Rather scientific question

Why are lasers less powerful than plasma based weapons? I ask this because the type of laser depicted in-game by what I've seen isn't a "punch through shit" type but a "ionized plasma obtained through ablation" type . Bursts are too short and shifted in the wrong spectrum for punching through things (if you can see the beam it isn't a cutting type) thus why the discrepancy in potentials? If anything plasma should be more of a close quarters weapon whereas laser tech should be longer ranged (explanation for this is that plasma bolts require magnetic containment which in a Earth-like environment doesn't last long at all unless you're firing a fusion projectile whereas a laser could maintain coherency for longer distances and even considering alien tech and power sources you're still looking at plasma weapons as medium to close range bruisers while lasers would be more adept at distance where plasma wouldn't even reach).

I know, I know realism isn't the main thing in a game but still... so often you see plasma weapons being better than lasers when in weapon terms they're equal given the same power source only that one requires close proximity to a target (relatively speaking) while the other requires advanced lenses (the more energy transported by the beam the more taxing it is on the lenses used to focus said beam, a work around could be EM lenses but that's tech well into the realm of SF by what I know though still possible).

I like your touch, but yeah, you're dealing with much harder sci-fi than the game is. There are plans for a mod to make the xenopedia as realistic as possible as but won't do anything about the game fundamentals. Though there are also mods to replace pretty much anything. I expect I'll see you in quite a few of the threads I frequent, heh.

I like your touch, but yeah, you're dealing with much harder sci-fi than the game is. There are plans for a mod to make the xenopedia as realistic as possible as but won't do anything about the game fundamentals. Though there are also mods to replace pretty much anything. I expect I'll see you in quite a few of the threads I frequent, heh.

I'd be all over a hard SF mod ^^. Doesn't help my immersion in-game currently but I doubt most have my issues ( being a guy pursuing a PhD in plasma physics kinda has that effect on how much you can suspend disbelief especially when dealing with things which don't really have any grey spots like say mystery alien power sources or materials, projecting spheres of self-containing plasma is a wet dream for many in my field with the slightest inclination for SF universes but with current knowledge and tech... best most can get is a big ass plasma projector, think Melta Gun from Warhammer 40000).

NoirWolf: Simply because the game Xenonauts is trying to be fairly true to the original game "X-com: UFO Defense" in which lasers were weaker than plasma.

NoirWolf: Simply because the game Xenonauts is trying to be fairly true to the original game "X-com: UFO Defense" in which lasers were weaker than plasma.

One could be forgiven for thinking that it wasn't trying to do anything besides keep the basic framework; the devs alternately state "it's like this because it was like this in X-COM," and "just because it was like that in X-COM doesn't mean it should be done here" in various and sundry places.

"It's like this/not like this in X-COM" is used for and against in so many places as to be nonsensical as a reason at this point. Xenonauts is, by and large, a re-interpretation/re-imagining to almost the same degree as the original AfterBlank.

Nice degree! Where are you based?

I'm an aerospace engineer (graduate but can't find work so not sure if I can call myself an 'actual' engineer) Who is aiming to become a sci-fi author (lots of free time...) so realism is an issue for me as well, but the process of learning how to storycraft has tempered it a bit, heh.

The requirement for a plasma 'bolt' would be maintaining a closed magnetic bottle away from the generators in the weapon, or so I would think. I have no idea how that could be accomplished. Having some way of making the plasma generate its own containment would work, but that's physics beyond my current ken, heh. Engineer, remember. I've always thought it might be more practical to just extend an electromagnetic field out from the gun and use that to channel plasma in a continuous beam onto the target.

Finding a Minovsky particle would also do the trick, heh. Gundam beam sabers worked by putting plasma into an I-field lattice of Minovsky particles which would then rupture whenever the lattice came in contact with anything other than another lattice, venting the plasma onto the object. The beam guns weren't actually plasma weapons. I'm sure there are actual real world particles that actually form macrolattices like that, though without the useful properties of Minovsky particles, but I can't find the evidence online anymore. Grrr...

I don't see any scientific reason for it. In fact, a laser can create plasma in impact with an solid. So, it seems a bit backward to me.

Nice degree! Where are you based?

I'm an aerospace engineer (graduate but can't find work so not sure if I can call myself an 'actual' engineer) Who is aiming to become a sci-fi author (lots of free time...) so realism is an issue for me as well, but the process of learning how to storycraft has tempered it a bit, heh.

The requirement for a plasma 'bolt' would be maintaining a closed magnetic bottle away from the generators in the weapon, or so I would think. I have no idea how that could be accomplished. Having some way of making the plasma generate its own containment would work, but that's physics beyond my current ken, heh. Engineer, remember. I've always thought it might be more practical to just extend an electromagnetic field out from the gun and use that to channel plasma in a continuous beam onto the target.

Finding a Minovsky particle would also do the trick, heh. Gundam beam sabers worked by putting plasma into an I-field lattice of Minovsky particles which would then rupture whenever the lattice came in contact with anything other than another lattice, venting the plasma onto the object. The beam guns weren't actually plasma weapons. I'm sure there are actual real world particles that actually form macrolattices like that, though without the useful properties of Minovsky particles, but I can't find the evidence online anymore. Grrr...

University of Innsbruck if my luck holds ( I got in but it's rather more difficult finding lodgings that don't cost an arm and a leg per meter than it was getting in but meh, come hell or high water that's where I will be based out of for the next few years at least ).

I do storycrafting as well (or at least used to though I keep getting an itch to start up again these past few months) but I still find it grating as I know exactly what to expect from these near-future weapons (lasers need miniaturization while plasma bolts just needs people insane enough to throw a glob of plasma passed the critical mass threshold at something). The only way to have plasma as a long range weapon is to have it launched in a physical shell with its own containment system from a railgun type gun, any other way is gonna be a pipe dream for a long time yet especially in terrestrial environments where the local magnetic field fucks with the magnetic bottle in and of itself.

Gundam sabers would actually be possible even without that magic particle, just needs advances in magnetic containment systems ( you could have a stiletto with current tech but you couldn't hold it reliably if you're aiming for a cutting plasma) .

I don't see any scientific reason for it. In fact, a laser can create plasma in impact with an solid. So, it seems a bit backward to me.

I made reference to ablation lasers (the ones that obtain plasmas on impact) in my original post and usually anything in the visible spectrum is more or less a ablation type laser as it does not have a compact enough wave length (to use laymen's terms) to slice into things regardless how much energy you pump into the beam itself.

From my observations of Xcom and games like Xcom, laser is weaker than plasma because that's how it was in xcom, and that's how it's been in every other xcom-ish game. Lasers in xcomish games have become something of a trope: "The first step up before the good shit". It's something that people will readily buy into.

From my observations of Xcom and games like Xcom, laser is weaker than plasma because that's how it was in xcom, and that's how it's been in every other xcom-ish game. Lasers in xcomish games have become something of a trope: "The first step up before the good shit". It's something that people will readily buy into.

Hope there's a mod for this one day then. The only real weapons which should be in a flat "worse than its higher tier variant" relationship should be traditional chemical propellant guns vs mass drivers and that's in the raw damage department (we'll say that the rails on the guns are lined with alien alloy to prevent the main issue with railguns currently and allow rapid-ish rates of fire and that the power issue is solved, much like lasers and plasma, by alien derived power sources). Otherwise lasers and plasma weapons are basically the same deal (this is assuming the lasers have the potential to ablate even alien alloys which in the context they should because they're used in such capacities prior to more heavily armoured foes appearing on the battlefield, to balance out the trope that "plasma is gudder!" the developers could just put in research for lasers which allows plasma level damage but at reduced clip size, more energy consumed to get the same result, but with better accuracy).

Sadly, the original game also gave the most sensible explanation in-universe for that first step as well; lasers were prototype human technology that needed the last refinements put on to it, whereas plasma tech was entirely beyond our level until we sidled up to the aliens, coshed them over the head and rummaged through their pockets for loose science. Lasers were one of the early projects that needed no unlocks, available right from the start. So they're better than your starting ballistics as the're the pinnacle of what humans can accomplish at the time, but next to the chosen weapons of an interstellar civilisation they still come up a bit short.

The laser weapons also had the unique advantage of not needing ammo, so no manufacturing costs for endless clips and no reloading in combat meaning they had a certain viability for the entire game.

Sadly, the original game also gave the most sensible explanation in-universe for that first step as well; lasers were prototype human technology that needed the last refinements put on to it, whereas plasma tech was entirely beyond our level until we sidled up to the aliens, coshed them over the head and rummaged through their pockets for loose science. Lasers were one of the early projects that needed no unlocks, available right from the start. So they're better than your starting ballistics as the're the pinnacle of what humans can accomplish at the time, but next to the chosen weapons of an interstellar civilisation they still come up a bit short.

The laser weapons also had the unique advantage of not needing ammo, so no manufacturing costs for endless clips and no reloading in combat meaning they had a certain viability for the entire game.

It's sensible if you don't know even the most basic concepts of physical optics, if you do then lasers being inferior to sub-critical gobs of plasma (which I assume they are because you aren't getting explosions from plasma bolts) is about as sensible as trying to hit the speed of light using chemical rockets. Put simply lasers as portrayed in-game are shifted in the visible spectrum thus they cause ablation and plasma-based damage to their targets so to have long ranged gobs of plasma being superior to this is kind of... yeah... the notion that plasma is superior because we pinched it from the aliens is an ok notion as long as you realise that you're basically an entire species trying to learn how to use a shotgun when you've been shooting with arrows up until that point ( and even in this situation lasers can be overpowered draining their clip faster, think hotshot clips in Warhammer 40.000)

True, but my point was in relation to all the other games that merely take the "lower tier = weaker" approach. At least "This is science and this over here is magic" (Clarke's Third Law) is a better justification than that...

Plus even in the realm of directed energy weapons there are variations between approaches. You can't just say "a laser" and know the specifics. The energy of a photon is determined by the respective wavelength but that leaves aside aperture diameter, pulse duration etc. The same goes for hypothetical plasma weapons, given that we lack the physics to make such things even in game who's to say they wouldn't be more effective than the laser-induced surface plasma explosions we do understand the physics for. The effectiveness of technology increases as the technology matures, so it's a reasonably safe assumption that their mature plasma weapon tech could well make a better weapon than our brand new laser weapon tech. Much like the difference between musket balls and hollowpoints.

The Ufo:AfterX series went with the idea of a more level playing field for weapons technology. What it did was give different damage resistance values for each weapon philosophy (ballistics, laser, plasma etc.) to each alien, so each weapon type may do roughly the same damage as similar weapon types in other philosophies, but each weapon philiosophy would affect each alien differently. They also gave each weapon philosophy a particular character (so lasers were generally regarded as very accurate, ballistics were general all-rounders, etc.) As a consequence of doing this, the most effective strategy was to go for ballistics, as on the battlefield flexible weapons that could handle any situation thrown at it were more valuable than a weapon with its own little niche. This was exasperated by being able to build weapon addons, such as scopes and damage enhancers so it was possible to compensate for a lack of specialisation, but it wasn't possible to broaden the tighter niches.

The AfterX series has taught that given a broad selection of weapon philosophies (Aftershock had the largest variety of all three AfterX games), players tend to first experiment then optimise. Optimisation comes down to both general usage and personal perference, with both being important, but personal preference tends to be about weapon choices within a philosophy and general usage tends to be about which weapon philosophy is, comparatively, the best.

True, but my point was in relation to all the other games that merely take the "lower tier = weaker" approach. At least "This is science and this over here is magic" (Clarke's Third Law) is a better justification than that...

Plus even in the realm of directed energy weapons there are variations between approaches. You can't just say "a laser" and know the specifics. The energy of a photon is determined by the respective wavelength but that leaves aside aperture diameter, pulse duration etc. The same goes for hypothetical plasma weapons, given that we lack the physics to make such things even in game who's to say they wouldn't be more effective than the laser-induced surface plasma explosions we do understand the physics for. The effectiveness of technology increases as the technology matures, so it's a reasonably safe assumption that their mature plasma weapon tech could well make a better weapon than our brand new laser weapon tech. Much like the difference between musket balls and hollowpoints.

Physics is to say what they can and cannot do... to say nothing of the fact that you did not approach the "uninformed child with a loaded gun" issue of plasma technology (it would take at least a decade to develop the infrastructure to use plasma weaponry in a safe way otherwise you could end up holding a plasma bomb due to manufacturing errors, handling errors on your, the supplier or the base ordinance officer's part, etc.

Also... current laser tech has an issue of having a good laser medium and/or a power source (if you look around there's quite a few people trying to dick around with lasers even on a amateur level but the power consumption is an issue). Considering alien tech, possibly even using some alloys of alenium as the laser medium to get better efficiency from the laser itself without ballooning its size (why the first military laser in actual use in combat situations is ship mounted) and considering that plasma bolts have massive issues maintaining coherency in a terrestrial environment you get my point of contention (the Earth's magnetic field would significantly disrupt the stability of any plasma globs which aren't producing their own strong magnetic fields in which case you have severe issues even launching the damn thing because your soldier might get nuked by the gun's containment systems or have to lug around a massive gun).

Another physicist, how nice! I'm a theorist, myself, so take my statements on materials tech with a grain of salt, but I think the rationale goes something like this:

1. Lasers become viable weapons

We analyze alien materials, and the insight allows us to produce improved batteries and light circuitry with high enough efficiency that handheld lasers can be utilized effectively. However, there are still hardware limitations on just how much punch we can pack, especially since we require the soldiers to carry their own ammo.

2. We reverse engineer alien plasma tech

Through some handwaving Alenium-inspired means, we produce "Plasma Cells" that have a far higher energy density than any battery we know of, but are still isolated and stable. Evidently, simply tossing the Cell at someone won't do much, so we must do something to it to cause it to enter its volatile state.

3. How to use Plasma Cells.

We "ignite" part of the Plasma Cell-material and launch it before it melts our weapon.

4. Hypothetic rationale

Even though we can use modified modern tech to turn the energy contained in electrochemical batteries into lasers, it does not imply that we have the tech to utilize the energy contained in a Plasma Cell in that way. For all we know, the energy could be stored in the nuclear binding energy of this hypothetical Alenium, so we'd be firing tiny chernobyls that decay into quark-gluon plasma or some such, and our Alenium grenades could be the equivalent of a small nuke.

5. Analogy.

Why don't we currently plug uranium, grenades or petrol directly into handheld laser guns, considering they contain a lot of energy?

Because flamethrowers and grenade launchers are easier to manufacture, and if you want electrical energy from the uranium at any sensible rate, you'd need to be carrying around a sizeable power plant.

Granted, the Predator DOES have its own Alenium reactor, but giving a Predator-wearing soldier a Laser bonus is something to post in the Suggestions forum.

Another physicist, how nice! I'm a theorist, myself, so take my statements on materials tech with a grain of salt, but I think the rationale goes something like this:

1. Lasers become viable weapons

We analyze alien materials, and the insight allows us to produce improved batteries and light circuitry with high enough efficiency that handheld lasers can be utilized effectively. However, there are still hardware limitations on just how much punch we can pack, especially since we require the soldiers to carry their own ammo.

2. We reverse engineer alien plasma tech

Through some handwaving Alenium-inspired means, we produce "Plasma Cells" that have a far higher energy density than any battery we know of, but are still isolated and stable. Evidently, simply tossing the Cell at someone won't do much, so we must do something to it to cause it to enter its volatile state.

3. How to use Plasma Cells.

We "ignite" part of the Plasma Cell-material and launch it before it melts our weapon.

4. Hypothetic rationale

Even though we can use modified modern tech to turn the energy contained in electrochemical batteries into lasers, it does not imply that we have the tech to utilize the energy contained in a Plasma Cell in that way. For all we know, the energy could be stored in the nuclear binding energy of this hypothetical Alenium, so we'd be firing tiny chernobyls that decay into quark-gluon plasma or some such, and our Alenium grenades could be the equivalent of a small nuke.

5. Analogy.

Why don't we currently plug uranium, grenades or petrol directly into handheld laser guns, considering they contain a lot of energy?

Because flamethrowers and grenade launchers are easier to manufacture, and if you want electrical energy from the uranium at any sensible rate, you'd need to be carrying around a sizeable power plant.

Granted, the Predator DOES have its own Alenium reactor, but giving a Predator-wearing soldier a Laser bonus is something to post in the Suggestions forum.

1. Not so much as you think.

2. Which still doesn't solve the issue of magnetic containment and bolt coherency over longer ranges. A "plasma cell" would be the ammunition in terms of it holding the plasma but unless you lug the entire thing at the enemy (which then isn't a plasma gun but more a exotic mass driver) it ain't of much consequence.

3. See 2.

4. Which would blow the alien up, cause radiation issues with you or at worse turn you into a bloody shadow on the wall ( nuclear detonations aren't bloody small, fission ones could be reduced somewhat but if you're looking for a fusion explosive that doesn't take out a reinforced building with one hit bare minimum you are hoping for allot in terms of physics ).

5. Chemical sources of energy (grenades and petrol class as that) and fissionable energy sources are either non-issues ( traditional batteries are chemical sources but there's already progress towards non-chemical batteries today, without alien help and chemical sources as a rule hold allot less energy than you think) or extremely problematic ( how much lead do you wanna add to your open to protect the operator from the fission reactor cell? how do you wanna deal with ammo detonation when said ammo could be up to the 1 kT range? etc).

This issue has been brought up several times before, and each time have been different attempts by different people to hammer out how plasma weapons would work. Noirwolf, I think you'll find this thread interesting in tangent to what you're discussing (the first post and post #8 would be the posts most likely to grab your interest).

- Your friendly neighbourhood forumcrawler.

I think the reason plasma weapons are frequently portrayed as better than laser in fiction is that many people see weaponized plasma as more advanced--and therefore more powerful--than lasers. After all, we can shoot lasers at missiles right now, but we haven't figured out a way to shoot plasma the way you see it done in sci-fi, so plasma MUST be more powerful.

This issue has been brought up several times before, and each time have been different attempts by different people to hammer out how plasma weapons would work. Noirwolf, I think you'll find this thread interesting in tangent to what you're discussing (the first post and post #8 would be the posts most likely to grab your interest).

- Your friendly neighbourhood forumcrawler.

Looked that thread over... almost wanted to gouge my eyes out with a spoon when this

Well, here is the thing with plasma: Magnet containment is problematic in its own right...

Whatever force you try to contain, the other will be attracted to your containment. This is part of why making a fusion power plant in real life is so problematic: Maintenance of the reaction chamber is absurdly high due to the fact that WHATEVER you contain is going to let its opposite bring hell upon your reaction chamber, and two, it takes absurdly strong magnetic fields to contain the reaction, making it so it almost always costs more energy to create the same amount of energy.

was said. Containment in a vacuum chamber where the particles are precisely controlled and where the chamber is shielded by external magnetic fields ( from the Earth's to your smartphone's ) isn't difficult, the issue is with magnetic containment that obtaining a stable fusion reaction is currently difficult due to a as of yet unknown phenomena that crops up when your plasma is nearing the fusion threshold (IE when you can stop pumping energy into it as it is self-sustaining) which destabilizes it. The current issue thus with fusion reactors isn't technology ( refinements on the containment walls of the reactor, the inner walls in laymen's terms, are ongoing as they work to obtain better more resistant materials by experimenting with plasma deposition using various metals and non-metals and the syphoning system for contaminants could use some refining but that's about it as far as tech requirements that I know of ) but theory, we need to understand ELMs (the phenomena I mentioned earlier) so that we know how to prevent or suppress them such that the plasma can pass the fusion threshold.

Otherwise the thread is interesting but deals more with plasma tech in itself rather than plasma tech in comparison to other alternatives and how it should be balanced overall. Personally in my view lasers should be predominantly sniper weapons maybe even assault rifles, plasma should be shotgun and LMGs while traditional ballistics and magnetically assisted ballistics would be the middle children ( traditional ballistics being cheap and easy to produce while magnetically assisted would be expensive to produce and maintain but better ) getting every other weapon which isn't specialized (carbine, pistol, etc, pistol comes here because a plasma pistol in this context would be too limited by its ammo supply).

Given how close we are to cracking fusion, and the ramifications of the capability, it's insane it doesn't get more funding. On the other hand I could say similar about nuclear technology in general, it astonishes me that when anyone even mentions building a new plant they're still talking about water reactors. I have to assume no-one, not even the environmentalists, actually want the energy problem solved because there are plausible approaches that are never mentioned whilst fucking biofuels are still promoted.

Maybe it's because I'm an engineer rather than a pure scientist, but my general assumption regarding any technology (without even having to consider anything about whatever technology it is, we engineers are casual like that : P) is that not only will it get smaller, more efficient and find broader applications over time, but that along the way innovation and pure/mad genius will lead to potentials and applications that could never have been imagined or theorised by anyone standing outside familiarity with the technology. Given a brand new weaponisation of laser technology (in the OG) my automatic assumption is that they will not have reached their full potential. They might not be the laser equivalent of muskets but we're probably still at the lever-action era as an analogy. But the alien plasma tech, assuming we could reverse engineer it, would already be matured. They would have refinements and features we couldn't even predict due to not having even started with developing the capability. Maybe they have ways of manipulating the containment field such that the release of plasma onto the target is specific to maximise damage, auguring through any armour akin to an electromagnetic HEAT round and then having the rest of the packet bloom into the target beyond rather than just venting it over the surface (which would be similar or possibly even less effective than generating plasma through ablating the surface of the target itself. Also, spaced armour anyone?) The fun comes from humanity having a fresh perspective on this new but mature technology, free of any blindspots of the original developers and thus potentially capable of coming up with new ways of utilising it that the aliens wouldn't have thought of, thus why our guns could actually have some advantages over the alien weapons despite our only copying the technology.

Given how close we are to cracking fusion, and the ramifications of the capability, it's insane it doesn't get more funding. On the other hand I could say similar about nuclear technology in general, it astonishes me that when anyone even mentions building a new plant they're still talking about water reactors. I have to assume no-one, not even the environmentalists, actually want the energy problem solved because there are plausible approaches that are never mentioned whilst fucking biofuels are still promoted.

Maybe it's because I'm an engineer rather than a pure scientist, but my general assumption regarding any technology (without even having to consider anything about whatever technology it is, we engineers are casual like that : P) is that not only will it get smaller, more efficient and find broader applications over time, but that along the way innovation and pure/mad genius will lead to potentials and applications that could never have been imagined or theorised by anyone standing outside familiarity with the technology. Given a brand new weaponisation of laser technology (in the OG) my automatic assumption is that they will not have reached their full potential. They might not be the laser equivalent of muskets but we're probably still at the lever-action era as an analogy. But the alien plasma tech, assuming we could reverse engineer it, would already be matured. They would have refinements and features we couldn't even predict due to not having even started with developing the capability. Maybe they have ways of manipulating the containment field such that the release of plasma onto the target is specific to maximise damage, auguring through any armour akin to an electromagnetic HEAT round and then having the rest of the packet bloom into the target beyond rather than just venting it over the surface (which would be similar or possibly even less effective than generating plasma through ablating the surface of the target itself. Also, spaced armour anyone?) The fun comes from humanity having a fresh perspective on this new but mature technology, free of any blindspots of the original developers and thus potentially capable of coming up with new ways of utilising it that the aliens wouldn't have thought of, thus why our guns could actually have some advantages over the alien weapons despite our only copying the technology.

You're not copying technology first off, you're reverse engineering it with at best only interrogated prisoners (whom likely only know the tech side of the weapons on a superficial level not the theory behind them) to rely on for more information. Copying technology requires cooperative subjects who have worked on the theoretical and technological sides of the equation as well as schematics and examples of said technologies and last I checked you don't need a Xenos Von Braun to get functional plasma technology.

Second off when you talk about HEAT rounds and plasma contained in a magnetic envelope fired as a projectile within the same sentence you come off a bit... unknowing... HEAT rounds are shaped charges whereas a incandescent orb of plasma isn't and never will be a shaped charge or act like it. You could say a HEAT round obtains a jet of metal so hot it is in fact a plasma but last I checked they went with metals that liquefy not sublimate and then excite into plasma.

The more you look at humans being able to use alien plasma technology and produce their own equivalents to the same degree within months the more it seems stupid but I'd give it a pass if it wasn't portrayed as a mature technology equalling the alien's knowledge and weapons ( do not get me wrong, humans could pickup alien guns and use them once they're adapted for human usage but to think of humans as being able to fully understand and produce those weapons in a reasonable timeframe is going from Star Trek levels of suspension of disbelief to Star Wars levels).

I do know what HEAT rounds are, I was talking about their effect on target not the construction of the projectile. A HEAT round is a shaped charge that uses an explosion, and the Munroe Effect, to generate a jet of fluid metal from a lining that breaches armour. The jet isn't a plasma and doesn't melt through the target, it uses hydraulic pressure.

Now skyball the properties of a hypothetical packet of plasma with a containment field you can manipulate however you want throughout the flight. Rather than an orb, compress it down and shape it into a more oval configuration oriented along the perpendicular linear axis to the target. Just before impact, really compress the leading protrusion to get as tight an impact area as possible. On impact, use the containment field to focus the bolt such as to create a plasma torch that would lance through the target rather than 'splash' over it.

My analogy of an "EM HEAT round" was in reference to focusing of an otherwise omnidirectional force for the purposes of breaching a target.

Edit: I wonder if hydraulic principles can be applied to plasmas. I honestly don't know. Oh dear God I'm doing that engineering thing of making everything a fluid from a certain perspective. It's like we're Jedi "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." That point of view being "Everything is a fluid and can be treated as such"

I do know what HEAT rounds are, I was talking about their effect on target not the construction of the projectile. A HEAT round is a shaped charge that uses an explosion, and the Munroe Effect, to generate a jet of fluid metal from a lining that breaches armour. The jet isn't a plasma and doesn't melt through the target, it uses hydraulic pressure.

Now skyball the properties of a hypothetical packet of plasma with a containment field you can manipulate however you want throughout the flight. Rather than an orb, compress it down and shape it into a more oval configuration oriented along the perpendicular linear axis to the target. Just before impact, really compress the leading protrusion to get as tight an impact area as possible. On impact, use the containment field to focus the bolt such as to create a plasma torch that would lance through the target rather than 'splash' over it.

My analogy of an "EM HEAT round" was in reference to focusing of an otherwise omnidirectional force for the purposes of breaching a target.

Edit: I wonder if hydraulic principles can be applied to plasmas. I honestly don't know. Oh dear God I'm doing that engineering thing of making everything a fluid from a certain perspective. It's like we're Jedi "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." That point of view being "Everything is a fluid and can be treated as such"

Plasma can act as a fluid but it needs certain conditions to do so and those conditions aren't easy to obtain under laboratory conditions.

As for making a magnetic containment field act as a shape charge delivery system with the plasma being the substitute for the jet of metal... 2 rather big problems:

1) plasma is nowhere near dense enough to be considered a fluid (it may behave like a fluid under certain conditions but it doesn't pack the same raw kinetic punch which if my knowledge holds shafts your notion of it being used in a similar vein to a HEAT round without a physical shell to first deliver the plasma to the target);

2) to have such fine control over the projectile's shape without knowing the required distance to travel is to have it delivered by something with a guidance and control mechanism integrated within it ( so a shell with a magnetic containment system not a self contained plasma bolt ) or have your gun not only project a plasma bolt but also a EM field from your muzzle to the target with such fine control over the field that it shapes the bolt's containment field under terrestrial conditions ( which again are anything if not inimical to EM fields, Christ I think if you fire near a functional cellphone tower your gun would perform rather poorly as the cellphone tower outputs quite allot of EM radiation which disrupts its control mechanisms ).

Do note that the two possibilities mentioned at nr 2 aren't based on current technological and theoretical knowledge, they're pretty much dictated by the laws of nature.

I wasn't trying to suggest the plasma would use pressure to breach the target, in my above speculation the plasma round actually would be using temperature to melt through the armour. Comparing it to a HEAT round has turned out to be wildly distracting it seems, I see similarities because of my particular worldview I guess, heh. Not the first time I've run into difficultly because I'm natively seeing something counter-intuitive to most. I saw the primary mechanic of both being the focusing of an omnidirectional force for the purposes of a tight effect on target. The particulars of each are of course wildly dissimilar.

Christ I think if you fire near a functional cellphone tower your gun would perform rather poorly as the cellphone tower outputs quite allot of EM radiation

Don't you wish that mechanic was in the game? : D

Again though, I'm talking about potential applications of the technology we can't even theorise about due to being too many steps removed from whatever innovation would make something amazing suddenly obvious. I keep thinking about how smartphones these days don't even have external aerials. In the early days of radio who could have imagined that was possible? Give it a couple of decades of metamaterial research and I can't even pretend to know what might be possible due to being able to hack the laws of nature. Though none of that is likely to allow for EM field manipulation of the type we're talking about, I know. This is where the fiction element of sci-fi comes in. The one or two (as few as possible) steps beyond 'real' that allows for the story, and making those steps as plausible as possible. Suggesting that they could be a hitherto unknown manifestation or manipulation of the universe, and plenty of those have actually happened. It's just the ones in real life are typically even more outlandish than what authors speculate, heh. So I take up the position of the only thing I can be certain about is that I can't predict some things we'll be capable of in the future, even if I completely understood everything we currently know today.

As someone more informed than I, what's your take on ball lighting?