Various questions

Giantmoth

Mongoose
I have a few questions that I have been itching to find some answers to on the wide web. Searching through both google, the forums as well as a few other Traveller sites I'm still none the wiser. So I bring the question directly to the players and referees.

Central Supply Catalogue has a few oddities. I have been warned about this book in the past, there are a lot of nice new things in it but also some seemingly broken things. For example, why are the Polycarapace armours infinitely cheaper than the armours from the original book, as well as even cheaper than the ones on the pages just after! Advanced polycarapace is extremely cheap and has the same protection value as a full unpowered Combat Armor! My spontaneous reaction to this section was that it seemed to have been made with hit-locations in mind, being that those armours were only chest-protections rather than full suits of armour, though none such rules exist in any of the supplements as far as I know.

Another odd thing I've noticed is the physical characteristics implant. It's the same from the core book, giving +1/+2/+3 to a physical stat, but the price is one digit less than in the Core Book. Is this a misprint or a legitimate errata of old rules?

I also have a few questions about autofire. Do I understand it correctly that with autofire weapons, you roll a number of to-hit dice according to your auto rating, pair them up and get the number of pairs as attack rolls, doing full damage against a target? This sounds like an awful lot, making an modern-day equivalent automatic rifle more dangerous than a space-tech laser rifle! Am I missing something here or is automatic fire rules truly as deadly as I've understood them? Seems little point to use anything but slug-weapons in my mind. Doubly so since they get amour-piercing ammo as well!

Any clarifications are greatly appreciated!
 
Giantmoth said:
I also have a few questions about autofire. Do I understand it correctly that with autofire weapons, you roll a number of to-hit dice according to your auto rating, pair them up and get the number of pairs as attack rolls, doing full damage against a target? This sounds like an awful lot, making an modern-day equivalent automatic rifle more dangerous than a space-tech laser rifle! Am I missing something here or is automatic fire rules truly as deadly as I've understood them? Seems little point to use anything but slug-weapons in my mind. Doubly so since they get amour-piercing ammo as well!

The damage isn't combined into a single amount. Each individual attack must be reduced by armor as usual. So with an autorifle (autofire 4), you basically get 2 attacks that do 3d6 damage each. The laser rifle gets 1 attack at 5d6 damage.

Autorifle - 3d6 damage (10.5 damage average)
Laser - 5d6 damage (17.5 damage average)

So, against an AR 5, the each shot from the autorifle gets reduced to 5.5 damage on average, or a total of 11 damage for both. The lasers damage is only reduced to 12.5 damage. An AR of 10 will negate half the attacks from the autorifle, while the laser rifle still does an average of 7.5 damage. Against unarmored or lightly armored targets (AR 1-3), the autorifle is slightly better damage, but has to succeed on 2 attacks instead of 1.
 
I also have a few questions about autofire. Do I understand it correctly that with autofire weapons, you roll a number of to-hit dice according to your auto rating, pair them up and get the number of pairs as attack rolls, doing full damage against a target? This sounds like an awful lot, making an modern-day equivalent automatic rifle more dangerous than a space-tech laser rifle! Am I missing something here or is automatic fire rules truly as deadly as I've understood them? Seems little point to use anything but slug-weapons in my mind. Doubly so since they get amour-piercing ammo as well!

Armour piercing ammo is a pet peeve of mine - it was added to pretty much every solid slug weapon in CSC without adjusting cost or defensive effectiveness of armour to compensate for the new rule.


Autofire capable weapons are broadly speaking better than a laser rifle:
Taking a TL9 Laser Carbine against a TL9 Flechette Carbine - equivalent tech weapons.

The damage for a single shot is better for the laser carbine, but if damage is your problem, the Flechette carbine can fire bursts, giving it 3D6+4 damage and (probably) the same punch as the 4D6 laser.

Against low armour targets, two shots from the flechette carbine beats the one (slightly better) shot from the laser hands down. You do lose out on gun combat skills with autofire - you can't apply better than Gun Combat (Slug Carbines)/1.


At more advanced levels, the distinction is more notable: 3D6+4 (still) for a gauss weapon, versus 5D6+3 for the laser rifle. When combat armour starts to make an appearance, that's a big deal, punching more than twice as much damage past the armour.

More importantly, a laser rifle has 100 rounds in its power pack, whilst a gauss rifle only has 80. More importantly, if you're using full auto, you chop through those in six-to-seven bursts - which is quite doable in an extended combat.

Essentially - fighting armoured soldiers? Laser. Fighting dudes in flak jackets or no armour at all? Assault rifle.
 
Ok gotcha, you two have made good points on automatic weapons, their lower damage threshold will make it a lot harder to penetrate powerful armours. Problems may arise with balance when damage raises to dangerous levels such as the Heavy Machinegun, but that's a lot harder to tow around than an assaultrifle. And I guess the laser equivalent of similar big support weapons are even bigger damage.

So, are the extended armour piercing rules not recommended to use due to armour imbalances? And does anyone have an opinion on the previously mentioned oddities from CSC?
 
Giantmoth said:
Another odd thing I've noticed is the physical characteristics implant. It's the same from the core book, giving +1/+2/+3 to a physical stat, but the price is one digit less than in the Core Book. Is this a misprint or a legitimate errata of old rules?

Hard to say. I just consider them to be different brands. One brand is cheaper than the other. Or one was a better price on a different world. Or one was being discontinued.
 
locarno24 said:
At more advanced levels, the distinction is more notable: 3D6+4 (still) for a gauss weapon, versus 5D6+3 for the laser rifle. When combat armour starts to make an appearance, that's a big deal, punching more than twice as much damage past the armour.

More importantly, a laser rifle has 100 rounds in its power pack, whilst a gauss rifle only has 80. More importantly, if you're using full auto, you chop through those in six-to-seven bursts - which is quite doable in an extended combat.
A better comparison is probably TL11 laser rifle, 5d6+3, average 21pts damage, and a TL12 gauss rifle, 4d6 averages 14 points, however, if counting the AP rules, +4 against armoured targets, and if firing bursts, +4, leading to average damage of 22pts against armoured targets. So damage very similar, laser rifle is more expensive and slightly heavier, but has no recoil, and will fire 100 rounds from one power pack, whereas a gauss rifle would only manage, if firing bursts, 20 attacks. But recoil from a gauss rifle is pretty limited anyway, gauss needle magazines are a lot cheaper than power packs, and can be changed quickly in combat, so the limitations are not great.

So, in most practical ways, very similar weapons.

Egil

(Edited once for dodgy maths!)
 
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