>Laser Guns >Ray Guns >Plasma Guns >Light Guns >Phasers

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>>51215865
Output is directly proportionate to the physical beauty of the shooter

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>>51215865
Laser Guns are weapons that fire a focused, continuous stream of high-energy photons.

Ray Guns are weapons that fire a focused, high-intensity shot of high-energy photons.

Plasma Guns are weapons that launch streams of superheated matter which has achieved a state of plasma.

Light Guns are guns that do not weigh a lot :^)

Phasers are similar to Ray Guns, but use all sorts of radiation, not just light. In Star Trek, they use is called "nadion radiation," a fictional type of radiation.

Blasters are similar to Plasma Guns, but launch more compact bolts of plasma, rather than less compact particle streams.

A laser gun fires photons, giving the impression of a singular beam coming from a gun. High fire rate, low-ish damage.

Ray guns are like laser guns, but they use up more ammo at once to produce a chaotic, inaccurate blast. High damage, high fire rate but they use tons of ammo and have a short clip size.

Plasma is the fourth state of matter; my father, an electrician, sometimes had to deal with the products of a faulty generator, one of them being copper plasma; at night, copper plasma gave him a full sun burn. A gun that shoots plasma would deal incredibly high heat/projectile damage, but would have a very low fire rate. The weapon would also overheat a lot, and very likely such a gun would be incredibly expensive.

A light gun is a laser gun's little brother; for much lower damage, the beam is more accurate and is, well, a beam; continuous fire, and low ammo usage. Still, the damage is lower, so it's best for an automated weapon system that can keep the beam trained on a target.

A phaser, rather than emitting any sort of visible photons, instead fires waves of radiation or radiation, which would be invisible. Hence how firing modes can be changed, since the wavelength of the radiation it fires can be adjusted (set phasers to stun/kill)

A blaster is basically a scientifically augmented 'gun'. It fires projectiles that are superheated, producing a visibly slower bullet, designed to pierce armor that is meant to stop laser weaponry.

It's such a broad question that there's probably countless answers to each one in terms of sci-fi settings, forgive me if I got something wrong

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>>51216016
>It's such a broad question that there's probably countless answers to each one

Oh don't worry my friend.

That's why I made the thread, because I want to know what everyone's definition is.

A laser fires a beam of photons.

A ray gun is a maser that fires a bolt of excited radiation particles.

A plasma gun fires gouts of superheated material.

A light gun is a gun nobody uses.

A phaser fires a beam of particles.

A blaster fires a compressed bolt of superheated tibana gas.

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Your weapons are not sorted into categories OP!

>Light-Based Weapons
Type of weapons that use light as the primary source of damage. Usually a powerful diode focused through a rare type of space crystal along with refractors to guide the beam or blast. Most 'laser' guns and 'blasters' are the same type of weapon with a switch that lets you change between blaster and laser mode, as well as the intensity if on laser mode. This allows for uses like burning through wood or melting ice for some utility with the weapon.
>Laser Guns
Fire a continuous stream of energy. Burns a hole in things the longer is stays on them.
>Blasters
Fires a single 'blast' of photons which have been 'condensed' into a heavy photon packet. Essentially imagine the wave/particle duality of light being heavily shifted over to the 'particle' part for this. Minor explosive force when hits, knocks objects away unlike laser.

>Phasers
>Ray Guns
Mostly the same thing. Imagine a device that could wirelessly transmit energy into an electrical system, now imagine that but into a human nervous system and overloading it. Phasers/Ray Guns are basically this. Phasers tend to have a dial to determine how powerful this is, often being used to stun, where as Ray Guns are usually expressly purposed just to kill.

>Plasma Guns
Heavy weapons that launch explosive super-charged pellets of plasma. Plasma is also used in grenades, mines, boobytraps, etc.

This is the correct definition. If you do something different, you are doing it wrong.

Tough to get a straight answer sometimes. The galaxy's a big place, and its people aren't all technically minded. A very specific term in one system might mean something totally different in the next, or not be used at all.

Sterling example: standard issue Gromflamite military weapons fire a non-continuous slug of superheated ionized gas. Sounds like a plasma blaster, you might say, and you'd be right. But! The company that makes them calls them lasers in their internal documents and advertising, and they are prominent as shit. So half the schmoes in Grom space genuinely don't know the difference between a laser and a blaster, and the rest don't care and call them all lasers anyway.

Point is, Morty, never trust anyone else to build your weapons for you. Odds are they're stupid, trying to kill you, or both.

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>>51216507
If you're going for realism, everything you described except plasma is the same, its all an EM wave. Plasma will needs to be held together by a magnetic field or it will immediately disperse. For EM waves, its really only meaningful to discuss power and frequency ex thermal frequency, visible frequency, xray frequency...

>>51215865
>Laser Gun
Requires significant windup not unlike a minigun, but unleashes a punishing laser. Mirrors and other reflective surfaces quickly fail due to the intense and continuous heat being outputted. Precise in the way a blowtorch is precise, it obliterates infantry but cuts vehicles and armor cleanly.

>Ray Gun
Fires quick, concentrated bursts of light. Can ricochet, but each bounce generally spreads the burst thinner until it is barely harmful. Fragile and prone to overheating, it is unsuitable in hostile environments.

Gained some use as a civilian weapon due to the cultural admiration of trick shots.

>Plasma Gun
An infantry weapon, fires superhot blobs of plasma. Extremely costly in terms of energy, it is often the weapon of choice for wealthier armies. Can theoretically carry the most ammunition, and allow one unit to engage many.

Has many more limitations in space or vacuums, due to the lack of air to use for plasma.

>Light Gun
A drastically downscalled Laser gun, it can fire immediately but starts up as a plain flashlight before focusing into a beam. Deliberately slowed to save costs and give ample time to run away, it is a deterrent installed into neighborhood security systems and nature reserve drones.

>Phaser
Variable emitters that can be set to both lethal and non-lethal wavelengths. Low cost, but also difficult to use and maintain. The result of a decision to equip a police force with weapons that crime lords would never want to use.

Nobody is ever happy to use a Phaser. Even if a skilled user can program the settings to pierce armor, that person would be reluctant to test it, lest they face someone with slightly different armor.

>Blaster
The regular military standard, a catchall term for the stereotypical weapon of war. Whether by superheated bullets, timed explosives, or arcing shots, these weapons pierce most forms of protection.

>>51215865
Depends on the setting. With exception of laser guns which always shoot laser and plasma guns which supposedly are to shoot always plasma (though artistic license is used to make it better than likely it'd be IRL).

>>51216752

What would YOU define them as then?

I'm curious and want to know what people like so I can steal it for my Sci-Fi game. I want the different kinds of guns (energy weapons only) to have at least as much variety and interesting things you can do with them as real life firearm types and tactics.

>>51215865

the setting