Ultra-Tech Ultra-Quickie: Electrolaser Design

While I wasn't originally planning on posting this week, inspiration hit me last minute!

I was  flipping through Ultra-Tech (as I'm want to do) when I came across the section on Electrolasers and realized I never paid these weapons too much mind before. I gave that section a quick read and decided to see if I could take it apart and build a logical system out of it.

Despite the massive amount of typos and oddities there were on weapon stat tables, I was able to quickly take it apart and thought what the heck, might as well make quick post out of it!

Hop on over the jump break and see how to add Electrolasers to the list of weapons you can build with the Blaster and Laser Design System.




Ok, you know the drill by now. This is an addition to the Blaster and Laser Design System from Pyramid 3/37 Tech and Toys II which will let you build electrolasers. Just add the following changes to the options found in that article.

Beam
Electrolaser (TL9): Electrolasers use a pair of low-power UV lasers to ionized an path through the air, then send out a electrical discharge that follows this path to the target. They are normally less then lethal weapons that delivers a HT based affliction attack with a (2) armor divisor with a linked 1d-3 attack that does burning damage. Add +3 past the half damage range. If the target fails to their roll, the shock stuns them. They may roll against HT every turn at the same penalty (but without the DR bonus) to recover. Electrolasers also affect machines that are Electrical. For more details, see Electrolasers in Ultra-Tech (pg. 119-120).

Example: Let's design a rifle sized electrolaser that can be equipped to soldiers patrolling cities and towns where dealing with angry locals or riots is more likely then armed resistance. Let's call it the DWELL, Directed Weapon Energy, Less-Lethal.

Damage
Electrolaser pistols usually do up to HT-3 aff, rifles up to HT-6 aff and cannons are over HT-7 aff.

Example: We want it to have decent stopping power but not be too heavy so we choose to give the DWELL HT-5 aff.

Empty Weight

D treat the the Electrolasers HT penalty as dice of damage.
E is 3.1.

Example: We want the DWELL to be capable as acting as less then lethal alternative to a battle rifle so we give it a light automatic generator giving it ROF 10 and we want it to have decent range so we give it a medium focal array. This gives the DWELL an empty weight of (5/3.1)³×1.25 or 5.2lbs. ^[1]


Accuracy 

Accuracy table
Beam                   Beamer    Pistol    Rifle    Cannon
Electro-Laser         2            4           8           12       

If you are using my house rules for increasing Beam Accuracy then Fine (Accurate) Elecrolasers give +2 acc and Very Fine (Accurate) gives +4.

Example: Since the DWELL is a rifle it has an acc of 8. 

Range

Max Range 1/2D range ×2 for  beamers and pistols, 1/2D range ×3 for rifles and cannons.

Rb is 10.

Example: With an HT-5 aff and a medium focal array the DWELLs 1/2D range is 5×5×10×1 or 250 yards. Since its a rifle its max range is 1/2D×3 or 750 yards. 

Shots
Once again, treat the weapons HT penalty as its die of damage for figuring how many shots gets.

Shots Table             
Weapon                     TL9 cell    TL10 cell     TL11 cell    TL12 cell 
TL9 Elecro-Laser      2,304          9.716          18,432         73,729

Example: Since this is an TL9 it will be using TL9 power cells. With an HT-5 aff, a single TL9 C cell with be able to power 2,304/5³ or 18.4 shots. 3 Cells weighing at total 1.5lbs would give the DWELL 55 shots.

Cost

Bc is $1,000.

Example: Since the DWELL has a light automatic generator it will cost 5.2×$1,000×2 or $10,400.

And bam! We have a fully working electrolaser!

DWELL Table 

BEAM WEAPONS (RIFLE) (DX-4, other Beam Weapons-4, or Guns (Rifle)-4)
TL Weapon Damage      Acc   Range       Weight    ROF   Shots  ST   Bulk    Rcl.     Cost                   LC
9     DWELL  HT-5 aff    8      250/750      6.7/3C     10       55(3)    7†   -4         1          $10,400/$30        2
       linked     1d-3 burn


Alrighty guys, hope you have fun stunning the hell out of NPCs with a little less then lethal love.

These number line up as best as I could make them to the numbers on the tables. The only two that really don't line up are the Heavy Electrolaser and the Semi-Portable one. I have no idea why they're as heavy as they are, he Heavy Electrolaser might of been a slip up with the D cell weight being included and then having the weight rounded up to 20 but I just don't get the 70lbs for the semi-portable. But then again, there's some issues with that table so... eh. Better then nothing I guess.

Now like I said, this post was literally an unplanned burst of inspiration. I got a much bigger post in the works that's gonna take me a bit longer to finish so any updates I have till that one is in the bag is gonna be quick posts like this one.



Edit:
[1]: Thanks to MichaelMalus for pointing out a major typo.