Well gang, I'm finally at the point I feel I am able to start diving into designing regular old guns guns for more efficiently and confidentially then before, making them far easier to work with (though they are still far more complicated to stat up then energy weapons).
In this post I'm covering a pair of gauss guns though their gonna feel a little different form the ones I did in the past as well as what is seen in Ultra-Tech. This is on purposes as these figures are much closer to the level of detail you see in High-Tech, rather then trying to stick with the ones in Ultra-Tech. Those were more or less guesstimated while the ones made in High-Tech has a logical design system, I think it's time to move on from trying to limit myself to trying make those numbers try to work.
I've also been coming up with ways to give you more hard stats on these weapons for better immersion, let me know how you like the new format and the information it gives!
Follow me after the jump to check out some new elector-magnetically accelerated lead throwers.
GenTec E Five Five (TL 10)
The GenTec E Five Five is one of the most
popular pistols on the market going by both civilian and military (
where it is sold as the EM 489) sales do to its simplicity and out of
the box reliability. It is a fairly conventional looking double action
semi automatic Gauss pistol with a 127mm (5in.) barrel and a 20 round
high density magazine in its grip as well a a full length top mounted
accessory rail (High-Tech p.161 and Ultra-Tech p.150) and half sized
pistol rail mounted under the barrel.
Despite not having a
boosted and low velocity mode enabled, the Five Five's magazine power
cells hold enough power to fire a full magazine worth of boosted
velocity rounds. While this was done to simplify production (the only
difference between the Five and Five and the EM 489 is the features that
are enabled by default), this also makes it fairly easy to get mod the
weapon into basically being a EM 489. Enabling the mode takes a Armory
(Small Arms)/TL 10 roll and is a favorable task (see Dirty Tech: Full
Auto Conversions, High-Tech p. 79) and gives it all the features of a EM
489 (below).
The EM 489 is the militarized version capable of
firing 3 round limited bursts with boosted and low velocity mode
enabled. It is otherwise identical to the civilian model but with ROF 9
and LC reduced to 2. In boosted velocity mode increase damage to 7d pi
and range to 720/5,040. Low velocity mode drops the muzzle velocity to a
sub sonic 305m/s, reducing damage to 1d+2 pi and range to 160/1,100.
As with the Five Five, the magazine can handle firing a full magazine in
boosted velocity mode.
The E Five Cee is a compact pocket model
designed for concealed carry. Do to it's small size its Acc drops to 2
but it bulk become -1. Dmg 4d+2 pi, Range 460/3,200, Wt. 1.4/0.2, Shots
10+1 (3), ST 7, Cost $820/$18. Unlike the full sized Five Five, the Five
Cee cannot be modded to fire 3 round limited bursts or in boosted or
low velocity mode.
Design Notes
Barrel Length: 127mm (5 in.) Five Five and EM 489. 72mm (3 in.) Five Cee.
Overall Length: 226mm (8.9 in.) Five Five and EM 489, 162mm (6.4 in.) Five Cee.
Magazine
Height: 121mm (4.8 in.) Five Five and EM 489, magazine has an
integrated rechargeable TL 10 quad B cell. 61mm (2.4 in.) Five Cee,
magazine has an integrated rechargeable TL 10 B cell.
Muzzle Velocity: 1,127 m/s (1,380 m/s boosted, 305 m/s low velocity) Five Five and EM 489. 879 m/s Five Cee.
Muzzle Energy: 2.3kj (3.45kj boosted, 0.169kj low velocity) Five Five and EM 489. 1.4kj Five Cee.
GUNS (PISTOL) (DX-4 or most other Guns at -2)
TL Weapon Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots ST Bulk Rcl Cost LC Notes
10 GenTec E Five Five, 5.5×22EM 6d-1 pi 3 580/4,100 2.1/0.4 3 20+1 (3) 8 -2 2 $1,000/$22 3 [1]
[1] Accessory rail (High-Tech p.161 and Ultra-Tech p.150).
KRAK SK 92 (TL 10)
Built by the Finnish Kansallinen raskaan
aseistuksen ja koneistustyöt (National Heavy Armaments and Machining
Works), the SK (sähköinen konepistooli, Electric Machine Pistol) 92 is a
pistol formed Gauss PDW designed for SWAT, anti terrorism, and
special-op units. It has a retractable stock, a large double rail mounted on a raised handle above the magainze, as well as one on each side of the barrel as well as on the bottom that by default has a forward grip attached. It's uses a
60 round top loaded magazine that slides under the handle . If fired one
handed ST becomes 10 and Acc drops to 4.
Since it is designed
for police, para-military and outright military use it can be fired in
boosted and low velocity mode. In boosted velocity mode increase damage
to 8d pi and range to 850/5,900. Low velocity mode drops the muzzle
velocity to 305m/s reducing damage to 1d+2 pi and range to 160/1,100.
The SK 92 S is model made for the civilian market that limits its ROF to 3 and disables the boosted and low velocity modes.
Besides standard FMJ rounds (in table), APEP rounds are also carried when heavy armor is expected, Damg 8d (3) pi-, Range 1,380/9,800.
Design Note
Barrel Length: 178mm (7 in.).
Overall Length: 680mm (26.8 in.), 477mm ((18.8 in.) with stock retracted.
Magazine Length: 169mm (6.7 in.), magazine has an integrated rechargeable TL 10 C cell.
Muzzle Velocity: 1,329 m/s (1,628 m/s boosted, 305 m/s low velocity).
Muzzle Energy: 3.2kj (4.8kj boosted, 0.169kj low velocity).
GUNS (SMG) (DX-4 or most other Guns at -2)
TL Weapon Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots ST Bulk Rcl Cost LC Notes
10 KRAK SK 92, 5.5×22EM 7d pi 5 690/4,900 5.6/1.4 15 60+1 (3) 7† -4* 2 $2,080/$37 2 [1]
[1] Accessory rail (High-Tech p.161 and Ultra-Tech p.150).
5.5×22EM (TL 10)
Standard 5.5×22EM rounds are 3.6g (56 grain) with a
4:1 aspect ratio. They are lead cored with a ferrous-copper composite
jacket.
TL Ammo WPS CPS LC
10 5.5×22EM 0.008 $0.15 3
10 5.5×22APEP 0.008 $$1.05 2
Bonus!
You probably noticed that the low velocity mode is the same for both weapons. That's because rather then the generic rules used under Liquid Propellant Slugthrowers (Ultra-Tech p.139) or even Subsonic Ammunition (High-Tech p. 165), I made sure the rounds were actually subsonic and recalculated their stats from there. That's why I made sure to show their muzzle velocities and energy so you can tinker with the variables yourself.
Subsonic shots are also going to be really quite, hell they're going to be quite in any mode. Ultra-Tech doesn't not give any modifiers on how hard it is to hear one firing in any mode. My unofficial ruling here is that base hearing distance for firing at normal velocity should be treated as if it was 3 steps quieter on the Hearing Distance Table (High-Tech p.158) then what an equivalent conventional weapons would have. That is a heavy gauss pistol, SMG, rifle, and so on would go from a base hearing distance of 512 yrds down to base hearing range of only 32 yrds.
Firing in low velocity mode should have a base hearing distance of 8 yards. This makes them no louder then crossbows! This will also bring things in line with GURPS forum user Icelanders Flatblack guass guns. If you haven't heard of these, the mad man did the gun lords work vastly expanding the guass weapon catalogue for Agemegos's Flatblack sci-si setting and is definitely worth a look.
Boosted velocity rounds are only 2 ranks quieter.
Of course, these numbers assumes that even Ultra-Tech capacitors still have a bit of "CHUNK!" discharging (they're the main noise of firing them today). If your setting has ultra-quite capacitors then make them 1 step quieter (that is normal velocity gets a -4 instead of a -3 and low velocity shots can only be heard at base of 4 yrds!). On the other hand you embrace the "CHUNK!", then make them 1 step louder. Hey it's your game, and honestly I don't know what a room temperature super conductor based capacitor under these kind of power loads will sound like (let alone by TL 10!).
I think that muzzle velocity of gauss and railguns should be discussed. Like, what defines a practical limits? Because when we hit a 2000+ mps, we probably talk about pi+ damage due to extreme terminal ballistic events.
ReplyDeleteThat is a topic to cover but it is a complicated one. The big problem about when this happens depends on the materials involved and their speed of sound.
DeleteIf you exceed the speed of sound in the target material but not the projectile then penetration depth can be simplified as the square root of the projectiles density divided by the target's then multiplied by the length of the projectile. Basically at this point it's more like how a HEAT round penetrates.
If you exceed the speed of sound in both then boom! Then its impact energy can be treated as its mass equivalent in TNT going off (probably modeled as a contact explosive).
Now the problem is finding a good game play friendly way of doing this that is realistic enough to pass the sniff test but won't drag down gameplay. A while back David was looking into how to model Rods From God style Ortillery with the idea to thy and fold it into the regular KE damage rules. Anthony, Lwcamp, and myself giving him feed back and I think we made progress in coming up with a Rod From God but didn't make too much ground on a nice way to fold them in., just to give an idea how non-intuitive it is.
From the worldbuilding point, I think, question would be like:"if a military rifle must be able to bring down heavily augmented cyborgs, combat androids etc... why would anyone settle for a damage less than pi?"
DeleteWell, for combat androids and heavy cyborgs you're either going to want an extremely high volume of high penetration (death by a million paper cuts) or call in other combat cyborgs, androids, power armored bois, with 20mm+ weapons.
DeleteThat or new rounds are going to need to be made to deal with these targets for use with small arms. Douglass came up with the CCTAPX (Combustible Cased Telescopic Amor Piercing eXpanding) round that does damage like an AP round but expands like a hollow point. It's pretty pricing though.
https://gamingballistic.com/2017/04/12/gunday-gurps-ultra-tech-smgs-and-pdws/
So more then likely normal troops will just deal with the big bois like they deal with hard targets today, HEAT round fired via a grenade launcher (or mini missile), or a disposable next gen LAW. That or call in support from a better equip unit.
Ah, that's some nice stuff. I love UT content.
ReplyDeleteThank you sir. While my bet is on lasers or ETC being what a TL 10 society uses for small arms, thematically I do love me EM guns almost as much as plasma guns. Of course TL 10 is so far off into the future that any guess we make as to what type of weapons and armor are used by that point that turns out right is just a lucky guess heh.
Delete