Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

They still use the same Armoury skill, though. Frankly, that's a bigger stretch for me.

Doug, you're mr. Ballistics. What do you think of melding the two skills?

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

If a weapon handles like a rifle, I'd use a rifle skill. Hans suggested - and I heartily agreed with him - that merging Rifle, SMG, and Shotgun into a Longarm skill (with special fire modes being handled by familiarity and/or techniques) was a good call. I'd include the actual point-and-shoot part of most beam weapons that are usually constructed in rifle-looking shapes.

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

A laser designation isn't the same as a laser carbine. You never have to worry about the charge level of the capacitor in your laser pointer. Don't have to think about refraction from water particles/fog/exotic material. If you press the trigger and it doesn't fire you don't perform a degauss on the charger on your laser sight.

That said there are similarities and there are differences. Defaulting to a beam weapon is -4 to your guns skill. If they're the same weapon then they're most likely a different TL upwards of -2 to your guns skill, they have an unfamiliar action -2 familiarity, and they're completely recoilless, a further -2 reaction. So you can take the default off of the skill or if you really feel their the same weapon the rules can give you -6 or more off the Guns skill.

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

When you're at comparably close quarters and your opponents are shooting back, I really don't see a functional difference. Its about quickly lining up your beams, predicting your foes, and staying out of the line of fire.


When you're on the range or playing marksman, the changes become a lot more important, as the physical differences between the guns start to matter.


When you're gun has a mechanical problem and you need to fix it, they're completely different.



so its this weird continuum.

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

To this I'd point out that grenade launchers, gyrocs and muskets all have significant mechanical differences yet are still covered by the Guns skill. Maybe make Armoury skill more important for immediate action usage?

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

I don't see the relevance of this. Yes, they are all covered by "Guns", but they're different skills. And GL and Gyroc default from other Guns skills with as large a penalty as Beam Weapons does.

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

I just changed the defaults to/from Beams (Pistol) and Guns (Pistol) to -2. I did the same for rifles. Likewise between Beams (Pistol) and Beams (Rifle), because if it's -2 between Guns (Pistol) and Guns (Rifle) why would beam weapons be -4?

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

If they're as different from each other as from lasers, why make Beam Weapons a separate skill?

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

Because guns fire solid projectiles and beams fire beams. The delineation of skills isn't an exact science (see Artillery, which covers multiple specializations that have literally nothing to do with one another apart from their game mechanical functioning).

Re: Melding Beam Weapons and Guns
 

Right, but many in this thread are arguing that that's a distinction that makes less difference than the mode of handling. And, as you point out, if artillery lasers and artillery projectiles both fall under the Artillery skill, due to their method of control, why not the same for their handguns?