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Old 11-17-2011, 03:49 PM   #1
Kromm
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Default Pyramid #3/37: Tech and Toys II

I don't give a toot
Whether it shoots or computes
Bot's one ugly brute
— Some hack
Being a high-tech kind of publisher, e23 is all about innovation. Consider the latest Pyramid issue: Pyramid #3/37: Tech and Toys II. Is it more tech than toy? Check out this list and decide for yourself!
  • Some plots call for a huge MacGuffin. Maybe you need a way to endanger an entire star system, or something entire species can fight over. Starmaker, Starbreaker brings you the Starmaker: We only half-know how it works, its brilliant creator is dead, and its ability to terraform systems is rivaled only by its potential as the ultimate weapon.

  • David Pulver, the man who came up with all of those lasers, masers, and bobasers (wait, sorry, wrong game), gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the Blaster and Laser Design system that gave him his starting numbers for GURPS Ultra-Tech. If you want a damaging beam weapon that isn't in the book, it's no longer a problem – just roll your own!

  • Need rules for computers that cover everything from atomic-level machines all the way up to galaxy-sized behemoths that require multiple, networked Dyson spheres? Want them to go into such detail that they're broken down by quarter-TLs? Then you'll love Thinking Machines, a variant computer-design system that takes a greatly expanded view of building computers in GURPS.

  • Everyone's favorite tech seems to be ways to kill each other . . . but we've already covered death rays, so what's left? More Ultra-Tech Guns and Heavy Weapons, a catalog of new slugthrowers, mortars, artillery pieces, missiles, and other weapons that blast your enemies with metal and high explosives! Just be sure not to push the red button without first asking what it does.

  • Let's say your vehicle is damaged and you don't have time to fix the whole thing. Maybe you only need to get the thrusters up, or the teleporters. That's when you reach for Mr. Fixit, Matt Riggsby's simple rules for partial repairs to vehicular systems and other large toys. Now you can get power to your lasers without fixing the control panel or safeties – and you just know that's going to be fun!

  • With all the attention paid to weapons and vehicles, it's easy to forget that the biggest leaps in technology are in Future Home Tech. These new gadgets will add color and flavor to any sci-fi game – and as the included adventure seeds show, they hold as much adventure potential as any laser or gravsled.

  • Arguably the best place for an assassin to hide is in plain sight. Who would ever suspect The Killer Cleanbot of being a nefarious murderer? This NPC comes with full stats for its machine body and AI mind (that's "cybershell" and "infomorph," to you Transhuman Space fans), plus detailed tactics, strengths and weaknesses, and plenty of advice on how to use it in your games.

  • All the usual Pyramid toys are here, too, including a Random Thought Table about the progress of tech and what that means to the history of your setting, some Odds and Ends with new rules for advertisement-supported technology, and a Murphy's Rules that may have you grilling your next taxi driver on how well he's been trained.
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Old 11-17-2011, 05:30 PM   #2
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/37: Tech and Toys II

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
  • David Pulver, the man who came up with all of those lasers, masers, and bobasers (wait, sorry, wrong game), gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the Blaster and Laser Design system that gave him his starting numbers for GURPS Ultra-Tech. If you want a damaging beam weapon that isn't in the book, it's no longer a problem – just roll your own!

  • Need rules for computers that cover everything from atomic-level machines all the way up to galaxy-sized behemoths that require multiple, networked Dyson spheres? Want them to go into such detail that they're broken down by quarter-TLs? Then you'll love Thinking Machines, a variant computer-design system that takes a greatly expanded view of building computers in GURPS
  • With all the attention paid to weapons and vehicles, it's easy to forget that the biggest leaps in technology are in Future Home Tech. These new gadgets will add color and flavor to any sci-fi game – and as the included adventure seeds show, they hold as much adventure potential as any laser or gravsled.
Any one of these articles, especially the first, would have me buying the issue. Everything else is gravy.
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Old 11-17-2011, 05:55 PM   #3
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/37: Tech and Toys II

160mm Railgun and 40mm Machinegun. Arm you walking Battleship today!
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Old 11-17-2011, 06:02 PM   #4
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160mm Railgun and 40mm Machinegun. Arm you walking Battleship today!
Indeed. The 25mm high-velocity guns are very nice too, if slightly less extreme.
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Old 11-17-2011, 06:25 PM   #5
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Indeed. The 25mm high-velocity guns are very nice too, if slightly less extreme.
And of course the shoulder fired cruise missile with a backblast that can melt an armored truck into slag. GURPS does over the top weapons wonderfully. That one reminds me of being able to dual wield trebuchets in Low-Tech.

Oh, hey, I just noticed there's a behind the scenes bit by Pulver! Yay lasers!
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Old 11-17-2011, 06:29 PM   #6
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/37: Tech and Toys II

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
[INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][*]David Pulver, the man who came up with all of those lasers, masers, and bobasers (wait, sorry, wrong game), gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the Blaster and Laser Design system that gave him his starting numbers for GURPS Ultra-Tech. If you want a damaging beam weapon that isn't in the book, it's no longer a problem – just roll your own!
Well, I was wondering how to rebuild Phasers and Disruptors for Prime Directive using stats closer to Ultra-Tech. This might work.
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Old 11-17-2011, 06:46 PM   #7
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And of course the shoulder fired cruise missile with a backblast that can melt an armored truck into slag. GURPS does over the top weapons wonderfully. That one reminds me of being able to dual wield trebuchets in Low-Tech.
Melt to slag? 16d only averages 56 HP. Surely a truck should weigh at least 1 ton and be unliving...that's something like 48 HP right there. Hardly slag! Pretty busted up though.
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Old 11-17-2011, 06:54 PM   #8
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Melt to slag? 16d only averages 56 HP. Surely a truck should weigh at least 1 ton and be unliving...that's something like 48 HP right there. Hardly slag! Pretty busted up though.
Oops, I had an extra six in there from when I looking at the damage from the missile's explosion.
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Old 11-17-2011, 07:53 PM   #9
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/37: Tech and Toys II

The idea of a shoulder fired missile that CAN slag a truck sounds interesting--so interesting that someone needs to make one.

I can see a way one gets made: Low tech soldier has access to an autofactory, and tells the machine that he needs a bazooka-style weapon. He then tells it that backblast is not a factor. The dumb robot then makes it--and since the soldier described it as a rocket, no anti-graviity, etc gets used...

Can this be done with the rules?
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Old 11-17-2011, 08:18 PM   #10
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The idea of a shoulder fired missile that CAN slag a truck sounds interesting--so interesting that someone needs to make one.

I can see a way one gets made: Low tech soldier has access to an autofactory, and tells the machine that he needs a bazooka-style weapon. He then tells it that backblast is not a factor. The dumb robot then makes it--and since the soldier described it as a rocket, no anti-graviity, etc gets used...

Can this be done with the rules?
If the soldier is several stories tall and the 'bazooka' fires rockets comparable to space launch boosters, perhaps...no remotely man portable rocket is going to have that kind of effect.

Incidentally, the only rules I know of that might let you figure out rocket backblast would be from Spaceships.

(The cruise missile, for the record, is not shoulder fired by anything but maybe a highly specialized mecha. It weighs more than a ton.)
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