Expanded Shotgun Ammo for MegaTraveller

[far-trader]

Done up back in the dark ages and never translated across to other versions all the stats are MegaTraveller and in no way official. They may not even be that accurate but I'm sure I thought they were at the time

Type          Pen/Atn     Dmg     Rng     Dgr     Sig     Rec     Cr

Shot(P)        1/1         4      Med     1.5      H       M       1
Slug(B)        3/1         4      Med     1.5      H       M       1
Tranq          1/-         1      Med     1.5      H       M       2
Gas            1/- *       1      Med     3.0      H       M       2
Tactical(P)    1/1         3      Med     1.5      H      L/R      1
Sabot(S)       3/2         3      Lng      -       H       M       1
Rubber(B)      1/1         2      Med     3.0      H      L/R      1
Breach(S)      6/- *       4      Sht      -       H       M       2
Flare          0/-         2      Lng      -       H       L       2
Cracker        1/-         1      Med      -       H       L       2
HE(S)          3/2         4      Lng     1.5      H       M       2
HEAP(S)        4/2         3      Lng      -       H       M       3
KEAP(S)        8/2         4      Lng      -       H       M       4

* Unfortunately while I annotated the table with a couple * for a note I don’t see said note on the page, and after this long I’m not sure what it might have been for.


Type = Name of round, see below for other notes. Notation of B for Bullets(~8), P for Pellets(~24), S for a Single bullet.

Pen/Atn = Penetration/Attenuation

Dmg = Damage d6

Rng = Maximum(?) Range: Sht = Short = 5 meters; Med = Medium = 50 meters; Lng = Long = 250 meters

Dgr = Danger Space in meters(?)

Sig = Signature (sound and/or flash): H = High

Rec = Recoil: L = Low; M = Medium; R = ???

Cr = Credits per round for standard manufacture at TL7. Double cost and half weight and volume Caseless rounds available at TL10. Stamdard amd Caseless are not interchangeable between weapons.

Brief Descriptions:

Shot - The standard shotgun load of several small pellets.

Slug - Instead of several small pellets a few larger pellets.

Tranq - A tranquilizer round, using the rules for tanqs. IIRC my take was a small area effect shot. The round releasing a cloud of pepper spray on the target and the immediate area.

Gas - A canister of a noxious gas under pressure. You’ve seen the SWAT team gas canisters fired through windows to fill a room with smoky choking fumes? That’s it.

Tactical - A slightly lighter load. Used to reduce recoil and damage. Still quite potentially lethal. Also used for small game where a fuller charge would obliterate your target. Standard for survival kit shotguns.

Sabot - A round that encases a smaller aerodynamic finned round for more penetration and range. Basically allowing rifle performance with a shotgun. Also standard in the survival kit shotgun.

Rubber - A less lethal option for crowd control. Firing a solid round encased in rubber designed to bruise and incapacitate without penetrating. It can still be lethal if fired at close range or vital areas. Typically aimed at legs or stomach. Remember this was quite a while back. Modern versions are probably the beanbag round Bill alluded to, and they are iirc much less prone to lethal damage.

Breach - This is a round designed to blow hinges off doors, locks out of doors, and that sort of thing, to facilitate rapid entry.

Flare - This may be a simple signal flare, with or without a screamer, smoke or light, or it may be an illumination flare designed to light up an area as it drifts on the small parachute.

Cracker - As mentioned in the other thread I don’t see my notes on exactly what this was. Suggestions are welcome. Some ideas popping into my head are: an even less less than lethal round, some kind of electronic disabler (from the name), a simple noise maker. I really don’t know. Make of it what you will.

HE - A high explosive bullet. To be used against light armor iirc.

HEAP - A high explosive armor piercing bullet. Designed for use against Battle Dress iirc.

KEAP - A kinetic energy armor piercing bullet. Designed for light anti-vehicle use iirc.

I have a feeling there may have been other notes, or more likely thoughts in my head that should have been noted but that's all I've got on it.

 

[Whipsnade]

Thanks Dan! Yet another morsel to feed into my Vault of Traveller Goodness!


Regards,
Bill

 

[Icosahedron]

Good stuff. I've houseruled most of those in my time.

One query, though, KEAP and sabot rounds are generally fired from large calibre high velocity guns. Ye cannae change the laws o physics.

0.5Mv^2 will limit it's usefulness - there's not much point firing a tiny tungsten penetrator from a kiddies cork gun.

Edit: Ok scratch that. I see from the other thread you're talking about body armour and civilian vehicles. A shotgun KEAP should handle anything short of BD.
Note to self: engage brain before keyboard.

 

[Border Reiver]

Shotgun sabot slugs have been around for years (love 'em or hate 'em). Need a rifled barrel to get the best out of them though and it's cheaper to buy rifled slugs to use in a smooth bore. There are new generation sabots available now that I've never tried but the originals gave me near large caliber rifle performance.

 

[sabredog]

You might want to add these to the list:
http://www.taser.com/products/law/Pages/TASERXREP.aspx

Fully self-contained TASER shotgun loads that are spin-stabilized and work beyond the 21' rule.

 

[far-trader]

You might want to add these to the list...

Absolutely. Among others, real and fictional The above was just a quick post of old rules. Tech evolves and it's in need of revisiting.

I'd been thinking about those taser rounds, sticky-shockers from the Splinter Cell games (books?), and the rest. No doubt some I've not even seen not keeping up with gun stuff for several years.

Nothing saying anyone can't add to the list in this thread either

 

[sabredog]

My agency tested them last summer - kind of expensive but they worked. It rains so much here, though that we are dubious especially given the cost.

I suggested to Vargr that you use them the same way (in CT, not MT) as I do buzzknucks:

Use the same roll to hit versus range as a shotgun (Close/Short only) and the same armor mods. The exception being that if they hit they do no damage but require a saving roll of Endurance or less on 3D6 (4D6 if both barrels fired if applicable). Failure means you go down for 2 rounds while they cycle and make impressive sparks across your body.

Obviously "hard" armor gives full protection since there's nothing to stick to and penetrate. But, maybe a larger, sticky-bomb version in 40mm for grenade launchers could work...hmm...?

The save makes it fair to the player and if that makes the user uneasy then they could always put a pair of these in the front of the magazine and standard 4D rounds in the rest. Or one barrel is less-lethal and other other gets serious.

As an interesting aside a player came up with an ingenious idea a while back to protect themselves against this sort of thing (and any type of non-penetrative electric weapon like my buzzknucks much favored by organleggers): he turned a coat of mesh insdie out and added a ground strap to it to drag on the ground. Wearing this under his clothing he was armored against zap-shot (as it is now called IMTU) and buzzknucks. Looked goofy, though.

 

[Icosahedron]

I posted here about a taser round a couple of years back. I was using it as a snub pistol round at higher TL. Another suggestion at the time was a piezo shock round.

 

[Icosahedron]

Use the same roll to hit versus range as a shotgun (Close/Short only) and the same armor mods. The exception being that if they hit they do no damage but require a saving roll of Endurance or less on 3D6 (4D6 if both barrels fired if applicable). Failure means you go down for 2 rounds while they cycle and make impressive sparks across your body.

Sounds lke a good system, I might borrow that.
I've heard that tasers can be life-threatening to some people yet virtually useless against others, maybe if you roll twice your Endurance or above, your End is reduced to zero and you roll again, first against Dex and then, if you're rolling badly, against Str. That would allow for the possibility of a taser seriously incapacitating or even killing someone with low stats and/or or low luck.

Just a suggestion. What do you think?

 

[sabredog]

Yeah, it happens but it's extremely rare given how often these things are used by police, security, the military, and civilians. Lot's of studies out there, but unfortunately no really conclusive results yet.

I think in the "Far Future" I think the technology would be perfected to the point where a test against Endurance just to see if it puts you down (because electrical resistance varies in people, and sometimes the darts just don't hit the right spot and bounce off) for the count without any real harm is a more likely scenario.

Maybe poorly made homegrown TASER "shockdarts" (or whatever you wanna call them) cobbled together in someone's garage would be more likely to do harm and those would use the procedure you describe. Or the player takes an amount of damage against his attributes equal to how much he missed the roll by? And the rounds could be rated up or down by the saving roll dice number?

So a homemade round might require a 4D6 or 5D6 save, and if the player fails then he's out and takes the difference in damage from the overdone charge frying him. So the average 7 END guy rolls 4D6...gets a 14 and is out for 2 rounds while taking 7 points of damage. Now, to get really vicious about it the guy who shot him the first time could hit him again with another round and the target has to roll against STR now since END is zero.

Just thinking out loud with that, but I think I'll use it myself now. The place the organleggers like to use them is a mean and nastiverse type of world so Saturday Night Special shockdarts would be appropriate for a world where you can buy disposable body pistols out of vending machines before leaving the starport for town.

But it's always up to how the ref wants to handle it. "sides, the thing the players will really be scared of is what happens to them during the 2 rounds they are twitching and sparking and the other guys play catch-up. :smirk:

BTW: for party trivia TASER is an acronym - it stands for Tom A. Swift Electric Rifle...the inventor was a fan when he was a kid. So it's always capitalized, but I imagine Websters will add some new verbs and all with the name given how popular the things are now.

 

[Major B]

Thanks for posting this Dan. Helps a lot with one of my current projects.

My list did not have a separate sabot and KEAP round, and I also include bird shot (with a pen of 0/-, Dmg 2). I also had a TASER round in mind, but I see that's already being discussed.

I hadn't got to figuring the particulars of the rounds I wanted, so this is a huge help. Thanks again.