Please stat Harry Harrison's power holster, CSC style

[mattman]

I loved my ragged copy of Deathworld when I was a kid. Give a paragraph that belongs in the Central Supply Catalog that fits the following narrative from Deathworld, 1960, Analog, by Harry Harrison.

"This is the secret of the power holster," Brucco said, tapping the flexible cable. "It is perfectly loose while you are using the weapon. But when you want it returned to the holster-" Brucco made an adjustment and the cable became a stiff rod that whipped the gun from Jason's hand and suspended it in midair.

"Then the return." The rod cable whirred and snapped the gun back into the holster. "The drawing action is the opposite of this, of course."

"A great gadget," Jason said. "But how do I draw? Do I whistle or something for the gun to pop out?"

"No, it is not sonic control," Brucco answered with a sober face. "It is much more precise than that. Here, take your left hand and grasp an imaginary gunbutt. Tense your trigger finger. Do you notice the pattern of the tendons in the wrist? Sensitive actuators touch the tendons in your right wrist. They ignore all patterns except the one that says hand ready to receive gun. After a time the mechanism becomes completely automatic. When you want the gun, it is in your hand. When you don't, it is in the holster."

 

[GypsyComet]

CT stats were in an old issue of White Dwarf. Issue #11.
(digs out old collection)

Not very exciting, but the rules were a bit looser back then.
-Limited to Auto-Pistols, which must be modified in several ways during fitting to a PH
-In a quickdraw situation a PH user will *always* draw first
-Each PH is personalized; you cannot use someone else's
-You must have at least one skill level with the weapon before adding a PH to it, and it takes three months to learn to use it
-Cr5000, 300grams, runs for 3 months on a charge and costs Cr50 for a recharge

The article did not attach a TL to the PH, but I recall fixing it at TL9 for my purposes.
The CT version (and recall that CT had skill levels specific to each weapon) could follow its own skill track, which would add to the skill you already had with the weapon. No real point to that in MGT.
I would also allow Snub Pistols and Body Pistols.

Players excited about these should watch the arrest scene from Alien Resurrection first...

 

[alex_greene]

That seems incredibly impractical. What if the batteries run out and the gun just bounces out of the holster and flops down harmlessly against the wielder's hip?

Or, worse yet, smacks the wielder's leg and then discharges randomly into his foot?

 

[GypsyComet]

Kinetic accumulators and similar were not common tech in SF back then, but would be an easy retrofit now. Also, the power holster was used by a culture with a strong survival urge and no nonsense approach to the tools of survival. I doubt they ever get anywhere close to running the batteries down.

 

[locarno24]

I did like Deathworld.

Power Holsters don't really make you a better shot, though, they just make it faster to draw a gun when confronted by...well...pretty much any lifeform native to the planet.

If the fight is already ongoing, no benefit.
If you had your gun out already at the start of the fight, no benefit.

My suggestion for rules is as follows.

Rulebook Quote:

If some of the combatants are ready for combat and some are not, such as in an ambush, the prepared characters are considered to get an automatic 12 on their roll, giving them an Initiative of 12 + Dexterity DM.

A character armed with a weapon with which they are trained (i.e. have at least one skill level) in a power holster is always considered 'ready for combat', even if surprised.