Talk:Opticor/@comment-174.53.167.220-20150918110216/@comment-85.23.198.132-20151009163632

Even lasers do, technically, have recoil due to a little something called "radiation pressure"... and it's about relevant as that of a flashlight. For all practical intents and purposes a man-portable "death ray" is going to be entirely recoilless.

Not sure about plasma weapons (which are kinda BS physics anyway), since those would actually toss out a measurable amount of superheated matter. Given that it's practically speaking a small lump of superheated, electrically charged gas though I suspect that even at near-relativistic velocities the actual "felt recoil" would be modest at best; AFAIK the formula used to calculate that is roughly (ejecta mass^2)x(muzzle velocity) and further divided by the total recoil-absorbing mass and such sooo...