Matter Disintegrators

[daryen]

I have a question on the Matter Disintegrators presented in the Supply Catalog on pp102-103.

These weapons are given extremely low (at least for *disintegrators*) damage dice. And the description says that the Effect of a disintegrator attack is not determined by the roll, but rather by the armor rating. And there is no qualification on any side effects on the damage.

The whole Effect thing is totally wonky. The only direct effect of Effect on combat is that if the Effect is 6+, then minimum damage is 1. This is nearly irrelevant. Also, it does not appear that the damage circumvents (or even damages) the target's armor. So, while getting an automatic point for each shot is kinda cool, it really doesn't do much.

And the small damage is completely underwhelming, too.

Quite frankly, if a character is going to get a *disintegration* weapon, I would like to see some serious results. Like saying that any armor that stops damage is completely removed. Or that any damage points are completely removed. Or at least doing some real damage. Something?

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Remember that "the effect is determined by the armour" is just a way of saying "ignore all armour", however, I see your point about the low damage and ridiculously high recoil, wierd for a magic technology.

So change it, create the super alien disintergrators of fiction.

After all, the CSC is all over the place with real world weapons, what chance has it got with fantasy ones?

Sorry guys, I was really trying to get through this month without moaning about CSC, and I almost made it

Egil

 

[BP]

I love the Cr 50,000 ammo!

Of course, the TL 18/19 doesn't match the earlier (pg 9) TL descriptions (hand-helds being Ancients level 20+ tech).

 

[zero]

In my games we have the effect of all to-hit rolls add to the damage made, so certain better hits can get very fatal very quickly - armour is very important in my group. If theres a chance of trouble, most run to the armoury and get a Vacc-Suit of some sort before venturing :mrgreen:

 

[daryen]

Oh, I can make up my own rules if I have to. However, before I do that, I want to understand what the intended operation of the disintegrators are before I discard them. Maybe the idea doesn't work (for me). Or, maybe I just didn't properly understand the intent.

 

[apoc527]

The base rules of MGT are that Effect in combat adds to damage. So Egil is right. When a matter disintegrator hits ANYTHING, the "Effect" is equal to the armor, which means that armor is always ignored. Put another way, the weapon always does AT LEAST damage equal to armor. They are awesome weapons.

 

[nats]

The base rules of MGT are that Effect in combat adds to damage. So Egil is right. When a matter disintegrator hits ANYTHING, the "Effect" is equal to the armor, which means that armor is always ignored. Put another way, the weapon always does AT LEAST damage equal to armor. They are awesome weapons.

It would seem that the higher a character is armoured the more damage they would be likely to receive.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Which makes not a lot of sense if you think about it. The weapon cuts the bonds holding atoms together and whatever you just hit boils away as dust.

However.

Unless the weapon generates a field that shatters the bonds regardless of density or volume then it is going to take time to eat through dense materials. Can you shoot someone inside a starship with that disintegrator pistol, what about a tank crew being.

If you have a disintegrator that shatters all atomic bonds in its beam regardless of how tight those bonds are you sweep the beam sideways and cut your target in half. Roll to hit, you are dead.
If it fires pulses then those pulses will destroy what matter they encounter while passing through it, roll for damage.

But that presumes these weapons have unlimited power to disintegrate and that means they can take down starships.

Either the disintegrator works steadily boiling away matter atom by atom in which case those guys in battledress actually have a few seconds before the armour goes or it destroys the armour and the man in side. Which is it?

Oh and before someone says they only affect a small area. How small an area do you need to cut an arm or leg off. A micron thick disintegrator beam sweeping sideways will do it as long as the beam lasts half a second and has proper targeting computers which at that tech level should be there. You select the target, the onboard tech 18 computer selects both sides of the target mass, engages the weapon and modulates the beam flow to swing it across the target.

Bonded and coherent Super dense are very high density armours with energy field reinforcing their structure, are they likewise useless.

The jump from hand held fusion at 16 to pistols taking out starships at 18 is way to high. Meson weapons ignore armour but they do so logically. What tech level do we get meson pistols at?

Hey Egil, you did well. Its the 27th, thats almost a whole month :lol:

 

[Ishmael]

The weapon cuts the bonds holding atoms together and whatever you just hit boils away as dust.

seems to me that it'd make big explosions....
think of a steam explosion, then think of the same thing happening with a material that is many many times denser than water.

so, perhaps the low damage means that this 'boiling away as dust' happens slowly enough that the target doesn't simply explode as dense matter flies apart.

but then again, atoms flying apart as bonds are defeated usually means a fission reaction, doesn't it?

 

[Hopeless]

This could be handled by simply adding the armour defence as extra hp to the wearer so rather than deducting those armour points every time you get hit by that disintregrator instead they're told that their armour has been ruptured say 1pt per die of damage and the wearer takes full damage!

That should be nasty enough, now imagine if their character was shot whilst in outer space wearing a vacc suit, it doesn't need for their character to be totall disintregrated only that they discover their vacc suit was rendered completley useless after it was hit the first time, automatic death anyone?

Worse case you can do with these is explain away the damage by revealing their character has just lost a limb you can even have them select which part of their character got disintregrated... a bit much mind you but would prefectly explain just how nasty matter disintregrators are!

 

[Captain Jonah]

Plus if it explosively shatters the bonds and releases radiation as a by product of a fission reaction you just fired the thing in an atmosphere which means the air in front of the weapon ( and a few feet from you) just exploded as well.

Any mention of you need a HEV to use it :lol:

The way it works is just odd, as I said it makes no sense.

The energy release must be slow or you as you say you are setting off nuclear hand grenades. The level of energy released will vary based on the item being disintigrated so a person will go poof in a big cloud of steam from the heat released by the fission of atoms in his body. That several mm thick laminate of Superdense armour on the battledress will not only go off like a nuclear hand grenade but the radiation released from heavy element disintegration will cook you nicely at pistol range as well.

The Traveller personal damage system doesn't work with such things as shock. Yep he just disintigrated both your legs from the knees down, oh but I only rolled 8 damage which goes on your 9 END so you are fine :shock:

Or yep you hit him, now he is 2 squares away so you take 2D6 x 100 rads plus 5D6 from shrapnel as his bones explode. Oh and by the way you also hit the tank 25 squares behind him so thats 20Cm crystaliron disintegrated so thats (calculates randomly) 0.4 kilotons so take another 4D6 x 1000 rads and 25 dice damage.

Still think that Ancient pistol is fun ? :twisted:

 

[daryen]

I still say you guys are reading the descriptions wrong.

First, the weapon description simply says, "Instead [of basing Effect on to hit] the weapon is considered to have an Effect equal to the target's armour rating." Note that there is nothing in here that says the armor is bypassed. It simply says that the Effect is equal to the target's armor rating. Armor still stops damage.

Second, the only comment Effect gets in the Combat rules says, "A hit with Effect 6+ always inflicts at least one point of damage, regardless of the target's armour." Note that this does not add the entire Effect to the damage. It doesn't even add to the damage at all! It merely states that at least one point of damage is done.

This is the RAW. I have no idea where you guys are getting all of these other assumptions from. None of it, regardless of how cool it would be, is supported by RAW. So, if I am misreading the RAW, please tell me what I am missing and how the words I quoted could possibly support your conclusions. (And I am not trying to be argumentative. I really am trying to understand.)

As for how I plan on having my disintegrator work (if I can't get the RAW to make sense to me) is simply give it lots of damage dice (8d6 minimum), and add a rule for actual disintegration. That says that any armor that protected the target from attack completely disappears. And when the target is destroyed or killed, the target goes away. There is no body left. The one "simplification" I will do is NOT allow disappearing body parts. The body disappears as a whole. Is that "realistic"? Probably not, but it keeps things simpler and is fairer to the target when they get lucky (and are not killed outright). I guess I will say that disintegrator weapons are not "ginsu" beams, but rather affect objects (and bodies) as a whole.

 

[Iron Guardian]

In my campaign I made a few tweaks to combat (some of which I borrowed from another long-time Traveller GM) -- for hit points, I did away with the system in the book and simplified it (courtesy of other GM) by the following:

1) Str + Dex + End = Unconscious level;
2) Unc. lvl./0.5 (round up) = Wounded level (-2 DM to all tasks and init.);
3) Unc. lvl. + End = Death Level (or Hits-to-Kill)

I also added in a "called shot" DM for those wishing to bypass armor for those wearing armor that doesn't provide full coverage (also assuming target is not fully sealed up for armor that can be full sealed -- i.e. target isn't wearing helmet, gloves, etc that come with armor) -- DM -2 for limbs, DM -4 for head, DM -6 for eyes, hands , feet. Simplistic, yes...but it works for me and my players. I also allow critical hits (dice roll equals or exceeds target # by 6 or more) doing double damage = (base damage rolled x 2)minus armor protection for damage done. Again, simplistic...

Now for the matter of Disintegrators per CSC, I just view them as "watered down" phasers per Star Trek. In my game, they shoot forth a pencil-like (as in size and shape roughly) pulse of anti-matter or whatever which ignores all armor and does its damage to the target (including doubling for crits). The armor will have a small hole in it (depending on barrel size of weapon) requiring some repair later, but does "hole" the suit and compromises it's integrity versus vacuum and such (as it bypasses sealant sheathes and such). Thus, in my campaign, yes they could shoot through bulkheads (taking into account the x50 scaling rule applied for vehicle and starship comabt vs. personal scale IIRC) and compromise a section of the ship (though repairs on the hull will be minor...it is still a small hole), but it would take many, many shots to seriously damage a ship or vehicle (unless it's a specific shot to certain vital targets). I believe I may have reduced the recoil as well, but don't remember at the moment. Anyhow, I figure these are ancient "antiques" and that much more powerful and energy-efficient versions come at higher tech levels. This may be considered B.S./wonky/daft to some, but this works for me and mine. :wink:

 

[Captain Jonah]

I still say you guys are reading the descriptions wrong.

Unless my rule book is out of date and no one told me.

Main rule book page 65 Combat.

DAMAGE
Each weapon lists the damage it inflicts as a number of d6. Add the
Effect of the attack roll to this damage.

Main rule book page 65 Combat.

Armour
Armour reduces damage by the value of the armour. A hit with Effect
6+ always inflicts at least one point of damage, regardless of the
target’s armour.

CSC page 103

This weapon is more eff ective against more dense
targets, so its Effect is not determined by the hit roll. Instead the
weapon is considered to have an Eff ect equal to the target’s armour
rating.

A disintigrator that does 2D6 damage and adds the targets armour value to the effect ignores the targets armour since a target in 14 armour adds 14 effect which adds to the damge so the weapon does 2D6 anyway. The armour bit refers to weapons with high effect that do less damage than the armour but leak a point through for high effect hits.

So regardless of your armour level a disintigrator does its listed damage to you since it adds as much damage via the effect as your armour blocks. You may still count your armour but it is, in effect reduced to zero. The wording would have been written a lot better if they had just said that.

Basicly you have a Uber AP weapon that causes mild sunburn (2D6).

Doesnt change most of what we have been talking about which is how odd the idea of the disintegrators is.

 

[apoc527]

I don't have time to get into a debate about how disintegrators should work (as fun as that would be), but I did want to pop on to give daryen a helpful page number...

In MgT Core, page 65 under "Damage," it says "Each weapon lists the damage it inflicts as a number of d6. Add the Effect of the attack roll to this damage."

So, if Effect = Armor, then it means that you will EFFECTIVELY ignore armor because you will do damage equal to 3d6+Protection (or 2d6, depending on disintegrator).

Hope that helps!

(Jonah beat me to it, but I was using my iPhone so I don't feel bad! )

 

[daryen]

OK, that was the reference I missed. Sorry. Thanks for the explanation.

So, I think we are all in agreement that, regardless of how it should work, the disintegrators in CSC are pretty pointless.

 

[apoc527]

Not at all! 2 or 3d6 unblockable damage is pretty awesome.

 

[daryen]

OK, let me try again: Disintegrators are pretty pointless as disintegrators. They are a spiffy weapons system if you want an 'armor avoiding blaster' or something. But as a 'disintegrator' they are unimpressive.

I mean, come on, where is the disintegration?

 

[BFalcon]

*hands Daryen a miniskirt, a black stocking facemask and a roman-style helmet*

"Where's the kaboom??? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!!!"

 

[daryen]

*hands Daryen a miniskirt, a black stocking facemask and a roman-style helmet*

"Where's the kaboom??? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!!!"

LOL!

Yes! That pretty much exactly sums up my feelings on the issue!

(Very nicely done.)