Releasing of energy does not create recoil. Recoil is caused by force being applied to mass. Photons have no mass thus they create no recoil.

Normal firearms overheat too. You would need to model overheat for them as well.

We hashed through this on the first page. Photons do have momentum, so they create some recoil, but on a very, very small scale. If these truly are 1 kW lasers as their damage would suggest, you definitely wouldn't be able to feel them move from the photon momentum alone.

Yes, that's correct. Photon have "relativistic" mass (as per theory of relativity) proportional of it's momentum. But that's negligible in normal "Newtonian" conditions.

It seems that you know nothing about quantum phase-molecular warp transmission mechanics. Everybody knows that it has to do with post photon beam deflection in 11 dimensional universe also known as hyperverse, or multiverse in north america. ( )

A 1kw laser would not be able to do the damage the lasers in this game do.


A .5 second blast from a 1kw laser will not blow a hole in a person at any distance in any environment, especially if they have armor.


Like I said, man portable laser weapons make no sense, they're still fun to use in game, but they make zero sense.


Lasers fail as a general issue rifle due to needing greater power the farther a target is from the weapon, receiving interference from atmoshpericseffect contaminants such as blowing sand, water, etc and the fact that for a laser to any true damage you must maintain it at the same point for an extended period for it to melt through the armor, then through the target.


Lasers as general issue rifles make no sense.


It's why the Gauss rifle is my go to weapon. It makes sense.

But what about Newtonian! conditions?

Handheld energy weapons was very popular in scifi after the discovery of the laser, many newer scifi franchises don't use them if trying to be reasonable hard scifi

Main issue with laser is size and energy requirements, its realistic research projects for arming gunships and fighters with lasers.

it will not be more handheld than an 25 mm cannon with ammo, it will be far weaker than the cannon but has the benefit of lightspeed beam and aiming in all directions.

Sorry, that was a typo. It is supposed to be 4 kW. Since they have exactly the same unmodded damage as a 10mm pistol, I assume they are delivering the same amount of energy to a target. We can look up the Real World energy of a typical 10mm bullet as somewhere around 1000 Joules. Assuming a 1/4 second application of the laser gives us 4000 Watts.

However, that assumes 100% absorption of the laser's energy by the target, which is certainly NOT valid in Real Life.

But you're right that the secondary effect of even a 4 kW laser would be nowhere near what we get in-game.

As I said, under "Newtonian" (that is inside boundaries of earthbound space, time and speed), mass of photon is so small, that you can disregard it from calculations. You would need something like space travel application (say Solar sail) in order for it to have significant effect.

Laser recoil implies some form of chemical energy release (and very bad design since any designer with half brain would design such release to have no recoil). But chemical energy is not sufficient to power such weapons. That's why Fallout lore supposes use of fusion energy. Laser weapons in previous Fallouts were being powered by micro fusion cells (basically miniature nuclear reactor ...don't ask me how that should work).

Only that exhaust and intake could be from any direction and if I was designing it I would ensure that all exhaust and intake would be neutral so as to avoid any kick. If the 'laser' gun is only 'shooting' light there is NO logical reason for a recoil. But then there are soooooo many things in this game that defy basic physics that I am not going to get worked up about just this.

Nope. And we aren't reading the posts in-between either. Because it's a stupid issue. Not a stupid question though.

1. There should be NO KICK or RECOIL.

2. We can argue though about if there should be sound. That's a fun and interesting question with actual logic behind it.

3. Bethesda just screwed up on this one.

Maybe they fire superheated beams of nuclear energy?


I have no idea as we don't have mini nuclear reactors that are hand held.

really tiny radioactive carbon rods stuck in a tablespoon of water to generate steam which powers the gun? That's how real reactors work. major problems with that are: you need to irradiate the rods using uranium and eventually they detiriorate and the carbon rods boil all of the water and melt through whatever material a fusion cell is made out of making now irradiated water gas escape killing everyone near it if the water is not replaced regularly (ie: nuclear meltdown) WARNING: do not drink the water inside of a used fusion cell (ie: nuclear waste)

Only then it would be more of a plasma type weapon. Do a google search on laser. A laser is really nothing more then very highly focused light, you do not 'impact' a target with a laser you burn it.

yeah, there must be an "echo" in here... but at least a lot of the follow up posts "agree" with my conclusion on the matter.

I know, but the laser rifles in fallout do feel more like a plasma rifle. Even though there are also plasma rifles.

Just so you know, Hoss, you're not quite right on how real reactors work.

Agreed.

I payed attention to it in chemistry class 9 years ago because nuclear stuff is cool (actually it is really hot)

I was literally a reactor operator in the Navy. So there!

You're not wrong, wrong but you're mixing up the characteristics of different types of reactors in amusing ways and have a key concept sort of backwards.

(BTW, just in case there is any doubt: I'm not criticizing, just joking around.)

ya your right, sorry just been a while. I just read up, its powered by nuclear fuel (uranium or plutonium) and uses fission which uses the energy from splitting atoms to either boil or heat up water that does not boil to turn turbines and nuclear waste is what the nuclear fuel becomes when it gets used. My bad

Star wars guns are blasters. They don't claim to be laser weapons.

I only know the basics of this stuff, like how lasers work and why they will never work for a rifle the size of the M4.


However I did some fallout lore digging and this is how the laser rifle works.


Power drawn from Micro fusion Cell is processed through a Wave/Particle Diverter (manuf:Gen Atomics Intnl). Diverters are protected by carbon-fiber housing, preventing frequent malfunction, but when a diverter fails the weapon becomes unusable, and this part is extremely difficult to replace or repair.

Precision-cut lenses focus optic energy. Lenses are prone to damage and can grossly affect precision of the firing weapon's firing mechanism. Lenses are easily replaced with any clear glass, but require a great deal of skill to fabricate.


Now would that describe more a plasma rifle?

Ok then what is the basic premise of a blaster in Star Wars, closer to plasma type weapon? Since we are bringing up other SiFi stories how does a Star Trek Phaser relate? They never had any recoil but did make a sound and had visible light.