- July 15th, 2018, 2:31 pm#4906853
Hi all! I first posted this up on the Ghostbusters subreddit but I understand that there's not a lot of action there, so I thought I'd share here as well!
For your consideration, I present my KBL Proton Pack Concept.
For additional detail, I've also generated parts callouts for the pack and thrower.
Pack
Thrower
I recently joined my local Ghostbusters franchise and began making plans to build my pack. While researching the pack and parts, especially those of the TVG pack, I started to wonder about the design (I'm a tech geek and I was particularly bothered by how the booster tube could be changed to an expanding slime tube without affecting the basic function of the pack). I realized that the parts were kinda arbitrarily named by fans and their configuration didn't quite mesh with my (meager) understanding of how a particle accelerator works.
I decided to explore the design of a proton pack that a) was more in-line with nuclear science and that of particle accelerators, and b) a take on what the packs might look like if the Ghostbusters franchise were indeed established some 34 years prior, had seen 34 years of technological enhancement and refinement, and was relatively canon up to and including GB:TVG and its new fire modes.
Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist. I don't hold advanced degrees in nuclear physics or parapsychology. I DID spend a lot of time crawling through Wikipedia, YouTube, science articles, academic papers, and Ghostbusters wikis, collecting and collating anything to help put together a level of plausibility to the pseudoscience of Ghostbusters. I studied the history and components of particle accelerators from the first LINAC to the Plasma Wakefield Acelerator of the SLAC project (I highly recommend checking that out), protons to oscillating strange b-mesons, and GB elements from the KUD to the Composite Particle System. Everything I've put into the design has a root somewhere in real science or Ghostbusters lore.
The pack functions are very similar to the fully-upgraded Experimental Pack of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, with the notable exclusion of the Slime Blower attachment.
The KBL Pack sports the very latest in protonic projection technology for the subdual and tethering of ectoplasmic entities utilizing Proton Streams and the modified Capture Stream.
Alternate methods of energy deployment are available through the inclusion of the Dark Matter Generation system, enabling the Stasis Stream utility and the Hawking Dispersion utility (colloquially known as the 'Shockblast' despite having very little to do with electricity), and the Composite Particle Entanglement system, enabling the Meson Tag utility (unofficially called the StaB'M (STAbilized B-bar Meson)) and the Meson Pulse utility.
The pack features proprietary condensed technology for the generation, acceleration, collision, and emission of exotic particles and other classified functions geared toward paranormal elimination. All this hardware is mounted on a chassis that is protected with non-conductive construction, EMI shielding, shock absorption, on-board cooling, and element-resistant protective panels.
The pack features fully-ambidextrous configurations and control placement for the comfort of right AND left-handed operators. A thrower-mounted, adjustable OLED display provides a real-time readout of pack status and alerts while serving double-duty as a telemetry compiler and 'black box' in the "unlikely" event of catastrophic failure. Special protections for operators are now standard, including the removal of outdated 'slo-blo' fuses in favor of resettable circuit breakers (resulting in 98% fewer cases of severe burning and/or hair loss) and the HARM Inhibitor, eliminating greatly reducing the risk of protonic reversal for operators.
EDIT: To address the common feedback regarding the hybrid thrower variant, I'll paste here my reply to a comment on the reddit page:
This is the product of Phase 1 of my design. Next up, I plan on a 2nd concept phase to refine the look; it came out a little too neat and sterile. My premise being that the gear has evolved to keep pace with technological advancement and the PCOC forcing ever tighter standards on the gear. The packs are still hand-made, cobbled together by a team of engineers overseen by Dr. Spengler, in a high security lab somewhere, all to keep up with the demands of growing franchise locations - round 2 of my concept will be to make the components more visually interesting and rough up the design a little, AND to have the final design rendered in CAD or similar for phase 3, being physically building the pack.
If you're still reading or you TL;DR'd to the bottom, thanks for looking! This has been a rewarding project so far and I look forward to continuing the journey. There are lots of other great minds out there, so I welcome questions, feedback, and constructive criticism. Let me know what you think works and what doesn't, as well as what could be done to improve on the design.
Keep 'bustin! -KBL
For your consideration, I present my KBL Proton Pack Concept.
For additional detail, I've also generated parts callouts for the pack and thrower.
Pack
Thrower
I recently joined my local Ghostbusters franchise and began making plans to build my pack. While researching the pack and parts, especially those of the TVG pack, I started to wonder about the design (I'm a tech geek and I was particularly bothered by how the booster tube could be changed to an expanding slime tube without affecting the basic function of the pack). I realized that the parts were kinda arbitrarily named by fans and their configuration didn't quite mesh with my (meager) understanding of how a particle accelerator works.
I decided to explore the design of a proton pack that a) was more in-line with nuclear science and that of particle accelerators, and b) a take on what the packs might look like if the Ghostbusters franchise were indeed established some 34 years prior, had seen 34 years of technological enhancement and refinement, and was relatively canon up to and including GB:TVG and its new fire modes.
Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist. I don't hold advanced degrees in nuclear physics or parapsychology. I DID spend a lot of time crawling through Wikipedia, YouTube, science articles, academic papers, and Ghostbusters wikis, collecting and collating anything to help put together a level of plausibility to the pseudoscience of Ghostbusters. I studied the history and components of particle accelerators from the first LINAC to the Plasma Wakefield Acelerator of the SLAC project (I highly recommend checking that out), protons to oscillating strange b-mesons, and GB elements from the KUD to the Composite Particle System. Everything I've put into the design has a root somewhere in real science or Ghostbusters lore.
The pack functions are very similar to the fully-upgraded Experimental Pack of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, with the notable exclusion of the Slime Blower attachment.
The KBL Pack sports the very latest in protonic projection technology for the subdual and tethering of ectoplasmic entities utilizing Proton Streams and the modified Capture Stream.
Alternate methods of energy deployment are available through the inclusion of the Dark Matter Generation system, enabling the Stasis Stream utility and the Hawking Dispersion utility (colloquially known as the 'Shockblast' despite having very little to do with electricity), and the Composite Particle Entanglement system, enabling the Meson Tag utility (unofficially called the StaB'M (STAbilized B-bar Meson)) and the Meson Pulse utility.
The pack features proprietary condensed technology for the generation, acceleration, collision, and emission of exotic particles and other classified functions geared toward paranormal elimination. All this hardware is mounted on a chassis that is protected with non-conductive construction, EMI shielding, shock absorption, on-board cooling, and element-resistant protective panels.
The pack features fully-ambidextrous configurations and control placement for the comfort of right AND left-handed operators. A thrower-mounted, adjustable OLED display provides a real-time readout of pack status and alerts while serving double-duty as a telemetry compiler and 'black box' in the "unlikely" event of catastrophic failure. Special protections for operators are now standard, including the removal of outdated 'slo-blo' fuses in favor of resettable circuit breakers (resulting in 98% fewer cases of severe burning and/or hair loss) and the HARM Inhibitor, eliminating greatly reducing the risk of protonic reversal for operators.
EDIT: To address the common feedback regarding the hybrid thrower variant, I'll paste here my reply to a comment on the reddit page:
One of my design goals from inception was to not venture too far into the realm of aggressive military hardware. I would never have updated the grips if it weren't for GB:TVG, and it being effectively canon. From a pragmatic, practical point of view, I couldn't see the wand staying as small and awkward as it is while regularly employing enhanced firepower (The Boson Dart itself being akin to an 'energy rpg').
The primarily featured design is a 'hybrid' grip', offering both a classic grip and a pistol grip, allowing one to shoulder the thrower for the sake of exercising increased control over those fire modes. It's entirely optional, with the classic grips available as replacements. I could not think of any other practical designs that would have served as well; there's no mistaking that rifles have come to their present design due to ergonomic evolution. The grips and body profile I settled on were the result of repeated attempts to come up with something practical, ergonomic, and believable.
Despite the my belief that Ghostbusters should remain strictly civilian and as non-threatening as possible, I had to admit that the weapon-like profile worked the best and to try to retain elements of the classic thrower to offset that.
This is the product of Phase 1 of my design. Next up, I plan on a 2nd concept phase to refine the look; it came out a little too neat and sterile. My premise being that the gear has evolved to keep pace with technological advancement and the PCOC forcing ever tighter standards on the gear. The packs are still hand-made, cobbled together by a team of engineers overseen by Dr. Spengler, in a high security lab somewhere, all to keep up with the demands of growing franchise locations - round 2 of my concept will be to make the components more visually interesting and rough up the design a little, AND to have the final design rendered in CAD or similar for phase 3, being physically building the pack.
If you're still reading or you TL;DR'd to the bottom, thanks for looking! This has been a rewarding project so far and I look forward to continuing the journey. There are lots of other great minds out there, so I welcome questions, feedback, and constructive criticism. Let me know what you think works and what doesn't, as well as what could be done to improve on the design.
Keep 'bustin! -KBL
Last edited by karbonbasedlife on July 18th, 2018, 8:07 am, edited 2 times in total.