Showing posts with label Blaster and Laser Design System. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blaster and Laser Design System. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

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 130ยบ 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. 

Thursday, April 19, 2018

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.


Friday, April 13, 2018

Ultra-Tech: New Laser Options

A while ago a user of the GURPS Discord server by the name of Jose asked me for help designing a TL10 laser that could be used underwater, punch through DR300 and had to be at lest somewhat man portable but at lest he was ok with it being disposable. Sounded like a fun challenge so I gave it go and came up with a bit of an house rule that let him have a laser with a 3 armor divisor at the cost of a major reduction in range, slapped it on a disposable laser and made it out of advanced material to get the weight down to a semi-reasonable level.

Well, he was happy with it and I figured that I had my next blog post.... and then life happened.

But now I'm back! Follow me after the jump for more musings and options to get more millage out of your laser weapons.

Friday, July 21, 2017

High-Tech: TL 8 Lasers

Pew Pew Pew: Real Life Edition.
Yes you read that right, today I'm actually tackling something that's now TL 8 modern tech!

Now that things have calmed down at work a bit (for now at lest, the calm before the storm >.>) so I think it's time to get back into things.

To help ease myself back into blogging I decided to tackle a quick but quirky topic: How to stat up TL 8 lasers!







Thursday, May 11, 2017

Musings on Things that Affect Beam Weapons Accuracy


Ever felt that it was odd that making a Fine (Accurate) Laser rifle only gives it a +1 bonus to Acc when it s has a base Acc 12 compared to conventional rifles Acc of 5? Or have you wondered what happens when you add a stock to beam pistol or remove the stock of a beam rifle or securely mount one?

Or how about if you wanted a laser carbine rather then a rifle, shouldn't it have a lower Acc then a full rifle?

Well, in today's post I go over how I feel these questions should be handled. Just keep in mind that nothing here is official so if you want to stay 100% RAW for you game then it's best to skip these optional rules.



Fine and Very Fine (Accurate)
Given the greater range of accuracy beam weapons have compared to conventional fire arms it doesn't make sense that a Fine or Very Fine beam weapons should only get a partly +1 or +2 to their Acc.

By taking a look at the range of Acc score conventional projectile weapons get and by what amount a +1 or +2 bonus effects them I was able to deduce what the same rate would be for the different beam weapons.

Acc Bonus
+3 for Fine, +6 for Very Fine         All beam weapons but these shown below.
+2.5 for Fine, +5 for Very Fine     Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
+2 for Fine, +4 for Very Fine        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
+1.5 for Fine, +3 for Very Fine     Flamer, Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers.
+1 for Fine, +2 for Very Fine         Plasma Lance.

When adding these modifiers to your weapons stats, round up the +2.5 for Fine (Accurate) to +3 for Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar but round down +1.5 Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers to +1. You might be wondering why I bothered writing down the like that and that's because I wanted to show you how the math works out.

Stock, Stockless and Mounted
Adding a stock to a stockless weapons, such as the default for pistol form weapons, increases it Acc by the same amount making it a Fine (Accurate) beam weapons. This will infact bump up its Acc to the Acc of Configuration on size bigger (i.e. a pistol will have the same Acc as a carbine). Likewise removing or collapsing the stock of a beam weapon that has one, such as the default for carbines and bigger, subtracts and amount from its Acc equal to the bonus it would receive for being Fine (Accurate). Mounting a beam weapon so its fixed tight and securely to a weapon mount, also increase its accuracy. Mounting a beam weapon increases its Acc by the same amount as making it Fine (Accurate) and removing an already mounted weapon from its mount reduces its Acc by the same amount. Cannon are already considered mounted, if removed from their mounting treat them as support weapons.



Expanded Configuration List 
A weapons form factor has an impact on its inherent accuracy, longer weapons simply provide a superior sight picture.

Below I expand the Acc range for beam weapons to give the same range that conventional projectile weapons have as well as give some rules of thumb for how to determine which configuration you should use for a given beam weapons.

Sub Compact/Beamer: This configuration should be used for  either small "holdout pistol" style beam weapons or tool shaped beam weapons (like the ever awful dustbuster phaser from Star Trek: The Next Generation) up to about pistol sized. Bulk should be no more then -1.

Acc                    Beam Type
3                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
2                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
1                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, Flamer and Plasma Lance. 


Pistol: Pistol from weapons should be small weapons that could be fired with on hand and be -3 at the most.

Acc                    Beam Type
6                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
5                        Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
4                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
3                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, and Flamer.
2                        Plasma Lance.




Carbine: These are rifle from long arms with a built in stock as default though attaching a stock to a pistol from weapon effectively makes it a pistol carbine . In general they can be anything from pistol sized up to a bulk of -5. 

Acc                    Beam Type
9                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
8                        Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
6                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
4                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, and Flamer.
3                        Plasma Lance.



Rifle: A larger, fulled long arm beam weapons. Bulk should be up to -7

Acc                    Beam Type
12                      All beam weapons but these shown below.
10                      Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
8                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
6                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, and Flamer.
4                        Plasma Lance. 



Support: A support configured beam weapon can be any sized up to a large rifle up to cannon in sized and in fact cannons are just mounted support weapons. They can be any bulk -6 and up.

Acc                    Beam Type
15                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
13                        Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
10                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
7                         Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers
9                         Flamer.
6                         Plasma Lance. 


Cannon:  A mounted support configured beam weapon and such and be anything with a bulk of -6 and up.

Acc                    Beam Type
18                       All beam weapons but these shown below.
15                       Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
12                       Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
9                         Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers
12                       Flamer.
8                         Plasma Lance. 


Monday, May 8, 2017

Ultra-Tech Quickie: MOAR DAKKA Revisited

Got a super quick one for you guys today.

A little while I put up a blog post covering my attempt to give a greater range of detail when it came to giving a beam weapons a high ROF. It worked pretty well and the attempt has been really well received by my readers but it did differ a bit from RAW and I was never fully happy with that. Not so much as I think the RAW value is better but the fewer paces into house rule territory I can keep my blog the more universal my post will be and the more people can benefit from them.  Of course, lacking official design documents sometimes I'm forced to do so and at first that's what I thought I was going to have to settle with my ROF rules. That is until I decided to take another crack at it and it just hit me. Once again I was overthinking things!

Alrighty, that being said, below you will find what G should be for a given ROF up to 20 with the this version of the ROF rules.

ROF            G
1                  1
2                  1.01
3                  1.0225
4                  1.04
5                  1.0625
6                  1.09
7                  1.1225
8                  1.16
9                  1.2025
10                1.25
11                1.3025
12               1.36
13               1.4225
14               1.49
15               1.5625
16               1.64
17               1.7225
18               1.81
19               1.9025
20               2

For ROF greater then 20, G can be figured as 1+(ROF/20)2.

Now you might be going, "Wait, this still doesn't explain why a semi-automatic generator and alight automatic generator both have a modifier of ×1.25?!"

Well I got a theory on this one. The semi-auto generator and the light auto generator are the same thing, semi-auto beam weapons are just locked out of full auto mode by the developers. So why bother with such a heavy generator? Well, with modern pistols the ROF of 3 is only what most people can pull off with a semi-auto and some people can pull that trigger really fast! So a semi-auto beam weapon can actually use the Fast-Firing rules (High-Tech pg.84)! Use the rules as listed but Rcl does not go up (except for plasma guns, they use the rules as is),

For my own beams found on this blog I'm going to keep to my own ROF rules just because of some feed back I got and to keep things consistent though this more updated version will still find it uses for another project I'm working on.

Ok guys, I hope you find this all useful. Don't say I don't give you options heh.

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Ultra-Tech Quickie: I'm Ah Chargin' Ma Lazor!

I recently came across a blog called Concrete Lunch Gaming that gave me a small shout out. It's a pretty cool blog that covers a range of games including GURPS but what  had caught my eye was that he had just recently bought a collection of OG Traveller books. While I've never played any incantation of the game, most of you probably have realized that I do have an interest in it, especially its Fire, Fusion and Steel books, which is pretty much that games equivalent to GURPS Vehicles (big surprise, me being into a crunch heavy tech book), and I was inspired to give look over the few Traveller files I have on my computer. Good thing I did because when I was looking over a file going over High Energy Weapons (another thing you guys might of guessed is that I also like me some plasma weapons heh) inspiration hit me again!

In Traveller plasma weapons are really powerful but have a very, very low rate of fire. That made sense, if you spread out how long you need to generate your power you can reduce the size of things like the power supply and you got more time to bleed off waste heat meaning you can pack more punch into a smaller package and here I had another way to reduce the weight of heavy energy weapons. While this won't let you drop the weight quite as dramatically as a disposable beam weapon, you also don't need to toss away the whole thing every time you need to fire it. So I figured I might as well keep follow up on my last post with some new ways to keep energy weapon weight down.

So without any further ado, I give you a new modifier for the Blaster and Laser Design System from Pyramid 3/37 Tech & Toys II.


High Energy Beam Weapons
By spreading the time it takes to generate a energy beam or bolt over a longer period and therefor reducing the power load (the power supply has less wattage it needs to regulate, the cooling system has more time to vent waste heat and so on), it is possible to reduce the size and cost of a given beam weapon (the main beam generator however would still have to be full sized). The trade off is of course, you now need to wait several seconds between firings.

To design a High Energy Beam Weapon, build the weapon as normal  but replace G with the following:

G is changed to  0.7 for a 3 second charge delay, 0.6 for a 5 second charge delay or 0.5 for a 10 second charge delay.

Unless you switch the weapon off, after firing the weapon will automatically begin charging up again. While charging the weapon will either have a visual indicator on it showing how much longer till it charged or will transmit the information to your HUD. While charging you are free to do other actions. Once charged the weapon will either flash,  send a message to your HUD or admit an audible tone or transmit one to any headphones you are wearing. If you are in the middle of battle or other high stress situations and do note have a clear line of sight to an indicator, you can figure time remaining by making an IQ based Beams Weapon role.

If you have to power down the weapon without firing it, the built up energy needs to be discharged first. This takes just as long safely discharge the weapon as it takes to charge it expect for plasma weapons since they need to cool and vent the plasma. It takes plasma weapons 4 times as long to safely discharge, during which it will vent the cooled plasma as hot gas. This gas is vented away from the operator and is generally cool enough to be safe but can cause minor burns if your hand is held to close to the vents (treat as moderate pain, does 1d-4 burn if held against it for a full second).

Now let's this this modifier in action! Since Traveller inspired me, what better way to show this off then by trying to adapt the PGMP-12 to GURPS. Sadly this won't be an exact match since GURPS makes very different assumptions so I went for a middle ground and tried to capture the feel as much as possible.


PGMP-12  (TL10^)
The Plasma Gun, Man Portable Model 12 is a heavy high-energy plasma weapon meant to be used by heavy battlesuits that is  capable of penetrating 61mm of RHA equivalent by firing a 216 kilojoule plasma bolt.

The weapon system weighs at total of 50.8 lbs and is composed of three major components; the main firing unit which houses the bolt generator and D cell power cartridge magazine that powers it, the back mounted support systems which houses the power supply and cooling system and the main lead cord which houses the power cord and cooling line which attaches these systems to the firing unit and a articulated weapon harness the helps counter recoil and folds the firing unit up against the support system when not in use (reduces ST to 7† , see Ultra-Tech pg. 150-151).

The PGMP-12 is a high powered weapon but as a trade off has a very low rate of fire, taking a total of five seconds to charge a new round. During this time, hydrogen is siphoned out of the D cell power cartridge along with some energy which is used to charge the weapons pilot laser which starts to heat the hydrogen into a plasma as well as run the cooling system over the next five seconds. An electromagnetic field is used to trap the ionizing hydrogen until it reach near fusion level of pressure and heat. Once this stat is reached the pilot laser is allowed to escape the barrel and ionize a path for the plasma bolt to follow and the magnetic filed is dropped allowing the plasma to enter the barrel were a line of magnetic accelerators boost the plasma to over eight thousand meters a second giving the plasma extra kinetic punch and extended range.  

The weapons high power does limit its use in built up areas areas however, the blast effect from its impact can be lethal to unarmored targets up to a yard away and can cause at lest minor injures up to around 28 yards. Because of this, the weapon is generally only issued when extremely heavy fighting is expected.


BEAM WEAPONS (RIFLE) (DX-4, other Beam Weapons-4, or Guns (Rifle)-4)
TL Weapon      Damage                  Acc  Range          Wt            ROF     Shots    ST   Bulk  Rcl  Cost               LC  Notes
10^ PGMP-12  6d×4(2) burn ex sur  8    1,200/3,600  24.2/1D    1/5        5(5)      11†  -7      2      $77,000/$100 1    [1, 2]

[1]The listed weight is for the loaded firing unit and articulated weapon harness only, the back mounted support unit and power/cooling cord weighs 26.6lbs with a total system weight of 50.8lbs.

[2]The power/cooling cord is armored and has DR18/6* and has HP8. Use the higher values against cutting and piercing attacks and the lower values against everything else. The armor counts as flexible.



 

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Stellar Dynamics PGD-1 LAMP


While relatively realistic, using a cubed progression for energy weapons means it gets hard to build man portable anti-armor beams weapons, in fact a single shot laser with just the same damage an a AP 50 cal round weighs in at a hefty 64 lbs!

So for today's post I take a crack at fixing this problem. It's not elegant and gives you only one shot but it gets the job done!

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Psi-Wars Blaster Grab Bag!

Totally not Star Wars! Honest!
You might have noticed I'm a bit of a fan of Mailanka Psi-Wars project. For those who haven't taken a look at it, Psi-Wars is a massive project that is both a setting heavily based on the feel and tone of Star Wars but change slightly to better suited for role playing and a massive proof of concept project designed to teach GMs both new and old some best practices for designing a setting based around an intellectual property that you like.

While I'm done a post that was inspired by the setting already, a few days ago I was contacted by Mailanka over on the GURPS discord server asking if I wanted to design a few blasters for him and given that stating up energy weapons is pretty much by bread and butter, I couldn't reply yes fast enough. 

So if ya want to see what kind of crazy pew-pews I came up with, follow me after the jump! 

Ultra-Tech Quickie: Liquid Cooling System For Beam Weapons

Just like this, only more future!



Back in February I took a more detailed look at an highly optional  way to handle sustained fire with beams weapons that brought Ultra-Tech a bit closer to High-Tech in that regard.

Of course for that post, the whole reason for taking that deeper look was pretty much just to give justification for a more detailed look at stating up gatling beam weapons.

Well given that I came up with a more detailed sustained fire system, I figured I might as well look into other ways weapons get around overheating.

So in today's post I go over a somewhat more practical cooling system and give you a super optional system for designing Liquid Cooling systems for your beam weapons.

So follow me after that jump off if you’re in the mood for some liquid cool!

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Freeze!

The Brotherhood of GURPS Bloggers Who Blog Too Much is always coming up with new themes to help tie our little community together and to challenge us to think up things we otherwise might not of considered. For this month, the topic of cold came up and well this being January... I'd say it was a fitting topic. 


So what did I come up with? Well, the theme is cold and do love figuring out how to stat up weapons so let's see if we can find a way to stat out a Freeze Ray in GURPS!

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Plasma Guns, Re-Energized!, Addendum!

Plasma Guns, Re-Energized!, Addendum!

Update: Fixed a mistake I made with the half damage range for Plasma Lances. Thanks to Nate H and Enraged Eggplant for making me aware of this! Feed back is always welcomed, I want all my rules to be as perfect as possible.

In this follow up to Plasma Guns, Re-Energized! I cover some things I cut from that article since it was starting to run long, throw in some things I thought up right after I uploaded the post and wished I came up with before hand and add something that was supposed to have been in it... but I fumbled my IQ roll and forgot >.>...

This post was also originally meant to be... a lot shorter. I just meant to give you the stat break downs... but then I felt that without worked examples that it felt kinda naked.... and then since my next major GURPS Day post (well I hope it'll be up, see the end of the article), Brand Loyalty, is going to be all about how using the various equipment modifiers on gear like how you use advantages and disadvantages with characters, creating interesting background and corporate brand histories will make gear buying more interesting then just looking up numbers on a table; I felt that I need to give a lil' sneak peak of these concepts in action.... So yeah, this all kinda bumped up the word count until this was just about as big as the main article!

Also part of this sneak peak, you might of noticed some of the weapons have perks or quirks listed. Following along with the concept of treating equipment modifiers like advantages and disadvantages I felt that there also should minor “perk” level modifiers to help flesh out weapons and gear. They all follow the same basic guidelines as actual character perks and quirks, giving only minor befits or bad points and either all raise the cost by 5% or lower by 5% with a suggested maximum of no more then 2 to 3 of them tops.

The weapons manufacturers used here are also all sample worked examples from the article.

Macrotech (who might remember from the last post) is what I call a baseline and is used on all the balanced baseline gear you used to set campaigns averages with. They're basically Dewoo in space.

Fortschritt Gewehr Betrieb and Oosthuizen Ltd are examples of niche companies. What they make have more character then the stuff made by the baseline but tend to have more draw backs as well (more expensive, more complicated, buggier and so on).

Mitchell & Winslow is an example of what I call a variant. They're basically a "pallet swap" of another company with maybe a slight tweak. They're just meant to fill out the world and make it so not all gear of a similar type need to have the same company attached to it all the time. They're a variant of Fortschritt that makes reliable gear but not as much as Fortschritt does but they tend to be more affordable as a trade off.

 Note: Made a edit the Plasma Blaster rules. GURPS Dicord user Stuff pointed out that multiplying damage by half of Df at 10% of the half damage range made for kinda wimpy boomstick range damage so I changed it just full Df with the option to change it to Df× 1.5 or 2 if you want a little more cinematic kick.
 
Built in Optical Sight
This was actually supposed to have been in the main article but somehow forgot to put it in!

Most of the rifle type beam weapons in Ultra-Tech had a bonus from a built in scope. This bonus seemed to be based on the weapons weight and didn't seem to go up based on TL.

To figure this, the scope bonus is equal to the Square Root of the weapons empty weight/1.5.

As an optional rule, use the base scope bonus at TL9 and 10, double it at TL11 and quadruple it at TL12. At TL9 it should be an combination Night-Vision/Infravision scope and a Hyperspectral one at TL10+. Of course this bonus could also be based on the weapons surface area, in which case the bonus would not go up with TL.

Example: A TL10^ Heavy Plasma Gun has an empty weight of 20lbs giving it a scope bonus of square root 20lbs/1.5 or +2.98 which we round up to +3. As a note, I'm note sure why the TL11^ Heavy Fusion Gun has a +4 bonus. Base on doing 20d worth of damage it should actually weight 23lbs instead of 20 but that would still just give it a bonus +3.2. Since my formula lines up with other examples in the book I think that this might have been a typo.

New optional Beam Weapons Specialties
Here's three new options to give the Beam Weapons skill more coverage. I should note that I'm not a big fan of how GURPS handles this skill... but I think that's a post for another day.


  • BEAM WEAPONS (SMG) (DX-4, other Beam Weapons-4, or Guns (SMG)-4)
  • BEAM WEAPONS (LMG) (DX-4, other Beam Weapons-4, or Guns (LMG)-4)
  • BEAM WEAPONS (SHOTGUN) (DX-4, other Beam Weapons-4, or Guns (Shotgun)-4)

 Diffuse Option
Given their penetrating and explosive nature, Plasma Guns can create issues if fired in built up areas (such as in home defense situations) or if fired in thin hulled air or spacecraft. To combat this, Plasma Guns can shoot more diffuse bolts which are no longer focused enough to gain an armor divisor or cause matter to explode but tend to create larger wound channels. These more diffuse bolts have less range however.

  • Build your gun as normal.
  • Multiply its damage by 1.5, drop its (2) armor divisor and change its damage type to just burn sur.
  • Half its range.


A Plasma Gun can be built so it just fires more diffuse shots or so that it can switch between normal focused shots and diffuse ones. This does not effect the cost in either case. I takes a ready action to switch between modes for guns with both options.


In settings with this option most civilian Plasma Guns will be restricted to diffuse mode only. If that is the case then only diffuse Plasma Guns will have LC3 and ones that can fire focused shots will have a minimum LC of 2.

Example Gun
Fortschritt Gewehr Betrieb DPG (TL10^)
The Fortschritt Diffuse Plasma Gun is an ultra compact, light weight yet rugged, reliable and low cost plasma pistol aimed at the civilian home defense and security force markets (It's a huge hit with security officers on O'Neil style colony cylinders). To counter the high penetration and a explosive nature of normal plasma guns (a liability in built up areas and a on thin hulled spacecraft) Fortschritt developed a relatively lower power plasma gun that fires a less focused and less penetrating plasma bolt which is no longer intense enough to flash matter into plasma. As an added beneficial side effect the bolt tends to "flatten" when it hits a target creating a larger wound channel increasing the weapons knock down power. The diffuse bolt also tends to defocus more rapidly then normal bolts, greatly reducing its effective range but given the limited distances the type of situations that these weapons will be used, this is not seen as an issue. An interesting quirk of the weapons design is that unlike normal pistols, the DPGs tiny B cell magazine is loaded onto the back of the guns action and creates a distinct discharging sound when its plugged in.

The DPG fires a 422j bolt from a 0.6mm aperture.

The DPG counts as Rugged and Fine (Reliable).

DR 8 HP 3 HT12

BEAM WEAPONS (PISTOL) (DX-4, other Beam Weapons-4, or Guns (Pistol)-4)
TL Weapon               Damage           Acc Range Weight    ROF Shots   ST   Bulk Rcl    Cost        LC

10^ Fortschritt DPG 4d+2 burn sur 4       75/225 0.4/1B    3       25(3)   6    -1       2       $1,100/$3 3


Plasma Blaster Option
This option lets you make a plasma shotgun! Do I need to say more?!

A Plasma Blaster forms a full sized bolt and after it starts accelerating it, it passes through a magnetic filter which splits the bolt into several sub blots which act much like buck shot. This process make the sub bolts more unstable dropping accuracy and makes them more diffuse then their parent bolt which means like with a diffuse plasma gun they lose their (2) armor divisor and have their injury type changed to jut burn sur and their effective range drops a bit but their basic damage is increased.

  • Build your gun as normal.
  • Figure a number for your Diffusion Factor Df. This will determine how much the guns damage is reduced by and the guns new ROF.
  • Divide the guns damage by Df. Drop the (2) armor divisor and change injury type to just burn sur.
  • Reduce Acc by -1.
  • Divide range by the square root of Df.
  • ROF becomes n×Df cubed.
  • Rcl becomes 1.
  • Within 10% of the guns half damage range the sub bolts are still tightly packed together enough that they act almost like a standard full sized bolt. Ignore the ROF multiplier to the weapons ROF. Instead multiply both the bolts basic damage and the targets DR by Df. If you want a little more cinematic boomstick action then multiply the bolts basic damage and the targets DR by Df × 1.5 or 2!

Example: Lets choose a Df of 4. The guns damage would then be divided by 4, its range divided by the square root of 4 or 2 and its ROF would become n× 4^3 or n× 64! Now let's say your gun sub bolts did 3d worth of damage, ROF 3×64 and had a Df of 4. Lets's say you fire one shot at a target at 10% of the weapons half damage range or less, Ignore the ×64 ROF multiplier and treat and if it was just one shot. The basic damage of the closely packed sub blots would be multiplied by the Df of 4 doing  6d×2 worth of damage but the targets DR would also be multiplied by 4 as well.

A Plasma Blaster can make use of the smart choke options listed on page 6 of the Pyramid 3/55- Tactical Shooting Tomorrow.

Like with the diffuse option a gun can either be built to only fire in plasma blaster mode or can be switched between modes as a ready action. Either option does not effect cost.


Example Gun
Oosthuizen Ltd. Plasma Blaster (TL10^)
Called innovating to some, a complete joke by others and a interesting solution to a nonexistent problem by most; Oosthuizen's Plasma Blaster follows their current trend of quirky innovation. Effectively a plasma shotgun, it was designed as both a way to get a huge rate of fire without needing a massive amount of cooling and power supply as well as designed to be a limited over penetration support gun used in built up areas (similar in concept to Fortschritt's DPG). While it has seen some sales in the civilian hunting market, its biggest sales has been the novice shooters and the collectors markets (in part do to its predominance in holovids, often with its capabilities over exaggerated). Its military and police sales so far have been almost nonexistent.

The Plasma Blaster can fire either in “normal mode” or what Oosthuizen labels “Ultra-Rapid Fire Mode”. In normal mode it fires a 27kJ plasma bolt from a 2.6mm aperture with and effective range of of 600 yards. In Ultra-Rapid Fire Mode the 27kJ bolt is “filtered” into 64 422J sub bolts with an effective range of 300 yards. The fire can also select the patterned the sub bolts leave the barrel in, normal “no choke”, “full choke” were the sub bolt spread is reduced or it can have the spread “Lay flat” which makes it easier to hit a man sized target but causes the sub bolts to disperse more or have it “stand up” which keeps the sub bolts packed more tightly making it harder to hit with but increases the number of shots that land if it does.

It takes a ready action to switch between modes.

If fired in normal mode the Plasma Blaster has dmg 6d×2(2) burn ex sur, Acc 8, Rng 600/1,200, ROF 3 and Rcl 2.

This weapon counts as compact and has the quirk Hard to Maintenance (-1 to roll to repair and modify, multiply cost by 0.95) .

DR4 HP 9 HT 10

Note that my write up includes the optional beam weapon specialty Beams Weapons (Shotgun). If you prefer to stay truer to RAW then replace it with Beam Weapons (Rifle).

BEAM WEAPONS (SHOTGUN) (DX-4, other Beam Weapons-4, or Guns (Shotgun)-4)
TL Weapon                           Damage       Acc    Range   Weight   ROF   Shots  ST   Bulk Rcl Cost               LC

10^ Oosthuizen P-Blaster   3d burn sur  7        300/900  7.7/2C   3×64   8(3)   8†   -5     1     $38,000/$20  3




Flamer
Here's how to stat up a Plasma Flamer. This, along with how to stat up Plasma Lances were supposed to have been in original article but I cut them early on since it was starting to be clear that the main part on Plasma Guns was running a little long and was already complicated enough on its own.

Tech Level
Flamers are TL9^.

Example: Here we're going make a military hand flamer, the Macrotech PGP-158; the preferred side armor of any very mobile infantry on quick raid smash and grab operations! Outside of this being a plasma weapon, the hand flamer will not be using the superscience option.

Beam
Flamers fire a low-velocity stream of high temperature plasma. Hydrogen fuel is fed into a magnetic containment chamber and electromagnetically pinched to form a plasma and then released as a continuous jet. Flamers do burning damage, not tight-beam burning damage.

Focal Array
While I do stand by my reasoning that plasma weapons should always have a medium focal array, RAW disagrees with me here. The Semi-Portable Flamer does use a very small focal array in its write up.

Example: Our hand flamer will use a medium focal array.

Generator
Flamers are always single shot though both David and Kromm have mentioned that Flamers should have been labeled as Jet weapons. Personally I am ok with them having ROF 1 since I do not care for how jets are modeled in 4th edition.

Example: As a flamer, our hand flamer has a single shot generator.

Damage Dice

Example: Flamers are no more efficient then normal beam weapons such as lasers and particle weapons so we pick 3d as it fits nicely in the listed pistol damage range.

Empty Weight

E is 3.
There is no example of higher TL Flamers in Ultra-Tech but I think that halving their weight at TL10^ won't break anything.

Example: Our hand flamer does 3d worth of damage, has a medium focal array and a single-shot generator giving it a weight of (3/3)^3×1×1 or 1lbs exactly.

Configuration
Hand Beamers are more likely with Flamers then with Plasma Guns but would have horrible accuracy.

Example: The hand flamer will have a pistol configuration.

Damage
Flamers do burning damage with no armor divisor.

Example: The hand flamer does 3d worth of damage so we record its damage as 3d burn.

Accuracy

  • A hypothetical Beamer would have a Acc of 1.
  • Pistols have a Acc of 3
  • Rifles have a Acc of 6
  • Cannons have a Acc of 12

Example: As a pistol the hand flamer has an Acc of 3.

Range
Rb is 2 for flamers.

Example: The hand flamer does 3d of damage and a medium focal array giving it a ½ damage range of 3×3×2×1 or 18 yards. Its max range is 18×3 or 54 yards.

Rate of Fire
As said earlier Flamers are always ROF 1 weapons (though you can choose to replace their ROF with being a Jet attack)

Example: The hand flamer has a ROF 1.

Shots
At TL9^ a C cell holds 1,800 shots (the same as a TL10-12 laser using a TL10 C cell).

Once again since there are no TL10^ examples for flamers so any attempt at stating the shot capacity of one is pure guess work on my part.

You got options to choose from.

  • Either follow the example set by Plasma Guns and have their shot capacity go up by 2.5× per TL.
  • Or just treat a TL9^ Flamer as a TL10-12 laser using TL10 C cells and just follow that progression treating a TL10^ version as using TL11 C cells and so on.

On a side note, that while the fluff for flamers does mention using hydrogen to create the plasma jet.... it doesn't say where the gas comes from, there's no mention of a combination power cell/hydrogen gas cell set up like with Plasma Guns!

Now once again you got two options.

  • Either just roll with it and treat Flamers as using normal power cells and just assume the hydrogen comes from the air or an internal tank or something. Good for when you're going full rubber.
  • Or more “realistically” treat flamers as using a similar set up to Plasma Guns were their power cells are actually reskins acting as magazines holding “power cartridges”. If you're going to use them along side Plasma Guns it's probably good to use this option.


Example: Being a pistol we don't want the hand flamer being to big or bulk so we give it a single C cell giving it 1800/3^3 or 66.7 shots which we round up to 67.

Reloading Time

Example: Having a single C cell the hand flamers has a reload time of (3).

Weight

Example: The hand flamer has a empty weight of 1lbs and uses a 0.5lbs C cell giving a loaded weight of 1.5lbs.

Strength Requirement
Look up the Flamers loaded weight on the energy weapon table from the original article. This will produce results that don't quite match up with what's listed on the tables for a Flamers ST requirement on page 127 or Ultra-Tech. It seems that for some reason their were computed using the weapons EMPTY weight.

Example: As a pistol that weights 1.5lbs loaded we look down the weight column and find that it falls between 1 and 2lbs so we round up to 2lbs. We then look across to the L-Laser column to see that it has a ST of 7.

Bulk

Example: Weight a loaded weight of 1.5lbs it has a bulk of the square root of 1.5 ×1.25 or -1.5 which we round up to -2.

Recoil
Flamers have a Rcl of 1.

Cost
Oh boy... I remember how long I bang my head against this one >.>.

The cost of a Flamer is dice of damage cubed times.... 18.4. You read that right and no... it makes no sense to me either. Whatever David was smoking when came up with that.... he needs to share :D

Example: Doing 3d worth of damage the hand flamer costs 3^3×18.4 or $496.80 which we round up to $500.

Legality Class
Flamers have base LC of 3.

Example: Since the hand flamer only weights 1.5lbs it has a LC of 3.

Skill Required
Pistol and Rife class Flamers use the Energy Weapons (Projector) skill, cannon class Flamers use Gunner (Beams) instead.

Optional Fluff Stats

Output
To figure the Flamers output use the formula for lasers and particle beams, (Dice of Damage2)^3 kilojoules.

Example: Doing 3d of damage, the hand flamer has an output per shot of 1kJ.

Aperture
Unfortunately I don't have the data to figure a realistic formula for this but I think that a slight modification the the formula I gave for Plasma Guns works for the most part.

So basically, it becomes Dice of Damage×0.047 but in centimeters, NOT millimeters.

Example: Doing 3d of damage, the hand flamer has an aperture of 0.141cm which we round down to 0.14cm.

Example Gun
Macrotech PGP-158 “Hand Flamer” (TL9^)
The Macrotech Plasma Gun Projector model fifteen, version eight was originally designed as a more compact companion to the PGP-143 Heavy Incendiary Device for newly claimed off world colonies as a deforestation device for clearing land. On several colones both of them got quickly conscripted as weapons do to hostile fauna that attacked in massed swarms. The PGP-158 quickly became a common side arm to many of these worlds do to how compact it was compared to the PGP-143 with the nickname of being a “Hand Flamer” being adopted in short order. Do to their success as anti-swarm weapons as well as being very effective clearing devices, many militaries quickly adopted it with little modification.

The plasma beam has a 1kJ output and is fired from a 0.14cm aperture.

BEAM WEAPONS (PROJECTOR) (DX-4, or other Beam Weapons-4)
TL Weapon        Damage   Acc    Range    Weight    ROF Shots   ST    Bulk Rcl Cost           LC
9^ PGP-158     3d burn   7         18/54      1.5/1C      1       67(3)   7      -2     1    $500/$10    3

Plasma Lance
In so far as I know, the only place a Plasma Lance has been stated as a gun (as apposed to being a plasma shape charged warhead) was in Pyramid 3/51 Tech and Toys III-Modular Mecha, in which there was a whooping single example. This of course means that a lot of this break down is gonna be pure conjecture and if I didn't like the concept of this weapons I wouldn't bothered to do a break down of it.

So once, this break down is largely conjecture on my part.

Tech Level
Plasma Lances are TL10^. While this is just a guess but at TL11^ they become Fusion Lances and their weight is halved.

Example: Let's make a large, semi-portable plasma lance cannon designed to take on light armor. Let's call it the Mitchell & Winslow HPB M-23A. Outside of this being a plasma weapon, the hand flamer will not be using the superscience option.

Beam
Plasma Lances fire a relativistic beam of super focused high temperature plasma. In effect its the unholy love child of a Plasma Gun and a Flamer. Plasma Lances do burning damage with the explosive modifier and have a (10) armor divisor.

Focal Array
You know the drill by know. Interestingly, the plasma lance seems to be the only beam weapons on the list in that article that didn't use a smaller focal array.

Example: Our model, of couse, will use a medium focal array.


Generator
I'm pretty sure they are single shot.

Example: The M-23A will have a single shot generator.

Damage Dice
Plasma Lances are just as efficient as Plasma Guns but with much higher penetration.

Example: Since Plasma Lances are pretty good at dealing damage as Plasma Guns and we want some anti-armor power so let's go for something pretty high powered. The M-23A will have 21d, good enough to penetrate DR734 on average.

Empty Weight
E is 6.
Probably follows the same progression as a Plasma Gun at higher TLs.

Example: Our Plasma Lance does 21d worth of damage, has a medium focal array and a single-shot generator giving it a weight of (21/6)^3×1×1 or 42.9lbs which we'll round up to 43lbs.

Configuration
I'm gonna say that the Hand Beamer options is a no go with Plasma Lances.

Example: The M-23A will have a cannon configuration.

Damage
Plasma Lances do burning damage with explosive modifier and a (10) armor divisor.

Example: The hand flamer does 21d worth of damage, which is the same as saying it does 7d×3, so we record its damage as 7d×3(10) burn ex.

Accuracy
My best guess is:
  • Pistols have a Acc of 1
  • Rifles have a Acc of 4
  • Cannons have a Acc of 8

Example: As a cannon the M-23A has an Acc of 8.

Range
1/2D range is equal to 20 ×the square root of the weapons dice of damage.

Max range is equal to 1/2D range×10.

Example: The M-23A does 21d of damage and a medium focal array giving it a ½ damage range of 20×√(21) or 92 yards. Its max range is 92×10 or 920 yards.

Rate of Fire
Probably just 1.


Example: The M-23A has a ROF 1.

Shots
By comparing its shot efficiency to the other two beam weapons in that article, it seems that for Plasma Lances a TL10^ treat a C cell holds 228 shots.

Since there's no higher TL examples or any mention of how a Plasma Lance gets its fuel you got the same options to choose from as Flamers do. Pick whether you want Plasma Lances to follow either the ×2.5 per TL progression or the ×8 at the first TL increase and ×4 every TL after route and then pick if you want them also using “power cartridges” or just using power cells and hand waving were the hydrogen comes from.


Example: Since this is going to heavy weapon it's normally going to be hooked up to an external power source but if had to be hooked up to power cells a C cell would provided 228/21^3 orrrr... just... 0.025 shots... We're gonna need to beef this up a bit. If we use a rather beefy F cell, that gives up 250 shots. This F cell would not be loaded into the M-23A like a magazine but rather hooked up to it via power line meaning that the F cell would be noted with a p.

Reloading Time

Example: The M-23A does not have a reload time since it's not loaded with a power cell.

Weight

Example: The M-23A has a empty weight of 43lbs but since it's normally powered by an external source that's also its loaded weight.

Strength Requirement
Look up a Plasma Lances on the Plasma Gun table.

Example: Since its a cannon, we look up the M-23As empty weight (which conventionally is also its loaded weight) on the table and we see that 43lbs is listed there. Looking over at the P-Pistol column to see that it has a ST of 18. Since its a cannon we note it as 18M.

Bulk

Example: Weight a loaded weight of 43lbs it has a bulk of the square root of 1.5 ×43 or -9.8 which we round up to -10.

Recoil
Plasma Guns have a Rcl of 2.

Cost
This one is gonna to be a bit of an ass pull. Modular Mecha says that all the beam weapons weigh 1,200lbs and cost $500,000 but if you go by the costs listed in Blaster and Laser Design then a 1,200lbs Rainbow Laser alone would cost $600,000 and a Blaster (As well as a Plasma Gun) would cost 4× more! I'm just write this off as David simplifying things and giving into his pentaphilia. I'd say that Bc for a Plasma Lance is $2,000 like with a Plasma Gun.



Example: With a single shot generator and weighing in at 43lbs, the M-23A costs 43×$2,000×1 or $86,000 as a base. Including the 1.05× price increase for having the perk Well Made, the price goes up to $90,300.

Legality Class
While none is listed, I'm gonna say they probably have a minimum LC of 2.

Example: Since the M-23A weights well over 15lbs so it has a LC of 1. Even if it was less then 5lbs it would have had a minimum LC of 2.

Skill Required

Example: The M-23A uses Gunner (Beams).

Optional Fluff Stats
Output
Plasma Lances use the same formula as Plasma Guns.

Example: With 21d worth of damage the M-23As output is (23/4)^3 or 190.1kJ which we round down to 190kJ.

Aperture
Given that Plasma Lances have such a high armor divisor they need to have a pretty tight focus, I'd say about 4× tighter then a Plasma Guns of the same output making a Plasma Lances aperture equal dice worth of damage×0.047mm.

Example: With 21d worth of damage the M-23As aperture is 21×0.047 or 0.99mm which we'll round up to 1mm.

Example Gun
Mitchell & Winslow HPB M-23A (TL10^)
The Mitchell & Winslow Heavy Plasma Beam, Model-23A was designed to be a solid, short ranged but hard hitting anti-armor weapon. Meant to be mounted to light vehicles or used as a mounted heavy battlesuit weapon. Made to the excellent standard typical of M&W weapons are know for, it seldom breaks down in field even in the roughest of conditions.

The M-23AA fires a 190kJ plasma beam from a 1mm aperture.

DR 4, HP 14, HT 11

This weapons the perk Well Made (+1 to HT, multiply cost by 1.05×)

GUNNER (BEAMS) (DX-4, or other Gunner-4)
TL Weapon             Damage               Acc   Range   Weight   ROF Shots ST    Bulk   Rcl    Cost                   LC
10^ M&W M-23A 7d×3(10) burn ex 8        9/90        43/1Fp 1       250   18M  -10      2     $90,300/$20,000 1


Ok, now that this is done with I gotta double down and finish up Brand Loyalty.... Though at this rate it might be a little late, either late Thursday night after I get off of work or Friday morning. Work and life has sent some curve balls my way and I'm behind as a result (this was originally supposed to have been up on Saturday!). Blarg.... the best laid plans of gamers and men =_=...

Edit: I made the deadline! Yaaay! Also, fixed some weird formatting issues that happened to some of my gun stats. Blogger seems to get weird sometimes.