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In Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) blaster bolts are affected by gravity, like bullets shot by weapons in Battlefield games.

Is this right? Are blaster bolts affected by gravity in the same way that real life ammunition is i.e. will they fall after a while?

Dr R Dizzle
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Edge1337
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  • Going vote to close this as opinion-based. And it's probably off-topic for this Exchange too. Maybe try your luck on the Game Exchange – Daft Jul 06 '15 at 11:08
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    @Daft With rewording, this is actually a question about how real life physics (gravity) affect blaster bolts in one of the most popular Sci-Fi franchises of all time. I wouldn't say it was off-topic, and I'm rewording it now. – Dr R Dizzle Jul 06 '15 at 11:20
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    @DrRDizzle for consistency, you should probably reword it on the Game Exchange too, this question is posted over there as well. – Daft Jul 06 '15 at 11:28
  • I believe the question is answered here: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/13695/why-would-a-slug-thrower-be-more-effective-against-a-lightsaber-jedi-than-a-blas – Gerald Schneider Jul 06 '15 at 11:36
  • Relativity says "Yes", movies say "Nah" – Mark Rogers Jul 06 '15 at 14:36
  • Gravity affects everything: mater, light (eletromagnetic waves) even TIME. So if a "energy" of anykind "travels" "slow as an arrow" you can argument it ill be affect in the same way – jean Jul 06 '15 at 14:46
  • Maybe the blasters that don't seem to be affected by gravity have a GPS built in, and have the projectile speed set to orbital speed? :) – Casey Kuball Jul 06 '15 at 17:24
  • @Daft - Please flag cross-site duplicates. – Valorum Jul 06 '15 at 18:21
  • I disagree with removing the question. It seems a valid question, perhaps with some more effective wording. Are blaster bolts ever depicted as being affected by gravity, considering they are supposed to be made of matter, not purely energy like lasers are supposed to be? Seems a fair question, to me. – Thaddeus Howze Oct 05 '15 at 19:35
  • @Thaddeus Well I marked the only answer, and quite good one as accepted because thread really dropped mute for quite some time – Edge1337 Oct 06 '15 at 20:10
  • If a light photon can be bent or even captured by gravity (hence, "black hole"), I'm not sure why a blaster bolt would be immune. – PoloHoleSet Jul 13 '16 at 18:09

1 Answers1

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Everything is affected by gravity (pretty much). Blaster bolts are gas combined with light and heat. It's a whole bunch of particles. Heck, light alone is affected by gravity.

The real question is should the dropoff be noticeable by a player in a shooter, and I think the answer is "no". In the movies, we've never seen a blaster/turbolaser bolt go in anything other than a straight line, even on a planet, over long distances (Hoth battle springs to mind). Same with every single other Star Wars game I've played, every blaster bolt went straight until it dissipated.

This is just the developer being forgetful and not disabling/altering the code made for real bullets (engine made for Battlefield and ballistic weapons). If that's not the case, "gameplay mechanics" are the reason, possibly to prevent a situation where everyone is playing as a sniper or something like that, but that's pure speculation.

Petersaber
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    Your last sentence sounds about right out of universe - I can't imagine a multiplayer game set on large maps with one hit kill guns that shoot in a direct straight line would be any fun for anyone other than snipers. – Dr R Dizzle Jul 06 '15 at 12:01
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    @DrRDizzle previous Battlefront games and other Star Wars games somehow pulled it off without defying the tech canon, so.......... – Petersaber Jul 06 '15 at 12:08
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    In movies, and games, we never see bullets noticeably arching. Of course, these projectiles are also affected by gravity. – AJFaraday Jul 06 '15 at 15:28
  • Do the blaster bolts in the movies move too quickly for droppage to be noticeable even if it was happening, or are there scenes where the bolt was onscreen long enough that some droppage would have been noticeable if it was happening? Keep in mind that in Earth gravity, the amount an object will drop in a time t is (4.9 meters)t^2, so for example if a blaster was seen for half a second, it should have dropped (4.9 meters)0.5^2 = 1.225 meters. – Hypnosifl Oct 05 '15 at 20:09
  • @Hypnosifl Battle of Geonosis. Battle of Hoth. And all space battles. Bolts move too quickly. The drop is nearly non-existent at combat range. There are no scenes where the bolts drop any amount we could see. – Petersaber Oct 06 '15 at 09:44
  • @Petersaber - But my point was that if the blaster bolt are only onscreen for a fraction of a second, and travel a large horizontal distance, then we might not expect to see any visible drop. For example, if a blaster bolt is seen for a quarter of a second, in Earth gravity you'd only expect it to drop 0.3 meters, and meanwhile if it's traveling 10 meters horizontally I don't think you'd see any visible arc to its path. Can you point to a specific moment (in terms of the exact time on a DVD/blu-ray or a youtube video) where there's a blaster bolt we should see visibly drop, but don't? – Hypnosifl Oct 09 '15 at 20:45
  • @Hypnosifl I can't. If I did, I'd be contradicting myself. There's no such point. These weapons were simply not used over distances so big they should drop but don't. – Petersaber Oct 10 '15 at 00:45
  • Ah, I must have misunderstood, I thought when you brought up the Battle of Geonosis and the Battle of Hoth you were responding to my question "are there scenes where the bolt was onscreen long enough that some droppage would have been noticeable if it was happening?" – Hypnosifl Oct 10 '15 at 05:00