Starfleet Jedi

Hereis the pic.

Though we cannot see the whole weapon, its existence has certain implications for blasters, does it not? Overheating comes to mind, given that it was mention previously in the ANH novelization:

" For a long moment he examined the featureless convex metal wall. Turning his pistol to maximum and hoping it wouldn't melt in his hand before it broke through, he opened fire on the door. When the weapon became too hot to hold, he tossed it from hand to hand. As he did so the smoke had time to clear, and he saw with some surprise that the door had been blown away."

But what exactly is overheating? Power cell? Galvened beam generator? The barrel itself?

The power cell wouldn't seem to be the culprit, given the gatling gun setup. It seems either the beam generator or the barrel itself would have to be it . . . and the barrel seems unlikely given the heat conduction to the handle of Luke's blaster rifle thingy.

So I'd wager it's the galvened beam generator assembly, unless there's something else I'm missing.

There was a similar gatling weapon in the animes if I recall correctly.
Moreso, in ROTS, we see a B-1 firing its rifle on auto at a good rate, from a balcony of some sort. That's when clones attack the CIS on Utapau, as Biwan decides to chase Gravy.

If there has to be a logic, I wonder if the shots will be more powerful than the traditional blaster firepower.

Brokeback Mountain.

Indeed. Depending on the rate of fire on that thing, this could be the reason why blasters, while they can have a high ROF for a very short period (a few shots) are almost always used in lower ROFs.

Yeah, there was this scene in Clone Wars cartoon where one trooper comes out, wielding gatling blaster, and then another comes out, pulling out something that looked like Millennium Falcon's turret gun from behind his back. I half expected another one to pull out mini-Death Star laser :D

Anyway, my credits are on barrel overheating. After all, this is why our gatling guns have multiple barrels.

yeah, it really dosn't make sense for it to be a gatling gun unless your worried about the barrel over heating. if it were something else... you would, um, rotate that

Considering blasters are -basically- devices that fling globs of 'rather hot goo' at people/objects it stands to reason that the barrel overheating can be a problem.

Flectarn wrote:yeah, it really dosn't make sense for it to be a gatling gun unless your worried about the barrel over heating. if it were something else... you would, um, rotate that

Unless there's more in the barrel than just the barrel. If there is a galvened beam generator or somesuch thingamabob in there too (one with each barrel), you could alternately take those six and make them rotate like a six-shooter with just one barrel serving them, but perhaps that would be less efficient or more prone to error or leakage insofar as getting the blaster bolt headed down the barrel tube properly.

We are, of course, conjecturing largely in the absence of fact. All possibilities have to be on the table.