Karl Heinz wrote
> Not a specific comment about your suggestion, but ...
How
> about some weapons that are affected by shields, but do ignore armor or
Nice idea, anybody have any ideas, however OTT, for this proposal? My
contribution is a partical shockwave weapon that can be deflected by sheilds
(but does weaken the sheilds in doing so), but due to creating a energy wave
it ignores armour and effects hull directly. Just a off the wall idea.
Any comments or ideas out there?
G'day guys,
> Not a specific comment about your
I guess that's because its easier to think up reasons why something could
breach screens rather than armour which is a physical extension of the ship
(or so I assume).
> Nice idea, anybody have any ideas, however OTT, for this proposal?
For the non-mechanically minded in the audience, what would be the PSB
for something that can ignore armour?? I can understand things that burrow
through armour, but not one that skips it all together. Drawing on my
biological knowledge the only things I could think of would be things that
work like microwaves <popping the ship from the inside... start on the bottom
hull box and work up maybe;)> or sonics which disable the internal
delicate mechanisms but not the external - mind you with no atmosphere
in space sonics as such aren't going to work, but I'm guessing your shockwave
is the interstellar equivalent??
Cheers
Beth
> Beth Fulton wrote:
How about an Xray laser (XRL) or equivalent? Ignores ceramics but soaked up by
lead or equivalent dense material. The PSB problem lies in the expectation
that starships will be shielded against ionising (cosmic) radiation as a
matter of course.Perhaps the XRL would count as oversaturating the local
shielding?
JAT just a thought
MarkS All the way from Gallifrey...
> From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au>
...
> For the non-mechanically minded in the audience, what would be the PSB
I'm at work right now, so I don't have the reference in front of me. My poor
memory seems to recall a weapon in GDW's "Brilliant Lances" that might
fit the bill. Some sort of exotic particle with a short half-life.
For a brief time, the particle could go through matter without interacting
with it. Then, it "degrades" into another substance that is very destructive.
Hopefully, it would in the interior of
the enemy ship when this occurred. You could manipulate the half-life
by shooting the particle at speeds close to the speed of light and take
advantage of the relativistic effects. At longer ranges, you need
a longer half-life, so you shoot it closer to the speed of light than
you would need at shorter ranges.
Sorry, but my memory is failing me, so I may have the details wrong. Perhaps
someone can recall what this weapon was.
> Beth Fulton wrote:
> G'day guys,
> For the non-mechanically minded in the audience, what would be the PSB
That staple from Traveller, the meson gun (actually a pi-meson [pion]
cancer
therapy machine on uber-steroids). A laser-like emitter produces bursts
of pion with a very small range of energies, and these are then accelerated by
a very tightly controlled and precise accelerator. The pions have a very short
mean lifetime, so they decay very quickly, but at near lightspeed, they can go
far enough to reach the target ship. Once they hit the ship, they are forced
to slow down as light travels slower when not in vacuum, so their arrival is
heralded with a burst of Cerenkov radiation. Interactions with the target's
hull and atmosphere slow down the pions enough that their time dilation is no
longer enough to carry them outside the hull before they decay into a flash of
gamma rays. Screens are very effective against these beams, as they slow down
many of the pions before they reach the ship. Armor actually worsen the
damage, as the armor absorbs the high energy gammas and reradiates low energy
gammas, which are much better at interacting with the contents of the hull, so
too little armor is worse than none.
Mass: should be large, initial guess 16 Arcs: as per class 5 Range: 36 Damage:
initial 8 dice (as beams, no rerolls), skips first row of armor.
Ships
equipped with armor take an extra 4 dice. Level one screens halve the number
of dice, level two screens quarter it. Screens only affect the number of dice,
not the amount of damage determined by each die.
By unusual happenstance, the weapon was discovered by the NSL. After test
firing
a non-deployable prototype, they spent a conspicuous amount of effort
failing to
Sounds to me like someone was buying 20,000 Cr hammers again... It's not going
to be pretty when the "missing" NSL cruisers turn up in an action...
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta
[Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM
> -----Original Message-----
Meson beam. First introduced into Traveller via the High Guard rules, IIRC.
God--that was ages ago! And I still have my copy!
Rob
[quoted original message omitted]
On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:02:20 +1100, Beth Fulton
<beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au> wrote:
> For the non-mechanically minded in the audience, what would be the PSB
Well, the obvious answer is something like a particle beam that can go through
solids fairly easily and with little damage, but do a LOT of damage at the
focal point.
Another option is perhaps a space equivalent of a squash head round. Something
that slams into the armour, does not penetrate, but causes a shockwave that
knocks around stuff inside or sends shrapnel flying on the inside hull
(there's a term for this, spalling or something like that, that Oerjan will no
doubt mention). This might actually work well in space, where the missile
doesn't have to be aerodynamic. At any rate, you could use PSB to suggest that
the projectile is slowed down away from the vessel by shields but doesn't harm
armour (technically I know that more armour WILL hurt such a weapon,
but...).
You could also come up with some sort of fusion weapon that converts armour
mass into energy, thus using the mass of the vessel against it. Shields would
work against this weapon (energy on energy) but the armour would actually work
WITH it. In fact, if you want to be nasty, you could have it do more damage
based on the amount of armour the vessel had. That should give Oerjan fits in
the costing department!
This was the result in Timothy Zahn's "Conquerer" trilogy. The human missiles
and weapons had minimal visible effect on the Zirhnn's ceramic hulls, but the
internals were a slaughterhouse; not that the humans found this out until
later.
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta
[Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM
> -----Original Message-----
> > something that can ignore armour??
that might
> fit the bill. Some sort of exotic particle with a short half-life.
mesons
> For a brief time, the particle could go through matter without
(radiation)
> that is very destructive. Hopefully, it would in the interior of
in one of the traveller products you got a +/- DRM based on target
ship's configuration, ie for some shapes it's easier to hit the "inside
volume" than for others
> You could manipulate the half-life
had to be relativistic no matter what, as otherwise it would degrade
before it went anywhere--the trick was to fire it at exactly the right
velocity so it would degrade in the right spot
[quoted original message omitted]
A long time ago (FT2/MT), I had a species that used missiles and nano
technology. The missile delivered packets of nanites that were programed to
dismantle the ship. Armor was especially consumed as it contained molecules
targeted by the nanites. So 2 ablative armor was removed for every damage
point it absorbed.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> For the non-mechanically minded in the audience, what would be the
[snip]
> Another option is perhaps a space equivalent of a squash head round.
Nope; I didn't have to ;-)
The problem with such damage effects is that it is almost completely negated
by using a double hull. The outer hull needs to be strong enough that the
round doesn't penetrate; the spalling then occurs between the two hulls where
it causes minimal or no damage.
My favourite "stopped by screens but not by armour" is a "generic EMP"
direct-fire weapon - call them "Ion Cannon", "Minbary Wonder Beam" or
whatever (yes, I *know* Star Wars Ion Cannon aren't affected by beams,
but the MT EMP missiles are) - doesn't inflict *any* hull or armour
damage, but takes out random weapons and other systems.
Another fun system is the Star Trek-style transporters, used to beam
boarding parties onto the target vessel - any Trekkie knows that
transporters don't work through shields! Requires better boarding
combat rules than those in MT though :-/
Later,
From: Robert W. Hofrichter <RobHofrich@peoplepc.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 01:23
Subject: Re: FT-HET Laers
> Meson beam. First introduced into Traveller via the High Guard rules.
1st or 2nd edition? Bring back Bk5 magazines!
(Don't worry, we have them; they're now called Ortillery)
Yes, both
Michael Brown
[quoted original message omitted]
In message <200101302128.WAA14148@d1o960.telia.com>
> "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
[snip]
> My favourite "stopped by screens but not by armour" is a "generic EMP"
> direct-fire weapon - call them "Ion Cannon", "Minbary Wonder Beam" or
> but the MT EMP missiles are) - doesn't inflict *any* hull or armour
> Another fun system is the Star Trek-style transporters, used to beam
Well, I have some prototype stats for a 'matter transmitter' based
weapon, but its more like a varient Salvo missile launcher/plasma bolt
launcher type weapon, - but it still needs a bit of work - it could do
other things as well.
Charles Stanley Taylor
> whatever (yes, I *know* Star Wars Ion Cannon aren't affected by
^^^^^
> er.. do you mean screens here?
Yes, except they seem to be called "shields" in SW :_/
> it might be interesting to have a look at the 'turbolaser commentries'
That's nice :-)
Later,