Combat loadouts for Transhuman Space 4e (RAW & Canonical!)

[MatthewVilter]

So from a character's perspective what is the difference between aiming at someone and shooting them vs aiming at them and firing a homing shot at them? What are the differences (in terms difficulty/importance) between setting up a shot that compensates for the effects of range vs setting up a "target lock" or whatever so you can fire a homing shot? Why would one or the other seem like a better idea?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

Yes well, then we're back to the unresolved issue of how much of UT 4E is used in THS campaigns, which will never be resolved until a new revision of Changing Times is done which fully considers Ultra Tech and Bio Tech 4E.

Yeah, somewhat annoying. The fact that CT came before checking with UT, which, in turn, came out before checking with HT, has issues like that.

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

As to mounting IR or multi spectral on a bullet, UT146 4E lists what TL is required at each calibre.

Hmm. So you need 10mm at TL10, 7mm at TL11, which seems to explain why THS homing bullets are assumed to be Vision, not IR.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

But even in 2013 IR is no harder that visible spectrum. Availability should be the same in THS and Ultra Tech.

Well, Homing tech is using 3–8 µm IR, thermal imaging is using 8–15 µm. Now, obviously you're not going to be using the whole 4mm diameter of the bullet for optics. Maybe you can use a quarter - say, 1mm. In which case your wavelengths are at best 1/300th-ish and at worst 1/70th-ish of your optics diameter. I don't think that's good news.

[apoc527]

This thread is precisely why I just made the concrete decision to throw out all weapons in THS and CT and go only with UT and Langy/Cernig's Edgerunner custom weapon list (which is simply based off UT and HT). Thus, there are no "vision homing bullets" in my game, which I find quite silly, honestly. The one exception I make is to allow for multi-spectral micromissiles at TL10, which is quite minor in the long run. I otherwise toss out stabilized ammo and all the rest of that stuff, as I think it's grossly unrealistic and serves no actual purpose other than justifying the lack of energy weapons with some "gee whiz" ammo options. Yuck.

I, do, however, assume that virtually all TL10 firearms use a slightly modified ETC.

So, I guess in the end, I've made a ton of house rules and completely ignored "canon." But at least things are clear for my game! :-D

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, Homing tech is using 3–8 µm IR, thermal imaging is using 8–15 µm.

More importantly, thermal imaging requires low-temperature optics, due to room temperature background a 8-15µm being about 50x greater than at 3-5µm (5-8µm not used much; atmospheric transparency is quite poor in that range). Of course, that also means your 3-5µm homer can't detect room temperature objects.

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

Phil Masters allowed UT weapons in our THS campaign except: no ETC, and batteries stay crap so energy weapons came from Changing Times (such as there are). There might have been other stuff he would have vetoed, but we were only looking at the basics because we weren't a military group.

My ETC is +1 damager/die, x1.3 range and x1.1 MinST, so a bit different from the UT version. THough, it does permanently alter the base damage of the weapon for all other purposes, so it stacks powerfully with APDS and APEP ammo. My love affair with ETC started with Cyberpunk 2020 in the mid 90s and I can't let it go. I just love it too much! I find that the extra kick it gives to firearms is useful to defeat the incredible DR available at TL10. The ETC shotguns firing APDS rounds are quite dangerous--8d(2) pi+.