Silencers
- Thread starter Cugel
- Start date
Any other opinions on this?
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I think a silencer would exist for just about any projectile weapon; probably at the same TL it is a Suppressor, but 1 TL higher it is a true silencer.
Lasers should already be silent.
Plasma and Fusion guns are just too powerful to be silenced. You can't silence the sonic boom of the air being superheated and blasted out of the way of the plasma...
Lasers should already be silent.
Plasma and Fusion guns are just too powerful to be silenced. You can't silence the sonic boom of the air being superheated and blasted out of the way of the plasma...
-Daniel-
Emperor Mongoose
But as I remind players all the time, there is a difference between a silencer and true silence. There is no way for a silencer to stop the sound of your sear for example. I say this because I have had players try and convince me they can blaze away and no one hears them.
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
I agree with the above, and was just pointing out the current description.
p.129: "A silencer can be added to any non-automatic slug thrower, masking the sound produced by firing."
I was just arguing (on behalf on my players who purport to know more about this than I do) that even current tech has "silencers" as per the above for auto-firing weapons. Are they wrong?
-Daniel-
Emperor Mongoose
No wrong. With the correct equipment and ammo load it can get quite quiet.Cugel said:
Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj1Ywwua55s
Bearing in mind I am British and therefore know nothing about guns...
If you are going to silence a weapon, does it not _have_ to use subsonic ammunition? Or the effect is kinda ruined?
If you are going to silence a weapon, does it not _have_ to use subsonic ammunition? Or the effect is kinda ruined?
-Daniel-
Emperor Mongoose
It is not like a light switch, sound or no sound. More like a dimmer, a range of sound levels. Subsonic ammo eliminates the sonic boom the bullet makes. But use of normal loads just means it is more noise than the subsonic, but less than if it was not using a silencer. If you watch several of the videos you will see the sound is different depending on ammo used, brand/type of silencer used, gun used etc. It does go from hearing just the sear reloading to almost no change at all.msprange said:
But you are right, if I want the least amount of noise then I need to use subsonic ammo, and use a gun that I can lock the bolt/slide so there would be no noise from that.
-Daniel- said:
In that case... this is not something I think should be handled in the Core book. People are welcome to raise it when the CSC playtest goes live!
Technically if you want really quiet "put-put-put" rounds, you should be using sub-sonic ammunition out of your auto-rifle or pistol. Anything more than say 1,000 feet per second of the round leaving the barrel will make that supersonic 'crack!' sound. The range and accuracy drop off significantly using subsonic ammo, but you achieve the desired effects of relatively quiet rounds.
To keep the rules simple, range could be halved, or even quartered, but keep the damage the same using a silencer and standard ammo. That would work for standard rules, and then for CSC introduce custom-designed silencers for say sniper rifles that allow for sound suppression but still provide a lot of range (just not as much as a non-silenced one).
It can get complicated because the faster the bullet travels the more energy it delivers. But the mass of the bullet can make a LOT of difference. A smaller, heavier round travelling at subsonic speeds has more stopping power than a smaller one travelling 3 times as fast. That's getting too much into ballistics though.
To keep the rules simple, range could be halved, or even quartered, but keep the damage the same using a silencer and standard ammo. That would work for standard rules, and then for CSC introduce custom-designed silencers for say sniper rifles that allow for sound suppression but still provide a lot of range (just not as much as a non-silenced one).
It can get complicated because the faster the bullet travels the more energy it delivers. But the mass of the bullet can make a LOT of difference. A smaller, heavier round travelling at subsonic speeds has more stopping power than a smaller one travelling 3 times as fast. That's getting too much into ballistics though.
I also believe that it should be called a Suppressor in the book instead of a Silencer, we should be using accurate names for items. In description it can be called a Silencer as that is a common name for the item while it is not a correct term exactly. And please make a note soemwhere that they cannot be used on revolvers as the seperation of the cylinder and the barrel create a place where sound can escape before being surpressed.
-Daniel-
Emperor Mongoose
While this is true for most revolvers, it is not 100% true. There are a few that do work well with suppression, but in reality we should not be allowing even Semiauto pistols to be called silent without subsonic ammo either.Jacqual said:
And yes, super silent weapons are shown way more in movies and TV than they should be.
