Braden needs fan input...

[Braden Campbell]

Hello all.

I am currently working on one of several Phase World projects, and I am stuggling on something in particular. Since you guys and galls will be the ones on the recieving end of this, I thought I'd see what you all have to say.

In short, we have a race of aliens who have been space-borne for 50,000 years. They have totally adapted to a life in 0g, and because of this they have never developed anything contra-gravitaional. Said race has instead mastered things like magnetism... and thus, I want them to posess Realitivistic Kill Vehicles.

An RKV, for those who don't know, is basically a solid mass ramped up to stupid speeds... in this case, 1% of light speed. So immagine that these aliens can launch a 40' long tungsten telephone pole at you, moving at 1873 miles per second! Moreover, the pole can either impact you wholly, or it can be detonated after launch, turning ti into a cluster of crow-bar-sized missiles.

This is where science headbutts with game design, because, based on established Palladium damages, such a weapon would inflict... and I'm not kidding here... 4D6x66,000 MDC. A single one of these "god-rods" could destroy any starship currently running around. So obviously, for the sake of gaming fun, such damage must be scaled back enough so that Player Characters and their vessels aren't insta-killed, yet remain deadly enough that the aliens remain feared.
these are the issues I struggle with daily.

Without getting into "destroys everything in its path of fire regardless of MDC"-type damages, the biggest guns out there are the cannons on the Emancipation Super Carrier - which can hit you for 60,000 MDC in a single blow if it rolls well. With that as a yardstick, what damage would assign to a god-rod moving at 1%c ...? I'm in the 1D6x10,000 neighbourhood myself, which is waaay low given the physics involved, but is enough that only the most shielded starships will survive the first volley.

I await your input.

[glitterboy2098]

the problem with RKV's, especially ones brought up to speed by linear induction (rail guns..), or electromagnetic mass drivers (coil guns/RIFTS 'rail guns'), is that to reach 1% c takes an ungodly amount of energy to accelerate the projectile. obviously the less mass in the projectile, the less energy you require.

so you could use ultralight, low caliber projectile. like say, a pistol bullet made from plastic with a small metal cap or core for the rails/coils to effect. when accelerated up to speed, it would still do enough damage on impact to really damage star ships, but at manageable damage levels and energy consumption.

though it's not as sexy as 40 foot tungsten "rods of the gods"


one thing you might want to look into, if this race is a master of magnetic fields, is Zero point fields. i've used the ZPE connection to inertia mass as a component in PW inertial dampeners, (and as a drive system in it's own right in my AUGG material. reduced effective mass means ultra efficent reaction drives, and[using handwave physics], FTL by reducing ones mass into the negatives and becoming tachyonic)

Zero point drive fields like my AUGG stuff could be used as a way of making their non-reactionless drives stand up to the CG drives of the rest of the 3G's, and maybe give them a FTL that is different, but slower, than CG drive...

[drewkitty ~..~]

lets ask the though provoking questions (no response needed here)
- how far away are they shot from? is there a minimum range where they can't be used if they go under? were they developed to to defend/attack dominator station/ships?

-are they a EM mass driver? G-driver (like the gravity guns in PW)? are they driven like the Megaversal Legion's guns (R:SA2)? Or are they some sort of missile? with a enhanced CG drive?

-Why did they develop the fractional c weapons? Why so large?

-are they Quadies?(four arms, w/arms in the place of legs)

ignoring game mech. for a bit
Irl, I would expect the fractional c "telephone pole'" to put a hole the size of itself through the ship, with half the damage being internal due to secondary explosions.

steps into game mech. (these are only my thoughts about it)
If you look at the larger ships, they will give how much MDC per 10' sq. -20' sq. section of hull, a non-fragmented "Telephone Pole" would affect one-nine hull sections on the facing side of the ship (where it hits), and from 1-25 hull sections on the opposite side (the exit wound). [If you can't find what I'm talking about in the PW books then look in the RT1: zentradie book or the RT2:Macross book.]

However, if you have a battle fortress like the dominators (not RT BFs), then they would big enough to soak up a good portion of the damage.

[glitterboy2098]

how far away are they shot from? is there a minimum range where they can't be used if they go under? were they developed to to defend/attack dominator station/ships?

how far? technically, the answer is a sideways 8.
minimum range? wouldn't be one. once it leaves the barrel, the projectile is on inertia. if it was rocket propelled, it might have less damage if it hits before reaching peak velocity, but as a 'gun' type system, no minimum range.

effective range is going to depend on how well they predict the enemies movements, so they can lead the target. at 1% C, ranges of several thousand km are beleivable when looking at time to target Vs. target movement. under one second flight time for best results and least target reaction time.

-are they a EM mass driver? G-driver (like the gravity guns in PW)? are they driven like the Megaversal Legion's guns (R:SA2)? Or are they some sort of missile? with a enhanced CG drive?

given that I-beams are unique to the megaversal legion, and this race has doesn't use gravity control, it would have to be a EM accellerator.

-Why did they develop the fractional c weapons? Why so large?

because a thrown rock still hurts, and the bigger the projectile, the more damage you can do. or to sum up, "more DAKKA."

[KLM]

Hi there!

Without getting into "destroys everything in its path of fire regardless of MDC"-type damages, the biggest guns out there are the cannons on the Emancipation Super Carrier - which can hit you for 60,000 MDC in a single blow if it rolls well. With that as a yardstick, what damage would assign to a god-rod moving at 1%c ...? I'm in the 1D6x10,000 neighbourhood myself, which is waaay low given the physics involved, but is enough that only the most shielded starships will survive the first volley.

I await your input.

As far as I can think, such projectile will destroy a frigate but... Well, it will run throught a cruiser or bigger, but unless it hits
something really important, it will leave a series of burned out compartments and a p****d off capital ship.

So my vote is like a d6*d6*1000 MD (ie. between one and thirty-six thousand MDs, averaging about 10k) straight and a nasty table for
"critical damage" - not unlike in the case of the RIFTS canon.

Just my two cents.

Adios
KLM

[DhAkael]

Hello all.

I am currently working on one of several Phase World projects, and I am stuggling on something in particular. Since you guys and galls will be the ones on the recieving end of this, I thought I'd see what you all have to say.

In short, we have a race of aliens who have been space-borne for 50,000 years. They have totally adapted to a life in 0g, and because of this they have never developed anything contra-gravitaional. Said race has instead mastered things like magnetism... and thus, I want them to posess Realitivistic Kill Vehicles.

An RKV, for those who don't know, is basically a solid mass ramped up to stupid speeds... in this case, 1% of light speed. So immagine that these aliens can launch a 40' long tungsten telephone pole at you, moving at 1873 miles per second! Moreover, the pole can either impact you wholly, or it can be detonated after launch, turning ti into a cluster of crow-bar-sized missiles.

This is where science headbutts with game design, because, based on established Palladium damages, such a weapon would inflict... and I'm not kidding here... 4D6x66,000 MDC. A single one of these "god-rods" could destroy any starship currently running around. So obviously, for the sake of gaming fun, such damage must be scaled back enough so that Player Characters and their vessels aren't insta-killed, yet remain deadly enough that the aliens remain feared.
these are the issues I struggle with daily.

Without getting into "destroys everything in its path of fire regardless of MDC"-type damages, the biggest guns out there are the cannons on the Emancipation Super Carrier - which can hit you for 60,000 MDC in a single blow if it rolls well. With that as a yardstick, what damage would assign to a god-rod moving at 1%c ...? I'm in the 1D6x10,000 neighbourhood myself, which is waaay low given the physics involved, but is enough that only the most shielded starships will survive the first volley.

I await your input.

Um..sorry, but in this case, game ballance goes flying out the windows here. That sort of weapon is rated as "cosmic event" scale.
It could be worse though... Fred Saberhaegen (R.I.P.) in his Bezzerker 'verse stories, had the C-Plus canon, which effectively skips a solid lead projectile in and out of FTL space until it hits it's target. Seeing as how the targets are moon-sized killing machines that make the Dominators look like pikers...yeah.
Even at 0.01c you're looking at taking out entire continental sized targets without breaking a sweat.
Y'see, this is also the problem with playing around with anti-matter beyond a couple of nano-grammes; if you are to start trying to finaggle game-system-ballance with IRL values your head will assplode.

You have two options.
1) The rods of doom kill you if they hit, no exception. Dodge, dodge like the wind!!!!
2) Nerf the ever living tar outa the weapon system and be prepared for the physics-philes to scream at you like scalded cats (I've addressed that particular joy-killer type of gamer on other threads, they won't shut up no matter how much you tell 'em "it's just a game").

I wish you the best of luck sir.

[Malakai]

Braden - a few questions to consider:

Why are they using telephone-pole-sized projectiles in the first place? That's a lot of mass to accelerate. Going smaller would make more sense - less energy needed per projectile, which also means a likely (relatively) higher firing rate. After all, one-shot-kills are great, but if you have to wait forever between shots, it's not a very effective weapon.

What Range are you thinking for this weapon? Given the speed, it's hard NOT justifying 1,000's of miles - it can cross 2,000 miles in nearly a second. And considering it's already made to target big ships, a second is not likely going to be nearly enough time to react.

What prevents the established 3G races from creating/using something similar? Looking at the Mass Driver in 3G, your suggesting something with 10x the destructive capacity. Now, the 3Gs use gravity instead of magnetism to accelerate their projectiles, but magnetic acceleration is a relatively much simpler technology, so it's not hard to imagine that they would have already considered making this weapon - why don't they?

Damage vs Rate of Fire - a couple big shots or a lot of little ones? Honestly, the only reason to have higher-damage, less fire weapons is to penetrate shields, which also has an effect on tactics. If your forces rely on a few heavy combatants, then more often is better than more damage, as you need to try and keep up with your enemy. If you use the reverse, you want to threaten you enemy form multiple sides, so that they have to regulate their shields accordingly, and you can use a heavier weapon to punch through those divided shields and damage the ship directly.


So, here's my suggestion: You've suggested that their technological niche is magnetism/electro-magnetic technology. So, suppose they've developed more efficient mass drivers, and materials that further increase their efficiency. Highly advanced capacitors are also a likely accomplishment, able to rapidly store and release energy on-demand.

My suggestion is having their capital ships built around these weapons systems Each of their main guns is like to be one or a few of these massive guns, and likely little else (not counting point-defense) So, say they can put together a mass driver (2D6x1,000 MD, 500 mile range, 1 shot per round), and put it into something just under 1,000 ft in length - now you've got something cruiser-sized, that can threaten another cruiser (has a good chance of shooting through a normally-distributed shield and damaging the ship) while still being relatively par/sub-par with the rest of the 3Gs, and the projectile needn't be anything more massive than a solid tungsten javelin (probably the same size as a normal person's).

Battleships are not likely going to be a big on their list - if they are, they're likely to just have multiple barrels of the above cruiser-gun. Also, because of the length of the weapons system, this is not something you can turret - meaning warfare doctrine is based off of 1-ship = 1-target. You would leave larger ships (battleship+) to the dreadnoughts in the back of the fleet, where their superior range and value as carriers is put to best use, and focus your cruisers on their cruisers and smaller. The only other reasonable benefit for a battleship is rapid-sustained-fire, in support of dreadnoughts. This keeps the opponents from regenerating their shields, and allows them to be threatened from multiple angles, forcing the opponent to weaken their shields through distribution, and giving the dreadnought a better chance of piercing the shields in a single shot.

Dreadnoughts are definitely something this race would use as flagships - I'd go with the 1D6x10,000 myself, give them about 2,000 miles in range, and firing once every 2-5 minutes. Minimum length for the ship is likely 12,000 ft, which means this ship will also double as a carrier. These are your answer to opposing battleships and larger, as you will be able to fire from superior range. The only concern is the rate of fire - in order to truly be effective, you need to fire more often, which means either a shorter duty cycle or multiple barrels. a 3-barreled version, with a 2-minute cool down between shots, would be best - this is because in a single-barrel version, with a 2-minute cool-down period, a battleship is going to regenerate 36,000 MDC on it's shields - which is slightly better than the average damage taken from the gun. and because the opponent can reasonably distribute his shields to a select few vectors, he can ensure that no single shot will likely pierce his shields.

A weakness to this kind of fleet is going to be smaller vessels, as they're primar guns are not made to engage multiple opponents, and they given their own fleet schemes, frigates would be uncommon and unfamiliar to them - since they are not big enough to mount their system of choice

More to come, but that's a start. sorry if I'm rambling.

[azazel1024]

Yeah I'd see it being a much smaller projectile. A 40ft long pole moving at 1% of the speed of light (assuming say 1 ton in mass) would shove a 1 million ton battleship backwards at 100 meters a second and considering the short acceleration time, probably pushing the battleship backwards at several hundred or thousand Gs over that thousanth of a second it takes to accelerate it out. A magnetic field is going to shove back on the launching ship just as hard.

Some kind of way to manipulate/counter gravity is the only way I could see launching something of that size to that kind of speed without turning the occupants of any ship and much of the ship's fittings in to chunk salsa on the bulkheads.

Now something much smaller, say 1-2ft long, say a "Football of the Gods" wouldn't be nearly so harsh on the launching vessel, but still frankly would gut a small frigate with a single hit and would do major damage to a battleship or cruiser. Say something on the order of maybe 1d6x10,000 damage with a single hit. That smaller projectile could still be designed to 'fracture' or be launched like a cannister shot. 500 pencil sized ultrahard projectiles spraying a several hundred or thousand foot area is still going to massive damage to anything hit, even if it only takes one or two subprojectiles...say 2d8x100 damage to everything in a 1,000ft cone?

Something this fast would have no or little penetration. The velocities or so high even a small mass intersecting the weapons path is going to vaporize both in to plasma. Course the plasma is going to continue on at ridiculous speeds, but in effect hitting something like a starship will vaporize a large section of it instantly, its not going to be like a bullet through a watermellon, its going to be like an M80 going off on the side of a watermellon.

I happen to like a lot of Malakai's ideas on it (especially ranges and cruiser/dreadnaught setups).

I think smaller ships could be possible, they'd just need scaled down versions of the weapons. A fighter could be built around one as a flying gun, say pencil size projectiles from its cannon doing maybe 1d6x100 damage from it, the cruisers as said something like 2d6x1,000 damage from maybe fist sized projectiles and the dreadnaughts with large football/javelin sized or shaped projectiles.

I think game balance can go out the window so long as the race is 'near extinct' or has no interest in intergalactic politics. They stick to their little sand box (a single system, small area) and never leave it. The occasional time someone comes along and tries to play with their truck they swat them and go back to playing in their sandbox.

As a thought, maybe they live between galaxies and left their home system those some 50,000 years ago and aren't interested in resettling on any kind of planet, afterall they are 0 g adapted, so maybe they just stop off at the occasional asteroid field, take the resources they need and drift on for another few decades. They aren't particularly political, but like a plague of locusts when they do stop in to a system they strip its asteroid belt of resources before the move on. Woe to the people who decide they want to try to stop them from raping their asteroid belt.
-Matt

[glitterboy2098]

actually, azazel1024 makes a good point about the recoil effect. perhaps this isn't technically a weapon, but their drive system? tossing a 1 ton mass (of anything) out the back of the ship at .01c would be a wonderfully powerful STL drive system. it's use as a weapon would fit with John's law, "Any interesting space drive is a weapon of mass destruction. It only matters how long you want to wait for maximum damage.". employing it would require pointing the entire ship 'ass first' at the enemy and engaging the drive. something that be difficult to do (you'd need a successful piloting skill roll, a successful weapon skill role, and you'd suffer some major targeting penalties..). but in that use such a devestating weapon would make sense. plus turning it into a 'kzinti lesson' for the three galaxies would be fun. :

they could employ my "plastic bullet of death" for manuvering thrusters...

[azazel1024]

Ah yes Larry Niven.

I only pointed it out in respect to the difficulties involved. To make it more plausable (hey, its an RPG, it doesn't have to be), I'd say it would be some kind of 'missile' weapon. By missile weapon I mean it is accelerated by its own drive, that or some kind of Space-time anchor should be devised for the launching ship. Maybe something like a traction drive, but employed to keep the ship stationary while the main gun fires. Whatever it is, is going to have to be a massive installation on the launching ship to prevent the gun mount from ripping backwards out of the ship on launch (equal and opposite forces and all).

In fact, especially if looking in the 1d6x10,000 range I think it could be cool to see this ship with a traction 'anchor'/drive that basically forces the ship to temporarily halt (Space going version of a glittery boy and boomgun) for say a melee round to fire its main gun and then can manuever again. It would make it incredibly powerful, but a 'bit' of a weakness (IE can't move or manuever or dodge for a full melee round while it prepares to fire and then subsequently fires).

"Hey everyone, when the P'rlotz dreadnaught of death stops moving, fly around like a half mad zork lizard with its head cut off if you want a prayer of dodging what's coming at you"
-Matt

PS I am really starting to like my traction drive anchor idea if I do say so myself.

[glitterboy2098]

except you can't stop moving in space. and without a reactionless drive like a CG drive, you'd never be able to reach .01c

if the weapon isn't the drive itself, perhaps it has to divert most of it's power to the main drive to counter the recoil.. leaving the ship dead in the water for several melee's, coasting on inertia? kinda like how in space battleship yamato, SDf macross, or B5 crusade attempting to use the main gun left the ship unable to fight for a short period of time?

[azazel1024]

I could see that too. I still like my traction drive anchor idea. In this case you could stop in space, it anchors you to the fabric of space preventing the ship from moving. Heck if you want to make it more effective, especially if it is a very slow firing weapon (I'd hope so), maybe it takes a full minute. 30-45 seconds to slow to a stop while activating the traction anchor, fire the weapon and then reactivate the main drive of the ship.

You can technically stop in space, with or without a reactionless drive. You could also hit .01c without one. A traction drive as described in Mutants in Orbit is a reactionless drive basically. In this case a superly massive coil gun or rail gun or even some kind of special control over magnetism (technological or magical) could punch out a projectile at .01c.

In general I like the concept of the ship being 'dead in the water' for a period of time either to fire the main gun or as a result of firing the main gun. Gives at least a limited weakness to a ship with such a powerful weapon. Heck as pointed out it would take silly amounts of power to punch out a projectile that fast, maybe it drains all the ships power for a minute of so before firing to charge up massive ultracapacitors which power the weapon (60s of no shields, drive or weapons sounds good, or maybe only a few weapons and the shields are up because they are on a 2nd power plant or at greatly diminished power).
-Matt

[Braden Campbell]

This is all great (nto to mention calm and constructive) thinking all around. Keep it coming.

The aliens involved do in fact use a traction drive, so we could say that recoil is not a significant problem... the idea of "dropping anchor" before and after firing sounds like a good game-ballance trade. Like Glitterboy pylons, in space-time. Manipulation of such forces can also be used to explain how they spin up the rod to .01c with an acceptable energy expenditure (implying that the other powers in the 3G's could build RKV's, but that it's just easier to make a cruise missile instead).

As far as impacting ships... the idea of causing massive internal damage as the rod punches through the vessel entire has strong merit; it means PC's aboard ship still have a chance to evac, or effect rescue, or start repairs, or whathaveyou, instead of just being caught in a massive explsion and dying outright, which is what I want to avoid.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Note: I asked these questions as mainly to give some questions to unblock writer's block Barden seams to be troubled with.

how far away are they shot from? is there a minimum range where they can't be used if they go under? were they developed to to defend/attack dominator station/ships?

how far? technically, the answer is a sideways 8.
minimum range? wouldn't be one. once it leaves the barrel, the projectile is on inertia. if it was rocket propelled, it might have less damage if it hits before reaching peak velocity, but as a 'gun' type system, no minimum range.

effective range is going to depend on how well they predict the enemies movements, so they can lead the target. at 1% C, ranges of several thousand km are believable when looking at time to target Vs. target movement. under one second flight time for best results and least target reaction time.

I asked about minimum range because to "throw" a c fractional telephone pole you would need to have a fairly large mechanism that be in a HUGE ship (with PW the base). Therefor, it might need a stand off distance so the ship it's in would be safe from enemy fleet attacks. Or the field effects might actually range beyond the hull of the ship.
And the question was more to why develop something that throws a "telephone pole" sized projectile? The dominators' ships are the recent "Big Boy" ships being talked about.

-Why did they develop the fractional c weapons? Why so large?

because a thrown rock still hurts, and the bigger the projectile, the more damage you can do. or to sum up, "more DAKKA."

I'll take the last 1st, actually the question was not science based but sociological base. The full question would be "Why did this race, on a cultural level, develop c fractional weapons?"
It's like to ask, "Why did the Naruni develop the plasma cartridge weapons instead of railguns or lasers and plasma beams?" On the business side it's quite simple, 'your customers have to go back to you for the ammo.' but was there a cultural based reason?

As for those of you that didn't get the 'kzinti lesson' reference, a human sub-light colonization vessel is found by another sub-light space going race. The human vessel used light for it's reaction mass. unfortunately for the kzinti, the kzinti didn't realize the light the humans used was coherent and when the humans turned there ship so the drive beam passed through the kzinti ship.

[taalismn]

I can't help but think of Pelligino's 'Killing Star' about relativistic ramships used as a planet-killers on a solar-system wide scale....

[Malakai]

If you're going with traction drives, remember that those accelerate VERY slowly, which means LAC aren't going to be that light - have to make up maneuverability with damage capacity. Perhaps something similar to gun-ships/bombers would make sense - several turrets with energy weapons (Ion or Particle beams) and a single Mag-Cannon for "bombing" runs. This also makes frigates less common, as they would only be able to support, at most, one or two such vessels - not to good for force-projection (though other uses for this class do exist)

Expanding on previous suggestions, I imagine this race being confined to a relatively small sector in space - as stated, they don't have CG tech, nor does it seem any other tech capable of FTL. So Inter-system travel would be done by flotilla, with heavy military presence providing protection to massive generational ships. They have no need to try and colonize planets, as they are zero-g native, so a nomadic society fits - let's face it, the only things they need systems for is resources for their ships, as they likely have everything they need within the flotilla. They would actually be at something of a disadvantage within a planetary gravity well, as it would be an undue strain on them as far as a living situation (this may be another reason why they use traction drives, even in fighters - they can't handle the strain of the higher Gs)

On the subject of heavy guns for LAC, since you don't have the length for high max-velocity, make up for it with explosive warheads. Nothing is stopping you from using a missile warhead as the projectile to be launched - you just accept a slower projectile for the larger mass of the warhead.

Gas mining is going to be interesting for them - since this is often done at Gas Giants. This could be developed as a specialty craft for them - essential an orbital station with a long tether holding the collection systems within the planet while the station remains in orbit, and they can remain in a Zero-G environment

I like the anchoring idea - gives a for them to be able to fire at such speeds (and may be a reason why the other civilizations don't) One thing I would like specified is that it anchors at the center of gravity, allowing the ship to be aimed while still being effectively immobile. This also means that main guns are either going to be single or in pairs, so that firing stresses would still remain symmetrical

One interesting thing - what's the status of missiles for this civilization? I don't think they would be a common technology - the fuel needs without a CG drive would be high, leaving little room for effective payload (remember, in space, you have to supply your own oxidizing agent, and especially against other fighters, the speed differences mean more fuel would be spent just to try and catch up). Since missiles are the best defense against missiles, an alternative would be needed to keep this from being a major vulnerability - I would suggest something similar the the 200 mm Flechette gun on the Phalanx Main Battle Tank.


So, to re-cap;
Travels in Flotilla, which is likely half military, half civilian (or 1/3rd each Military, Civilian, and Industrial)

Relegated to small sector in space - very slow travel, using traction drives.

Weapons systems are Railguns/Mass Drivers, Ion blasters, and Particle Beams

Ships tend to rely on armor vs evasion, damage vs RoF, and relies on 1-ship = 1-target tactics. Battleships assit Dreadnoughts

Vulnerabilities include: immobility when "anchored", low RoF, poor maneuverability, lack of missiles, lack of LAC

Advantages: Range, single-shot damage capacity, lack of effective countermeasures vs weapons (heaviest weapons are kinetic, not energy-based, and are extremely effective against terrestrial targets)

Ship classes most commonly found (in the military) are: Gunships, Cruisers, Battleships, and Dreadnoughts/carriers

Uninterested in planetary colonization - at beats, desires, orbital / free-floating metropolis

Native to Zero-G - ships will likely have very different layouts, as floors will likely be a foreign concept - instead, think of nodes and passageways / connecting tubes. Cylindrical / Spherical shapes will be common, as it requires the least amount of hard materials for the most usable space.

[KLM]

Hi there!

One interesting thing - what's the status of missiles for this civilization? I don't think they would be a common technology - the fuel needs without a CG drive would be high, leaving little room for effective payload (remember, in space, you have to supply your own oxidizing agent, and especially against other fighters, the speed differences mean more fuel would be spent just to try and catch up). Since missiles are the best defense against missiles, an alternative would be needed to keep this from being a major vulnerability - I would suggest something similar the the 200 mm Flechette gun on the Phalanx Main Battle Tank.

Not neccessarily.

I mean photon or ion drives rely more on the "batteries" than "reaction mass". Also, missiles are supposed to
be good because of guidance - even contemporary anti-ship missiles are programmed to perform some evasive
manouvers in the final phase to counter point-defense systems.

However...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnrA4VfjgPI

...a "missile" can be a guided gun slug too.
-------------

Also, while this race relies on "god rods" - what prevents them from buying a bunch of
CG craft? Not unlike the CCW and the TGE purchasing phase technology.

And of course that too.

Adios
KLM

[Noon]

So obviously, for the sake of gaming fun, such damage must be scaled back enough so that Player Characters and their vessels aren't insta-killed

Obviously? Why?

Does D&D remove elder dragons because the party is 1st level?

They tend to make them rather far away from where 1st level parties are, instead.

But if you want to show case these guys up front - well, are all their guns this powerful? Even the fringes of their society have these god rods? Not weaker versions? Would the PC's meet the 'elder dragons' of this societies weaponry, right from the get go?

[Malakai]

Hi there!

One interesting thing - what's the status of missiles for this civilization? I don't think they would be a common technology - the fuel needs without a CG drive would be high, leaving little room for effective payload (remember, in space, you have to supply your own oxidizing agent, and especially against other fighters, the speed differences mean more fuel would be spent just to try and catch up). Since missiles are the best defense against missiles, an alternative would be needed to keep this from being a major vulnerability - I would suggest something similar the the 200 mm Flechette gun on the Phalanx Main Battle Tank.

Not neccessarily.

I mean photon or ion drives rely more on the "batteries" than "reaction mass". Also, missiles are supposed to
be good because of guidance - even contemporary anti-ship missiles are programmed to perform some evasive
manouvers in the final phase to counter point-defense systems.

However...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnrA4VfjgPI

...a "missile" can be a guided gun slug too.
-------------

Also, while this race relies on "god rods" - what prevents them from buying a bunch of
CG craft? Not unlike the CCW and the TGE purchasing phase technology.

And of course that too.

Adios
KLM

Ahh, yes, I suppose that would work too. And I didn't say that missiles wouldn't exist, just that they wouldn't be common - in the race's mind, they have a more effective weapon system (less prone to countermeasures, hits harder and faster, no worry of internal magazines exploding). For smaller craft, it would make more sense. For larger ones, I would lean more towards the guided munitions than a full-fledged missile system, which would help with accuracy at long ranges, while still essentially using the same delivery system. In essence, missiles are used for short-range engagements. Long-Range and Cruise missiles are likely abandoned in favor of guided munitions for their RKVs.

As far as them getting a hold of CG craft, well, there's a few choices:

1) Isn't it illegal to interfere with another civilizations advancement if they are pre-FTL? I could have sworn I read that somewhere . . . . . . .

2) What if they're within or the bordering the UWW - and are adamantly non-magic using? Their weapons give them something of an offensive advantage in capital-class weaponry against the UWW, as their main weapons are NOT energy.

3) What if, for whatever reason, they refuse to use the technology of others - maybe for religious reasons (A space-faring version of the Amish?), or as a matter of isolationist policy. Perhaps their flotillas shun contact with outside civilizations, and want nothing to do with the rest of the 3 Galaxies. Perhaps they have "proof" that CG systems are causing the Harmonic disturbances in the 3Gs and would consider themselves responsible for the horrors of those disasters if they used said technology.

4) Maybe they are so cuthtroat, and their weapons technology so devastating, that others actively try to PREVENT them from gaining such technology. I mean, as it stands now, they can threaten VERY LITTLE of the galaxy, no matter where they are put, by simple virtue of their LACK of FTL - would you really want to enable them to go further, faster?

As to the Red Dragon comment, I believe the comment about scaling has to do with making things equitable throughout the 3Gs in terms of military strength. The minute you introduce something so massively overpowered AND within the capabilities of every other civilization, the immediate question is "why haven't they been using it before?" Right now the only one-shot killer out there is the Dominator Star-Fortress, which it's meant to be (and such technology is designed to never fall into PC hands, unless you are playing a TRULY Cosmic-level game). Furthermore, not every new piece of tech introduced into the setting MUST be superior to the preceeding. I rather like the concept of presenting an "inferior" tech-level civilization who has to struggle to keep up in the 3Gs. The concept provides something fresh in the setting - a civilization that's on the cusp of entering the 3Gs arena proper. I mean, instead of your typical 1-man fighter planes, you now have reason to have something akin to the B-52 Flying Fortresses (the closest thing you have now is the shuttle craft). in short, these ARE the Red Dragons, but even Ancient Red Dragons have (relatively) reasonable stats - you don't see them breathing 15,973,482D6 just because. In PW, you would never expect a few fighters or a frigate on there own to seriously threaten a dreadnought.

[glitterboy2098]

This is all great (nto to mention calm and constructive) thinking all around. Keep it coming.

The aliens involved do in fact use a traction drive, so we could say that recoil is not a significant problem... the idea of "dropping anchor" before and after firing sounds like a good game-ballance trade. Like Glitterboy pylons, in space-time.

just remeber though. you can't actualy 'stop'. if you stop reletive to the local area of space, everyting around you will just speed by at a few thousands kmh, due to the movement of planets around stars, stars around galactic centers, and galaxies moving outward from the center of the universe.. the best you can hope to do is maintain a constant distance reletive to other objects. much like how currently, you appear to be sitting or standing still, but your actually on the surface of a planet rotating on it's axis at 1,669.8 km/h, orbiting a star at 107,218 km/h, which orbits the galactic center at 2.20×105 m/s, which in turn is moving at 552 km/s away from the point of the big bang.

i've run some numbers, and if azazel1024's calculations about how far the recoil would throw the ship, it's only comparable to 10 gravities of accelleration. so any ship able to reach about mach 5 (assuming that it represent's accelleration, just for sanities sake*) could fire this weapon, and while it would not gain speed, it would not loose it either.
if the race's vessels are slower than that, you could employ the "traction anchor" idea as the race having to 'pulse' the drive at higher thrust to offset the recoil, obtaining the same effect.

* we know by canon contra-gravitic drive ships can reach 60% of light using STL alone, so the listed mach numbers have to represent some form of accelleration mechanic by canon. we just don't have actual rules for it. my statemnt above assumes the listed book velocities represent velocity gained each 15 second melee. or about 2 gravities per mach.

Manipulation of such forces can also be used to explain how they spin up the rod to .01c with an acceptable energy expenditure (implying that the other powers in the 3G's could build RKV's, but that it's just easier to make a cruise missile instead).

if you've got a powerful reactionless drive like CG drives, it is cheaper to build missiles. and since the other three galaxies powers have access to anti-matter, they can (in theory) make much more powerful weapons than the RKV in discussion. (you have to get projectiles above about 90%c before antimatter ceases to be the more efficent means of creating damage..)

since this race doesn't have CG drives, RKV's would be better for them. especially if they don't have antimatter or can't make safe and compact antimatter storage.

As far as impacting ships... the idea of causing massive internal damage as the rod punches through the vessel entire has strong merit; it means PC's aboard ship still have a chance to evac, or effect rescue, or start repairs, or whathaveyou, instead of just being caught in a massive explsion and dying outright, which is what I want to avoid.

technically at those velocities the impactor will flash into plasma apon impact. the energy would just be too far above the limits of the metal. but, it would be plasma moving at nearly .01c, so odds are it will still bore a hole right through the target anyway.

btw, i ran the numbers on this RKV, and the damage would only be about 2D6x10,000 MD. 1c is about 1,000,000 palladium mach, so 1% is 10,000 mach. since an object moving at 3kms imparts energy equivilent ot it's own mass in TNT, i can calculate the damage roughly. 3km/s = ~10 mach. and 1 ton of TNT is roughly 1D6x10 MD. so 1x(10,000/10)x(2D6x10)MD= 1D6x10,000 MD.

which is powerful, but not gamebreaking...particulalry if you make it a weapon you have have to aim the entire ship to use...

I like the anchoring idea - gives a for them to be able to fire at such speeds (and may be a reason why the other civilizations don't) One thing I would like specified is that it anchors at the center of gravity, allowing the ship to be aimed while still being effectively immobile. This also means that main guns are either going to be single or in pairs, so that firing stresses would still remain symmetrical

except they can basically do this anyway., you can pivot in any direction in space without it effecting your movement vector. unless your drive is active, at which point your movement vector changes due to that thrust.

[Malakai]

I like the anchoring idea - gives a for them to be able to fire at such speeds (and may be a reason why the other civilizations don't) One thing I would like specified is that it anchors at the center of gravity, allowing the ship to be aimed while still being effectively immobile. This also means that main guns are either going to be single or in pairs, so that firing stresses would still remain symmetrical

except they can basically do this anyway., you can pivot in any direction in space without it effecting your movement vector. unless your drive is active, at which point your movement vector changes due to that thrust.

I am aware of this, but I can foresee others trying to argue the other way - best to cut off such arguments in the beginning.

[azazel1024]

If it pushes the ship back to a velocity of 100m/sec and the projectile is fire from a barrel/launching system with a length of 300m (lets call it the BFG) then it has to accelerate from 0-.01c (3 million m/sec) in a time of .0141s. So to accelerate the battleship to 100m/sec in the same time you get a result of 7092m/sec^2...that is 724 gravities of acceleration in those .0141s. It might be survivable for some megadamage species, but any S.D.C. fittings are likely to break under that strain and any S.D.C. creatures are likely to be mush. Typical fatal g forces for a human is around 80-100g in a car crash. In a race car with a good 5 point harness and other fun restraint technology fatal is around 150-200g. So we are still talking about 3-4 times the force levels that are lethal to a well restrained human being.

One issue with the antimatter vs RKV is that antimatter also requires some kind of containment equipment, drive, housing, etc. In the case of an antimatter cruise missile as a gauge of what it requires, a heavy antimatter cruise missile utilizes several thousand pounds of all of that to deliver probably micrograms or at most miligrams of antimatter. Now the containment equipment doesn't really scale up at the same level as you get bigger, but to deliver enough antimatter to be the equivelent of a .01c RKV weighing in at say 10kg you'd likely need a delivery mechanism weighing in at thousands or tens of thousands of kg...making the RKV much more space/mass efficient per round. Its not till you start talking really, really stinking large amounts of antimatter. Of course this is assuming the RKV is accelerated by a launcher, not that it accelerates itself.
-Matt

[glitterboy2098]

the RKV undergoes that accelleration, yes. your numbers are close to what i found. (my math was somewhat rough..)

but the same energy in the form of recoil applied to the much larger mass of the ship (what mass did you pick for the ship, btw?) would result in a much slower accelleration.
remember, we're dealing with the same amount of energy as in the projectile, just applied to a larger mass, which means more inertia to overcome.

still, a "traction anchor" could still just be a supercharged pulse from the traction drive to counter the recoil of the gun. since an anchor is a stationkepping device, such a stationkeeping pulse could still be dubbed an anchor.

[azazel1024]

Those 7,000 odd G's are what the larger ship experiences. The transfer of energy doesn't happen at a slower rate to the large vessel then it does to the projectile. The projectile undergoes a much higher acceleration then the ship does.

By the by, I was wrong, the acceleration the projectile undergoes is 60 billion m/sec^2, or about 20 billion gravities of acceleration and it takes 1x10^-4 seconds to exit the barrel (.0001s). The resulting back push in .0001s is about 100,000 gravities on the launching ship...well beyond what any M.D.C creature can take.

The math is d=1/2at^2. If you use 60 billion for a and 300m for d you get 300 = 1/2(6x10^10)8t^2, t = .0001s. V = at, V = 6x10^10 * .0001s, V=3,000,000m/sec, both equations are balanced. So an acceleration of 6x10^10 m/sec^2 for the projectile over .0001s will yield a velocity of .01c.

With the launching ship use the equation v= at, 100 for v and .0001 for t. a = 1,000,000, divide by 9.8 and round and you get 100,000 gravities over .0001s.

Nothing slow or gentle about the launching ships acceleration backwards. So something to 'anchor' the ship to prevent it from accelerating. A normal drive wouldn't suffice, but if it is a special application of some kind of traction drive, especially if there was a way to say supercharge it for a second or two to hold it in place for the firing (maybe draining the ships power or diminishing it for a few melee rounds in advance of firing) makes sense to me.

This is of course all assuming a 1 ton projectile, something smaller would be much more 'gentle', though a 1kg projectile is still going to push back with 100g of force (and over .0001s it would be more like a really brutal shove then something fatal, expect bruises). I picked 1 million metric tons for the ships weight and 1,000kg for the launching projectiles weight when doing the calculations (k= 1/2mv^2, k=1/2(1,000)(3x10^6)^2, k=4.5 trillion joules).

4.5 trillion joules of energy applied as a force on a 1 million metric ton ship would push it back pretty fast. k=1/2mv^2, 4.5 trillion = 1/2(1,000,000,000)v^2 yeilds a V of 94.8m/sec...I rounded up to 100.
-Matt

[drewkitty ~..~]

Those 7,000 odd G's are what the larger ship experiences. The transfer of energy doesn't happen at a slower rate to the large vessel then it does to the projectile. The projectile undergoes a much higher acceleration then the ship does.

By the by, I was wrong, the acceleration the projectile undergoes is 60 billion m/sec^2, or about 20 billion gravities of acceleration and it takes 1x10^-4 seconds to exit the barrel (.0001s). The resulting back push in .0001s is about 100,000 gravities on the launching ship...well beyond what any M.D.C creature can take.

The math is d=1/2at^2. If you use 60 billion for a and 300m for d you get 300 = 1/2(6x10^10)8t^2, t = .0001s. V = at, V = 6x10^10 * .0001s, V=3,000,000m/sec, both equations are balanced. So an acceleration of 6x10^10 m/sec^2 for the projectile over .0001s will yield a velocity of .01c.

With the launching ship use the equation v= at, 100 for v and .0001 for t. a = 1,000,000, divide by 9.8 and round and you get 100,000 gravities over .0001s.

Nothing slow or gentle about the launching ships acceleration backwards. So something to 'anchor' the ship to prevent it from accelerating. A normal drive wouldn't suffice, but if it is a special application of some kind of traction drive, especially if there was a way to say supercharge it for a second or two to hold it in place for the firing (maybe draining the ships power or diminishing it for a few melee rounds in advance of firing) makes sense to me.

This is of course all assuming a 1 ton projectile, something smaller would be much more 'gentle', though a 1kg projectile is still going to push back with 100g of force (and over .0001s it would be more like a really brutal shove then something fatal, expect bruises). I picked 1 million metric tons for the ships weight and 1,000kg for the launching projectiles weight when doing the calculations (k= 1/2mv^2, k=1/2(1,000)(3x10^6)^2, k=4.5 trillion joules).

4.5 trillion joules of energy applied as a force on a 1 million metric ton ship would push it back pretty fast. k=1/2mv^2, 4.5 trillion = 1/2(1,000,000,000)v^2 yields a V of 94.8m/sec...I rounded up to 100.
-Matt

Math.... MATH!!...... MATH!!
How dare you bring math into the gam...... errr... I've done that before... never mind.

[taalismn]

When they start crunching the big numbers, you know one thing for certain...

You and your suit of Plasticman EBA just ain't going to survive it....

[DhAkael]

-yawn-
Oh, the physics lesson is over?
Good, sorry... was falling asleep there.
Hey, here's a thought. Why not just say "Big stick hit you, you go squishboompiffle" and call it a day huh?

[Malakai]

:roll: -yawn-
Oh, the physics lesson is over?
Good, sorry... was falling asleep there.
Hey, here's a thought. Why not just say "Big stick hit you, you go squishboompiffle" and call it a day huh?

sarcasm aside, I agree with him - we've already figured a way to account for the recoil, regardless of what it actually is. We can leave the point as it is

[Qev]

Just to nitpick, wouldn't these weapons be KKVs, not RKKVs? They're not going fast enough to be considered relativistic weapons.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Hello all.

I am currently working on one of several Phase World projects, and I am stuggling on something in particular. Since you guys and galls will be the ones on the recieving end of this, I thought I'd see what you all have to say.

In short, we have a race of aliens who have been space-borne for 50,000 years. They have totally adapted to a life in 0g, and because of this they have never developed anything contra-gravitaional. Said race has instead mastered things like magnetism... and thus, I want them to posess Realitivistic Kill Vehicles.

An RKV, for those who don't know, is basically a solid mass ramped up to stupid speeds... in this case, 1% of light speed. So immagine that these aliens can launch a 40' long tungsten telephone pole at you, moving at 1873 miles per second! Moreover, the pole can either impact you wholly, or it can be detonated after launch, turning ti into a cluster of crow-bar-sized missiles.

This is where science headbutts with game design, because, based on established Palladium damages, such a weapon would inflict... and I'm not kidding here... 4D6x66,000 MDC. A single one of these "god-rods" could destroy any starship currently running around. So obviously, for the sake of gaming fun, such damage must be scaled back enough so that Player Characters and their vessels aren't insta-killed, yet remain deadly enough that the aliens remain feared.
these are the issues I struggle with daily.

Without getting into "destroys everything in its path of fire regardless of MDC"-type damages, the biggest guns out there are the cannons on the Emancipation Super Carrier - which can hit you for 60,000 MDC in a single blow if it rolls well. With that as a yardstick, what damage would assign to a god-rod moving at 1%c ...? I'm in the 1D6x10,000 neighbourhood myself, which is waaay low given the physics involved, but is enough that only the most shielded starships will survive the first volley.

I await your input.

My biggest problem with such weapons, is actually that they can be nullified by launching a volley of minimissles to vaporize it.

[Esckey]

Just like to add something to the discussion. If you fire this at a Doombringer and it does 20D6X100,000 MDC, why would the Doombringer be destroyed? The affected area is only a few 100 meters.It has a big hole it from one side to the other. But baring a shot on the engines/bridge/some other vital area the ships should still be in one peice. Probably has little in the way of power, O2, and stability, but its not a death trap. In my opinion that is

Another example are Vibro knives vs SDC. The knife may do 100+SDC per strike but the 20 year old with 50Hp/SDC is still going to be alive if you don't hit him in a vital area

[shiiv-a]

strange. i start reading this, and 2 shows/episodes come to mind immediately.

Star Trek [original] which looked like a sper sized Bugle .. sucking matter in and using it for food/propulsion - end result - blown up by Spock ..

STNG - the 'Tin Man' episode. also a very large living creature .. capable of destroying with energy

so .. i believe the phrase is 'conversions not allowed'

but thats just my input. i already know how you dislike my input on many topics

[Qev]

My biggest problem with such weapons, is actually that they can be nullified by launching a volley of minimissles to vaporize it.

I agree. Instead of firing large, solid hyperkinetic projectiles, I'd probably be cruel and instead fire large, hyperkinetic canisters of sand. This would have three benefits: much harder to intercept, much easier to hit with, and does a much better job of transferring its energy to the target (ie. no 'punch-through' problem).

[Braden Campbell]

...Why does it always have to be a planet-killer, though, seriously? There's an awful lot of missing middle ground in the Three Galaxies and I'd much rather see that explored than see yet another planet-killer in a galaxy that's increasingly full of planet-killers.

I'm actually envisioning it as one weapon system that can multi-task; and that such efficiency would stem naturally from a people who have lived the past 50 millenia hiding out in the Oort Clouds and Kuiper Belts of the Three Galaxies.

For example, a god-rod could be loaded into a "magnetic hyper-acellerator" (or whatever name the system has) fired out with little spin-up, and be blown into a cloud of crowbars - damage and range would be comparable to a heavy railgun. Conversely, it could also be loaded with a god-rod, spun up longer, and released intact to cripple capital ships with a .01c phone pole. Finally, if the need arose, the same hyper-acellerator could fire rods into the crust of a planet, causing fantasitc impact damage and triggering eathquakes and tidal waves.

Basically, it's like three weapon systems in one package.

[drewkitty ~..~]

For GMs out there.
The world's races are not xenophobic, but are highly militaristic in the defense of their homeworld.

CG Cruise Missiles
These missiles developed by a little known world in the <omitted> galaxy. The world became the target of pirate attacks and raids may times over the time they had been colonized. Turning to ways to defend their world with the limited resources to ground based manufacturing. Turning to he ships that brought them to the world they set about to make a weapon that could strike at orbital targets from the technology that brought them to the world. In the early early years, the missiles were huge, slow and easy targets , so the people used megatonnage ranged warheads. They figured that even if just one got through, a normal pirate ship would be taken out. Later, after the world was transitioning to orbital infrastructure, they changed their defense strategy from ground launched anti-orbital missiles, to orbital launched missiles. This is when they re-discovered much about CG technology's FTL capabilities and limitations, and built their system defense missiles with CG drives to move the missiles out of orbit and FTL flight to anywhere through out their star system. If targeting a ship with in 1,000,000 mile one of the many sensor station located through out the system, then then the missiles only have to make one navigation roll, emerging with in 1000 miles of the targets. With +3S and +10D to each attack run, for the currently used missiles. If any missile misses it's target, w/o being destroyed, it will require it's target and make attack runs till it ether strikes or is stopped by point defense, or runs out of fuel.

AX-38 System defense missile
FTL Range: 8 light hours
Attack duration: 20 min.
Mega-Damage: As per wmd nuke warhead (see CS Navy)
MDC: 250

[KLM]

For example, a god-rod could be loaded into a "magnetic hyper-acellerator" (or whatever name the system has) fired out with little spin-up, and be blown into a cloud of crowbars - damage and range would be comparable to a heavy railgun. Conversely, it could also be loaded with a god-rod, spun up longer, and released intact to cripple capital ships with a .01c phone pole. Finally, if the need arose, the same hyper-acellerator could fire rods into the crust of a planet, causing fantasitc impact damage and triggering eathquakes and tidal waves.

Basically, it's like three weapon systems in one package.

Which is actually two, but what the hell...

My suggestion - added to the above "critical hit table" idea - is that

a, Do not call the god rods tungsten. Or any existing material, for that matter.

b, Add some propulsion for the "god rod". It will result in lesser vehicles carrying the same firepower, as well as
being moe accurate. Finally, such projectile will need some space to reach its impact speed - ie. do not do full
damage. Something, which enhances player survival rates

ADios
KLM

[azazel1024]

That was solely my point with the math that some kind of 'recoil compensator' should be thrown in as an explination. I don't need the hard math in my games, in fact it slows them down way to much.

I agree with some kind of critical hit table. It impacts with such violence and speed that it cores ANYTHING it hits short of a planet (even a Star Fortress). Afterall nothing has enough M.D.C. per square meter to withstand the impact. It should probably do some amount of damage since enough hits are going to break up a ship. I'd keep the damage high, but not ridiculous, maybe 1d4x10,000 damage plus roll on the critical hit table (I'd say anything under maybe 01-40 doesn't destroy anything critical, ships are big things and parts don't have anything vital in them at all...well unless your PC was there).

Oh, and auto force field penetration (maybe half damage to force fields, half to whatever was underneath, plus roll on the crit hit table).
-Matt

[Xar]

I don't deal well with too much science. It tends to make my brain hurt and get in the way of fun for me. I'll cut out what I don't need to reply to you.

...
Said race has instead mastered things like magnetism... and thus, I want them to posess Realitivistic Kill Vehicles.

Cool concept. No problem...Don't torque them off.

So immagine that these aliens can launch a 40' long tungsten telephone pole at you, moving at 1873 miles per second! Moreover, the pole can either impact you wholly, or it can be detonated after launch, turning it into a cluster of crow-bar-sized missiles.

Again, outstandingly cool idea. More reason to not torque them off

This is where science headbutts with game design...

I hate it when that happens.

A single one of these "god-rods" could destroy any starship currently running around. So obviously, for the sake of gaming fun, such damage must be scaled back enough so that Player Characters and their vessels aren't insta-killed, yet remain deadly enough that the aliens remain feared.

I don't care that some above talk about the energy require to launch the God -Rod. They're masters of magnetism! Maybe they have this giant whole array where they slowly accellerate the rod in a circle until it gets up to this speed. I don't worry about the energy, because the rule of cool will trump.

I'm in the 1D6x10,000 neighbourhood myself, which is waaay low given the physics involved, but is enough that only the most shielded starships will survive the first volley.

Agreed, as an insta-kill is never cool, so we have to avoid that. I have no problem with setting the damage such that a critical strike can't quite take out a capital ship. Sure, it could take out a smaller ship, but I'm also guessing, as someone else mentioned, that these would have had to have been fired from a really long way away. So, a moving target would be very unlikely to have been hit...Not that it would have a chance to dodge, as you said, they're stupid fast...More that a tiny fraction of a degree of error in targeting and it missed completely... Such that they probably never even targeted a ship likely to be destroyed in one shot.

In fact, once I really think about it, it seems like this is more of a weapon used to be a bombardment weapon aimed at cities or planets in general. How about using the plastic bullet idea for a shorter range, ship weapon, but using the giant telephone pole weapon with more realistic damage to make new craters in things that only move in precisely predictable paths?

I await your input.

Go for the cool story always.

[Braden Campbell]

Go for the cool story always.

You know, the President of this company says the same thing.

[Ziggurat the Eternal]

Why would every ship carry such a powerful, energy intensive weapon? Furthermore, think of the ammunition constraints. You can only shoot them so often due to energy drain, you can only fit some many telephone poles on any given ship, and hitting anything smaller than a Cruiser would be somewhat difficult. All in all, there is a simple answer. Really cool idea. Don't put it on every ship.

Give it to their flagship only, or just one type of capital ship. Don't nerf the damage, or at least not much. Maybe bring it down to 4d6x10,000 because it is meant to be awesome. And since this race isn't likely to be stupid, give them smaller guns for everyday use. Human sized projectiles for capital weapons on Capital and sub-Capital ships. Crowbar sized projectiles for frigates and heavy Corvettes, and fist sized projectiles for sleek fast Interceptors.

Have them all do heavy damage. Give them low numbers, or slowboats due to a lack of contragrav, if you feel the need to limit them. They don't necessarily need FTL travel to be a Galactic Class Civilization. They just need to be Really-Bad-Dudes. Some people get classified as Seriously bad dudes by destroying things, other by being the fastest or smartest, only a very ridiculous few are good at everything, or even competent at everything. I think a Galactic class civ without FTL, or really slow FTL, would be interesting, and a breathe of fresh air.

[Qev]

I don't care that some above talk about the energy require to launch the God -Rod. They're masters of magnetism! Maybe they have this giant whole array where they slowly accellerate the rod in a circle until it gets up to this speed. I don't worry about the energy, because the rule of cool will trump.

A giant ring accelerator could be a characteristic design element of their spacecraft, which would be cool.

[Braden Campbell]

Running with the idea that the Exiles' (the name for this race, BTW) technology is based largely around manipulation of electromagnetism, and therefore woudl feature not only RKV, but craptons of hypervelocity bullet weapons, I did some searching re (muzzle) velocities.

Speed of a -
(.50) machinegun round: about .5 miles/sec
Boom Gun round: 1 mile/sec (I know!)
Coilgun round (hypothetical, but this is what Rifts "railguns" would actually be): 3.6 miles/sec
Railgun round (hypothetical, based on reserach by the US Navy); 6 miles/sec

An actual railgun would be on the low tech end of what the Exiles could build, but we can now extrapolate that they could easily field a version of the Boom Gun that fired a shell with six times the velocity! 18D6x10, anyone?

Obvisouly, a suit of power armour running around and able to dish out an average of 540 MDC per attack would be game breaking, but at least its rooted somewhat in real life.

[glitterboy2098]

said hyper-boomgun would have about 6x the recoil though, so it probably wouldn't be something you could mount on a suit of powered armor. you might be able to justify mounting one in a fixed mount on a treaded vehicle though.. hyperkinetic S-Tank?
without gravity manipulation to provide recoil suppression, you'd need plenty of mass to counter the recoil.

[Braden Campbell]

Heavy power armour we can do... remember these aliens are adapted to a life in 0-g, so mass really isn't a problem for them (until they try to go planet-side). Right now, their infantry armour weighs an impressive 8 tons. By comparison, the Glitterboy is light enough that I could throw it in the back of a Ford F-150 and drive around with it, shooting mailboxes.

[KLM]

An actual railgun would be on the low tech end of what the Exiles could build, but we can now extrapolate that they could easily field a version of the Boom Gun that fired a shell with six times the velocity! 18D6x10, anyone?

Just a side note: IRL damage is "calculated" from movement energy - in this case, the Exiled Silent Gun (in space,
noone can hear your gun), would cause 36*3*d6*10MD... ie. d6*1000MD.

(Which it would not, since a 9mm Lüger does 2d6 SDC, with a kinetic energy of about 400 Joules, while a
.50 BMG, with 17+ kiloJoules is rates 7d6 SDC... Yeah, right.)

ADios
KLM

[azazel1024]

Maybe a magnetic sheer beam? Just about anything has some kind of magnetic field even it is super weak (IE non-ferrous/magnetic materials, such as carbon). So if you could fire some kind of alternating magnetic beam you could tear something apart. You could also do this with a gravity beam (I know, I am stealing David Weber's schtick here, ala a force beam, but face it Weber, tractor beams and things like gravity force beams have been around a lot longer in sci fi).

So maybe this race has a magnetic canon that alternates polarity in a very tightly confined beam thousands of times a second and literally tears things apart. Double damage to metal ships/armor/etc, half damage to ceramic/crystal structures and regular damage to force fields. Maybe somewhat limited range compared to a comperable laser for power.

These could be there 'lighter' weapons, point defense weapons, etc. Still as powerful as a normal laser maybe (maybe 1d6x10pd, 3d6x10 short, 1d6x100 medium, 1d4x1,000 heavy), but with slightly shorter range and smaller (I mean these guys are experts at this stuff).
-Matt

PS brings in the possibility that maybe the CCW or someone else (maybe a race specializing in gravity/contragravity) developes a similar kind of gravity force weapon and/or tractor beams.

[Braden Campbell]

Well, I've decided on a damage rating, which is what this was all about.

Thanks all for the intelligent debate and hashing.

[KLM]

Well, I've decided on a damage rating, which is what this was all about.

Thanks all for the intelligent debate and hashing.

Last man leaving please shut the light

Adios
KLM

[Lenwen]

Hello all.

I am currently working on one of several Phase World projects, and I am stuggling on something in particular. Since you guys and galls will be the ones on the recieving end of this, I thought I'd see what you all have to say.

In short, we have a race of aliens who have been space-borne for 50,000 years. They have totally adapted to a life in 0g, and because of this they have never developed anything contra-gravitaional. Said race has instead mastered things like magnetism... and thus, I want them to posess Realitivistic Kill Vehicles.

An RKV, for those who don't know, is basically a solid mass ramped up to stupid speeds... in this case, 1% of light speed. So immagine that these aliens can launch a 40' long tungsten telephone pole at you, moving at 1873 miles per second! Moreover, the pole can either impact you wholly, or it can be detonated after launch, turning ti into a cluster of crow-bar-sized missiles.

This is where science headbutts with game design, because, based on established Palladium damages, such a weapon would inflict... and I'm not kidding here... 4D6x66,000 MDC. A single one of these "god-rods" could destroy any starship currently running around. So obviously, for the sake of gaming fun, such damage must be scaled back enough so that Player Characters and their vessels aren't insta-killed, yet remain deadly enough that the aliens remain feared.
these are the issues I struggle with daily.

Without getting into "destroys everything in its path of fire regardless of MDC"-type damages, the biggest guns out there are the cannons on the Emancipation Super Carrier - which can hit you for 60,000 MDC in a single blow if it rolls well. With that as a yardstick, what damage would assign to a god-rod moving at 1%c ...? I'm in the 1D6x10,000 neighbourhood myself, which is waaay low given the physics involved, but is enough that only the most shielded starships will survive the first volley.

I await your input.

I would do two things my friend.

Lower the overall amount of mass being pushed .. as well as lower the speed available to said weapon systems.

Which should in my opinion (an it very well could be wrong) lower the overall damage to an acceptable lvl of MD ..

With Smaller "payloads" for the God Rods .. and a slower overall speed .. I would say that 1d4x10'000 up to 2d4x10'000 would be very realistic Damage scale.

[Greyaxe]

Why resort to simple damage.

Why not roll a d6 for a predetermined result. They are intended for a purpose, boarding of ships. Why not simply say the result was successful or not and to what degree it was successful, perhaps based on the strike roll. For those who would say what about shields, simply say they are not terribly effective against shields and deliver 2d4x1000 which is comparable to capitol ship weapons.