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Old 04-25-2019, 12:21 PM   #11
Ulzgoroth
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Given this probably all of the Gauss weaposn in UT are actually coilguns even if the name says they are "railguns".
Per the text, gauss weapons are coilguns, and railguns are railguns.

Whether any of them are statted in a physically realistic way may be questionable, but there's certainly no reason that railguns can't produce velocities suitable to atmospheric operation even if the technology can also produce meteoric speeds.
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Old 04-25-2019, 12:26 PM   #12
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
Or just buy Guns-32 and DX20 (which is plenty of just about anything), save 160 points to buy lots of supporting skills (many of which aren't DX based) and advantages. My SF game has people with Guns-28-32 in it, and they don't need techniques, and in fact have ignored them in favour of just being better at everything.
If you can use a technique every turn (except in highly specific or odd circumstances), improving it is more or less just cheaper skill. If you have Quick Shot at full skill, it's only 6 points, but it allows you to make two attacks at full skill every turn, splitting RoF as you like.

Even if you never shoot automatic weapons and never have more than one targets to engage, it's still mechanically superior to make two RoF 1 targets at one target than roll once. Less chance of missing entirely and at high skill, better odds that both will hit, especially if you have a high Rcl weapon.

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Which is why having night vision of some sort and fighting in the dark is a popular move.
Indeed, but even at TL8, technological night vision tends to be inconvenient and uncomfortable compared to superhuman Night Vision that has no Limitations or restrictions.
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Old 04-25-2019, 02:00 PM   #13
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Railguns are easier to make and can produce higher velocities.
Railguns have a lower max velocity than coilguns (railgun velocity is capped by friction with the rails, coilgun velocity is not), they just tend to be much more compact at the same energy levels. In any case, for atmospheric use you'd probably design either weapon to produce projectiles in the 1.5-2km/s range.
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Old 04-25-2019, 05:36 PM   #14
Rysith
 
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by kdtipa View Post
I'm not familiar with the Tactical Shooting rules, but I am very familiar with the super human rules... and I've run campaigns that were bad designs from the get go because of immensely high point totals... and that's why I'm writing here.

Lots of the rules go wonky when you apply huge amounts of points. The first thing I thought when I read your question was: "this sounds like a recipe for a rough time GMing". I don't think I would ever run a campaign where a DX of 30 was a possibility. It just breaks the balance too much.

Basic Speed around 10.00? Higher with some points in HT or directly raising Basic Speed. Dodge at a level that means succeeding almost all the time. Every single DX based skill they spend 1 point in is at a level that ruins normal modifiers. Parry skills start with a Parry around 18.

It really just sounds like a nightmare to have to run that campaign, and come up with reasonable challenges. And it might be that challenging the characters requires essentially turning the game into GM vs Players instead of a collaboration.

So, my answer to how super humans (really high point characters) would interact with Tactical Shooting? I'd say it breaks balance immediately and makes things hard for the GM.
That depends on what kinds of challenges you're putting in front of your characters. I have a character in my TL8 Superheroes campaign who is a 600-point TL10 robot detective gadgeteer with gunslinger, skill-25(ish), ETS, enhanced tracking, area defense, and (ever since a fight against some power-armored Nazis) a stock of antitank rounds for their primary weapons in case they discover that they need something a bit more shooty.

The current plot has them trying to decide how they want to handle a situation where the city DA wants them to help arrest and prosecute some other super-powered characters who are murdering their way through local organized crime, which isn't a situation where absurd shooting abilities help - it's not even a place where their IQ 17 helps because you can't just make an ethics roll at -5 to decide what you should do. The payoff, of course, is that when they decide that someone should be shot, they get to look awesome doing it, and when the power-armored Nazis invade you get to have awesome gunfights with them on burning zeppelins.

For the original question:
A lot of tactical shooting, especially once you get to skill levels are at or near the mechanical accuracy of the weapons you're using (26-30ish), is about maintaining good situational awareness, defense, and mobility.
- Special vision modes, either ESP or tech-based, are great. They let you engage enemies who can't detect you, and in the 'typical' GURPS TL10 a hit is either going to down a target or have no effect, so the first person to shoot either wins or decides to disengage.
- There aren't a lot of advantages that explicitly improve situational awareness. 360 degree vision might be one, Fearlessness/ unfazeable might be another, compartmentalized mind might be a third. You might provide things that just give a bonus to Tactics to represent that, if you want it.
- Defense, whether it's disrupting your opponent's shots via concealment and illusions, super-high dodge, or actual area-defense parry missile weapons, is nearly required for players. They are going to get shot at at some point, and see the earlier point about one hit taking things down.
- Mobility, from the extreme Warp-based stuff to more 'mundane' things like clinging, enhanced move, and super jump, especially with stealth, are all very valuable for re-positioning, and re-positioning means being able to take shots without all of the penalties for cover, dodging, strong frontal armor, etc.

None of these break Tactical Shooting, per se, but all of them change some of the assumptions that Tactical shooting makes about what is possible. Figure out what capabilities are available, and then work forward to figure out how they might be used.
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Old 04-25-2019, 08:18 PM   #15
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
If you can use a technique every turn (except in highly specific or odd circumstances), improving it is more or less just cheaper skill. If you have Quick Shot at full skill, it's only 6 points, but it allows you to make two attacks at full skill every turn, splitting RoF as you like.

Even if you never shoot automatic weapons and never have more than one targets to engage, it's still mechanically superior to make two RoF 1 targets at one target than roll once. Less chance of missing entirely and at high skill, better odds that both will hit, especially if you have a high Rcl weapon.
The second attack will not be aimed, which may matter. Also, those six points almost buy you +2 to Guns of spent on raw skill, and that works vs. all penalties.

You have a good point about high recoil guns, though. That said, I'd be inclined to rule that the second attack has a penalty equal to the number of shots fired in the first attack multiplied by the weapon's recoil, because you're not taking any time at all to recover from that recoil.
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Indeed, but even at TL8, technological night vision tends to be inconvenient and uncomfortable compared to superhuman Night Vision that has no Limitations or restrictions.
Indeed. Being able to just ignore lighting penalties without having to faff around with gear, worry about it getting knocked off your head, etc. is a very nice part of having Night Vision, etc. as powers. TL8 NVGs also have limited fields of view and do terrible things to your depth perception, which is another strike against them, compared to innate powers.
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Old 04-25-2019, 09:52 PM   #16
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit View Post
TL 10 has interesting technologies that can interact in an interesting way with Tactical Shooting... Do Gauss weapons have something similar to a muzzle flash?
As others have mentioned, railguns have a muzzle flash - here is a video compilation of test firings of the U.S. Navy experimental railgun, showing the muzzle flash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ZINwOSE0A

Coilguns can be based on a design that propels a magnetic or ferromagnetic projectile, or that use induction in a conductive sabot to fling their projectile. The former runs into problems with the magnets getting saturated at high magnetic fields; so induction is probably the way to go for weapons. It is possibly you could get a muzzle flash from an induction gun. As the projectile leaves the gun, the sabot will have a current going around it. previously being crushed around the projectile from the magnetic forces in the gun, the self-forces of the current and its generated field will act to blow the sabot apart. As it separates, the EMF of the solenoidal current will cause arcing so as to resist the change in current, and the electrical arcs thus created could produce a visible flash. How significant this will be, I have no idea.

I made a page on beam weapons using GURPS rules where I tried to apply real-life physics as much as possible.
http://panoptesv.com/RPGs/Equipment/...eamWeapons.php
The weapon descriptions include some aspects of how they would interact with Tactical Shooting.

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Old 04-26-2019, 10:08 AM   #17
Black Leviathan
 
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

You can break tactical shooting pretty inexpensively with the right abilities. Most of the rules are dependent on maximizing trigger reaction time and reducing visibility to yourself as a target. Any ability that alters your perception, changes your point of view, allows you to see through obstructions makes a lot of those principals useless. If I can attack from above or at odd angles then rules about utilizing cover stop being relevant. If I have an area-of-effect power that slows your reaction time or blinds you then tactics for getting the drop on me are less effect or ineffective.

I don't have books on hand but I'd wager that for around 250pts I could build a character with a strong ability to detect people through walls and either jumper into their rear hex to shoot them or attack them in some other means that bypasses cover.
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Old 04-26-2019, 10:31 AM   #18
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by Black Leviathan View Post
Y

I don't have books on hand but I'd wager that for around 250pts I could build a character with a strong ability to detect people through walls and either jumper into their rear hex to shoot them or attack them in some other means that bypasses cover.
It's Warp rather than Jumper for teleporting but no bet on the pts. Give Dai Blackburn from Characters 2 levels of Penetrating Vision and you're in business.
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Old 04-26-2019, 07:47 PM   #19
WaterAndWindSpirit
 
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Default Re: [Tactical Shooting] Breaking the rules

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Originally Posted by Rysith View Post
- Mobility, from the extreme Warp-based stuff to more 'mundane' things like clinging, enhanced move, and super jump, especially with stealth, are all very valuable for re-positioning, and re-positioning means being able to take shots without all of the penalties for cover, dodging, strong frontal armor, etc.
I've been so focused on awareness and how ESP was just so powerful for a Tactical Shooter I totally forgot about mobility!

And that's despite writing (for exorcising my demons, not for publishing) stories where the main characters have mobility enhancements such as an enchantment that allows them to tank accelerations/decelerations (falls, jumping out of bullet trains...), have some telekinetic grapple that allow them to zip across the battlefield to just about anything that can support their weight within 50 meters, and one who so specializes in movement/close combat that she can could keep up with the Tour de France while on foot and in full gear, would absolutely explode the human speed record in full gear, has gear which grants her wall and ceiling clinging abilities, and is a headache to deal with because she's fast yet so light footed she's inaudible and can make use of just about any distraction to disappear behind the nearest piece of concealment. And despite loving XCOM EW/2 to death where a lot of the combat depends on positioning.
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