Plasma guns in traveller?

[Trent]

I know you must be wearing battledress to use a FGMP and survive in traveller.

Can you fire a PGMP in traveller wearing, say, plate armor and survive?

 

[shield]

In classic traveller, you never needed to be wearing battle dress to survive firing a PGMP/FGMP. Its just that most of these weapons have massive recoil and need the battledress systems to absorb the recoil. They were also designed to interface with the battledress display systems.

The FGMP-15 and PGMp-14 have anti-grav generators so anyone can fire them (recoil absorbed).

Mongoose traveller introduces radiation from the PGMP/FGMP and you better be in battledress or the radiation from the weapon discharge will get you.

Cheers
Richard

 

[Border Reiver]

The thing is, prior to Mongoose Traveller you only needed Battledress to fire non recoil compensated Fusion and Plasma Guns. These were the PGMP-13 (the earlier PGMP-12 was not so powerful) and FGMP-14. The PGMP-14 and FGMP-15 had gravitic compensation and so could be fired without Battledress.

Now apparently the FGMP causes radiation damage to the firer and all along the track of it's stream, well not in MTU :nonono:. I'll stick with the version used previously and may use a burst radius at the point of impact.

I hope this answers your question, Battledress for PGMP-13 and FGMP-14, otherwise you can be as naked as the day you were born and still shoot that FGMP-15 from the hip (not recommended).

 

[Andrew Boulton]

TNE said you need flameproof clothing.

 

[mike wightman]

T4's Emperor's Arsenal introduces a whole host of problems for the plasma/fusion gunner -from radiation damage and extreme recoil to flash burns and blinding.

 

[Trent]

Ok, so if it's got gravitic compensation and recoil compensation you could fire it sans powered armor, but might need some body armor to resist hear and radiation effects.

OK, that works for what I'm planning, thanks.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The radiation thing has to be a bit of gaming hokum. If it were "true" in the official TU, then mercenaries would consider all wars above TL 13 to be "bad wars", and wouldn't sign on to any tickets.

I can see an incident where the weapon has a catastrophic malfunction, and leaks radiation from the reaction chamber, and/or maybe the target suffers radiation from being hit (dead or alive... most likely dead, hence an irradiated corpse ... or ashes thereof), but I see no reason for the firer to be concerned about radiation as such from the weapon.

One might argue that a "low tech" or experimental version of a plasma or fusion gun might have some hazards (say supercoolant leaking from a valve or hose), and maybe that stuff is irradiated because the designer forgot to put shielding somewhere inside the weapon, but ambient radiation from merely firing a perfectly good weapon seems out of sorts.

This is particularly true of a tech base like the Imperium and its neighbors.

Of course, YTUMV.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

The radiation might be comparable to a chest x-ray - the odd one or two is okay, but a few dozen every day is another matter.

 

[Gadrin]

T4's Emperor's Arsenal introduces a whole host of problems for the plasma/fusion gunner -from radiation damage and extreme recoil to flash burns and blinding.

yeah, it'd be a dangerous mix...

those bright flashes in the above picture are fusion guns, both the cannon and the small man-sized weapons of the ImpMarines.

I have a funny feeling just having your eyes closed might not be of any use if one of those goes off near you -- and probably just losing your eyesight is the least of your worries.


>

 

[robject]

Since other rules sets are being thrown in, here's a plasma gun designed with T5:

Advanced VLight Plasma Pistol-16
Tech level 16
Range: short (50 meters)
Underwater range: same.
Mass: 1.32kg  
Burden: -4, easy to manage
Damage: Burn: 5D, Pen: 3D
Cost: Cr2,400
Effects: High recoil, bright flash, hot.

Still might not be a good idea to use it without proper protection...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Since other rules sets are being thrown in, here's a plasma gun designed with T5:

Advanced VLight Plasma Pistol-16
Tech level 16
Range: short (50 meters)
Underwater range: same.
Mass: 1.32kg  
Burden: -4, easy to manage
Damage: Burn: 5D, Pen: 3D
Cost: Cr2,400
Effects: High recoil, bright flash, hot.

Still might not be a good idea to use it without proper protection...

So, how many rounds does it hold...? :devil:

Reassuringly, it's not a million miles away from T4 numbers.

Oh, but I wouldn't recommend firing it underwater...

 

[Blue Ghost]

My gut (no pun intended) tells me that it wouldn't be like a chest x-ray. If anything it might be more like a smoke detector or remote control--save for the business end.

Flash from the visible spectrum is one thing, gamma-rays are another matter.

 

[Trent]

Since other rules sets are being thrown in, here's a plasma gun designed with T5:

Advanced VLight Plasma Pistol-16
Tech level 16
Range: short (50 meters)
Underwater range: same.
Mass: 1.32kg  
Burden: -4, easy to manage
Damage: Burn: 5D, Pen: 3D
Cost: Cr2,400
Effects: High recoil, bright flash, hot.

Still might not be a good idea to use it without proper protection...

Excuse me, but underwater?

If a player tried to use a plasma weapon underwater in my game, the results would be catastrophic, at the least. The dense water would absorb the heat, and then become a blast of superheated steam, effectively exploding.

 

[robject]

Excuse me, but underwater?

If a player tried to use a plasma weapon underwater in my game, the results would be catastrophic, at the least. The dense water would absorb the heat, and then become a blast of superheated steam, effectively exploding.

Painful for sure. Not recommended.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Since other rules sets are being thrown in, here's a plasma gun designed with T5:

Advanced VLight Plasma Pistol-16
Tech level 16
Range: short (50 meters)
Underwater range: same.
Mass: 1.32kg  
Burden: -4, easy to manage
Damage: Burn: 5D, Pen: 3D
Cost: Cr2,400
Effects: High recoil, bright flash, hot.

Still might not be a good idea to use it without proper protection...

Ummm ... hey, about that price ... is that the actual price under T5, or is that a typo? 'cause I seem to remember CT plasma guns being a wee bit pricier than this model.

But hey, if that is the price then I'll take it off your hands right now. That's practically walkin' around money; I got it right here, in fact, and -- hey! I won't even haggle!

 

[robject]

Ummm ... hey, about that price ... is that the actual price under T5, or is that a typo? 'cause I seem to remember CT plasma guns being a wee bit pricier than this model.

But hey, if that is the price then I'll take it off your hands right now. That's practically walkin' around money; I got it right here, in fact, and -- hey! I won't even haggle!

Sure, pal, just for you... yeah it's the actual price, but them CT models will set you back a bit. The difference is that this one's hand-held, see, and smuggled out of Darrian space. That's a bona fide pre-Maghiz anteekwa, that is. Don't know how they mashed a plasma shooter into a pistol form factor... not supposed to be possible, y'know. But there it is.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Flash from the visible spectrum is one thing, gamma-rays are another matter.

It's like standing next to an accelerated chunk of the sun. At least in the Fusion version. Plasma Guns would have much less radiation - think: all radiation in the infrared band. Whatever radiation the sun gives off, the FGMP would give off.

 

[Blue Ghost]

But if that were the case, then LASERs would post a similar hazard. LASERs work by focusing energy in one direction. In real life they only scatter when they hit particles like smoke, fog, dust or what-have-you. Cinematically they have illumination because it looks cool, and it gives people a visual reference as to what weapon it is, where it starts, and what its target is.

I think the same would hold for high-energy weapons.

 

[boomslang]

Whatever radiation the sun gives off, the FGMP would give off.

And note that the biggest danger space issue for energy weapon use is the heat that's radiated: although PGMP plasma will be "cooler" that FGMP fusing plasma, there's still likely to be enough heat dump to ignite everything flammable along, or even near, the projectile's flightpath.

Although they shoot a little pea-sized blob, the things are effectively Atomic Flamethrowers...

Lasers are neat and tidy by comparison: very little radiated waste heat along the beampath and very little recoil.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Lasers use amplified light but Plasma weapons use highly agitated matter. A laser is more like using a magnifying glass to start a fire whereas a plasma weapon is more like a very very hot match.