Tigress: work in progress

[Solomani666]

I agree about ship illustrations, but deep meson sites are buried, not in a pit with a limited field of fire.

Meson guns and communicators make use of the properties of a subatomic particle called the pi neutral meson. Mesons, like neutrinos, do not interact significantly with other particles, and matter is therefore transparent to them.

So, I vaguely concluded that "they may not absolutely need it, but it might be advantageous to have a muzzle".

Without a muzzle, then what is going to stop the beam from triggering its own meson screens!?

 

[wbnc]

I agree about ship illustrations, but deep meson sites are buried, not in a pit with a limited field of fire.

Meson guns and communicators make use of the properties of a subatomic particle called the pi neutral meson. Mesons, like neutrinos, do not interact significantly with other particles, and matter is therefore transparent to them.

So, I vaguely concluded that "they may not absolutely need it, but it might be advantageous to have a muzzle".

Without a muzzle, then what is going to stop the beam from triggering its own meson screens!?

interesting point...

 

[alex_greene]

An unobstructed muzzle has three functions.

One, some way of aiming the meson beam.

Two, psychological - some way of making the enemy feel the fear of God at the sight of that hellish maw pointing at them.

Three, safety - the ship's design precludes the possibility of accidentally irradiating its own crew with stray mesons that didn't accelerate as quickly as the rest.

 

[wbnc]

An unobstructed muzzle has three functions.

One, some way of aiming the meson beam.

Two, psychological - some way of making the enemy feel the fear of God at the sight of that hellish maw pointing at them.

Three, safety - the ship's design precludes the possibility of accidentally irradiating its own crew with stray mesons that didn't accelerate as quickly as the rest.

three very good reasons right there....

It's not described anywhere but I have to think that putting delicate gear in the path of a Meson beam can't be good for it. no matter how you try any active transmitter tends to suffer from bleed and secondary emissions. even you average pocket calculator gives off some very small electromagnetic 'noise" when powered up. I can't imagine a weapon producing gigajoules of energy would be any different.

And, you don't get any particle to fly in a straight line with a few bazillion of its friends without some sort of focusing and confinement system. and at least some portion of it has to be a nice straight path from the generator, toward the target you want all those particles to do nasty things to.

As for Psych effect, you may not be able to see the muzzle at combat ranges but you can definitely see it in propaganda pics, and on target identification cards. just knowing that if you encounter the ship that sooner or later that hellish maw will be pointed in your direction has to have some effect.