Sandcasters and Particle Beams
- Thread starter branford
- Start date
To be honest, as far as I have found the inconsistent and imprecise wording leaves this open to discussion. (So I won't give my opinion). Hopefully more concrete, explicit examples exist...
According to Core pg 111 '...dispense small particles which counteract the strength of lasers ... reduces the damage from a beam weapon...' and pg 149 ' '... beam attacks...'.
In HG on pg 49-50 Chaff/Peebles/Sandcutter rounds are covered - with mention of '...in concert with a beam attack' for Sandcutter rounds which '... halves the protection offered by a sand cloud.', along with these special rounds not protecting '... against laser fire.'.
HG pg 74 does state '... protects against incoming laser attacks and missile attacks ...'
Neither of these explicitly states Particle Beam (and HG uses fusion beam nomenclature elsewhere) and Pulse Lasers are differentiated from Beam Lasers in Core.
CT HG stated (pg 18 in my edition) that sandcasters '...interferes with incoming laser or energy weapon fire.' Where energy weapons did not include Particle Accelerators, Meson Guns or Missles - but are Plasma and Fusion Guns.
(Use this as a game definition - not equal in the RW since basically lasers are energy weapons (Bosons = photons = force carrier) while Particle Beams are sub-atomic matter weapons (Fermionic Hadrons = protons, neutrons, etc = matter constituents). [Photons having zero 'rest-mass' as opposed to other particles, excepting the Gluon exchange 'particle' which still has 'binding mass'.])
According to Core pg 111 '...dispense small particles which counteract the strength of lasers ... reduces the damage from a beam weapon...' and pg 149 ' '... beam attacks...'.
In HG on pg 49-50 Chaff/Peebles/Sandcutter rounds are covered - with mention of '...in concert with a beam attack' for Sandcutter rounds which '... halves the protection offered by a sand cloud.', along with these special rounds not protecting '... against laser fire.'.
HG pg 74 does state '... protects against incoming laser attacks and missile attacks ...'
Neither of these explicitly states Particle Beam (and HG uses fusion beam nomenclature elsewhere) and Pulse Lasers are differentiated from Beam Lasers in Core.
CT HG stated (pg 18 in my edition) that sandcasters '...interferes with incoming laser or energy weapon fire.' Where energy weapons did not include Particle Accelerators, Meson Guns or Missles - but are Plasma and Fusion Guns.
(Use this as a game definition - not equal in the RW since basically lasers are energy weapons (Bosons = photons = force carrier) while Particle Beams are sub-atomic matter weapons (Fermionic Hadrons = protons, neutrons, etc = matter constituents). [Photons having zero 'rest-mass' as opposed to other particles, excepting the Gluon exchange 'particle' which still has 'binding mass'.])
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Make a decision that you can live with and use it in your game.
If you think Sand could interfere with a Particle Beam, let it. If you don't think it would work, don't.
Personally, I have never let Sand affect a Particle Beam weapon, but it certainly could be possible.
You are the Referee, make a call. There is no wrong answer here.
If you think Sand could interfere with a Particle Beam, let it. If you don't think it would work, don't.
Personally, I have never let Sand affect a Particle Beam weapon, but it certainly could be possible.
You are the Referee, make a call. There is no wrong answer here.
Yep, as I stated above - CT Book 5 (HG) wording only covers laser and energy weapons - which are explicitly defined in it. Therefore, in CT Sandcasters were ineffective against Particle Accelerators according to everything I read.
MgT has a different definition and characteristics for its 'Particle Beam' weapons and a different ship combat. The use of the word 'beam' certainly clouds the picture. It appears to be interchanging 'laser' and 'beam' as synonymous, but the use appears to be inconsistent and leads to ambiguity.
IMHO, since this is a question of game balance more so than simply author's license, it should have a better answer than - 'whatever you choose...' Specifically, a weapon with no defense other than black globe tech should have some balancing cost/mass/usage restrictions - otherwise the other weapons would fall out of use...
MgT has a different definition and characteristics for its 'Particle Beam' weapons and a different ship combat. The use of the word 'beam' certainly clouds the picture. It appears to be interchanging 'laser' and 'beam' as synonymous, but the use appears to be inconsistent and leads to ambiguity.
IMHO, since this is a question of game balance more so than simply author's license, it should have a better answer than - 'whatever you choose...' Specifically, a weapon with no defense other than black globe tech should have some balancing cost/mass/usage restrictions - otherwise the other weapons would fall out of use...
I don't think it's helpful to bring up CT references here. Presumably the OP is asking about MGT, so answers should stick to what MGT says (or implications thereof).
Mongoose does have a "Rulemasters" forum here which is for asking rule questions, maybe you'd be better off asking that sort of thing there?
Mongoose does have a "Rulemasters" forum here which is for asking rule questions, maybe you'd be better off asking that sort of thing there?
BP said:
I appreciate the intent, but I think Matt has said that he wants MGT to stand alone as much as possible and to be self-consistent. I think bringing in older rules is just going to cause more confusion if people ask "but it said that then, why does it say this (or not say this) now?". You only have to look at the insanity that has erupted elsewhere over changes that Mongoose have made to Traveller with their new edition to see how harmful that can be.
Are you saying that particle beam weapons have no defence, other than black globes? What about armour?BP said:
I'm personally with Rikki Tikki Traveller on this one: if you think that sand can block or affect a particle beam, more power to you. I on the other hand don't think sandcasters would be at all effective, and I'm afraid I haven't read anything so far suggesting they would from a rules point of view. So IMTU to answer the OP, I don't think you can use sandcasters to protect against a particle beam attack. Just up-armour your spacecraft and you should be all right.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Armour affects Particle Beams.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
BP said:
Nice ! Translation - sand reflects and to a lesser extent is a heat sink (as it melts). Particles bat them out of the way, or pass straight thru; although there may be some heat transfer, it's bound to be trivial.Sand is essentially a big mirror to reflect light; and particles are kinetic damage delivery that takes full advantage of the Vsquared part of momentum: (M*V^2) smaaaaal mass, biiiiiiiig velocity....SMASH !
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Unfortunately atpollard, that was brought up earlier...
I don't know how true it is, since I don't bother with the rulesmasters. If there is a discrepancy, I decide for myself and don't worry about the "official" version. If it is later clarified, then I will change what I have done, or not, depending on how well I like their explanation. This is NOT a criticism of anyone, I just tend not to worry as much as some do about "canon". It must be all that time I played Traveller before there was an Official Traveller Universe.... (does that make me old???)
cbrunish said:EDG said:
Unfortunatly the "Rulemasters" forum is usually not answered.
I don't know how true it is, since I don't bother with the rulesmasters. If there is a discrepancy, I decide for myself and don't worry about the "official" version. If it is later clarified, then I will change what I have done, or not, depending on how well I like their explanation. This is NOT a criticism of anyone, I just tend not to worry as much as some do about "canon". It must be all that time I played Traveller before there was an Official Traveller Universe.... (does that make me old???)
