Alternatives for PG/FGMP's

[batmagoo]

I never allowed my players to get access to PG/FG style weapons, because of play balance issues.
I did come up with stats for 'power-guns', as in the Hammers Slammers novels,(stats have since disappeared!).
Has anyone else out there in CotI land created their own 'stats' for some other types of directed energy weapons that they use/ed in their games?

Chuck

 

[shadowcat]

from our Striker days, we actually went away from High Energy Weapons, and back to a man portable auto ram GL, that fed from a 100 round backpack unit, it allowed for more flexibility in support, that and the grenade damage/penetration doesnt drop at longer ranges, and you can hit 2 targets, with an IR follow up round, a TL-13 4CM heap round can even penetrate an unarmored starship hull

with the ammo pack its a beast at over 100kg, but thats what grav belts etc are for.

 

[vegascat]

But it's so much fun to let some PCs play with a few FGMP-15s only, in an unarmored ship being boarded by pirates.
Whats it matter that they blow a hole or dozen in the hull and conduits and control panels and fire suppression systems and heat regulators and airlock doors (both of them) and anything else the ship might just need to operate.

Senario - Ship hires new steward after old steward dissappears in a port. Steward sabotages all weapons in weapons locker. Crew breaks out crate of FGMP-15s being shipped to a scout base for operational testing that new steward did not know about. Fun ensues!

 

[Fritz_Brown]

All the PCs were in suits, right?

 

[vegascat]

Business, casual, skivies, ship coveralls, vacc, combat armor, but not battledress. The choice is up to how demented you are as a GM.
When would a steward afiliated with pirates set up an attack?

 

[far-trader]

Well I've started describing some of my old ideas on the personal high energy weapons here:

INSIDE - The Imperial Interstellar Armed Forces

I would agree, only in rare cases should the PC's get their greedy, sweaty, trigger happy digits on the heavy gear for obvious reasons

...but as vegascat says it can be fun to watch what happens when they throw common sense out the window in favor of SUPERIOR FIREPOWER!

 

[tucker2]

You could have something like plasma projecting M-LAWS, single-shot throw-away doohickies that're easier to get but generally crap compared to the real deal.

Maybe there's some kind of "kit gun" available for enterprising PC's. A home-built PGMP... who among us fires the first shot?

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by tucker2:

Maybe there's some kind of "kit gun" available for enterprising PC's. A home-built PGMP... who among us fires the first shot?

I love that idea. Scares me though, every kit I've ever built was either short components or I've had parts left over The ones with leftovers work fine but you always wonder...

The other ones always seem to be missing a critical hard to get component that the kit maker seems to think can be found in every small town hardware store for a few dollars...

Proud PC...

OK, that seems to be it, all done but the final step. Hmm, wonder what all these left over insulators and capacitors are for? Must have been extras. Let's see, "Step 72: Plug in your completed PGMP to an output regulated homopoloar generator of 12Mj... " TWELVE MEGA JOULES!!! That has to be a mistake, there should be a decimal there, 1.2Mj makes sense. Now where am I going to find a 1.2Mj homopolar generator?

 

[tucker2]

Originally posted by far-trader:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by tucker2:

Maybe there's some kind of "kit gun" available for enterprising PC's. A home-built PGMP... who among us fires the first shot?

I love that idea. Scares me though, every kit I've ever built was either short components or I've had parts left over The ones with leftovers work fine but you always wonder...

The other ones always seem to be missing a critical hard to get component that the kit maker seems to think can be found in every small town hardware store for a few dollars...

Proud PC...

OK, that seems to be it, all done but the final step. Hmm, wonder what all these left over insulators and capacitors are for? Must have been extras. Let's see, "Step 72: Plug in your completed PGMP to an output regulated homopoloar generator of 12Mj... " TWELVE MEGA JOULES!!! That has to be a mistake, there should be a decimal there, 1.2Mj makes sense. Now where am I going to find a 1.2Mj homopolar generator? </font>[/QUOTE]Righto far-trader man. I don't know how my PCs would feel using a high energy weapon built using a kit bought from a Shotgun News of the future, but not real secure is a sure thing.

 

[mike wightman]

A quick look through FF&S shows that personal/crew served PAWs, and Meson guns, could be built.

I've no idea how effective they'd be until I try out a few designs.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I'm pretty sure I designed a meson rifle once...

 

[mike wightman]

Can you find its stats anywhere?

 

[coz10]

that was the one good thing that came out of the rebellion era. rules for carring the good old fgmp-15 required battle dress-15 and battledress-15 required a lot of time to put on (no rash quick draws here) and being battledress-15 was hard as hell to put on and walk through a starships tight spaces. like wise in a fast fluid internal ship battle. seting up a heavyweapon. was like the maginot line. tee-hee dressed for the party but shown up at the wrong place. we also deemed a ship boarding almost impossible without an insider so when pcs were fighting inside the ship it was suprise reaction or after a ship battle gone bad. in either case the home defense rule applies. ie. guns provide bad living defense because haveing a gun does not mean you have a gun in hand and readied. if after waked from sleep you do then the bad guys don,t have to take you out youll probably do you self.

 

[coz10]

that was the one good thing that came out of the rebellion era. rules for carring the good old fgmp-15 required battle dress-15 and battledress-15 required a lot of time to put on (no rash quick draws here) and being battledress-15 was hard as hell to put on and walk through a starships tight spaces. like wise in a fast fluid internal ship battle. seting up a heavyweapon. was like the maginot line. tee-hee dressed for the party but shown up at the wrong place. we also deemed a ship boarding almost impossible without an insider so when pcs were fighting inside the ship it was suprise reaction or after a ship battle gone bad. in either case the home defense rule applies. ie. guns provide bad living defense because haveing a gun does not mean you have a gun in hand and readied. if after waked from sleep you do then the bad guys don,t have to take you out youll probably do you self.

 

[coz10]

oops sorry about that accidental discharge.

 

[coz10]

that btw is why i think the best thing to ever come out of the rules evolution was FF&S. you could make anything. btw about that GL above I always found that true too.
there is a condition i forget the term but its when a weapon is replaced by a new one and all of its defenses no longer used reintroduced can wreck havoc like when a Bn of bow weilding yugoslavians in WWII slogg down in quagmire an elite panzer Dv.
if i remember right thats why swords and melee weapons were reintroduced in internal ship battles and guns were unthinkable.

in tech jumping rules this should be thought of as well. im trying not to be long winded here but let me give example through the eyes of a "bigest baddest gun" hunting players

 

[coz10]

how about this- we basically did this
go back to the tech chart alla "mercenary" and make a graph of what is used when. when it comes to fusion and plasma think this way.
F/P becomes a massive stategic weapon then it becomes a vehicle main gun then it becomes a heavy support the eventually thats what i pictured was a hammer slammers type weapon.
also in our game some stages were skipped like the devopement of the shotgun. not the main stay because or range but useful in ship battles or tank role as a shot load for personal damage.
also take a look at the 2300 plasma weapons and how they scaled down to a virtual assault rifle PGMP(if i rember right 2300 was supposed to be at TL13?)

 

[coz10]

heres a look at how we picked the TL-15 combat eviroment-
the common infantry striker is now battledress-15. and totes a PGMP-15 (about the size of a battlerifle now) underslug GL at 3cm (which is now an anti-vehicle missle of about toe strength) his battledress contains interagral AG belt of course. these troops are in mainstay mechinized using (grav APCs) and thus are spacebourne capable.
Support is given in picked squad mates being laser armed sniper and (M-60 sized) VRF GUassgun autogunner and a few guass ARs (for soft target)
(Infantry will never die nono)
Vehicles will at 15 be melded into one trepeidas and emperesses being now slow and fast movers as well as spacecraft. these give support with behemoth plasma guns multibarrel guns and vrf guasses as well as fire and forget self guided missles.
Artillary is of course at this stage the meason gun being defense is vehicle mounted meason screens. the dual between artillary is to be able to send in crunchies and take out screens, or guns because the victor of this battle can have ultimate power. measons being a sort of god weapon. note that capital ships cannot even think of approaching a defending planet.
as a note in TL-16 we started haveing meason vehicle main guns, as ship main guns sterted going disintagrator.
but this meant little to the group as because just because his royal highness could imploy these goodies to bring the baddies down in the end meason guns or dis weapons would become like nukes very very illegal. ie. the rebllion sorta went bad because of this.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Can you find its stats anywhere?

Nah. It *was* about 10 years ago...

I *think* it was TL-16, but even then the range and damage were pretty feeble. Ditto for the plasma pistol I designed.