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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?

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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 6 '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 6 '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 6 '15 at 11:28
  • I believe the question is answered here: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/13695/… – Gerald Schneider Jul 6 '15 at 11:36
  • Relativity says "Yes", movies say "Nah" – Mark Rogers Jul 6 '15 at 14:36
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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.

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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 6 '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 6 '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 6 '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 5 '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 6 '15 at 9:44

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