TL11^ Smart Shuriken - Awesome but Not?

[Tallor]

I was scrolling through the Ultra-Tech book and found that although I've skimmed it about four times, I still find things I haven't noticed. Today I found the Smart Shuriken which is pretty awesome. It's a sharp shuriken with contragrav drives to go at a blistering Move 96 through the air, ramming its target!

The problem is that although it's extremely long-range and can attack targets around corners, it's actually less damaging than an ordinary shuriken!

Low-tech shurikens do thr-1 cutting, meaning 1d-2 with a ST 11 warrior--Smart shurikens do (1x96/100 = 0.96) 1d damage, but halved do to collision rules.

I think my math may be wrong or the shurikens are wrong. Something here doesn't add up.

[warellis]

Wasn't the Ultra-Tech book chocked full of errors? That could be a reason for the wonky damage.

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by warellis

Wasn't the Ultra-Tech book chocked full of errors? That could be a reason for the wonky damage.

Well, Move 96 certainly sounds faster than someone throwing the device. Honestly I would have thought it would do full collision damage, with maybe +1 cutting.

Or +2 or more using a hyperdense, vibro-shuriken!

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by warellis

Wasn't the Ultra-Tech book chocked full of errors? That could be a reason for the wonky damage.

The UT book has only a few errors and this probably isn't one of them. Wonkiness involving the Collision rules belongs to the Basic Set. A lot of weapons wouldn't work very well if their damage was based on the Collision rules.

You could double or possibly even triple the Smart Shuriken speed and it'd still be worthless against TL11 armor even with its' armor divisor.

I had worked out the damage quite a while ago but just dismissed the item as a bad idea.

[Nereidalbel]

It trades raw damage for range, the ability to guide itself past obstacles, and it can make as many passes as it needs in 10 minutes to cut through somebody's neck.

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The UT book has only a few errors and this probably isn't one of them. Wonkiness involving the Collision rules belongs to the Basic Set. A lot of weapons wouldn't work very well if their damage was based on the Collision rules.

You could double or possibly even triple the Smart Shuriken speed and it'd still be worthless against TL11 armor even with its' armor divisor.

I had worked out the damage quite a while ago but just dismissed the item as a bad idea.

It's basically a batarang!

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Tallor

It's basically a batarang!

Nope, those use a different Skill and do swing damage too.

[Flyndaran]

Ultra Tech is so full of errors and nonsense with regards to numbers, I only use it for ideas.
Take the idea of the smart shuriken but use numbers that make sense to you. That way you won't miss things like those magazines that weigh less when loaded than empty.

Even with reasonable numbers, much of it is superscience where one person's preference is no less sensible than another's.

[sir_pudding]

I don't have Ultra-Tech in PDF, but if it weighs a pound (as your math upthread suggests) it might be better to treat it like a slightly lighter chakram instead of a shuriken (since it is 10x as heavy). It takes ST 24 to give a chakram 1/2 D 96, which is more than the maximum for the weapon (ST 18); so it should probably do something like 1d+2 cutting plus whatever modifiers for Ultra-Tech materials.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I don't have Ultra-Tech in PDF, but if it weighs a pound (as your math upthread suggests) it might be better to treat it like a slightly lighter chakram instead of a shuriken. It takes ST 24 to give a chakram 1/2 D 96, which is more than the maximum for the weapon (ST 18); so it should probably do something like 2d cutting plus whatever modifiers for Ultra-Tech materials.

It's actually not based on ST in any way. Once propelled by hand or a grenade launcher, it uses self-powered flight to get to the target and back, and accelerates to ramming speed to attack. Also, it only weighs .1lbs, and being SM-10 is pretty much the only reason nobody shoots/swats it out of the air.