Originally posted by selunatic2397:
One of my players tried to get a laser rifle "tuned to the harmonic freequency of water". He explained that the laser beam would cause a live steam explosion inside his target and "blow them into bloody chunks".
He's tried to get low end reflect protection by claiming the color of his clothes matched the beam color of the soldier shooting at him. Unfortunately, I remembered reading that in Larry Niven's first ringworld novel and said no in a polite, but firm manner.
I figured that all you guys would have an answer for this conundrum.
Thanks for the help
Whew, either your player is low on his science or trying to pull a fast one on you. Or maybe it's proof of the old addage a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
First:
The "harmonic frequency of water" that causes heating is in the microwave region (it's how your microwave works). So he's really asking for a maser. Give him one as there are many reasons real world laser weapon development did not follow the maser, even though the maser was developed/invented before the laser.
Here's a couple, (1) normal air holds a lot of water vapor even when the relative humidty is 10% that is still a lot of water, the weapon will likely be useless in the rain and next to useless in fog; (2) metal reflects microwaves quite well (that arcing from a twisty tie is the reflection as the electrons arc across the tie). So in short, the weapon will have a shorter range than a normal laser and in addition to reflec, mesh and maybe even jack will be a defense.
On his damage mechanism, normal lasers do this (heat water to steam) and much more. So the short answer is the damage from this weapon is less than a normal laser. Further, unless the laser beam envelopes the target, there is no way he is going to "explode in chunks." The locally produced steam in the wound will escape through the wound entrancee and exit. In short the maser weapon might boil the target, but a normal laser boils and burns. If you need more science to educate your player on energy transfer let me know.
Second:
The first I can understand, the second is just ludicrous. Yes one of the two ways a thing appears a certain color is that it refelcts light, but it hardly reflects a large fraction of that light, if it did it would be a mirror. Yet even mirrors are not perfect, a fraction (and you might be surprised how much) is absorbed. With a laser all it takes is that that fraction is a large absolute amount. Trust me, from working with non-weapon lasers it doesn't take much. That extra energy quickly degrades the ability to reflect (be it mirror or shirt), which means more energy is absorbed, which means it degrades more, etc. It's a runaway effect that can take only a microsecond. Given this I've always questioned reflec itself, now ablat that makes sense. If reflec exists, it is going to be some very special material and may even have a heat sink like structure built in. Doesn't sound like the average shirt IMTU.
