Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - [Ultra-Tech] [Spaceships] Weapons that are hard or impossible to miniaturize

Michael Thayne · 09-06-2017, 10:35 AM

In Transhuman Space, particle beams have a minimum size that allows them to be installed on SDVs but not smaller ships. (SDVs are typically SM +10 or +11, though Spaceships 8 mentions particle beams can be installed on ships as small as SM +8.) Spaceships 7 has an optional rule to put similar limits on X-ray lasers, antiparticle beams, and grasers. Some questions about this:

How implausible are smaller versions of these weapons?
How plausible would it be to lift the limits 1 TL after a weapon is originally introduced?
SS7 gives the same size limits for all weapons covered by the optional rule. Is this realistic? I can see particle and antiparticle beams having the same minimum size (depending on how the antiparticles are generated), but would X-ray lasers and grasers have the same minimum size?
I've heard one possibility for x-ray laser weapons involves a "free electron laser", but IIUC these both have (a) an even larger minimum size than given in SS7 and (b) are tunable, so such a weapon could also function on other wavelengths for say planetary bombardment, a capability Spaceships lasers don't have. So how could an ~SM +10 x-ray laser with the capability in Spaceships work?

09-06-2017, 10:35 AM	#1
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	[Ultra-Tech] [Spaceships] Weapons that are hard or impossible to miniaturize In *Transhuman Space, particle beams have a minimum size that allows them to be installed on SDVs but not smaller ships. (SDVs are typically SM +10 or +11, though Spaceships 8* mentions particle beams can be installed on ships as small as SM +8.) *Spaceships 7* has an optional rule to put similar limits on X-ray lasers, antiparticle beams, and grasers. Some questions about this: How implausible are smaller versions of these weapons? How plausible would it be to lift the limits 1 TL after a weapon is originally introduced? SS7 gives the same size limits for all weapons covered by the optional rule. Is this realistic? I can see particle and antiparticle beams having the same minimum size (depending on how the antiparticles are generated), but would X-ray lasers and grasers have the same minimum size? I've heard one possibility for x-ray laser weapons involves a "free electron laser", but IIUC these both have (a) an even larger minimum size than given in SS7 and (b) are tunable, so such a weapon could also function on other wavelengths for say planetary bombardment, a capability *Spaceships* lasers don't have. So how could an ~SM +10 x-ray laser with the capability in *Spaceships* work?