[Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

I'm sure this has come up before, but I couldn't find an official answer.

The Gauss rifle, 4mm evidently fires the same round as the Gauss LSW, 4mm at the same velocity. The range is listed as the same and so is the Acc. Yet the Gauss rifle is listed as doing pi damage whereas the Gauss LSW only does pi-. As every other Gauss weapon firing 4mm or smaller rounds does pi-, I'm inclined to think that the Gauss rifle damage is a typo. This is supported by the fact that the Gauss minigun, which apparently fires the same round at a higher velocity, has a listed damge of pi-. The Gauss rifle damage in Basic also supports treating this as a typo.

Most Conventional Smallarms larger than a pistol and smaller than heavy weapons have an Acc of 4. In some cases, this is because the weapon is a carbine or short-barreled, but in others, the rationale is hard to grasp. For example, the TL 7 Assault Rifle, 5.56mm, TL 7 Battle Rifle, 7.62mm and even the TL 6 Self-loading Rifle, 7.62mm in Basic all have an Acc of 5. There are no equivalents to the Assault Rifle, 5.56mm listed in Ultra-Tech, but the equivalent to the Battle Rifle, 7.62mm, the Storm Rifle, 10mmCLR, which is a semi-automatic weapon firing heavy bullets, has an Acc of only 4. By the same token, the Hunting Rifle, 7mmCL also has an Acc of only 4.

The discrepancy is even more pronounced if we look at heavier weapons.
TL 7 SAW, 5.56mm is Acc 5.
TL 9 LSW, 7mm is Acc 4.

What happens to make Acc for comparable weapons go down between TLs? Doesn't it bother anyone that a typical hunting rifle and a typical large-barrel battle rifle have the same Acc as the PDW?

And what's up with the damage on the Storm Carbine, 10mm CL and Storm Rifle, 10mmCLR. It's listed as pi++, even though it should ordinarily be pi+. I can postulate that this is due to some type of advanced ammo being standard for these weapons, but how does that affect the weapon if it is loaed with some of the other types of Ultra-Tech ammunition?

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

I just assume that a lot of these things are just typos.

There are others too like the Grav Needler. It's described as a machine pistol and given Bulk -2 and a weight of 1.5 lbs yet it also has the "dagger" mark on the ST that's supposed to mean "2-handed only". <shrug> Obvious typo.

UT didn't have the sort of playtest where the final material got the sort of finicky detail-checking that this sort of material usually needs.

Fred Brackin

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

The problem is seperating the typos from the genuine design decisions.

For example, the Acc of Conventional Smallarms looks like it was intentionally kept the same for most weapons. I can't imagine why, but it could be because of a design decision.

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

Some of the problem with ACCs results from the 4e design decision to lower ACCs broadly to limit muinchkins running around with auto-weapons. With the compressed scale there's just not that much room to finely differentiate weapons that might be _slightly_ better.

But if you want my semi-informed opinion your original issues boil down as:

Gauss rifle p or p-? Typo, it's p-.

Conventional rifle ACCs

Storm rifle and Carbine? Design decisions. These aren't true "rifles".
They are overgrown submachineguns mostly firing 10mm warheads rather than simple slugs and accepting lower muzzle velocities to get this capability. Damage should be P+, not P++. The incorrect "P" category thing comes up more thna once.

7mm Hunting rifle and LSW ACC? Mistake, one way or the other.

Fred Brackin

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

For the Storm Carbine, I could maybe buy this argument. Nevermind the fact that it has the same range and damage as a 7.62mm NATO, so the muzzle velocity is unlikely to be that low. But we can say that it is a carbine version of another weapon and that a slightly longer barrel would be required to achieve better Acc. Nevertheless, I'd prefer it to have Acc 5, as the Bulk is the same as that of a full-sized assault rifle, instead of a 5.56mm Carbine. But I'll accept it as Acc 4 if it's explained as the result of a very short barrel.

But Storm Rifle is also the same Bulk as a 5.56mm Assault Rifle, weights a full 10 lbs. and is noted in the description as being used for hunting and sniping roles. It's not an automatic rifle, it is a self-loading weapon with a range and damage comparable to the 8.6mm Sniper Rifle in Basic. The 10mmCLR round it fires apparently has a rather flat trajectory, at least inside typical combat ranges, as it has a 1/2D Range of 1300 yds. It makes no sense to me that this weapon would have an Acc score equal to that of a typical SMG or PDW of its era.

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

Actually, given it's lower maximum range, despite a heavier projectile, it pretty much has to have a lower muzzle velocity (and the same damage for a bigger heavier projectile confirms this).

I tend towards it having a higher Acc, but I can accept it as the result of its (relatively) low cost, and lowish muzzle velocity. The magazine must be a bear, though (which would explain the bulk rating).

I'd give it Acc 5, given about everything else has Acc 4 - it's a fairly cheap weapons, and the thing most affected by cheap manufacture is accuracy.

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

Lower, yes. But low enough to qualify for Acc equivalent to a PDW?

As I said, I could accept the Storm Carbine having Acc 4, as it is probably not meant to be used in a tactical role where long-range accuracy is important.

I think that Acc 5 would make sense, yes.

When designing your own ultra-tech weapons, however, it helps to have a baseline to benchmark things against. It's unhelpful if these baseline weapons have stats that do not make sense.

It would be good if Pulver, Kromm, HANS or another empowered to clarify could tell us if there is some design decision behind the Acc of Storm weapons or if we should just go ahead and treat the Acc of the rifle as a typo.

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

I think you are underestimating the positve results of using a larger bullet on range while undrestimating the requirements to just scale up cartiridge size.

If you just scaled up the 7mm round to 10mm you'd be increasing dimensions 1.426x in every way. the result would mass (1.43 x 1.43 x 1.43) or 3x (actually 2.9 and some change) as much as the 7mm round. It'd have 2,9 x as much kinetic energy too.

Instead the 10mm CL only masses 1.5x as much and even the 10mm CLR is only 2.2 x as much.. Both of these have to be using a mix of more projectile and less propellant than the 7mm.

The usual bullet shape for the 10mm rounds might also be more stubby and less streamlined so as to allow more room for explosive filler. They might also be at velocities where you don't get optimum results from the most highly streamlined bullets.

It's only a pt of ACC anyway in a system where none of the modern weapons have the ACC they should. Crossbows are given an ACC of 4 too. I think there could ahve been a better solution to the munchkins with autoweapons problem than nerfing ACC the way they did, but were stuck with it now.

Fred Brackin

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

They're using more efficient propellant, but that doesn't matter all that much. What matters is that the effective range of a 10mmCL bullet is equivalent to the effective range of a 7.62mm bullet. Thus, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect equivalent Acc.

The fact that the Storm Carbine gets reduced Acc we explain by calling it a short-barreled carbine.

The default round is supposed to be a kinetic one. And while poor weapon designs are certainly possible, it is not desireable for a weapon that we want to be able to use as a benchmark.

The weapons in Ultra-Tech should be average examples of their kind, not ususually poor or unusually superb. That makes tinkering easier.

But what I objected to was the discrepancy between modern weapons and Ultra-Tech ones.

It is unfortunate of the TL 9 weapons are generally less accurate than TL 7 weapons with the same tactical role. That seems unlikely, unless there was some other benefit realised from new technology.

Re: [Ultra-Tech] Errata in weapons lists?
 

No, I was comparing the TL9 7mm CL round with the TL9 10mm CL and TL9 10mm CLR. Those would be using the same propellant.

In Ve2 barrel length stood in for a variety of factors that controlled velocity but barrel length is not te true determining factor. Ve2 also always assumed that rounds were optimized for their barrel length.

However, even in Ve2 projectile size had a strong influence on range. The factor was Square root of B (Bore size). There's a reason top TL8 sniper rilfes are .50 caliber.

As to your point that TL8 small arms ACCs are probably wrong, I'm trying to say that I think basically all ACCs for modern guns are wrong and the whole 4e system for ACC is wrong-headed.

Fred Brackin