Underwater Combat

[grandmaster z0b]

I've been looking in Underseas and Coalition Navy, but I still can't see any definitive rules on underwater combat, especially what weapons work underwater and if conventional energy weapons work at all or do less damage. I know that a blue-green laser is much better underwater, but what about plasma, ion weapons and p-beams?
Are mini-missiles and mini-torpedos interchangable? In some instances they seem to be, so could a normal SAMAS load itself with mini-torpedos instead? Most underwater Power Armours seem to have rail guns so I assume they do the same damage underwater, or do they lose some damage or need special ammunition?

So many questions....

[grandmaster z0b]

Thanks, at least that's a start. So can you fire a normal mini-missile underwater?
Oh and if I'm missing some page of rules that clarifies everything, can someone give me the book and page no.?

[Borast]

One thing to remember. Water is 20x denser than air, so if no other forces act on the weapon/ammo, you'll be lucky to see 5% of the range.

Visible light (certain frequencies) can only penetrate as deep as about 100 feet or so. Even at 30 feet, the (natural) light on a bright sunny day is noticably dimmer.

Firing a plasma cannon underwater would likely result in the weapon exploding as the "beam" superheated the water in the barrel. As for the rest...I leave it to your imagination (however, lasers would not have this problem, since they have a focusing crystal at the opening to the barrel. But, depending on the frequency of the laser ("colour" for lack of a better explanation), you'll see different ranges and effects.

Anyway...ciao.

Oh, something I just thought of... Railguns underwater would be super stupid a) the shell(s) would decelerate superquick, and if firing a burst, would result in the shells slamming into one another (as the water "slug" propelled with the first shell would slow it drastically, but the barrel would be "dry" for the remaining shells in the burst), and b) Rail Guns use controlled massive electrical surges to propel the magnetc slug. In addition to being "magnetic" to a degree, water conducts electricity, and each time you pull the trigger you'd likely start causing some electrical damage to yourself!

[Svartalf]

im not sure on the others, but i would rule that both ion and plasma would be totally ineffective underwater, except maybe at point blank range.

careful with either ... ion is able to cause some weird conduction effects in the water and zap the user...

and plasma is worse. I'll assume that modern weapons would not be totally ruined by the water, and would even function to an extent... the extent of poiling the water around the gun's mouth and near the user's to be precise... to do anything like nomal effect, it would have to be touching the target, I'd say less than 2 or 3 inch range.

[grandmaster z0b]

So is there even any information about the advantages of blue-green lasers in the books? I mean there must be but I'm just missing it. Oh and there are a few plasma and ion weapons mounted on underwater PAs, the only difference seems to be less range and damage, yes it seemed ridiculous to me too.
Wouldn't explosions do more damage underwater too?

[Borast]

Zob...

A B/G laser works because the frequency (colour) of the light passes through water "easily" (ie: it penetrates the furthest of all usable light frequencies).

My understanding is that it also "scatters" less over it's effective range.

[glitterboy2098]

basically i'd just create my own rules, since the "official" ones we have are sketchy.


at one point i had decided to clairify torpedo damage, since in the book there are never any stats.

basically i had 3 types.

HE (your basic torpedo)
Plasma (great against biologics, but really weak Vs. machinery)
Ink (basically smoke.)

these were in mini, short, medium, long and cruise missile sizes.



this was part of a project to clairify all the missiles in Macross 2, robotech, phase world and rifts for use in my games, but then my computer crashed and i lost the file.

[Dead Boy]

Well, canon wise, I just now grabbed Free Quebec and tok a look at its Sea Dragon PA's "variable laser". On its normal setting it has an impressive 4,000 ft range, but on its Blue Green setting (suposedly optimized for underwater comb at) it's half that, 2,000 feet. So if I were to take a educated guess, if a BG lasers has half the range of a nomral one in its element, then I'd say a normal laser has half the BG laser's range out if its element, or a quarter it's normal range. So a normal NG laser rifle with a 1,600 foot range would have a 400 foot range underwater.