EMP Weapons

[L. Marcus]

I'm back at work with my SF campaign again, and I figured I'd like to have some EMP warheads for missiles, for when you don't want to blow up a starship -- a "soft" option, if you will.

I figured it could be done with an RKA Explosion, Only Vs. Electronics, or maybe as a Dispel Electronics. I haven't seen anything in any of the books I own, and I don't recall any threads on the subject. So . . .

[Beast]

EMP missile range 270,000 km

RKA 3d6, NND ([Standard]Not being an electronic device; +1), Does BODY (+1), Area Of Effect (80" Radius; +1 1/2), MegaScale (1" = 10,000 km; +1 1/4), Can Be Scaled Down 1" = 1km (+1/4) (270 Active Points); OIF (Missile(armored in missle bay); -1/2)


I'm back at work with my SF campaign again, and I figured I'd like to have some EMP warheads for missiles, for when you don't want to blow up a starship -- a "soft" option, if you will.

I figured it could be done with an RKA Explosion, Only Vs. Electronics, or maybe as a Dispel Electronics. I haven't seen anything in any of the books I own, and I don't recall any threads on the subject. So . . .

[L. Marcus]

. . . Not being something is not usually a legal defence. Sorry.

[ghost-angel]

Anti-Sensor EMP Generator (example equipment); The Ultimate Vehicle p125
EMP; Ultimate Energy Projector p176
EMP Weapons; Spacer's Toolkit p16

See if any of those help. If you want to use the NND concept make the Defense: Shielded Electronics.

Then decide if Shielding is standard and Unshielded is a Limitation, or if unshielded is standard and Shielded is an Advantage.

[JmOz]

Personaly I build it as an exploding Penetrating RKA, Limitation: Resticted F/x (only vs appropriate electronic devices) -1/2,

salt to taste, you then get into a pen vs hardening warto represent str of EMP vs hardening the device.

[Sean Waters]

I'm back at work with my SF campaign again, and I figured I'd like to have some EMP warheads for missiles, for when you don't want to blow up a starship -- a "soft" option, if you will.

I figured it could be done with an RKA Explosion, Only Vs. Electronics, or maybe as a Dispel Electronics. I haven't seen anything in any of the books I own, and I don't recall any threads on the subject. So . . .

The RKA works, but does not, of course, ignore the defences of the target at all - it does not shoot throught he armour/force fields, and just apply to electronics.

Adjustment powers seem about right though - a dispel or drain could work well (except EMPs actually DO damage to electrical systems rather than just KOing them for a bit)

AVLD works, but the problem you then have is deciding how much BODY your electronics have: arguably they should be considered to have as much as the actual ship.

We have to start with what we want to end up with: The point of an EMP is to KO communications, weapons and propulsion, and possibly life support. On most space ships those things run from the generator, which is usually built as an END reserve.

So, KO the END reserve (with something like this)

EMP BOMB: Drain REC and END 4d6, Ranged (+1/2), REC and END simultaneously (+1/2), Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per 20 Minutes; +3/4) (110 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (REC and END can be restored faster than the fasde rate with a successful 'Starship Engineering' roll; -1/2)
110 active, 73 real

...and you have prevented the electronics from functioning. Call it an EMP and you are good to go.

Pretty soon you'll start seeing force fields with power defence.

Dispel works well too but you can basically re-set it the next phase, and that is not so good.

[rreay]

If we're talking real(-ish) effects then EMPs can have various effects on real electronics based on the strength of the EMP and the design of the electronics. It's harder to design EMP resistant electronics and it can be a bit more expensive to build but it's possible today. I don't need to put a FF on a military radio to harden it.

The design of the electronics is very important. Generally electronics that are built to withstand EMPs are built are built and tested against certain documented and specified levels of EMP, pretty high levels. Even so they'll fail if the pulse is bigger.

Devices that fail, fail in interesting ways. Going up the scale the effects you get are:

No effect at all - It just keeps working.
Recoverable Failure - The radio is noisy for a second, the video screen cuts out and comes right back
Reset Failure - The device fails but recovers full functionality when reset.
Damaged - The device fails and when reset is malfunctioning in some way. It must be repaired before full functionality is restored. The screen on the cellphone is dead, but you can still make calls. Or the radio on the cellphone is dead but you can still look up your address book.
More Damaged- The device stops working. This is the same as damaged it's just more systemic, more or more important pieces failed. This is harder to repair but it can be done. However like a broken VCR it might be cheaper and easier to replace. It probably looks fine on the outside.
Obliterated - The electronics are mush. You might be able to reuse the case if the electronics didn't melt it on their way out.


I think the best model under the existing rules might be an Electronics only AVLD KA vs EMP defense.

I said existing rules above because I think it would be interesting to model this as a tiered effect style attack (like a presence attack) of EMP attack vs. EMP defense. Defense + 0 is a recoverable failure Defense +10 is a reset failure and so on up the chart.

This could be sort of realisitic but still make a nicely cinematic system.

I'm imagining a scene where your Police Cruiser hits the pirate ship with an area effect EMP. Their stolen Military Laser Canons are fine, the cobbled together life support is heavily damaged, and the radios need a reset before you can talk with them and ask them not to use those lasers.

[Sean Waters]

The problem with anything like this is that you buy your spaceship, which is this single 'thing' and you buy your radios and life support and engines and weapons, but what you don't do is decide in advance how the Body of the spaceship is divvied up amongst the various systems.

I'm looking at Alien Wars right now and this particular spaceship (a Centurii Class battleship) has 180 Body (sheesh!), 25 DEF (some hardened) and another 15 Ablative DEF (and no weapons capable of harming itself, apart from a ludicrously expensive self destruct).

It's got life support costing something like 18 character points. No idea what the Body of that would be, so difficult to apply a damaging power like AVLD, and, frankly, quite unrealistic to apply adjustment powers as the life support has a similar active cost to a vehicle a fraction of the size.

Besides, buying different power defence for different systems is horrible complicated and probably pretty arbitratry.

Sigh.

Sorry, I'm despairing. I'll suggest something useful soon.

But I warn you it is probably going to be a completel overhaul of the vehicle build rules.

[Doc]

I didn't think about it a lot yet, but I would suggest something like Sean, except the drain targets INT (for computers). But then you need to have a computer on board for the attack to be effective, wich may not be the case...

Well, at least, I hope this may trigger more reflexions toward better ideas.:rolleyes:

[Maur]

Actually you could design part of the Hardening of the your systems into the hull, and probably would have to since that is where all your feeds for external information (sensors, communications, shields, etc...) are going to be. So the armor of the hull might reflect what amount of hardening the ship has against EMP.

[L. Marcus]

. . . After some thinking, I'm leaning towards something like this:

EMP Warhead: Dispel Electronics 16d6, All Powers Simultaneously (+2), Explosion (+½), MegaArea (1" = 1 km; +1/4); 180 Active Points; No Range (-½), One Charge (never recovers [it's supposed to be installed in a missile, built as an Automaton]; -4), Side Effect (4d6 RKA Explosion, No Range; extreme, always occurs; -2); 24 Real Points.

The thing I like with this build, is that a) it works against Power Defense, something I'd make Everystarhip Equipment at the same base value as DEF, and b) as it targets objects (starship equipment in this case), the objects -- whether Foci or not -- should be repaired to restart, as per Dispel's description.

Whad'ya say?

[Sean Waters]

. . . After some thinking, I'm leaning towards something like this:

EMP Warhead: Dispel Electronics 16d6, All Powers Simultaneously (+2), Explosion (+½), MegaArea (1" = 1 km; +1/4); 180 Active Points; No Range (-½), One Charge (never recovers [it's supposed to be installed in a missile, built as an Automaton]; -4), Side Effect (4d6 RKA Explosion, No Range; extreme, always occurs; -2); 24 Real Points.

The thing I like with this build, is that a) it works against Power Defense, something I'd make Everystarhip Equipment at the same base value as DEF, and b) as it targets objects (starship equipment in this case), the objects -- whether Foci or not -- should be repaired to restart, as per Dispel's description.

Whad'ya say?

That should do it :)

[L. Marcus]

Sean approves! Yay! :D

[JmOz]

I am personbaly not a big fan of the dispel method, I feel that the add on of "It can destroy Foci" was something added because this was someone felt that Dispel was the best way to represent EMP (adding to the power to make it fit an F/X, instead of finding the power that best fits the F/X).

Put it this way...would you allow a dispelbased attack to "Destroy until they are healed" the Vision? a character who's powers were not foci but were tech based?

Why I perfer a modified KA, it seems more appropriate (You are damaging the object with it, even if some are immune to it)

[casualplayer]

What about an AE: Transform-Working electronics to broken electronics?

[Narratio]

Actually I like Marcus' build as it is. But go back and consider the same build in a character game. All those armed/armoured hitech battlesuit wearing pseudo-Ironmen have just become a collection of life sized paperwieghts... and for only 24 points.

[Sean Waters]

I am personbaly not a big fan of the dispel method, I feel that the add on of "It can destroy Foci" was something added because this was someone felt that Dispel was the best way to represent EMP (adding to the power to make it fit an F/X, instead of finding the power that best fits the F/X).

Put it this way...would you allow a dispelbased attack to "Destroy until they are healed" the Vision? a character who's powers were not foci but were tech based?

Why I perfer a modified KA, it seems more appropriate (You are damaging the object with it, even if some are immune to it)

Foci get too easy a ride: those are some chunky limitation values being thrown around there - and how often, really, does the armoured guy actually lose his suit?

All it presumably means is that most foci will start incorporating large amounts of power defence :)

The problem with the KA approach, and again this is a focus problem (but they are just so genre...any genre...what can you do?) is the suit of armour with one power (armour) that lets any Body through is, tecnically, scragged, as if a focus takes damage then it loses a power, and if the only one you have is armour, well it has to be that one. Moreover any protective focus is assumed to also be hit by anything that hits the wearer, so you cannot get around it by 'taking the hit' for your suit.

One work around I've allowed in the past has been to allow Body to be bought as a power for armour, and allow any Body that would damage the defences to reduce the Body first (i.e. treat it as actual Body for the armour not as a power as such), so you can damage the armour over several hits (Body built as does not affect figured and appropriate focus value).

Otherwise you wind up with a 1 pip killing double penetrating focus killer, which is even nastier than the dispel thing :)

[Sean Waters]

What about an AE: Transform-Working electronics to broken electronics?

We also ought to mention EDM....say, anyone seen Doc Democracy around? :D