Dont really know the validity of this site but look what i found:
The guys found a way to make photons interact with each other and form “photon molecules” under no reason does this mean that actual light sabers could be real but does open for interesting possibilities (crystals made from light)
I think lightsabers in Star Wars were actually supposed to be a small, high energy force field that went straight out and curved back on itself. When it touched anything, the incoming and outgoing parts of the field shorted out, zapping whatever it was in contact with. In any event, if we must have a beam-swordesque weapon, I move for either the SS2 shock stick variety or the Deus Ex style quasi-solid blade built with Nantes (aka the Dragon’s Tooth Sword or DTS). Cata has some high-tech stuff, but afaik it has no mention of sustained energy fields (actually I think maybe one of the CBMs mentions force fields, but that could be just a one-off).
[quote=“Natures Witness, post:42, topic:3353”]Deus Ex style quasi-solid blade built with Nantes (aka the Dragon’s Tooth Sword or DTS).[/quote]Thats the ticket! a nanite sword that runs on UPS or internal power would fulfill the requirements of sword-from-nowhere and fit in the lore.
how would the heat from the laser/plasma/light sword not burn your hands and face swinging it around?
If I understand correctly, the DTS wasn’t necessarily a beam or anything, it was just infinitely self sharpening from the nanites.
[quote=“vache, post:44, topic:3353”]If I understand correctly, the DTS wasn’t necessarily a beam or anything, it was just infinitely self sharpening from the nanites.[/quote]yeah, it could grow from a small hilt or the forearm as a CBM alternative to Claws
Heck, properly made maille is enough to stop a katana. Quality leather armor would also provide protection assuming the guy using the sword hadn’t sharpened it to stupid-sharp levels without though about the usability beyond the first person he meets.
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There was a plasma “sword” in an open source XCOM game that I really liked. It had one charge, and that charge was only ever enough to get off one strike at close range before the fuel was spent. The briefness of the usability being said, it did do an otherworldly amount of damage when used.
There is also another plasma sword I recall in an old snes game called Metal Warriors. It’s basically a short range plasma thrower that the mech nevertheless swung like a sword. When it was swung it was like swinging a fluffy whip. The game somehow managed to pull making the thing look incredibly deadly off though, probably because the designers didn’t go the fancy unrealistic route and actually gave the sword the colours of something incredibly hot. On top of this, I think it gave me the impression that such a weapon was only useable because the mech swinging it around had a butt-load of thermoarmor to protect itself from the heat that it was releasing at arms-length, and would probably be unusable to any human being without protection.
Both these iterations injected a level of creativity and reworked the concept of an energy sword, if you’re going to throw away realism and consistency for thematic purposes, at the very least don’t copy the issue outright with a bit of fluff attached to it and then call it the end of the day. There is a paradox that goes bundled together with the rule of cool, and that is if you just toss in all the things that you think is cool without any thought to the each of those things’ relation to each other, the game might not actually be so cool at the end. Expanding and creating a game isn’t as easy as playing it, and some thought has to go into the process of making the setting consistent and, on some level, believable and cohesive.
IIRC the Dragon’s Tooth needed room for its blade: basically a nanite collection that you could solidify into the “blade” on command. Smushing the hilt in with the GEP, plasma rifle, flamer, and your batteries, picks, and multitools…wouldn’t work.
(It’s also called “Non-Eutactic Blade” in MJ12’s notes. Presumably because it wasn’t a solid piece of metal?)
Thus: forearm attachment would be non-retractable, and a sword would retain full volume requirements (but would likely be significantly lighter?).
Good point, and echoes what I’ve been saying. NaturesWitness and I came up with a heat blade concept that even GlyphGryph ended up being happy with, which is saying something. Don’t just say “I want a beam sword”. A lot of people have outlined the issues with a stereotypical beam sword in this thread. Feel free to suggests alternate depections of a beam sword that work around these criticisms, but just “add a beam sword” doesn’t really help.
That having been said, with the mod manager stuff we’re planning on having various options you can enable for types of content that we don’t feel fits in the main game, “sci-fantasy” is likely to be one of them for exactly this kind of “rule of cool” type stuff. Of course you still need someone to add the thing.
How about the Mc Burney Sword, Basicaly using a fusion battery in the hilt, you have mildly sharp sword, with nickelchrome wire running through it to the end and back to create the loop, Then you can make a sword that would burn whatever you hit. It would be like being hit with a sword with hot toasters on it. That and if you dip it in gas or send gas up along the blade aswell requiring gasoline aswell, that would ignite into a sort of beam blade. Lots of heat/fire damage, some cutting… I like axes more,
Idea’s for modifiers for swords, axes, maces, would be cool, like extra dense edge, mono-wire edge, actually thats all I have really.
That’s the thing, we already have that 
There’s a large variety of “flame swords”, but they are not going to work like the fantasy-like “slice through anything with no resistance” thing that is represented by beam swords.
Beam sword seems too unrealistic for Cataclysm - cataclysm isn’t 100% realistic but it has plausible explanation for things while a beam sword straight-up from scifi seems too strange for me.
What do you need – or want – beam swords for? The steel swords already implemented are more than good enough to kill most things in a single hit.