[UT] Help! Future Combat Revolving Around Ultra-Tech Stabbery

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The EMGL on UT p. 142 could probably be made with a folding or retractable stock, for Bulk -5*. And at TL11, it can launch anything up to mini-nukes and anti-matter, which is going to ruin the day of anything, force field or not

Unless you have a stasis web, some serious range on that EMGL, or you have some means of rapidly getting away, or you have no intention of surviving, the mini-nuke and the anti-matter grenade are seriously overrated weapons. They tend to kill everything around them, including the attacker.

Or you could make do with HEMP at 6dx5(10)* cr inc + 4d+4 cr ex

That's more like it.

EDIT: Also, even with epic, conformal shields that stop everything dead except very slow things: Limpet mines.

(So, IMO, my solution would be not to worry excessively much about the "realism" of your setting. I can't remember any grenades being on offer in Dune, for example, so don't offer any grenades in your game. Realistic? No. But not everyone needs diamond-hard SF)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Unless you have a stasis web, some serious range on that EMGL, or you have some means of rapidly getting away, or you have no intention of surviving, the mini-nuke and the anti-matter grenade are seriously overrated weapons. They tend to kill everything around them, including the attacker.



That's more like it.

EDIT: Also, even with epic, conformal shields that stop everything dead except very slow things: Limpet mines.

(So, IMO, my solution would be not to worry excessively much about the "realism" of your setting. I can't remember any grenades being on offer in Dune, for example, so don't offer any grenades in your game. Realistic? No. But not everyone needs diamond-hard SF)

A cheap and brutally WMD-ish alternative is a 5 mW coherent light diode, attached in numbers of several hundred to a air-to-whatever missile that overflies the enemy formation.

[Jovus]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Unless you have a stasis web, some serious range on that EMGL, or you have some means of rapidly getting away, or you have no intention of surviving, the mini-nuke and the anti-matter grenade are seriously overrated weapons. They tend to kill everything around them, including the attacker.

Average damage for a 0.01 KT mininuke is 2800 burn ex rad sur, divided by distance, and 4200 divided by 3 x distance. The UGL 40mmPLB has a half damage range of 75 and a max range of 450. The previously-mentioned EMGL 40mmG has a half-damage range of 150.

At a range of 75, the 0.01 KT mininuke will do around 56 points. At a range of 150 that drops to 28 points.

Both have an RoF of 3, in case you care.

[Seneschal]

I've received lots of cool ideas from this thread. Thanks, everyone!

Okay, let's review the trends that might possibly arise:

1. Grenade launchers that lob sticky-nades at a low velocity would be viable personal weapons. Mere 10mm HEMP ones are enough to kill a person, even if he's armoured (which, given the ubiquity of barriers, he's liable not to be). Reactive armour or personal point-defence lasers might be devised to counter them.
2. Powerful or high-RoF hand-weapons--say, 12d particle beams, 15mm revolvers with HEMP rounds, gauss shotguns--would be standard-issue, even if they're overkill against an unprotected target.
3. The aforementioned grenades and destructive weaponry would cause massive damage if used inside space habitats, even if the number of combatants is low. They would most likely be highly restricted. Law enforcement might use stun batons or sufficiently slow-moving tranquillizer darts. As previously pointed out, gases would be a great way to circumvent barriers, take out large groups, and cause no material damage. They would also provide DR against lasers. Combat inside gas clouds, decked-out in full NBC gear, might be common.

And yes, the campaign would involve civilians. They wouldn't deal with particularly legal stuff, and they might get in some scraps, but there wouldn't be any large-scale warfare (in fact, the setting's nature leaves little room for total war, heavy artillery, and tank divisions rolling over the countryside).

Another idea that was mentioned was barriers with a "frequency". That somewhat works in Star Trek because they can't fire through their shields, so they have a "shield frequency" that the phasers are tuned to; the shield flickers on and off many times a second, and the phasers time their pulses to these windows. I figured that's why the ship suffers damage before its shields are all the way down - some blasts partially manage to sneak through when the shield's amplitude is zero. Also, borg drones are equipped with their own tunable personal shields; that's why they can pass effortlessly though force fields.

However, I don't see how this would work for a personal barrier. I assumed the weapon would always be unprotected, in order to shoot unimpeded. You would be able to hold it because the barrier discriminates against slow-moving/low-energy impacts (btw, I agree that energy may be a better choice than velocity), but it wraps around your fingers, not around the gun.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Jovus

Average damage for a 0.01 KT mininuke is 2800 burn ex rad sur, divided by distance, and 4200 divided by 3 x distance. The UGL 40mmPLB has a half damage range of 75 and a max range of 450. The previously-mentioned EMGL 40mmG has a half-damage range of 150.

At a range of 75, the 0.01 KT mininuke will do around 56 points. At a range of 150 that drops to 28 points.

Both have an RoF of 3, in case you care.

A good point. I'll have to reconsider these.

[Seneschal]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

A good point. I'll have to reconsider these.

I've always hated those mini-nukes. I get that they've been a sci-fi staple since Heinlein, but I prefer them to be plot devices in roleplaying. They literally have no use with the stats we're given - no GM in his right mind would willingly vaporize his players without warning, which is exactly what these devices are supposed to do, and you'd have to be even crazier to actually let the players acquire a nuke that they could use as they see fit. Unless the point of the campaign is atomic-age paranoia, they tend to wreck any tension or dramatic arc.

Metallic hydrogen, on the other hand, is adorable. It's just powerful enough for the players to blow something up with relative ease, yet it doesn't weigh much or take up space. Demolition, distraction, excavation, ambush, fireworks - you can use it for anything! A nuke would ruin (and overshadow) any of the above.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Seneschal

The aforementioned grenades and destructive weaponry would cause massive damage if used inside space habitats, even if the number of combatants is low. They would most likely be highly restricted. Law enforcement might use stun batons or sufficiently slow-moving tranquillizer darts. As previously pointed out, gases would be a great way to circumvent barriers, take out large groups, and cause no material damage. They would also provide DR against lasers. Combat inside gas clouds, decked-out in full NBC gear, might be common.

Hey, if you're going to use gas, why not use those vortex ring projectors?

[gjc8]

Originally Posted by Anthony

You know, if the point is ultra-tech stabbery, you can easily have the shield-penetrating effect be a feature of the sword rather than the shield; i.e. the sword has something built in to the blade that lets it pass through shields. This does mean you can build shield-penetrating guns by putting the same generator in a bullet, but depending on the size and cost of the shield penetrating device, doing so may not be cost effective.

It could even be a built-in feature of the shields: when shields meet, they automatically create a gap where they interpenetrate, so any melee attacks by a shielded opponent against a shielded opponent ignore any shield DR.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Hey, if you're going to use gas, why not use those vortex ring projectors?

Because they don't perfom anywhere near as good as paintball guns.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Because they don't perfom anywhere near as good as paintball guns.

Well, TL8 ones, sure. TL10 stats seem okayish.