Effectiveness of ME kinetic barriers

[Perseid]

Inspired by the recent Normandy vs White Star thread, I'm wondering just how effective kinetic barriers would be against the various energy weapons that are seen in other sci fi.

So how would they fair against:
1. Goa'ld staff cannons (plasma cannons I believe)
2. Traveller particle cannons (SGA)
3. Phasors, all varieties

I'd suggest others, but I can't really think of any mid weight sci fi that uses something that isn't a variation on the above types, if anyone can think of one please suggest it.

For ease assume that kinetic barriers work as advertised, ie they block kinetic components of incoming weapons fire.

[Simon_Jester]

If mass-effect barriers work by slowing down fast moving objects in a "slow blade passes" sense, then they are not going to work worth a damn against phasers. Gou'ald staff weapon bolts appear to move slowly enough that they may consist of physical blobs of particles that can be stopped by the barrier and not impact their targets.

[Sea Skimmer]

I'd contend for all we actually know about phaser functioning, even a slight reduction or redirection in the particle velocity might make them loose beam coherence, reflect, or even cease to exist completely. Which would also be kinda compliant with the way phasers never seem to have any target penetration except sometimes burning clothing, which could be from reflected thermal effects on the skin, or a complete but propagating disintegration. But really they are so inconsistent we can't determine this sort of thing with any accuracy.

The staff weapons explode on impact more or less consistently if not with equal force, which suggests its some kind of packet of material which looses containment on impact. That containment may only be a property of the way the mass is fired, but lost it is on impacts. A kinetic shield should thus be able to trigger that reaction. However it would not be certain that say, thermal energy would not then still reach the target in effective amounts, at least against personal. You only need something like 600 joules to turn entire human face into third degree burns if the energy is delivered with enough intensity.... just think about what would happen if you pressed your face against a 100 watt incandescent blub for a few seconds. Of course against a warship hull a purely thermal effect would be far less effective.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd contend for all we actually know about phaser functioning, even a slight reduction or redirection in the particle velocity might make them loose beam coherence, reflect, or even cease to exist completely. Which would also be kinda compliant with the way phasers never seem to have any target penetration except sometimes burning clothing, which could be from reflected thermal effects on the skin, or a complete but propagating disintegration. But really they are so inconsistent we can't determine this sort of thing with any accuracy.

This is a fair point. The main problem is that we know effectively nothing about actual phaser function as far as I know, aside from "they can stun, burn, kill you dead, or outright fucking disintegrate you."

So it's hard to determine whether a phaser fires a laser-like beam that works on exotic physics principles, a stream of particles, a beam that depends upon a stream of particles, a stream of particles that depends upon a beam, or any combination of the above.

I do think it'd be one of the two extremes. Either kinetic barriers would have no effect whatsoever on a phaser beam because it isn't made out of massive particles*... Or they would be extremely effective and almost impossible to bring down with phaser fire because phaser beams have minimal momentum transfer and only a limited amount of direct energy transfer under anything like normal operating conditions.

*I use 'massive particles' in the sense of 'particles that have mass,' not in the sense of 'particles that are particularly heavy.'

The staff weapons explode on impact more or less consistently if not with equal force, which suggests its some kind of packet of material which looses containment on impact. That containment may only be a property of the way the mass is fired, but lost it is on impacts. A kinetic shield should thus be able to trigger that reaction. However it would not be certain that say, thermal energy would not then still reach the target in effective amounts, at least against personal. You only need something like 600 joules to turn entire human face into third degree burns if the energy is delivered with enough intensity.... just think about what would happen if you pressed your face against a 100 watt incandescent blub for a few seconds. Of course against a warship hull a purely thermal effect would be far less effective.

Also, as I understand it, Mass Effect ground troops usually wear reasonably effective and durable body armor that is fairly good protection against small arms fire in its own right. That would be fairly effective protection against a broad-front blast of thermal energy, or could be made to serve as protection with minor modification*. Moreover, a ground soldier's barrier field appears to be a network of interlocked planes that lies at considerable standoff distance from the user.

So with the kinetic barrier to, ah, metaphorically decap an incoming bolt from a staff weapon, armored troopers would have a pretty good chance of laughing off staff bolts.

*For example, Mass Effect also has pretty good heat-sink technology, small enough to serve as a clip-analogue for railgun-type firearms.

[Grumman]

Even if run-of-the-mill Mass Effect armours could not protect against the resulting thermal effects of a staff blast exploding against the shield, the Devlon Industries stuff probably would.

[Perseid]

So really we could expect kinetic barriers to put up an excellent resistance to energy weapons, espcially particle beam based weapons, within the ships ability to generate enough power to resist.

From what I recall of Mass Effect, doesn't being set on fire cause your suit to degrade? There's pyro enemies in ME2, so maybe on the ground a plasma weapon, like the staff weapon, would be quite effective even if it doesn't burn through the armour quickly. I mean the barrier would take out the kinetic component but you'd still have a ball of plasma heading towards you.

Is there anywhere that calcs for kinetic energy of a particle weapon can be done? Say converting the Joule value of the weapon into a newtonian value...

[Ted C]

The ME codex specifically states that barriers are not effective against directed-energy weapons. They have ablative armor for protection against beams.

[Perseid]

The ME codex specifically states that barriers are not effective against directed-energy weapons. They have ablative armor for protection against beams.

Against a pure directed energy weapon, like a Laser, I'd agree. However the majority of other Sci Fi energy weapons seem to have some form of kinetic component. Yes the Collector particle beam seemed to slice right through, at least until the cyclonic barriers were implemented.

It's one of the things that bugged me about some of the tech in Mass Effect, the barriers don't seem to slow down the particle beam, when a particle beam is a charged kinetic weapon. The other is that while they have FTL comms and travel they don't have FTL sensors... which would raise the question of how do they avoid hitting things while travelling at FTL speeds...
Bioware just don't seem to have given any thought to technical problems like those when they created ME.

[Ted C]

The ME codex specifically states that barriers are not effective against directed-energy weapons. They have ablative armor for protection against beams.

Against a pure directed energy weapon, like a Laser, I'd agree. However the majority of other Sci Fi energy weapons seem to have some form of kinetic component. Yes the Collector particle beam seemed to slice right through, at least until the cyclonic barriers were implemented.

The barrier must somehow detect an incoming mass and determine that its relative velocity is enough to be dangerous before it attempts to repel or deflect it. The particles in a beam may not have enough mass to activate the barrier.

[Perseid]

The ME codex specifically states that barriers are not effective against directed-energy weapons. They have ablative armor for protection against beams.

Against a pure directed energy weapon, like a Laser, I'd agree. However the majority of other Sci Fi energy weapons seem to have some form of kinetic component. Yes the Collector particle beam seemed to slice right through, at least until the cyclonic barriers were implemented.

The barrier must somehow detect an incoming mass and determine that its relative velocity is enough to be dangerous before it attempts to repel or deflect it. The particles in a beam may not have enough mass to activate the barrier.

Which would imply a highly sensitive passive sensor system that can detect incoming mass travelling fast enough to be a threat to the ship, which doesn't seem possible when the main sensor net on all ships is limited to light speed sensors. Also if they could reliably detect the mass of an object then the Normandy's stealth systems wouldn't be focused purely on hiding their heat.

[Simon_Jester]

So really we could expect kinetic barriers to put up an excellent resistance to energy weapons, espcially particle beam based weapons, within the ships ability to generate enough power to resist.

...Well. It's not really clear to me how a kinetic barrier handles relativistic particle beams, as distinct from solid projectiles going at 'only' speeds of hundreds or thousands of meters per second.

From what I recall of Mass Effect, doesn't being set on fire cause your suit to degrade? There's pyro enemies in ME2, so maybe on the ground a plasma weapon, like the staff weapon, would be quite effective even if it doesn't burn through the armour quickly. I mean the barrier would take out the kinetic component but you'd still have a ball of plasma heading towards you.

If the bolt of plasma (or whatever) from the staff bursts on hitting the barrier, it will tend to be dispersed and spread out and be less harmful to the armor surface.

Is there anywhere that calcs for kinetic energy of a particle weapon can be done? Say converting the Joule value of the weapon into a newtonian value...

The energy of a beam of particles-with-mass is ALL kinetic energy. The question is, does a kinetic barrier work as well against a kilojoule of kinetic energy from incoming matter that moves at 500 m/s as it does against a kilojoule of kinetic energy from matter that moves at half the speed of light? The amount of energy is equal but that doesn't mean the effect is identical.

It's one of the things that bugged me about some of the tech in Mass Effect, the barriers don't seem to slow down the particle beam, when a particle beam is a charged kinetic weapon.

It may well be that the barrier cannot slow things down by more than, say, ten kilometers per second. That will stop almost any remotely imaginable bullet, but it has virtually no effect on a charged particle beam.

The other is that while they have FTL comms and travel they don't have FTL sensors... which would raise the question of how do they avoid hitting things while travelling at FTL speeds...

They can spot celestial bodies in advance and use navigational charts to predict their location. They might not know where ships are while in FTL, but the odds of emerging from FTL drive and physically ramming another spaceship are tiny, compared to the (avoidable) risks of ramming a star or a planet.

[Sea Skimmer]

Even if run-of-the-mill Mass Effect armours could not protect against the resulting thermal effects of a staff blast exploding against the shield, the Devlon Industries stuff probably would.

A cotton shirt would start to protect you. As it is the Nomex uniforms for say tank crews are meant to take no damage what so ever from a flame exposure intensive enough to cause charred third degree burns to exposed skin. 8 kilo calories per square centimeter I want to say it is the normal NATO standard for this. The actual results are dependent on your skin tone. Something like a 1.5 k/cal gap between whitest people and darkest people. Which randomly means we can call nuclear war RACIST!

Thermal attacks though are tricky like blast attacks, in that they are more or less uniform in effect, meaning that even slight gaps or exposures such as your eyes and eyelids, are going to to be ruthlessly exploited. Its not probabilistic the way fragment or bullet wounds are, where you can assign a low probability to a small gap being struck in any given scenario, and concentrate protection on the most vulnerable areas with good results.

The thermal pulse is going to simply affect 100% of a large area within line of sight. So without specific protection measures and good joint and overlapping design features you'd end up with people whom might well easily survive the attack, but will have crippling burns anyway. I dunno crap on what Mass effect medical technology is like, buy you'd have to be pretty damn advanced to return someone to combat the same day (aka to avoid evacuating them to the rear) if they had burned eye lids.

Its not a hard subject to deal with really, but its the sort of detail sci fi and videogames are excellent at ignoring if you want to scrutinize them.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, Mass Effect has plenty of combat armors that are (so far as I know) designed to be functional in vacuum and space combat. So I assume they have faceplates that would screen out fairly intense thermal pulses.

[Grumman]

Well, Mass Effect has plenty of combat armors that are (so far as I know) designed to be functional in vacuum and space combat. So I assume they have faceplates that would screen out fairly intense thermal pulses.

They all are - the first game lets you walk around on the Moon at one point and the only thing you have to do is put your helmet on. It's just that there are some that provide even better protection than that, letting you survive indefinitely in atmospheres above a hundred degrees Celsius.

[Starglider]

I dunno crap on what Mass effect medical technology is like, buy you'd have to be pretty damn advanced to return someone to combat the same day (aka to avoid evacuating them to the rear) if they had burned eye lids.

In game, it is as ridiculous as the average first-person shooter; 'medi-gel' can instantly fully heal any non-fatal wound and revive squadmates who are unconscious on the ground bleeding out after being shot in the head and/or gut several times.

Out of game, pretty good but not ridiculous (roughly on a par with the Trek universe I think). Garrus takes a lot of rifle rounds over a few days of being holed up and nearly dies; it takes days in a frigate's medical bay and some cybernetics to fix him up. Ashley/Kaiden gets beaten up by an android, which breaks their back and causes severe bruising, it takes them a few months to make a full recovery in the best hospital available. Sheppard gets caught in an explosion, exposed to hard vacuum (due to suit puncture), suffocates, freezes, dessicates and possibly makes a re-entry (unclear if they recovered her/him in orbit or not). Bringing Sheppard back from that took several years, lots of cybernetics and an almost unlimited budget.

[Adam Reynolds]

In game, it is as ridiculous as the average first-person shooter; 'medi-gel' can instantly fully heal any non-fatal wound and revive squadmates who are unconscious on the ground bleeding out after being shot in the head and/or gut several times.

The primary explanation for this is that it isn't actually healing the invididual as much as it is repairing their armor. While it doesn't quite work when the character is bleeding on the ground, it still works better than most video games.

[Simon_Jester]

If they're not explicitly shown bleeding, you can just assume they suffered severe armor damage, bad enough that now they can't walk.

I can imagine a lot of designs for powered armor that would lose mobility without being penetrated fully and seriously injuring the user.

[Imperial528]

I've always assumed medigel was a combination instant-bandage, disinfectant, and local anesthetic. It stops the bleeding and the pain so you can still fight, and it stops the wound from getting worse. However, it doesn't actually fix you up, you'll still need actual treatment. Like in ME3, that guy on the citadel who loses his leg to infection. Medigel was applied to the wound, but not in time to prevent severe infection in the leg and tissue damage.

[Simon_Jester]

That would work on minor injuries, but a lot of more serious wounds would still put you out of action- medigel wouldn't reliably get a seriously injured combatant back on their feet and fit for combat.

[Crazedwraith]

I've always assumed medigel was a combination instant-bandage, disinfectant, and local anesthetic. It stops the bleeding and the pain so you can still fight, and it stops the wound from getting worse. However, it doesn't actually fix you up, you'll still need actual treatment. Like in ME3, that guy on the citadel who loses his leg to infection. Medigel was applied to the wound, but not in time to prevent severe infection in the leg and tissue damage.

I think that's more or less what the fluff says. Like the effect Mass Effect Wiki for example.

I file it under acceptable breaks from reality. It's a hand wave for a game mechanic. Games need health packs. The future tech just make it slightly more plausible than bandages in a WWII game or Max Payne's painkillers.

[Imperial528]

That would work on minor injuries, but a lot of more serious wounds would still put you out of action- medigel wouldn't reliably get a seriously injured combatant back on their feet and fit for combat.

Yeah, it wouldn't, but for gameplay purposes something has to.

[Adam Reynolds]

That would work on minor injuries, but a lot of more serious wounds would still put you out of action- medigel wouldn't reliably get a seriously injured combatant back on their feet and fit for combat.

Yeah, it wouldn't, but for gameplay purposes something has to.

Dialog from Conrad Verner in ME3, in which he criticized the switch to thermal clips over overheating and from Liara in Lair of the Shadow Broker, in which she commented about the habit of pouring omnigel into security locks in the first game seems to indicate that gameplay actually is reality.

[Lord of the Abyss]

If mass-effect barriers work by slowing down fast moving objects in a "slow blade passes" sense, then they are not going to work worth a damn against phasers. Gou'ald staff weapon bolts appear to move slowly enough that they may consist of physical blobs of particles that can be stopped by the barrier and not impact their targets.

Hand phasers at least aren't lightspeed weapons. In that one classic Trek episode with the "fast aliens" that sped Kirk up phasers were slow enough to dodge easily. But the alien's own weapons weren't that slow, and they still could see pretty normally. For all we know beams from hand phasers aren't any faster than bullets.

[Simon_Jester]

On the other hand, in itself that doesn't mean the beams are made out of matter that can be slowed down by a mass effect field.

Since phasers very blatantly don't work on Standard Model physics it's hard to say how they 'ought' to behave, and it's unwise to assume that if they propagate at speeds lower than light they must be beams of massive particles.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that phasers would work very very well, or very very poorly, against a mass effect field, but it's hard to predict which.

[Caiaphas]

From what little I remember of the Mass Effect codex, the way that shields work is that they generate a really sharp gravitational field gradient at a certain distance away from the emitter. Smaller objects that hit that gradient experience a sharp change in mass at the front, and the resulting change in momentum deflects sufficiently small, fast-moving objects. Larger objects can pass through without being deflected for whatever reason.