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#51 |
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Not in your time zone:D
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Does the sling material itself matter or is it just whatever is locally available?
My home brew setting is 25th century, firearms are tightly controlled, but genetically altered birds are a problem in the city and cheap food. Slings are easy to conceal; multifunctional tools. As a weapon both ranged & melee use. There are also SM+2 chimeric uplift hominids - there isn't much work for big folk so violent crime is a common life path. "What's wrong with a bit of string? It's okay, unless it's around your throat, but as a sling? When a 1 ton Fairy can chuck a honed meta-bullet 300 metres to punch through your body armour and rip your lungs out, a bit of string becomes a serious thing." Fern Ratschic, TRU-LEO, Zurich Arcology, early 25th Century. Translation by Tomei-Tok "Wir sprechen alle Sprachen"
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"Sanity is a bourgeois meme." Exegeek PS sorry I'm a Parthian shootist: shiftwork + out of country = not here when you are:/ It's all in the reflexes |
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#52 | |
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Pisa, Tuscany, Italy
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Low-density materials are default. Range x10/x15. High-density materials give +1 damage and +40% Range (+4/+6). Regarding the shape: - Unshaped: -1 to hit (or worse, if the shape is highly irregular). - Rectangular/Round/Roundish: default. - Biconical/Ovoid/Glande: +1 Acc, +20% Range (+2/+3). Let's say your PC is out of ammo and is forced to pick some steel scraps from the ground. They're made of high-density material (+1 damage, +40% Range) but they're also unshaped (-1 to hit). Then he/she would do sw+1 pi, Acc 0, Range x14/x21 at -1 to hit. If he/she uses properly shaped lead glandes instead (+1 damage, +1 Acc, +60% Range), then he/she would do sw+1 pi, Acc 1, Range x16/x24 at no penalty to hit. |
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#53 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Of course, a lighter sling is going to generally be less resilient than a heavier one. You could theoretically have a sling that's too weak and ends up taking damage in the process of accelerating the projectile, eventually breaking, but again, that's probably generally below system resolution. Overall, I'd say that, generally speaking, the material of the sling probably doesn't make much difference, so long as you aren't using something that won't really work for a sling anyway. If you intend to use the sling in melee - as an improvised flail (put a projectile in and don't release it, just club people over the head with it) or as a rope garrote - then the material probably matters a bit more, mostly just for answering the question "does it break?" The material of the shot, however, is important. Rasna's guidelines look good to me there, but I'm hardly an expert.
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#54 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Also, as with throwing things, too light and the velocity is capped by how fast your muscles can work. On top of this, a lighter projectile will (all else equal) slow down faster and have less range than a heavier one, and have less momentum for the same energy (which is relevant for penetration at low velocities). However, for the same energy the heavier projectile will be slower, and thus have a more curved trajectory and take longer to arrive at the target, making it harder to land hits. Also, if the projectile is too heavy it will affect the efficiency of the slinger's muscles, reducing the energy available to put into it. Overall, there'll be a 'sweet spot' for projectile weight (and we can assume that ancient sling users found it, and used it). Quote:
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#55 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Neither is precisely true.
The ratio of projectile weight to sling weight determines what percentage of the energy input to the sling winds up in the projectile. The total weight of the sling plus projectile weight (and the strength of the wielder) determines how much energy actually can be put into the sling. This is highly nonlinear (up to a certain point energy keeps going up, but the point at which the energy gain isn't as valuable as the loss in velocity and accuracy is far lower than that point). |
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#56 | |
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Pisa, Tuscany, Italy
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Bows are already more accurate than slings in GURPS rules and I'm fine with that. If you use rules from Low-Tech and #34 A Deadly Spring, war bows have on average Acc 2 and being an [A] skill means that with the same points of a Bow skill you're at +1 to hit compared to the same points of a [H] Sling skill. So if your PC is a bowman having the same skill points of a slinger and taking Aim, he/she is at +2/+3 to hit compared to the slinger. Also, bows and arrows can be of Fine Quality, giving an additional +1 to Acc (I don't think that even the better manifactured slings and slingshots would qualify to give +1 Acc, +1 Acc for slingshots is for beign of a particular shape and it can't be improved further). |
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#57 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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In LT Slings are Acc 0 and lead bullets don't change that. Unshaped stones give -1 to hit. Thus you're giving +1 Acc to slings when using properly made ammo.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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#58 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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My post was in response to a question about sling material. Basically, lighter sling, heavier projectile, is what you want.
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#59 | |
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Pisa, Tuscany, Italy
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I still prefer my HR because better range adjustment and more granularity. But of course that is a matter of personal preference, not being "less or more right". |
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#60 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Given the logistical advantages of the slings, however, I think they would ultimately be preferable to bows, but it's close enough to go either way.
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sling, training |
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