AP
- Thread starter Savar
- Start date
From my experience, I have found that the rules governing melee and lasers (or energy weapons) seem deficient compared to the rules governing firearms and slugthrowers, which the rules have a clear bias towards. You can only have three laser personal weapons, and they tend to have provisos like "may be unreliable" etc. Compare that to the veritable flood of firearms and slugthrowers.
All hail veltyen for showing me you can take the Armor Piercing rules on page 154 and apply them to lasers and melee, simply by being creative. Hail!
All hail veltyen for showing me you can take the Armor Piercing rules on page 154 and apply them to lasers and melee, simply by being creative. Hail!
princelian
SOC-12
In my CT days, there were, at TL15, microwave lasers available. They were invisible (to normal vision) and penetrated most reflec and ablat armor. You could also buy, at TL15, reflec and ablat that could stop microwave (reflec-m and ablat-m) that were still effective against visible lasers.
How realistic are microwave lasers? I dunno. You could lase microwaves, just like any electromagnetic radiation, but how damaging would it be?
How realistic are microwave lasers? I dunno. You could lase microwaves, just like any electromagnetic radiation, but how damaging would it be?
Microwave lasers are very realistic. The first "lasers" were actually based on microwaves and called masers: Microwave Amplified Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Damage would be comparable to that of visible light lasers. There are some differences in the details of energy absorbtion but from a game point of view it's still going to blow a hole in you by cooking your tissue until it vaporizes.
On defense, metal can works really well at reflecting microwaves.
Damage would be comparable to that of visible light lasers. There are some differences in the details of energy absorbtion but from a game point of view it's still going to blow a hole in you by cooking your tissue until it vaporizes.
On defense, metal can works really well at reflecting microwaves.
The main issue with microwave lasers is range and penetration; they're pretty much the inverse of AP. If you have, say, a 6" (15cm) dish, which is rather large, and 1mm microwaves, you can get a 1cm spot size (low end of reasonable for penetrating any sort of armor) at a range of 1.5 meters. By a range of 10 meters, the spot is some 7 cm wide.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
In all fairness though, most of the energy weapons don't need help penetrating personal armor. Against the Combat armor, tough but definitely possible, against anything else, a Laser Rifle is likely to penetrate and cause real damage. AP bullets are extremely expensive and are still rather limited in effect.
In my game we've been assuming lasers don't get armor piercing, however the suggestion about microwave lasers is interesting.
However, I submit that AP lasers should have shorter rather than longer wavelengths.
Shorter wavelengths have inherently more energy per photon, and become progressively harder to block. By the time the wavelength is into the x-ray band, it can pass through a significant amount of metal, unless the surfaces are at grazing angles, and the shorter the wavelength the less reflective a metal is.
Gold is an attractive mirror material in the x-ray band because it still retains a significant degree of reflectivity. Which has the added aesthetic feature of suggestic that gold-colored vac suits might provide better protection. The space police in Larry Niven's Known Space series were known as "gold skins"; a feature which I have used in several of my games.
Masers actually predate lasers by a couple years (1953 vs 1960), and the first laser concept was termed an "optical maser".
Microwave weapons are under development, but for use against unprotected humans (heat the water in their skin, causing pain) or unshielded electronics. Even a loose mesh (e.g. chicken wire or ring mail) should block most of it.
The most weapon-like lasers available today are infrared (e.g Airborne Laser and MIRACL); I believe due to their efficiency and the focus of research on chemical lasers which can provide sufficient power in a form that can be put in a plane or ship.
Industrial cutting lasers are also typically infrared (CO2) for their high efficiency.
Metal ion lasers ranging from ultraviolet to x-ray can be made today, but I believe they are used only for research.
Free-electron lasers can be tuned to theoretically any wavelength, including x-ray, but the same low reflectivity that would make x-rays effective in weapons makes creation of a laser cavity with mirrors difficult (existing materials don't reflect enough light to give the cavity any gain) so x-ray lasers are limited by the power that can be generated by a single pass, which is in turn limited by the electromagnetic fields which can be applied.
Higher tech levels could be postulated to enable either more reflective materials (useful as armor as well as cavity mirrors) or stronger fields. free-electron lasers could also be tuned to penetrate armor made of layered reflectors optimized for specific frequencies. There would be a clear progression from "soft" x-rays to "hard" x-rays then gamma rays...
However, I submit that AP lasers should have shorter rather than longer wavelengths.
Shorter wavelengths have inherently more energy per photon, and become progressively harder to block. By the time the wavelength is into the x-ray band, it can pass through a significant amount of metal, unless the surfaces are at grazing angles, and the shorter the wavelength the less reflective a metal is.
Gold is an attractive mirror material in the x-ray band because it still retains a significant degree of reflectivity. Which has the added aesthetic feature of suggestic that gold-colored vac suits might provide better protection. The space police in Larry Niven's Known Space series were known as "gold skins"; a feature which I have used in several of my games.
Masers actually predate lasers by a couple years (1953 vs 1960), and the first laser concept was termed an "optical maser".
Microwave weapons are under development, but for use against unprotected humans (heat the water in their skin, causing pain) or unshielded electronics. Even a loose mesh (e.g. chicken wire or ring mail) should block most of it.
The most weapon-like lasers available today are infrared (e.g Airborne Laser and MIRACL); I believe due to their efficiency and the focus of research on chemical lasers which can provide sufficient power in a form that can be put in a plane or ship.
Industrial cutting lasers are also typically infrared (CO2) for their high efficiency.
Metal ion lasers ranging from ultraviolet to x-ray can be made today, but I believe they are used only for research.
Free-electron lasers can be tuned to theoretically any wavelength, including x-ray, but the same low reflectivity that would make x-rays effective in weapons makes creation of a laser cavity with mirrors difficult (existing materials don't reflect enough light to give the cavity any gain) so x-ray lasers are limited by the power that can be generated by a single pass, which is in turn limited by the electromagnetic fields which can be applied.
Higher tech levels could be postulated to enable either more reflective materials (useful as armor as well as cavity mirrors) or stronger fields. free-electron lasers could also be tuned to penetrate armor made of layered reflectors optimized for specific frequencies. There would be a clear progression from "soft" x-rays to "hard" x-rays then gamma rays...
The real problem with giving a laser AP ability is where do you apportion the extra cost?
1. Increasing the power pack's strength: The problem here is that you have to turn a power pack into something using more power to get it to do what you want, making it larger or more capable than normal.
2. Decreasing the number of shots that a power pack can push through: The problem here is that with a AP of 1, you are probably decreasing the power pack's ability to 2 shots, since IIRC, 1ap is equal to 10x the cost and it is a logarithmic scale with 2AP being 10x as expensive as a 1AP round, etc.. (The number might be off but the logarithmic scale should be correct).
3. A combination of 1 & 2 is the most likely but still can end up severly abusing the rules and/or your pocketbook.
4. Increasing the cost of the weapon: This is the least likely or wanted possibility since it would give laser weapons a huge advantage over fireams since you only have to pay the extra cost once. About the only way to handle this would be to require extensive maintainence on such a overpowered weapon, say every 10 shots or it blows up.
1. Increasing the power pack's strength: The problem here is that you have to turn a power pack into something using more power to get it to do what you want, making it larger or more capable than normal.
2. Decreasing the number of shots that a power pack can push through: The problem here is that with a AP of 1, you are probably decreasing the power pack's ability to 2 shots, since IIRC, 1ap is equal to 10x the cost and it is a logarithmic scale with 2AP being 10x as expensive as a 1AP round, etc.. (The number might be off but the logarithmic scale should be correct).
3. A combination of 1 & 2 is the most likely but still can end up severly abusing the rules and/or your pocketbook.
4. Increasing the cost of the weapon: This is the least likely or wanted possibility since it would give laser weapons a huge advantage over fireams since you only have to pay the extra cost once. About the only way to handle this would be to require extensive maintainence on such a overpowered weapon, say every 10 shots or it blows up.
If you really want to allow lasers to have AP You could make the AP a function of the TL of the Power pack/laser system, that way as the TL increases the effectiveness of the equipment will increases rather than the weight decrease.
Base TL for a laser is 9. Give 1 AP point for every two TL's above that. AP 1 @ TL 11, AP 2 @ TL 13. AP 3 @ 15.
I am not sure if there is any real world justification for this, but it would be a rather simple system to implement. You could always hand waive someting about wavelength and battery efficency.
R
Base TL for a laser is 9. Give 1 AP point for every two TL's above that. AP 1 @ TL 11, AP 2 @ TL 13. AP 3 @ 15.
I am not sure if there is any real world justification for this, but it would be a rather simple system to implement. You could always hand waive someting about wavelength and battery efficency.
R
