According to page 169 all basic guns can now have silencers. How on earth is this correct? A silencer on a melta/plasma gun seems ridiculous.

The 40k world can silence a bolter. You know, the rpg gun that fires shells that explode on impact. Silencing guns who's audio/visual workings they can't quite keep consistent and who rarely makes any mention of making noise to begin with should be no greater a challenge.

Most easily explained way to silence both would be to put a small noise cancellation device on the weapons keyed to whatever noises they make upon hitting and firing. You pull the trigger, it plays the same noises slightly out of sync, canceling out the sound. Voila, silenced weapon of your choice.

Stummer! It's not just for sneaking anymore!

Makes a bit of sense, seeing as how the silencer doesn't make the inmpact quiet but the firing itself quiet, and last I checked Meltaweapons were pretty much silent as is, they just make a popping sound as the air molecules are heated, while plasma weapons make a sound as the plasma dishcarge leaves the weapon and vapourizes the hydrogen in the air to fuel the blast.

Then again, things do change, and mesh armour doesn't stop meltaweapons like it use to either.

I guess if you're into the hard-science side of things and there is a bit of room for that in WH40K (if you make the Adeptus Mechanicus go away), the silencer might not be the traditional baffled tube as we know it that disperses sound and instead uses a waveform phase counter emitter.

MKX said:

Or, as Graver mentioned above, the stummer! A fully ad-mech endorsed piece of gear. Attaching one to a weapon? THAT'S heretek!

May I ask what on earth a stummer is?

A small item that cancels out sound by repeating it slightly out of phase. Normally used for sneaking, but the principle could easily be used a silencer as well.

How a stummer works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control

Now all I need is a set of headphones with this tuned to my wifes voice...

I would say that it is a typo. The point of a silencer is make your shots harder to pin point. Both melta and plasma weapons have noticeable shots (mega doom laser and bolts as bright as a star) that won't be affected in any way by a stummer. Penalty to per to notice the shot. Not a chance.

The melta is heat. Pure, insane, cook your flesh straight off your bones heat. Heat has no color, it might at best be seen as "wavy air". So if you for some reason decide to, say, sneak into an enemy base and cook their tanks to slag before a battle, a silencer would be useful. You know, so the guards don't hear that telltale sizzle and pop.

As for the plasma, yes, it is a big blue bolt. It's a very fast moving big blue bolt. So yes, you'd notice it was fired at you, because light. You might have a harder time pinpointing the exact location said bolt was fired from, because it moved about as fast as a bullet, which you can't see quick enough to notice where it came from. If there was sound, however, you could very well notice it's direction. So once again, a silencer would make it harder to pinpoint the shooter. Not impossible, but harder.

Likewise, if said plasma was fired inside a house and you were standing outside of it, you'd probably not notice the light. You would, however, notice the sound. Eliminating the sound would thus alleviate stealth.

In the end, we're being of several senses. Removing one of them from the equation makes us less perceptive. Removing the ability to hear a shot would make it harder to notice that shot.

The melta is heat. Pure, insane, cook your flesh straight off your bones heat. Heat has no color, it might at best be seen as "wavy air". So if you for some reason decide to, say, sneak into an enemy base and cook their tanks to slag before a battle, a silencer would be useful. You know, so the guards don't hear that telltale sizzle and pop.

Depending on the source (among others, the Commissar Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) series and Dawn of War), meltaweapons are often depicted as producing an insanely bright light, likely due to incandescense.

As for the plasma, yes, it is a big blue bolt. It's a very fast moving big blue bolt. So yes, you'd notice it was fired at you, because light. You might have a harder time pinpointing the exact location said bolt was fired from, because it moved about as fast as a bullet, which you can't see quick enough to notice where it came from. If there was sound, however, you could very well notice it's direction. So once again, a silencer would make it harder to pinpoint the shooter. Not impossible, but harder.

If the bolt hasn't been fired directly at you, chances are you'd have afterimages that would help you pinpoint it.

Reverend mort said:

Metlas do have a visual effect. Like I said, doom lasers. They are easily bright enough to blind a person looking directly at the beam, assuming they have no eye protection of course.

More than that. Brush up on your science, heat produces visible light when there is enough of it. Red hot metal is an excellent example of this. So are smoldering coals.

Harder than noticing something only an idiot would miss isn't much of an improvement.

This is a pointless argument. I'm fairly sure melta and plasma included on silencers is a typo. It wouldn't surprise me if they said in an faq or errata that it stands though, just because the possibility grounds for hilarity.

DJSunhammer said:

@DJSunhammer

This is a pointless argument. I'm fairly sure melta and plasma included on silencers is a typo. It wouldn't surprise me if they said in an faq or errata that it stands though, just because the possibility grounds for hilarity.

Who cares about silenced meltas when he can have a belt-fed bow?

Remember the most important rule for the HW40k-universe: The Rule of Cool!

Would it be cool with a silenced melta-/plasmagun? Not in my interpretation of the world. They are cool because they are arcane, destructive, badly understood pieces of ancient tech that baffles and humiliates users and victims alike with their explosive displays of power barely controlled.

Another group of players might find it even more cool with high-tech-spec-ops weapons as Reverend Mort suggested. If so, they should have silenced meltas and plasmas.

As far as my science goes, wich is not that far mind you, a melta seems to create an impressive amount of heat, easily enough to ignite any oxygen particels in the air, making them create miniature explosions, creating both sound and light. Exactly the same principle of an ionising laser, only much hotter.

Cifer said:

Shouldn't that be a silenced belt-fed bow?

Hygric said:

Now all I need is a set of headphones with this tuned to my wifes voice...

It'll be less painful for you being shot by a belt fed harpoon gun, then dragged behind a sodomy marines combat bike through a swamp of lemon juice and broken glass after she finds out.

Nightsorrow said:

"Melta usage is accompanied by a distinctive hissing sound as the beam boils away the water in the air, then a roaring blast as the beam reduces the target to charred scraps or molten slag"

Seems legit.

Sound vs sight. If you have your back turned toward the person who just fried your buddy with a melta weapon, you'll have a good idea that it came from "that tree-line Yonder", but if it's silenced, then you'll have a "harder" time PINPOINTING where it came from. So unless you succeed at an Awareness check with a penalty, you're going to have a hard time returning accurate fire.

This makes sense to me. Whether or not it is in the spirit of the weapon is another thing.

Lecram said:

Of course, it's a meltagun... so if your friend has just been reduced to a greasy smear by one, chances are that the guy responsible isn't too far away.

and your probably next on his microwave to death hit list

Lecram said:

Sure that would make sense, if silencing a melta made any sense at all.

DJSunhammer said:

Would it help if I said that silencing melta beams, as well as plasma, las, and most any other source for rapid air vaporization for that matter, is one of the oft overlooked and forgotten side-effects of anti-grav technology?