Ship Builders Manual Goof!

[Aramanthus]

The Harmonic lasers are garbage the way they are written. There has to be another way of writting them up. And next time exclude adding sonic/ untra sonic to them. I'm not sure about some of you, but I was always taught that sound will not travel through a vacumm in any way shape or form.

 

[Neo]

The Harmonic lasers are garbage the way they are written. There has to be another way of writting them up. And next time exclude adding sonic/ untra sonic to them. I'm not sure about some of you, but I was always taught that sound will not travel through a vacumm in any way shape or form.

Not being funny or anything, but realy.. look at the Bab 5 universe.. jumpgates, thousands of aliens, spacecraft, bio tech, dimensions outside our own, telepathy etc... and the use of sonic Weapons stands out to you are being "silly" because scientifically its improbable.. I mean seriously lol you could write a book in itself on all the improbable scientific theorums represented in the B5 universe but what does it matter its a sci fi universe..at the end of the day it doesnt matter.

simply assume they had the technologicasl know how to find away around it.

something is only impossible until its proven it isnt.. and as far as what is and isnt possible those boundary lines are re-written every day.

 

[Vortex]

There's always a way around those things and my way of seeing it is: As long as it makes a cool story, it's ok.

JMS tried to make B5 "plausible" Sci-Fi (gravity by rotation and stuff like that) but he had to add in hyperspace because it would have been quite boring if it took every ship 8 years between close star systems.

He had to rationalise the sound in the space scenes because silent scenes wouldn't have been as powerful. Like it's said on the DVDs, when a ship explodes, the air (or other gas) is released and in that rapidly expanding bubble of gas, there can be sound.

So maybe those sonic lasers or whatever (I haven't read that book) are actually particle beams that conduct sonic vibrations increasing their power or something like that.

When you want it to work, you can almost always make it work.

 

[lastbesthope]

I'm with Neo and vortex on this one, but I'll have a closer look once I actually have the book. Friday I hope.

LBH

 

[Aramanthus]

I know it's scifi! But at least in the show they never tried techno babble! That is a mistake leading to the downfall of something beloved by many. But whoever wrote this paragraph is wrong. It is unacceptable!!!! Not even possible! Even with all of the other weaponry of the show, it such a falsehood, I have no problem standing alone on this description is itself impossible!!!! I'll have to do a write up for my own game that will not involve sound in any way shape or form. The guy could have used modulating light frequencies, that would have been more acceptable. Remember sound doesn't travel in a vacumm! It is not implausible it is impossible!

As far as you two, you can say or do whatever you want in your game.

 

[Khamul]

Another way a "Harmonic Laser" could work is a laser fired down a gravitic beam sheath. The gravitic pulses set up a standing wave in the hull, weakening it and allowing the laser to do more damage.

I agree that the idea of a "Sonic" weapon in space is kind of laughable :shock:

 

[frobisher]

The Harmonic lasers are garbage the way they are written. There has to be another way of writting them up. And next time exclude adding sonic/ untra sonic to them. I'm not sure about some of you, but I was always taught that sound will not travel through a vacumm in any way shape or form.

I've not got the book yet, so haven't read the description, but the thing to note would be is the sonic/ultra sonic effect at target only, and is produced by the impact of the laser on the target. That is emminently possible. Not necessarily benefical, but possible.

 

[sigma957]

i prefer the idea of a beam that sets up a harmonic in the hull by gravity waves, energy resonance, a million space hampsters pushing, works better as in space there is nowhere to absorb the vibrations and damp out the effect, meaning it would be bad to be on the receving end,

that said you cant have a sound laser, sorry you cant, fundamental flaw in sound in that the medium transports it, light has its own particle you can make them act laser like making well lasers, but no sound particle you cant do it

 

[Thrantor]

It's all Flavor text anyway... Change it however you want. Pull something out of your ass. Any of a number of different things. You'd probably be amazed at when that section was written. It was probably at 4am with little sleep and no remaining coffee. The editor who looked over it later may not even have though... "Wait.. sound doesn't travel through space!" Either way... Just change the flavor text to the gravitic harmonics or something.

 

[lastbesthope]

that said you cant have a sound laser, sorry you cant, fundamental flaw in sound in that the medium transports it

You can't have sound Laser anyway (guess what the L stands for), though there has been some theoretical work on Sasers apparently

LBH

 

[Aramanthus]

Thanks for the responses. I like the one by Khamul. That makes more sense.

 

[lastbesthope]

Well I got my copy today and jumped straight to P. 55 for the harmonic lasers. Nothing there I could see that actually states sound waves form part of the laser. It could easily be explained away by some sort of frequency or amplification modulation of the laser wave using sonic waves and frequencies.

It's a Mcguffin to be sure, but it's a nicely worded one in the book.

LBH

 

[Grentew]

You could also explain the noise as a sound that once this weapons beam is hitting the ship that it resonates thru the ship its hitting. Also the weapon could generate rf energy that can transmit thru a vacume or space < near vaccume> because even radio waves can do that.

 

[Mick]

Well I got my copy today and jumped straight to P. 55 for the harmonic lasers. Nothing there I could see that actually states sound waves form part of the laser. It could easily be explained away by some sort of frequency or amplification modulation of the laser wave using sonic waves and frequencies.

It's a Mcguffin to be sure, but it's a nicely worded one in the book.

LBH

you can get the effect by modulation two laser the effect creates a "sonic" shock wave within the target material (which would also give the "why" of large sizes of the harmonic lasers)

 

[Rovanion]

To be honest the harmonic weaponry description is the least of your worries with the descriptions in the book. I'm sorry to say it but Mr Steele does not have a vaguest clue about physics and it shows.

For example, in the matter weaponry section you do not need ferrous material to accelerate projectiles using magnetic fields, all it needs to be is conducting, the self generated magnetic fields do all the work for you. So there is absolutely no need for a 'ferrous crust' around the plasma in a plasma accelerator, just ask the guys at JET how they keep their plasma in place.

Example two, he describes a laser as a 'powerful beam of tremendous heat' instead of what it really is which is a coherent beam of light.

Example three, he really doesn't know what a neutron is. It isn't some special sort of energy just a neutrally charged particle. What makes neutrons so great as weapons is that they ignore any form of eltrcomagnetic shielding and will cause fissions in any heavy atoms they encounter. They are also quite penetrating so could cause loads of damage throughout the ship.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop there. The only option is to ignore the flavour text in this section of the book because it truely is complete and utter bobbins.