ajackson

Re: Hard sci-fi adventures?

Mike Van Pelt says that if protecting the spacecraft from clumsy shots has priority' date=' frangible rounds may be the answer.[/quote']

The basic problem is that any weapon with adequate penetration to penetrate flesh to a reasonably lethal depth (generally, you need 6-8" penetration in flesh to reliably be able to hit important stuff) also has adequate penetration to shoot through most unarmored walls and gear cases.

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not

Would you agree or disagree with the hypothesis? Do bricks get hosed? Do you allow these powers in ECs as a house rule?

I would disagree, mostly because many of the powers you describe are inherently more efficient than powers that cost END. A force field is almost always a bad choice for defense, and Strength is one of the most efficient powers in the game.

Re: Transform - Do We Need It?

I've pondered implementing Transform using a Mind Control mechanic, vs Power Defense and Body (Con rolls to break out?) rather than vs Mental Defense and Ego. The problem with Transform is that it's really a pair of catchall mechanics (Generic Disable Target, Generic Assist Target) for powers that can't be done conveniently in any other way.

Re: What If? Empire Wins

Not likely at all. Vader was intent on betraying the Emperor from the moment he knew who Luke was and the Storm Troopers could only display competence if the dark side of the Force was dominant.

Yes, Vader was intent on betraying the Emperor, but once he determined that Luke was unwilling to join him on the Dark Side, he certainly could have decided to just kill Luke (particularly if he somehow found out about Leia).

Re: What If? Empire Wins

The most likely "bad guy wins" outcomes at Endor are "Luke kills Vader in a rage' date=' and succumbs to the Empire's mind control" and "Vader persuades Luke to join with him and kill the Emperor to take his place".[/quote']

How about:

"Vader doesn't betray the Emperor"

"The Storm Troopers on Endor display competence"

Re: How to get swords on your starship

If people have a choice about their weapons, they'll use the weapons they feel are most likely to make them win and which give the highest quality win. Things like ricochets and damage to the ship will reduce the quality of a win and might even turn it into a non-win, but you really only worry about the quality of the win at the point where you're pretty well guaranteed some sort of win, at which point you often switch to nonlethals (living prisoners you can interrogate are handy).

Re: How to get swords on your starship

I think they were making the comparison because' date=' like a shotgun blast, Glazer rounds break up into numerous pellets and case fragments upon impact. I entirely agree that a 12 Gauge is far more lethal than any pistol shot can ever be - but don't forget that the best-selling shotgun last year was the .410.[/quote']

Don't forget that the major purpose of shotguns is shooting at birds. Very few home defense weapons will ever be used for home defense, which means very few people will ever know if their home defense weapon is actually effective in that role.

 

This is getting off topic, though. For anyone interested, a place to start is Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness.

Re: How to get swords on your starship

Glazer Blue rounds, on the other hand, I've heard described as "a bomb in a box". A torso hit is a nearly guaranteed fatal, due to it's unpleasent tendency to shred multiple internal organs. It's like taking a shotgun blast at point-blank range.

Sounds like PR at work, or perhaps a very very small shotgun. A shotgun is not lethal due to some magical property of shotgun ammunition, it's lethal because a typical 12ga fires a total of 550gr of shot at upwards of 1500 fps. In no way will 115gr at 1200 fps match its lethality.

Re: How to get swords on your starship

Not these days. The THUNDERZAPs I mentioned above are virtually harmless to machinery, but turn people into goo stew.

 

The less penetrating Glazer rounds ditto.

Thunderzap, Glazer, etc, produce a nasty shallow wound. Such a wound will hurt a lot, and may kill your target -- several days from now, from infection, unless you hit a surface artery. A reliable stop requires a round capable of penetrating through to the spine from a front or off-angle shot, which means 10-12" penetration in flesh.

Re: How to get swords on your starship

It's reasonable to assume that handguns for spacefaring combat will be designed for increased safety in that environment.

Well, depends. One of the big problems with 'safe' handgun rounds is that any round with insufficient penetration to punch through walls also has insufficient penetration to disable a human.

Re: How to get swords on your starship

A short sword' date=' such as a Gladuis is lighter and much more compact than a carbine/machine pistol/assault rifle/etc PLUS all the magazines you need.[/quote']

A short sword is not lighter and more compact than a pistol, and the pistol is better than the short sword. Yes, a carbine is better than a pistol, but in any situation where you'd care about the compactness of a short sword vs a carbine, you'd still use a pistol instead.

Actually the problem is not power, it is space. Engaging in a fire fight in a 10x20 space with steel walls will mean you are getting wacked as much as the enemy by your own rounds.

Depends on the ammunition. If you're wearing body armor, no, not really; bullets may bounce off of walls, but they don't bounce at anything like full power or penetration.

Re: How to get swords on your starship

In several ways, a boarding in space can be less risky than a boarding on a ship. Most notably, spaceships cannot sink once damaged.

Most boardings will occur under one of two conditions: the ship has surrendered, or the ship has been crippled. In the first case, the best way to prevent more damage to the ship is to immediately take out whoever started fighting -- which means either a gun or grappling. In the second case, preventing damage to a ship that's already been shot full of holes is a secondary concern.

Re: How to get swords on your starship

The problem with swords on board starships is that, well, swords are fairly heavy and fairly bulky, so people aren't going to carry them unless they're quite effective weapons. A sword is both less convenient and less powerful than a pistol.

There are basically two ways to get swords on board spaceships. Method 1 is to increase effectiveness, method 2 is to make them more convenient to carry. An example of method 2 would be if people use smart metal multitools regularly; if you can reconfigure your multitool into a sword, it will happen.

Increasing effectiveness is much harder. The basic problem here is power -- an unpowered weapon is limited to the (rather low) power of the human arm, and a powered weapon is typically going to be ranged. Almost anything that improves unpowered weapons will also help out powered weapons. Things like powered armor help, but even then, you need all kinds of different muscle-analogs for a powered arm, so it's going to be a lot heavier than a single-purpose weapon.

Note that you can deal with many of these problems with magitech force fields. Since they're undefined technology, you can just give them handy properties. For example, force field generators might be powerful but short range, letting you do things like create force blades but not force blasts.

Re: How to get swords on your starship

I always liked Frank Herbert's solution - a defense field that will stop high-velocity objects' date=' but allow low velocity penetration.[/quote']

And then you wear body armor to stop low velocity objects, and you're invulnerable, though if the field extends a bit from the body you can send a warhead through at low velocities and have it detonate on contact (options for this range from the shotgun shell 'bang stick' on up).

 

The big problem with swords is that, well, we can make armor that's basically sword-proof today.

Re: Manipulating light and matter

No it doesn't. The ability to slow down light proves nothing; we've known about this phenomenon for more than a century (it's why a lens works).

As for 'accelerating' light, the version I'm aware of was a bit of a cheat. Basically, if you treat light as a wave, you can measure speed based on the front of the wave, the back of the wave, or the peak of the wave. The normal measurement is based on the peak. It is possible to chop off the tail of a light wave so that, while the _front_ of the wave moves at light speed, the _peak_ of the wave seems to be slightly ftl -- because you've chopped off enough of the back and middle so the peak is at a different point in the wave.

Re: Ray Guns

Would help if there were a link to the article, not to the front page of stratpage.

As for the JHPSSL, it's hard to tell how viable this research is, since we can't really tell how big and power-hungry the device is. 100 kW is way less power than THEL, but THEL is the size of a couple of tractor-trailers.

If you can fit the 100 kW laser, with power supply, in a HMMWV (which is what the SSHCL people were shooting for) it's nifty. The bigger the system is, the less interesting it is.

Re: Traveller: Free Trading

GURPS Traveller: Far Trader is economically sensible, and not very useful in-game (not that CT is better); macroeconomics may be interesting, but they rarely offer much in the way of game play hooks, and frankly, the mechanics in GT:FT encourage someone running a ship to, well, run a ship. Not go adventuring or doing interesting things. This is largely a legacy fault with Traveller; the way starship costs works means that lost time is lost money, and often a bunch of lost money.

Re: Champions Or Mutants & Masterminds?

Power stunts in Mutants and Masterminds are basically a form of pushing; the Extra Effort rules allow you to push for an increase in power (more or less identical to Pushing in Hero), or push for a power stunt. Pushing is generically a bit more expensive in M&M than it is in Hero (if you push three times in a row, without hero points, you render yourself unconscious); Hero Points simply negate the normal fatigue cost of pushing.

An equivalent rule in Hero would probably be 'You may push to use a power in a new way. Spend 1 END per 5 active points in the new power (may not be more active points than the original power); you may not use the original form of the power while using the new form, and the new power retains the disadvantages of the original power. This is functionally equivalent to a new ultra slot, and may not be used for special powers without GM permission'.

In my experience, Mutants and Masterminds makes versatility a little bit too cheap, however, so some more expensive implementation may be a better idea.

Re: The Future of Small Arms

Because it takes at least 20 Body damage to kill the average person in one shot. Thus' date=' your looking at a 6d6 RKA, bare minimum. Given I'm pretty sure even people like Worf or Data are supposed to die in one hit on disintegrate, it probably would look more like 40 Body and 12d6 RKA.[/quote']

No. Only redshirts are supposed to die in one hit on disintegrate. Named characters are generally resistant to stuff like that. The solution is to make mooks die on Body in one hit, or even Body/2 in one hit.

Re: The Future of Small Arms

Though the rise of effective rifle-resistant body armor may change things around.

Re: Question: What different Game Systems for Superheroes?

Does HeroClix count? It's not really an RPG, but the topic didn't require that.

Does Rifts count? Torg?

Re: Knockback on the moon?

Most likely more than half of the force is absorbed by the elasticity of the body' date=' and the blow lasts less than 1/10s?[/quote']

 

Dramatically under 1/10s. Let's assume that the punch starts out at 10 m/s velocity and slows down to 0m/s, for an average of 5 m/s.

 

Now, how far does the target have to move before the punch stops? For striking a punch meter, call it 5 cm.

 

So, the punch travelled 5cm between initial impact and stopping, at an average velocity of 5 m/s. Therefore, total time is 0.01 seconds.

 

Those numbers may not be especially accurate, but they're within the right order of magnitude.

Re: Knockback on the moon?

A realistic punch might be in effect a 1 kilogram impactor moving at 10 meters per second. Even on the moon, that's neglible motion. Essentially the only attacks which can realistically cause knockback are ones with the full weight of the body behind them, such as a tackle or slam in football.

Ignoring the realism of knockback for a moment, someone knocked back on a flat trajectory will go sqrt(1/0.16) = 2.5 times as far on the moon as on earth (and will then skid along the ground, possibly for a very long distance). If knocked back on an arching trajectory, they will go 6x as far.

On earth, knockback (flat) would be about 1 hex per 5 m/s velocity; knockback (45 degree arc) would be V^2/20 hexes.

Re: Who knows physics?

Nonlinear optical behavior is typically used to reduce the wavelength (frequency-doubled lasers and the like); the goal here was to increase the wavelength. If you want to do it at all, fluorescence is the way to go.

Re: Who knows physics?

But we are talking Mars. Roughly twice as far from the Sun as Earth' date=' roughly 1/4 of the visible light per square meter.[/quote']

 

Actually, 1.52x as far, roughly 43% the light.

 

Some 99.9% of that UV needs to be blocked anyway, I was wondering if it was possible to redshift it to be useable by the plants. Quantum dots seems to be a way to do this.

 

It's technically possible, but it's very likely that the equipment you need to do so will result in increasing the opacity of your dome, which means that you lose as much in visible light as you gain in converted UV. Even on Mars, there isn't that much UV relative to visible light -- the sun's emission spectrum peaks in the visible range. If you want to increase the total available light, I'd go for mirrors, though it's not really a problem you have to worry about all that much.