Can we just call it JOT?
JOAT sounds like "GOAT" and it makes my androids dream of electronic goats. ; - )
Battle Dress skill and Marines
- Thread starter Shadowfax
- Start date
Can we just call it JOT?
JOAT sounds like "GOAT" and it makes my androids dream of electronic goats. ; - )
I eliminated this problem by giving promotional skills to characters who reach a certain rank. Sergeants get tactics or leader. Lieutenants get FWD Obs. Captains get either tactics, leader or admin.
Yeah in Book 4 Mercenary and the Veterans supplement they distinguish between Level-0 Skills "Equipment qualified on" and skill level 1.
I like that idea.
Level zero means you can pick up the weapon, jam in a clip, pull back the charger, point the thing downrange, remember to flip off the safety and shoot in the general direction of the enemy until it goes "click"! Actually hitting requires luck, a high autofire bonus or real skill.
You could try it, but I wouldn't want you operating on me.
Well, if the FGMP has an integral grav module then you could put a grav module on a VRFGG too if you wanted to I suppose.
One argument for RP fusion guns and the like is that you don't have to worry about carrying and running out of ammo, something that happens really fast with a VRFGG.
On the other-other hand you might want a VRFGG for certain kinds of jobs. Fusion guns start fires and fires destroy things that you might want.
Jst a few random thoughts.
Ok, marine locker yeah, but not your typical civilian merchant ship's locker . . . I hope?
That is just because they didn't include weapons like the 12mm "Terra's Hammer" and the Vilani TL-15 10mm Gauss Rifle in the Striker weapons sheet! ; - )
Yeah, like outside the ship! ; - )
Sorry for all the posts from me, but I wasn't around for a while and there are so many good or funny comments to reply to. : - o
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Yes, and no...the p/FGMP's use a gravitic generator not only because of weight, but as cited by Mercenary: the primary reason is for recoil compensation. It's still a man-portable weapon even if you shut off the generator - it only weighs 23 pounds for the heaviest, but to fire it you need to deal with a tremendous recoil.
But a VRF gun - well, that thing might weigh as much or little as an autocannon or a fusion gun, but the thing doesn't sound handy to wield at all.
It sounds just like it's described as: a heavy, pintel mounted support weapon as chunky as an autocannon. So logically you'd need something larger than a man to use it as a personal weapon. Unless, I suppose you are in something like W40K and everything is over the top.
There are workarounds - I have a G-SAW in the "Pimped some guns" thread that fills the gap handily without making unrealistic compromises. Of course if you want to make an argument for mounting these VRF's on a small "mech"-type suit then that might work. Just not IMTU because BD is cheaper and more versatile when it shows up at TL-13, and before that (and to a lot of extent, after) drones and tanks are just cheaper, fatser, and better protected.
No doubt, just because it enters the production line before high energy weapons it doesn't mean you can't still use it. In fact the VRF makes a dandy coaxial or cupola mounted weapon for keeping the pesky anti-tank teams away from your grav tank when they are to close to use the main fusion z gun without scorching the paint.
Why would it be otherwise?
Or powerguns ala' the Slammers which I added into MTU before Mercenary came out with P/FGMP guns, and still have them since they fill a gap at even TL-15. That's the beauty of Traveller - you can do what you want with it. If you want mechs, have mechs. You want different types of weapons than are in the admittedly sparse (but the basics are all there) weapons list for the OTU, then make them. I haven't seen a game yet that didn't do that. Check my early gauss weapons thread for some of my railgun designs for yet another example.
So far entertaining thread, but I got sort of an aside, could you remind how the Slammer's powergun functions again, what with the railguns, cone rifles, the spring guns, and such technologies, one sometimes loses a weapon here and there on the tech charts?
Powerguns were a personal plasma weapon (pistols, SMG, rifles, tribarrels) that were handwavy, but believable. They functioned by using copper-cobalt enriched plastic slugs that, when laser ignited in the chamber to start the reaction, sent a plasma bolt (2cm for the rifles, 1cm for pistols and SMG) downrange as accelerated by a short mag-rail system in the iridium barrel. The flux in the mag-rail system also charged the plasma ignition.
The handwavy part (which Drake even called it as) is that scientists first discovered this sort of plasma/magnetic flux reaction during the Mt Pele volcanic eruption. They replicated it and accidentally found the most awesome personal weapon in the known universe. And they are, relative to spring rifles and gauss guns...but the iriduim barrels make them incredibly expensive so only the best mercs can afford them.
They are also prone to over-heating and can gang-fire if the flux is off or the weapon gets too hot...which is why the rapid-firing tank cannons and MG's are 3-barrel gatling types. The SMG's were not a great weapon for that reason, and in one story Slammer's bodyguard/aide, Joachim fires his pistol so fast the molten plastic jams it and smears across the port. Slammer comments that that's why he doesn't like the smaller caliber autos.
Mine are pretty much the same..the gap they fill is the one for an alternative high energy weapon that is man-portable, doesn't require battle dress, nor does it need a grav generator to fire. They won't blow a hole in the hull of a ship, but they can get through BD at their TL - just not as much so as a P/FGMP. But it makes them a little more useful on ships and in enclosed areas since they don't have that big bang at the receiving with frag damage and all. No back pack..just a 30 or 50 round magazine.
I have more restrictions involving heat and such, and they are not the be-all, end-all of energy weapons in my game - in fact, ever since switching back to the CT system from Striker the gauss rifle has again become king of the battlefield. Although the powergun pistol variant has put hand guns back into vogue.
If you want the stats and color commentary I can send it or post it here for you.
The handwavy part (which Drake even called it as) is that scientists first discovered this sort of plasma/magnetic flux reaction during the Mt Pele volcanic eruption. They replicated it and accidentally found the most awesome personal weapon in the known universe. And they are, relative to spring rifles and gauss guns...but the iriduim barrels make them incredibly expensive so only the best mercs can afford them.
They are also prone to over-heating and can gang-fire if the flux is off or the weapon gets too hot...which is why the rapid-firing tank cannons and MG's are 3-barrel gatling types. The SMG's were not a great weapon for that reason, and in one story Slammer's bodyguard/aide, Joachim fires his pistol so fast the molten plastic jams it and smears across the port. Slammer comments that that's why he doesn't like the smaller caliber autos.
Mine are pretty much the same..the gap they fill is the one for an alternative high energy weapon that is man-portable, doesn't require battle dress, nor does it need a grav generator to fire. They won't blow a hole in the hull of a ship, but they can get through BD at their TL - just not as much so as a P/FGMP. But it makes them a little more useful on ships and in enclosed areas since they don't have that big bang at the receiving with frag damage and all. No back pack..just a 30 or 50 round magazine.
I have more restrictions involving heat and such, and they are not the be-all, end-all of energy weapons in my game - in fact, ever since switching back to the CT system from Striker the gauss rifle has again become king of the battlefield. Although the powergun pistol variant has put hand guns back into vogue.
If you want the stats and color commentary I can send it or post it here for you.
Sabredog,
Close, but no cigar.
There's no laser ignition or need for a "mag rail" to "accelerate" the plasma charge.
You did get the Mount Pelee part of the story correct, however.
As Drake himself explains in the Powerguns interlude in the first Slammers book; The key had come from spectroscopic examination of pre-1902 lavas from Pelee's crater. The older rocks had shown inexplicable gaps among the metallic elements expected there.
The investigation had been centered on some oddly different destruction that occurred during the eruption that couldn't be explained by pyroclastic flows or other known mechanisms. A research team found that metallic atoms of a fixed magnetic orientation could be converted directly into energy by the proper combination of heat, pressure, and intersecting magnetic fields.
Just like the old lavas running parallel to seafloor spreading sites, "lava locks its rich metallic burden in a pattern dictated by the magnetic ambiance at the time the flow cools. When Pelee erupted, the new magnetic loads produced a chance alignment with the older lava laid down in previous eruptions. As a result, matter flashed into energy in a line dictated by the intersection, ripping other atoms free of the basalt matrix and converting them in turn.
The weapon technology thus developed used a copper-cobalt charge in a wafer of microporous polyurethane became the standard, since it appeared to give maximum energy release with the least tendency to scatter. Because the discharge was linear, there was no need of a tube to channel the force as a rifle's barrel does; but some immediate protection from air-induced scatter was necessary for a hand-held weapon.
No lasers for ignition and no mag rails to throw the plasma down range. Just impose a very precise magnetic realignment and the copper atoms in the wafer produce a linear discharge which needs to be shielded to protect the gun's user.
Regards,
Bill
Sabredog,
Tell me about it.
Would like a membership card? I'm the president of the It Bites Getting Old club.
Regards,
Bill
