Plasma/Fusion pistols

[far-trader]

Thank you Sigg <scribbles pencil notes in margin of well worn FF&S>, and thank you too Andrew <tosses more old vidiot games into harddrive trash to make room for download, yes I need a bigger drive>, and thanks again Zparkz for the preview privileges of your own SS.

 

[mike wightman]

Here's an idea.

Can repulsor/manipulators be scaled down to 0.5kg of mass, 100kg of thrust?

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Zparkz:
I have been toying a bit with the design.
Adding weight to either the recoil compensator or to the firing unit itself may be the answer.

If weight is added to the compensator its overall effectiveness should be increased. Like double the effect for double the weight and so on. If the compensator works as an exoskeleton to the wielders arm,t here might not be any penalties as the gun will be quite heavy to hold at arms length if it weight much more than 1 kilo.

Another thing is that the effective short range should be reduced due to the inaccuracy of using one hand. However this may not change the effective range for penetration.

Any thoughts?

Increasing the mass is the way to go.

If you up the weight of your fusion pistol et al to 2kg - big, but not quite carbine sized - the recoil drops to 8.
And firing a pistol two handed lowers this by one

 

[mike wightman]

And to increase the mass you can:

increase the number of rounds carried

add pistol grip(s)

add optical sights

add laser sight

add inert lumps of metal/polymer

 

[Zparkz]

In general I think the heavy enbergy weapon design of FF&S are broken, even after the fix. The general rules states that stock, sight and all are subsummed into the firing unit calculation. A 100 gram firing unit would hardly be able to wielded in a hand. The rules should at least include som simple pistol grips and stocks for smaller units. The ammunition with the box weights many times the gun.

 

[mike wightman]

I have to agree with you. No way can optical sights, stocks, and pistol grips be incuded in the firing unit when it's possible to build them 0.1kg or less.

I would say that a pistol grip must be fitted to a pistol, plus a stock for a rifle, and only iron sights are included - anything better has to be accounted for.

I've been working backwards from a recoil of 8 for fusion pistols at TLs 18, 16, 15, and 14.
Assuming the pistol can be bulked up to 2kg then the energies and damage values of the pistols come out at:</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">TL MJ damage
14 0.028 5
15 0.04 6
16 0.09 9
18 0.22 14</pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[Zparkz]

Did you use any compensation in these designs?

 

[mike wightman]

Yep, I've used the inertial compensator for the given TL, added pistol grips, optical sights, fiddled around with number of rounds etc. to get the weapon to have a mass of as close to 2kg as I could manage.

I've also assumed the supporting hardware to be built into the weapon itself.

A carbine version, around the 3kg mass mark, with two pistol grips and a folding stoch is the next on my list...

 

[mike wightman]

By the way, for an interesting story that involves a very high TL plasma pistol read Iain M.Banks' short story "A gift from the Culture", available in the collected short story book "The State of the Art".

 

[Zparkz]

For these weapons to be of any good use their magazines should not weigh more than 500 to 700 grams unless the trooper would be too encumbered.

Another thought I had was that fusion pistols probably are novelties found among nobels, or else traveller would be full of references to these kinds of weapons.

 

[mike wightman]

Can you check that I've done the math right for the size of the EPG cartridges:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">TL Energy/MJ mass/kg radius/mm
14 0.028 0.0224 6.7
15 0.04 0.032 7.5
16 0.09 0.036 7.8
18 0.22 0.088 10.5</pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[Zparkz]

YOur figures are correct, however you got a typo on the mass of the TL 14 cartridge. It should read 0.0224

 

[mike wightman]

Thanks Zparkz, now I know I've got that bit right I can work out the exact stats for the various guns...

 

[Zparkz]

I can do that with some modifications to my spreadsheet. However that has to wait until a bit later today.

 

[Zparkz]

OK here we go, I have made the necessary changes to my spreadsheet. The design I am presenting here have a few basic assumptions.

Small arms plasma/fusion weapons where firing unit (FU) is massing less than 0.5 kilo requires a pistol grip to be handled. And if it is less than 1 kilo it requires a stock to be handled as a rifle.

The FU must mass at least 200 grams to include an aiming laser.

It is possible to increase compensation effect by using a heavier compensator.

TL 15 Fusion Pistol 0.05Mj Compensated

Weapon:
Mass = 0.4Kg
Loaded mass = 1Kg
Price = 765cr (including compensator)

Cartridge
Mass = 40grams
Price = 0.4cr
Diameter = 16mm
Length = 48mm

Box (loaded/empty)
Mass: 0.608Kg / 0.288Kg
Price:6cr / 2.88cr

Compensator increased from 0.1Kg to 0.14Kg to handle the excess recoil above 8. The weapon also have a hollow pistol grip with 8 shots. The FU has been increased with 0.1Kg from 0.1Kg to 0.2Kg

ROF: SA1
Damage: 7
Pen: 1-2-10
Recoil: 8
Short Range: 34 (However as an one handed weapon I would set aim range to about 60% of this)

 

[mike wightman]

Nice one

Can you explain how you got 0.14kg for the compensator?

 

[Zparkz]

I did that in the most simple way I could think of. I took the weapon recoil without compensation substracting the compensated recoil value. I divided then the mass of the original compensator on the difference found in the previous calculation. This number is the mass of compensator per recoil value compensated.

I then decided for a new recoil value. This case 8. Substracting 8 from the difference in compesated value calculated above and multiplying this value with the mass per compensated recoil value.

As I am at work now I don't have the actual number in front of me.

The weight of the compensator is not added to the weapon design above. In a way I feel that a compensator arm of 140grams are very slender and probably not very strong. An recoil value of 51 on a 0.1Kg weapon (FU) makes me think of the "cricket-gun" from MiB. The recoil values do not work for this kind of design. Another matter is that the compensator are probably something else than an arm fastened to the body. Probably something gyroscoping. FF&S doesn't allow for gravitic modules smaller than 30liters.

 

[DaveChase]

Gun, Gun, Gun or also knows as 3G
by BTRG.

They also did Time Lords and Space Lords more recently the C.O.R.P.S.

3G is a great little book with lots of forumlas to create almost any weapon in any time line/time frame.

Dave Chase

 

[mike wightman]

I've been tempted to get the pdf version for a while now...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

3G3 is one of the classics.