Tools Stormcaller Tech

Discussion in 'Approved' started by PrivateNomad, Jun 8, 2019.

  1. PrivateNomad

    PrivateNomad There goes my hero, watch him as he goes Staff Member Technician Gold Donator Event Builder

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    Name: Stormcaller Tech

    Description: Stormcaller tech is an advanced, extremely powerful adoption of electroweaponry that allows it to draw lightning during a storm for various purposes such as weaponry, redirection, or even power generation. Like most forms of electroweaponry in the 33rd century, stormcaller technology uses a continuous beam laser to bridge a path for current to travel through. For most weapons, these lasers are weak - however, stormcaller tech uses a much higher power laser similar to that of a laser beam rifle. While the laser beam cannot do any harm by itself, it provides a direct path towards its laser diode to the atmosphere, allowing lightning to pass through it. Stormcaller tech usually appears as a glass dome of sorts where the laser diode and absorber is housed, placed on top of someone’s body where there is a lot of surface area.

    Abilities:
    • Can draw a bolt of lightning from the atmosphere using a high-power laser-induced plasma channel.
    • Can be used in many different forms (lightning grenades, lightning redirection guns, energy generation and on-field device recharging)
    • Lightning is generally very potent against most targets, and debilitating against electronic robots and androids. Targets will receive severe burns and will be incapacitated; targets usually will not die due to what’s called the “skin effect”, where AC current prefers to travel through the outside of a conductor rather than its insides (a person’s heart). Normal lightning ordinarily has a fatality rate of 10%, however stronger lightning may be more fatal.
    • Debilitating against robots, androids, and other electronic machinery; lightning will overcome most faraday cages and push a high-amp surge through robots, easily frying electronics and outright destroying sensitive components. If an android is not outright killed by a strike of lightning, their body will most likely be utterly ruined. Androids with non-combat makeup such as silicon and plastics will be affected less due to their lower resistance.
    Conditional Abilities:
    • The strength of a lightning bolt depends on the atmosphere of a planet; while lightning bolts on most planets will be similar to those on Earth, some may be weaker. Some planets may have stronger lightning strikes; gas giants especially have extremely potent lightning strikes, most being around triple the strength of an Earth lightning bolt. In Calypso Station, for example, a lightning bolt would be very powerful.
    Limitations:
    • The largest limitation is that this technology will only work during a storm (unless it is inside of a gas giant or other electrically active area). Extremely situational.
    • Only works outdoors.
    • Not all of the energy of the lightning strike can be absorbed - the rest is lost as heat, sound, and light.
    • Absorbing lightning strikes is a very violent action that is stressful on the electronics needed to do so; cooled heat sinks are needed to dissipate the large amount of heat absorbed, and maintenance on the systems is required often. Stormcaller tech can overheat if used too quickly, and usually takes around six turns to cool down fully.
    • Cannot rapidly cause lightning to strike, as the lightning in the atmosphere must “recharge”. This will usually happen in around 3 turns, though can change based on the storm’s severity.
    • When used as an attack, a lightning strike is inaccurate due to the diameter of the laser, usually striking the most positively charged, least resistant object within a few meters of the grenade or target. Even then, lightning strikes will cause shockwaves and explosions that may have an area effect.
    • When absorbing a lightning strike to recharge battery reserves, storm tech can only charge a DE (dense electron) battery due to the ease at which electrons can be charged into it. DE batteries are known to explode when damaged.
    • Lightning strikes are extraordinarily loud due to the superheating of the air they cause, as well as incredibly bright. Common auditory and ocular augments can mitigate the damage.
    • Recharge and redirection devices are generally a bit on the bulky side, weighing at 30 lbs.
    • Generally expensive and rare technology.

    How does it work: Stormcaller technology relies on the exact same technology that most arc weapons use, but at a much stronger scale and with additional components to absorb, store, and redirect the energy. A powerful near-invisible laser beam is fired into the sky which creates an LIPC (laser-induced plasma channel) that creates a path of low resistance that allows the lightning a path to follow towards the absorber. For a recharging device, if a lightning bolt is absorbed, it will charge a series of several large supercapacitor packs that can take the huge spike of current and then slowly drain it out to the DE battery, all while dissipated heat is absorbed by several coolant-cooled heat sinks. A redirecting device will allow the lightning strike a clean path through an ultra high amperage superconductive wire, typically 8/0 AWG. A similar laser used to draw the lightning strike is used to direct it. A grenade contains a supercapacitor that simply expends all of its energy to beam the laser up and cause lightning to strike something within a few meters of it. While normal arc guns utilize the power of a battery to produce a weaker bolt, stormcaller technology harnesses the power of the atmosphere.

    Flavor text: The Human dream of harnessing the awesome power of lightning dates to ancient times with myths of gods and goddesses harnessing the power of lightning. Actual exploration of such a concept did not begin until the 1980s; however, technology at the time was not advanced enough to absorb even a fraction of the energy of a lightning bolt; the rest of the energy would destroy the absorber devices. Such failed devices were typically tall lightning rods, with strikes being few and unreliable. In the 2000s, lasers were developed that could create plasma channels to conduct electricity along longer distances, reducing the breakdown voltage needed. Despite this, the idea was dropped altogether.

    But then, the supercapacitor was invented, allowing huge magnitudes of power to be stored and then dispersed; a supercapacitor bank had the capability to absorb several kiloamps of current at millions of volts in fractions of a second. The technology grew further when advanced laser technology and room-temperature superconductors were created, though were dwarfed by far better methods of generating energy.

    Today, stormcaller tech is a niche technology, often used by enthusiasts of electricity in planets with high electrical activity. Stormcaller tech also exists as a potential form of power generation in gas giant stations, where lightning is highly abundant.

    Referenced Technologies: Electrical Weaponry

    Attainability: Open

    Tags: [Industrial]

    Category: Tools
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2019
    Bulphrog likes this.
  2. Skid

    Skid God Incarnate Staff Member Community Monitor Diamond Donator

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    Hey Nomad, sorry for the big delay in giving this it's first look at. I've no issued with the Stormcaller, so I'll be giving it it's initial pass.
     
  3. 9K

    9K Galactic Officer Staff Member Administrator Diamond Donator

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    I've also reviewed this and given the limitations you've outlined for the tech I have only one real question for you.

    If one were to make an electric arc gun using this technology, how would it work exactly? The reason I ask is because you have said this can only be used outdoors and during a storm. Is the implication that a rifle for example would only fire during a storm, no less than a few moments after the lightning strike is absorbed into the tech, and that the energy isn't stored for any extended period of time?
     
  4. PrivateNomad

    PrivateNomad There goes my hero, watch him as he goes Staff Member Technician Gold Donator Event Builder

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    Yeah; lightning bolt is conducted through the laser and into the receiver, and most gun forms of stormcaller would just redirect the lightning bolt since making something to produce a lightning bolt from stored energy like that would be way too heavy. Now, you could just power something like a boltcaster with the energy stored from a lightning bolt, but it wouldn't be the actual lighting bolt, just an arc gun powered by a charged battery.
     
  5. 9K

    9K Galactic Officer Staff Member Administrator Diamond Donator

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    Right, I get you. Okay, this is passed then.