Anti-matter weaponry

[Xavier Onassiss]

Hero doesn't do weapons with 'no defense' very well, so how should I write up anti-matter particle beams? In a standard SF setting which permits 'rubber' science, force fields would be the obvious defense -- the anti-matter beam would have the Advantages: Attack V. Alternate Defense (Force Fields), and Does Body. It might even be an NND attack, if the force field stops it cold.

 

But what about 'realistic' SF settings without force fields? Is there any other defense which could stop an anti-matter beam RKA?

 

I might be stumped on this one. Maybe a whole butt-load of Piercing points are called for, combined with Armor piercing....

[Escafarc]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

I would go with Armor Piercing and lots of Dice it doesn't bypass Defenses so much as destroys them on the way in.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Multiple levels of Penetrating is another option.

 

Antimatter was used in one of the recent Ringworld sequels in Larry Niven's Known Space setting (pretty hard sci-fi, no forcefields). They were able to punch holes in the floor of the Ringworld itself (*made out of scrith). General Product spacecraft hulls were thought to be indesctructable until an encounter with antimatter dust broke the super-molecule hull structure.

 

Scrith, usually written italicized as scrith, forms the walls and floor of the Ringworld.

Scrith is a milky-gray translucent, nearly frictionless material. The fairly thin layer of scrith that forms the floor of the Ringworld blocks the passage of 40% of the neutrinos that encounter it, equivalent to almost a light year-thick layer of lead. It also absorbs nearly 100% of all other radiation and subatomic particles and rapidly dissipates heat. The tensile strength of scrith is similar to the strong nuclear force, with the Ringworld foundation only about 30 m (100 ft) deep. Also, it is transparent to large magnetic fields.

Due to its enormous strength, scrith is impervious to most weapons. A body (such as a comet or asteroid) striking with enough kinetic energy may be able to deform the Ringworld floor and punch a hole; in fact, an asteroid known by the local inhabitants as "The Fist of God" created just such a hole (before the events in the novels), forming a massive mountain-like formation as a result. The Ringworld engineers used a device, called the cziltang brone in their language, to pass from the vacuum of their spaceports right through the scrith to the habitable surface of the Ringworld.

The physical composition of scrith is unclear, but it appears to share some of the properties of a metal (albeit in a greatly exaggerated form): for instance, the high tensile strength, the ability to conduct heat and the ability to retain an induced magnetic field. Scrith is said by one inhabitant to have been artificially produced through the transmutation of matter, though this is later thought to have been a lie.

 

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Multiple levels of Penetrating would get the job done. It seems kind of expensive: 30pts per d6 = 1pt of penetrating damage!

 

The other option would be lots of Piercing points: my campaign uses the optional rules from APG; the Armor-Piercing advantage provides piercing points, the Hardening advantage negates them.

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Maybe an AVAD, Does Body against "dense matter" (or whatever you think the defense should be). And "dense matter" would be very difficult to obtain...

[Beast]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

I would just go with overwhelming power compared to the same size weapon

 

a 2d6k laser pistol vs a 10d6k anti matter pistol and add explosion

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

I would just go with overwhelming power compared to the same size weapon

 

a 2d6k laser pistol vs a 10d6k anti matter pistol and add explosion

 

Yikes! Man, I don't know what the tech level is in your Star Hero campaign, but I'm scared now!

 

For my purposes, I'm looking at anti-matter beams for use as starship weapons -- they'll be big, expensive and powerful enough to one-shot a good-sized warship. I don't even wanna think about what it would take to miniaturize something like that down to a handgun.

 

And if you did, what would keep the anti-matter from reacting with the atmosphere as soon as it left the barrel and blowing up in your face?

[Beast]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

not in any Star Hero game

from my POV Anti matter is not subtle

It is major league blunt force trama

there is no need to try and get around defenses,anti matter over powers all defenses(missile defection pre detonates the anti matter depending on the special effect)

 

as for a pistol sized weapon safely delivering anti matter to your target

1 the weapon teleports 1 pico gram to the targets hex

2 the 1 pico gram of anti matter is contained in a bullet that has a micro magnetic bottle inside w/ the anti matter

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Not exactly Anti-matter but closely related...

 

from:

http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/s.htm/

 

Slaver disintegrator— This device emits a beam which suppresses the electron's charge. In the cone of the beam, the electron becomes a neutral particle, causing the proton's charge to tear matter apart into dust. It is most effective as a digging tool, or a weapon used against structures. The most common type of disintegrator is a hand-held, rifle-like projector, but larger and more powerful projectors are certainly possible (see Wunderland Treatymaker). In operation, used to dig a hole or a tunnel, the disintegrated material blows out and past the user in a minor hurricane of monatomic dust, dense enough to block vision. Although it can cause severe wounds when used on a living being, it takes too long to kill to be considered an effective weapon. The device was first encountered by Humans in 2106 as an artifact from the Slaver Empire. [World of Ptavvs, "Grendel", Ringworld ch. 15]

from:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisintegratorRay

 

In Ringworld and Larry Niven's other Known Space stories, the Thrintun Slavers left a lot of their Lost Technology lying around in stasis, including a disintegrator digging tool that suppresses atomic valence— atoms simply fly apart. It is weaponized to slice a miles-deep canyon into a planet during the Man-Kzin wars.

 

* The planet is know known as "Canyon", for it's defining feature.

* ...And the weapon was called the "Wunderland Treatymaker" for it's defining feature.

o The details are amusing enough to relate: one version of the Slaver Disintegrator suppressed the charge on electrons. Another suppressed the charge on protons. Neither version acted quickly enough to be useful as a weapon, but if two beams were fired in parallel, current would flow between them. Lots of current.

[McCoy]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Yikes! Man, I don't know what the tech level is in your Star Hero campaign, but I'm scared now!

 

For my purposes, I'm looking at anti-matter beams for use as starship weapons -- they'll be big, expensive and powerful enough to one-shot a good-sized warship. I don't even wanna think about what it would take to miniaturize something like that down to a handgun.

 

And if you did, what would keep the anti-matter from reacting with the atmosphere as soon as it left the barrel and blowing up in your face?

 

What do you mean, "no force field." How do you contain your antimatter? Probably a tokamak or something similar that creates a "bottle" of magnetic, wait for it, force. Build an "inside out" tokamak that creates a strong magnetic field around your ship, force field.

 

Or give your ship a charge. When you say "antimatter" I'm presuming a positron beam. Give your hull a string enough positive charge and it will deflect the antimatter.

 

If your ship has an ion drive it can deflect or annihilate antimatter. Or as you said, atmosphere. Vent gas outside the ship, you still have to put up with the gamma rays but you keep the antimatter away from the hull.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

What do you mean, "no force field." How do you contain your antimatter? Probably a tokamak or something similar that creates a "bottle" of magnetic, wait for it, force. Build an "inside out" tokamak that creates a strong magnetic field around your ship, force field.

 

Or give your ship a charge. When you say "antimatter" I'm presuming a positron beam. Give your hull a string enough positive charge and it will deflect the antimatter.

 

If your ship has an ion drive it can deflect or annihilate antimatter. Or as you said, atmosphere. Vent gas outside the ship, you still have to put up with the gamma rays but you keep the antimatter away from the hull.

 

Yes, magnetism is a force. That's very clever.

 

I was referring to the bogus 'rubber science' force fields in those crappy hollywood SF shows with no basis in reality, which magically stop everything that hits them. (except when they don't)

[dmjalund]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Whenever I have antimatter in my campaign ideas, I usually use Strange Matter ass a possible container.

[Sundog]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Alternatively, you could rule that there is no way to safely contain antimatter known to your universe's civilization. I still had A-Mat weapons - anti-proton particle beams - but the weapons generated the antimatter on demand instead. (Very big guns - spinal mounts on cruisers and above).

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Alternatively' date=' you could rule that there is no way to safely contain antimatter known to your universe's civilization. I still had A-Mat weapons - anti-proton particle beams - but the weapons [i']generated[/i] the antimatter on demand instead. (Very big guns - spinal mounts on cruisers and above).

 

We've already got the means to contain small amounts of anti-matter in real life; extrapolating this to larger quantities isn't too much of a stretch for reasonably-hard SF. Generating anti-matter on demand is a neat trick: a 'non-orientable wormhole' (a type of wormhole twisted like a moebius loop) will reverse the charge of any matter that passes through it, changing matter to anti-matter and vice-versa. For an advanced civilization with wormhole technology, anti-matter would be a push-over.

[McCoy]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

We've already got the means to contain small amounts of anti-matter in real life; extrapolating this to larger quantities isn't too much of a stretch for reasonably-hard SF. Generating anti-matter on demand is a neat trick: a 'non-orientable wormhole' (a type of wormhole twisted like a moebius loop) will reverse the charge of any matter that passes through it' date=' changing matter to anti-matter and vice-versa. For an advanced civilization with wormhole technology, anti-matter would be a push-over.[/quote']

Think about that. Swallowing the camel of wormhole technology and straining at the gnat of force fields. A magnetic field to deflect charged particles is not that rubbery of science, probably should be part of the cosmic ray shielding. Your antimatter is probably stored as positrons or antiprotons, as far as I know there is no know, non rubber science, safe way to store uncharged antimatter such as antihydrogen.

[Cancer]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

If you're firing charged particles, like positrons or antiprotons (or any strongly ionized atom of antimatter), then you can manipulate it with electromagnetic forces, as McCoy points out. Getting an energy density high enough to deflect a beam of said antimatter is no more handwavy than generating the particles themselves.

 

Antimatter as a weapon has two punches, of course. The antimatter particles literally destroy their anti-anti-particles (that is, their normal matter counterparts), which usually isn't good for the structural integrity. That annihilation makes for lots of hard radiation liberated from the point of annihilation, which can also be destructive (the more so because the gamma rays are unaffected by any electromagnetic shielding you might have against the antimatter).

 

Electrically neutral antimatter (like antineutrons) would be harder. Those often (but not always) have a magnetic moment, but the electromagnetic "handle" on such a particle is MUCH weaker than for a charged particle. Anti-atoms, if you could make them, would also be electrically neutral (though perhaps ionizable into positrons and negative ions) and not easily stoppable by electromagnetic fields.

 

The thing is, you are more or less guaranteed to know an antimatter weapon on sight. Annihilation of any normal atoms between the launch point and target will have a very distinctive gamma-ray signature. Now, this won't help you if the thing is aimed at you, but anyone else in the neighborhood will have no doubts about what weapon you are using, enabling others to go into crash development mode as soon as witnesses get within communication range of home.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Think about that. Swallowing the camel of wormhole technology and straining at the gnat of force fields. A magnetic field to deflect charged particles is not that rubbery of science' date=' probably should be part of the cosmic ray shielding. Your antimatter is probably stored as positrons or antiprotons, as far as I know there is no know, non rubber science, safe way to store uncharged antimatter such as antihydrogen.[/quote']

 

I never said using a magnetic field to contain anti-matter is "rubber science."

 

There have been a number of serious papers published on wormholes -- we don't have the tech to create them yet, but at least there's a theoretical basis for them.

 

And I'll explain this ONE MORE TIME: "Force Field" =/= Magnetic Field. In SF, when the term "force field" comes up, the science behind it is seldom explained. (or simply made up) All we know is it's a Field, and somehow it projects a Force -- it's a generic term for rubber science devices with no basis in fact. Nobody refers to magnetic fields as "force fields" because they don't need a generic, rubber science, handwaving term for them: we all know how magnetism works. (except for Insane Clown Posse)

 

Now take your technicalities and go crap on somebody else's campaign. I'm done wasting my time with you.

[BarretWallace]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

I never said using a magnetic field to contain anti-matter is "rubber science."

 

There have been a number of serious papers published on wormholes -- we don't have the tech to create them yet, but at least there's a theoretical basis for them.

 

And I'll explain this ONE MORE TIME: "Force Field" =/= Magnetic Field. In SF, when the term "force field" comes up, the science behind it is seldom explained. (or simply made up) All we know is it's a Field, and somehow it projects a Force -- it's a generic term for rubber science devices with no basis in fact. Nobody refers to magnetic fields as "force fields" because they don't need a generic, rubber science, handwaving term for them: we all know how magnetism works. (except for Insane Clown Posse)

 

Now take your technicalities and go crap on somebody else's campaign. I'm done wasting my time with you.

 

Well, my favorite explanation for force shields is more space opera: it works because it works, and even more importantly, it looks cool. We really can't explain technology real far in advance of our own without a lot of handwavium anyway. The way I figure it, if a gadget (be it antimatter weapons, force fields, blasters, or what have you) is important to your setting, then no further explanation is needed.

 

Antimatter weaponry...that is the WMD of the future, hopefully the very very distant future. I doubt it would look as cool as Star Trek's photon torpedoes.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

The rubber science question that interests me more is how do they produce electricity on spacecraft in the future?

 

We talk about nuclear power all the time but as it stands today it's just a heat source for steam generators (or some other liquid based heat differential variant). Letting that one get glossed over is way more disturbing to me than 'force fields'.

[Escafarc]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

The rubber science question that interests me more is how do they produce electricity on spacecraft in the future?

 

We talk about nuclear power all the time but as it stands today it's just a heat source for steam generators (or some other liquid based heat differential variant). Letting that one get glossed over is way more disturbing to me than 'force fields'.

 

That's something that has always bugged me too. For my game I use Fusion Reactors that create tiny suns and the inside is covered with solar cells.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

The rubber science question that interests me more is how do they produce electricity on spacecraft in the future?

 

We talk about nuclear power all the time but as it stands today it's just a heat source for steam generators (or some other liquid based heat differential variant). Letting that one get glossed over is way more disturbing to me than 'force fields'.

 

Here's another concept for generating electricity from fusion reactors, via this site.

 

A conversion to electricity is relatively simple. The conversion is done during the neutralization by a positive electric voltage to slow down and an electron gun to neutralize. A positive electric field forces the positively charged products to exchange their kinetic energy into potential energy. The positively charged products easily attract electrons from an electron gun, and the electron gun extracts electrons from a positive terminal of a capacitor increasing its positive voltage, which increase its stored energy (E=½CV²). A switching-mode power supply sends this energy to a battery bank. The current of electrons and the electric voltage is equal to electric power (P = V × I). This method of electricity conversion can exceed 95% of efficiency.[8]

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Nice.

 

Looks like we just need better batteries and superconducting magnets.

[Old Man]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Nobody refers to magnetic fields as "force fields" because they don't need a generic' date=' rubber science, handwaving term for them: we all know how magnetism works.[/quote']

 

Nitpick that you're probably not in the mood for: Electric, magnetic, gravitational, and other fundamental forces are sometimes referred to as "force fields" in the literature. It's obsolescent terminology, and when it is used it's usually shortened to "fields", and it has absolutely no similarity to force fields as usually described in fiction. But, technically and pedantically, magnetic fields are a subset of "force" fields.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Okay, note of bragging: Star HERO is my "thing," its my personal number one design fetish (hence, HALO HERO). That aside!

 

What do you want this to do? It's an anitmatter weapon, but I never got from your description what the actual premise/result you were gunning for is. Sure, you can slap Penetrating or the thing you cited from the APG (originally in Dark Champs 5th, I know what you mean). But what is the end result? It melts armor? It just shatters a ship? Where are you going here?

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Anti-matter weaponry

 

Nitpick that you're probably not in the mood for: Electric' date=' magnetic, gravitational, and other fundamental forces are sometimes referred to as "force fields" in the literature. It's obsolescent terminology, and when it is used it's usually shortened to "fields", and it has absolutely no similarity to force fields as usually described in fiction. But, technically and pedantically, magnetic fields are a subset of "force" fields.[/quote']

 

Isn't the perception of matter being 'solid' (like the keyboard you're typing on) just an 'illusion' of the electromagnetic force. Take that to the ultimate conclusion via E=mc^2 and you could say that all matter is just energy in the form of a 'force field'.