Battlesuit Rifle

[Kalzazz]

How would one go about scaling up a gun for battlesuit use? For instance, take a TL 9 anti material rifle. Requires ST 12B, 15d pi+

Suppose that same guy wants to don a TL9 set of combat armor, which gives +10 to ST

With 20 ST he could easily use say the TL assault cannon or heavy chaingun etc, but there is no battlesuit equivalent available for the 'large rifle' class, just 'full auto versions of large rifles for humans made into LMGs for battlesuits'

So how to make the large rifle?

[Ulzgoroth]

Wait for the legendary Vehicle Design System?

(As a practical matter, probably just don't do it. You don't need a superheavy rifle on a battlesuit, it would be overkill against other suits and underkill against actual armor. But that doesn't answer the question.)

[TheSkywise]

I have the exact same problem... I am looking through Ultra-tech (some possibilities there), High-Tech (guns at <= 8TL), Spaceships- Fighters/Mecha (no help there)...

I pulled out my old GURPs Mecha 3e, and am trying to figure out how to convert that weapon design system for 4e (most promising so far)...

Basically, think Starship Troopers (book) power armor, and the grunts able to carry a large Gauss rifle, chain gun, flamer, etc...

Any thoughts? If I come up with something, I'll post it here.

EDIT: I just found this thread with some useful info... http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...tlesuit+weapon

[Verjigorm]

Have you considered the 64mm EM Mortar? Mortars can be used for direct fire, probably with Guns(Rifle) by a battle suit strong enough to carry it. It has incredible kick, and with an APEX round is a serious contended for knocking things down: (2)6dx3 will penetrate up to DR 120 or so, and that 64mm going off inside your torso is good for about 32 damage or so to the vitals. And then there's the frag effect, but I'm not sure if that still applies. I'm not really sure why it wouldn't, so that's another 15 or so cutting, for 47 total damage to the torso. And limbs are gone, period.

Particularly when dealing with battlesuits, you have to consider a number of things that can keep a suit user alive. Particularly, paramedic swarms house in swarm arteries in the suit mean that your battlesuit troopers WILL receive first aid as soon as possible. Hyperstim means that any soldier who is rendered unconcious by his injuries can be instantly revived, which while ok for allowing him to continue the fight, is even greater for allowing him to continue to defend himself and remove himself from the battlefield, and aid recovery.

For example, a 25mm HEMP round does about 42 damage after penetrating through a Heavy Battlesuit's torso armor, which is enough for 2 death checks. If you fail to kill the guy, his analgine and hyperstim kick in, and while he is impaired, he can now still function. That's important: it means that CASEVAC(Casault evacuation) is easier, it allows him to still communicate and potentially support his comrades.

Now, two death checks are pretty wicked stuff, but I think we can generally assume a base line of HT 11 and/or Fit for a combat soldier, and then we've got the wonderful world of wacky bio-roids, parahumans and body modifications. For example, the Bionic Organ Transplants augmentation gives Hard to Kill 2, and the Boosted Heart from Bio-tech can give you another +1 Ht and +1 Hard to Kill. That's an effective HT 15 to resist death checks. And even the most basic genetic upgrades generally give +1 HT, and are probably fairly common in a TL10 society.

For really making your head hurt, consider a Bio-roid male Avatar body, with boosted heart(bio-tech), Bionic Organ Transplants, and Reinforced Skeleton. Let's assume a ST 12, HT 11 and Fit base for him before applying any of these effects. He now ends up with ST 14, HT 13(14 with Fit, and HT 17 to resist death checks), and HP 19. That 25mm HEMP grenade? It now only forces 1 death check on him, and he's pretty likely to pass it. You're going to need to shoot him again. He may not be extremely effective under the effects of Hyperstim and Analgine, but he can still fight, even if shot in the chest with a 25mm. And while he's in critical condition, he does have a paramedic swarm or two to start treating him as soon as he's injuried, ascepeline can help get him back into fighting shape in a short time frame(unfotunately, he's right on the cusp of where healing is doubled for him, if he was just HP 20, he'd be even hardier!). And if he's a bio-roid, why not just put him back in the field as soon as the damage is healed?

On the other hand, if you blow off his arm or leg, you will incapacitate him immediately. In the case of the arm, he will be unable to effectively return fire with his primary weapon, while in the case of the leg, you remove his ability to maneuver, as well as penalizing his dodge.

One of the reasons I eventually adopted the 4mm LSW/40mm auto EMGL for my battlesuit troopers was that the LSW allowed for long bursts to be used against an enemy's limbs, negating their capability to fight back, and then you can use the 40mm against your cripple foe to finish him, using multiple shots if necessary.

[cosmicfish]

I haven't done sci-fi in 4ED yet, and when I did it 3ED I used the Vehicles rules to design weapons for all vehicles in the campaign - including battlesuits. I would strongly consider either picking up a 3ED copy or waiting for the promised 4ED version...

[lvk]

I use carbine versions of HMGs.
15mmCL at TL9, Gauss at TL10.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by lvk

I use carbine versions of HMGs.
15mmCL at TL9, Gauss at TL10.

Exactly. The Heavy Chaingun is basically a "scaled up" AMR, just increased in RoF and ammo capacity instead of bullet caliber.

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Have you considered the 64mm EM Mortar? Mortars can be used for direct fire, probably with Guns(Rifle) by a battle suit strong enough to carry it. It has incredible kick, and with an APEX round is a serious contended for knocking things down: (2)6dx3 will penetrate up to DR 120 or so, and that 64mm going off inside your torso is good for about 32 damage or so to the vitals. And then there's the frag effect, but I'm not sure if that still applies. I'm not really sure why it wouldn't, so that's another 15 or so cutting, for 47 total damage to the torso. And limbs are gone, period.

I think your math is off here. A 64mm APEX warhead explodes for 14 damage, tripled to 42 for the vitals. I'm certain you'd includes an automatic frag hit (it should arguably also be tripled, but I'm not sure if that's RAW) for a total damage of 57. Combined with any pi++ damage left from the projectile penetrating the armor, this is likely instant death for human targets.

EDIT: Well, unless they're wearing a Heavy Battlesuit, in which case the 6dx3(2) can't reliably penetrate the torso armor, and you're stuck targeting the limbs for "only" ~29 damage. Compare to the Gauss HMG, which can punch through the armor with enough force to inflict a Major Wound. Less spectacular effects, but more reliable.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

EDIT: Well, unless they're wearing a Heavy Battlesuit, in which case the 6dx3(2) can't reliably penetrate the torso armor, and you're stuck targeting the limbs for "only" ~29 damage. Compare to the Gauss HMG, which can punch through the armor with enough force to inflict a Major Wound. Less spectacular effects, but more reliable.

Yes, but this isn't TL6-8, where a Major wound is pretty much guaranteed to remove the soldier from the field of battle. I mean ,sure, if we're talking about completely unaltered people, it's fine. But at TL10, the capability for creating bioroid supersoldiers is there. Ignoring that aspect of TL10 warfare is a dangerous assumption.

The Gauss HMG does a major wound only against HP 10-11. Which is great for taking out soldiers who are at the lower-end of what I would expect from combat infantry. In a TL10 enviroment, I just cannot see the justification for using unaugmented, baseline humans as your combat troops: robots and bioroids fulfill that role much better.

Keep in mind, for example, that the 64mm mortar can use boosted shots(as can the gauss HMG), which would increase the penetrating damage to something like 6 or so damage, and reliable penetration. Then... Kaboom! Good chance of killing the soldier(even my Avatar soldier with HP 19 would be bothered and harmed by that).

But wait, you say, the HMG can use boosted shots as well! Indeed, it can! And if we use the realistic rules from HT for gunshot injuries, it's damage tops out at equal to HP on the torso, unless you hit the Vitals. Well, that's not going to reliable stop a ultra-tech soldier. And with built-in paramedic swarms, he's probably *not* going to bleed out, removing one of the other primary killing methods of gunshots. That will require more and more shots to be delivered into the soldier to incapacitate him.

That said, most of my line troops are armed with 10mm Railguns or 4mm LSW with attached 40mm Auto EMGL, with the 4mm Minigun and 7mm HMG available in each squad(1 of each per squad) for more specialized targets.

But I want to just reiterate that just causing a major wound isn't enough to incapacitate at TL9 and TL10. And when you start considering what the base line for your troops is, that major wound becomes far less likely to occur.

[jacobmuller]

I put the weapon design system from Vehicles 3e into a spreadsheet, ran some numbers, compared them to the listed UT weapons and adjusted some constants to get the results into the ballpark.
Then I designed weapons for powered armour, battlesuits and "mecha", from ST 20 to 150. Then picked what I wanted.
Twasn't pretty, twas probably wrong in so many ways, but I got numbers that compare favorably with the book and work okay with the suits.
eg
NB I like using the Designers Notes ETK weapons.
Assault Rifle, 16mm ER 6dx5 pi++ 6 2,100/7,500 40/7.5 9* 45(3) 20† -6 3 $18,000
Sniper Rifle, 20mm ELR 6dx7 pi++ 7 3,000/9,600 77/5.5 3 15(3) 20† -7 2 $40,000
Assault Rifle, 18mm ER 6d+1x5 pi++ 7 2,100/7,700 60/10 9* 45(3) 25† -7 3 $28,000
Sniper Rifle, 24mm ELR 6d+1x8 pi++ 7 3,300/10,200 111/9 3 15(3) 25† -8 2 $57,000

[copeab]

I used 20mm semi-auto rifles for light battlesuits and 30mm semi-auto rifles for heavy battlesuits for some TL7 3e designs (TL9 in 4e, i think). Ammo was usually APEX or APDS rounds.