Is it possible to direct electricity through air? I mean shooting

You wouldn't really be able to direct it, it'd just hit whatever is closest.

Also
>air
>spacesships

cmon

>>8710487
>Is it possible to direct electricity through air?

Companies have done it (Picatinney Arsenal [sp?]). It seems really hard to do though.

It's not possible through vacuum in the sense of lightning because you need a medium to send current through. You'd also need ground to complete the circuit in air, unless it's a double lined lightning gun. In space it might as well be some kind of particle weapon.

>>8710505
I know that spaceships don't operate within an atmosphere. I just wanted to first establish whether it's possible at all because it interests me, and then ask if it's possible in the vacuum space.

>>8710507
I know that there is some kind of electro laser where they use a very powerful laser to create a plasma stream that lasts for the tiniest moment, but in that time they send current through that stream since it's conducting in that form to hit whatever the laster shot at. But I also want to know if it's perhaps possible to target lightning without that.

Since it's sci-fi you could just explain the system having a laser which creates a 'plasma channel' that current passes through to the target

it sounds fancy enough

>>8710527
But that wouldn't work in a vacuum I think.

Maybe just a harpoonlike projectile that pulls a really long, few-molecule thick carbon fiber strand after it and once the projectile gets stuck in the enemy spaceship you would just send super high current through the wire.

Would that sound feasible enough for a game?

>>8710531
Sure but why even bother with that? If your intention is to destroy the enemy spaceship just fire a missile at it. No need to go all Captain Ahab on it and hit it with the spaceship equivalent of a taser.

>>8710531
What would be cooler is a warp drive that's been modified to shoot gravity waves at other ships

>>8710614
Hey that's a pretty cool idea. The plan is to have many different weapons in the game and you can do research to get more powerful weapons later in the game. For example early on all you got are ballistic turrets that aren't very accurate at longer range. Later on you could have devastating lasers and other neat stuff.
How should a gravity weapon affect a spaceship on a hexgrid board aside from dealing damage? Push it? Pull it? Disrupt systems?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARAUDER

So there isn't alot of information to back it up. But apparently in the 1990's there was some serious development in Plasma based weaponry. The weapon launched balls of plasma which we're effectively balls of lightning and supposedly was actually very effective, But the project basically disappeared after 1995 and was either scrapped or went black-project tier.

>>8710631
Wow. Really cool and interesting. Never head of it before.

>The weapon was able to produce doughnut-shaped rings of plasma and balls of lightning that exploded with devastating thermal and mechanical effects when hitting their target and produced pulse of electromagnetic radiation that could scramble electronics.

Sounds like a perfect weapon for my game. Thanks!

Would lightning be able to exist within a dense nebula?

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Pence, we already talked about this, I don't care if it's possible we're not budgeting any money for your "project"

>>8710631
Why tf are we not funding this

>>8711617
Because of politics.

>>8711041
underrated

>>8711041
>Implying Pence doesn't already possess this power

>>8710487

Yes, you can use a high-power lazer to ionise the path to your desired target and then pour a bunch of electrons into it.

>>8711649
Not in a vacuum you can't. What are you gonna ionize?

>>8712637
air

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You guys disappoint me, haven't you all heard of electron guns? You know the ones that used to be used in TVs?

>>8710505
it is easier to shoot electricity in space than it is in air. One can accelerate electrons and shoot them like a beam. A beam with high enough power can be used to melt things.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#id--Particle_Beams

It won't look like lightning though. The beam also disperses with distance due to the fact that electrons have charge.

How would microwave weapons work in space? Is it possible to focus microwaves into a beam without them "spreading"? How would such a beam affect a spaceship and what would be the effective range?

>>8710505
>You wouldn't really be able to direct it, it'd just hit whatever is closest.
You ionize the atmosphere with a laser, potentially creating a preferred path.

>>8710507
>It's not possible through vacuum in the sense of lightning because you need a medium to send current through.
Vacuum is easy. You can just accelerate and focus a beam of arbitrary flux to arbitrary precision. Just depends on the voltage of your accelerating grating

With that said, it isn't really an efficient way to damage things

>>8710622
Weaponized gravity waves should disrupt systems
>spacetime contracts across the ship
>local time dilates wildly for a fraction of a second
>all shipboard clocks desync
>targeting systems begin to fail
Larger ships would be affected more.

>>8712666
shoot me with your electrons satan

give me that good eye cancer

>>8710487
yes, but you'd need to use some sort of conducting gas medium. typically you'd strike an arc between two electrodes and then direct a high velocity gas stream to form what would appear to be a blade made out of electricity. this is how a plasma cutter works.

if you want to see what a real life plasma weapon would look like

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>>8711617
how do you know they aren't?

You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?

>>8710531
>But that wouldn't work in a vacuum I think.

But for a board game, does that matter? If it worries you, do the Star Trek thiung and make up a word (We should not call these laser guns, because lasers are becoming more commonplace and people will know what lasers can do before we get this show on the air. Call them phasers.")

Carrier beam creates sub-etheric channel for directed lightning strike.

>Like putting too much air in a balloon!

>>8710622
>Push it? Pull it?

In addition to doing damage, doing one or the other of these might make for interesting game situations.

>>8710487
>Is it possible to direct electricity through air? I mean shooting lightning accurately at a target.


Yes but not horizontal to the ground. You need to ionize the air with something like an x-ray laser. If it gets too close to the ground then it has a path to, well, ground and that kinda stops it short.

>spaceships

No you cant shoot lightning in a vacuum pleb.

>>8710487
Why not just use railguns?

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>>8711617
>Implying they actually spent $1.5 Trillion on the F35.

>>8714164
>No you cant shoot lightning in a vacuum pleb.
>what are vacuum tubes

>>8714314
Electron beams =/= lightning.

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>>8711617
>>8711624
>>8714142

The plasma weapons research cited came about because of SDI. The Strategic Defense Initiative, or "star wars" program was for the USAF to develop geostationary satellites that could melt incoming missiles using directed energy weapons. This is theoretically plausible by using directed-energy nuclear weapons.

Anyway, that program didn't go anywhere because in 1991 the Soviet Union died. However, the research the program created led to things like MARAUDER, the YAL-1 (pictured) and the XN-1 LaWS (currently in active service), and BAE's railgun (soon to be in active service). The part that is important are things pertaining to the actual plasma containment, as in the actual use of magnets to direct energy (such as plasma or warheads) which SDI originally developed.

Also long term this research is hugely important to the development of fusion power (whose biggest problem is plasma containment) and nuclear powered rockets (whose problem is containing the explosion and directing it away from the spacecraft).

>>8710531
Or just launch a projectile that lays down a trail of substrate that absorbs your laser's wavelength effectively

>>8714142
That was a good film.

you shoot a laser through air. that creates an ionized channel for the lightning to travel down.

>>8715366
>air
>spaceships

>>8710487
Yes but I'm not sharing~

:D

>>8716080

All you need to do in that case is vent a shit ton atmosphere around your space ships for the laser to ionize! :^)

>>8710631
This seems like the kinda stuff you'd find on the dark net, but afaik its just drugs, pedos, and people that are really paranoid of big brother