The SCIENCE! Behind Plasma Rifles in Fallout 4 

At this point, it feels like everything in fallout 4 is supposed to be able to take out a city.

except the plasma rifle doesnt kill a behemoth in one shot

Fun fact there is a fifth state of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate, its when matter gets in a really low temp and begins to get magnetic properties, some MRI equipments use them to produce the magnetic fields for doing the imaging.

But doesn’t the plasma gun liquiefy people, not vaporize them?

The plasma weapons are capable of utilising 2.99 Gigawatts to vaporise a human, but we only need 1.21 Gigawatts to time travel. Priorities people!

2.99 Gigawatts?? GREAT SCOTT!!!

anyone else catch that "all part of a balanced breakfast"?

When The Hall of the Mountain King starts, you know it's going to escalate real fast

Sudden Old World Blues. I came a little.

You skipped a step: That's not hydrogen plasma it's shooting, as hydrogen plasma appears pink, not green. From my research, it appears that would have to be either mercury plasma or neon-xenon-krypton plasma, but note that the latter also has orange at the edges of the plasma which the plasma shots in Fallout seem to be lacking.

"We need to talk about the plasma rifle" Halo, DOOM, or fallout?

Computers went from taking up entire rooms to fitting in our pockets with way more power. It is not too surprising to think of the power of the massive damn to with enough time be put into a portable size

Actually if you go to the RobCo museum in Fallout NV you'll find out that plasma is something entirely different in the Fallout universe. It's nothing more than some sort of weird goo with unique properties.

"vaporized into goo puddles" since when is liquid a vapor?

I think the most terrifying thing about plasma and laser weapons is that it does not take that much of an increase in core body temperature of a person to kill them. You don’t need to instantly vaporize or gooify them to kill them, just give em a light roast

My favorite weapon in Fallout 4 is a plasma shotgun with the legendary mod. Each plasma pellet deals a separate explosive redial damage which shreds through most enemies (and allies so be careful). It also leaves a very satisfying explosive effect when you hit water.

2.99 gigawatts is also more than enough for two trips through time (which, of course, is 1.21 gigawatts).

its fun.... but some of your numbers are way off. Typical us home produces 20 tons of CO2 per year.... which is about the same energy as (all part numbers) same number of tons of TNT.... not 3/4 ton in 300 yrs! Vaporizing ppl basically is boiling the water. Ppl weigh 100kg..... boiling 100kg of water is not the energy used by the us home in 273 years. Some of these numbers are off by a few orders of magnitude. I could go on about laser rifles not having recoil....photons DO have momentum.... its a relativistic thing. Even if they didnt you would still get a recoil from the heated air. But generally quite a fun rant :-)

Imagine getting shot with a hydroelectric dam. Now you know how that super mutant feels.

I’m binging old THE SCIENCE videos and it is very weird watch Austin curse

Here I was, ready to whine about how underpowered plasma seems in FO4. Now I feel like an entitled jerk.

but you are not turning the super mutant into gas but liquid and your are not one shotting him

And thus why I have a mod that makes them only melt the flesh and just chars the skeleton (cross grit overhaul, for anyone that's curious)

This is all assuming that it's one-shoting everything, when reality you're pumping fusion cell after fusion cell into that behemoth before it changes it's state of matter. So if you take that into consideration it's probably a lot less energy per shot.

Gee, no wonder there was a resource war. The world's energy went into making cool guns that shoot glowing globs of awesome.

this guy would be a great voice actor for deadpool lol

4:14 Holy shit! It's enough for DeLorean to travel through time twice!

“I don’t swear that much! *it cuts to a compilation of every time he swore in the episode” Lol swear MORE!

ah yes, my magical slingshot that is loaded through a dimensional rift into the core of the sun.

You're doing it wrong. You're saying that the target is being vaporized in one shot. The targets aren't in game, rather, the energy is spread over several shots.

"It Just Works" -Todd Howard

I hear, "Hall of the Mountain King" in the background. Shits about to get goddamn terrifying.

like doctor Mobius always says science happens for a raisin

I mean... Fusion is hella powerful. Making it small is still a lot of power. The heat tho, yeah no.

WOAH THAT WAS A TURN "do they make sense" my brain has been yeeted down the hallway

"the specific material 1 degree Kelvin" "1 degree Kelvin" *degree Kelvin*

All this science would make an awesome game.

well I'm on the concept of halo, how the he'll does the needler work?

"Links in the doobldeedoo" I see. You're a man of quality as well.

As a resident (former) of Missouri I am honored for the first plasma weapon to have been manufactured here

It's hot as fuck!! SCIENCE!!!!!

Your math is wrong; or more specifically, you've applied it incorrectly. You are not achieving complete 100% vaporization of the human body, or what the figures were for. You are not turning the solids and liquids of a body into a gas (vapor). Instead, you are breaking just enough molecular bonds to turn people into a steamy puddle of goo; which takes much much less energy. Basically if you put maybe a stick of dynamite into a well armored container with a body (basically containing the explosive force just to the body, not letting any of it escape into the environment: efficiency), you can achieve the steamy puddle you are looking for.

I don't completely get a lot of the physics stiff I find these videos really entertaining, good job Austin.

I love this channel and helps me to now what I can use in my comic and how to use it properly

You are now officially my favourite youtuber.

I think a behemoth has at least 10 times the mass of an average human.

because I'm a nerd, I'm slowly making my own superhero comic universe, and one of my heroes has robotic arms that shoot plasma, and to get around how this is possible I made it so that it was an alien tech genius that gave her the plasma-shooting arms, but I haven't thought in depth about how this would affect her body or anything she shoots, so I really appreciate that this video exists to tell me about the weaponry potential of plasma guns

I see your kelvin calvin joke there 7 minutes in. I read those comics ALOT as a kid, i loved them

Have other science questions about games? Share them here so we can take a look. Follow us on Facebook | Facebook.com/ShoddyCast Follow us on Twitter | twitter.com/ShoddyCast Follow Austin | twitter.com/arhourigan Support the show | www.patreon.com/ShoddyCast

Right but how does this gun prevent the portal that scopes parts of the sun becoming unstable?

I am curious about your take on the particle projection cannon and its extended range version (PPC and ERPPC respectively) from the Battletech and Mechwarrior franchises. I think that science fiction setting is criminally underappreciated.

"Need biggest reactor in world" *Having nuclear battery size of a palm of a hand*

This is a game where you can shoot someone in the head point blank with a rifle and they can survive and keep fighting. I wouldn't spend much time analyzing the physics.

I like how energetic Austin is in this video

gotta love that use of Dr. Klein's "SCIENCE" its very fitting

I've always liked to think that, just like with the fact that lasers are silent, people EXPECT the weapons to make sounds and have recoil, so they are features built into the weapons.

Dear Bethesda. Why does my tin can give me pure steel?

here's one. how bout how do the halo gravity hammers work

Can anyone tell me please,what is the classical music that starts at 3.37 or so called? It's been bugging me for days and i can't remember what it's called

That little swear montage at 9:00 will be my new ringtone. :) Once I get a smartphone, that is.

last time I was this early a settlement needed my help

But thats just a theory ... a GAME THEORY.

Ahh the sound of classical music against Austin swearing more times in 10 minutes than I swear in a week is quite satisfying.

This subject needs to be revisited, but for the Plasma Gun of DOOM(1993, II, 64, 3, 2016, and Eternal). Just all of DOOM Plasma Guns. You've already done the BFG 9000 so not that (unless you feel like including an update on it with something new you find). I also have a couple recommendations for a starting point: Dense Plasma Focus, and The Safire Project. They are both laboratory experiments involving studies of plasma structures. The Safire Project being a sort of proof, laboratory evidence, of the validity of Electric Sun Model (which serves as an older alternative to the Standard Model of the Sun) as well as the next big step in Plasma based Fusion power. The Dense Plasma Focus being an earlier experiment in an effort to successfully produce a fusion reaction with plasma (a sort of very early precursor to The Safire Project) which succeeded in producing what is called a Plasmoid.

A slight problem I noticed in the video. Now, I'm not a scientist, so I don't know if this has changes anything, but the plasma usually doesn't kill an enemy in a single shot, therefor the heat of each plasma shot would not need to be that hot

how do Skyrim horses work?

Maybe the lazer recoil is parts moving inside the weapon as it fires? Moving parts? It's recoil looks more like the weapon is vibrating really hard.

well done, mate. Loved the video!

Just remember, when in doubt, it's not science the Falloutverse is using, it's SCIENCE!

when i was on 6th grade, my science teacher said stars were liquid i cringed so much

Hearing Austin curse after binging his the science series on Game Theory is so refreshing yet so weird

*To ShoddyCast* Since your character has to use several shots to kill a super mutant behemoth using a plasma rifle you would need to take an average across say 10 plus minimum behemoths to get an average amount of shots to kill then divide the requirements by that number. If it takes 20 rounds or more to kill a behemoth that definitely lowers the requirements by a lot.

ayy, I learned more physic from this video than what I can remember from highschool.

I would like to see this guy in Game Theory and Vice Versa.

Except that plasma weaponry doesn't usually kills most foes at the first shot. The only real explanation to the goofycation, (it is not vaporazing), it's that, when the victim it's close to dying, instead of transfering heat, the plasma can initiate a chain reaction that turns the rest of the body into more plasma, which would explain why the nearby area remains unnafected.

I guess "plasma" that is used as a projectile in Fallout is not a plasma we used to see in real life. It is more akin to some kind of exotic matter contained in a force field that ruptures upon contact, making weird_shit within come into physical reaction with the obstacle, breaking bonds between elemental particles and sometimes triggering chain reactions that explosivley reduce target to the pool of unedintifiable waste. Sometimes it leads to transmutation of target's element composition, thats why you find nuclear materials on desintergrated targets.

You're in a world where giant mutants are running around, the world is still inhabited straight after nukes have gone off all over the world, a guy in a fedora randomly spawns and one shots everyone and a raider can carry on firing at you after a .45 round to the face. Yet you're questioning whether plasma weapons are possible. Great vid though

That moment when you realizes that your practically shooting mini lightning bolts. DAUUUUUUUUM.

8:57 I like it when he swears. It's all just words to me.

Love the shout out to XKCD!

How do proton axes work in fallout new vegas?

I bet when he thought of making video, he said "Il have to science the shit out of it"

I can't believe even in modern videos from this series this dam is still the most powerful

Somehow cutting in Dr Mobius from old world blues just cracked me up.

Problem being that plasma weapons aren't "one shot killers". It takes multiple shots to melt someone. So, still implausible, but possible.

loved that swearing montage at end

That measurement system was beautiful

"Ain't no way micro fusion technology is that good" lol good one dude.

why am I watching this, I'm asian and trying to get a master's degree in biology not physics

So..... For the cost of melting 1 human you can go back in time, kiss your mother, almost prevent your self from getting born then return home to find you have a new car because of the butterfly effect.

Making human paste with a plasma rifle while listing to Austin talking about hauling chucks of the sun at the enemy

Man, i love your videos. so much science

Good god I love this series. Thank you for making this!

"Oh, not this shit again." *watches video anyway*

laser rifles could have recoil. depends on the power source. if you use explosive flux compression generators then the hot expanding gas would cause recoil.

8:58 We love you, Austin!

Not to mention that you grip the heatsink on the thing.

The letter series is amazing. Never stop this!

I fucking LOVE this shit. five years old and its still both entertaining and intellectually stimulating

"I don't curse that much, do I?" *13 second compilation of him cursing*