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Old 09-10-2011, 12:32 PM   #11
vierasmarius
 
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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Originally Posted by Langy View Post
ROF of laser weapons is completely arbitrary. It has no effect on weapon price, weight, damage, or anything else. Same with number of shots.
That's something I noticed, especially in regards to the vehicle-mounted versions like the Semi-Portable and Gatling lasers. The TL9 Semi-Portable has RoF 10, and the TL10 Gatling (same weight, double the cost) has just RoF 4. If the RoF is arbitrary, I may just change all of the mounted lasers to RoF 10, perhaps with "recommended fire-rates" based on available power supply (for instance, running from a vehicle's power plant). That would certainly help the Point-Defense laser live up to its name.
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Old 09-10-2011, 12:43 PM   #12
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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TL10+ laser weapon damage in Ultra-Tech and Spaceships is approximately 10 times the cube root of the weapon's weight in pounds, then rounded to the nearest 'decent' number.

Note that the weapon weight is the weight without including any power cells.
That can't be correct. Just checking the Dinosaur laser, the square root of 14 (19 - 5 for the power cell) is 2.41. Ten times that number is 24. The actual damage is 8 (Did you perhaps include the wrong multiplier?)

And I found that including the power cell worked better... though now that I look at it, the dinosaur laser doesn't include the power cell in its measurement (its a p). Perhaps I should revisit that (10x is still off, though).

EDIT: You're right, without the cell works better (which explains why my smaller weapons were more off than my larger weapons, since the larger weapons don't include the cell in their weight). Adjust TL 11 Plasma/Fusion to 7.5, and things tighten up nicely.

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A few weapons don't cost this exact amount, but I think that's probably errata (and reported it as such a long, long time ago, though I don't know if it ever was accepted).

A laser pistol has Acc 6, laser rifles Acc 12, and heavy laser weapons Acc 18.

Bulk depends upon the weapon's form-factor:

Holdout Pistol: -1
Pistol: -2
Carbine: -3
Rifle: -4
Heavy Rifle: -5

This is a very rough estimate, though. Basically just eyeball what you think the Bulk should be. If it's especially short for its weight, it's +1 Bulk, if it's especially longer for its weight, it's -1 Bulk, etc.

ROF of laser weapons is completely arbitrary. It has no effect on weapon price, weight, damage, or anything else. Same with number of shots.
Number of shots seems to have some kind of consistency across various models. That is, all the "beam weapons" of a given size and type seem to have the same number of shots, and the same seems to be true of the "particle weapons." So there's probably a formula there, but it doesn't seem to impact anything like damage or anything else.

The rest totally fits my observations, though, particularly RoF.
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Last edited by Mailanka; 09-10-2011 at 01:06 PM.
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Old 09-10-2011, 01:29 PM   #13
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
That can't be correct. Just checking the Dinosaur laser, the square root of 14 (19 - 5 for the power cell) is 2.41. Ten times that number is 24. The actual damage is 8 (Did you perhaps include the wrong multiplier?)
No, the actual damage is 28 (8 dice times an average of 3.5 damage per die). Also, the weight of the Dinosaur Laser is 19 plus the weight of the power pack (that's what the 'p' means next to the battery size), not just 19.

So, you take the cube root of 19, getting 2.67, and multiply that by 10. This gets you 26.7 damage, which is approximately 8d-1. Round, and you're done.

The actual regression gives you 10.5 times the cube root of weapon weight minus 0.2 damage, but that's close enough to 10*CubeRoot(Weight), after rounding.

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Number of shots seems to have some kind of consistency across various models. That is, all the "beam weapons" of a given size and type seem to have the same number of shots, and the same seems to be true of the "particle weapons." So there's probably a formula there, but it doesn't seem to impact anything like damage or anything else.

The rest totally fits my observations, though, particularly RoF.
The number of shots isn't completely arbitrary - it's based on the size and number of the power cells and the amount of damage. Doesn't change the fact that the number of shots doesn't change actual weapon weight, price, damage, or anything else.

Laser weapon output is ( 3 * Damage^3 ) Joules. For example, an 8d dinosaur laser outputs approximately 7.3 kilojoules, while a 4d laser outputs 1 kJ, and a 6d laser outputs 3 kJ. A C cell holds 28 kJ total, a D cell 280 kJ, and a B cell 2.8 kJ. Some weapons don't match these numbers for some reason unknown to me - possibly errors in the weapon tables.
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Old 09-10-2011, 01:40 PM   #14
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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No, the actual damage is 28 (8 dice times an average of 3.5 damage per die). Also, the weight of the Dinosaur Laser is 19 plus the weight of the power pack (that's what the 'p' means next to the battery size), not just 19.

So, you take the cube root of 19, getting 2.67, and multiply that by 10. This gets you 26.7 damage, which is approximately 8d-1. Round, and you're done.

The actual regression gives you 10.5 times the cube root of weapon weight minus 0.2 damage, but that's close enough to 10*CubeRoot(Weight), after rounding.
10 gives me 26, but 10.5 gives me 28 very nicely. My *3 gives almost exactly 8. I suppose it just comes down to whether you want dice or average numbers, but ultimately they're equivalent (though 10.5 will give you the adds more intuitively)

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Laser weapon output is ( 3 * Damage^3 ) Joules. For example, an 8d dinosaur laser outputs approximately 7.3 kilojoules, while a 4d laser outputs 1 kJ, and a 6d laser outputs 3 kJ. A C cell holds 28 kJ total, a D cell 280 kJ, and a B cell 2.8 kJ
Where did you find these numbers?
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Old 09-10-2011, 01:56 PM   #15
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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10 gives me 26, but 10.5 gives me 28 very nicely. My *3 gives almost exactly 8. I suppose it just comes down to whether you want dice or average numbers, but ultimately they're equivalent (though 10.5 will give you the adds more intuitively)
Multiplying by 3 (to get number of dice) and multiplying by 10.5 (to get average damage) are exactly equivalent, since 3 dice is exactly 10.5 damage (3*3.5=10.5).

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Where did you find these numbers?
The power output numbers are based on the Spaceships weapon table, scaled down to weapons that do the same damage as the Ultra-Tech weapons. The amount the different cells hold is based on the number of shots each weapon can fire.

Note that a C cell doesn't actually hold exactly 28 kJ of power - it can provide 28 kJ of laser output, which will probably cost about 50 or 60 kJ of electrical input. This is because lasers aren't 100% efficient in conversion of electrical energy to laser energy.
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Old 09-10-2011, 01:57 PM   #16
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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The power output numbers are based on the Spaceships weapon table, scaled down to weapons that do the same damage as the Ultra-Tech weapons. The amount the different cells hold is based on the number of shots each weapon can fire.

Note that a C cell doesn't actually hold exactly 28 kJ of power - it can provide 28 kJ of laser output, which will probably cost about 50 or 60 kJ of electrical input. This is because lasers aren't 100% efficient in conversion of electrical energy to laser energy.
I don't suppose you could post all the energy contents of the various cells? I'd really appreciate it.
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Old 09-10-2011, 02:08 PM   #17
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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I don't suppose you could post all the energy contents of the various cells? I'd really appreciate it.
It's a very straightforward 1/10/100 progression.

AA: 28 J
A: 280 J
B: 2.8 kJ
C: 28 kJ
D: 280 kJ
E: 2.8 MJ
F: 28 MJ

This is, again, in laser output power. Actual energy content is probably something more like:

AA: 50 J
A: 500 J
B: 5 kJ
C: 50 kJ
D: 500 kJ
E: 5 MJ
F: 50 MJ

E and F cells have significantly higher energy densities than smaller cells, for reasons that were never clear to me (this is something that's part of the core of Ultra-Tech).
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Old 09-10-2011, 02:24 PM   #18
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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You do get a lot of mileage from making spreadsheets out of the weapon-stats and then sorting based on certain things to start to see the patterns that form, and then cross-referencing things with what you find in Spaceships, which seems to be a simplification of what we'll actually find in Vehicles.
I'll have to do that and see what I can find. From what's been posted so far, it looks like we need to get cost factors for different beam types, verify that Range = k*dmg and find k for different beam types, and sort out the Energy per Shot for different beam types. It looks like that'll result in finding another beam type-specific factor. Thank goodness for days off!

Has anyone tried tackling beam weapons that cause afflictions instead of damage?
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Old 09-10-2011, 03:58 PM   #19
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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I'll have to do that and see what I can find. From what's been posted so far, it looks like we need to get cost factors for different beam types, verify that Range = k*dmg and find k for different beam types, and sort out the Energy per Shot for different beam types. It looks like that'll result in finding another beam type-specific factor. Thank goodness for days off!

Has anyone tried tackling beam weapons that cause afflictions instead of damage?
Yes. You can get a lot of mileage by assuming that they have the same basic output as a laser, only replacing dice with penalties. However, this breaks down at higher levels (and maxes out at 10 according to the Omniblaster rules). I suspect there's a chart for it: Anything higher than -6 seems to have somewhat arbitrary limitations set on them (specifically, the tactical weapons would seem to have something more on the order of -12, but instead have -8. I can get a pretty good version of their progression by raising their weight to the power of 1/4 and thereafter multipying by 3 for most such weapons, or 1.5 for the MAD and Mind Rippers, and the non-standard dazzlers, which don't seem to follow any particular progression, and the high end stuff still doesn't work out exactly right).

And Langy, I appreciate it.
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Old 09-10-2011, 04:06 PM   #20
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Default Re: GURPS Ultra-Tech: Square Root of Destruction

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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
Yes. You can get a lot of mileage by assuming that they have the same basic output as a laser, only replacing dice with penalties. However, this breaks down at higher levels (and maxes out at 10 according to the Omniblaster rules). I suspect there's a chart for it: Anything higher than -6 seems to have somewhat arbitrary limitations set on them (specifically, the tactical weapons would seem to have something more on the order of -12, but instead have -8. I can get a pretty good version of their progression by raising their weight to the power of 1/4 and thereafter multipying by 3 for most such weapons, or 1.5 for the MAD and Mind Rippers, and the non-standard dazzlers, which don't seem to follow any particular progression, and the high end stuff still doesn't work out exactly right).

And Langy, I appreciate it.
Don't most of the "tactical" Affliction weapons fire 1-3 yd cones? Perhaps that spreads out the energy enough to reduce the potency.
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