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Old 03-23-2021, 12:16 AM   #1
Greg 1
 
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Default High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

The guns in High-Tech assume a user with human level size and strength. But in some worlds, gun-using races might not fit that profile. An Ogre might be a lot bigger and stronger than a human and a Pixie a lot smaller and weaker.

I have two questions.

1. How would you scale firearm stats if they were to be manufactured for creatures with a higher or lower size and strength?

2. If the only firearms available are made for human size and strength, how might creatures of non-human size and strength adapt to best make use of them?
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Old 03-23-2021, 12:59 AM   #2
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

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Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
2. If the only firearms available are made for human size and strength, how might creatures of non-human size and strength adapt to best make use of them?
Some guns should be fairly easy to modify for big hands, such as the spade trigger on medium and heavy machine guns. I selected the scale of trolls in one of my fantasy settings to make hip-firing an M2HB practical.
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Old 03-23-2021, 01:12 AM   #3
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
The guns in High-Tech assume a user with human level size and strength. But in some worlds, gun-using races might not fit that profile. An Ogre might be a lot bigger and stronger than a human and a Pixie a lot smaller and weaker.

I have two questions.

1. How would you scale firearm stats if they were to be manufactured for creatures with a higher or lower size and strength?

2. If the only firearms available are made for human size and strength, how might creatures of non-human size and strength adapt to best make use of them?
One not very detailed approach would be to take existing weapons that have higher and lower MinST stats and treat them as if they were hand held weapons for users with those higher and lower ST and Size to carry them as if they were human sized rifles, pistols etc.

On the larger size/ST this is going to involve taking support weapons and giving them stuff like shoulder stocks (if they don't already have them) and triggers and grips large enough for the user. You can probably add oversize box magazines because weight will be less of an issue. The box and drum magazine rules in HT can probably be scaled up for this without much issue.

The customisation rules in Tactical shooting will also help or be a guide to other changes

Problem with this idea is there will be more options for larger users than smaller ones (smaller users will be limited to the smaller existing calibres). I guess you could write up a SMGs/rifles based on the smaller derringer rounds in adventure guns and Pulp guns vol 1 using the customisation rules in Tactical shooting.

I touched on this scaling idea here (thread's about the Desert eagle and recoil really so that is mentioned a lot)
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Last edited by Tomsdad; 03-23-2021 at 07:37 AM. Reason: linked wrong post from old thread
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Old 03-23-2021, 02:57 AM   #4
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
The guns in High-Tech assume a user with human level size and strength. But in some worlds, gun-using races might not fit that profile. An Ogre might be a lot bigger and stronger than a human and a Pixie a lot smaller and weaker.

I have two questions.

1. How would you scale firearm stats if they were to be manufactured for creatures with a higher or lower size and strength?

2. If the only firearms available are made for human size and strength, how might creatures of non-human size and strength adapt to best make use of them?
Realistically, adapting a firearm for a smaller creature calls for a caliber change - a Colt 1911 sized for somebody of SM -2 or -3 might have to fire something that seldom warrants 1d-1 pi-! After all, the bullet's size, mass and speed make up the Damage statistic. On the bright side, ST statistic would be like a toy's, about 6 maybe.

Adapting a firearm for a larger creature is easier, indeed many firearms are already large enough to be comfortable for SM+1 person, such as larger bulk handguns. Otherwise it is simply the question of extending the grip, widening trigger guard and adding some larger controls to permit comfortable operation. A Desert Eagle is akin to a Holdout pistol for SM+2 ogre! No ST changes would be necessary here.

Manufacturing a fully custom firearm for an ogre... Take Desert Eagle or another large handgun and compare it to something average like Beretta 92. Calculate differnces between them, then apply said differences to the desert eagle to get something even bigger. Damage and Range though will come from Caliber chosen, and that is totally up to the task the firearm is made of or personal preference. Though larger, heavier handguns can often argue for reduced recoil, so taking advantage of that with a powerful caliber is often a no-brainer.
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Old 03-23-2021, 07:35 AM   #5
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

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Originally Posted by MrFix View Post
Realistically, adapting a firearm for a smaller creature calls for a caliber change - a Colt 1911 sized for somebody of SM -2 or -3 might have to fire something that seldom warrants 1d-1 pi-! After all, the bullet's size, mass and speed make up the Damage statistic. On the bright side, ST statistic would be like a toy's, about 6 maybe.

Adapting a firearm for a larger creature is easier, indeed many firearms are already large enough to be comfortable for SM+1 person, such as larger bulk handguns. Otherwise it is simply the question of extending the grip, widening trigger guard and adding some larger controls to permit comfortable operation. A Desert Eagle is akin to a Holdout pistol for SM+2 ogre! No ST changes would be necessary here.

Manufacturing a fully custom firearm for an ogre... Take Desert Eagle or another large handgun and compare it to something average like Beretta 92. Calculate differnces between them, then apply said differences to the desert eagle to get something even bigger. Damage and Range though will come from Caliber chosen, and that is totally up to the task the firearm is made of or personal preference. Though larger, heavier handguns can often argue for reduced recoil, so taking advantage of that with a powerful caliber is often a no-brainer.
I saw you've been working some gun customisation rules, would they work here?
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Old 03-23-2021, 07:44 AM   #6
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

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Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post

1. How would you scale firearm stats if they were to be manufactured for creatures with a higher or lower size and strength?

2. If the only firearms available are made for human size and strength, how might creatures of non-human size and strength adapt to best make use of them?
1. I mostly wouldn't. A .45 ACP scaled for a race half-human size is a .22 Short rather than a .45 ACP modifed by a mathematical formula.

2. Take a hman-sized caliber and fire it from a gun scaled to the race. Pixies shoot .25 ACP out of teeny tiny "elelphant guns" but probably use them on rats. Ogres use a Barrett as an assault rifle and so on.
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Old 03-23-2021, 08:47 AM   #7
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

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Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
1. How would you scale firearm stats if they were to be manufactured for creatures with a higher or lower size and strength?
Remembering from the weapon design system from GURPS Classic: Vehicles, I believe firearm weight scales with the square of caliber, while damage scales linearly with caliber (note lower-caliber rounds are also lower-power, due to lower mass of projectile and propellant). Roughly speaking, MinST scales with the square root of weight (due to interactions with BL). This should work out fairly simply - a weapon scaled down to 1/2 ST would have 1/2 caliber, weigh 1/4 as much, and deal 1/2 damage, while one scaled up to double ST would have 2x caliber, weigh 4x as much, and deal 2x damage. These would also be around half and double the length, respectively, scaling to creature size pretty readily, provided your creatures have the expected ST of their size. Small weapons will be relatively thick, and large ones relatively thin, compared to the human base, so with really small creatures you can probably get to a point where the weapon simply becomes too bulky (at which point you may want to lower the relative power, allowing for a thinner barrel, and make up for this by making the barrel longer).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
2. If the only firearms available are made for human size and strength, how might creatures of non-human size and strength adapt to best make use of them?
Assuming they are capable of doing modifications to the firearms (or get humans to) but can't produce their own (or get humans to), they'd need to choose weapons that are already usable at their ST and modify the grips and trigger assemblies to work for their size. Some sizes just won't work, of course - an SM -8 pixie probably can't use even a kolibri pistol (or would need to use it as a stationary cannon), for example.
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Old 03-23-2021, 09:15 AM   #8
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Remembering from the weapon design system from GURPS Classic: Vehicles, I believe firearm weight scales with the square of caliber, while damage scales linearly with caliber (note lower-caliber rounds are also lower-power, due to lower mass of projectile and propellant). Roughly speaking, MinST scales with the square root of weight (due to interactions with BL). This should work out fairly simply - a weapon scaled down to 1/2 ST would have 1/2 caliber, weigh 1/4 as much, and deal 1/2 damage, while one scaled up to double ST would have 2x caliber, weigh 4x as much, and deal 2x damage. These would also be around half and double the length, respectively, scaling to creature size pretty readily, provided your creatures have the expected ST of their size. Small weapons will be relatively thick, and large ones relatively thin, compared to the human base, so with really small creatures you can probably get to a point where the weapon simply becomes too bulky (at which point you may want to lower the relative power, allowing for a thinner barrel, and make up for this by making the barrel longer).

Barrel length is its own statistic in the weapons design system from 3e vehicles. Longer weapons do more damage, though its slower progression than linear...I suspect its a square root relationship, but I haven't checked the math.



That brings up the weapons system in vehicles, which is probably a pretty good reference here. Its mostly applicable to 4e.



Also, Pyramid 3/37 has Blaster and Laser design, which is a design system for beam weapons in 4e. If you are working with ultra-tech beam weapons, then you can make custom arms for your aliens using that.
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Old 03-23-2021, 09:22 AM   #9
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

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Barrel length is its own statistic in the weapons design system from 3e vehicles. Longer weapons do more damage,
.
Note that length category (i.e. Short, etc) is relative to diameter of the projectile (caliber) so if you are scaling a gun to half the caliber but scaling it down in length by the same factor. So damage will scale linearly if you are keeping the relative barrel length the same.
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Old 03-23-2021, 09:48 AM   #10
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Default Re: High-Tech Guns and Non-Human Size and Strength

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Barrel length is its own statistic in the weapons design system from 3e vehicles. Longer weapons do more damage, though its slower progression than linear...I suspect its a square root relationship, but I haven't checked the math.
So long as you are measuring length in calibers (so a 22 inch barrel on a .22" caliber weapon is 100 calibers long), it works out to be roughly linear. I think the rounds actually get heavier for longer barrels in that system, representing more propellant (that burns slower - basically a very short and very long barrel, all else being equal, have the same peak pressure but the longer barrels maintain that longer). I have a simplified version of the system I made for my own use on a harddrive somewhere, but I felt it was too close to the original to post. A lot of the simplification was actually just tossing in some constants and replacing lookups with numerical entries - instead of looking up the multiplier for length, you simply multiply by the length in calibers, for example.
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