GURPS Heavy Gear

[Langy]

My rough draft quick & dirty conversion for Range Diffusion for Beam Weapons:
A SLC (Sniper Laser Cannon) has a DAM of x12 with -1 per range band. So, at short range it’s x12, medium it’s x11, long is x10 and extreme is x9. It has an extreme range of 2,000 meters/yards.

So, base information the SLC is a 6d (2) weapon. Each point of range penalty not offset by a point of Acc counts as another dDR of 2x, where x is the absolute value of the –x per range band. So, at a maximum effective range of 2,000 yd, the SLC would be dealing with an additional dDR of 14 on the target (-18 for 2,000 yds + 11 from Acc = 7 * 2 = 14). (see, pop quiz!) The doubling is only important since it has the (2) on its damage. It’s functionally dealing with a dDR of 7. If you wanted to say that the dDR is hardened or isn’t subject to the armor divisor, I’m okay with that. Just the doubling is pretty easy.

I wouldn't bother doing that. The damage loss you're talking about is there for the same exact reason a 1/2D range is there in GURPS - as range increases, damage decreases. The difference is that in GURPS, the damage decrease happens abruptly and at only two points (1/2D range, where it's half damage, and maximum range, where it's no damage at all), where in Heavy Gear it occurs gradually (like it should in real-life).

So, what I'm trying to say is just stick a 1/2D range on that laser and it'll work fine. I'd probably make it the Extreme range like you did with the ballistic weapons.

It won't have the same 'feel' as in Heavy Gear, but it won't involve complicated mechanics and will streamline it in relation to all other GURPS weapons.

Also: I rather like the way you handled the high-acc problem I pointed out.