How would you equip a dinosaur poacher?

[Anders]

What would be good equipment for a TL8 party out to hunt the really big game - brachiosaurs?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anders

What would be good equipment for a TL8 party out to hunt the really big game - brachiosaurs?

A helicopter would be nice.

The hard part of a dinosaur hunt is likely to be finding and chasing them - big animals are relatively rare and potentially quite fast. A heavy hunting rifle should be able to kill any Terran animal on a good shot - nothing keeps its vital organs so deep or behind so much bone that you couldn't get a bullet through to it. And even a bad shot should often be serious enough for a big animal to bleed out eventually. For brachiosaurs - all of whom have fairly light, almost open, skulls and doubtless pretty vulnerable necks - you probably don't even need that.

If you aren't flying, for many known dinosaurs you might want small boats. Most of them live in pretty wet places, because that's where the good fossilization environments were. Doubtless there were big animals living up in the highlands too, but we know less about those.

We don't know what, if anything, is edible in the wild, edible plants mostly belong to groups that don't even exist yet, so carry your own food. Not that TL8 people often go off on expeditions expected to live off the land. And we don't know what diseases or horrible parasites you might run into, but they'll be different, so you can skip the vaccinations and anti-malarials you'd normally want before going off to hunt in a swamp. If people have been doing this for a while though, there may be a new set. Ditto for the drugs and anti-venoms you might want in a medical kit. But overall your kit probably looks a lot like what you'd want to go hunt alligators.

[GodBeastX]

8 Barrett M82A1, .50 Browning

I just did a search on Dinosaur in hightech and that was recommended for shooting them. I can see why too. 6dx2 damage =)

[Varyon]

I'd estimate brachiosaurus as around SM+6, ST 80 or so, and probably DR 10 (Tough Skin). lwcamp has some houserules about needing to punch through a decent amount of flesh to get to the juicy center (the Vitals), which if I'm interpreting them right works out to the first 16 points of penetrating damage to a brachiosaurus not getting the Vitals multiplier. This also multiplies the modifier for hit location and bullet size together, rather than having the former replace the latter.

If using the above, a .50 caliber rifle like the M82A is going to average 42 damage, for 96 injury. If it has HT 12, it'll be rolling against 7 to prevent falling due to that Major Wound (and something that size is going to take a while to get back up), and a hit that serious is likely to cause it to bleed out. Fire, wait, then go claim the carcass. Alternatively, armor piercing rounds might work with a smaller rifle. An AI AW does 7d pi, or 7d(2) pi- with APHC. That averages 24.5 damage, but the beast only has an effective DR 5 and only 8 of the damage avoids the Vitals multiplier, so average wounding is around 30 HP (thanks to the x0.7 of pi-; yes, this is different from normal GURPS pi-). That isn't a Major Wound, so the knockdown roll is against full HT. The beast is likely to bolt, so you'll have to hope the bleeding eventually gets it.

If not going with the above houserules, you manage a Major Wound on any Vitals hit that does 24 damage or more. That AI AW using normal ammunition will do the trick. Interestingly, the M82A does exactly the same wounding as with the houserules.

You'll typically want to go after the Vitals rather than the Skull. The former are going to be far easier to target (particularly from ground level). The rifles I mentioned above are both Acc 6+3, so assuming Guns (Rifle) 12 and 3 rounds of Aim, you can hit the Vitals on a roll of 14 or less from up to 200 yards away.


You'll need something to do with the carcass, of course. You can't exactly throw a 50 ton dinosaur on your back and carry it back to camp. You'll need something to quickly cut the important bits off (be that the head as a trophy, some meat for food, or whatever) and haul them back in a vehicle before the scavengers (some of which you really don't want to tussle with) show up. For the first few hunts, you can probably use a modified chainsaw for cutting them up, as the sound should scare off a lot of potential scavengers and it'll make the cutting go fairly quick. Eventually, however, they might start thinking of the sound of a chainsaw as a dinner bell, which may end poorly for you (something similar may happen with the sound of your rifle, unfortunately).

[Not]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gun_for_Dinosaur

[Anthony]

Based on the evidence of elephants, an M16 or AK-47 would work fine but might not give as pretty a trophy as you'd want. Actually, that's a bit of a problem in general for sauropods: what exactly are you hunting them for? The trophy for a triceratops (horns, or a complete head) or T-rex (teeth, or a head) is obvious, but the most impressive feature of a sauropod is a gigantic hard to transport pile of meat.

[Anders]

You're probably hunting them for the lolz.

How about a T-rex?

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anders

You're probably hunting them for the lolz.

How about a T-rex?

A tyrannosaur isn't substantially bigger than an elephant, so I'd take a cue from elephant hunters and use a rapid fire rifle. Since it is likely more dangerous than an elephant, I'd go with a little more power and a lot more accuracy, and use something from the M14, G3, or FAL families. That should give you better standoff.

[weby]

Offroad vehicles(both large and small), helicopters(or light planes for observation), radios.

[johndallman]

Hovercraft, if we're poaching. Less conspicuous than a helicopter, and can evade across water away from the gamekeepers.