"Do you feel lucky, Punk?"

"That's a laser revolver, the chambers aren't left empty."

"Quiet, you!"

Now I'm kinda interested in how this would work, or rather how it'd work like a revolver. Like maybe you only get as many shots as chambers because each one holds a heat sink of some kind? Maybe expendable, maybe not. I can imagine a Cool But Impractical design where you pop out the cylinder to rotate it to cool them off, then you can shoot again.

Of course, a Laser Revolver is kinda silly to begin with, and probably fits the Cool But Impractical trope very well. XD However it works, it looks cool, but it may not be as practical as other designs.

Still love it though. =) And considering how big she is, and thus how big the gun is, nobody's gonna be knocking how "impractical" it is when she's shooting it!

The Coalition of Shattered Stars, (The Canon faction Shurya is part of) utilizes "Laser Cartridges". Each cartridge is a high power capacitor and an initial focusing lens. The idea is that the Capacitor can be overcharged and then triggered with far more power as a one use charge where you don't have to worry about burning out and destroying the Capacitor, than capacitors designed to be reused.

The initial focusing lens also is designed to be one use, harnessing the power into a coherent beam just long enough to get the beam out before warping and melting under the heat of the capacitor. This allows for the beams of the lasers to be extremely more powerful per-shot than contemporary laser weapons which have to meter their output for heat, capacitor life, and battery life. Each capacitor is about the same weight as a 7.62 nato round, but slightly more compact. All capacitors are the same diameter, (Around 10mm) though handguns have a "Short" capacitor.

The general idea is that laser weapons are easier for a person to handle as you only need to worry about putting the crosshairs on target, rather than windage, elevation, and the like. But, laser weapons are often less "Punchy" than projectile weapons. The coalition merged the two by making an easy to use weapon (Ie laser weapon) with a punchy cartridge weapon. Coalition laser weapons tend to hit targets and flash-vaporize chunks of material around the impact point. Gasses expand, fluids expand. So when the laser hits on target, it tends to act like a small explosive charge inside the surface of whatever it's hit. Be it flesh, body armor, ect.

Because there is no recoil, no gasses, the initial Coalition cartridge lasers tended to be bolt action or single/Double action revolvers. That way if the cartridges/capacitors expanded you could force the chamber open and chamber a new cartridge. More modern laser weapons utilize some "Bleed off" energy to work a semi-automatic and automatic mechanism for chambering new cartridges.

Neat! I like the idea! Makes enough sense and it's really cool. =) There are probably ways to guard against it (certain heat/light resistant armors maybe?), but you've still got a lot of energy hitting something and heating it up way too fast. About the only thing that might cause problems would be anything that messes with the beam's cohesion. Even with a lot of precision, it's still a form of light, and it can be refracted somewhat. Maybe even reflected! Heck, there's these neat mirrors we use as reflectors on signs and cars, and they've even been put on the moon. They're designed to return most of the light back where it came from, since they're built such that any light beams that hit them pull a 180 and go back to the source.

This could, perhaps, provide some one-use armor that returns the laser blast to the shooter. Or more specifically, to the gun itself. Probably won't be able to survive the process, even if it returns most or all of the light, but it'll ruin somebody's day somewhere. Only problem I can see is that it might be expensive to produce something that's one-use only and may not even return fire on the shooter himself! Especially if it has to stand up to the kinds of energy we're talking about, which is already melting the lens in the cartridge of the gun. Might be better to just make armor that diffracts the light, even a little bit, to weaken the beam. But I'm not sure that'd work since, once again, we're dealing with a lot of energy hitting a small point in a very brief period of time. You might be better off with armor that can just absorb a lot of heat before melting. Probably would have to take it off if it gets too hot, or just go with no armor and be very quick... and very lucky!

In any case, it's probably best just not to give anyone a reason to shoot you. =P Or better yet, a reason not to shoot you in case they want to anyway for no reason! Getting shot at is never a fun time.

The Coalition goes up against some pretty heavy duty power armor fellows, and the power armor tends to have thermal ablative armor. Kind've like the bricks on the space shuttle. It spreads the head and explodes outwards, shattering, but it's able to diffuse atleast one, maybe two shots as long as they are in different locations. It's heavy though, which makes it mostly a Power Armor piece of equipment, or plating for a light or medium vehicle.

The effectiveness is why the Coalition uses it. The cartridges are heavier, one use, and essentially ammunition just like Chemical projectile guns like modern day weapons. So it's a trade off for an energy weapon... but it gives the standard trooper a bit more of a chance than if they were say using a "Flashlight", like Imperial Guard in the WH40k. The trade off is that their guns fire slower, with the majority of Coalition troops being equipped with bolt action rifles. The British "Mad Minute" style is quite common in the Coalition.

awesome artwork :D

Thankyou so much!