Weapons Question

[-Daniel-]

I have a question regarding the weapons and their power.

Why is it assumed the Lasers will be more powerful then the Slug Throwers?

Now in asking, I am NOT saying it is wrong in any way. Nor am I suggesting it be changed. Just asking for a better understanding of the logic behind this assumption.

Thanks

Daniel

 

[zozotroll]

My favorite 1950s space pirate picture, a desparte pirate climbs in through a hatch laser pistol in hand and slide rule in his teeth. Not many people younger than me even recognize a slide rule, much less have any idea how to use it. And we still cant make laser weapons.

Blasters of assorted types are just a part of Sci-Fi. If they dont have something great about them, nobody would use them. And it would not feel futurey.

And never mind that a battery that could power a laser makes a wonderfully powerful warhead.

 

[AKAramis]

My favorite 1950s space pirate picture, a desparte pirate climbs in through a hatch laser pistol in hand and slide rule in his teeth. Not many people younger than me even recognize a slide rule, much less have any idea how to use it. And we still cant make laser weapons.

Blasters of assorted types are just a part of Sci-Fi. If they dont have something great about them, nobody would use them. And it would not feel futurey.

And never mind that a battery that could power a laser makes a wonderfully powerful warhead.

Actually, I know a guy who did make a man-portable weapons grade laser.

The battery pack was not man portable, but the on-weapon capacitor array was good for 2 shots, and took several minutes to charge. He "lost" it when Animal control saw him shoot a squirrel with it. Killed the squirrel.

The steam explosion is the issue. That, and aiming.

A weapons-grade laser causes a small pocket of vaporized tissue. That tissue has an effect not unlike a small explosion.

I don't think they should be bigger damages than slug-throwers. But despite the limits, the old CT "on par with assault rifles" Lasers with the big packs were quite useful, and items of great interest, when the merc units were deploying to areas unlikely to be resupplied for a while.

Its an issue of basic load.
ACR guy has a basic load of about 300 rounds. After which he needs resupply.
Laser Rifle guy has a basic load of 50 rounds, but can recharge them from the unit's fusion sled. (Which said sled is a 1/2 Td of fuel, a 1 Td fusion plant, a 1/2 Td of controls, 1/2 Td of gravitics and other electronics, 1/2 ton sleeper cab, half Td of water, and 1/2 Td of FPP & Water Purification.)

Said sled can recharge a suit, too.

 

[-Daniel-]

So Aramis, do you think this idea of the laser has to be more powerful comes from it also being more useful in cases like you site?

Daniel

 

[AKAramis]

So Aramis, do you think this idea of the laser has to be more powerful comes from it also being more useful in cases like you site?

Daniel

I think it comes from NOT thinking it through for the logic of resupply, and thinking in terms of space opera literature being thoroughly innundated with lasers and other zapguns.

A .22 would have killed the squirrel just as fast, and weighed about 5% of what his TL7.5 laser rifle did.

3G3 (BTRC) provides a reference point. It is possible to make a Traveller TL8 (3G3/CORPS/Timelords TL 10) man-portable laser longarm with 50m range with 10 shots or so, depending upon exactly how one defines "man-portable"...

 

[simonh]

I have a question regarding the weapons and their power.

Why is it assumed the Lasers will be more powerful then the Slug Throwers?

Because the engineers that designed them built them that way. After all, it's just down to the power output. You want more damage, you increase the power output (and battery size, etc).

In order for lasers to be adopted as military weapons, they would have to offer advantages over existing weapons tech. Whether those advantages are range, accuracy, number of shots available or damage inflicted is just a matter of engineering tradeoffs within the limits of what's technically possible.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Talon Brightmane]

There is another thing most people do not think about regarding lasers, visibility. We are use to seeing laser fire and blaster bolts in sci-fi, but there is no reason a laser could not be set to the IR or UV portion of the spectrum. Specialized sights or goggles could allow the beam to be tracked when fired, but to everyone else the beam would be invisibile.

Laser artillery and starship weapon are likely to use even a higher frequency portion of the spectrum, such as gamma rays and x-rays.

 

[Captain Brann]

HI

Having been looking through my new M T book, I wondered why the weapons damage had been changed so much from a test set I had downloaded.

The effect based damage looks better and works better with the armor effects given.

I know the new rules do not use the timming / effect rule but we still have an effect number based on how much you beat 8 by so can we not still use it that way.
This would mean damage is based on how well you hit, it would fit with the armor values and the players would not need to throw handfuls of die. I would restrict effect to +6 max.

Chris

 

[zozotroll]

As AKAramis said, Lasers convert solids and liquids to gas. Nasty exlposion in the target. but, it now provides a sort of screen to follow up shorts.

Small bit of background. I have spent practicaly all of my adult life( or as adult as gamers get) in the US Army, specificly in the Field Artillery. During that time it has been predicted over and over that Laser guided weapons where going to largely take over, as you only need one to generate a kill on a vehicle.

The problem is that for years they where tested with one cannon fireing, one observer laseing and one target. Shot to hit is around 75%. That 90-100% is for perfect conditions with nothing going wrong. Almost never happens.

Once you get to a real battlefield, things change drasticly. battlefields come in to kinds, very muddy, usualy with lost of rain, or or bitterly dry with tons of dust. As far as good laser performance, those might as well be solid walls of steel. Not to mention most systems can produce thier own smoke screen. And once you kill one or two vehicles, there is a huge amount of smoke.

Now it is possible that an X-ray or Graser and punch through all that cluter, I simply dont know enough about how they really work.. But I do recall that the only way to generate X-ray lasers is to set of a nuke at the fireing point. At pplanetside ranges, it is probably better just to throw the nuke at him. Space is different, of course.

All of this is a long way of saying we have powerful lasers because we expect there to be powerful lasers in our sci-fi, and the authers realize that. Just one more thing like jump drive that just should not be inspected to closely.

 

[AKAramis]

As was pointed out, it's a setting thing.

Actually, Traveller in prior editions tied energy storage density to particular curves, as well as firearms propellant energy density.

Lasers in traveller have seldom been handled well.

Now, one means of generating a laser has been worked on lately that isn't being discussed: chem-lasers. An energetic reaction occurs in/around a lasing core. They thus have ammunition supply issues (like CPR & gauss weapons), and produce large clouds of smoke, lots of heat, etc. I can't see why anyone would use them as man-packs outside a vacuum or desperation. (Current exhaust gasses are about 500°C IIRC.)

The "big combat lasers" are just now coming to usefulness.

Then again, I'm likely to take the weapons list and scrap it, and use a variant of striker.

 

[serene_muse]

Why is it assumed the Lasers will be more powerful then the Slug Throwers?

Now in asking, I am NOT saying it is wrong in any way. Nor am I suggesting it be changed. Just asking for a better understanding of the logic behind this assumption.

Because, this being a game, players want more bang (literally) for their higher tech, harder to carry around, more costly kit. Otherwise, why bother using it? It's the Future! It's SCIENCE! :shock:

And because it's fun to go PEW PEW once in a while instead of BANG BANG. :twisted: :wink:

^ new Solomani-designed Aslan hand laser? =^.^=
(or if you haven't already done so, get a copy of books like FF&S 1st edition or GURPS Ultra-Tech)

 

[iainjcoleman]

I generally assume that infantry use slugthrowers and plasma/fusion guns. Fog-of-war, plus anti-laser aerosols, plus reflec, make lasers less than useful for the battlefield.

In the army, lasers would be used only by specialist units such as combat engineers (for mine clearance) or snipers (for accurate and low-signature fire).

I would also envisage lasers being used by police, because of their greater accuracy and because police are not operating under battlefield conditions.

 

[far-trader]

One point to not forget* is that where lasers really shine (pun intended) is in zero-g combat since they are zero-recoil unlike all your slug throwers and plasma/fusion guns.

* unless MGT did and still made Gauss weapons zero-recoil even after it was noted that it was an error early on in the playtest

 

[AKAramis]

I generally assume that infantry use slugthrowers and plasma/fusion guns. Fog-of-war, plus anti-laser aerosols, plus reflec, make lasers less than useful for the battlefield.

In the army, lasers would be used only by specialist units such as combat engineers (for mine clearance) or snipers (for accurate and low-signature fire).

I would also envisage lasers being used by police, because of their greater accuracy and because police are not operating under battlefield conditions.

Low signature is not true in atmosphere. there is a noticeable crack as the beam stops, and the air collapses back in to the beam channel. at least, for weapons grade.

Heck, the laser used on my eye had a notable crack.

 

[Talon Brightmane]

Different environments are going to favor different weapons. Lasers run into problems when if comes to smoke or water vapor (fog), but are perfect in zero-g (no recoil) and in a vacuum (where gunpowder won't ignite). Underwater, the accelerator rifle is the weapon of choice (it would be like firing a torpedo). Gauss weapons might work underwater, depending on how they are build and the hydrodynamics of the projectile.

 

[AKAramis]

Different environments are going to favor different weapons. Lasers run into problems when if comes to smoke or water vapor (fog), but are perfect in zero-g (no recoil) and in a vacuum (where gunpowder won't ignite). Underwater, the accelerator rifle is the weapon of choice (it would be like firing a torpedo). Gauss weapons might work underwater, depending on how they are build and the hydrodynamics of the projectile.

Gunpowders work just fine in sealed rounds in vacuum. And under water.

Current powders all carry their own oxidizers, as do most explosives.

 

[far-trader]

Yep, firearms will fire underwater just fine, but...

...most bullets don't deal well when they hit water. At least going from air into water will stop (shreding to pieces in some cases) the bullet after only inches to a couple feet iirc. Not sure about the effects when fired submerged but I'd imagine it's the same effect. And the effect is more pronounced on the the more powerful guns. Water makes great armor

I don't think even the accelerator weapons will work well unless firing finned darts. The regular bullet will accelerate (though not as well because of the density of the medium) but it will probably be extremely inaccurate. There's a reason spear-guns are "spear"-guns.

 

[zozotroll]

Unless you are useing muzzleloaders, slugthrowers work just fine in vac. there may be a small problem with the air in the cartridge pushing the projectile out of the case, but a hard crimp should take care of that.

In fact, you can fire them underwater as well. it is just that the exteme pressure that builds up bursts the barrel. Any form of accelerater will likely have the same problem regardless of the means of acceleration.

 

[rust]

Yep, firearms will fire underwater just fine, but...

The Russians once developed an underwater assault rifle with a special
flat-topped (sorry, I lack a better word for it) ammunition which used
the supercavitation effect.
However, while this probably was by far the best underwater slugthro-
wer ever developed, it still had an effective range of only about 30 m,
and the rifle was damaged by firing it out of the water.
I used that rifle as the model for some weapons for my water world
setting, and I found it especially interesting because it took its efficien-
cy from a "flat" instead of a "pointed" (spear-like) projectile, some-
thing rather counterintuitive.

 

[zozotroll]

Damn, beat not once but twice.

For the ultra geeks, bullets break up when they hit water because they try to tumble. This is caused by the nose of the bullet slowing down faster than the tail, much as a trailer will try to pass its towing vehicle when you lock up the breaks. As the bullet is not strong enough to handle the lateral forces placed on it, it shatters.

There is an urban legend that the original M-16 bullets tumbled very easily(true) and would ricochet around in your body, comeing out most anywhere( false). What they did was start to tumble, then shattered, sort of like a mini-grenade inside the target.