible?  Could such a beam be focused and be more powerful than a laser? If not visible on its own could it heat or ignite the gas around it (thin as it may be) resulting in a visible beam or plasma around the beam?  Wouldn't a beam moving slower with more matter be more easily effected by gravity?  If so what would it take to curve (or bend) such a beam.  I'm not talking a 90 or 180 degree turn.  More like a 5 degree arc or something. 

Man I've got to cut back on the drinking.

[Gregster2k]

I'd imagine that a curvable beam might be composed of intelligent nanobots traveling in a plasma stream capable of controlling and focusing the plasma stream much like a guided missile controlled by its firing craft. The effect would be like a tesla coil or one of those plasma globes you can buy in stores, perhaps even arcing between ships in an "electric" fashion and damaging more than one. Since there is no material gas in space to carry the beam, it would be carried by the nanobots themselves, perhaps the nanobots would generate their own gases to carry the beam, or even an electromagnetic focusing field or subspace distortion (which would be doable once shaders are ready, to make beams that distort space and time around them).

The other alternative is a missile that homes in on a target and has a beam attached to its rear end that is fired from the enemy ship, giving the appearance of the beam "curving" as it homes in on the target. Also, could have a missile that streams gas behind it to a target, then the firing ship activates nanobots inside the gas to ignite a plasma stream of supercharged "lightning" that travels in curving, jagged lines to the target.

I really don't care how it works, as long as it looks cool and does damage *shrugs* I mean, technically, our ML-16 Lasers aren't really Lasers because a real laser acts like a beam cannon, not the "blobs of fast energy" we have. It's sci-fi: We can do whatever the hell we want in sci-fi 

Possible applications of curvable beams:
- Spacecraft "lightning" weaponry 
- Nebula EMP lightning strikes 
- Flushing out Carl from our ventilation system 

Additional feature:
- "Arcing" between ships --- beam hits one ship, if ship hit is close enough to another ship, the beam arcs to that ship from the previous ship and damages both

Imagine the possibilities, forget the improbabilities :3

[Turey]

2.  Where in FS2 does it say laser? (other than the targeting laser)

It says it in FS1, with the Lucy's "Shivan Super Laser".

[Gregster2k]

I suppose a really fast homing missile that leaves a long-lasting trail that LOOKS like a beam behind it would also suffice, but making the trail damaging would be the issue.

Curvable beam support would possibly also enable ships with engine trails that do damage to other ships, if we don't have that already o.o

[Snail]

Could be a nice touch for a new species, too...

[Gregster2k]

Mmm...and if it got really advanced we might have "smart" beams that act just like normal ones, except they curve to detect & avoid a friendly ship and strike an enemy one...ahh, wouldn't that be nice...no more "Watch the friendly fire! You get hit, you won't make it to your own service!"

[Col. Fishguts]

Couple of quick observations. 

1.  Space is not empty.  It may be very thin but there is a lot of gas.

Space is very, very empty (apart from the stars and planets that is). Even your average nebula you see in Hubble pictures are several times less dense than the best man-made vacuum. Yes, there is an awful lot of gas out there, but people seem to forget how awful big space actually is.

2.  Where in FS2 does it say laser? (other than the targeting laser)  It say beams.  Beams of what?  Well that is left up to the imagination.

The fighter primaries are referred to as different lasers in the tech room, but that's a different can'o'worms.
Wer're talking about the capship beams here, and their nature is never explained in any canon source. But somebody further up the thread started calling them lasers and tried to apply real-world physics to them, which made me intervene.

Accelerated plasma beam (or some exotic particles) would be a more reasonable approach for an explanation IMHO.

I'm not even starting on your theory time   Because frankly ... it's bollocks (that's not meant as an insult, just my opinion on your theory)

[wtf_cl0vvn]

I could see a curving beam as a last ditch experimental weapon...

"We have this superultraomfgcharged up Mjolnir firing a beam with the power of 20xMjolnirBeam, however our target outranges us (some SSJ A**kicker), lets get behind some (dont ask me what) obstacle, and get our graviton projectors[replace with whatever handwaving you like] to curve the beam around the obstacle...your objective is to protect these projectors from about 80 Seraphim bombers. mkay?"




Maybe.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I'm not even starting on your theory time   Because frankly ... it's bollocks (that's not meant as an insult, just my opinion on your theory)

I never said it was even rational but is any of it theoretically possible?  If it is who knows how an alien race would procede.  I like the replicator episode of SG1 where Thor is trying to explain to Carter about projectile weapons.  Don't know the exact quote but something allong the lines of:  We would never consider using a simple method of expanding gases to propell lead projectiles at high speeds.   

Have a twelve pack or 3 and think about some of it.  Maybe some dark energy theories?

[JGZinv]

I'd like to see curving beams myself... it's yet another thing you can use for a number of
purposes both offensively and defensively.... it add's an element of strategy.

As for examples of curved beams, you might look up Zone of the Enders,
Crest/Banner of the Stars (which those were mines - but the large panoramic
shots of fleets sending out thousands of seeking warheads still looked great), Robotech,
Juraian ships, Gundams, we could probably come up with a bunch more...

The idea of having to fight in a small space between two black holes, where if someone
gets too close to the event horizon, they get sucked away... sounds good. Then the
curving beams would become necessary.  In the Star Wars NJO, singularities were created
to act as ship shields.... but you had to overload the creature creating the hole, or hit it in such a way so some of the shots actually hit their target.

How bout a base that needs to defend?
Call em' "flexitron beam cannons" or "variable arc lasers" or "zigzag batteries."

As to curving something.... typically it looks like an arc, a "U", or some kind of curly-q...
If you want a "explanation" to fill in the theoretical hole - say it takes the path of least resistance... (lightning)  but you'd need almost another targeting system for something like that....

Granted lightning would be closer to a railgun effect, but we are still on the fringe of electricity, eat, plasma, and the related forces thereof.

You could set up a chain system, where you "bounce" the beam off one of your own ships to
hit one further down the line... call it a "phase reflection shielding system" - kind of like a game of billiards almost... with the bumpers and pockets.

In the end, you can simply say - "build it, and they will come" 

[S-99]

Curving beams should be doable. Luckily beam technology in freespace is plasma based. Also any technology involving plasma does involve magnetic fields. Magnetic fields can control where the plasma will go and even what shape you want it to be. So a curving beam would require a much more sophisticated magnetic field manipulator than the ones already on war ships that are able to make the plasma fire in a very straight line (might as well imagine that as plasma traveling down a magnetic field tube until high intensity plasma meets said ship).
Curving beams could be very tactical. If you have a friendly in your way and your trying to blast that enemy on the other side. You could be able to curve the beam to go around your friendly and hit the enemy on the other side.
Curving weapons aren't too ridiculous looking. A good example of where you would see something that curves in something as destructive as a beam would be on stargate where they have the ancients drone weapons that work best in large numbers.

[Turey]

They can't involve magnetic fields, otherwise you'd get EMP scrambled every time you got near a beam.

[Quest_techie]

1. tracer rounds, or at least a similar theory
2. adaptive optics?
3. HUD element to keep you from vaporizing yourself in a capships beams weaponry <flying into an invisible active beam would suck in my opinion>

[Herra Tohtori]

They can't involve magnetic fields, otherwise you'd get EMP scrambled every time you got near a beam.

It ain't that simple. Basically, you get an EMP every time you create a closed circuit. You can easily experiment with this for example with a flaslight being used near a radio. Turn the flashlight on, you hear a small scratch; turn it off, similar scratch.

It's just the strength of the EMP that varies. small EMP's cannot induce sufficient currents in closed circuits to cause any damage to fry components and so on, they just add to interference. Big EMP's can actually fry components by causing big enough induction currencies in circuitry, but that big EMP's usually require a nuclear detonation. You can also get an EMP out of a capacitor; the discharge creates it. Also in this case you would need a pretty heacy capacitor to do anything else than cause a radio to flinch a bit.

What I'm trying to say is that practically everything - including FS2 beams - causes an EMP when operated. But we have no way of knowing how strong that EMP would be - except that in FS2, the effect of beam-induced EMP is negligible to ships.


As to what the FS2 beams actually are, I wrote some time ago this piece of text that still applies.

Actually the reason for laser beams being able to eat their way through metal is that the energy input is great enough for metal to vaporize from the surface where the light hits. The residual heat and the hot metal vapour then melts some metal on the edges of the hole. Photon Beam (Laser) itself has no temperature measurable. Only the frequency (color) of the light can be expressed in Kelvins, but that's not quite important. What's important is energy input into target surface - if energy input is remarkably higher than what the target can emit, the target gets hotter. If energy input (absorbation) is GREATLY bigger than what target can emit, target surface vaporizes through immediat phase change; if the difference between absorbation and emission is smaller, heating is of course slower and the target surface goes through brief liquid state before vaporizing.

Freespace beams, however, are nothing remotely like lasers. They are bound to be particle beams of some sort. Also, there is bound to be some charged particles in that beam because they are visible. [1] Most likely some lower-end beam cannons are simply plasma held together by a strong tube-shaped magnetic field.

This is how a FS2 beam could work out: There is a cell [inside the beam turret] full of main matter that forms the visible part of the beam. Then there is another cell, releasing "core matter" for the beam. Core matter must be electrically charged [and rather heavy] particles such as electrons or possibly protons, though positrons or antiprotons would also work quite nicely if there were a plentitude of them...

So, the core jet consists of charged particles accelerated into great speed. The faster the better. When this thin but powerful beam of charged matter proceeds through the space, it forms a magnetic field around it, perfectly similar to the magnetic field induced by electric current in a wire. So, there we now have a roughly tube-shaped magnetic field. Through this magnetic pipe, the main damage-creating hot plasma or whatever matter is then pumped at great volumes. The magnetic field prevents the plasma from expanding rapidly into space, which it would normally do very fast. When the plasma hits the target (hopefully), it starts melting its way through it.

Pros compared to lasers:

-Looks much cooler in space, when hot matter is hot enough to be visible whereas laser beam is invisible except when it hits something

-Greater momentum effect - the mass causes damage also by kinetic energy, not just thermal energy

-charged particles ionize the target molecules, causing even greater destruction

Cons:

-Limited range; the core beam starts to disperse due to electric force between particles of similar charge. Because of this the range also effects the beam's ability to penetrate armour - if the energy density drops too low, it cannot go through hull plating, causing only limited amount of damage on targets external side. When the core beam collapses altogether, the damage-inducing matter also spreads into space - this is the cause for FS2 beams ending "suddenly".

-Another thing reducing effectivity alongside range is the hot damage-matter radiating its energy into space on the journey. The cool looks have a price.

-Need of ammunition. Though the beam cannons probably are able to generate their own ammunition by converting energy into matter. Hence the advent of beam weapons after Shivan weapons' research only; earthlings and vasudans were not able to create (or even think of?) such possibility - the Shivans brought the beams to us. 

Strange thing is that Shivan beams are red, which is the lowest energy color in electromagnetic spectrum. So I bet the Shivan beams get their power mainly from sheer volume, whereas Terran/Vasudan green/blue/silver beams get hotter/more energetic and thus don't need that much matter into them.  [2]

Of course, this is just speculation. Main point is however that beams are _not_ laser beams. They shouldn't even be mentioned in same sentence. Good example of how ineffective laser weapons are is ML-16, and even that is quite too effective considering the energy drain mentioned... 

[1] There are charged particles because neutral particles cannot create light. Whether the emitting particles are electrons around nuclei or free particles, I have no idea, but I would wage that the visible part of the beam is mostly plasma with some atoms in it.

[2] When comparing Shivan/Terran/Vasudan beam technology and beam colour/energy relation, it isn't as simple as putting the beams in prder of electromagnetic spectrum of visible light. That would make red beams weakest and blue beams stronges, temperature-wise. But as we know, it ain't that simple; therefore we must note that we have no actual information about the matter that the visible part of beams consists of. Different matters radiate on different areas of spectrum.


I guess that's enough pseudo-science for today...

[FUBAR-BDHR]

This is way beyond my scope of understanding (and maybe science as well) but would the use of matter verses anti-matter effect the power?  Say a red beam based on anti-matter vs a red beam based on matter.  Would the color spectrum power ratio be inversed?  So while red is at the low end of the matter beams it might be at the higher end of the anti-matter based ones. 

Yea time to quit drinking and go to bed.  Ahh maybe one more.

[Herra Tohtori]

This is way beyond my scope of understanding (and maybe science as well) but would the use of matter verses anti-matter effect the power?  Say a red beam based on anti-matter vs a red beam based on matter.  Would the color spectrum power ratio be inversed?  So while red is at the low end of the matter beams it might be at the higher end of the anti-matter based ones.

No, it wouldn't affect like that at all. All photons are alike in fundamental principle and the way they are generated is always the same - an accelerating charged particle.

In atomic matter, the charged particles emitting light are usually electrons; in atomic anti-matter the positrons would fulfill the same role, and they would behave identically and produce theoretically identically.

The colour/energy relation is derived from the spectral distribution of black body radiation. It goes like this - the hotter the body is, the more intense radiation it emits. Or rather, every black body theoretically radiates every wavelength of EM-radiation, but when temperatre increases, the peak of the spectrum curve moves towards shorter wavelengths (radio waves -> micro-waves -> infra-red -> red -> green -> blue -> violet -> ultraviolet -> röntgen [X-ray] -> gamma-ray). Like this:



...meh, the black text disappears on dark background... Anyway, you find explanation by clicking the image, if you're interested.


Basically, the same model can (to some extent) be applied to FS2 beams to define their relative temperature, but the thing is that also different matters used in beams can produce different colours. It is obvious that the edges of the beam are by far the coldest parts of the beam - the core should logically be hotter. Hence it is entirely possible that the outer edge is the only part actually shining visible light. Perhaps the beam cannons use superheated metallic plasma as the main means of energy transfer.

For example, hot Calcium and Sodium radiate bright yellow light, Strontium produces red, Barium produces green and, say, Indium gives blue light.

Perhaps the Vasudan beam works as a huge natrium light...

[S-99]

Well first...do some research on plasma magnetic confinement....for those who really don't know about this property of plasma...after that theres gravitational confinement which is demonstrated by our sun.
http://www.plasma.inpe.br/LAP_Portal/LAP_Site/Text/Plasma_Confinement.htm
You can make plasma into any shape you wish depending on the shape of the  magnetic field, which therefore you could confine plasma or control the direction in which it goes.

I'm trying to look for the page right now that has this, but for now i remember it.
Pretty much, beams are formed by a tiny hole in the cannon where argon (really really hot argon) is fed into a magnetic containment field where it is confined being compressed until a nuclear reaction is achieved and critical mass occurs which is released as a blast of energy. After that the outburst of energy would be flowing down a magnetic field tube.
I'm looking for that page desperately, but i don't remember where it is.

Through this fashion if the beam didn't have a magnetic field tube for the energy to be diverted to onto an enemy target, it'd just obviously outburst in one serious explosion that would cause damage to the ship firing. Speaking of which there's a good idea on a serious blast screen attack.

Anyway, if myself were to build a beam cannon, i'd make it plasma based since plasma is very manipulatable as compared to high intensity light.
Hmmmm, destructive plasma you can make go anywhere, achieve any shape with magnetic fields versus high intensity monodirectional lasers.
On the note of causing an emp effect on your fighter, that would really depend on the strength of the magnetic field required to keep the beam whole.

[Col. Fishguts]

For example, hot Calcium and Sodium radiate bright yellow light, Strontium produces red, Barium produces green and, say, Indium gives blue light.

That's what I was thinking. A plasma consisting mainly of one element doesn't emit thermal radiation according to the Boltzmann distribution, but rather the frequencies related to the electron transitions in that element.
This way you'd get a nice explanation why the blue beams are not the strongest/hottest ones.