07-26-2012, 11:00 PM | #21 |
Join Date: Mar 2011
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
Oh, and the GURPS spaceships weapon engeries must be an abstraction. A 1MJ laser hitting a person by GURPS rules would vaporize the guy. In reality a 1MJ hit would increase someone's average body temp by less than 7 degree's kelvin. Certainly spectacularly lethal, especially since it will mostly be on the skin, but not even close to enough to cause bodily destruction.
Math: A person has 40 liters of water. Each liter of water takes a kilocal to raise a degree or roughly 4kj. For all 40 that's 160 kj. 160kj*7>1MJ. |
07-26-2012, 11:08 PM | #22 | |
Join Date: Mar 2010
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
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07-27-2012, 07:19 AM | #23 | |
Join Date: Mar 2011
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
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07-27-2012, 09:52 AM | #24 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
Its disappointing if Spaceships fudged its numbers for weapon energy. Wasn't David Pulver involved in the design? He is a geek for mathematical modelling.
Indeed, the firepower of even small Star Wars spaceships is terrifying. Watch Slave 1 shattering all those asteroids in episode 2 and imagine those bombs dropped on a city without one of SW's incredibly powerful shields. A big ship should be able to render a planet uninhabitable given time and no shield to stop it.
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07-27-2012, 01:38 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Mar 2010
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
Found it.
He is the author of the book, yes. I assume that means he wasn't merely involved in the design, but that it was entirely his design with a degree of input from others via playtest and whatnot. (It did get playtested, didn't it? I don't keep up with that side of things.) |
07-27-2012, 01:54 PM | #26 |
Join Date: Mar 2011
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
Part of the problem is different ways of delivering energy will have different effectiveness. 100 kJ of energy spread out over my body as thermal energy will make me a bit hot. Not good and the sudden change might cause some damage, but not lethal. 100 kJ of kinetic energy is the equivalent of a over 100 meter fall. I'm a smear on the pavement several times over. So eating a 100kJ from a particle beam? The knockback alone would kill me several times. Eating a 100kJ from a heat ray. Eh.
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07-27-2012, 01:54 PM | #27 | |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
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The problem with the way GURPS treats damage is that the hundred million beams have an effect that is obviously far too dramatic, dealing damage tens of thousands of times too quickly. If anything, multiple beams should be less efficient at damaging a planet than a single beam. |
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07-27-2012, 03:33 PM | #28 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
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07-27-2012, 06:56 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
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It probably is important to note that even more than mainstream Gurps, Spaceships was never intended as a reality simulation. Spaceships is supposed to be a fun little game of ship design and combat. That people keep trying to use if for other things is something I take as an indicator of some market for those other things.
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07-29-2012, 06:33 PM | #30 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: [Spaceships] DS-1 Orbital Battle Station
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But it is an attempt at handling the issue, and the presence of DR (which is totally non-ablative) means that you are encouraged to use a few large weapons to do the job, instead of many small ones. |
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