AlHazred

This is one of the strengths of the Hero System. In most games there is more than one way to accomplish some specific thing, but you are given no guidance on relative power levels, advantages/disadvantages, etc. In Hero, everything is clear-cut, and the players themselves can do the work without taking up much time from the GM. I love the Survival bonus method. I wonder about its applicability to other skills...

I say, target the local Multiversal Supercluster... I guess by adding Transdimensional on the power... Anyway, on the topic of large starships, I'm considering building Sector Twelve General Hospital from the Sector General series. Not quite that big, but a damn sight bigger than most...

All the sites and books everyone has suggested are very interesting, and I appreciate them very much. However, none of them answers my initial, original question: I'm looking for ballistic statistics on black powder weapons. I've found some websites with anecdotal information, but nothing with concrete numbers. Any help is appreciated.

I agree. I will just note that the 3G3 formula combined with the questionable statistics in the Illustrated Book of Guns produced a large number of black powder weapons that did 1 pip RKA. I don't expect either HERO or 3G3 to be a perfect model of reality, but I tend to disagree with the 1 pip figure... I'll have to make that change in my spreadsheet. Thanks! I'll consider this. I'll post again when I have some revised numbers.

Ah, Star Fleet Battles... that brings back memories... I remember taking a whole Saturday (about 6 or 8 hours), working through an entire Star Fleet Battles game with my more knowledgeable friend. He actually had all the rules memorized, and tended to win many more games than I. Those were the days...

Re: Re: Just asking for a few references... I remember the threads from the old HERO Boards regarding this topic, and I have no desire to rehash those discussions; I'm not averse to it, mind, I just want to play around with my formulas, and I'm getting the impression a coffee-table book on collectable guns is not a reliable source on ballistic statistics, for some reason. I was given the book by a couple of friends of mine, so I have to at least give it a once over. Personally, I'm sort of taken with the Taylor KO factor; it seems to take into account bullet size, powder charge, and muzzle energy, which are the three things that always come up in the "Converting Real World Statistics into HERO Damage" threads. Thanks! That looks like one I need to track down. Does it have lots of RW examples?

There's an article on the 500 S&W Magnum round here. The guy doesn't seem to have had that much trouble, and doesn't look to be above a 13 or 14 STR. You could set the STR Min there with no argument from me.

Bah, there've been .50 caliber handguns before; the .50 Desert Eagle springs to mind. This is all marketing. I mean, who really thinks a slightly bigger gun is a "new order of threat to law enforcement"? Where'd they find this guy? Has he ever heard of this Bin Laden guy and the nukes he's trying to buy? How's that for a "new order of threat"? Anyway, it's probably a 2d6+1 RKA, +1 STUN, 5 Charges. For superhero-level games, I might be convinced to go to 2 1/2d6, but that's as far as I go.

Just asking for a few references... I'm actually using a formula to determine DCs of damage. I'm toying with the formula given in Guns, Guns, Guns by BTRC, which involves Muzzle Energy and the Caliber, and with a formula called Taylor's KO Scale. I was more interested in getting a definite hit as far as books I should be looking for, websites I should visit, etc. as far as ballistic statistics on black powder weapons. Any help would be appreciated.

Martians Would you like my War of the Worlds adaptations?

I recently purchased a book called the The Illustrated Book of Guns, primarily for its visual value. It's got something like a thousand different guns, with pictures, a few statistics and a paragraph on each one. I figured I could let players of a more modern game look through the book when choosing firearms. Anyway, I was working up the game statistics for the weapons in a spreadsheet and ran into an interesting little foible; the black powder pistols in the book seem to have extremely low muzzle velocities. I noted all of them as being in the range of 350 fps to 550 fps, a considerable sight lower than modern handguns, which are typically in the 900 to 1400 fps range. Since I'm working up the Hero damage in a spreadsheet, these numbers are really cooking the results. Now, I know ball bullets shed velocity much slower than cased rounds because of aerodynamics, but I'd thought to model this as Reduced by Range. But if the muzzle velocities are that low, the damage will be 1/2d6 at most anyway. Can anyone tell me a good source for statistics on black powder weapons?