Farscape, blasters, and chakan oil

[DemiBenson]

I’m rewatching Farscape -it’s one of my favorite shows.

Since I was already working up a new space opera setting, now I’m wondering how to incorporate something like Farscape’s pulse weapons that use chakan oil as ammunition. Pulse weapons are Farscape’s version of blasters.

For those who no longer remember, or never watched the series, chakan oil is said to be the ammunition that powers pulse weapons. It’s made from refining the tannot-root plant. The oil itself is explosive - think of it as space opera nitroglycerin.
Meaning that high tech is not necessarily needed to make (rough, low-quality) ammo for the ubiquitous pulse weapons.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Chakan oil reservoir is the magazine.
• The amount of oil used should scale with the damage the weapon does.
• I’m not sure whether they also need a power cell. I can envision at least one way that the chakan oil is used directly to power the weapon, fire the weapon, and send a charge of chakan oil down the barrel.

Keeping in mind that it’s Space Opera and realism can be fudged a bit, does anyone have suggestions for how to modify the UT blasters rules to accommodate this?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

If I'm understanding this correctly, it sounds like the main difference is that damage to the magazine can go for very poorly for the wielder.

If the user can adjust the amount of oil used in a specific shot, I'd let them take a Ready maneuver to effectively dial the weapon between regular, conservation, and one or more "hot shot" settings, with the latter increasing the ammo expended and chance of potentially catastrophic malfunction of course.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

If I'm understanding this correctly, it sounds like the main difference is that damage to the magazine can go for very poorly for the wielder.

If the user can adjust the amount of oil used in a specific shot, I'd let them take a Ready maneuver to effectively dial the weapon between regular, conservation, and one or more "hot shot" settings, with the latter increasing the ammo expended and chance of potentially catastrophic malfunction of course.

I like it. Thanks!
I may have to come up with more than one hot-shot setting (with increasingly dangerous malfunctions).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

I like it. Thanks!
I may have to come up with more than one hot-shot setting (with increasingly dangerous malfunctions).

Spaceships has beam weapons like blasters scaling their energy roughly with the cube of damage - or more specifically, every +3 steps on the Size and Speed/Range Table (SSR; +3 SSR per step is x3, x10, x30, x100, etc per step) to energy results in +1 SSR to damage (x1.5, x2, x3, x5, etc*). With constant efficiency, that means every +1 SSR to damage is -3 SSR (x1/3, x1/10, x1/30, x1/100, etc) to the number of shots a canister can produce - but above whatever the weapon is optimized for, you're probably going to see some efficiency losses, so -4 SSR (x1/5, x1/20, x1/100, x1/500, etc) may not be inappropriate (but you'll still want to use +3 SSR to number of shots per -1 SSR damage unless the weapons are actually more efficient when underpowered; note you could be justified in having it be only +2 SSR - x2, x5, x10, etc - to shots per -1 SSR to damage if the weapon only has a narrow range of maximum efficiency and going outside of this in either direction reduces the efficiency). For Malf, my inclination would be -2 to Malf per +1 SSR to damage - if your starting weapon has Malf 17, you're at Malf 15 at x1.5 damage, Malf 13 at x2, Malf 11 at x3, etc. For half steps (for -1 to Malf per step), that would be -1 at x1.2, -2 at x1.5, -3 at x1.7, -4 at x2, -5 at x2.5, -6 at x3, -7 at x4, -8 at x5, etc. Weapons that are "Very Reliable" (won't malfunction unless Malf is reduced) should probably be treated as Malf 18 for the math here (so such a weapon handles hot shots a bit better). You may also have some weapons that are overengineered or by default underpowered such that they can increase a step or more from their default damage without any Malf reduction.

*Spaceships actually uses a slightly-modified version of SSR here - instead of 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, it favors 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 20, but I think that's largely aesthetics (the above are 2d, 3d, 4d, 6d, 8d, 6dx2, and 2dx10, respectively, probably because GURPS authors apparently hate the numbers 7 and 15 - although I will admit 15d would be a handful to try to roll).

[Kallatari]

For what it's worth, the d20 Farscape Game (from AEG) has the following:

Power Packs: Power packs are energy chargers, used to fuel blaster weapons. Peacekeeper power packs are derived from an extract of chakan oil; other weapons use different forms of energy.

Pulse Blaster, Heavy: 3d10, capable of burstfire and autofire. Power Pack: 50 shots

Pulse Blaster, Palm: 3d4, power pack: 5 shots

Pulse Blaster, Pistol: 3d6. Power pack: 25 shots

Pulse Blaster, Rifle: 3d8, burstfire and autofire. Power Pack: 50 shots

So it appears to just be a variant of what GURPS would call a power cell, that likely comes in different sizes for different weapons.


I couldn't find anything in the d20 rule set about changing the power of a given shot for a less damaging or more damaging attack.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

I couldn't find anything in the d20 rule set about changing the power of a given shot for a less damaging or more damaging attack.

If you want to allow it while also accounting for it never being seen, either make it require a non-trivial modification to the weapon (can't be done at the flick of a switch), or introduce some downside that discourages routine use. Perhaps the standard charge is at a subjective sweet spot between inefficient underpowered shots (damage drops off faster than linear) and risky overpowered shots (Malf worsens, and an 18 is a weapon explosion).

[Varyon]

The quick-and-dirty method would be to simply state the blasters use chakan oil canisters rather than generic powercells, but leave the stats the same - that is, a chakan oil canister that weighs (and costs) as much as a C cell will power a blaster for just as long as a C cell would. You'd probably want use the stats for a nonrechargeable power cell here, however (so twice as many shots as the table lists, as it assumes rechargeable ones). For the canister itself, you could say it actually consists of both a reservoir of chakan oil and a small integrated power cell that powers the weapon (via igniting the oil). Alternatively, if the weapons have recoil, maybe they have an integrated capacitor that holds enough charge for a shot and bleeds a bit of the recoil off to recharge itself (akin to a modern firearm using the recoil from the shot to eject the spent casing and load the next round). In that latter case, you could also have cheaper models that have leaky capacitors - if it hasn't been fired for a few minutes, you have to manually work the mechanism to recharge it (this would also be necessary in the case of a failure-to-fire malfunction; some models might have a larger capacitor such that you'd need several such malfunctions in a row before it would be drained).

The fact your power cells are now Volatile Systems (to use Spaceships terminology) might justify higher energy capacity, although by default UT just has Exploding Power Cells as a setting switch with no impact on capacity. I think HEDM is treated as having around twice the energy of more stable fuels in Spaceships, so another doubling may be in order.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The quick-and-dirty method would be to simply state the blasters use chakan oil canisters rather than generic powercells, but leave the stats the same - that is, a chakan oil canister that weighs (and costs) as much as a C cell will power a blaster for just as long as a C cell would. You'd probably want use the stats for a nonrechargeable power cell here, however (so twice as many shots as the table lists, as it assumes rechargeable ones). For the canister itself, you could say it actually consists of both a reservoir of chakan oil and a small integrated power cell that powers the weapon (via igniting the oil). Alternatively, if the weapons have recoil, maybe they have an integrated capacitor that holds enough charge for a shot and bleeds a bit of the recoil off to recharge itself (akin to a modern firearm using the recoil from the shot to eject the spent casing and load the next round). In that latter case, you could also have cheaper models that have leaky capacitors - if it hasn't been fired for a few minutes, you have to manually work the mechanism to recharge it (this would also be necessary in the case of a failure-to-fire malfunction; some models might have a larger capacitor such that you'd need several such malfunctions in a row before it would be drained).

I do want them to have recoil, so weapons would have a recoil system to charge the internal capacitor, and I like your ideas for failures and external charging.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

[*]Chakan oil reservoir is the magazine.

Yes. Each "dose" of Chakan oil counts one shot.

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

[*]The amount of oil used should scale with the damage the weapon does.

Yes, but there might be a slight delay between shots if you need to recharge a large reservoir unless the reservoir itself is under pressure, maybe something like 1 sec. per charge. Of course, military-grade weapons, like the Peacekeepers use, are always going to have pressurized reservoirs, possibly allowing RoF >1. Maximum power the weapon can produce is limited by reservoir size, which is a function of mass and Bulk. Holdout-style weapons, with smaller reservoir capacity have lower maximum damage.

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

[*]I’m not sure whether they also need a power cell. I can envision at least one way that the chakan oil is used directly to power the weapon, fire the weapon, and send a charge of chakan oil down the barrel.

If they do need a power cell it's likely to be nothing more than a spark-igniter, good for thousands of charges.

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

Keeping in mind that it’s Space Opera and realism can be fudged a bit, does anyone have suggestions for how to modify the UT blasters rules to accommodate this?

Lasers (straight burn damage), particle beams (for burn sur damage) or antiparticle beam weapons (for cr ex) are the basis for any modifications. Stats are typically identical except for damage, armor divisor and range.

Also take a look at the the Liquid Propellant Slugthrowers (UT, p. 139) for how a liquid propellant system might work. For larger weapons, perhaps use rules for breaching flamethrower tanks if the reservoir ruptures, treating each "shot" left in the reservoir as a some fraction of 1 lb. of TNG (6d x 6 cr ex).

Edit: Hotshotting rules should only apply if you've enlarged the chamber or otherwise modified it to increase oil capacity beyond what the gun was designed to do. Hotshotting rules shouldn't apply to normal maximum damage setting.

Cheaper guns might have slower reservoir recharge time (reduced RoF), reduced reservoir pressure (lower damage) or fewer pressure settings (so less control over exact damage done). Peacekeeper and similar high-quality weapons would have no such problems.