APEP Alternative and other gun-food related issues.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Nemesis357

Ft APEP says it functions like APDS

I want to first warn you about mixing UT and HT. They are not very compatible. So when using an ammo type from UT you should use the UT rules for it and not try and retrofit anything from HT.

This esecially applies to mixing tank ammo and pistol ammo. APFSDSDU that was P+ would need a 10mm wide penetrator with a 10-to-1 aspect ration i.e the priojectile by itself would need to be 100mm long. That's not goign to fit in a .454 Casull cylinder.

I believe that APEP gets the+1 per die, the (3) armor divisor and the P class downgrade. From a full length barrel that's probably 5D+5 P (3). That's what I think the rules say. Change the rules if you want to.

Also note the LC. Such ammo would have to be sourced to someone unconcerned with Legality for one reason or another.Also that a relativley rare mid-TL8 ammo like .454 Casull with no known military users has to be getting this wide variety of potent ammo from some custom prducer. Probably it's one-of-a-kind.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I want to first warn you about mixing UT and HT. They are not very compatible. So when using an ammo type from UT you should use the UT rules for it and not try and retrofit anything from HT.

more succinctly stating what I was getting at in my "not entirely systematic" point.

This esecially applies to mixing tank ammo and pistol ammo. APFSDSDU that was P+ would need a 10mm wide penetrator with a 10-to-1 aspect ration i.e the priojectile by itself would need to be 100mm long. That's not goign to fit in a .454 Casull cylinder.

And note that the M829A1 seems to have aspect ratios on the order of 30, with a projectile diameter on the order of 27mm, fired from a 120mm bore.

To get equivalent scaling, a .454" case would fire a 2.6mm projectile, which would need to be about 75mm long in order to have the same aspect ratio as the big tank cannon. The case of the .454 is 35mm long.

Reducing the aspect ratio to 15:1 would bring it in line with the case length (overall length is 45mm, so it would fit OK).

I believe that APEP gets the+1 per die, the (3) armor divisor and the P class downgrade. From a full length barrel that's probably 5D+5 P (3). That's what I think the rules say. Change the rules if you want to.

This is key. If you want the ammo in your game, or think that giving the player such ammunition will increase overall fun (including yours) and not ruin the game, shrug and realize he's telling you how he wants to play. If that's just not fun for you, have a solid conversation about it. If you don't care, or it IS fun for you, or you titter at the notion of so many folks showing up to steal his hoard of uber-APEP ammo . . . booyah.

Also note the LC. Such ammo would have to be sourced to someone unconcerned with Legality for one reason or another.Also that a relativley rare mid-TL8 ammo like .454 Casull with no known military users has to be getting this wide variety of potent ammo from some custom prducer. Probably it's one-of-a-kind.

And in a post-apoc setting, "one of a kind when it was in bespoke, limited production" really does mean "rare antique."

[Illusion158]

Imagine my surprise when stumbling on this thread Nemesis! Lol. I'm the player that brought this up, mostly because the wording in the book (which just mentions apep getting a 3 divisor and being a "superior apds") seems weird. Not going to throw out my opinions on the suggestions (that's the gms call unless he asks what I think) but wanted to clear up some setting confusion since people keep bringing up how rare the shots would be.

The LC doesn't matter AS MUCH as normal due to the nature of the world. Im sure firing bullets that rip through armor or explode would get me in trouble some places, but probably only if I fire them in a town. As for the bullets not being made, civilization is coming back enough for people to be able to make a lot of the lower end UT ammo. Mission to acquire the supplies for it if need be not withstanding. They ARE going to be expensive though. All the tl9 and up stuff is. Lol

But yeah, just wanted to put out some context while the gm is (I think) unable to reply. Thanks everyone for the suggestions! Looking forward to seeing what Nemesis decides.

[Nemesis357]

I want to first warn you about mixing UT and HT. They are not very compatible. So when using an ammo type from UT you should use the UT rules for it and not try and retrofit anything from HT.

As a rule of thumb I used HT when UT didn’t mesh, also I did an entire rewrite of the weapons in UT for things like acc, dmg, range, shots, rof, etc. Both for balance and consistency purposes. APEP was just something I wasn’t entirely sure which way to go.

Your point about behind-armor wounding is spot on. Something that's both AP and expanding (sort of an APHP) but even better, so it might do a (3) and either retain the pi level instead of dropping to pi, or even expand to pi+, would certainly be sought after. In terms of realism/techno-handwavium, I'm not sure it matters much so long as you can have it exist in your world. Your TL8+3 recovering post-apoc means that there may well exist some magitech type of projectile that has all the properties you might want.

But EVERYONE will want them. They'll be expensive or hoarded. A box of them might be an adventure in themselves, and one might not even want to shoot them, because it's like burning money.

Woohoo Senpai noticed me! And he said I did an adequate job! As far as the whole availability thing goes it will vary. I have a randomizer chart for that and it does depend on the popularity of the firearm during its TL. It most likely won’t be an entire mission to acquire but the price as a specialty round will be up there. The thing is that this world has varying tech level by region. The East and West Coast of the US have rebuilt into a loose collation of city-states ala Greece during the wars with Persia. The middle of the country consists of a very loose network of interconnected towns and settlements called the Trans-Continental Trade Network. (TCTN) So ordering things require material to be transported for the high TL10+1 coast and driven/flown across the country that is experiencing a neo-old west cranked up to Mad Max levels of banditry with some mad scientist sprinkled in…again for the lolz! I mean if the roll goes bad enough, they may get paid by the “Commonwealth Advanced Small Arms Co.” to go to the bandit lords base…situated in an old TL11 military base with some working defenses to retrieve the stolen product sitting in some sort of Scrooge McDuck style vault only with gun-food instead of gold.

Imagine my surprise when stumbling on this thread Nemesis! Lol. I'm the player .that brought this up, mostly because the wording in the book (which just mentions apep getting a 3 divisor and being a "superior apds") seems weird. Not going to throw out my opinions on the suggestions (that's the gms call unless he asks what I think) but wanted to clear up some setting confusion since people keep bringing up how rare the shots would be.

Stop spying on me! Your GM does not wish you to seem him when he is prostrating himself in front of either Douglas or Kromm, it ruins the image of my omniscience. Also, it means you’ll know when BAD stuff is coming your way…like missions to go get bullets from TL11 Bandit Lord Citadels…
Either way I am going to go with this idea as turning it into an APHP round having them do listed piercing damage but with an armor divisor of (3).

[Black Leviathan]

Not to ask the obvious but who in a post apoc setting is making these micro-scale APEP bullets? Unless there's some high industrial alliance in the world that likes mega-badass Cassul rounds it would me much cheaper to get power armor with twin .50 cal machineguns than one of those bullets.

He's not shooting tank rounds so the effect would be scaled down. I wouldn't expect the difference would be mechanically different than an jacketted round, maybe marginally better range. Even a big Cassul bullet isn't really big enough to make use of APEP.

[The_Ryujin]

Ah, so basiclly Fallout with the serial numbers filed off. Cool stuff.

Personally I've rewritten Ultra-Tech's ammunition rules to better line up with High-Tech since the rules in the former were written to line up with the generic rules presented in the Basic set rather then reality.

For APEP I stat them as doing x1.7 base damage, AD(2), drop pi down a step if under 40mm, double range and CF +6. Basically they are as good as APFSDS-DU rounds without the incindery effect and toxic side effects.

This fits reality a bit better: I save the AD(3) for TL 11^ hyper dense penetrators.

Though to be perfectly honest given the level of tech needed to make bulk amorphous tungsten these rounds should be in very, very short supply and could cost twenty times as much or more.

Though this is just my two cents.