Quote:
Originally Posted by Emerald Cat
That could be an issue. The Type 3 (Rifle) Phaser gets 62 shots per power cell on the Dematerialize setting. Or 62 insta-kill attacks per pound of power cells. But that is only ~6 attacks per pound if you use the full 10 RoF. And then you can't shoot for ~3 s while you reload.
On the other hand, there are settings that can easily do lethal damage for far fewer shots. So it may not make sense to use the Dematerialize setting in every situation.
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The main reason the Dematerialize setting existed in canon was to reduce the number of times they'd need to pay extras to act like corpses (and also to reduce the number of 'corpses' on-screen in 1960s prime time). Here, the high power-requirement of that setting is a good reason not to use it (as you note, 'cheaper' settings are also potentially capable of insta-kill). I did think about reducing the total number of shots per power cell to 50 from a B cell and 500 from a C cell, though. Is that preferable?
Personal force-fields are something I've been thinking about, which may get a Question post (probably not a 'yes/no,' but rather a 'which of these options feels best to you?'). They didn't use them in canon because it was a TV drama, so the writers et al were in control over what happened (and a limited special effects budget). A game has different needs, so a wearable EK Shield generator makes sense.
EDIT: It would need to be a very powerful shield, though, and it would need to be anti-psionic, as well (because Teleportation, Telepathy, and PK, as well as powers other polities use for their weapons). In general, like a lot of other GURPS, the players should take the lethality of combat as encouragement to solve problems without violence, and if they want to go 'Fully Cinematic '60s Hollywood Action,' they should include rules that make the PCs and important NPCs less likely to be
hit by death rays.