Flamethrowers

[Golan2072]

I'm thinking about adding flamethrowers to MGT; I've already done them for CT (see Stellar Reaches #7), and they'll probably be very easy to convert to MGT.

As the basic mechanism I'm thinking of giving flamethrowers an Autofire rating and treat each of their shots as full auto (and only full auto). Damage would be around 3d6 for a standard-issue flamethrower (it'd rate as an "Inferno" on the p.74 table) or 2d6 for a light flamer (think the first Alien movies); a flame-rifle (think the Aliens movie) would do 2d6+3 damage. On an Effect of 6+ (or 4+?) the target would catch fire and take 1d6 damage per round (1d6+2 for a flamethrower) until he takes out the flames (a full-round extended action?).

Light flamers and flame-rifles would have underbarrel fuel tanks with fuel for a very few shots (4 rounds of operation for the hand flamer, 8 rounds of operation for the flame-rifle) but quite hard to hit by incoming fire. A flamethrower would carry enough fuel for 30 rounds of continued fire in large back-carried fuel tanks; these would be vulnerable to incoming fire, and any attack hitting the user with an Effect of 6+ would cause them to Explode! (damage 3d6 to the user, and he would catch fire too!).

A hand flamer would have an Auto number of 4 and 48 "ammo" (enough for 4 attacks); a flame rifle would have an Auto number of 6 and 144 "ammo" (enough for 8 attacks); and a flamethrower would have an Auto number of 8 and 720 "ammo" (enough for 30 attacks).

Skill-wise I'm thinking of either Heavy Weapons (Man-Portable Artillery) or Gun Combat (Energy Pistol/Rifle).

What do you think?

 

[Xoph]

Sounds cool! I was just thinking that any sort of Plasma Weapon would already be a high tech flame thrower. Plasma being state of matter that fire falls into. So a flame thrower would be a dangerous low TL or slow plasma weapon.

If you want to include these old low TL weapons, I would use all the same damage, skills, and stats as any other energy weapon, but add the extra disadvantages that you have created for it.

I wonder if other low TL weapons could have similarly fun disadvantages.

 

[-Daniel-]

I'm thinking about adding flamethrowers to MGT;
[snip ideas]

Skill-wise I'm thinking of either Heavy Weapons (Man-Portable Artillery) or Gun Combat (Energy Pistol/Rifle).

What do you think?

I think I would go with the Gun Combat (Energy) myself. Seems like the closest of the options to me. However if you wanted to you could also make it a seperate skill and that might make sense to me. Gun Combat (Flamer Weapons) might make sense.

One other thought, improvised vs. "military grade" might be worth thinking about. Think Alien for example. Does the Improvised weapon and military weapon have the exact specs? Maybe or maybe not but I will leave that to you. :wink:

Daniel

 

[sirpedro]

In one of the early JTAS issues they had the Advanced Powered Battle Dress which had a hand flamer built in to it, if I can find the issue I'll let you know what the OTU specs were for the flamer. As far as your flamers go, it would depend on what tech your using, in my TU at higher TLs I use phosphorus instead of fuel (no chance of explosions) I don't remember the damages and durations at the moment.

Skillwise, I would use Gun Cbt. for any flamer that was an accessory to another weapon and Hvy Weapons for the large dedicated flamer.

just my .02

sirpedro

 

[SSWarlock]

The Autofire rating seems appropriate to me, given the weapon's area effect, but I'm thinking the endurance of 30 rounds may be too high. WWII U.S. man-portable flamethrowers (the big backpack tanks) carried only enough fuel for about 10 seconds-worth of use and were very short-ranged (20 yards, I think).

Higher tank pressure will increase the range but lower the weapon's shot endurance so a very small tank (like the ones in Aliens) won't have more than a couple shots or a very short range (as in under 10 feet).

All this assumes, of course, the use of current liquid fuels but why stick with reality? Traveller doesn't. :wink:

Because of the weapon's weight, special training requirement, and the weapon's danger to the user, Heavy Weapons (Man-Portable Artillery) as the applicable skill makes perfect sense to me.

Regarding weapon effects, a flamethrower could either shoot out a flaming stream or be used to soak a target in liquid fuel which would then be ignited by a second shot. The first method is effective against targets as a terror weapon while the second method would help the shooter keep a lower profile before "lighting up".

Anyone known to be hostile and carrying a flamethrower invariably earns the number one spot of every infantryman's list of priority targets.

 

[sirpedro]

Anyone known to be hostile and carrying a flamethrower invariably earns the number one spot of every infantryman's list of priority targets.

Which is why in WWII the life expectancy of the FlameThrower carrier was rather short

 

[Xoph]

Yes I agree, at high TLs the flamer (slow plasma weapon) would just use a stable power pack the same as other energy weapons.

Perhaps you could even make the Plasma rifle adjustable so that instead of firing high energy plasma it would fire low energy low speed plasma making it a flamer. It would do less damage, use less power, and set stuff and people on fire. Then you get to find the fire rules in the core book :lol:

 

[Golan2072]

Sounds cool! I was just thinking that any sort of Plasma Weapon would already be a high tech flame thrower. Plasma being state of matter that fire falls into. So a flame thrower would be a dangerous low TL or slow plasma weapon.

If you want to include these old low TL weapons, I would use all the same damage, skills, and stats as any other energy weapon, but add the extra disadvantages that you have created for it.

I wonder if other low TL weapons could have similarly fun disadvantages.

Scientifically speaking, I agree that both work in a somewhat similar way (using very hot gasses). The big difference is that plasma, not to mention fusion, is far, far hotter than anything a flamethrower could produce - plasma/fusion can easily melt through metal while flamethrowers can't. Another difference is that most Traveller plasma/fusion weapons use a magnetic field to contain the plasma to a "bolt" formation, while a flamethrower (or a low-tech plasma weapon for that matter) just pours forward a jet of flames.

I think I would go with the Gun Combat (Energy) myself. Seems like the closest of the options to me. However if you wanted to you could also make it a seperate skill and that might make sense to me. Gun Combat (Flamer Weapons) might make sense.

Gun Combat (Energy Pistol/Rifle) is my leading candidate for the sake of simplicity; on the other hand, as long as a new flamethrower skill would be a Gun Combat specialization it probably won't cause too many problems at chargen as you won't have to alter any career table (the table include only the main Gun Combat skill).

One other thought, improvised vs. "military grade" might be worth thinking about. Think Alien for example. Does the Improvised weapon and military weapon have the exact specs? Maybe or maybe not but I will leave that to you. :wink:l

IMHO it'll depend on the quality of improvisation. A well-built improvisation would work like a n off-the-shelf Hand Flamer; a low-quality improvisation would have a -1 (or -2) DM to hit and might explode on Effect -6 or lower.

 

[Golan2072]

Skillwise, I would use Gun Cbt. for any flamer that was an accessory to another weapon and Hvy Weapons for the large dedicated flamer.

Thanks for the idea of creating a weapon-option underbarrel flamer (using backpack tanks, I presume?)

The Autofire rating seems appropriate to me, given the weapon's area effect, but I'm thinking the endurance of 30 rounds may be too high. WWII U.S. man-portable flamethrowers (the big backpack tanks) carried only enough fuel for about 10 seconds-worth of use and were very short-ranged (20 yards, I think).

So you say that they should actually work for 10 rounds at most (each round is 1-6 seconds) rather than 30?

Regarding range, I'm thinking of giving flamethrowers their own ranges, with a small negative DM for Close range (but if you use it at Close range, you must roll one attack against yourself as well), a positive DM for Short range and a negative DM for Medium range; Long or Very Long would be out of range.

Higher tank pressure will increase the range but lower the weapon's shot endurance so a very small tank (like the ones in Aliens) won't have more than a couple shots or a very short range (as in under 10 feet).

Hmmm... I think that these weapons would be out of range at Medium or longer range.

Anyone known to be hostile and carrying a flamethrower invariably earns the number one spot of every infantryman's list of priority targets.

That's exactly why under my house-rules any shot at a Flamethrower-bearing target with an Effect of 6+ (or maybe even 4+?) causes the tanks to explode...

 

[B_Steele]

Heh heh...flamethrowers are in Mercenary.

 

[Golan2072]

Heh heh...flamethrowers are in Mercenary.

Great to hear that!

But until Mercenary would be ready and in our mailbox (or the nearest FLGS), we could use my house-rules...

 

[Xoph]

Sounds like Mercenary will fill in all our weapon questions...

I still think jury rigging your plasma weapons (lower the containment field and slow down the plasma rate) into a flame thrower would be fun.... and maybe explosive.

 

[Golan2072]

I still think jury rigging your plasma weapons (lower the containment field and slow down the plasma rate) into a flame thrower would be fun.... and maybe explosive.

Primitive (TL10-11 I think) man-portable plasma weapons would probably emit streams of plasma in a way a bit similar to a flamethrower, but much, much hotter. Only at TL12 you'd get miniaturized magnetic-field emitters small enough to be fit in a PGMP-12 yet strong enough to form the plasma into "bolts" (and thus both increase range and concentrate damage).

 

[B_Steele]

Actually, the higher tech flamethrowers are called Plasmathrowers.

And yes, they are VERY awesome.

-Bry

 

[Jame Rowe]

I actually did a conversion of your CT flamers, Golan. I'll post them (eventually).