[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by RedDragon

I created a 100 MW laser, then realized it was ludicrously overpowered (I think it had a Max range of 1,000,000 or something), so I just used the Med. Laser Cannon.

Laser damage has changed in 4th edition, in 3rd it was based on the square root of the beams energy while in 4th it's the cube root, that is 2d worth of laser damage takes 8 times as much energy (2 × 2 × 2) as 1d worth rather then just 4 times as much (2 × 2) as it would of been in 3rd.

The MG Wiki says it fires AGM-129 ACM missiles. According to Wikipedia, the thing is 2 and a half feet wide. I can't really see how else to stat it up, so suggestions and ideas are welcome. I created this thread just so that people can have workable, detailed stuff for Metal Gear campaigns, so I don't need the fixes for a campaign of my own (I'm not planning on running one, at least for a while), but factual stats are appreciated for posterity.

In so far as I know the "fact" of Rex firing a AGM -129 ACM (the ACM stands for Advanced Cruise Missile) came from an old strategy guide for MGS1 published by the long defunct Gamers Republic (I do missed that magazine heh) and isn't something that was ever said in game canon (at lest in so far I know). Pyramid 3/37 Tech and Toys II has stats for a 160mm TL9 railgun and based on my (not really) expert guesstimation skills is pretty close to how large the rail gun really should be (well it's probably a little over 200mm but that's close enough for government work heh). That and I don't know the full formula for how 4th ed stats guns (though I do have a really rough idea) so any stats I give you would at best be approximations.

As for the nuke damage, is the 4e revised explosive damage the same as the 3e explosive damage? This stat block is for 3rd edition, so if the damage stated in GURPS Vehicles pp.108-109 is accurate for 3e, I don't think I'll change it.

Explosive damage is even worse in 3rd since it's linear! This is why 3rd has that funky rule were you had to square rigid armors DR against explosive damage. In 4th it was changed to being based on the square root of the explosives weight or as it says in the Basic Set 6d × square root of(Explosives weight in pounds × 4 × the explosives REF (basically how powerful it is relative to TNT)). Now the only problem is that in 4th edition HP is scaled with the cube root of an objects mass, that is the cube root of (objects mass in pounds) × 2 if living, × 4 if a complex machine or × 8 if a solid lump of matter which means that explosives scale in power a lot faster then objects do letting a relatively small amount of explosives to blow up something it shouldn't be able to in reality. Now for the most part for small explosives (such as in any type of explosive a character is likely to be able to be carried by a person) the difference isn't gonna wreck game balance but for large explosives carried by bombs and missiles things are waayyy off. Realistically explosives should be scaled with the cube root of the explosives weight, not only would this let explosives scale better with HP but also it seems that it would fit better how blast waves scale in real life as well.

I think next on the list is a 3e Metal Gear RAY (not sure how to do the water cutter though... Liquid Projector or Laser w/ some rule changes), then maybe 3e & 4e versions of Solid Snake (probably gonna be 450+ points for the first 2 MG games [lighter and lacquer spray flamethrower implies Gadgeteer] , and significantly lower for MGS4, as it seemed a bit less cinematic to me.)

When I get the chance I'll try to clobber something together for the water cutter but for stating Snake (or any video game character in general) don't get caught up with trying to stat the obliviously gamey aspects of him or his actions and just try to stat them up more naturally.