Ultra-Tech Firepower: The GenTech Five Five and the KRAK SK 92. Gauss Weapons Chambered in 5.5×22EM

 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.

Ultra-Tech Gun Noodlings: How to Figure Bulk and Magazine Length

Sup fam. Got some quick but tasty nuggets for you today.

First off I've come up with a way of figuring a weapons bulk that gets good results. This is NOT official by any means but it seems to work. It is a bit fiddly though. 

First you're gonna have to fi
gure to values:

Bul and Buw.

Bul is based on the weapons length in millimeters and can be figured as:

6 × LOG₁₀(Wl/305) + 2

Wl is the weapons length is millimeters. 

Buw is based on the weapons weight (unloaded if mounted) in pounds and can be figured as:

2 × LOG₁₀(Ww) + 2

Ww is based on the weapons weight (unloaded if mounted) in pounds. 

The weapons actual Bulk then can be figured by taking the average of Bul and Buw and then slapping a negative signto it. 

For example: A FAMAS G2 is 757mm long and weighs 8.4lbs. This gives us a Bul of 6 × LOG₁₀(757/305) + 2 or 4.4 and a Buw of 2 × LOG₁₀(8.4) + 2or 3.8. This gives a Bulk of (4.4 + 3.8)/2 or -4. While there are no stats for a FAMAS in any official book, HANS was kind enough to provide the forum with a write up and sure enough it's bulk is -4. 

 And while we're here, might as well throw in a quick way to estimate a magazine length, just so you can get an idea if your magazine modification is practical (and should let you know you're not going to see a huge increase in the number of caseless rounds a standard magazine can hold).

Magazine height can be estimated as number of rounds × rounds actual diameter (this might differ from the listed one, a 5.56 NATO round is actually ~5.7mm) × the polymer/plastic magazine type weight modifier for a given magazine type found on High-Tech p.155 under Extended Magazines. Multiply this value 0.7 for curved magazines like most military rifles use.Adjust the height by +/-10% as needed.

Why am I getting some casting couch energy form this pic?

For Example: a 20 round magazine for a FN Five SeveN is about 126mm (~5 in.) tall. The actual diameter for the round is 5.7mm and used a high-density magazine which has a polymer/plastic weight modifier of 1.1. This gives us a height of 20 × 5.7 × 1.1 or 125.4mm (4.9 in.). Close enough for government work.

So why am I thinking of gun stats all of a sudden? Well, I know, bad question. When am I NOT thinking of gun stats after all. Well I may or may not be working on expanding the kinetic side of Ultra-Tech firepower in my next few posts. I do hope to get some stuff out soon but I am also working on some non blog related projects so  maybe that might be more on the soonish side of things but they'll get there.

Blog is back on drip freed for the next few weeks because Zelda happened

 Soooo... you might of noticed I had a bit of a roll going with blog content...

Well sadly... "something" has come up that has eaten up all my free time for the foreseeable future.

 

The "something".... and yes I am mentally 12... don't at me...

 

So in the mean time things are gonna be moving a bit slow. This game has consumed my life... I dream about, I think about it work, I play it on the way to work... I... I might have a problem... but that's an issue for future me to deal with. Present me is about to see how many Zoni rockets I can merge with my tank until either the game crashes or I reach relativistic velocities!

Ultra-Tech Ultra Quickie: Experimental Melee Rules Part II: Power Weapons

Ok, looks like my last post is getting some traction. I'm in inspired mode so let's keep this content train ah-chuggin!

Power Weapons (TL 10)
Power weapons use some form of force field to increase their impact force, be it gravitational, electromagnetic, or some other energy herein unknown to modern science.

Power weapons let off a glow that can provide some light but also give their users position away when activated. They will act as a light source that is bright enough to give a modifier of LOG₁₅(damage adds) -3 or if you want more details they will be as bright as a light with a lux of 5 × LOG(damage adds). See GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses p. 13 for more information on how light levels translates into light level modifiers. 

For weapons that do cutting, impaling, or piercing damage they increase the weapons Armor Divisor by one step (to a max of 10) and add TL -3 points of damage adds, crushing attacks only get the damage adds. +13CF.

They also worsen the odds breaking for  a non-force weapon on a parry by 1.

This can be increased to TL -2 for +1 CF, TL -1 for +4 CF,  TL for +9 CF, or TL +1 for +19 CF.  
 

Power weapons need a power source to function, usually power cells.

A standard C cell will power a power weapon for TLp/divide by weapons weight in seconds. TLp is 75 at TL 10, 150 at TL 11, 225 at TL 12.

A +1 power weapon halves this duration, a +2 one cuts it by a 1/3 , a +3 one cuts it by  1/5, and  +4 one cuts it by 1/8th.
 

Legal class worsens by 1 to a max of LC 2.

DR Steps

Find your weapons base Armor Divisor (AD) on the below table and for each step your modifiers adds, move down one step on the table. For example if you have a base AD of 2 and have one step worth of AD modifiers you will move down one step and your weapons now has a AD of 3.

 

Step AD

0 1

1 2

2 3

3 5

 

Ultra-Tech Ultra Quickie: Experimental Melee Rules Part I: Updated Vibrobalde Rules

Update: Formatting issue fixed. I guess you just can't copy your text over from Google Docs and need to paste it in a simple editing tool like notepad first >.>. Like Google owns both Docs and Blogger.... you'd think they'd be integrated... but then again Google is utter trash trash. 

Update 2 Electric Boogaloo: Fixed a typo. The cost factor for upgrading damage to TL -3 was wrong (have no idea why I had it at +3) and has been changed to the correct +9 CF.

Another quick one since the inspiration hit me out of nowhere. Here's a experimental reworking of the rules for Vibroblades found in Ultra-Tech p. 164 that cleans it up a bit and makes it more modular. If you like this I'll  make other posts covering this stuff and update other options such as Super Fine and Hyper Dense and even add some new options.

Vibro/High Frequency Blade (TL 9)
Only available to weapons that do cutting, impaling, and or piercing damage (though optimized for cutting weapons). Vibro and High Frequency (or HF) technology are two means to reach the same end; to vibrate the blade at ultra high frequencies to better slice through objects. Vibro weapons use ultrasonic waves while HF weapons use high powered alternating current but otherwise their effects are identical (though HF tech has uses outside of just making blades effectively sharper).  

A downside is the vibrations make an audible humming sound when activated. Make a hearing based Per roll to detect. See below to figure out the base range that someone can hear the weapon but in most cases the sound level will be that of a normal conversation for detection purposes.

To find out the exact range you can hear a vibro/HF weapon first find out its decibel rating.

Decibels Rating equals 20 × LOG( weapon weight in pounds × TLm×Em × 10). TLm is 2 at TL 9, 1 at TL 10, 0.5 at TL 11 and 0.25 at TL 12. Em is 2 if you upgrade to TL -5, 3 at TL -4, 5 at TL -3, 8 at TL -2.

Then take the Decibel Rating and look it up on the Hearing Distance table in High-Tech p. 158 or Loudness Levels in GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses p. 21.

Characters with Ultra-Hearing can detect a vibro/HF weapon at 10× its normal range.

If your character wouldn't know what a vibro or HF blade is then a further IQ roll is needed to figure out why you hear a humming noise. On a failure you write it off as a ringing in your ear or something similar.

If a character has either enhanced time sense or perception at 20+, they can simply see the weapon oscillate.

For weapons that do cutting, impaling, or piercing damage, when the vibro/HF function is turned on  they increase the weapons Armor Divisor by one step (to a max of 10)  and only for cutting damage they add TL -6 points of damage adds.  When turned off the weapon does its base damage. +9 CF.

This can be increased to TL -5 for an additional  +1 CF, TL -4 for +4 CF,  TL -3 for +9 CF, or TL -2  for +19 CF.

Vibro/High Frequency Blades need a power source to function, usually power cells.

A standard C cell will power a Vibro/High Frequency Blade for TLp/divide by weapons weight in seconds. TLp is 37.5 at TL 9, 300 at TL 10, 600 at TL 11, 900 at TL 12.

A +1 vibro/HF weapon halves this duration, a +2 one cuts it by a 1/3 , a +3 one cuts it by  1/5, and  +4 one cuts it by 1/8th.

Legal class worsens by 1 to a max of LC 2.

 

DR Steps

Find your weapons base Armor Divisor (AD) on the below table and for each step your modifiers adds, move down one step on the table. For example if you have a base AD of 2 and have one step worth of AD modifiers you will move down one step and your weapons now has a AD of 3.

 

Step AD

0 1

1 2

2 3

3 5

4 10 

 

 

 

GURPS Federal Agent, check this guys stuff out!

 

 Got a quick one for you guys since me next post is gonna take some work to finish

So as some of you might know, I feel that in order for GURPS to get out of its current rut it needs more positive exposure over social media by cleaver and creative people. To which I've been trying my best to find and give exposure to people I feel can best spread the word.

Well I got another one for ya and holly crap, this is the kind of content we need!

I give you GURPS Federal Agent! Not only goes he understand how to make his videos appealing to a modern audience and is quite the Dank Lord of the Meme but they are entertaining as hell to boot. 

So far he has two types of videos, short memey ones that he pumps out daily that are a good way to hook people into GURPS by showing clips of movies and shows and showing how GURPS can handle them. His other vids are longer full vids that go deep in the mechanisms of how GURPS works. Their main hook is how he uses AI voice generators to make it sound like characters such as Robert Edwin House or Simon Belmont are narrating the videos increasing their appeal and a lot of work goes into the make sure the dialogue sounds in character. 

I don't know what else to say but go check this guy out ASAP! 

 

Fictional Firepower: Seburo C-25A

Hey! Want to hear some The_Ryujin_LP deep lore that you might not know?

Ready?

This is gonna blow your mind!

I ...kinda like cyberpunk. I know, I know. Who could tell, right? But all jokes aside, next to R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 and William Gibson's Neuromancer, it was the works of Masamune Shirow that grabbed me at a young age and never let go. While Appleseed will always be my favorite of his, there is no doubt that of all his works none if more well known and influential on popular culture then Ghost in the Shell. Hell, even before anime became a household term, there was a good chance someone you ran into was at lest aware of something by that name existed.

And its from the cyberpunk world of Ghost in the Shell where I draw the inspiration for this post here, the Seburo C-25A (been a while since I dusted off this blog topic heh). This was the main weapon of Security Section 9 in the manga and  was pretty much a not future P90 (I know, kinda redundant with how the thing looks) firing powerful, HV rounds capable of stopping even moderately armored cyborgs.

While not as famous to the general audience as the CZN M22 from the movie (which actually fired the P90's 5.7×25mm round) or even the totally not just a FN F-2000 C-26A from Stand Alone Complex (which always struck me as a bit  weird, the C-26A lost out to the 25A...); to me the C-25A will always be THE gun of Ghost in the Shell. After all, the other two wouldn't even be a thing without the C-25A to set the rules.

Follow me after the jump is you wish to download the deets on this personal favorite of mine.

Ultra-Tech Ultra Quicky: Turbo Beam Cooling

Got a real quick one for you that I found while searching for my Microwave Weapon rules. Nothing too crazy but I think you guys will get some mileage out of it.

Turbo-Cooling (TL9)
By increasing the rate the energy weapons cooling system runs at you can safely double the weapons rate of fire or double how long you can maintain it's normal ROF. The down side is that this increases the cost of the cooling system and also increases the amount of vibration that they cause, far more then the normal dampening systems can handle. This introduces an increased level of jitter which in turn decreases the weapons beam quality by half, divide range by 4 and multiply Acc by 2/3rds. Turbo-cooling systems can be switched off with a ready action which lets them run as normal cooling systems. Not available for gatling weapons which use a similar system and plasma weapons. Double weapon cost.

Ultra-Tech Firepower: MAD about Disruptors

 

Slaps engine, "You can get so many war crimes per gallon with this!"

 

 

Microwave Weapons (TL 9)

If I would have to take a guess at what the most obscure weapon type in Ultra-Tech is, it would have to be the
ones that this post is about. Ultra-Tech came out around the time microwave area denial weapons (AKA MADs, now called Active Denial Systems in an attempt to be in denial about their bad public image) started to be tested in real world scenarios so it’s no mystery why they end up in it. Of course these days this kind of weapon and all the (justified) controversy is far outside of the public's goldfish like memory. So it makes sense that such a niche weapon is kinda looked over… well that and they’re only real useful against civilian targets so there's that..

Heck, the only reason I’m making this post is because my boi Enraged Eggplant dropped a video covering this weapon class and it made me remember that I had a write up for this that’s been collecting digital dust for almost 2 years. If I remember correctly, I got asked by someone on discord on how I would stat them up with the Blaster and Laser Design system. I then church some numbers, figured out a way to get close enough and sent a reply. I then figured I might as well make a blog post out of the work and theeennnn… ummm… I just kinda forgot about it. Probably just lost interest and something more fun to write about came about… or I fell into overtime hell. One of those two probably happened. I think… My memory is really hazy over this. 

But anywho, you're not here for my looming meta crisis over my failing memory. No! It's how to learn how to stat weird weapons for your pretend pew-pewing!

The rules for microwave weapons can be found starting on page 120 of Ultra-Tech with a good breakdown in the video I linked to above from Enraged Eggplant. There are two types of microwave weapons, MADs and microwave disruptors. 

MADs uses microwaves to trigger a pain response and are (in theory) a good way to break up crowds without causing actual injury. Microwaves disruptors generate a directional emp and are basically MAD for electronics. Both weapons use a HT based affliction and  project a very wide area beam which uses the rules for cones. For MAD, if the HT roll to resist is failed, the victim suffers from the Agony affliction (p. B413) for as long as they are in the beam's area and for one second after leaving. For disruptors, a failed roll means that the device is shutdown for an amount of minutes equal to its margin of failure. Ultra-Tech mentions the fact that a MAD heats the skin to about 130º F which triggers the pain response. In his video Eggplant wonders how this interacts with temperature tolerance which is a fair question. In all reality it wouldn't matter any more vs MAD then it would vs a laser beam. Natural DR vs burn damage however would work as normal. Remember that temperature tolerance protects about gradual heat changes, air and even water doesn't transmit the heat quick enough compared to an energy weapon, even a fairly non lethal one like a microwave beam.

Since neither weapon has any kind of armor divisor, both of them are only really good against civilian targets or low grade electronics as they are stopped easily by modest armor (so long as the whole body/device is covered as they use the large area injury rules). If you’re ok with a little super science I’d recommend adding at least a 2 (AD) to make them more effective against targets that aren’t defenseless civies or… angry rombas. 

Now lets get into how to stat these things. As with my other entrees into this, you are going to need a copy of Pyramid 3/37 and I'm only going to cover the parts of the system that needs to be adjusted. My numbers here are going to differ a little from RAW since there’s some oddness with how they’re stated compared to other weapons but that's kinda par the course. Most weapon stats were educated guess after all.

Tech Level 

Microwaves weapons are mature by TL 9. Technically they were both developed in late TL 8 but is gonna be a

Oh hey, it's the semi-portable MAD

bit less refined, quadruple weight. Half weight at TL 10 and half it again at TL 11+. 

Beam

Both types of weapons fire high powered breams of microwaves. MADs operate at around 100 
gigahertz and can penetrate up to 17mm into the skin of an average person. There it heats the water and fat which tricks the nerves into thinking you're being burned worse then you actually are causing severe levels of pain. Microwave disruptors pulse their frequency between 1 megahertz and a 100 gigahertz causing arching across conductive material shorting out electronics. They both cause HT based afflictions with no armor divisor. The only difference between them is MAD only effects living targets and distruptors only effect electronics. For more details, see Microwave Weapons in Ultra-Tech (p. 120 - 121)

Focal Array

Treat as normal, a larger or smaller emitter will increase or decrease range like a laser. 

Generator 

Microwave weapons are always single shot. 

Empty Weight

D is the weapons HT modifier.

E is 1.1 for MAD (yeah… I know), 3 for Disrupters.

G is always 1. 

Since these weapons project a beam they add a new modifier called Bw.

Bw is the cube root of the cones maximum width in yards. 

Optionally to line things up better with Ultra-Techs stats, weapons with the pistol configuration multiply their weight by 1.25 while ones with a rifle configuration multiply their weight by 1.5.

Damage 

These weapons weapon cause a HT based affliction with a minimum modifier of -1 and has no armor divisor. Treat the HT modifier as if there were dice of damage, -3 would be treated as 3 dice of damage for example.

Accuracy

Treat as if it were a laser. 

Range

Max Range (yards) = 1/2D × 2.

Rb is 45. 

Shots

Here is where things get kinda weird for MADs. Somehow the Tactical MAD with a HT-4 affliction gets more shots then HT-3 portable one despite both being powered by a D cell… Never mind I have no idea what’s going on with the scaling between these weapons even if I were to assume there was any attempt  to do so on top of this. There just isn’t anything here for me to work with. 

Thankfully  disruptors make far more sense and have a scaling that actually follows close to lasers in the design system (a TL 9 disruptor with a TL 9 power cell will get as many shots as a TL 9 laser with a TL 10 power cell). Soooo we’re just gonna kinda cheat and  use the same numbers for both MADs and disruptors and save myself  a few headaches.   

 

Weapon TL8 Cell TL9 Cell TL10 Cell TL11 Cell TL12 Cell

TL8 MAD/Disruptor   112 450 1,800 7,200 28,800

TL9 MAD/Disruptor  225 900 3,600 14,400 57,600

T10+ MAD/Disruptor   900 1,800 7,200 28,800 115,200

 Note that TL 8 version are usually going to be externally powered as they are going generally going to be to massive to handle and the shots here assume a theoretical early generation power cell. TL 8 batteries are also going to be to under powered to be a practical power source.

 

And everything from here follows the normal rules. So here we are, one of the more obscure and really niche weapons (baring some bending of the rules) that, for MAD at least, have some real world baggage. But it never hurts to have more toys to play with and heck, they do make sense in a dystopian cyberpunk mega 15 minute cities police force.