Some notes on Lensman for 4e

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Nor was the loss of LEP implied by what I said. I said that gray lensmen "also" have Legal Immunity.

Bill Stoddard

Lack of Legal Immunity would mean that regular Lensmen could be arrested by non-Lensmen authorities.

Since the final round of Lensmen are chosen by the infallible Arisians there don't seem to be any need to arrest them anyway.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lack of Legal Immunity would mean that regular Lensmen could be arrested by non-Lensmen authorities.

Since the final round of Lensmen are chosen by the infallible Arisians there don't seem to be any need to arrest them anyway.

Police officers in the United States don't have LI, but it's unusual for them to be arrested. And if police officers were in fact incorruptible, it would be even more unusual.

However, you could handle this by giving ordinary Lensmen the 5-point LI and Gray Lensmen a higher level.

I think most basically you need some way to define what going Unattached does for you in GURPS terms. And it doesn't seem as if it's Legal Enforcement Powers.

Bill Stoddard

[Fred Brackin]

To get around to the armor notes let's start with "space armor" or "G-P Armor". We are told in Triplanetary that such armor is "proof against rifle fire". that's probably why you don't see many rifles in the series.

I'd rate armor in both the Triplanetary and Galactic Patrol eras at about Dr 30 and call the TL9 Space Armor from UT "close enough".

In both eras the suits have screens and these appear to perform as Energy Only Cionformal Force Screens (Backpack model) from UT. In both eras the screens don't appear to increase resistance to either space axes or heavy machineguns.

The one exception to this was found in the possession of Grey Roger (Gharlane of Eddore). this seemed to be a screen of the
"Barrier" type from UT with a very small radius. It also prevented him from attacking out of the screen with physical weapons.

The DR 150 of the heavier personal screens from UT might actually be a little light. You could wear it down with a pair of what I've decided Delameters must look like in a few rounds. Higher DR or a faster recharge rate might be required.

Armor in the earlier era might not have personal flight gear. I don't think I ever saw such being used. G-P Armor definitely is flight capable and has its' own mini-Bergenhom. This makes it FTL-worthy and from times in Galactic Patrol the average speed in-system is around 4x lightspeed.

Note that if you are building G-P armor as a Gadget w/cp this is going to make it _extremely_ expensive.

There is also visual gear with an FTL speed ultrawave "spy ray" that can see through solid objects. Relatively short range fTL radios as well. Otherwise the electronics section is austere.

Of course, G-P Armor is not powered.

Late in the series space armor starts acquiring "dureum inlays" presumably as protection from dureum space axes. Aiming between these inlays appears to have been easier than standard aiming at Armor Chinks. The pick section of a space axe would get a bonus to go at Armor Chinks though. I'd styill make it at least a further 2 pts easier. Call it a net -4 with the pick instead of -6 at the Torso.

Kinnison had two special suits made. the first was in Galactic Patrol and it was proof against heavy machinegun fire. Still not powered it must have been phenomenally heavy. It was mostly flown rather than walked anywhere and appeared to have magnetic grapples rather than any sort of gaunltlets.

The second special suit was made with a dureum shell 1/4 inches thick and definitely was powered. In fact it was 2000 horsepower. This converts to 1500 KW and si such a ridiculous number in terms of battlesuit drivetrains in VE2 that said number is extremely problematic.

Although this could be taken to say something extreme about the pseudo-inertial mass of dureum. However, trying to work with objects with radically different inertial and gravitational masses males my head hurt and I'm going to ignore that part. Possilby I would go with the Hyperdense armor rules from the Ve2 Expansions.

Even considering things in universe I'd think that the pseudo-musculature of such a suit had to be made up of miniature tractor-pressor beams rather than physical motors.

The important thing would be the control system which would explain why such suits were not standard. Though it is never mentioned I believe that control must have been telepathic using technology borrowed from some of the naturally psionic races. There are rules for telepathic interfaces in Mecha.

If I bent some rules I might be able to build such a suit of armor in Ve2 though I have not done so yet.

[Fred Brackin]

Some spaceships notes, specifically using Gurps Spaceships.

The most common ship that would probably be used by PCs is the "speedster" and there is some hard data. When Nadreck is dictating the false report of his own destruction to Kandron of Onlo he lists the mass of his speedster as 4600 tons.

Unfortunately that comes out to SM+10 which is the mass of a WWII light cruiser. It also gives 60 cabins per habitat module.

Although Lensman ships do not armor themselves for space combat they do seem to be quite sturdy. Clarrissa seems to quite casually use hers as a battering ram against normal TL6 buildings.

Remembering how the eponymous first ship of the Skylark series started out with a hull made of 40 inches of battleship steel that mass figure might be possible to reconcile with a much smaller Spaceships volume.

I'm sure that normal hull material is steel but indetectable ships would use advanced alloy, specifically beryllium bronze though that probably comes out about the same as advanced aluminum alloy

Normal capacity of a long range speedster seems to be around 3-4. Specifically 2 persons can make intergalactic trips in relative comfort even when one of the persons is a 30 ft long winged snake. A Palainian in refrigerated space armor can come visit and crouch in the corner during conferences too.

This suggests something like SM+6 or 7 instead with 1 cabin, a bridge an engine room and probably something like a chartroom or other office/workspace. Maybe 2 habitats in a SM+6 ship or 1 in an SM+7.

Standard maneuvering G for Galactic Patrol ships seems to be about 5 but that might be about human capabilities. When Worsel is piloting Kinnison's speedster with Kinnison in an "acceleration pack" (womb tank?) it can do 11Gs which is a Velantian's normal limit for acceleration.

G-compensation fields do not appear at all until Children when one of the girls puts on a "g filter" when visiting Worsel on his ship.

If we go with the Hot Reactionless engine at 2Gs per slot we're going to be filling up the entire Rear section. Something better might be necessary with a simple transplant of the note about hot exhaust.

On a Vehicles scale the thrust-to-weight ration of driving jets is high. The GP doesn't appear to vector thrust so much as simply mount separate engines in every necessary aspect. Such as on Storm Cloud's original "flitter". What the GP uses flitters (and triplex bomb throwers) for when not destroying atomi9c vortices is not clear.

You can also see this when main propulsion comes out of the tail but most ships land on their "underjets" which are apparently milder and less destructive. Driving jets do have thoroughly dangerous exhaust. See the chapter in Masters of the Vortex called (ISTR) "Driving Jets are Weapons".

When it does land on it's side the Super-Dreadnaught Dauntless (Version seen in Children) is "5 city blocks long". I google the length of a city block and the America average seems to be around 100 yards.

500 yards is exactly SM+14 but it is noted that (among other shapes) "teardrops" are only 50-75% of "normal" length for Spaceships. That bumps us back up to SM+15.

This is great size is somewhat hellful as a Dauntless-class has so many guns (Primaries, secondaries, needle beams and separate tractors and pressors) that we're looking at multiple Tertiary Batteries in Spaceships terms.

To the crossover kooks, let there be no doubt that a Dauntless-class would blow starkly incredible holes through an Imperial Star Destroyer with coruscating knives, forks and spoons of of quasi-solid lightning.

We seem to need new rules for primary beams. Even the doubling of damage you get for Fusion guns compared to lasers is probably not enough.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

To the crossover kooks, let there be no doubt that a Dauntless-class would blow starkly incredible holes through an Imperial Star Destroyer with coruscating knives, forks and spoons of of quasi-solid lightning.

"Yea, the Dauntless!" thought the ROU Grey Funnel Line from half a parsec away.

We seem to need new rules for primary beams. Even the doubling of damage you get for Fusion guns compared to lasers is probably not enough.

In a completely different game system, we found one-shot "Primary" versions of energy weapons seemed about right at triple damage.