Melding Beam Weapons and Guns

[Anders]

I'm thinking of melding the two skills. Currently Guns (Pistol) and Beam Weapons (Pistol) default to each other at -4. Which means that you can use your gun's laser sight on someone with full skill, but move the laser downstairs and amp it up and you are suddenly at -4 to skill. That sounds weird, and GURPS has too many skills anyway. What do you think?

[Varyon]

I feel the only way for Beam Weapons to be a legitimately different skill is if the operation modes are different. If you have a beam generator that just makes a beam without any sort of variable focusing - like a laser pointer - Guns skill should work just fine, you'd just need to deal with some Familiarity issues. On the other hand, if you have a beam generator with variable focus - even one with something like a camera's autofocus - that is justifiable as a separate skill. Note Beam Weapons configured to be usable with Guns skill would, realistically, have a much shorter range than those configured to be usable with Beam Weapons skill.

[Proteus]

I'm not a real-life gun person, but it seems to me that the lack of recoil is the most obvious difference between the two. Given how often recoil seems to make fools of newbie gun users, wouldn't its absence cause a significant difference in usage and thus skill? (Then there are potential issues, as already mentioned, like needing to adjust beam collimation for various distance bands, and all the other little bits of behavior that go into understanding the "immediate action" required to use / maintain a weapon.)

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Proteus

I'm not a real-life gun person, but it seems to me that the lack of recoil is the most obvious difference between the two. Given how often recoil seems to make fools of newbie gun users, wouldn't its absence cause a significant difference in usage and thus skill? (Then there are potential issues, as already mentioned, like needing to adjust beam collimation for various distance bands, and all the other little bits of behavior that go into understanding the "immediate action" required to use / maintain a weapon.)

At the scale where you use Beam Weapons rather than Gunner or Artillery, another big difference is that lasers are effectively instantaneous. Even though that may only be a fraction of a second difference, that can still matter in some cases.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

At the scale where you use Beam Weapons rather than Gunner or Artillery, another big difference is that lasers are effectively instantaneous. Even though that may only be a fraction of a second difference, that can still matter in some cases.

True. Even with single-user weapons, the absence of any need to "lead" the target, and lack of any concern about things like "windage," seem like significant changes.

[Anders]

I thought about that too. But shooters seem to do fine with the gun sight, which has all the properties of a laser. Because it is a laser! They can put little red dots on people just fine.

[Willy]

IMHO it should be different skills, as above a laser is hitting the target the moment you shoot, no need to lead the target. there is a recoil in projectile weapons, laser don´t have recoil by design. Also gravity has near zero influence, so you don´t need to calculate in into your aiming. taht means basically, point the gun at tatrget, press trigger and you will hit your target nearly with absolute precission. In the books is a option mentioned that the gun projects a weaker ray for aiming, combined with a sort of optics every one should be able to hit the target then. Even better put a camera parallel to the barrel and you can aim out of the hiding, without being spotted.
Of cours over LONG distances gravity has an influence, but on earth you can neglect it.
Lasers have one drawback, aside from having problems with targets who shine like a mirror. Its the fact, that a laser needed to stay focused. in an environment with heavy fog or dust into he air, not to mention something like the dust casters in Traveller, the effective range will be reduced - maybe drastically.

[Varyon]

Most of the factors listed so far - as well as lack of need to deal with bullet drop - are things that make using beam weapons easier, rather than different, and may well be a big part of why they tend to have exceptional Acc values. For skill differences, the way you use the weapons needs to be different. Beam weapons (at least at the kind of ranges humans deal with) are functionally hitscan weapons, to use some videogame design terminology - you point the weapon at the target and pull the trigger, and the effect is instant. Firearms are much the same at sufficiently close range, but the skill used doesn't change at longer ranges (honestly, GURPS largely treats firearms as hitscan weapons as well, as the to-hit penalty is based on what size the target appears to be - realistically, it's easier to hit a SM-10 target at 2 yards than an SM+0 target at 100 yards). Again, to justify a different skill, they need to be used differently, and from what I understand about beam weapons, that likely has to do with focusing.

Of course, uses of the skill other than aiming at and hitting the target (such a various IQ-based rolls to identify a weapon, perform maintenance, etc) may well be markedly different, far more so than mere Familiarity calls for. Appropriately accounting for that would require deviation from GURPS norms - in this case, I'd say the player must choose if their character is more familiar with guns or beam weapons; whichever he is not, he's at -4 (which can be removed with a Technique - or maybe even a Perk) to do things other than shoot a target. That's assuming gun-like (no need to deal with focusing) beam weapons, of course.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anders

you can use your gun's laser sight on someone with full skill,
but move the laser downstairs and amp it up and you are suddenly at -4 to skill.

I don't think you even make skill rolls for aiming unless you're using Cole's On Target system from pyramid 3/77

Laser sights (ie did I get a bead on the guy or not) are an interesting consideration since unlike pure-vision aiming there is an observable indication that someone's being aimed at.

There's clearly incentive though: if attacker observes the laser dot then they know their aim is good and can remain stable and attack.

Cole has DX-based gun roles for aiming because I believe that reflects actually lifting the arm and leveling the weapon at the target in preparation.

Aiming clearly has a vision component (hand-eye coordination) but then so does a lot of DX stuff, we have vision penalties apply to DX as well as Per.

Would be kinda cool if there was some way to have good perception benefit this (or bad perception detract), like being a setup skill, similar to how in "Dodge This" Cole had a Vision check before making active defenses.

Actually seems strange when I look at defaults how guns all seem to be DX-4 while Throwing is DX-3. I get that throwing is a much more instinctive skill but pointing something in a direction still seems like an easier skill...

It's not an issue close-up as guns alone can take the +4/+4 for AOA:Determined / Telegraphic Attack at melee ranges while throwing weapons can't, while at long ranges, throwing weapons incur range penalties sooner... but you still have the weirdness at long range that I can somehow aim better whipping a baseball than with a gun.

Actually maybe that's what Acc does because throwing weapons lack Acc? Not aiming means not enjoying the Acc so you're just snap-shotting in which case I could see how guns could fall behind snap-throws.

As for how people aim so well with a laser pointer... given that it's a continuous beam I'm wondering if maybe we should treat that as having some kind of insanely high ROF (like 300+) so that there's just a huge bonus from that?

That could also explain how you could swipe a laser pointer across a room and in theory blind a dozen guys... although there should probably be something in regard to "exposure time" to light needed to do damage to retina.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Plane

That could also explain how you could swipe a laser pointer across a room and in theory blind a dozen guys... although there should probably be something in regard to "exposure time" to light needed to do damage to retina.

It has a reason why in many nations, including mine the output of laser pointers is capped, some of them go in the 5 Watt range or higher, the time of exposure for eye damage is extremely short. Depending how close you are it´s less than 1/10 of a second. The distance to to the laser is also important. Of course you need to differ between short time blindness, and lasting crippling injuries. Military or police forces want to mark the target, so the output is lower, dangerous for eyes it´s nevertheless. Normally this forces are not interested in a unnecessary high output, because the batteries are draining faster. Some nations build blinding lasers on purpose, or experiment for Spec Op / SWAT Forces with lasers that can switch power output, between target / blinding mode. Also their are experiments with lasers that blink at very high frequency, so that they can trigger epileptic seizures. GURPS High Tech page 181 has further Info about lasers. Because time goes on their are claims by china and russia that they build portable lasers, that are able to shoot down drones.