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Old 05-11-2021, 02:01 PM   #2
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Force Sword (and Blaster) Design - Assistance Requested

As far as actual design goes, I'll need to restore the files from my old computer to see my original design system, but a blaster has (aside from accessories like scopes) three basic components: the Crucible, the Barrel, and the Mounting Hardware.

The Crucible is the heart of the weapon; many holdout blasters are nothing more than a crucible and trigger. The technical name for the crucible is the Karmac-Nusom Plasma Excitation and Focusing Chamber, but most prefer to use the former term. The crucible can be designed for any color of bolt (including clear) - the original design system had a minimum size for each color and made crucibles designed for higher-spectrum blasters more expensive, but I'm discarding the former and haven't made up my mind about the latter. The crucible's design also dictates the weapon's maximum RoF, but with no impact on cost - rather, an RoF 10 (for example) blaster has only 1/10 the output (and thus 1/2 the damage) per shot compared to one with RoF 1. The crucible can be designed to generate a "frozen" bolt rather than a projectile, for purposes of creating a force sword. Multifunction crucibles are possible - such are heavier and more expensive, but can be designed with several use modes - perhaps it has RoF 3 clear bolts (as a "stun" setting), RoF 10 red bolts (for general combat), RoF 1 purple bolts (for sniper fire), and a green force sword (for melee), for something with far too many choices built in. This would probably follow the general trend for combination gadgets - full cost for the most expensive component, full weight for the heaviest component, and 20% cost and weight for everything else.

The Barrel is optional, serving to focus and stabilize the bolt. On a blaster, a longer barrel gives longer range and better accuracy. These can be designed to be collapsible, allowing a single weapon to serve both for long-range engagements (with extended barrel) and CQC (with collapsed barrel). On a force sword, it serves to give longer Reach, better stability (either more HP or higher HT, I haven't yet decided), or a combination of the two (up to the designer, and possibly adjustable - a given length barrel will result in a more stable beam the shorter it is). Some force sword barrels have built-in splitters to redirect the beam and create a hilt (like Kylo Ren's lightsaber), additional tines to make the weapon harder to avoid (like a force trident), prongs for more readily catching another force sword and disarming its wielder (like a force jutte/sai), etc.

The Mounting Hardware is similarly largely-optional, covering the "inert" parts of the weapon (that is, those that don't contribute to the generation and stability of the beam). On blasters, this covers the grip (although many holdouts just use the detachable power cell instead), trigger, and stock for hand weapons, or the actual mounting hardware for vehicular blasters. Force swords typically don't have such (aside from a trigger or switch to turn it on/off), with the crucible (and often part of the barrel) serving as the grip, but there are exceptions, such as pistol grips and the like. As the crucible is the most dense component of a force weapon, force polearms will typically mount them near the middle, with barrel in front and an inert, extended grip behind, for balance (some opt to be mostly inert grip, making the weapon both cheaper and more tip-heavy for stronger swings). The rare double-bladed force swords also typically have an inert grip between the two crucibles.


The original design system based weight on the batteries from Spaceships. I had this weight make very small weapons only include the crucible (and trigger), then as the weapon got larger various freebies were thrown in - first the grip, then a short (handgun-length) barrel, and finally a rifle-length barrel and the choice of stock and grip or mounting hardware (which could make for a fixed mount that got +2 to Acc or a turret). I'm thinking for this revised one, I'll have the weight come with crucible and an appropriately-sized stock, barrel, and grip - it's just that the stock, barrel, and grip will be more appropriate for very small characters for smaller blasters. So, a 30 kJ, 10 lb, 7d blaster rifle (with RoF 1) would be scaled to a human, while a 3 kJ, 1 lb, 3d blaster rifle (with RoF 1) would be scaled to something with SM-6, necessitating that you remove the stock and perhaps shorten the barrel to have an SM+0 grip if you want the weapon to be the same weight (EDIT: scratch that - a 3 kJ blaster rifle would be scaled to SM-2, which is much less harsh). For force swords, I'm thinking around -3 SSR to damage (comparable to having a 1/30th weight crucible) to have the crucible produce a force sword beam rather than a blaster bolt, so a 3 kJ crucible produces a +1d force sword, while a 30 kJ one produces a +2d force sword. I also need to decide how I want MinST to work - I'm thinking the repulsive force functions not unlike weight, meaning a typical 1 lb force sword is going to require higher ST to wield than a 1 lb knife would (but it may be the case that purple force swords require less ST to wield than red ones).
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Last edited by Varyon; 05-12-2021 at 09:10 AM.
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