Originally posted by PVernon:
By the way Brook's plasmafaust needs a design to go with it.
Well, I needed some kind of illo for the equipment list link.
So here it is, the poor man's one-shot PGMP, the Spofulam Arms PlasmaFaust™. I would be delighted if someone wants to generate stats on the thing.
There's a larger view at
http://www.sff.net/people/kitsune/traveller/images/plasmafaust.png complete with the projectile.
Note that this is a product of Spofulam Arms, a division of Famile Spofulam so it ought to be pyrotechnic enough to satisfy Ditzie.
As I see it, I figure it fires an AP plasma grenade, initiating the plasma burst within the grenade body which is then launched at the target. The initial chemical propellant is supplemented by leaking a small jet of plasma from the base of the grenade. The magnetic/gravitic containment of the grenade is quickly overwhelmed -- the grenade travelling perhaps a hundred meters at extremely high velocity before noisily becoming a ball of plasma -- which will travel another hundred meters or so before dissipating.
Should the grenade body impact with a target within the first hundred meters it will, of course, detonate there. Note that if you don't hit a target before the projectile detonates you certainly will cook whatever is within the next 50-100 meters.
The integral electronic sight and shoulder stock improve the accuracy of what is, after all, a high tech blunderbuss.
This is certainly not the sort of weapon one wants to fire indoors, let alone as anything other than an act of desperation or extreme foolhardiness. The PlasmaFaust does have a
substantial recoil and splash from the plasma jet does have an unfortunate tendency to singe the user and anyone nearby. And if the target is too close or the thing misfires, well...
Note also that it can be reloaded quickly should anyone actually want to do so after firing it once. I'd like the powerpack in the launcher body to have enough oomph to power up half-a-dozen projectiles before recharging.
