Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

My players consider a laser rifle with an underbarrel grenade launcher (40mm for preference) the starting point for serious weaponry at TL10 because of robots. That laser rifles are amazingly good at wiping out people in non-hard armour is a happy bonus (it saves them having to bring along an EPC slugthrower for that).

Also, if you haven't been giving equipment major DR upgrades from the tech book indications, a laser rifle or carbine can target and annihilate enemy gear with remarkable ease. Including soft vehicles.

Guns for people in serious armor need to have serious armor themselves, when there are cheap-and-easy Acc 12 weapons on the table.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

You're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I'm saying. I don't have any issue with combat being lethal. But I don't like it when damage and armor interact in a way where (functionally) every hit will either glance off completely or deal so much damage that it's basically instant death. And as the system works now, the better the armor gets, the more that situation happens.

You high armour penetration weapons. Seriously. They largely fix this problem because they reduce the raw damage required to penetrate. Note that UT does this - as weapons go up in TL they mostly don't do more damage, but rather they get better armour penetration multipliers.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Also, if you haven't been giving equipment major DR upgrades from the tech book indications, a laser rifle or carbine can target and annihilate enemy gear with remarkable ease. Including soft vehicles.

Guns for people in serious armor need to have serious armor themselves, when there are cheap-and-easy Acc 12 weapons on the table.

Explosives are really good at this too, and they hit every weapon and pieces of gear carried by every character in the explosion's reach.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Rupert

My players consider a laser rifle with an underbarrel grenade launcher (40mm for preference) the starting point for serious weaponry at TL10 because of robots. That laser rifles are amazingly good at wiping out people in non-hard armour is a happy bonus (it saves them having to bring along an EPC slugthrower for that).

What grenades are they using? Unless they are straight military or live in an anarchy, most parmilitary or military weapons (LC 2-) are illegal for civilians to own without cause in most civilized societies. Now, they can purchase them on the black market, but that will involve greatly increased cost and a decent chance of criminal charges. Additionally, national governments generally react badly to unlicensed civilians carrying explosives.

If a police officer finds an unlicensed civilian with LC 2 weapons, they are going to arrest them. If a police officer finds any civilian with LC 1 weapons, they are likely going to call for SWAT. If a police officer finds anyone with LC 0 weapons, they are probably calling the ATF, DOD, FBI, and anyone else who will answer the phone.

[weby]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

An opposition made up of similarly nameless mooks.

True enough, but that then makes storm troopers elite mooks.. :)

[weby]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I get the idea you don't want my advice but that advice is _never_ give your PC's opponets extra HP and high effective HT scores unless maybe it is for a Level Boss.

If I saw an enemy take 10 9mm shots I'd be unhappy unless I was in a Monster Hunters game and they were coming one at a time. If I was ever to see one of those things again I wouldn't be carrying nothing but a 9mm.

That part was not about mooks, but the general statement that Gurps combat is deadly. I find way more characters knocked out than dead until they are high powered enough to have HT 15+

At lower power using 50 points or arguably only 10 points as ST 12 and HT 12 are really more general purpose making you quite unlikely to die until you are kind of full of holes is a sign that Gurps combat for any combat focused character is not very deadly until you start talking about heavy weapons.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

What grenades are they using?

HEMP if they could get them, otherwise Shaped-Charge, with HE and Thermobaric for soft targets.

Unless they are straight military or live in an anarchy, most parmilitary or military weapons (LC 2-) are illegal for civilians to own without cause in most civilized societies. Now, they can purchase them on the black market, but that will involve greatly increased cost and a decent chance of criminal charges. Additionally, national governments generally react badly to unlicensed civilians carrying explosives.

If a police officer finds an unlicensed civilian with LC 2 weapons, they are going to arrest them. If a police officer finds any civilian with LC 1 weapons, they are likely going to call for SWAT. If a police officer finds anyone with LC 0 weapons, they are probably calling the ATF, DOD, FBI, and anyone else who will answer the phone.

When you're fighting heavily armoured robots, it's fair to say that you're probably not in a situation where there's a strong law enforcement presence that you intend to obey. The PCs certainly weren't. When in civilised (by their lights) places the heavy guns were all locked away on their spaceship, and possibly placed under seal by the starport authorities (depending on local law and custom), but when in civilised places they weren't in the habit of shooting up robots.

[AlexanderHowl]

If you use the Bleeding rules, TL5+ weaponry can be quite deadly, regardless of HP and HT (they just generally linger around longer before expiring if they do not receive medical attention). For example, a ST 15 and HT 15 character that takes 45 points of damage is rolling against a '6' to avoid bleeding.

[weby]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Unless they are straight military or live in an anarchy, most parmilitary or military weapons (LC 2-) are illegal for civilians to own without cause in most civilized societies.

The funny part is, weapon laws in many places are a lot more quirky than the Gurps LC system. As example from Finland. I personally know of two people who got Machinegun permits in the early 1990s, one getting it for a Maxim machine gun and other one for a DP light machine gun. Both are LC 1 in Gurps, but they go them on collector licenses. One of them, the one who got the Maxim Machine gun, it was his first gun license ever...

But on the other hand Submachine gun licenses are and have been basically impossible to get and I know several people who tried and failed. And they are LC 2 weapons. But additionally pistol caliber carbines(that is a semi automatic pistol cartridge firing longarm) that are LC 3 in Gurps, at least were classified as Submachine guns and were similarly impossible to get a license for..

(The gun laws here have since changed quite a lot, now you even have to be at least 18 years old to buy a gun I think...)

As for explosives: in the 1990s my uncle went more than once to the police station and said that he needed to blow up some tree stumps and got a permit to buy explosives without having any proof or training or such. Further the police did not specify on the permit how much he could buy... Nowadays you need to have a training and certification at minimum.

But my point thus being that what is legal and what is not is always setting determined, not generic rules.

[AlexanderHowl]

That is probably as much a change in LC as it is a change in CR. You saw that occur with the precursors to explosives in the USA after the Oklahoma bombing. The precursors, and explosives, probably dropped one LC.