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.
Your one stop shop for new Ultra-Tech Gear and Weapons. This blog mainly deal with fun new toys for fairly realistic TL 9+ GURPS Ultra-Tech settings with some cutting edge modern tech ever now and then for flavor.
Showing posts with label Ultra-Tech Quicky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ultra-Tech Quicky. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Ultra-Tech Ultra Quickie: Frag Out!
Quick update to get my creative ball rolling again.
In GURPS 4th edition an explosives fragmentation damage has been tied to the diameter of the warhead that carries it, that is the warheads diameter (in millimeters)/20. Now this works good enough in most cases but some warheads are designed to create an enhanced or heavier fragmentation effect. Below I cover two warhead options to get more fragmentation bang for your buck. See this post for even more Ultra-Tech warhead options.
High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead (HEEF) (TL 9)
This warhead uses either a thicker or denser case to create an enhanced fragmentation effect with greater penetration and wounding potential. Due to the stronger case, the warheads blast effect is reduced.
Blast effect damage is figured as the square root (warhead weight)×19.8. Divide the product by 3.5 to get dice of damage. Damage is crushing explosive.
Fragmentation damage is figured as Warhead Diameter (in millimeters)/12 in dice of damage. Damage is cutting fragmentation damage.
Add +1 per die to the crushing explosive damage at TL10-12. This warhead is only available for 15mm or larger. Double normal cost.
HEEF projectiles, with the exception of hand grenades, that are built at TL 9 or higher can incorporate a programmable fuse that can be set for either impact or, if the target is at least 40 yards away or farther, for proximity detonation see Ultra-Tech pg. 154. Grenades and satchel charges with HEEF warheads inflict the damage shown below. When set for impact detonation,guns and launchers with HEEF warheads inflict their normal piercing damage with a (0.5) armor divisor, plus a follow-up attack causing the damage shown below.
HEEF Table
Warhead Damage
15mm 1d-2 cr ex [1d+1]
18.5mm 1d-1 cr ex [1d+2]
25mm 1d cr ex [2d]
30mm 1d+1 cr ex [2d+2]
40mm 2d cr ex [3d+1]
64mm 4d cr ex [5d+1]
100mm 8d cr ex [8d+1]
130mm 12d cr ex [11d-1]
160mm 8d×2 cr ex [6d×2]
400mm 4d×16 cr ex [5d×7]
Continuous Rod Warhead (TL 9)
This is a special type of High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead. A Continuous Rod Warhead surrounds the explosives with a bundle of metal rectangular rods welded to one another at the top and bottom in an alternating pattern.
When the warhead goes off, the bundle of rods are propelled outward in an expanding ring, unfolding like a circular accordion gate.This effect not only greatly increases the warheads lethality against thin skinned targets, though it is less effective against thicker skinned or armored targets. Up until the ring finally breaks apart it is far more likely to hit targets within its effective range then standard fragments (with hit probability dropping at a rate of 1/R rather than 1/R2 as for conventional fragments).
Even after the ring breaks the rods are still dangerous and have the hit probability of a normal fragmentation warhead.
While effective, Continuous Rod Warheads are more complicated and expensive to build then normal fragmentation warheads. They are also more effective with larger warheads (the first production warhead was the early TL 7 710mm RIM-8 Talos with a 30 yard effective range!).
A Continuous Rod Warhead has similar effects to a High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead only the fragments have an armor divisor of (0.5) and fragmentation has both a primary and a secondary threat range. In the primary threat range the chance of scoring a hit is increased.
The fragments still hit with a skill of 15 but penalties do to range to the target are ignored. Primary threat range is fragment dice of damage × 0.5 yards.
In the secondary threat range use the normal fragmentation rules with the exception that you trace the range from the end of the primary threat range when figuring range penalties- not the center of the blast.
Blast effect damage is figured as the square root (warhead weight)×19.8. Divide the product by 3.5 to get dice of damage. Damage is crushing explosive.
Fragmentation damage is figured as Warhead Diameter (in millimeters)/12 in dice of damage. Damage is cutting fragmentation damage with a (0.5) armor divisor.
Add +1 per die to the crushing explosive damage at TL10-12. This warhead is only available for mm 64mm or larger. Five times normal cost.
Continuous Rod projectiles are always set for proximity detonation- see Ultra-Tech pg. 154.
Continuous Rod Warhead Table
Warhead Damage Effective/Secondary
64mm 4d cr ex [5d+1] 3 yrd./26 yrd.
100mm 8d cr ex [8d+1] 4 yrd./41 yrd.
130mm 12d cr ex [11d-1] 5 yrd./54 yrd.
160mm 8d×2 cr ex [6d×2] 6 yrd./60 yrd.
400mm 4d×16 cr ex [5d×7] 18 yrd./175 yrd.
In GURPS 4th edition an explosives fragmentation damage has been tied to the diameter of the warhead that carries it, that is the warheads diameter (in millimeters)/20. Now this works good enough in most cases but some warheads are designed to create an enhanced or heavier fragmentation effect. Below I cover two warhead options to get more fragmentation bang for your buck. See this post for even more Ultra-Tech warhead options.
High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead (HEEF) (TL 9)
This warhead uses either a thicker or denser case to create an enhanced fragmentation effect with greater penetration and wounding potential. Due to the stronger case, the warheads blast effect is reduced.

Fragmentation damage is figured as Warhead Diameter (in millimeters)/12 in dice of damage. Damage is cutting fragmentation damage.
Add +1 per die to the crushing explosive damage at TL10-12. This warhead is only available for 15mm or larger. Double normal cost.
HEEF projectiles, with the exception of hand grenades, that are built at TL 9 or higher can incorporate a programmable fuse that can be set for either impact or, if the target is at least 40 yards away or farther, for proximity detonation see Ultra-Tech pg. 154. Grenades and satchel charges with HEEF warheads inflict the damage shown below. When set for impact detonation,guns and launchers with HEEF warheads inflict their normal piercing damage with a (0.5) armor divisor, plus a follow-up attack causing the damage shown below.
HEEF Table
Warhead Damage
15mm 1d-2 cr ex [1d+1]
18.5mm 1d-1 cr ex [1d+2]
25mm 1d cr ex [2d]
30mm 1d+1 cr ex [2d+2]
40mm 2d cr ex [3d+1]
64mm 4d cr ex [5d+1]
100mm 8d cr ex [8d+1]
130mm 12d cr ex [11d-1]
160mm 8d×2 cr ex [6d×2]
400mm 4d×16 cr ex [5d×7]
Continuous Rod Warhead (TL 9)
This is a special type of High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead. A Continuous Rod Warhead surrounds the explosives with a bundle of metal rectangular rods welded to one another at the top and bottom in an alternating pattern.

Even after the ring breaks the rods are still dangerous and have the hit probability of a normal fragmentation warhead.
While effective, Continuous Rod Warheads are more complicated and expensive to build then normal fragmentation warheads. They are also more effective with larger warheads (the first production warhead was the early TL 7 710mm RIM-8 Talos with a 30 yard effective range!).
A Continuous Rod Warhead has similar effects to a High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead only the fragments have an armor divisor of (0.5) and fragmentation has both a primary and a secondary threat range. In the primary threat range the chance of scoring a hit is increased.
The fragments still hit with a skill of 15 but penalties do to range to the target are ignored. Primary threat range is fragment dice of damage × 0.5 yards.
In the secondary threat range use the normal fragmentation rules with the exception that you trace the range from the end of the primary threat range when figuring range penalties- not the center of the blast.
Blast effect damage is figured as the square root (warhead weight)×19.8. Divide the product by 3.5 to get dice of damage. Damage is crushing explosive.
Fragmentation damage is figured as Warhead Diameter (in millimeters)/12 in dice of damage. Damage is cutting fragmentation damage with a (0.5) armor divisor.
Add +1 per die to the crushing explosive damage at TL10-12. This warhead is only available for mm 64mm or larger. Five times normal cost.
Continuous Rod projectiles are always set for proximity detonation- see Ultra-Tech pg. 154.
Continuous Rod Warhead Table
Warhead Damage Effective/Secondary
64mm 4d cr ex [5d+1] 3 yrd./26 yrd.
100mm 8d cr ex [8d+1] 4 yrd./41 yrd.
130mm 12d cr ex [11d-1] 5 yrd./54 yrd.
160mm 8d×2 cr ex [6d×2] 6 yrd./60 yrd.
400mm 4d×16 cr ex [5d×7] 18 yrd./175 yrd.
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
SATNUC: Lances of Star Fire
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The business end of a very bad day... |
Back in good ol' 3rd Edition, one of the most glorious bits of overkill ever put to print for the system was the SATNUC. A cross over from the Ogre universe,the SATNUC was self guiding submunition similar in concept to the (sadly canceled) Brilliant Anti-Tank munition with one major difference; rather than a self forging penetration, it uses a shaped charge micro-nuke! Of course in the gaming universe this bit of ridiculousness originally existed in there are AI controlled multi-thousand ton tanks armed out of pure win and awesome this kinda weapon does make some sense... in others.... not so much... But gawd damn was it a fun bit of tech!
Of course when for 4th edition came out, sadly this little gem was left out. But hey... that's what you guys have me for! Follow me after the jump where I cover not only my take on what SATNUCs should look like in 4th ed but I also throw in a shaped charge version of the mininuke and a design system where you can craft your very own custom SATNUCs and shaped charge nukes!
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Ultra-Tech Quickie: Batteries, Recharged!
A few months ago I did an article covering how much energy power cells hold in real world units and included a few hypothetical suggestion for different kinds of power plants. I also took a shot a handling batteries to give players some more long term storage options at the price of having a lower power output.
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Behold, the power of the future! |
While I'm not afraid to stray into house rule territory if I have to, I try to stay as RAW as possible since I know how some GM's can get. Some just don't like veering off of what's published so if my rules at lest line up with that it increases the chance that my stuff will get the okay.
Well, I've been doing some diving into what info I could get on the early versions of Ultra-Tech to see if I can find any nuggets I could use. While I have yet to find a smoking gun, I have found enough things that seem to point to the fact that originally there were going to be both power cells and batteries in the book (and in fact this makes sense since some of the things listed don't make sense having the duration they do with just normal power cells).
Now granted that's useful and all but... there was no data on how these batteries would work. Then it hit me. A lot of Ultra-Tech was inspired by what was done in Transhuman Space and that setting had both batteries (confusingly called power cells) and power cells (called power packs). So I took a look at these settings assumptions and it clicked!
So here's my second, more GURPSy attempt at stating batteries.
In general Ultra-Tech Batteries hold 10× as much energy as a the same sized power cell of the same TL. For example a TL9 C power cell holds 90kJ of energy so a TL9 C battery would hold 900kJ.
Of course the down side to batteries is that they have a limited ability to discharge that energy as power. Divide the batteries kilo Joules of storage by 900 to see how many kilo Watts it can discharge at. For example since a C battery holds 900kJ it can discharged it at a rate of 900kJ/900 or 1kW. If the item you are trying to power has a greater kilo Watt requirement then a given battery can provide then use a bigger or more batteries till it that requirement is met.
Note that realistically that at TL11, energy density gets as high as it can probably get without super science. The TL12 examples shown below would need hyperdense materials to be practical.
Battery type TL9 TL10 TL11 TL12
AA 0.0001kW/0.9 kJ 0.0004kW/0.36 kJ 0.0016kW/14.4 kJ 0.0064kW/57.6 kJ
A 0.001kW/9 kJ 0.004kW/3.6 kJ 0.016kW/144 kJ 0.064kW/576 kJ
B 0.01kW/90 kJ 0.04kW/360 kJ 0.16kW/1,440 kJ 0.64kW/5,760 kJ
C 1kW/900 kJ 4kW/3,600kJ 16kW/14,400 kJ 64kW/57,600 kJ
D 10kW/9,000 kJ 40kW/36,000kJ 160kW/144,000 kJ 640kW/576,000 kJ
E 100kW/90,000 kJ 400kW/360,000kJ 1,600kW/1,440,000 kJ 6,400kW/5,760,000 kJ
F 1,000kW/900,000 kJ 4,000kW/3,600,000kJ 16,000kW/14,400,000 kJ 64,000kW/57,600,000 kJ
The number before the slash is the batteries output in kilo Watts and the number after the slash in the batteries energy storage in kilo Joules. Divide the listed energy storage by 3,600 to get how many kilo Watt-hours the battery will provide.
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.
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.
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 13, 2017
Ultra-Tech Quickie: Liquid Cooling System For Beam Weapons
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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, March 23, 2017
Ultra-Tech Quickie: Call Me, Call Me On the Line. Call Me, Call Me Anytime.
And now for my third "Quickie" in row, though to be fair this is kinda the first one that actually follows the concept of being a small post (the last two started out as small posts but kinda... ballooned out and I was too lazy to come up with new titles for them heh).
In this post I break down each of the communicator types from chapter 3 of Ultra-Tech so you can stat up your custom version of any size and any range. And since you can now have communicators of any size that no longer fit the neat size category progression from the book I also updated the Communicators with Different Ranges rules so they can be used between communicators of arbitrary size.
So open all hailing frequency and follow me after the jump.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Spaceships Quickie: Surviable Spaceships
After replying to this post
where I mulled over how hard it is to make an armored ship in
Spaceships it got the old think box ah' turning about some ways to make
ships a little more survivable.
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Ultra-Tech Super Quickie: Someone Already Beat Me to Updating the ETC Rules
Real quick one for you guys today.
One thing that I get a lot of requests for is way to update the ETC (Electrothermal-Chemical) rules from Ultra-Tech (pg. 139) which many agree are a bit wonky. Well, I've been collecting what little info on this tech that is available openly, trying to see if I can come up with a better figure.
Welp, David beat me to this. In this GURPS forum post he listed the current (well current as of almost 3 years ago heh) values he's using for the Armorers Handbook (His and Hans inhouse weapon design system that will hopefully see the light of day some decade....The things I would do to just get half an hour with that manuscript....).
For what it's worth, my research was leading me to believe that 1st gen ETC would make rounds about 1.3 times more powerful so it at lest seems we were on the same page.
Well there you guys go, values for ETC that aren't as game breaking and more in line with reality.
One thing that I get a lot of requests for is way to update the ETC (Electrothermal-Chemical) rules from Ultra-Tech (pg. 139) which many agree are a bit wonky. Well, I've been collecting what little info on this tech that is available openly, trying to see if I can come up with a better figure.
Welp, David beat me to this. In this GURPS forum post he listed the current (well current as of almost 3 years ago heh) values he's using for the Armorers Handbook (His and Hans inhouse weapon design system that will hopefully see the light of day some decade....The things I would do to just get half an hour with that manuscript....).
For what it's worth, my research was leading me to believe that 1st gen ETC would make rounds about 1.3 times more powerful so it at lest seems we were on the same page.
Well there you guys go, values for ETC that aren't as game breaking and more in line with reality.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Ultra Tech Quickie: Rattling and Gatling
Ahhhh, February. The month of love.
Well, if there is one thing over here at GURB that we love, it's guns!
And what's the ultimate form of gun love? One that can fire really, really, really fast!
In this (somewhat late) Valentine present to my readers I not only go over how to stat up some ultra tech energy gatling guns but I go back over how sustained fire for energy weapons worked in Ultra-Tech and bring them more in line with the more advanced rules found High-Tech.
Got nothing but love for ya guy!
Well, if there is one thing over here at GURB that we love, it's guns!
And what's the ultimate form of gun love? One that can fire really, really, really fast!
In this (somewhat late) Valentine present to my readers I not only go over how to stat up some ultra tech energy gatling guns but I go back over how sustained fire for energy weapons worked in Ultra-Tech and bring them more in line with the more advanced rules found High-Tech.
Got nothing but love for ya guy!
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Ultra-Tech Quickie: More Blaster and Laser Design System Tweaks
One more quick round of tweaks to fix up a few more issues I have with the Blaster and Laser Design System.
Inner Focus
The design system as is give you the ability to mount larger focal arrays to your beam weapons, giving your weapon a greater range at the expense of making the weapon heavier and more expensive to buy. It also gives you a pretty good selection of range options to play with. But, what if you have a very specific range in mind when designing a given a weapon that isn't covered by it?
Well, the solution is actually pretty simple. Just think of whatever range multiplier you want to give Rf under the Range formula first then take the cube root of that multiplier to use for figuring F under the formula for figuring a weapons Empty Weight.
Example: Let's say we want to give a laser sniper rifle we're building a 3.2 range multiplier. This would give us a F of cube root of (3.2) or 1.47 which we'll round up to 1.5.
What Size Is My Lens?
So, ever wondered how big the focal array for me beam gun would need to be? Wonder no more. The below formula gives you the weapons focal array diameter in centimeters.
Focal Array Diameter: (D×F)/Rb
D is the weapons dice of damage.
F is the weapons Range multiplier.
Rb is 0.8 for pulsar, 0.9 for freeze ray, 1.1 for force, 3.2 for blaster or neutral particle beam, 4 for laser, 5.6 for rainbow laser, 10 for graviton, 200 for X-ray laser, or 600 for graser.
Example: A 5d laser rifle with a 2× Range multiplier has a (5×2)/4 or 2.5cm focal array.
Do You Have the Strength Part II
Two posts ago I gave a quick cut around of showing you to get the ST of your beam weapons without showing off the whole formula. It was designed around weapons that have Rcl 1, which is the case for most beam weapons. But what about the few that have Rcl 2 such as plasma guns or my take on Star Wars blasters?
So here's a version of my quick formula for Rcl 2 weapons. Like with my last one this will only work for weapons that have Rcl 2, which means, yes, you can use it for stating most fire arms. Once again keep in mind that since I rounded off the numbers a bit there will be a few break points were things don't 100% line up.
Pistols/Mounted
Remember to add an M after a Mounted weapons ST.
ST= 12×(Gw/10)1/4
Gw is the weapons loaded weight if a pistol or empty weight if a mounted weapon.
Rifles
Remember to add a dagger (†) after the weapons ST.
ST= 9×(Gw/10)1/4
Gw is the weapons loaded weight.
Inner Focus
The design system as is give you the ability to mount larger focal arrays to your beam weapons, giving your weapon a greater range at the expense of making the weapon heavier and more expensive to buy. It also gives you a pretty good selection of range options to play with. But, what if you have a very specific range in mind when designing a given a weapon that isn't covered by it?
Well, the solution is actually pretty simple. Just think of whatever range multiplier you want to give Rf under the Range formula first then take the cube root of that multiplier to use for figuring F under the formula for figuring a weapons Empty Weight.
Example: Let's say we want to give a laser sniper rifle we're building a 3.2 range multiplier. This would give us a F of cube root of (3.2) or 1.47 which we'll round up to 1.5.
What Size Is My Lens?
So, ever wondered how big the focal array for me beam gun would need to be? Wonder no more. The below formula gives you the weapons focal array diameter in centimeters.
Focal Array Diameter: (D×F)/Rb
D is the weapons dice of damage.
F is the weapons Range multiplier.
Rb is 0.8 for pulsar, 0.9 for freeze ray, 1.1 for force, 3.2 for blaster or neutral particle beam, 4 for laser, 5.6 for rainbow laser, 10 for graviton, 200 for X-ray laser, or 600 for graser.
Example: A 5d laser rifle with a 2× Range multiplier has a (5×2)/4 or 2.5cm focal array.
Do You Have the Strength Part II
Two posts ago I gave a quick cut around of showing you to get the ST of your beam weapons without showing off the whole formula. It was designed around weapons that have Rcl 1, which is the case for most beam weapons. But what about the few that have Rcl 2 such as plasma guns or my take on Star Wars blasters?
So here's a version of my quick formula for Rcl 2 weapons. Like with my last one this will only work for weapons that have Rcl 2, which means, yes, you can use it for stating most fire arms. Once again keep in mind that since I rounded off the numbers a bit there will be a few break points were things don't 100% line up.
Pistols/Mounted
Remember to add an M after a Mounted weapons ST.
ST= 12×(Gw/10)1/4
Gw is the weapons loaded weight if a pistol or empty weight if a mounted weapon.
Rifles
Remember to add a dagger (†) after the weapons ST.
ST= 9×(Gw/10)1/4
Gw is the weapons loaded weight.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Ultra-Tech Quickie: Do You Have The Strength?
As I said in my last post, the formula for figuring a beam weapons ST stat that is listed in the Blaster and Laser Design System in Pyramid 3/37 is a little wonky. While it works reasonably well for most small arms, as you get bigger and bigger you start to see the ST requirement skyrocket at a much higher pace then an equivalent sized projectile weapon.
To give you an example, let's take a 250lbs auto cannon with Rcl 2 and a 250lbs. beam cannon with Rcl 1.
The auto cannon would have ST 28M.
The beam cannon, according to the Blaster and Laser Deisgn System, would have the square root of (250) × 2.4 or ST 38M!
In GURPS terms that means you need to be almost twice as strong to handle the recoiless beam gun as you would need to be to handle the very much has recoil auto cannon!
Now the thing is it's against my policy to publish the actual rules for figuring out what a guns or beam weapons ST is since it can't be found on the forum or really divined by reverse engineering it but at the same time I can't keep dancing around this subject and just adding more pre-made charts makes things harder to use on your end.
So I decided on a compromise.
I'm going to give you guys a simplified formula to figure out what a beam weapons actual ST score should be and need to stress this will only work for weapons with Rcl 1.
For pistols the formula is ST = 10 × (Bw/10)1/4
For rifles the formula is ST = 7 × (Bw/10)1/4. Don't forget to add a dagger (†) mark after it.
Bw is the weapons loaded weight.
For cannons, ST can be ignored. Since mounted weapons, are well mounted, and not being held out as like a lever; so long was whatever its mounted to is strong enough to hold it, the whatever is also strong to use it. Basically adding a ST score to a mounted beam weapons makes a much sense as adding one to an equal sized radar mast. A mounted beam weapons ST should be noted as N/A.
However if you still want to give your beam cannons a ST score then just use the same formula as for pistols but use the cannons empty weight, not loaded weight, and add a M after it.
Do note that I did round off the numbers used above to make the math easier and neater so do keep in mind that there will be a few break points the ST scores generated by this formula will not 100% match with the official one.
Alright guys, Here's hoping I can keep this ball rolling heh.
To give you an example, let's take a 250lbs auto cannon with Rcl 2 and a 250lbs. beam cannon with Rcl 1.
The auto cannon would have ST 28M.
The beam cannon, according to the Blaster and Laser Deisgn System, would have the square root of (250) × 2.4 or ST 38M!
In GURPS terms that means you need to be almost twice as strong to handle the recoiless beam gun as you would need to be to handle the very much has recoil auto cannon!
Now the thing is it's against my policy to publish the actual rules for figuring out what a guns or beam weapons ST is since it can't be found on the forum or really divined by reverse engineering it but at the same time I can't keep dancing around this subject and just adding more pre-made charts makes things harder to use on your end.
So I decided on a compromise.
I'm going to give you guys a simplified formula to figure out what a beam weapons actual ST score should be and need to stress this will only work for weapons with Rcl 1.
For pistols the formula is ST = 10 × (Bw/10)1/4
For rifles the formula is ST = 7 × (Bw/10)1/4. Don't forget to add a dagger (†) mark after it.
Bw is the weapons loaded weight.
For cannons, ST can be ignored. Since mounted weapons, are well mounted, and not being held out as like a lever; so long was whatever its mounted to is strong enough to hold it, the whatever is also strong to use it. Basically adding a ST score to a mounted beam weapons makes a much sense as adding one to an equal sized radar mast. A mounted beam weapons ST should be noted as N/A.
However if you still want to give your beam cannons a ST score then just use the same formula as for pistols but use the cannons empty weight, not loaded weight, and add a M after it.
Do note that I did round off the numbers used above to make the math easier and neater so do keep in mind that there will be a few break points the ST scores generated by this formula will not 100% match with the official one.
Alright guys, Here's hoping I can keep this ball rolling heh.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Ultra-Tech Quickie: MOAR DAKKA!
As my readers are probably aware, I love the Blaster and Laser Design System from Pyramid 3/37 Tech and Toys II. I really do and see it as the gift that keeps on giving.
Though as much as I do love it, I don't quite see it as quite perfect...
Though as much as I do love it, I don't quite see it as quite perfect...
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Ultra-Tech Quickie: More Options for the Blaster and Laser Design System
Happy Turkey day everyone! In honor of this day of being thankful, I give you guys some I think we all can be thankful for; ways to make high energy death rays even more versatile!
Follow me after the jump for some more options to round off you custom energy weapons stated up with the Blaster and Laser Design System!
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Ultra-Tech Quicky: Actively Searching
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I got the feeling, someone's tracking meeee!! |
So do you got some bogeys you need to Fox Three but don't have the Active Sensors you need? Then follow me after the jump to see how to design your own!
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