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What do you think a Pulse Rifle would do to a human body? Blow it up? Shred it to pieces? Incinerate it? Leave a big gaping hole?

Also, what sound do you envision it making?

Finally, what color is the blast?

OK my turn first. The Pulse Rifle can kill anything in 40k except Land Raiders and Monoliths. That means it's gonna do some nasty things to a human body, but I don't think it would cause you to actually blow to pieces the way a Bolter might. I figure it more just leaves a big hole, about the size of a quarter, right through anything short of carapace armor. I also see the Rifle as having a very slow rate of fire when compared to, say, a lasgun.

I think it would be similar to getting shot with a nice big round from a high power military rifle.

I'm going to assume the pulse round tumbles rather than spins, for more soft tissue mayhem.

I imagine a white-ish flash and a crack-whine, given the GW art work (I say a crack-whine, because that seems to be the noise pretty much all scifi weapons make when in doubt. Dan Abnett is fond of them too).

The Last Chancer novel, "Kill Team" may have more details. That's just a reference mind you -- it sure ain't a recommedation .

Navin

The blast is white.  It's a small ball of fusion-driving plasma.  20mm ball. Travelling at about the speed of horny teenages at prom.

The sound if "pht fpt".  Like holding your tongue and saying "fish feet".

The damage is a tunnel perfectly cauterized through the body.  Leaving a perfect tube of "non-meat".  Like driving a pipe through a snow man with a sledge hammer.

Posted By MattBaby on 11/08/2005 6:52 PM
What do you think a Pulse Rifle would do to a human body? Blow it up? Shred it to pieces? Incinerate it? Leave a big gaping hole?

Also, what sound do you envision it making?

Finally, what color is the blast?

OK my turn first. The Pulse Rifle can kill anything in 40k except Land Raiders and Monoliths. That means it's gonna do some nasty things to a human body, but I don't think it would cause you to actually blow to pieces the way a Bolter might. I figure it more just leaves a big hole, about the size of a quarter, right through anything short of carapace armor. I also see the Rifle as having a very slow rate of fire when compared to, say, a lasgun.

 

The pulse rifle is essentially a miniature plasma gun. Except it is way weaker than a plasma gun or plasma cannon. The blast would probably be white hot, with blue tinges just like the plasma weaponry of the Imperium. It would be so hot that it would cauterise a wound and leave almost a perfectly shaped circle in the body or object that it has hit. I wouldn't say the hole would be any bigger than a 50cent Australian coin and would penetrate most armour, like a boltgun. However while a boltgun direct hit is guaranteed to blow apart the target and kill it, the pulse rifle wouldn't. It could cause debilitating injuries but not as sure thing as a bolt weapon round.

Plasma, eh? That's what I get for being seperated from my codex by half the globe... .

Plasma technology is used in the crisis suit's plasma rifle. the "pulse" in pulse rifle refers to an electromagnetic pulse that sends a projectile out at high speeds (extremely high in the case of the Tau Pulse rifle). This is basically a smaller version of the Tau rail gun, or Tau rail rifle.
The pulse rifle would probably fire a very small projectile, but the high speed would offset the small caliber greatly. It would leave a small entrance and exit wound, but would cause serious damage to an arm or leg, possibly ripping them off were a hit scored there. The only thing I am unclear on is the low AP of a pulse rifle. I would expect them to be able to punch through armor with relative ease. this might be justified by claiming the size of the projectile may hit MEQs at angles very often and reflect off rather than penetrate through.

In general,I'd jsut say it burns right through armor,skin or cardboard with ease.
Sound wise I'd say something close to a silent 'ssshhhhkkk' sound, as for the colour I'd agree on white-ish blue

The sound if "pht fpt". Like holding your tongue and saying "fish feet".

"fish feet" fish feet"
the sound of pulse rifles cracked through the arid desert sky....

"fish feet!"
a crack-whine was heard as the deadly pulse shot blasted a hole the size of a 50 cent australian coin through seargent Taters



as for pulse...
Shouldn't it just say what it shoots in the Tau codex? As far as I know every codex has a weapons sketch showing the weapons and what they do (The Eldar one thorougly displays how their laser/plasma/warp/mono-wire tech works)

Kroot are said to use 'pulse rounds', which implies they fire some kind of solid slug with an energy blast.

In the game fire warrior the pulse rifle shoots slower than a lasgun or autogun, but still fairly fast. It shoots white/bluish glowing balls. The game is still bad though.

I thought the pulse just meant an energy pulse. But does it shoot like a 'tiny plasma grenade' for a bullet then? Or is it just a ball of energy (no solid bits?)
'Cause I see pulse weapons 'ammo clips' as a battery.
A railrifle is specifically a miniature railgun that fires off a slug. I don't think pulse rifles use the same technology.

On a kinda funny/off topic note... gameplay wise, ork big shootas are better built weapons than burstcannons (longer range)

I can't imagine that the projectile is TOO small; a small projectile driven by a large force will just punch through without doing much.  High AP, low STR.  I'd always imagined them to be shotgun-sized projectiles propelled out of the barrel by electromagnetics (hence the length of the rifle) and after leaving the muzzle getting a kick from a tiny fusion blast from the projectile itself.  Without a real description, though, we'll probably be left in the dark.

I collect Tau, and I think it is, like many others have said, plasma, Electro-Magneticaly Pulsed, that the sound is a sharp crack, and thatit would probably chew through flesh, cauterize, deliver extreme shock, and might even fry nerves as the energy dissapates. Prety nasty.
P.S.; I agree, Kill Team is a great book for stuff like this.

Gravometrics:

Tau Technology is based on Gravometrics, previously Gravomagnetics.  The Field is a derivative technology of Super Condutors and Fision that has come to an understanding of the strong and weak atomic forces and the duality of sub-atomic-particulate matter and the completion of the Unifying Force theory that eludes Humanity.

Tau Fire Arms:

They have masterd a technology, known in past, primitve, ages simply as railguns. A rail gun is also known as a Gauss gun or rifile from the German Physicist Gauss from ancient Terra who propsed the concept of a uniform charged field induced by the flow of local electrons: the Gaussian Field.  This effect can be manipulated by generating charged fields in a linear sequence with an inverse polarity from the projectile, thereby propelling it.  This chain of fields being generated is called a pulse.  This is a much more eloquent form of  projetcile propulsuion as it can be controlled electronically with out the need for liquid or solid propellant.  The pulse, the sequence of gaussian fields being generated along a starit line, or rail, is where the names, Pulse Rifle and Pulse Carbine derive their respective monickers.  This also simplifies the ammunition, causing it to be caseless, as the propellant common in primitive slug throwing weapons, is no longer needed.  Tau ammunition therefore is very simple, and safe.  It consists only of a block of charged metal, commonly aluminum, tungsten or even tatanium or a composite alloy depending on the design of the Gaussian Gravometric Rail Reciever.  All Tau weapons have a noticeable block, of amo in them, while it appears as a clip it is in fact a solid block of metal.  When the weapon fires it peals off a thin section of negligible mass from the top of the block and accelerates it along the rail at near light speeds.  This allows even one block of "ammunition" to last for thousands of firings as relative projectile mass is fairly small, Mo < .1g, the potency of the round coming almost entirely from it's tremendous velocity.

Sounds:

Early protypes of the Gauss Gun, or Pulse Rifle were incredibly loud, despite the fact that the Gaussian Accelerative Process is completely silent.  The cause was the projectile making a distinctive crack as it broke the sound barrier almost instantaneously.  This effect nearly rendered the Rail Gun unsuitable, as a firers position, and direction would have been easily identified by the crack.  However the Innovative Tau took advantage of the principle of noise cancelation.  That is any sound, being an energy wave with frequency and duration, can be completely canceled by the simultaeneous broadcasting of it's mathematical inverse, resulting in complete silence.  Thus all common Tau infantry weapons have a noise canceller, easily identified by the semi spheres in their weapons' barrels that automatically broadcast the inverse sound of the crack when the weapon is fired.  Therefore Pulse Rifles and their derrivatives are completely silent.

Visual Effects:

Because they do not use explosive propellant or laser emissions Pulse Weaponry does not present a distinctive appearance when fired, there is no smoke or visible arc from fire.  The only consistently recognizable effect of repeated firing is an acrid ozone smell which comes from the ionization of the surrounding atmosphere as the Pulse projectiles travel through it at such a velocity as to cause the immediately surrounding gasses in the path of the slug to ionize and react.  This is often imperceptable to common senses. Due to the incredibly high energy levels involved with Pulse Weaponry projectiles, dense targets are occasionally set on fire.

Pulse Slugs:

The ammunition of the Pulse weapon is unique in its delivery.  It does not resemble the classic miniball shape or warhead shape of so much Imperial weaponry or the beams of other races.  Essentially, due to the intense forces that act on the solid mettalic amo the projectile shape is actually close to that of a hyper deformed elipsoid.  Due to the Gravometric pealing process and the resultant Gaussian acceleration the rounds are stretched into a length equal to that of the barrel, as they travel through atmosphere in the first instants of acceleration the friction causes the majority of the projectile to liquify and the leading edges to vaporize entirely.  This has a variety of effects depending greatly on target density. Targets with a density of Ro < 120Xg/l, approximately the density (and atomic bond properties) of solid carbon or less, always have precise holes cut through them end to end, roughly 5mm in dimension as the projectiles travel through them entirely.  In fact, due to the incredible piercing power of Tau Weaponry Tau warriors are specially trained to watch their backgrounds while shooting, as it is quite possible the shots will travel completely through most targets.  Hypersonic impact with changes in density in a medium can have catastrophic effects.  When targets have greater density effects tend to vary.  Incredibly dense targets like adamantium, cerramite and biolaminate-composite cause varying effects on impact, often resulting in surface craters as the slugs expend their energy in the material.  Occasionally, in low maleable material, impacts will cause fractures and deflections and in the high maleable or organic materials may cause structural failure to the point of  extreme deformity often accompanied by fire.

Where did you get that information Augustus? Was it home-written or in another publication not related to 40k or what?

 

Seems home grown

Dead on except for a few problems. Pulse rounds would have to be ferric, since Titanium, being non-magnetic could not be propelled by an induction field. Same with Aluminum, I believe. I suppose the little white halos around the shells could be water being condensed around the supersonic shells as the traveled at around Mach 10 towards their targets, resulting in massive air pressure differences around the shell. Plus, current railgun research suggests that a railgun could have a pretty massive rate of fire, so every trigger pull probably sends a few dozen of the little buggers down range. The only problem that I have with the theory as the whole, is it is basically a direct rip off of Shiruken Catapults, fluff wise.

Augustus, sounds like you just turned them into suriken catapaults.

I believe I read that the Tau equipped the Kroot with Pulse ammunition for their Kroot Rifles. The Kroot Rifles are just simple rifles, no magnetic accellerators, no ceramic heat resistant coating, etc. So, in order for them to be able to fire a Pulse round, the Pulse rounds themselves would need to be pretty low velocity, low heat, and not requiring anything but a normal barrel to travel down.

Edit:  Or perhaps not.  The description for Pulse weapons says that they use induction to fire a particle which turns into plasma.  So, who knows how that's supposed to work in a Kroot Rifle.

I like augustus idea. Truly fantastic. But I agree with Phryxis. Also, who knows if they actualy fire metal? They might fire a different magnetic material, unknown to the Imperiun, or even the Eldar. (This has the added benefit of changing them from shruiken catapults to something more Tau-ish.)
Kroot however, could possibly use something like a real bullet, but with a pulse instead of gunpowder.

In the one Ciphias Cain book (For the emperor?) They describe the wounds caused by pulse rifles/carbines as being similiar to those left by plasma weapons.

Augustus, sounds like you just turned them into suriken catapaults.

No, no, everyone knows how those work, shurkien catapults shoot 2 spitwads when they fire. Their ammo being a combination of eldar solvent (saliva) and paper mulch, and the propulsuion coming from the amount of force with which Guardians SUCK.

(They suck)

Where did you get that information Augustus? Was it home-written or in another publication not related to 40k or what?

I compiled it from knowledge gained by the partial translation of a Tau Firecaste Operations manual...

Yea.

Not much to say to that, but...
I believe Augustus's writings.
Very interesting.
Anyone have anything to counter?

Augustus' information is excellent except that it describes the action of the railgun and rail rifle. The pulse weapons are not firing high velocity solid projectiles. The word pulse does not come from the sequence of gauss fields, but refers to the basic meaning of the word in describing a short "energy pulse" of some kind. This scifi "energy pulse" is created by means beyond our current tech.

The pulse weapons fire a small energy blast at the target, as desribed in the codex. (I don't have my codex handy so I reference the other posters who have quoted the codex). A particle(or particles) of matter changed into plasma is conceivable. The term plasma refers to a state of matter like solid, liquid, or gas. We should all remember from science class that the state of a piece matter is determened by the excitation level of its particles. When you heat up water is turns into a gas(steam). When matter is energized beyond a certain point it moves from gas into plasma. Stars are made of helium and hydrogen in a plasma state. So a pulse rifle firing a minute amount of matter energized to a plasma state would be quite powerful. Imperial plasma weapons use the same concept only with larger amounts of plasma being ejected.

So we can visualize the gamut of plasma weapons. A pulse rifle/carbine fires a tiny amount of plasma. A burst cannon fires the same amount only with multiple barrels in rapid succession. A plasma rifle fires a larger amount of plasma so it is significantly more dangerous. An imperial plasma gun or pistol fires slightly more plasma and because the technology is more crude, it can be dangerous to the wielder. A plasma cannon fires a great deal of plasma such that is vaporises target matter into a plasma state on impact and creates an area of uncontrolled explosive effect. I also believe that an Eldar starcannon also fires plasma, but slightly less than a plasma gun and in rapid bursts(3 shots), because it would be firing "star" material.

In the game stats we see the difference between rail weapons and plasma weapons. The rail gun is powerful, long ranged and very armor peircing, as one would expect from a small projectile hitting something at insanely high speeds. The effectiveness of weapons firing plasma is deterimined by the amount of plasma they fire. The small amount used by pulse weapons is very deadly to an unarmored target, but can be resisted by material of adequate strength or thickness. As the amount of plasma goes up, more of the target is vaporized into plasma itself, and its ability to eat through armor goes up accordingly.

I like this explanation a lot SetantaSilvermane. Of course it doesn't answer the questions of sound and color. But I think you have it right on how pluse weapons work in 40K.

Sorry, forgot about the other 2 questions.

I think for color we should look to the visual examples given in the illustrations, as they are from GW. So my vote is for the bluish-white.

As for sound that is much harder to guess. Perhaps a crack-whine, or maybe a zap or zorch kind of sound.
I have not played the firewarrior game, but it gives us an example of how pulse weapons look and sound. Are the games FX a reasonable interpretation?

Very... interesting. On sound, if we go from Firewarrior, then it is a Zip-Zip-Zip sound. However, how effective this is is rather... unavailable. Still, the ultimate reference is Kill Team (Novel.) I'll refer to that and post back.
Exelent work SetantaSilvermane. Interesting Ideas.

Plasma is to gas as gas is to water, so to speak. Right? So it's an extremely low density form of matter. How in the world would you accelerate plasma to a speed suitable for using as a weapon. It'd be like trying to kill someone with superhot dandelion puffs. Any fluff on this?

Yes, I have a similar explanation on Plasma weapons, but it's OT here, make another post, and Ill write it up.

Pulse Rifles apparently fire a sort of low-powered plasma. This is consistent with the coloring in the images displayed in the first Tau Codex.

Tau have only recently managed to produce a man-portable Railgun, the Rail Rifle, so the Pulse-weaponery cannot be derivate from the same technology.

My take is that, as I said, its a sort of Plasma. Lower output and safer than standard Plasma Guns, and also, the fact that you wish to fire a few dozen shots, prevent it from being too powerful. Remember that in accordance to the 3rd Ed. Rulebook, an Imperial Plasma Gun can only fire about six to seven times (it was a surrealistic small number of shots) before the clip has to be carefully removed and set back into place.

However, the Imperium is noted for using everything in its maximized setting, and Plasma-weaponry is complicated to produce (I think this is more related to the actual Size of the Imperium, rather than the actual complexity of the piece of equipment), hence the low nubmers. Tau, on the other hand are recent and ridign the wave of technology, so their weaponery can use Plasma, in a more controlled and efficient measure, untill they realise that other sorts of ammunition (Such as the Imperial Laser-based technology) is cheaper and suited for a mostly defensive posture (At this point in the Imperium's posture).

Much like modern day main battle-forces are usually equipped with the State-of-The-Art equipment for combat, while the rest of the forces still use outdated weaponery.

And btw, Bolts, even though sounding old and ancient and outdated, are better than what they may seem. Remember, that Bolts are little teleguided missiled, who's main goal isn't exactly hitting the target. They are meant to explode in the vicinity or interior of the target, causing shock and terror. Efficiency isn't something that its really saught after in their use, but in truth, what matters is the collateral damage. Do you prefer to make a single hit, of about 2 cm wide on their exit wound, or do you prefer something that blows up the chest of your target from within?

Not only that, but even against pain-resillient creatures, such as tyranids, a botler is the most effective sort of weaponery, because it relies not only on hitting, but also, on eviscerating the target from within, unlike piercing weaponery (such as modern days rifles and Pulse weaponery as it may seem), which rely on bypassing the armour and causing debilitating wunds to the target.

This is my view, evidently, I don't imagine the Pulse weaponry to be as destructive as Bolter Technology. In fact, I see it like the Quake 3/4 energy rifles, that produce a very quick amount of shots that will mostly burn and hit a target repeatedly, not blowing it up, but burnign its flesh and muscles. Yet... Its not as efficient as the old missile launcher, which i perceive as the Botler's cousin in those games.

Posted By RedKnightSpecial on 12/02/2005 6:09 PM
Plasma is to gas as gas is to water, so to speak. Right? So it's an extremely low density form of matter. How in the world would you accelerate plasma to a speed suitable for using as a weapon. It'd be like trying to kill someone with superhot dandelion puffs. Any fluff on this?

Not quite. Plasma is to gas, as gas is to liquid. Water steam if only one example This is sci-fi, so we don't know what the plasma is made of, but you can be badly scalded just by steam from a kettle if you stick your hand in front of it.  What if instead of water, that was the steam of vaporized lead?  Or iron?  Sayonara fleshy outer layer of hand.  Plasma might not have a high density under normal conditions, but when artificially generated and confined, it'll be more than dense enough, for long enough, to do nasty things to the target.

Read Augustus' post in this thread for a much better explanation of the matter.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/93/forumid/31/postid/9323/view/topic/Default.aspx

Didn't get to Kill Team, but...
Plasma is super-heated, but it could burn away more than just tissue and bone.
Also, if the plasma has an electric pulse, of any kind in it does that mean that it would send shocks down your nerves?
But I digress... Back to hunting that darn book!