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Old 02-26-2010, 08:22 PM   #6
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Mars, maglevs speeds, and gauss guns

Quote:
Originally Posted by Max Schreck View Post


The tone of In the Well also seems subtly different from the more sombre tones of the rest of the TS universe. There is a biomod called the "Whirling Claws o' Death" or some such, and there are many wuxia elements in the descriptions of culture (yeah, okay, that's Chinese)
<shrug> Some of this part might be my fault for pointing out that in the low gravity of Mars you could leap as if in a wuxia movie.

But as for "sombre" I tend to find many wacky-cuckoo elements in TS and not just things like alibanana and skullcats. I don't find it particularly sombre.

Some of the stuff about weapons being underdesigned is propbably DP's input. He tends to underdesign a lot of the things he creates even when he creates the system they're designed in. As a more recent example look at the anemic energy weapons in UT for 4e. He couldn't hold the projectile weapons down so much.

But anyway when more efficiency-minded people get ahold of his design systems they tend to try and maximize the tech they find.

Anyone who's ever read a real world gun magazine will appreciate how few people are satisfied with weapons that work "well enough". The way PCs try and tweak their weapons is of moderate intensity only compared to real life. It _is_ likely to be more effective but that's because the players of those PCs have access to DP's rules.

Specifically about the e-mags, coilguns are very attractive in space environments. When based on high temperature superconductors they're probably the most effective weapons available per unit of waste heat (no explosive propellants and no friction either). It's very likely that there are simply more coilguns off Earth.
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