[UT] [Fantasy] Adamantine/mythral weapons?

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Hello everyone.

Let's assume that Superfine weapons are basically sharpened so that their edges is only a few nanometers thick.

Let us assume that there exist a material called Adamantine, which is basically titanium, only more robust due to being reinforced by magical energies, and adamantine armors are Hardened and provide extra DR while adamantine weapons have an armor divisor, and mythral, which is basically silver reinforced with magic so that it is incredibly lighter than silver would actually be IRL while being about as strong as steel.

Let's use adamantine for making ultra tech superfine melee weapons, APDS rounds, and armor, and mythral for making UT armors.

What kind of performance upgrades could we expect such Ultra Tech but with fantasy materials kinds of weapon/armor/ammunition to have?

How would a silver APDS round perform against a demon encased in a Clamshell Armor from UT (Demons being vulnerable to silver)?

How else could Mythral/Adamantine be used to reinforce Ultra-Tech? What kind of weird interactions could we expect to see?

[seycyrus]

The capability of modern APDS rounds are due to reasons almost exactly opposite of what you are attributing to adamantium (being like Titanium etc.).

It might be more interesting to conjecture about shaped charged jets formed from silver liners.

[tanksoldier]

Mithral is more akin to titanium and adamant is more akin to tungsten carbide.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

The capability of modern APDS rounds are due to reasons almost exactly opposite of what you are attributing to adamantium (being like Titanium etc.).

To be a trifle more helpfully explicit, the main thing that makes titanium interesting technologically is that it is reasonably strong, and remarkably light for such a strong metal. i.e. it has low density.

But for the penetrator in an APDS round you want a material that is as dense as possible, provided that it is reasonably strong.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

But for the penetrator in an APDS round you want a material that is as dense as possible, provided that it is reasonably strong.

The density is after all what allows it to carry a lot of energy. Being strong doesn't really help much - since you'd really like the penetrator to be moving so fast it doesn't have *time* to disassemble much. You can't have less strength than a fluid, and yet HEAT jets work pretty well...

More generally though, as fantasy materials they can do anything you like, but there's no "realism" involved. Most game systems seriously overestimate the effect of advanced materials already.

It's a standard problem with game equipment: you want the cool stuff to have a game mechanical effect, but in reality the performance of most stuff is so clustered together the differences between decent quality and super advanced state of the art are less than the resolution of the game engine. For GURPS after all you're looking at a system where the difference in damage between a knife and a bastard sword is 2 or 3 points of damage. Is changing the composition of a bullet really a bigger change than that?

[Varyon]

I'm pretty certain Tolkien's mythril is based more on aluminum than silver, although letting it share silver's ability to affect the supernatural doesn't seem outlandish.

Adamantine is rarely used as an ultra-light material - it typically seems to have density on par with iron or steel, but is far stronger.

Regardless, due to their high hardness (mythril being at least on par with steel, adamantine surpassing it), any projectile made from such would have to be jacketed or saboted with a softer material to avoid damaging the barrel.

[Tyneras]

As far as GURPS is concerned, I've treated adamantine as another name for essential iron, and mythril as essential aluminum.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

As far as GURPS is concerned, I've treated adamantine as another name for essential iron, and mythril as essential aluminum.

Where does that mithral = aluminum idea come from anyway? Tolkien's version seems basically steel with an untarnishable mirror finish on it. It' feels closer to polished Essential Stainless Steel than Essential Aluminum.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Where does that mithral = aluminum idea come from anyway?

Just it's weight, I'd have guessed.

[Tyneras]

Essential Aluminum works out (roughly) to be 1/3 the weight, 150% the DR but the same thickness as steel. Works well as a fantasy metal. Looks nice polished too.