Dodging Laser fire?

[Natasha]

A constant swing is a form of lead. It is called the Tracking Method and for referance can be found on page 10-10 of the USMC-MCRP 3-01A Rifle Marksmanship manual. This is LEADING the target.

This is semantics. We're talking about keeping the gun sights on the target as it moves. There is no time lag between shooting and striking.

Acctually, people started talking aboutthat AFTER I pointed out that one had to lead a moving target. That said, if you are going to talk about shooting with authority then use proper terms.

I'm using proper terms. With a laser rifle there is no need to lead the target, you just need keep your gunsight on the target. Whatever is under the aimpoint when the trigger is depressed will get hit (a successful strike roll means the shooter got what he wanted under the aimpoint).

[

Edit:
Furthermore, if the person reacts to the percieved danger ( a dodge) and jerks back, falls down or makes any other change to their movement in that .08 seconds ( which is as I said really fast, probably jerky movment) then the tracking method is going to produce a miss.

I see no compelling reason why a standard shot at center mass shot (or even a called shot) should be dodged since the gunsight is moving with the target, there's no lag anywhere in the sequence or the system. Gun movement while depressing the trigger on a laser rifle isn't going to affect the weapon's accuracy unlike with normal weapons since the bullet has to travel the barrel. In other words, your 0.08 seconds is irrelevant.

No it does matter. I really don't understand the problem here. If a target alters its movment enough in the time it takes to make the disicion to fire and to fire, then one is going to miss,

Can you swivel your shoulders and twitch your finger at the same time you make a decision? If you can, then there's no time lag with laser weapons.

Difficulty of strike is built into the attacker's roll in combat, including modifiers for called shots and moving targets. The defense is always a reaction to the attack in Palladium and since Palladium has provided us a situation that can't be resolved with the rules we're left with a matter of personal choice about reality and how normative it is in our games.

And what makes you think gun movement isn't going to affect a lasers accuracy, nothing could be further from the truth, the virtually instant travel time of a laser will amplify the inaccuracy of sloppy marksmanship. A minute jerk from a hasitly jerked trigger will instantly be translated into a change in the path of the beam.

Yep. That's why we have dice and why we roll them to see if our strike attempts are successful or not.

[Elthbert]

A constant swing is a form of lead. It is called the Tracking Method and for referance can be found on page 10-10 of the USMC-MCRP 3-01A Rifle Marksmanship manual. This is LEADING the target.

This is semantics. We're talking about keeping the gun sights on the target as it moves. There is no time lag between shooting and striking.

Acctually, people started talking aboutthat AFTER I pointed out that one had to lead a moving

target. That said, if you are going to talk about shooting with authority then use proper terms.

I'm using proper terms. With a laser rifle there is no need to lead the target, you just need keep your gunsight on the target. Whatever is under the aimpoint when the trigger is depressed will get hit (a successful strike roll means the shooter got what he wanted under the aimpoint)..

No your not, Tracking is a form of lead. That is simply a fact.

[

Edit:
Furthermore, if the person reacts to the percieved danger ( a dodge) and jerks back, falls down or makes any other change to their movement in that .08 seconds ( which is as I said really fast, probably jerky movment) then the tracking method is going to produce a miss.

I see no compelling reason why a standard shot at center mass shot (or even a called shot) should be dodged since the gunsight is moving with the target, there's no lag anywhere in the sequence or the system. Gun movement while depressing the trigger on a laser rifle isn't going to affect the weapon's accuracy unlike with normal weapons since the bullet has to travel the barrel. In other words, your 0.08 seconds is irrelevant.

No it does matter. I really don't understand the problem here. If a target alters its movment enough in the time it takes to make the disicion to fire and to fire, then one is going to miss,

Can you swivel your shoulders and twitch your finger at the same time you make a decision? If you can, then there's no time lag with laser weapons.

Difficulty of strike is built into the attacker's roll in combat, including modifiers for called shots and moving targets. The defense is always a reaction to the attack in Palladium and since Palladium has provided us a situation that can't be resolved with the rules we're left with a matter of personal choice about reality and how normative it is in our games.

You can't not in the way you are implying, if if you are tracking the movment of a target ( and actually being closer is not an advantage in this situation) and the target changes movment while you are preparing the shot, you might miss, if they change movment enough in the time it takes for your body and weapon to react to your brains command to fire, you will miss regardless of the speed of the projectile ( yes even a laser beam is a projectile). And of course technically there is a time lag on lasers, just at infantry ranges and speeds the lag is inconsequential.

And what makes you think gun movement isn't going to affect a lasers accuracy, nothing could be further from the truth, the virtually instant travel time of a laser will amplify the inaccuracy of sloppy marksmanship. A minute jerk from a hasitly jerked trigger will instantly be translated into a change in the path of the beam.

Yep. That's why we have dice and why we roll them to see if our strike attempts are successful or not.

and thats why the target has dice also.

and

[Elthbert]

No your not, Tracking is a form of lead. That is simply a fact.

Actually it isn't, I showed you it wasn't, and you're still preaching fiction as fact.

Yes it is. And you are notably not quoting the entire section. Regardless you and I are not going to agree on this issue.

[Crazy Lou]

Why are lasers special in all of this? Human reaction time isn't great enough to discern the vast speed difference between light, and other very very fast things - like ramjets, rail guns, other energy weapons, etc. To our fleshy sensory processing systems they're all off the chart and unmeasurably fast. Recoil should in no way help someone dodge; it might make the shooter miss with his next shot though.

I was going to mention this next too. IF you treat the dodge timing as per the rules as requiring the attack to already be finished before a dodge may be attempted (and I'll get to this in a future post), then how do you explain allowing your players to dodge all the other types of firearms (and I'm not even saying just MD weapons, but even old school SDC ones like exist now!)??? There's no logical reason why you would draw the line at lasers, because, as has been noted repeatedly, the difference in the speed of a laser compared to a bullet or ion blast, while technically huge, is utterly insignificant to human (even juicer) perception!

This is the absolute last time I will answer this question because I have answered it multiple times before: as written, every single one of those weapons has recoil. Rail guns, as they are written, produce enormous recoil. Plasma weapons shoot semi-solid substances and produce recoil, akin to spitting fireballs. Ion weapons, as described in Underseas, produce recoil. Recoil affects the aim in such a manner as that someone can miss when pulling the trigger to such an extent that the movements of the target can factor more effectively into the attack and therefore allow the defender a chance at defending himself to a greater degree. Laser weapons, as written, do not provide for this as they have no recoil and absolutely no time delay from pull to hit.

Dude, you're contradicting yourself. You say that all the weight is on the shooter to mess up when shooting with a laser because the "projectile" (laser beam) is too fast to be dodged. But then you're saying that because slug throwers have recoil that suddenly the fact that the projectile is effectively just as fast to a human, augmented or not, doesn't matter, and that now you're allowed to try to dodge. According to your reasoning about lasers, the weight should still be entirely on the shooter to miss with a slug thrower with recoil, and the target still shouldn't get a dodge. Just because recoil makes it harder to hit something doesn't give the advantage to th player, it ought to give a penalty to the shooter, according to your logic.

[Natasha]

You can't not in the way you are implying, if if you are tracking the movment of a target ( and actually being closer is not an advantage in this situation) and the target changes movment while you are preparing the shot, you might miss, if they change movment enough in the time it takes for your body and weapon to react to your brains command to fire, you will miss regardless of the speed of the projectile ( yes even a laser beam is a projectile). And of course technically there is a time lag on lasers, just at infantry ranges and speeds the lag is inconsequential.

This is covered on page 361 of Rifts: Ultimate Edition for shooting moving/evasive targets. The penalty is applied to the strike roll.

A defender can only dodge after a success roll to strike.

This combines to mean that dodge has no affect on the strike roll.

and thats why the target has dice also.

And he only gets to use them when there has been a successful strike roll.

Here's the problem. Dodging is only possible if the roll to strike is a successful one. A dodge (page 340 and 345) is physically moving out of the way of the attack. So if a laser is indeed instant, then how can it be dodged? The problem is that rules set up a contradiction that we must answer and our answer is based on our playstyle, and our playstyle is based on how normative reality is. If you want to allow a character to dodge instant effects, that's fine, but I don't see any logical reason to allow it.

[Crazy Lou]

Why are lasers special in all of this? Human reaction time isn't great enough to discern the vast speed difference between light, and other very very fast things - like ramjets, rail guns, other energy weapons, etc. To our fleshy sensory processing systems they're all off the chart and unmeasurably fast. Recoil should in no way help someone dodge; it might make the shooter miss with his next shot though.

I was going to mention this next too. IF you treat the dodge timing as per the rules as requiring the attack to already be finished before a dodge may be attempted (and I'll get to this in a future post), then how do you explain allowing your players to dodge all the other types of firearms (and I'm not even saying just MD weapons, but even old school SDC ones like exist now!)??? There's no logical reason why you would draw the line at lasers, because, as has been noted repeatedly, the difference in the speed of a laser compared to a bullet or ion blast, while technically huge, is utterly insignificant to human (even juicer) perception!

This is the absolute last time I will answer this question because I have answered it multiple times before: as written, every single one of those weapons has recoil. Rail guns, as they are written, produce enormous recoil. Plasma weapons shoot semi-solid substances and produce recoil, akin to spitting fireballs. Ion weapons, as described in Underseas, produce recoil. Recoil affects the aim in such a manner as that someone can miss when pulling the trigger to such an extent that the movements of the target can factor more effectively into the attack and therefore allow the defender a chance at defending himself to a greater degree. Laser weapons, as written, do not provide for this as they have no recoil and absolutely no time delay from pull to hit.

Dude, you're contradicting yourself. You say that all the weight is on the shooter to mess up when shooting with a laser because the "projectile" (laser beam) is too fast to be dodged. But then you're saying that because slug throwers have recoil that suddenly the fact that the projectile is effectively just as fast to a human, augmented or not, doesn't matter, and that now you're allowed to try to dodge. According to your reasoning about lasers, the weight should still be entirely on the shooter to miss with a slug thrower with recoil, and the target still shouldn't get a dodge. Just because recoil makes it harder to hit something doesn't give the advantage to th player, it ought to give a penalty to the shooter, according to your logic.

At what point in time did I say projectile speed was affecting the strike when dealing with weapons with recoil. Show me. I dare you, hell I even double dog dare you to show me exactly where I said that the speed of the projectile being fired was altered because of recoil. Recoil is the weapon working against the shooter due to Newton's First Law. Accuracy and chances to hit are reduced because you are no longer just aiming at a target, now you're compensating for your own weapon working against you as well as your target moving.

First of all, recoil is a result of Newton's Third Law, not the First law. The first law is inertia -- an object in motion will remain in motion, etc. The Third Law is the whole "equal and opposite reaction" thing with momentum (aka linear conservation of momentum). This isn't the main point, but I felt that you would like to know.

Secondly: Read more closely. I never made any claim about you saying that recoil affects the speed of projectile. What I said, is that both rail guns and lasers are so fast that you can't dodge them once the trigger has been used and the projectile is engaged to leave the firearm. Then I said that you are saying recoil means that the target now magically has a chance to dodge even though the speed is the same (i believe that is the part you mis-read). While with lasers you maintain that they are too fast to dodge, no matter what, with something (a rail gun) that might as well be just as fast, compared to a human, recoil suddenly shifts some responsibility to defend oneself onto the target. With lasers you claim that all the responsibility/weight of the target being hit is on the attacker because they're too fast to be dodged. Therefore, because velocity of the projectile is your reasoning that responsibility rests on the shooter to hit the target, then the effect of the recoil should not offer an opportunity to dodge either (according to your own reasoning anyway). What it SHOULD do is inflict a penalty to strike upon the shooter. Thus I say (and I am entirely correct) that you have contradicted yourself.

You disagree with your own reasoning, citing recoil as the reason. But recoil doesn't have anything to do with the target. The target doesn't have more time to try to dodge, so there's no reason that your rule about lasers shouldn't apply to all firearms. However, to account for recoil, there should instead, in your system, be penalties to strike inflicted on the shooter, proportional to the degree of recoil and the setting (single shot, short burst, long burst, or full clip) of the weapon.

[Natasha]

First of all, recoil is a result of Newton's Third Law, not the First law. The first law is inertia -- an object in motion will remain in motion, etc. The Third Law is the whole "equal and opposite reaction" thing with momentum (aka linear conservation of momentum). This isn't the main point, but I felt that you would like to know.

Re-read what Alejandro said about recoil working on the shooter.

[Crazy Lou]

And Natasha made the point before I could reply to your incorrect application of Newton's Laws.

Just to be sure. I did. That wasn't very helpful of course, as you might as well have just asked that I check what you said instead. So I did. Here it is:

Recoil is the weapon working against the shooter due to Newton's First Law.

Ok. I have now re-read it. And it is still, as you so very ably put it regarding another topic, "100%, unequivocally, WRONG."

The Newton's first law of motion is the law of inertia, aka the law of conservation of momentum. This basically says that any object which is moving will continue moving exactly as it currently is until acted upon by an outside force. Additionally, any object which is not moving will want to remain in that state (rest) until acted upon by an outisde force. This is not what you are talking about in the case of recoil.

Recoil is a textbook example of Newton's THIRD law. This law is also commonly referred to when someone says "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This is also pretty much exactly what this law says. In the case of recoil, the "action" is the propulsion of the bullet or other projectile forward towards the target. The "equal and opposite reaction" in this case is the gun, and thus also the person holding the gun jerking backwards with momentum of magnitude equal to the that of the fired projectile, but in the exactly parallel, and negative direction of the projectile. The velocity is not equal because the gun and person holding it have SIGNIFICANTLY MORE mass than the fired projectile.

Momentum, P, is equal to the product of a mass and its velocity, or P=mv. Because the initial momentum of the system (the gun, bullet, and person) is equal to zero before the gun is fired, the total momentum (momentum is a vector and thus has direction) must also be zero, because momentum is conserved. (Yes, I know that this is basically what the first law says too, but I will explain why I am distinguishing in a moment). Thus momentum of the bullet must be "counteracted," so to speak, by the
equal magnitude and opposite direction of the recoil experience by the gun and shooter.

All of Newton's laws can effectively be taken to say the same thing, just rearranged in different ways to say it, but if you ask anyone who knows anything about physics whether recoil in a gun is an example of Newtons first law or his third law, he will tell you the third law every time. This is why I said that you were wrong about the law.

I did not want to go into an explanation like this as it is lengthy and not very interesting, but I was somewhat offended (and it is generally very hard to offend me) at the suggestion that I had not read what you said or that my physics was incorrect when neither could be further from the truth. As such I felt I had to clarify the state of things and defend myself.

[Natasha]

And Natasha made the point before I could reply to your incorrect application of Newton's Laws.

Just to be sure. I did. That wasn't very helpful of course, as you might as well have just asked that I check what you said instead. So I did. Here it is:

Recoil is the weapon working against the shooter due to Newton's First Law.

Ok. I have now re-read it. And it is still, as you so very ably put it regarding another topic, "100%, unequivocally, WRONG."

The Newton's first law of motion is the law of inertia, aka the law of conservation of momentum. This basically says that any object which is moving will continue moving exactly as it currently is until acted upon by an outside force. Additionally, any object which is not moving will want to remain in that state (rest) until acted upon by an outisde force. This is not what you are talking about in the case of recoil.

I'm not going to speak for him but this is what I took from what he said.

When you're dealing with a weapon that produces recoil, the shooter has to compensate otherwise bad things can happen to the shooter besides horribly missing the target.

If the rifle butt is not firm against the shoulder or awkwardly placed against the clavicle or any other problems. That means you have to have hold the gun in a very specific way to get an accurate shot.

People do have a tendency to compensate for the impending recoil just before the trigger is pulled. They push their shoulder forward, they push the barrel of the gun down, they jerk the trigger, whatever. All of these actions spoil the accuracy of the shot. It this anticipation of the Newton's First Law that causes many shooters to shoot inaccurately. I see the bonuses that come with Weapon Proficiency as an expression of training and muscle memory, the only way I know of to reduce a shooter's compensation.

If you have no recoil whatsoever then you're just pressing a button on a much more stable platform.

[Crazy Lou]

It this anticipation of the Newton's First Law that causes many shooters to shoot inaccurately

But you see that's the whole point that I was making. Recoil is not newton's first law. It is newton's THIRD law. The concept you present is correct. But you're calling it the wrong law.

Also, while I will not try to take you to be speaking for him, IF you are correct and have understood his meaning, that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he has contradicted himself. That understanding of what he said does nothing to counteract the inherrent contradiction of his own (illogical) house rule.

[glitterboy2098]

except you wouldn't vaporise it. you'd blow holes in it yes, but not vaporise. most walls, even simple wooden ones, have over 100 sdc per section. which would absorb most of the damage. in order for something to no longer be protective, you have to inflict double the listed SDC/MDC capacity. so to inflict damage to objects behind those walls, you'd have to inflict over twice the walls ability to take damage for that section.

and technically you can't vaporize stuff even with MD weapons. the energy beam hits, and creates powerful explosions as it flash boils part of the target. regardless of wether the beam is laser or particle. plasma would melt stuff. railguns would hit so hard they create fireballs from pyrophoric effect of the projectile and target shattering into fine powder, and would give off strong shockwaves when passing through soft materials, liquifing the inside.

1 MD is about 10 kilojoules of energy. which isn't much, in the scheme of things, but much higher than the couple hundred joules of a regular bullet. you'd need energy an order of magnitude higher to vaporise people or solid objects.


but having stuff between you and the target, while perhaps not giving much protection from eventual damage, will still make it harder for the enemy to see you and hit you, which means your going to live somewhat longer than if you just stood there in the open.

[Cybermancer]

Edit: My question was answered.

[Natasha]

It this anticipation of the Newton's First Law that causes many shooters to shoot inaccurately

But you see that's the whole point that I was making. Recoil is not newton's first law. It is newton's THIRD law. The concept you present is correct. But you're calling it the wrong law.

Third Law states that there two forces going in opposite directions - let's call them action and reaction forces, it doesn't really matter though. One from those forces is recoil. The recoil force's direction is into the shooter. The shooter is at a constant velocity, zero. Recoil doesn't change the shooter's mass and so it must change the shooter's velocity for to conserve momentum.

Which Law covers changes in an object's velocity?

[dark brandon]

A Juicer is every bit as lethal in my games as he is in yours so long as he is played like a Juicer. Playing one as nothing but someone who charges right into the front lines, wading into streams of gunfire, is going to get anyone (from Juicer to Borg to Glitterboy) killed post haste. If a Juicer is played badly, the Juicer will die. If the Juicer player realizes that there are more benefits to being a Juicer beyond autododge then a whole new world of tactics opens up to him. A Juicer is NOT an autododging tank, it's really that simple.

Auto-dodge is not his only ability, but it is the one that gives a juicer his edge. Like I said, he doesn't have very many skills, nor any psionics or magic to back him up. I'm not saying he's completely impotent either, he's still phsyically better than a normal human, but unlike other human classes, he was given limited skill selection due to compensate for his auto-dodge ability. I think the misunderstanding is that you are believing that I believe that auto-dodge is the ends-all-be-all for juicers. We agree they are not. But for that power, juicers were handicapped in other aspects. I do not view auto-dodge as a whole, but as a part of the whole.

Outside the realm of stupid play (as you said, anyone who runs head first into gun fire will die), assuming a juicer and any other Men at arms (From the main book) played, the juicer would be at a severe handicap.

P.S. Alejandro: This is just my take on it. I haven't tried your game out, and I could very well be wrong, so this is "at a glance" view.

[Crazy Lou]

It this anticipation of the Newton's First Law that causes many shooters to shoot inaccurately

But you see that's the whole point that I was making. Recoil is not newton's first law. It is newton's THIRD law. The concept you present is correct. But you're calling it the wrong law.

Third Law states that there two forces going in opposite directions - let's call them action and reaction forces, it doesn't really matter though. One from those forces is recoil. The recoil force's direction is into the shooter. The shooter is at a constant velocity, zero. Recoil doesn't change the shooter's mass and so it must change the shooter's velocity for to conserve momentum.

Which Law covers changes in an object's velocity?

If you want to do that sort of thing, you're getting into the area of how all the laws basically say the same thing. In which case you could answer your final question by saying: "all three!"

However you are trying to twist the third law into the first one but are trying to imply that recoil isn't first about the third law, even though that's where you started.

Note that you are saying that there are paired forces. I will identify both. One is the force of the pressurized air forcing the bullet along the path of least resistence, out of the barrel of the gun. The other force is also from the pressurized air, but pushing back against the gun in the opposite direction. You have there a fundamental force/action pair. Just because then you say that since there must be motion initiated which involves inertia and the first law doesn't make the first law the primary explanation of recoil. It makes the first law connected by the effects of recoil to the incident of the initial action itself.

I'm going to quit following this thread now, as it seems that no matter how specific, logical, and scientifically backed my arguments are that people will say some brief vaguely supported comment which I then have to address as yet another tangent. I cannot convince you, natasha, nor alejandro either, of anything i say because you seem to be unwilling to consider my arguments and address them directly, (particularly the ones I made near the beginning of the thread about the original topic), prefering instead to drag the conversation onto another tangential debate rather than consider what's been said in the first one.

[Natasha]

However you are trying to twist the third law into the first one but are trying to imply that recoil isn't first about the third law, even though that's where you started.

I didn't see it discussing where recoil comes from especially since he was speaking specifically about the work the force was doing on the shooter. I'm not sure where recoil comes from is overly relevant here; what's important is that there is recoil. I've re-read the posts and that's what I'm getting from them.

Just because then you say that since there must be motion initiated which involves inertia and the first law doesn't make the first law the primary explanation of recoil. It makes the first law connected by the effects of recoil to the incident of the initial action itself.

First law is the primary explanation of the work recoil does on the shooter, which, again, was the point as I understood it. And so the incident of the initial action wasn't the point; the point was after Third Law, when First Law explains the work of the force of recoil.

I'm going to quit following this thread now, as it seems that no matter how specific, logical, and scientifically backed my arguments are that people will say some brief vaguely supported comment which I then have to address as yet another tangent. I cannot convince you, natasha, nor alejandro either, of anything i say because you seem to be unwilling to consider my arguments and address them directly, (particularly the ones I made near the beginning of the thread about the original topic), prefering instead to drag the conversation onto another tangential debate rather than consider what's been said in the first one.

I've read your earlier posts and I think I have them covered already in my own posts, especially in regards to what dodge means in Rifts.

[Talavar]

Why are lasers special in all of this? Human reaction time isn't great enough to discern the vast speed difference between light, and other very very fast things - like ramjets, rail guns, other energy weapons, etc. To our fleshy sensory processing systems they're all off the chart and unmeasurably fast. Recoil should in no way help someone dodge; it might make the shooter miss with his next shot though.

I was going to mention this next too. IF you treat the dodge timing as per the rules as requiring the attack to already be finished before a dodge may be attempted (and I'll get to this in a future post), then how do you explain allowing your players to dodge all the other types of firearms (and I'm not even saying just MD weapons, but even old school SDC ones like exist now!)??? There's no logical reason why you would draw the line at lasers, because, as has been noted repeatedly, the difference in the speed of a laser compared to a bullet or ion blast, while technically huge, is utterly insignificant to human (even juicer) perception!

This is the absolute last time I will answer this question because I have answered it multiple times before: as written, every single one of those weapons has recoil. Rail guns, as they are written, produce enormous recoil. Plasma weapons shoot semi-solid substances and produce recoil, akin to spitting fireballs. Ion weapons, as described in Underseas, produce recoil. Recoil affects the aim in such a manner as that someone can miss when pulling the trigger to such an extent that the movements of the target can factor more effectively into the attack and therefore allow the defender a chance at defending himself to a greater degree. Laser weapons, as written, do not provide for this as they have no recoil and absolutely no time delay from pull to hit.

And I'm saying this again: recoil does not equal a dodge, but a miss. If you equate the failure of aiming for whatever reason to constitute a dodge with other MD weapons, why not lasers? Maybe lasers should get more bonuses to hit (and many in Rifts do) than other MD weapons, but ramjet rounds, railgun rounds, plasma, particle beams, etc., shouldn't be any more dodgeable.

[Qev]

Laser weapons, as written, do not provide for this as they have no recoil and absolutely no time delay from pull to hit.

This is a non-argument anyway, as characters, as written, are allowed to dodge laser weapons.

Dodging is getting out of the attacker's aimpoint; nothing else makes any sense. Unless the projectile the attacker is firing is terrifically slow, its velocity is irrelevant; they're all practically instantaneous from the human perspective. It doesn't matter that a laser (in Rifts) is recoilless and speed-of-light, because the person firing it still has human (or superhuman, but still finite) reaction times. They see the attacker pointing a gun at them, they're going to get out of the way, and the attacker must react in order to keep their aim on target. Hence, dodge.

A laser would certainly be easier to hit with compared to a firearm, as you wouldn't need to account for drop, or windage, or needing to lead the target. But the same can be said for any hypervelocity weapon, really; over their effective ranges, their trajectories might as well be flat and the time-to-target is close to nil.

Lack of recoil is an advantage to Rifts lasers, if you're engaged in rapid-fire. So, if your weapon is capable of pulse-fire, having a laser is a plus. But most of these weapons are firing their projectiles at such a high velocity that it'll be out of the barrel/projector/whatever long before it can affect the aim of the weapon, and most Rifts weapons are single-fire by default now, no?

The attack-dodge sequence in the game is a game mechanic abstracting the process; it can be taken too literally. When it comes right down to it, it's really: Attacker declares attack. Defender declares dodge. Both roll to resolve. The "in-game reality" of it is the split-second responses of Action Hero-class characters engaged in Movie Combat. It isn't like the defender is waiting for his attacker to shoot before deciding to dodge.

Needless to say, your game, your house rules. I just agree with the others here that your reasoning is somewhat flawed.

[Natasha]

Can you dodge a miss? If you can, do you lose an attack? If yes to either, please provide a reference to the rule stating as much.

A dodge is getting out of the way of an attack that will hit if you fail your dodge. That's the way dodge works in Palladium, even in ranged combat. Evasive movement and zig-zagging is expressed as a penalty to strike. Mechanically that's quite different from a dodge although cinematically it may have no such distinction.

While I don't think a player should be allowed to dodge a laser or a bullet, I don't see anything wrong with saying that a character absolutely can't dodge a laser.

[Balabanto]

While I don't agree with Alejandro on not allow dodges against lasers (evasive maneuvers and the like counting as a dodge against aim), I do agree that getting shot with a laser is sub-optimal and one is highly suggested to avoid it. That's why, even with MDC combat, I like

COVER.

COVER is a neat new invention from the creators of GROUND and TREE. By properly using COVER, you reduce the chance that the laser will cut your left leg off with a nanosecond beam the size of a pencil. Some varieties of COVER even include GUN STABILIZERS, at no extra charge! Consult your local dealer of post-apocalyptic debris, and be sure to mention COVER by name!

the problem of course, is that most of it in rifts suffers from the 'concealment is not cover' flaw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKhMOfaYwvE



Thats great your behind that tree/rock/none mdc wall: I'll just vapourise it and still hit you. I bring you attention to the 30mm chain gun test, the closest thing to a railgun we have http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w22M1DAQ ... re=related

Mark is correct. Cover does not grant perfect line of sight. Just because you fire through an object with an MDC weapon does not guarantee you a hit if you don't have a 100 percent view of the target. If you have an Advanced Thermal Sight (Juicer Uprisings), then I would say...yes, because you paid 30,000 credits for the right to shoot someone in the head through an SDC object. But if the SDC object is two feet of stone thick, that object will do one of a few random things. It MIGHT vaporize. If you're firing Railgun rounds, it might shatter either into small rock chunks, or worse, you could powder the rock chunk and grant even MORE cover and concealment. How much rock DOES a Fireball melt?

It's a GM call. You can't take the power out of the GM's hands by trying to manipulate the rules when the clear situational modifier here is the terrain that the GM is using and how he runs it.

[Library Ogre]

My personal view of ground and the like is that it provides MDC protection. Most dirt is fairly defractive of light energy (containing myriad tiny crystals in addition to the basic decayed vegetable and animal matter). This results in a laser hitting an earthen berm and losing most of its coherence. Ion streams ground out almost instantly, losing a lot of their energy. Particle beams and plasma fair better, but they suffer a lot of the problems of both lasers and ion beams... their charge tends to spend itself quickly, and the amalgam nature of earth (and even clays) tends to quickly cost it coherence.

To summarize, I have MD weapons do SDC to earthen fortifications because [tech].

[ZorValachan]

I know how fun that is because we don't have any rules lawyers.
I didn't decide that. You told me.

Says one of, if not the biggest, rules lawyer on the board.

Lasers do move at the speed of light, butthe human finger doesn't, as long as the target is moving and is moving erraticly then there is a real chance for a miss. Dodging represents the erratic evasive actions of a target. Even a flat out sprint in a straight line could be enough to cause someone to miss with a laser, so long as the didn't lead properly, the light moves virtually instantly, the trigger, and switches inside do not, it's really fast, but not instant.

And yet again someone assumes you need to lead a target with a laser weapon.

Any weapon fired by a human is going to require leading. Lets say we have Mr power armour pilot running at a nice clip of 60 mph, nothing excessive, doesn't even know h is being shot at , no dodging, no nothing, so Mr. sniper takes aim with his Laser pulse rifle at a nice cushy range of 1000 feet, not very far at all ( though to be honest this distance really matters very little). So Mr.Sniper has really good reflexes and a tip top gun and from the moment he desires to fire to the moment his finger depressess the trigger and sets off the discharge is .08 seconds (Which is really fast), Mr. power armour pilot has moved 7.04 feet in that time. (60*5280/3600=88 88*.08= 7.04) If the sniper has shot where the power armour pilot was he missed by 7.04 feet. Now if the power armour pilot precieves the danger and reacts even ever so slightly( you know dodging) in the .08 seconds, even if the shooter has adjusted for the speed of the target then he is going to miss.


Now if you work with really big distances and really fast speeds evading a laser becomes a not very difficult proposition at all.

It's all taken care of by the -1 to strike rule Again, R:UE pg 361. Up to 50 mph -1 to strike. Next 50mph is -1 more and perceiving danger and trying to avoid it is the 'additional -1'

The attacker has a -3 to strike. This takes into account 1) the 'keeping on target/leading/whatever you want to call it' (-1), The speed (-1) and the evasive maneuvers (-1)


As for my own game. Yes I do allow ranged Auto-dodges by crazies/juicers. etc., but only those classes that specifically state it. No one else dodges ranged attacks. I still give them the -10. My reasoning (my personal Rifts-world view) is that crazies have psionics and the even the juicer augmentation brought out some hidden minor psi-power that gives them a 6th sense/precognition. Before the shot is fired, their 'spidey-sense' goes off and they know 'don't be THERE'. The attacker is 'predestined' (or call it whatever you want), to try to shoot THERE, but the auto-dodger has a chance to not be there. The attack roll is to see if the attack actually made it THERE. The dodge roll is to see if the defender managed to not be THERE at the same time.