• This forum is strictly intended to be used by members of the VS Battles wiki. Please only register if you have an autoconfirmed account there, as otherwise your registration will be rejected. If you have already registered once, do not do so again, and contact Antvasima if you encounter any problems.

    For instructions regarding the exact procedure to sign up to this forum, please click here.
  • We need Patreon donations for this forum to have all of its running costs financially secured.

    Community members who help us out will receive badges that give them several different benefits, including the removal of all advertisements in this forum, but donations from non-members are also extremely appreciated.

    Please click here for further information, or here to directly visit our Patreon donations page.
  • Please click here for information about a large petition to help children in need.

Some Warhammer 40,000 Rescaling

Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot

VS Battles
Retired VSB Bureaucrat
15,614
7,054
So currently, we have Plasma Weapons at 6-A for certain qoutes comparing their firepower to a solar flare. After thinking some, I'm not too happy with this, as Plasma Weapons have often been given drastically different quotes regarding the scale of their power. These include having the power of a solar flare, the heat of a solar flare, being more intense than the core of the sun, exploding with the force of a newborn star, etc. Because of this, I wouldn't take such statements as 100% reliable, especially not for something that scales to so many weapons and characters.

What's my solution?

Well, let me introduce you to the conversion beamer.

Conversion Beamer2


The conversion beamer is an esoteric device used by the Imperium of Man as one of their many heavy ground-based weapons. A notable fact about the conversion beamer is that they are powerful enough to destroy their target on a subatomic level.

  • "These esoteric energy weapons fire a beam which induces a subatomic implosion in their target, with the beam itself gathering power over distance up to a terminal point of beam instability." - Horus Heresy Book I: Betrayal
Not only that, but the weapon is often used as a way to completely destroy tanks.

  • "A Conversion Beamer can annihilate creatures, vehicles, or anything its beam reaches, provided it is given time to build to critical mass." - Dark Heresy: Daemon Hunter
  • "This turns the Predator Executioner into an extremely powerful siege unit and long-range tank destroyer, but this firepower is gained at the cost of manoeuvrability and increased vulnerability to short-ranged attacks." - Forge World: Deimos Pattern Predator Executioner
If this can be calced, it would be a good way to scale other powerful heavy ground weapons, as (speak of the devil) a higher-end plasma weapon was comparable and often preferred to the beamer, albeit slightly less destructive.

  • "Only the forge world of Ryza is still able to manufacture the advanced photo-plasmic cells needed for the Executioner weapon, so many chapters whose Techmarines have sufficient skill and knowledge replace the Plasma Cannon with a C-beam Cannon." - Forge World: Deimos Pattern Predator Executioner
If necessary, I can try to dig up the dimensions and weight of an average 40k tank to potentially calc the beamer's output.

Help would be appreciated.
 
Okay.

On another note I read a quote about continent-craking weaponry in the book, lord of Prospero. It doesn't effect plasma guns, but it means that high-end space marine weaponry is still 6-A
 
@Matt

Most likely, since as opposed to being a potential flowery description, subatomic destruction of its target is consistently portrayed as the way a conversion beamer functions.

@MasterOfArda

Was this for ship weaponry or ground weaponry? Because the Legiones Astartes have ships with High 6-A single torpedoes.
 
So I managed to find canon size specifications for an average Land Raider, which is one of the most prevalent 40k heavy tanks.

"Weight: 72 tonnes

Length: 10.3 M

Width: 6.1 M

Height: 4.11 M

Ground Clearance: 0.45 M
" - Imperial Armour II

Sub-atomically destroying this ****** would likely serve well as the higher-end.

A Leman Russ battle tank could be a good lower-end, but I can't seem to find a canon size for those.
 
@Matt

Might turn up a lot of results. The HH series has a ton of quotes about how a single weapon from an Imperial battleship can wreck continents. lol
 
72 tonnes = 7.2e+7 grams

Density of steel: 8.05 g/cm^3

Volume = Mass / Density

7.2e+7 * 8.05 = 579,600,000 cm^3

Subatomic Destruction: 5.403e+13 j/c

579,600,000 * 5.403e+13 = 3.1315788e+22 Joules or 7.48 Teratons of TNT - Country level
 
@Matt

Well, a higher-end Plasma weapon is treated as comparable to/only slightly weaker than a heavy Conversion Beamer, so they likely would. Plasma weapons are often treated as the same intensity with only AOE magnified, so maybe a "likely" or something for the lesser guns would be good.
 
Okay so checking back on it, the Plasma Destroyer (largest tank-mountable Plas weapon) is roughly comparable to the Heavy Conversion Beamer (stronger and more cumbersome version of the regular one). Predator Executioners would usually mount either a Plasma Destroyer or Heavy Conversion Beamer. The Beamer was more effective at destroying tanks and seige warfare, but was usually not preferred when put next to the Plasma Destroyer, as it was almost as damaging, less cumbersome, and did not suffer from the Beamer's weakness of needing to be at long range for maximum damage output.

So I'd say they're roughly comparable. It would probably go something like Plasma < Melta < Lascannons and other high-tier las weapons ~ Beamer, but I think it's safe to assume they'd all be in relatively the same ballpark, earning a "likely" or "possibly" for things slightly below the beamer.
 
ArbitraryNumbers said:
72 tonnes = 7.2e+7 grams
Density of steel: 8.05 g/cm^3

Volume = Mass / Density

7.2e+7 * 8.05 = 579,600,000 cm^3

Subatomic Destruction: 5.403e+13 j/c

579,600,000 * 5.403e+13 = 3.1315788e+22 Joules or 7.48 Teratons of TNT - Country level
Did you acount for hollowness?
 
They do? I'd have to find a quote for that.

Also, if we want to be really safe, we can just scale lesser plasma weapons and stuff of that level to Necron Gauss Flayers.
 
MasterOfArda said:
Did you acount for hollowness?
I don't need to. When I divide the mass by the density, I already have the volume including the hollowness, since the mass already accounts for that.
 
"The righteous fury of the Adeptus Astartes' bolters flew at Joaqhuine once again, but not before the sub-atomic inferno of the meltagun had vaporised the Astral Fist's helmet clean off his towering shoulders. As Joaqhuine's body was subject to further explosive-tip molestation ― her arms and sausage curls thrown this way and that ― the battle-brother's hulking body hovered and then crashed to its knees. Both Saint and Space Marine hit the floor simultaneously and lay still."
Atlas Infernal, Pg 19-20
 
Hm. Based on the Necron feat, that seems closer to Mountain level for only destroying part of a body. Unless I am reading it wrong
 
@Matt

That would mean we could likely scale high-grade Melta weapons to Conversion Beam weapons, then, as both operate on a subatomic level and are used to destroy tanks and as seige weapons.
 
I tryed some quick division. If that helmet is one kg, divide the resault for the tank by 72 thousand to get low-end Mountain level. But I could be totally wrong.
 
It's not a problem. Here's the calc, by the way.

This could potentially be a good way to scale. Lower-end heavy weapons could scale to Necron Gauss Flayers, which can sub-atomically tear apart a Space Marine with a single shot. This is a good limit for the guns, as it takes many shots/combined fire to do something similar to a slightly bulkier and more durable foe.

Then higher-end heavy weapons (the stuff usually used to **** up heavy tanks) could scale to Conversion Beamers, since they can sub-atomically destroy tanks and monstrous creatures.
 
Also, it should be obvious, but stuff like Titans are easily deserving of an "At least", as they are waaaaaaay above this, and some Titans are orders of magnitude above others.

As an example, Imperator Titans (the largest of the Imperial variety) are obscenely more powerful than Warlord Titans, the next grade down. In fact, in Titanicus, several dozen Titans, including a great many Warlords, are shown as next to nothing compared to an Imperator. They only manage to collapse its void shields by all simultaneously hitting the exact same weak spot on them with their strongest weapons, and then take an entire ten minutes of unloading on the ****** with everything they've got in order to kill it.

Warlords are well above Reavers.

Reavers are well above Warhounds.

And even a Warhound carries weapons far greater than a heavy conversion beamer, which can be mounted on a mere Contemptor Dreadnought.
 
@Matt

Do you mean Greater Daemons when not jobbing and portrayed as the catastrophic threats they truly are? Yeah they're probably comparable to low-mid ones.
 
Back
Top