Star Trek Phasers for GURPS?

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

They put a TL 12 weapon called a Disnintegrator in the new UT and one shot from even the holdout model will indeed completely disintegrate a normal human and no one makes the connection from this to the phaser....Let disintegrators fire at partial power for reduced use of energy/charges and you have half of the mods you need.

For what it's worth, here is what I use in my Star Trek campaign:

These weapon descriptions are based on the weapons from GURPS Prime Directive published by the Amarillo Design Bureau, but have been converted to align themselves more with GURPS Ultra Tech.

Phaser-1 (Based on the Holdout Laser (see GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 115))
--------
Setting  Damage  Acc(a)  Range   Weight    RoF(b)  Shots(c)  ST  Bulk  Rcl  Cost  LC  TL
                   3           0.45/0.05(B)  1       33(3)    3   -1    1  $1100  3

Stun-1  HT-1 aff         10/30                        1@                              11^
linked  1d-3 burn

Kill-1  2d(2) burn      100/300                       2@                              10

Phaser-2 (Based on the Heavy Laser Pistol (see GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 115))
--------
Setting         Damage  Acc(a) Range  Weight  RoF(b)  Shots(c)  ST  Bulk  Rcl  Cost  LC  TL
                          6         3.5/0.5(C)  3      130(3)    6   -2    1  $7400   2

Stun-1          HT-1 aff       23/70                     1@                              11^
linked          1d-3 burn

Stun-2          HT-2 aff       23/70                     2@                              11^
linked          1d-3 burn

Kill-1          2d(2) burn    300/900                    2@                              10

Kill-2          4d-1(2) burn  300/900                    4@                              10

Disintegrate-1  4d-1 cr ex    600/1800                   4@                              10

a. The visible beam itself provides a +1 to skill (and a +1 to dodge it) if the weapon was fired the previous turn. [p. B412]
b. The Rate of Fire is a measure of how long you engage the beam. E.g. If you choose a RoF of 1 on a RoF 3 rated weapon, it means you discharged the weapon for 1/3 of a second.
c. All except the Stun-1 setting use up more than 1 “Shot” of energy. E.g. Stun-2 and Kill-1 use 2 “Shot”’s.

Weapon Setting
It takes a ready maneuver to switch from setting to another.
Stun
If the victim fails his HT roll, he is unconscious (usually for 15 minutes). Note that DR offers no protection, unless the armor is sealed; in which case the stun setting will have no effect (unless the 1d-3 damage manages to burn through the armor). If they are beyond 1/2 Damage ranges, they get a +3 on their HT roll. They may also feel the 1d-3 points of burn damage, whether they make their HT roll or not; DR protects against this with its full value.
The Stun setting is a Neural Weapon superscience! improvement of Electrolaser technology (see GURPS Ultra-Tech p119-122)
Kill
This is a focused electromagentic (i.e. light) beam.
High-energy Laser (see GURPS Ultra-Tech p114-116)
Disintegrate
This setting fires wide, higher-energy beams in short duration pulses. This changes the damage type from burning to crush with explosive which may actually cause knockdown.
Pulse Laser (see GURPS Ultra-Tech p118-119)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

For what it's worth, here is what I use in my Star Trek campaign:

[I]These weapon descriptions are based on the weapons from GURPS Prime Directive published by the Amarillo Design Bureau, )

Yeah, this is one of my prime issues with Prime Directive.

The Stun setting frequently fails to to do more than annoy. The "Kill" setting usually doesn't kill and the Disntegrate setting doesn't disintegrate either.

Add in the armored uniforms (yes, they have Starfleet wearing armored uniforms) and it's no wonder people resort to fisticuffs so often.

[panton41]

There's be a handful of episodes where a major cast member is hit in an extremity and get away with burned clothes and and an injured limb. (For some reason an episode with Beverly Crusher comes to mind.) And I'd assume the beam was intended to be set on "kill" since the person firing had either just killed someone or had that intent. Also in the episode "The Conspiracy" Picard and Riker fire on a Star Fleet officer for a good 30 seconds before he explodes into an alien parasite mother and then finally explodes again. (That episode tends to get the award for "most gruesome episode of Star Trek" and freaked out my then-9yo mind...lol)

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

The best model for the way it seems to work in canon -- i.e., doing whatever the plot needs that can be justified by beam-weapon SFX -- is probably a a gadget with a Cosmic, Physical-only, focus-limited (things that can be justified by dumping energy into the target without any manipulation more than aiming the phaser, explicitly including Unconsciosness Affliction, which might be marginal by that description)

Causing a body to vanish without a very large cloud of vapour (and, if you do it rapidly, an explosion) cannot be justified by dumping energy into the target. But phasers can clearly do that.

[LemmingLord]

So the Abrams phasers have never disintegrated anyone, but clearly the original ones did just that with anything but those "protected by plot."

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Brett

Causing a body to vanish without a very large cloud of vapour (and, if you do it rapidly, an explosion) cannot be justified by dumping energy into the target. But phasers can clearly do that.

A better justification would be "Anything that can be explained by a limited SFX budget and squeamish 1960s TV censorship."

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

A better justification would be "Anything that can be explained by a limited SFX budget and squeamish 1960s TV censorship."

Quite.

Sometimes it's worth wondering whether there might be a more-fun alternative to slavish devotion to canon.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Brett

Sometimes it's worth wondering whether there might be a more-fun alternative to slavish devotion to canon.

This is one reason I almost never run anything in a straight adaptation of a setting but rather create an original setting with the elements of other settings that I wished to include. Thus my current campaign Desolation Road owes a lot to Meiveille's Bas Lag but isn't GURPS Bas Lag and my Xia of the Empire of Heaven was at least partially inspired by my exploration of how I would do Star Wars as a game setting.

[LoneWolf23k]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

Forum member Gold & Appel posted a good suggestion in one of my STAR TREK-related threads. He said go with the Omni-blaster from Ultra Tech.

Since it was available when running the GCA - thats what I went with.

So far TWO game sessions, one in June and one in December using that shortcut....and so far no problems as far as the players are concerned.


- Ed Charlton

I agree with using the Omni-Blaster. It's the simplest option. Back in 3rd edition, there was also an option to adding a Plasma setting to the Omni-Blaster, to represent their ability to melt objects.

[LemmingLord]

I think the simplest option is to say "stun" makes you stunned and "kill" makes you dead.