And lo on Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:15:39 +0100, Jim Henderson  
<nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:

> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 08:40:06 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> You forgot "It shoots through walls", altho I must admit I never really
>> learned to take advantage of that feature, given the difficulty of
>> *aiming* thru walls.
>
> I liked the approach taken in Perfect Dark with the gun that could do
> that - there was a sort of "X-Ray view" that could be used.
>
> It took a little practice to figure out how to use it, but it worked very
> nicely once you got the hang of it.

Red Faction 1 & 2 had an thermal vision rail gun which was very cool;  
one-shot kill, but slow to reload if you missed. Oh and some of the bad  
guys had them too ouch.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Phil Cook wrote:
> Red Faction 1 & 2 had an thermal vision rail gun which was very cool; 

Or the cursed Celtic Scythe that had the mode it would suck up the 
life-force from whoever's limbs you chopped off with it.  *Very* slow to 
"reload" as you had to wait for it to finish sucking up the hit points, 
but useful if you knew only one enemy was near.

Or the Invoke spell, that either brings (some types of) dead enemies 
back to life to fight for you, or causes (some types of) live enemies to 
commit suicide.  Just don't use it on the enemies with the dynamite, 
unless you have somewhere to run to very quickly.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:00:38 +0200, Le Forgeron wrote:

> Le 22.10.2007 04:17, Jim Henderson nous fit lire :
>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:40:09 +0100, Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>>> I'm reminded of that film that came out a while ago. ("True Lies"?)
>>> The guy zooms in with an X-ray scope, where he can see the target's
>>> heart beating and everything... but when he pulls the trigger, the gun
>>> blows half the building away. I mean, dude, did you *need* to aim the
>>> thing??
>> 
>> I'm wondering if it wasn't Minority Report....
> 
> Nope, the movie name in french was "L'effaceur", "Eraser" in english.
> The projectile was a very fine needle (and it fires a lot of them),
> spinning along the fireline, propels by a strong magnetic accelerator
> (the gun).
> The visual was not X-Ray, but ultrasound and detects the surface-change
> of density (reflection anyone ?).

Ah yes, that's the one. :-)

Jim

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Le Forgeron wrote:

>> I'm wondering if it wasn't Minority Report....

No, it wasn't.

> Nope, the movie name in french was "L'effaceur", "Eraser" in english.

Ah, yeah, I thought it might be. I can never remember which was which...

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> Mmm... I wonder if I could model it with POV-Ray...?

...no, I can't.

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And lo on Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:34:58 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> Red Faction 1 & 2 had an thermal vision rail gun which was very cool;
>
> Or the cursed Celtic Scythe that had the mode it would suck up the  
> life-force from whoever's limbs you chopped off with it.  *Very* slow to  
> "reload" as you had to wait for it to finish sucking up the hit points,  
> but useful if you knew only one enemy was near.
>
> Or the Invoke spell, that either brings (some types of) dead enemies  
> back to life to fight for you, or causes (some types of) live enemies to  
> commit suicide.  Just don't use it on the enemies with the dynamite,  
> unless you have somewhere to run to very quickly.

Clive Barker's "Undying" for those wondering. I'm looking forward to  
"Jericho" now I've got something that'll play it. Oh and yeah I did like  
Invoke.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Le Forgeron wrote:
> 
>>> I'm wondering if it wasn't Minority Report....
> 
> No, it wasn't.
> 
>> Nope, the movie name in french was "L'effaceur", "Eraser" in english.
> 
> Ah, yeah, I thought it might be. I can never remember which was which...

Eraser is a ridiculous film in many ways, and although the basic premise 
for the gun is a real one, I'm not too convinced by its high-tec 
sighting software or the dubious claim that it can fire projectiles at 
near lightspeed (especially when you can see them moving onscreen when 
they do fire). It does have one of the Governator's 'best' crap 
one-liners, however - during a gunfight at a zoo they unwittingly 
release a large crocodile, which Arnie then dispatches with the line 
"You're lugguge!"

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> although the basic premise for the gun is a real one, 

Sure. You try holding a weapon that fires something at relativistic speeds.

If you want a realistic treatment, read "A Boy And His Tank."  Anyone 
outside the armored vehicles within about 300 meters was toast.

>I'm not too convinced by its high-tec 
> sighting software 

No.

> or the dubious claim that it can fire projectiles at near lightspeed 

That's what a railgun is for.

>(especially when you can see them moving onscreen when 
> they do fire). 

You're only seeing the shockwave. ;-)


-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Darren New wrote:

>> although the basic premise for the gun is a real one, 
> 
> Sure. You try holding a weapon that fires something at relativistic speeds.
> 
> If you want a realistic treatment, read "A Boy And His Tank."  Anyone 
> outside the armored vehicles within about 300 meters was toast.

I read somewhere that if you were to fire a "bullet" at near-light 
speeds, it would be more like bein irradiated with "lead radiation" than 
being hit by a solid object...

But anyway, even without relativity, the recoil would be absurd.

>> or the dubious claim that it can fire projectiles at near lightspeed 
> 
> That's what a railgun is for.

Well... technically a railgun (not to be confused with a coilgun) fires 
projectiles using electrical propolsion. There's nothing in the 
definition about how fast. ;-)

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>> If you want a realistic treatment, read "A Boy And His Tank."  Anyone 
>> outside the armored vehicles within about 300 meters was toast.
> 
> I read somewhere that if you were to fire a "bullet" at near-light 
> speeds, it would be more like bein irradiated with "lead radiation" than 
> being hit by a solid object...

Well, in an atmosphere, it would be like being hit by an explosion, as 
you pile up all the air in front of it. Plus, don't forget all that nice 
gamma-burst radiation. (The railguns in the story actually had to fire 
for a few thousand rounds to punch a hole in the atmosphere so the 
needles wouldn't just vaporize.)

> But anyway, even without relativity, the recoil would be absurd.

Yep. If it can go thru a concrete wall coming out the front, the stock 
can certainly break your shoulder. I mean, the big guns on a battle ship 
will roll the ship in the water, and there's a serious problem with 
modern tanks getting rolled over if they're traveling fast when they 
fire a shell a couple miles, even if it's only a sabot.

> Well... technically a railgun (not to be confused with a coilgun) fires 
> projectiles using electrical propolsion. There's nothing in the 
> definition about how fast. ;-)

True. But to get the electrical propultion to work, the projectile needs 
to be pretty small, which means it needs to go pretty fast. Otherwise 
it's more of a thrower than a firearm. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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