Editing Blasters

Blasters were a considerable improvement over the archaic laser design. Instead of a coherent beam of laser-heated plasma, the blaster fired a highly compressed, focused high-energy particle beam that was very deadly to most creatures. The energy that made up the blaster bolt depended on the type of blaster being used.

The less common blaster was a plasma based design, like those used by the Grand Army of the Republic. Plasma-based blasters were effective against all targets, but even more so against droids because of the nature of plasma as a superheated, ionized gas. Droids were vulnerable to ion energy, so ion weapons were a natural choice against a droid army. This explains the use of the BlasTech DC-series in the Clone wars.

In plasma-based blasters, a high-energy gas (tibanna gas, for example, used in the BlasTech DC-series) would move from the gas chamber into another chamber where it was altered into a plasma state. It was then released from a magnetic "bottle" effect through the collimating components. This turned the mass of plasma gas and energy into a coherent energy beam as a coherent energy bolt of light and plasma. This combination of light and plasma formed the deadly bolt fired from a blaster.

The more common type was the blaster that fired a high energy particle beam that was more deadly to humanoids and other biological targets than superheated plasma (which was quite deadly anyway), but it was still effective enough against droids to put a B1 battle droid down and keep it down. Particle-beam types were also more efficient because they used less blaster gas to produce the beam than is necessary to form a plasma bolt, as plasma, as a state of matter, requires a far greater amount of energy to produce.

In particle-beam based blasters, like the E-11 used by stormtroopers, a small amount of high-energy gas moved from the heter valve to the chamber commonly called the XCiter. In the XCiter chamber, the gas was energized by the power pack, then passed into the actuating blaster module, which, when assisted by the components in the barrel, processed the now extremely high-energy gas into a compressed beam of intense energy particles, coupled with intense light, which generated the deadly high-energy particle beam fired from most blasters. In these blasters, the combination of superhot laser-light and a compressed bolt of intense energy particles formed the deadly bolt.

Most personal blasters had two kinds of ammunition: a gas cartridge and a power cell. Less powerful weapons, like the Drearian Defense Conglomerate Defender sporting blaster, relied largely on the power cell and used only a small quantity of gas, while very powerful weapons, like the illegal Tenloss DX-2 disruptor pistol, used much larger amounts of gas. Still other weapons, namely those dating from earlier times, employed a kind of removable power cell/cartridge which supplied enough energy (though at weaker levels) to make total expenditure seldom.

Blaster bolts usually dissipated in a small, but violent explosion of extreme heat and force upon contact with an unshielded surface, sometimes leaving blast points. Weapons such as Han Solo's DL-44 blaster pistol and the E-11 blaster rifle could cause incredible destruction, and had the power to blow huge chunks from stone walls and smaller holes and pockmarks out of durasteel bulkheads, as seen in Han Solo and Luke Skywalker's raid on Detention Block AA 23. An ion accelerator uses an electrical charge to stun or kill enemies.



*[[Hold-Out Blasters]]
*[[Sporting Blasters]]
*[[Blaster Pistols]]
*[[Heavy Blaster Pistols]]
*[[Blaster Carbines]]
*[[Blaster Rifles]]
*[[Sporting Blaster Rifles]]
*[[Repeating Blasters]]
*[[Miscellaneous Blasters]]
*[[Disruptor Blasters]]
*[[Stun Blasters]]
*[[Droid Disabling Blasters]]