Comparison of Space Beam Weapons in GURPS Vehicles, 2 Ed.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by sjard

<Moderator>
Thread title changed per request.
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Thanks, the increased legibility is much appreciated.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Well, at least I am familiar with all the books in question. I ran Space Opera back in 1980 when it was new, including what you are calling "Starships of War". I think there was a "Seldon" in there.

There was indeed a Seldon's in the title, Seldon's Compendium of Starcraft
and I got the volume number wrong, it is Starships of War but that's Vol. 2, not Vol. 1, which dealt with commercial starships.

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My first comment is that you obviously aren't trying for a very literal conversion. The ranges of the largest Nova Guns from Space Opera are over 1000 light-seconds or 2 AU. If you were trying to attack Earth you could be shot at by orbital fortresses around Mars.

These aren't the conversions as such, just comparisons based on having the same amount of power going in, as explained in Basic Considerations. I'm likely to up-gun some of the weapons to equate with N*1000 NovaGuns (that'll be the rainbow lasers, probably). However, I'm definitely not going for an exact conversion. Space Opera's space combat turns are IIRC 5 minutes long, and I find even 300 LS ranges implausible in my space combats. In general, I prefer second by second battles, and one of the tactical considerations will be how quickly your weapons can recharge. At the moment, I'm working on the idea of having individual rechargable power cells as a dedicated energy bank for each individual weapon, (maybe I'll change that to per turret) with the bank being able to power the beam for 60 seconds at full rate of fire before needing to recharge. The three operative questions will be: just how long will it take to recharge all the weapons? Do the weapons all recharge at once or do they recharge serially, so that you can get some weapons back into service while others are recharging? And just how high is the rate of fire, given that I'm going for a fixed FP per second and a higher rate of fire reduces the damage and range per shot?

Currently, I'm thinking RoF 8 for the Main battery and RoF 20 for C battery, which would likely put B and C batteries at RoF 12 and RoF 16 respectively.

You might want to add the FTL modifier to help represent the range scale advantages of Nova Guns.

FTL modifier? I missed that one in Vehicles. Do you have a reference?

On the other hand, as indicated in Basic Considerations, the ranges given do incorporate the "in vacuum" modifiers from Vehicles (p. VE126).

My second comment is that you also seem to be using Gurps Space 1e. that has to be where the "FP" is coming from and I find this choice strange. There seems to be little point to starting with the nuts and bolts detail from Ve2 if you're going to end up with the abstract simplicity of Space 1e.

Nope. It's a simplification to make the big dice numbers for damage a little more comprehensible. While FP originated with Space, 1 Ed., it appears in the sidebar on p. VE99 and that and the method of calculation on that page is where those numbers come from.

As a matter of interest, to the nearest whole number, here is the damage in dice for each weapon.

UV Laser 3,158;
Disruptor 10,106;
Neutral Particle Beam 10,106;
Rainbow Laser 2,978;
Flamer 7,990;
Military Paralysis Beam 8,252;
X-ray Laser 2,735;
Fusion Beam 11,910;
Gravity Beam 252;
Antiparticle Beam 11,299;
Graser 2,182;
Disintegrator 1,408;
and Displacer 100.

The Beam Output for each weapon is:
UV Laser 11,568,070 kJ;
Disruptor 11,568,070 kJ;
Neutral Particle Beam 11,568,070 kJ;
Rainbow Laser 10,282,729 kJ;
Flamer 4,627,228 kJ;
Military Paralysis Beam 7,712,047 kJ;
X-ray Laser 8,678,222 kJ;
Fusion Beam 2,570,682;
Gravity Beam 11,568,070 kJ;
Antiparticle Beam 9,254,456 kJ;
Graser 7,712,047 kJ;
Disintegrator 9,254,456 kJ;
and Displacer 2,313,614 kJ.

My third comment is a simple question. Are you multiplying weapon ranges for use out of atmosphere? Your numbers don't look like you are at a glance. I haven't tried to duplicate your work.

I am indeed multiplying the ranges for use out of atmosphere.

Maybe more later.