Weighty problem when attempting to reproduce Blaster Cannon canon; Pyramid #3/37

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Actually, I was implying "cut and paste error in the text" myself, as UT is one of those early books that was rushed through without a proper Kromm-edit.

I thought you might be, but +1TL, dame weight, double damage is consistent with other weapon tables (Laser and Pulsar). Plasma weapons don't follow the trend, but then they don't follow the standard UT range scaling either and seem to be a law unto themselves. Ghost Beams don't either - they don't seem to have TL scaling on gun size. A number of those weapons seem to have a typo on their number of cells required, showing as "Fp" when they should be "10Fp".

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I was talking about what we see in UT. In UT is can be seen from how the number of shots and damage scales in pistols and rifles that damage is proportional to the cube root of power (as with Pyr #3-37). The rules for using power cells as explosives imply that for TL10-11 there's a four-fold increase in energy density for power cells (also as in Pyr #3-37). These two things, combined with the doubling of damage for the same weight of the TL11 cannon compared to the TL10 cannon mean that the TL11 version must have either times the power output for the same weight, and twice the efficiency.

How you should reconcile this with Pyr #3-37 I can't tell you.

Well, Pyramid 3-37 actually tells you that the TL11 blaster has twice the efficiency of the TL 10 blaster. It's right in the shots table.

It doesn't cover having half the damage at the same weight. But that would be quite easy to patch - my preferred way to put it would be that S in the empty weight calculation is 2 for 'early' weapons like TL10 blasters and maybe TL9 lasers.

If Phantasm's calculation that the thing generates the TL 10 blaster but not the TL 11 blaster is right, that won't work for lining up UT and Blaster Design though. I'll look at the numbers myself, but not tonight.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

This is where you take a sudden turn into opacity. I have no idea what "raw power" or "actual value" means to you here, neither phrase makes any sense to me and they're the only explanations you've given of what you're doing here.

It seems like you're trying to assign some manner of general significance to the cube of the dice of damage, but you're not explaining exactly what significance. I suspect you're over-broadening it. Not all weapons have damage scale as the cube root of energy.

When someone mentions "abstract numbers", your first thought should not be "what units is this in?"

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

(You seem like the kind of person who might enjoy this article quite a bit. I believe we've been told that that's not exactly the official behind-the-scenes calculations but it's pretty close.)

I have actually seen that article before.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

So, two big big problems here.

One, you've changed from talking about damage to talking about DR without making any kind of transition, again.

Secondly, you slipped up on the math. Your metric was the cube of the dice of damage. If you're treating 'DR' and 'damage' as interchangeable, you should have cubed 30/3.5 and gotten 629.7.

I explicitly do not treat them as interchangeable, and note conversion factors for if you want to do so.

The damage of beam and laser weapons is equal to the cube root of the energy put in, ignoring the flat efficiency percentage.

Alternately, the energy needed for a beam or laser weapon is equal to the cube of its damage output, ignoring the flat efficiency percentage.

And I can't explain any of the rest until you stop trying to assign units to abstract numbers, and I'm too tired to explain the difference between a linear number and an exponential one.

Suffice it to say that cubing damage can get you a linear damage number that represents a real-world value about as much as dice of damage does; that is, not at all.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Ah. Perhaps this will be a better explanation.

When converting from energy in the power cell (real-world, more or less, Joules) to shots, the conversion is:

Shots = Energy / damage^3

Damage has no exact or definite real-world equivalent; it is an abstract unit.

If we have a weapon that converts the entire energy of an energy cell into damage, we can see that:

Damage = Energy^(1 / 3)

As damage is an abstract unit, the "^(1/3)" part must therefore be an abstract conversion. It would then be equally valid (presuming damage scaled in a linear fashion in GURPS), to use:

Linear Damage = Energy

We can then convert from Linear Damage to Exponential Damage as such:

Exponential Damage = Linear Damage^(1 / 3)

Or convert from Exponential Damage to Linear Damage as such:

Linear Damage = Exponential Damage^3

Therefore, it is valid to say that GURPS damage is an exponential number.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Well, Pyramid 3-37 actually tells you that the TL11 blaster has twice the efficiency of the TL 10 blaster. It's right in the shots table.

The number of shots goes up by a factor of four, but that doesn't tell us whether that's more power in the cell, a more efficient gun, or both.

UT sort of does - we know that power cells make more 'bang' when of higher TL, and we know that several higher TL energy weapons get more extra output power than can be accounted for by the more powerful cells.

It doesn't cover having half the damage at the same weight. But that would be quite easy to patch - my preferred way to put it would be that S in the empty weight calculation is 2 for 'early' weapons like TL10 blasters and maybe TL9 lasers.

If Phantasm's calculation that the thing generates the TL 10 blaster but not the TL 11 blaster is right, that won't work for lining up UT and Blaster Design though. I'll look at the numbers myself, but not tonight.

It does generate TL10 blaster cannons (and TL11 small arms). That says to me that at +1TL, they should be half the weight per unit of damage.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The number of shots goes up by a factor of four, but that doesn't tell us whether that's more power in the cell, a more efficient gun, or both.

UT sort of does - we know that power cells make more 'bang' when of higher TL, and we know that several higher TL energy weapons get more extra output power than can be accounted for by the more powerful cells.

I'm not sure what you're looking at, but yes, we do knowthat. The Shots Table plots weapon type against cell TL. The same cell gives twice as many shots for a TL11-12 blaster as for a TL10 blaster, damage being equal.

Originally Posted by Rupert

It does generate TL10 blaster cannons (and TL11 small arms). That says to me that at +1TL, they should be half the weight per unit of damage.

Wait, the TL10 cannon and the TL11 small arms are on the same performance level while the TL11 cannon is twice as powerful? That's going to be a trick to deal with.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'm not sure what you're looking at, but yes, we do knowthat. The Shots Table plots weapon type against cell TL. The same cell gives twice as many shots for a TL11-12 blaster as for a TL10 blaster, damage being equal.

Ah, my mistake - I misread the table.

Wait, the TL10 cannon and the TL11 small arms are on the same performance level while the TL11 cannon is twice as powerful? That's going to be a trick to deal with.

Not really - Blasters have a minimum TL of TL10/11*, and the note says that this means TL10 for cannon, and TL11 for small arms. So, all we need is a rule that +1 TL above minimum gets you a weapon half the weight, possibly only applying when there's a split minimum TL.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Not really - Blasters have a minimum TL of TL10/11*, and the note says that this means TL10 for cannon, and TL11 for small arms. So, all we need is a rule that +1 TL above minimum gets you a weapon half the weight, possibly only applying when there's a split minimum TL.

It also applies to lasers in UT, which don't have the same notation. Not sure whether the TL10 laser small arms and cannons have a matching problem like blasters. (Lasers possibly should have the same notation, since in UT TL9 laser small arms are chemical lasers that don't use power cells and thus don't fit the design article.)

But the bit where to me that fails to solve the problem is that having the cannon form factor is a dysfunctional distinguishing condition. If TL11 blaster cannons do twice the damage per pound of all other TL11 blasters, there's a strong case for building a 'hand cannon' that has the role and ST rating of a rifle, but is designed as a cannon. It'll be on the bulky side for a rifle (minimum bulk -6) so it won't be able to displace carbines in assault roles, but the huge damage advantage means that you'll easily get more effect for the same weight, ST requirement and cost - and get an extra 5 acc besides. As a battle/sniper rifle it will utterly crush anything actually designed as a rifle...

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

But the bit where to me that fails to solve the problem is that having the cannon form factor is a dysfunctional distinguishing condition. If TL11 blaster cannons do twice the damage per pound of all other TL11 blasters, there's a strong case for building a 'hand cannon' that has the role and ST rating of a rifle, but is designed as a cannon. It'll be on the bulky side for a rifle (minimum bulk -6) so it won't be able to displace carbines in assault roles, but the huge damage advantage means that you'll easily get more effect for the same weight, ST requirement and cost - and get an extra 5 acc besides. As a battle/sniper rifle it will utterly crush anything actually designed as a rifle...

I would assume in a more detailed and comprehensive design system that there would be a cut-off for 'cannon' vs 'small arm'.

I notice that the semi-portable blaster in UT, at 70 pounds and 12d damage does not get the 'cannon' bonus, so if we're trying to emulate UT that's a lower bound.

[Ulzgoroth]

Well at any rate there is actually an easy way to handle this in the system.

Just give weapons that you think should be disproportionately awesome, like the TL11 blaster cannon, the S=0.5 treatment in the Empty Weight calculation.

I've put together a partial spreadsheet for the system (because doing work to be lazy is a thing) and yeah, it looks like the blasters are on-model except for that one outlier as far as I've worked the math...