What happens when squall pulls the trigger?

**Rowan** · 10-08-2014, 06:45 PM

Yes, its this thread again. What does TFF think happens when Squall pulls the trigger (R1) on his gunblade? Well lets have a look at the facts.

-Squalls weapon is a gunblade. A hybrid gun/sword weapon
-In the begining of the game, quistis instructs you that 'R1 is the trigger' and will induce extra damage.
-There is a visual explosion if R1 is pressed at the correct time
-The gunblade doesnt appear to have a barrell for the bullet to pass through
-The lionheart requires 'pulse ammo' to be forged.
-The gunblade has a cartridge and bullets as seen here

What is happening when he pulls the trigger?

**Heartless Angel** · 10-08-2014, 08:14 PM

Kinda looks like it's discharging into the tang of the blade. Assuming that thing is packing magnum rounds, you're looking at around 3700 joules of kinetic energy. Which really isn't enough for any kind of noticeable heat increase in a piece of metal as large as a blade, so that isn't it. You MIGHT get some vibrations, but I'm not sure if that would actually make the slash any more damaging. I suppose if you got it vibrating at a high enough frequency, you'd get like a sawing sort of effect, but I very much doubt a single round would get you anywhere close.

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I suppose if it were striking an angled surface, say 135 degrees, it could also be increasing the speed of the slash slightly, but it's still a pretty small amount of energy you're working with. Not to mention that would slowly destroy the blade unless it was made of magical video game metal. Which it almost certainly is.

**Rowan** · 10-08-2014, 08:23 PM

See, I'm not buying into these 'vibration' theories. When 30 inches of solid sharp steel is slashing something's innards, vibrating isn't gonna make much of a difference. The explosion needs to be explained, I think. Its the only difference between pulling the trigger and not pulling it. And its interesting because sometimes a renzokuken can last longer than 6 slashes, yet there are only 6 rounds in the chamber.

**Heartless Angel** · 10-08-2014, 08:28 PM

Okay, according to the wiki, there is a barrel running into the blade, and its purpose is to cause the blade to vibrate. In Dissida one can also see Squall using the recoil of the gun to quickly set himself up for the next slash.

**Rowan** · 10-08-2014, 08:49 PM

The power of vibration just makes the gunblade sound like a giant dildo.

**Heartless Angel** · 10-08-2014, 09:05 PM

Originally Posted by Rowan

And its interesting because sometimes a renzokuken can last longer than 6 slashes, yet there are only 6 rounds in the chamber.

I know what you're thinking. Did I just stab you six times, or was that only five? To tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kinda lost track myself. Being that this is Lionheart, the most powerful Gunblade in the world and would... Well. I'm not entirely sure what it would do... Anyways, do you feel lucky? Do you, Rowan?

**Alpha** · 10-09-2014, 02:08 AM

I'd always thought that the bullet somehow went down the side of the sword, parallel to the blade. I never really thought about how that'd work, but it seems to be the only way having a "gun" "blade" would actually be useful. Except maybe as a bayonet with the emphasis flipped.

**Heartless Angel** · 10-09-2014, 02:58 PM

It'd be more interesting if the bullets were just charges the hit a pneumatic mechanism that extended the blade a short distance, give it an actual sawing effect.

**Rowan** · 10-09-2014, 03:00 PM

haha, nice touch, HA. Well I guess its safe to assume that ammunition doesn't 'explode' on impact, so there must be something else going on here. either that, or we are putting far more though into it than the creators did.

DYK that if you are ever going to miss an attack with Squall (you may have the blind status ailment, since Squall has incredibly high accuracy at 255% with all gunblade models) that if you pressed R1 at the correct time, instead of missing the attack as you normally would have, instead you will land the blow without the critical?

**Heartless Angel** · 10-09-2014, 03:12 PM

I guess you also have to consider FFVIII's unusual ammo. In reality, a magnum shot hitting a blade like that isn't going to give you much heat or vibration, but 8's normal ammo from Irvine's limit explodes on impact, scattershot ammo creates multiple explosions in a huge area of effect, dark ammo has a large blast radius, flame ammo is basically grenades, cannister ammo fires huge explosive charges, quick shots still have small explosions, armor piercing ammo creates visible shockwaves and sparks on impact, pulse ammo fires giant lasers. A magnum round may not have much effect on the heat or vibration of a blade, but I'd be willing to bet most of 8s ammo types would.

**Rowan** · 10-09-2014, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by Heartless Angel

I guess you also have to consider FFVIII's unusual ammo. In reality, a magnum shot hitting a blade like that isn't going to give you much heat or vibration, but 8's normal ammo from Irvine's limit explodes on impact, scattershot ammo creates multiple explosions in a huge area of effect, dark ammo has a large blast radius, flame ammo is basically grenades, cannister ammo fires huge explosive charges, quick shots still have small explosions, armor piercing ammo creates visible shockwaves and sparks on impact, pulse ammo fires giant lasers. A magnum round may not have much effect on the heat or vibration of a blade, but I'd be willing to bet most of 8s ammo types would.

So its safe to say that most ammo in the game is imbued with some form of magic, rather than science. But still, having said that, Irvine can only fire the ammo thats in stock, so that means once he's used 10 shots of any kinds of ammo, thats all he can shoot if indeed theres only 10 shots of ammo in the inventory. This seems to be different for Squall. We could assume that regular attacks are just normal ammo that is reloaded without being shown during battle, the same could be said about Squall. But renzokuken is different. Perhaps when he goes into his limit break, his ammo becomes limitless?