MD Snipers

[jaymz]

No sorry I was menaing a barret compared to regular, so I am lookign for a rail rifle compared to a regular laser rifle. I have trouble wrapping my head around that railguns are umpteen times better than old machine guns but laser rifles are exponentially even more so when compared to an old assault rifle. Shouldn't the increase between railgun/mahine guns be similar to the increase between laser rifles/assault rifles?

Actually the railgun that is out of the rifter artilcle is made by Northern Gun. Hardly the best weapon manufacturer on the planet. The weapon itself is only about the size of an SMG

That was where I was taking my cue from.

Though you are right, it woudl make more sense to make a weapon from scrath than to retool the C-40 for sure.

[jaymz]

ok, if you have a basic knowledge of physics, then you should be able to give the reaction force for the following (hint: you have shown repeatedly that you don't believe this force exists)

action: coil pushes (or pulls, it doesn't really matter) on slug
reaction: _______________________ (fill in the blank)

if you can get that part, the rest should be easy. but here's a few hints:

action: coil pushes on gun
reaction: gun pushes on coil

action: gun pushes on wielder's hand/shoulder/whatever
reaction: wielder's hand/shoulder/whatever pushes on gun

Ok now I understand where you are going with this BUT if the current is moving away from the shooter, thus pulling the slug along, wouldn't the oppsite force really be because the resistance of the slug is pullingon the coils? If the coils were heavy enough and powerful enough wouldn't essentially negate the resitance of the slug causing the recoil?

[Shark_Force]

the direction of the current only determines the direction of the 'action' force. given the current is moving at essentially light speed, the force following it would mean that the projectile would be launched at a significant fraction of light (which clearly does not happen). what does happen is that when a coil is energized, a magnetic field is generated based on the current flowing through the coil and the number of turns in the coil (that is, complete loops). the more 'powerful' and 'heavy' the coil, the stronger the magnetic field.

this magnetic field passes through the center of the coil, and then around the coil in loops and enters back into the start of the coil, and so forth (basically just like the traditional magnetic field around a magnet you've probably seen 2-dimensional representations of). by placing an object capable of being moved by magnetic forces (typically ferric metal) at the 'entrance' of the coil, you can attract the magnetically attracted object to the center of the coil. then, you shut off the coil once it hits the halfway point... but the slug (aka the magnetically attracted object) retains it's momentum. by placing multiple coils one after the other and energizing/de-energizing them at the appropriate time (energized while the object is approaching them, de-energizing once the object reaches the center of the coil, since anywhere past that the coil will pull on the object back towards the center of the coil) you can cause the slug to be accelerated until it exits the final coil and is launched through the open air.

[Subjugator]

Got the laser pointer, for some reason it's not blasting a hole in my wall. Oh! Must not be the same kind of laser.

Please point to the page number and paragraph that says they are NOT visible, if you will? The evidence against your statement lies in every piece of Rifts artwork depicting laser fire that I've seen.

As much as I love it, art is not a canonical source. Lasers are not visible because they are mono-directional. The only time there is 'signal bleed' on them is when they hit particulate matter in the air that is not transparent or when they hit their target, at which time there is splash illumination.

/Sub

[jaymz]

the direction of the current only determines the direction of the 'action' force. given the current is moving at essentially light speed, the force following it would mean that the projectile would be launched at a significant fraction of light (which clearly does not happen). what does happen is that when a coil is energized, a magnetic field is generated based on the current flowing through the coil and the number of turns in the coil (that is, complete loops). the more 'powerful' and 'heavy' the coil, the stronger the magnetic field.

this magnetic field passes through the center of the coil, and then around the coil in loops and enters back into the start of the coil, and so forth (basically just like the traditional magnetic field around a magnet you've probably seen 2-dimensional representations of). by placing an object capable of being moved by magnetic forces (typically ferric metal) at the 'entrance' of the coil, you can attract the magnetically attracted object to the center of the coil. then, you shut off the coil once it hits the halfway point... but the slug (aka the magnetically attracted object) retains it's momentum. by placing multiple coils one after the other and energizing/de-energizing them at the appropriate time (energized while the object is approaching them, de-energizing once the object reaches the center of the coil, since anywhere past that the coil will pull on the object back towards the center of the coil) you can cause the slug to be accelerated until it exits the final coil and is launched through the open air.

Ok that part i already understood thats why i thought the only force is being pulled away from the shooter not towards him.

What I am not understanding is how this creates any real significant recoil against the shooter. The magnetic field would seem to not really cause recoil per se, and if there was any it would be minimal.

I know there is something I am just missing here....and we are probably so far off topic about snipers its not funny anymore

[Subjugator]

2) I usually allow dbl damage on a head shot. And if a player is rules lawyering or number crunching my games, i.e a bad guy has a laser pistol pointed at his character's head and he's being cocky and says something like "that pistol only does 1D6 MDC I can take at least 10 blasts like that to the head" then I multiply the damage by 20-30 to discourage that type of playing.

Changing the rules simply because he's not responding the way you prefer seems a bit off to me. If a person threatened to smack me in the head with a back scratcher, I'd not run and jump to follow his orders. Sure - it could eventually kill me, but it's unlikely to in one shot. Similarly, the laser pistol, while painful and/or annoying, would not be doing monstrous amounts of damage to him at the outset.

I don't dig on changing the rules simply because a persons response is not the way you think he should if he has a rational reason for behaving as he is. Do you make a Colt 1911 do MD to someone if the same thing happens with it?

Ok that part i already understood thats why i thought the only force is being pulled away from the shooter not towards him.

What I am not understanding is how this creates any real significant recoil against the shooter. The magnetic field would seem to not really cause recoil per se, and if there was any it would be minimal.

I know there is something I am just missing here....and we are probably so far off topic about snipers its not funny anymore

It's because there's still a transferral of force. Because the magnets are wont to push backward as much as the round is being pushed forward, there will be recoil.


/Sub

[jaymz]

Ok that part i already understood thats why i thought the only force is being pulled away from the shooter not towards him.

What I am not understanding is how this creates any real significant recoil against the shooter. The magnetic field would seem to not really cause recoil per se, and if there was any it would be minimal.

I know there is something I am just missing here....and we are probably so far off topic about snipers its not funny anymore

It's because there's still a transferral of force. Because the magnets are wont to push backward as much as the round is being pushed forward, there will be recoil.


/Sub

Technically if its a coil gun it isnt pushing the slug its pulling it

Just trying to understand how if hte way it is depicted and described (several magents essentially turning on and off in sequence to accelerate the round) how the recoil really is set since he size and resitance of hte slug would definitely be overpowered by the power of the magentic fields involved....but again this getting so far off topic .....

As for sniping, it really isn't well covered in the rules as a whole. There are articles (unofficial of course) that do acover and make sniping more effective and/or plausible.

Also A sniper team would be a near perfect use of the CA-6EX armour. Makes themore mobile and capable of carrying heavy weapons nad more equipment. Atleast for the cs snipers. I suppose Triax woudl use T-11 enhanved...mercs woudl use the gladius....Not really any noisier than regular armour but augmented strength speed and protection.

Also as a side note the same article that has the railgun in rifter #4 does have some sweet lser sniper rifles from triax and northern gun. both doing 4d6 damage northern gun with a range 700+ and the triax with 1000m+ Triax being nearly on par with the JA-11

[Shark_Force]

the same type of force that 'pulls' the slug 'pulls' the coil in the opposite direction. you can't see the force pushing the slug forward with your eyes, why should you be able to see the force that is pushing (or pulling, if you prefer, it really doesn't matter) the coil backwards? nevertheless, it is there, and it is real. just like the magnets: if you take two magnets, and place them with their north poles together, then let go, which one is pushed? they both do. each magnet pushes the other. if you take those same two magnets, and put them with north pole near south pole, and both are free to move, which magnet gets pulled? they both do.

now, if you take a magnet with the same mass as an iron nail, and put it close to that nail, and both are free to move, which one moves? again, they both do. because the magnet is pulling on the nail with magnetic force, but the nail is also pulling on the magnet with that same force. same thing with the coil; the coil pulls the slug one way, and the slug pulls on the coil in the opposite direction. in this particular case, the slug is free to move, whereas the coil is connected to the gun is connected to the person is connected to the ground, and the force is transferred through to all of those different objects in stages. the ground, being rather massive, does not move very much, certainly not enough for you to perceive with your bare eyes. the gun and the person on the other hand are much less massive than the ground, and will be accelerated much more than the ground. they are also much more massive than the slug, and will be accelerated less than the slug, but it will still (given the kind of force it takes to hurl a slug powerfully enough to destroy a tank in one shot, which your rail gun proposed could easily do to a modern tank) have a very noticeable recoil. it is worth noting that railguns *are* considered 'low recoil' relative to conventional firearms (presumably because a conventional firearm also has to accelerate the exploding gasses, thus adding mass), but if you're firing something with enough force to destroy a modern tank, the recoil is not going to be insignificant.

if you want a crazy powerful projectile weapon that won't have such recoil, you pretty much need to have the projectile itself do the acceleration; for example, if you used a railgun to accelerate a slug to the point where a ramjet could take over, and then have a second stage that triggers a scramjet, you could *theoretically* get the proposed projectile moving at somewhere between mach 12 and mach 24 (the only prototype scramjet i found data on indicated it reached mach 17 before it destroyed itself, if i'm not mistaken). this would, however, require a significant distance to get up to speed, i am convinced. and you'd still have to get the projectile up to something like mach 2 before the ramjet could take over, and you'd probably need a really big projectile (i'd expect something like what i understand mini-missiles to be at; about the size of the cardboard tube in a roll of paper towel). this weapon would still have extreme recoil probably, and i certainly wouldn't want to be the person shoulder-firing it. it would probably also make the boom gun look like a joke. but if you wanted to make a really crazy powerful projectile-based sniper rifle, that's probably how i'd go about justifying it.

of course, the good news is that rifts weapons manufacturers have managed to get a ramjet-based slug down to a size that will fit in a regular rifle, and can even accelerate the round to ramjet-efficient speeds (about mach 2 to mach 4 or 5, from what i could find) without breaking the wielder's bones... so who knows, maybe a small scramjet round is more possible than i think.

one thing that's nice about the railgun concept and recoil is also that you can keep making the barrel longer, accelerate the slug slower, and the recoil can be reduced (because it's based on acceleration, not speed; this isn't possible beyond a certain point with conventional firearms because the force is all right at the start, and the gasses lose pressure as they slug travels down the barrel because it's not as compressed). so who knows, maybe there's an 8 foot long bipod/tripod mounted sniper railgun that fires sc/ramjet rounds the size of a cardboard tube in a paper towel, maybe there isn't. this of course fits terribly with the short-barreled railgun in rifter 4 though...

[Elthbert]

actually in the classical railgun there is no "part" carrying the slug at all. by completing a circit between the two charged rails, the slug is propelled by the lorentz force perpendicular ot the path of electrical flow. which happens to be between the rails. the slug basically "slides" down the rails, accellerating all the way, until it leaves the end of the rails.
this is why true railguns have such issues with wear on the rails. the slug literally strips away the surface of the rail a few layers at a time.

You are correct in that no part is needed, however there are rail guns in which the projectile sits on pieces which travel down the rail. I have seen rail guns that work exactly this way. However I doubt it would have any effect on rail wear as these peices were sliding down the rails as well. I will see if I can find a film of what I am talking about.

some prototypes use a Sabot and conductive plug around the projectile, allowing for a better shape on the projectile. the sabot peices don't stop at the end of the barrel, they fly out and away amid the blast of eroded rail material.

I've seen that too , which is what I thought I was looking at the first time I saw this but these acted more like a bridge which allowed the projectile to sit on them and not reach from rail to rail, the projectile sat on top of the peices and made the connection. now that I think about it, it wasprobably to allow a variety of differant sized projectile to be fired from the same rails, which would be silly in a weaponized railgun.

[Shark_Force]

actually in the classical railgun there is no "part" carrying the slug at all. by completing a circit between the two charged rails, the slug is propelled by the lorentz force perpendicular ot the path of electrical flow. which happens to be between the rails. the slug basically "slides" down the rails, accellerating all the way, until it leaves the end of the rails.
this is why true railguns have such issues with wear on the rails. the slug literally strips away the surface of the rail a few layers at a time.

You are correct in that no part is needed, however there are rail guns in which the projectile sits on pieces which travel down the rail. I have seen rail guns that work exactly this way. However I doubt it would have any effect on rail wear as these peices were sliding down the rails as well. I will see if I can find a film of what I am talking about.

some prototypes use a Sabot and conductive plug around the projectile, allowing for a better shape on the projectile. the sabot peices don't stop at the end of the barrel, they fly out and away amid the blast of eroded rail material.

I've seen that too , which is what I thought I was looking at the first time I saw this but these acted more like a bridge which allowed the projectile to sit on them and not reach from rail to rail, the projectile sat on top of the peices and made the connection. now that I think about it, it wasprobably to allow a variety of differant sized projectile to be fired from the same rails, which would be silly in a weaponized railgun.

well, it would also allow different (non-conductive) materials to be used for the slug [edit: you know, in case of vampires or something], and potentially allow the slug to be a different shape (for example, it could have fins or something like that) which might not play nicely with the rails. also, it could use a material that causes less friction for all we know (though it would have to be a *lot* less friction to compensate for the added mass you'd be accelerating, i would think).

[Elthbert]

the direction of the current only determines the direction of the 'action' force. given the current is moving at essentially light speed, the force following it would mean that the projectile would be launched at a significant fraction of light (which clearly does not happen). what does happen is that when a coil is energized, a magnetic field is generated based on the current flowing through the coil and the number of turns in the coil (that is, complete loops). the more 'powerful' and 'heavy' the coil, the stronger the magnetic field.

this magnetic field passes through the center of the coil, and then around the coil in loops and enters back into the start of the coil, and so forth (basically just like the traditional magnetic field around a magnet you've probably seen 2-dimensional representations of). by placing an object capable of being moved by magnetic forces (typically ferric metal) at the 'entrance' of the coil, you can attract the magnetically attracted object to the center of the coil. then, you shut off the coil once it hits the halfway point... but the slug (aka the magnetically attracted object) retains it's momentum. by placing multiple coils one after the other and energizing/de-energizing them at the appropriate time (energized while the object is approaching them, de-energizing once the object reaches the center of the coil, since anywhere past that the coil will pull on the object back towards the center of the coil) you can cause the slug to be accelerated until it exits the final coil and is launched through the open air.

Ok that part i already understood thats why i thought the only force is being pulled away from the shooter not towards him.

What I am not understanding is how this creates any real significant recoil against the shooter. The magnetic field would seem to not really cause recoil per se, and if there was any it would be minimal.

I know there is something I am just missing here....and we are probably so far off topic about snipers its not funny anymore

ok--- the projectile leaves the barrel of the gun, it doesn't matter what the force projecting the slug is, when it moves forward it pushes backward. There is no getting around it, granted a railgun would have less recoil than a chemical propellent gun of equal power, but that is because there is no explosion to add to the recoil. You force something in direction A then it pushes back in the direction opposite of it.

[Killer Cyborg]

No sorry I was menaing a barret compared to regular, so I am lookign for a rail rifle compared to a regular laser rifle. I have trouble wrapping my head around that railguns are umpteen times better than old machine guns but laser rifles are exponentially even more so when compared to an old assault rifle. Shouldn't the increase between railgun/mahine guns be similar to the increase between laser rifles/assault rifles?

From what a number of people have said here, railguns shouldn't even work very well unless the rounds themselves are MDC, because standard metals break apart in the air at really high velocities.
Basically, there's a limit to how effective a solid projectile weapon can get, there's a limit to how effective energy weapons can get, and energy weapons are simply more effective beyond a certain point.

Actually the railgun that is out of the rifter artilcle is made by Northern Gun. Hardly the best weapon manufacturer on the planet. The weapon itself is only about the size of an SMG

a) My bad. I don't read the Rifter, and was assuming that it was made by Archie.
b) The size of an uzi? That's insane.

[Ziggurat the Eternal]

No sorry I was menaing a barret compared to regular, so I am lookign for a rail rifle compared to a regular laser rifle. I have trouble wrapping my head around that railguns are umpteen times better than old machine guns but laser rifles are exponentially even more so when compared to an old assault rifle. Shouldn't the increase between railgun/mahine guns be similar to the increase between laser rifles/assault rifles?

From what a number of people have said here, railguns shouldn't even work very well unless the rounds themselves are MDC, because standard metals break apart in the air at really high velocities.
Basically, there's a limit to how effective a solid projectile weapon can get, there's a limit to how effective energy weapons can get, and energy weapons are simply more effective beyond a certain point.

Actually the railgun that is out of the rifter artilcle is made by Northern Gun. Hardly the best weapon manufacturer on the planet. The weapon itself is only about the size of an SMG

a) My bad. I don't read the Rifter, and was assuming that it was made by Archie.
b) The size of an uzi? That's insane.

uzi's are rather small, I'd go with mp-5, I think that one is quite a bit bigger, there is also a one shot railgun in australia that is quite powerful.

[jaymz]

one thing that's nice about the railgun concept and recoil is also that you can keep making the barrel longer, accelerate the slug slower, and the recoil can be reduced (because it's based on acceleration, not speed; this isn't possible beyond a certain point with conventional firearms because the force is all right at the start, and the gasses lose pressure as they slug travels down the barrel because it's not as compressed). so who knows, maybe there's an 8 foot long bipod/tripod mounted sniper railgun that fires sc/ramjet rounds the size of a cardboard tube in a paper towel, maybe there isn't. this of course fits terribly with the short-barreled railgun in rifter 4 though...

Ok now I get it I kept thinking that since the slug being as small as it was wasn't causing enough pull on the coils as the coils pulled on it to cause any significant recoil.

All that being said, since hte railgun in Rifter 4 exists, then my idea of taking THAT concept of railgun and applying it to a 6ft rifle (not a C-40 since I already admitted it would make more sense to make a new weapon altogether) Could in fact allow me to create the weapon I have been describing?

Keepingin mnd that I am only increasing the damage by 1d6, it mostly getting it to normal railgun ranges maybe slightly farther.

After all this discussion as well I was thinkng that maybe the gun woul have a limited rate of rife maybe 3 per melee max to buld up proper charge?

[jaymz]

a) My bad. I don't read the Rifter, and was assuming that it was made by Archie.
b) The size of an uzi? That's insane.

uzi's are rather small, I'd go with mp-5, I think that one is quite a bit bigger, there is also a one shot railgun in australia that is quite powerful.[/quote]


You should read the Rifter, has some very good articles that, IMO, fixes some of the minor issues within the rules as well as introduces alot of interesting tech (various pieces of ubertech notwithstanding) and most of the fan fiction writing is pretty good.

As for that Particular Railgun, yeah a bulky MP-5 is probably a closer rendition of its size.

You want an ubertech sniper weapon there is one in a CS Article (not official thankfully for this weapon) is a laser rifle sniper weapon, 1d6x10 damage and about 900+ metre range. Thats ubertech in comparison to everythign else forsure.....

[Killer Cyborg]

All that being said, since hte railgun in Rifter 4 exists, then my idea of taking THAT concept of railgun and applying it to a 6ft rifle (not a C-40 since I already admitted it would make more sense to make a new weapon altogether) Could in fact allow me to create the weapon I have been describing?

Basing weapons off of already munch weapons and increasing the damage is where Power Creep comes from.
One of the places, anyway.

[Killer Cyborg]

You should read the Rifter, has some very good articles that, IMO, fixes some of the minor issues within the rules as well as introduces alot of interesting tech (various pieces of ubertech notwithstanding) and most of the fan fiction writing is pretty good.

I've flipped through them.
Some stuff is interesting, but the rest just seems to be munchy toys, powers, classes, etc.

You want an ubertech sniper weapon there is one in a CS Article (not official thankfully for this weapon) is a laser rifle sniper weapon, 1d6x10 damage and about 900+ metre range. Thats ubertech in comparison to everythign else forsure.....

Yes, stuff like that.

[glitterboy2098]

I've seen that too , which is what I thought I was looking at the first time I saw this but these acted more like a bridge which allowed the projectile to sit on them and not reach from rail to rail, the projectile sat on top of the peices and made the connection. now that I think about it, it wasprobably to allow a variety of differant sized projectile to be fired from the same rails, which would be silly in a weaponized railgun.

those are called "Armatures" by the scientists involved with railgun development, and is bassically a different term for "sabot"
armatures provide the bridge between rails, thus keeping the projectile not only in a more aerodynamic shape,. but preventing it from being damaged on firing (the same friction that strips rails strips the slugs too). the armature gets ejected out the barrel on firing.

[jaymz]

The wear and tear on the rails is one of the reasons I think railguns in Rifts are actually coilguns. That and from what I can tell it woudl be difficult to have a rapid firing railgun but not so much with a coilgun.

[jaymz]

All that being said, since hte railgun in Rifter 4 exists, then my idea of taking THAT concept of railgun and applying it to a 6ft rifle (not a C-40 since I already admitted it would make more sense to make a new weapon altogether) Could in fact allow me to create the weapon I have been describing?

Basing weapons off of already munch weapons and increasing the damage is where Power Creep comes from.
One of the places, anyway.

True enough...BUT in most cases the power creep is more than a small increase in damage4 or such. Example is the power crep from teh L20 pulse rifle to the Wilks 457 Pulse rifle. THAT is a power creep in class of weapon.

I want to at least show some sortof progression not just hand wavium it.

That's one of my issues with Rifts as a whole. Ther is no explaination as to how we got to this level of tech, no in between stuff at all really.. We go from us today to A guy in Body armour with more protection than a main battle tank and his rifle outgunning a 120mm cannon.

[jaymz]

I've seen that too , which is what I thought I was looking at the first time I saw this but these acted more like a bridge which allowed the projectile to sit on them and not reach from rail to rail, the projectile sat on top of the peices and made the connection. now that I think about it, it wasprobably to allow a variety of differant sized projectile to be fired from the same rails, which would be silly in a weaponized railgun.

those are called "Armatures" by the scientists involved with railgun development, and is bassically a different term for "sabot"
armatures provide the bridge between rails, thus keeping the projectile not only in a more aerodynamic shape,. but preventing it from being damaged on firing (the same friction that strips rails strips the slugs too). the armature gets ejected out the barrel on firing.

So it becomes more of a magnetic slingshot?

[Killer Cyborg]

All that being said, since hte railgun in Rifter 4 exists, then my idea of taking THAT concept of railgun and applying it to a 6ft rifle (not a C-40 since I already admitted it would make more sense to make a new weapon altogether) Could in fact allow me to create the weapon I have been describing?

Basing weapons off of already munch weapons and increasing the damage is where Power Creep comes from.
One of the places, anyway.

True enough...BUT in most cases the power creep is more than a small increase in damage4 or such. Example is the power crep from teh L20 pulse rifle to the Wilks 457 Pulse rifle. THAT is a power creep in class of weapon.

-"Creep" is specifically because it's small amounts in most cases.
-Atlantis was supposed to have tech WAY ahead of the rest of Rifts Earth, and their weapons only did about 1d6 more than the standard guns in the original Rifts book. 1d6 is not that small an amount.
-The L-20 was always pretty broken, if you look at the ammo capacity.
-The Wilk's 457 was just a combo of the 3d6 MD per shot laser rifle and the pulse rifle, with a minor boost in damage (+2). Not a huge increase overall, actually, but I'd agree that it was power creep.

I want to at least show some sortof progression not just hand wavium it.

Noted.

That's one of my issues with Rifts as a whole. Ther is no explaination as to how we got to this level of tech, no in between stuff at all really.. We go from us today to A guy in Body armour with more protection than a main battle tank and his rifle outgunning a 120mm cannon.

Agreed.
I have long been an advocate of filling in the gaps with much, much, much more high SDC and low MD equipment.
I want to see the laser guns that do 2d6x10 or 4d6x10 SDC, and I want to see the body armor with AR 20 and 3000 SDC, and all the other stuff that would probably have lead up to the stuff in the original Rifts Book.
And when new equipment surpasses the previous equipment, I want an explanation WHY. I don't mind Naruni stuff much, because in spite of the power levels there's a clear reason why it's so powerful.
It's not so clear why Wilk's can suddenly create laser pistols that dish out twice the damage of the previous model.

Rifts needs a lot more uniformity and coherence in its equipment and powers, and the entire world needs to be fleshed out more beyond the standard "Region X has Mega-Cliche Y, New Weapons Z, etc. etc."

[jaymz]

Agreed.
I have long been an advocate of filling in the gaps with much, much, much more high SDC and low MD equipment.
I want to see the laser guns that do 2d6x10 or 4d6x10 SDC, and I want to see the body armor with AR 20 and 3000 SDC, and all the other stuff that would probably have lead up to the stuff in the original Rifts Book.
And when new equipment surpasses the previous equipment, I want an explanation WHY. I don't mind Naruni stuff much, because in spite of the power levels there's a clear reason why it's so powerful.
It's not so clear why Wilk's can suddenly create laser pistols that dish out twice the damage of the previous model.

Rifts needs a lot more uniformity and coherence in its equipment and powers, and the entire world needs to be fleshed out more beyond the standard "Region X has Mega-Cliche Y, New Weapons Z, etc. etc."

I myself do it by changing the sdc-mdc to 10-1 instead of 100-1. You can actually see a progession of sorts that way.

Example, an Abrams has 1500sdc/150mdc. Breakthroughs in armour materials woudl first be applied to armour itself. I do this by saying it doubles the mdc. Abrams now has 300 mdc. Eventually they figure out how to usethat in constructing the frames of said tanks etc. This triples the orignal value giving an Abrams 450 mdc. Oddly enough this gives it equal msc to the medium tank that IHA builds.

For projectiles I have them use explosive rounds as standard increasing damaged by 50% then eventually ramjets doubling the orginal damage. Thats wher ethe lasers woudl take over and be effective and more efficient. Using the M-16 as an example it does 5d6sdc/1d3md per round as is in teh Modern Compendium. Explosive rounds woudl increase that to 1d4x10+5sdc/1d4md and ramjets would increase this to 1d6x10sdc/1d6md. laser woudl then takeover as they are t the point of being more powerful etc.

To me this works and makes sense of it all.

In the case of tank rounds there is no reason to change them as taking the Abrams 120 from System failure the damage in a 10-1 ratio is the same as the damage of hte 120 on the IHA medium tank. or at least VERY close in the way that the die rolls may be different but the damage is the same.

[Razzinold]

10 TO 1 instead of 100 to 1, but why go through the trouble of making things easier to damage but then up the amount of starting mdc from 150mdc to 450mdc ? sure I can damage him faster but now he can last longer. Don't those actions cancel each other out ?

[jaymz]

Ask whoever designed the Iron Fist Medium tank that

I was just using it as an example as how hte armour and tructure would have developed. The next step woudl be to mount railcannons akin to teh boom gun on the tank frame. As I apply the Missile AP rules to railguns that makes the damage capability in direct fire combat increase significantly.

Either way I just thought it woudl be cool to have a heavy hitting barret like sniper rail rifle to use instead of the typical 6-900m laser models that are more available.

[Razzinold]

Ask whoever designed the Iron Fist Medium tank that
Either way I just thought it woudl be cool to have a heavy hitting barret like sniper rail rifle to use instead of the typical 6-900m laser models that are more available.

I was not disputing, just asking, and I agree I would prefer a slug over a laser as well once in a while.

[Killer Cyborg]

Either way I just thought it woudl be cool to have a heavy hitting barret like sniper rail rifle to use instead of the typical 6-900m laser models that are more available.

The problem is, the existing weapons already ARE heavy-hitting.
Designing bigger weapons will only lead to bigger armor, and other bigger weapons.
It's a game that Palladium has been playing for years, and it's one you can't win in the long run.

That's why I go more towards the skill of the shooter increasing the crit. chance.

[jaymz]

Either way I just thought it woudl be cool to have a heavy hitting barret like sniper rail rifle to use instead of the typical 6-900m laser models that are more available.

The problem is, the existing weapons already ARE heavy-hitting.
Designing bigger weapons will only lead to bigger armor, and other bigger weapons.
It's a game that Palladium has been playing for years, and it's one you can't win in the long run.

That's why I go more towards the skill of the shooter increasing the crit. chance.

Yeah I do that too. Makes more sense. Also over time allowing them a lower to hit number on called shots such as dropping to al 11 at some point then to a 10. But thats at like 12th level or so.

Personally I treat he Railguns as single shot weapons to begin with no bursts other the semi automatic type and they use teh missile A/P rules in RUE. (sorry i cant see the guns on a Spider Skull walker the size of my torso firing 80 round bursts).

Makes them more an anti armour weapon than machine gun. But then again the way I do it with a 10-1 ration instead of 100-1 machine guns nad auto-cannons still have a place in my world as usefull weapons to defend yoursefl with.

I also allow other weapons to be used.

For example the Sam has a Railgun in anti-armour ops but carries a .50 cal or 5.56 minigun infatry support roles. My useage of the explosive and ramjet rounds (not quite the same as mercs) gies the .50 cal a range 3d6+3/5d6+1/6d6+6 on a burst using regular/explosive/ramjet rounds respectively. The 5.56 minigun is 2d6/3d6/4d6 per burst in the same vein. Thats a 10 round burst with the .50 cal and a 20 round burst with the 5.56 and that kind of urst fire also allows the to fire support using burst spray rules. but this in my own little version of things and house rules so ignore that sorry