Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[syvarris]

I genuinely like the way you guys spoiler your arguments. It allows one to form vivid and entertaining mental images of a world beyond ours, where mortals of low patience fear to tread.

Also, some of them sound like they could be collected into books/volumes and sold.

Perhaps.  They would have to have some form of footnote commentary, like what professional sports have.  Say, 'Oooh, look, GWG has skillfully noted that syv's argument is built on a strawman!  How will syv respond?  Oh, it seems he's countered GWG by pointing out that he's using the fallacy fallacy!  GWG took the bait!  syvarris is in the lead!  Three more points and he'll have WON!

Much arguing over nothing will return after these messages.'

I had the idea of a Positron Beam as a sort of anti-EVERYTHING weapon, using manips to create the positrons and direct them to where the target is. I'm not sure exactly how practical it is though. I'm pretty sure I need a way to create a vacuum to prevent the beam from interacting with the atmosphere, as that would be deleterious to the health of the operator as the positron stream creates matter/antimatter energy bursts from interacting with the air molecules. Also, with all the manips required for this(at it's most basic, I need at least two), as well as the power source required for this, it's not gonna be cheap.

Paris had the idea awhile ago of using tandem vector and magnet manips to propel atoms through solid matter, by disabling their electromagnetism.  That concept might work for a positron beam, I think, although it would have a very set range.  It would be able to fire through walls though!

Actually, that would be a really awesome alternative to a breaching charge.  Slap it on a battlesuit or tank or something, and it teleports antimatter into the cockpit.  A microwave manip would be cheaper and almost as effective, but it would be far less awesome.

[Parisbre56]

I had the idea of a Positron Beam as a sort of anti-EVERYTHING weapon, using manips to create the positrons and direct them to where the target is. I'm not sure exactly how practical it is though. I'm pretty sure I need a way to create a vacuum to prevent the beam from interacting with the atmosphere, as that would be deleterious to the health of the operator as the positron stream creates matter/antimatter energy bursts from interacting with the air molecules. Also, with all the manips required for this(at it's most basic, I need at least two), as well as the power source required for this, it's not gonna be cheap.

If you want a "destroy everything" weapon, you can just use grav-shells for the gauss rifle. They might be a bit expensive but they're good at killing almost anything conventional (that means not space magic).
Or make a downscaled fusion instigator if you're looking to kill something really big that nukes just won't cut it
(note to self: try fusion instigator against Titan in Tinker).

If you want a "cut through anything" weapon though, you might do well with an automanipulator that creates a beam of extreme heat or extreme gravimetric or electromagnetic distortions. It will break most conventional stuff while keeping you mostly safe even in close range, unlike the grav-shells.

Those arguments or cents look more like sidecommentary than any sort of argument in any definition.

What is sidecommentary? Excuse my lack of knowledge but I've never heard that word before and Google doesn't provide an answer when I ask it.

[Tiruin]

Those arguments or cents look more like sidecommentary than any sort of argument in any definition.

What is sidecommentary? Excuse my lack of knowledge but I've never heard that word before and Google doesn't provide an answer when I ask it.

Hum...let me reword that into commentary then. xD
Just minor comments, not much of arguments. Opinions? Something like that.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I had the idea of a Positron Beam as a sort of anti-EVERYTHING weapon, using manips to create the positrons and direct them to where the target is. I'm not sure exactly how practical it is though. I'm pretty sure I need a way to create a vacuum to prevent the beam from interacting with the atmosphere, as that would be deleterious to the health of the operator as the positron stream creates matter/antimatter energy bursts from interacting with the air molecules. Also, with all the manips required for this(at it's most basic, I need at least two), as well as the power source required for this, it's not gonna be cheap.

Positrons need to move at or below a certain speed to react with matter. If you used a principle similar to the Plasma Cannon, holding them in a containment field and launching with an automanipulator, you could have very effective positron bomblets. As in, they would pass straight through matter as long as they're contained and kept at high speed, but as soon as containment fails they decelerate and go boom.

Personally, I always wondered what kind of boom positrons make. Supposedly they annihilate only with electrons. Stripping electrons off an atom makes it positively charged, and the energy release from the annihilation would increase the temperature dramatically, creating a cloud of plasma. Most objects aren't made of one type of material, and different materials would create plasma of a different color. So, effectively, positron irradiation makes everything instantly and literally burst into rainbow flames. Even in vacuum.

[Parisbre56]

Those arguments or cents look more like sidecommentary than any sort of argument in any definition.

What is sidecommentary? Excuse my lack of knowledge but I've never heard that word before and Google doesn't provide an answer when I ask it.

Hum...let me reword that into commentary then. xD
Just minor comments, not much of arguments. Opinions? Something like that.

Ah, I understand. Yeah, that sounds right.

I had the idea of a Positron Beam as a sort of anti-EVERYTHING weapon, using manips to create the positrons and direct them to where the target is. I'm not sure exactly how practical it is though. I'm pretty sure I need a way to create a vacuum to prevent the beam from interacting with the atmosphere, as that would be deleterious to the health of the operator as the positron stream creates matter/antimatter energy bursts from interacting with the air molecules. Also, with all the manips required for this(at it's most basic, I need at least two), as well as the power source required for this, it's not gonna be cheap.

Positrons need to move at or below a certain speed to react with matter. If you used a principle similar to the Plasma Cannon, holding them in a containment field and launching with an automanipulator, you could have very effective positron bomblets. As in, they would pass straight through matter as long as they're contained and kept at high speed, but as soon as containment fails they decelerate and go boom.

Personally, I always wondered what kind of boom positrons make. Supposedly they annihilate only with electrons. Stripping electrons off an atom makes it positively charged, and the energy release from the annihilation would increase the temperature dramatically, creating a cloud of plasma. Most objects aren't made of one type of material, and different materials would create plasma of a different color. So, effectively, positron irradiation makes everything instantly and literally burst into rainbow flames. Even in vacuum.

Now I wish I had that, so I could initiate rainbow orbital bombardment... It would be the most colourful apocalypse ever!

Dammit team Hephaestus, why aren't we swimming in superweapons yet? 

EDIT: The glow! The wonderful glow!

[Hapah]

I was reading through the Heph and Tinker posts of late during my lunch break, and a thought occurred to me. Why hasn't there been any attempt to create objective measurements for how well various pieces of equipment perform?

Why not have some sort of basic form, which states some basic information about a given weapon and how it can be expected to perform against various targets? It's very hard to compare two things when you don't measure them, and I don't think there's been any real attempt at any sort of standardized measurement thus far.

The basic idea would be something like this:

Spoiler: Very Basic Form (click to show/hide)

Weapon Name: Duh
Description: A brief description of what the weapon is, maybe one or two sentences.

Performance: List how the weapon performs against various targets. I was thinking some members of the community which have much more experience than I could determine what the more common expected enemies are, and then test and rank any weapon that uses the sheet against these "benchmark" targets. Like, I dunno, Target 1 could be unarmored grunt sods, Target 2 could be Battlesuits, etc. etc. Like I said, you guys would know what sort of baseline enemies you would want to know a weapon's effectiveness against.
Target 1: 7/10 (damage lethal, but trigger delay an issue)
Target 2: 4/10 (only damages vulnerable sections of target)
Target 3: etc. etc.

Drawbacks: If the weapon has any sort of drawback which should be noted, but isn't reflected in the performance bit above. Like the weapon is frail and prone to malfunction, makes you go bald, unpredictable...stuff like that.

Notes: Any other notes.

Fields could be input or removed as required. For example, Heph folks might be interested in things like the difficulty of mass production, # of units that could be produced on a single production line in a given time, cost in materials, etc. etc. Armor could be done with the targets being the weapons used against the armor instead of the other way around.

I don't think this should be applied to every tinker project or anything, but I think it could be useful both for the newbie sorts of equipment (so that a new guy can find a weapon that he wants and know how it works without digging through 300 pages of stuff or making the wrong assumptions), as well as anything that could possibly be used by sods or grunt troops in any large quantity. It could help us quantify things like "lasers don't hurt battlesuit plate" and "can hurt a battlesuit in the joints, but not main armor" in a brief, easy-to-interpret format.

Do any of you more experienced folks think the idea is worth exploring? Has it been done already? Please correct me if I got anything wrong or I'm missing something.

[Doomblade187]

I had the idea of a Positron Beam as a sort of anti-EVERYTHING weapon, using manips to create the positrons and direct them to where the target is. I'm not sure exactly how practical it is though. I'm pretty sure I need a way to create a vacuum to prevent the beam from interacting with the atmosphere, as that would be deleterious to the health of the operator as the positron stream creates matter/antimatter energy bursts from interacting with the air molecules. Also, with all the manips required for this(at it's most basic, I need at least two), as well as the power source required for this, it's not gonna be cheap.

Positrons need to move at or below a certain speed to react with matter. If you used a principle similar to the Plasma Cannon, holding them in a containment field and launching with an automanipulator, you could have very effective positron bomblets. As in, they would pass straight through matter as long as they're contained and kept at high speed, but as soon as containment fails they decelerate and go boom.

Personally, I always wondered what kind of boom positrons make. Supposedly they annihilate only with electrons. Stripping electrons off an atom makes it positively charged, and the energy release from the annihilation would increase the temperature dramatically, creating a cloud of plasma. Most objects aren't made of one type of material, and different materials would create plasma of a different color. So, effectively, positron irradiation makes everything instantly and literally burst into rainbow flames. Even in vacuum.

The rainbow cannon V2.

Can we please use this and make battlesuits explode into rainbow flame? But seriously, someone make this.

[tryrar]

Well, for better annihilation events, I was going to ramp it up to antihydrogen if positrons didn't output enough energy. But yeah, I don't just want to copy the Plasma Projector(as that won't let me get this thing prototyped, which was a problem with my mortar being to similar to a gauss cannon), though your idea is interesting.

For reference, about a gram of antimatter, give or take, is about the three times the explosive output of the bomb dropped on hiroshima. For obvious reasons, I'm hoping use a little less in the way of that 

[PyroDesu]

Antimatter particle beams are pointless - if the particles in the beam are moving at relativistic velocities higher than ~90% of c, you will have about the same energy release if the particles are matter or antimatter. Also, positron beams are worse - sure, positron-electron annihilation produces its energy directly in a pair of 511keV gamma rays, but their energy contribution is small enough to be considered negligible in full antimatter-matter annihilation, even though antiproton-proton annihilation produces much more inconvenient pions instead of gamma rays direct (while the neutral pions decay almost instantly into gamma rays, the charged pions do not, they can go up to 21 meters from the annihilation site (assuming a particle velocity of .94 c) - and produce harmless muons and neutrinos). And, unrelated to particle beams, the way antiprotons and protons annihilate means that not all of the energy produced in an antimatter annihilation event is dangerous - and that's if all of the antimatter annihilates (the force from the first few particles will blow the rest of the antimatter away from the annihilation site - the amount actually annihilating would end up rather small, from 10% at best (if you were to use it as a weapon in space), while an optimal use (tossing a chunk at a planet, for instance) may reach 100% - but not all of that 100% will be directed). Your blast yield for 1 gram of antimatter and 1 gram of matter, under these circumstances, varies from 3 kilotons to 30.1 kilotons - depending on how much you can get to annihilate.

[syvarris]

I was reading through the Heph and Tinker posts of late during my lunch break, and a thought occurred to me. Why hasn't there been any attempt to create objective measurements for how well various pieces of equipment perform?

Why not have some sort of basic form, which states some basic information about a given weapon and how it can be expected to perform against various targets? It's very hard to compare two things when you don't measure them, and I don't think there's been any real attempt at any sort of standardized measurement thus far.

The basic idea would be something like this:

Spoiler: Very Basic Form (click to show/hide)

Weapon Name: Duh
Description: A brief description of what the weapon is, maybe one or two sentences.

Performance: List how the weapon performs against various targets. I was thinking some members of the community which have much more experience than I could determine what the more common expected enemies are, and then test and rank any weapon that uses the sheet against these "benchmark" targets. Like, I dunno, Target 1 could be unarmored grunt sods, Target 2 could be Battlesuits, etc. etc. Like I said, you guys would know what sort of baseline enemies you would want to know a weapon's effectiveness against.
Target 1: 7/10 (damage lethal, but trigger delay an issue)
Target 2: 4/10 (only damages vulnerable sections of target)
Target 3: etc. etc.

Drawbacks: If the weapon has any sort of drawback which should be noted, but isn't reflected in the performance bit above. Like the weapon is frail and prone to malfunction, makes you go bald, unpredictable...stuff like that.

Notes: Any other notes.

Fields could be input or removed as required. For example, Heph folks might be interested in things like the difficulty of mass production, # of units that could be produced on a single production line in a given time, cost in materials, etc. etc. Armor could be done with the targets being the weapons used against the armor instead of the other way around.

I don't think this should be applied to every tinker project or anything, but I think it could be useful both for the newbie sorts of equipment (so that a new guy can find a weapon that he wants and know how it works without digging through 300 pages of stuff or making the wrong assumptions), as well as anything that could possibly be used by sods or grunt troops in any large quantity. It could help us quantify things like "lasers don't hurt battlesuit plate" and "can hurt a battlesuit in the joints, but not main armor" in a brief, easy-to-interpret format.

Do any of you more experienced folks think the idea is worth exploring? Has it been done already? Please correct me if I got anything wrong or I'm missing something.

This is certainly a decent idea, although rating the gun with numbers would be bad.  Just giving the damage capabilities next for an MK.1, some form of light armor, synthflesh body, and battlesuit, would be good.  Rating the gun will come up with issues- one might have spread on it's side, another rate of fire, another more damage capabilites, another accuracy, ect, and have the same score in a given area.

I'll work on mocking up something real quick, for the weapons I know of.

(as that won't let me get this thing prototyped, which was a problem with my mortar being to similar to a gauss cannon)

Y'know, I have the distinct feeling prototyping will work very differently in the future.  I don't think PW has directly said what he'll do about it, but I'd guess prototype duties will be moved to Simus and other people on Hephaestus.  And we'll probably be perfectly fine with giving you a prototype that mimics something else, but is more useful in some way.  Only allowing original prototypes is gonna hamstring us.

And if PW does leave prototyping the same, then maybe we could set up an idea black market or something- you give us a good gun blueprint, and we send you a free copy of one with the shipment that brings a bunch to the Sword.

[Hapah]

This is certainly a decent idea, although rating the gun with numbers would be bad.  Just giving the damage capabilities next for an MK.1, some form of light armor, synthflesh body, and battlesuit, would be good.  Rating the gun will come up with issues- one might have spread on it's side, another rate of fire, another more damage capabilites, another accuracy, ect, and have the same score in a given area.

I'll work on mocking up something real quick, for the weapons I know of.

Oh sure, I see what you're saying. Some of those could be easily translated into fields, I actually meant to add one for "Effective Range" but I forgot.

I'm just looking for ways to express if Weapon X is good against Target Y. And there are certainly varying degrees of effectiveness (as an example, a gun that kills a man on the spot is better than one that makes him bleed out 30 seconds later, even though he's just as dead either way. Some sort of huge scatterblast attack against unarmored targets is probably better than something like a gauss round, since aim isn't as important etc. etc.) Some sort of number rating for the general consensus for "effectiveness" of the weapon versus the target is the idea, and I hope we can get some more feedback and iterate.

As far as actually scoring the weapons, my thoughts were that all relevant parties [i.e. Heph team] could each score weapons and average the results. But again, I'm open to any and all feedback: we just need a useful measurement system.

[syvarris]

I'll work on mocking up something real quick, for the weapons I know of.

And I have done so, but only for conventional stuff in the armory.  I went with the idea of using it more as a 'can my gun kill that' sheet.  We should probably figure out what the UWM uses as light armor, and test that as well.

Spoiler: Hand Laser (click to show/hide)

Description: A glove with a small laser emitter on the back of the hand.  It can be fired by making certain gestures with your fingers.
Magazine: 50 seconds, 1 TPU
Features: Unsure.  Probably none, possibly diffraction and intensity dials.

MK.1: Takes several seconds of direct beam to do any appreciable damage.
Synthbody: Unknown.  Presumably can damage after many seconds, but no synthbody is gonna sit still for that long.
1" thick plate of steel: Will melt through, eventually.  Seconds of beam unknown.
Battlesuit: No effect.  Run.

Things to test: Effectiveness against various things, possible features.

Spoiler: Laser Rifle (click to show/hide)

Description:A simple laser rifle.  Point and shoot.
Magazine:30 seconds, 4 TPU
Features: Two dials to adjust diffraction and intensity.  Intensity ranges from 1-5, five intensity being five times as effective as one, and draining battery five times as fast.  1 is standard.  Diffraction ranges from 'shotgun', to 'beam'.  Beam is standard.
MK.1: Passing sweeps will not penetrate.  Several seconds can penetrate and boil the flesh beneath.
Synthbody: Unknown.  More seconds than MK.1 required to do significant damage.
1" thick plate of steel: Will melt through eventually.  Seconds required unknown.
Battlesuit:No effect.  Run.

Things to test: Possibly capable of melting battlesuit cameras in shotgun mode?  Effectiveness againsst various things.

Spoiler: Gauss Rifle (click to show/hide)

Description:A gun which uses magnets to drive a 20mm metal slug out at very high velocities.
Magazine:10 round 20mm.  2 TPU generator & capacitor
Features:1 round per second fire.  Overcharge mode, which does greater damage, but fires slower.  Can use special rounds.

MK.1: Massive damage, instant kill if you hit anywhere near the torso.
Synthbody: Exact capability unknown.  Less damage, but still blows decent chunks off.  Several shots likely required to take one down.
1" thick plate of steel:  Penetrates through.
Battlesuit: No effect if you shoot the armor.  Joints can be damaged, however.

Overcharged shots
MK.1: It just dies.
Synthbody: Exact capability unknown.  Greater damage than standard.
1" thick plate of steel: Penetrates through.
Battlesuit: Unknown.  Possibly cracks armor after several shots, damages joints.

Things to test: Overcharged shot's power draw.  Effectiveness against synthbody & OCS vs battlesuit.

Spoiler: Tesla Arc (click to show/hide)

Description:Think video game flamethrower, with the massive cloud of short-ranged flame.  Replace fire with lightning.
Magazine:60 seconds, at 10 TPU.
Features:Everything in front of you dies.  If surroundings are conductive, you may too.  Also, the gun burns out with the battery.

MK.1: It dies.
Synthbody: It likely dies, although it may survive for a short time.
1" thick plate of steel: It's zapped.  Sections are likely melted.
Battlesuit: No effect.

Things to test: Uhm... verify the effectiveness?

Spoiler: Crystalline Projector (click to show/hide)

Description:A small radar-gun sized weapon with a spike in the front.  Targets aimed at while the gun is pointing at them suddenly have crystal growths grow all over, and in, them.
Magazine:10 round black box.
Features:Can stab somebody with it, and inject the rounds.  This may cause that section of opponent's body to convert into crystal if they roll 5 on endurance.  If important organs are affected, they die anyway.

MK.1:It tears them into pieces.
Synthbody:The affected part of the flesh falls off before it can do much damage.
1" thick plate of steel: Unknown.  Likely digs into the metal some, unknown if it penetrates.
Battlesuit: Unknown. May breach an armor layer, maybe not.  Would probably ruin joints.

Things to test:Verify that only melee stabs allow an endurance roll.  Test against battlesuit and plate of steel.

Spoiler: Rocket Rifle (click to show/hide)

Description:A gyrojet assault rifle, that fires explosive rockets at 5 per second.
Magazine:50 rockets
Features:Unknown. Only good at medium range.

MK.1:Unknown. Presumably kills with one shot to vitals or head, may be more powerful.  Bursts certainly lethal.
Synthbody: Unknown.  Probably kills within a few shots.
1" thick plate of steel:Unknown.  Probably breaches in short order.
Battlesuit:Unknown.  Probably cracks armor within a few shots, probably destroys joints in one or two.

Things to test: Effectiveness.  Hidden features.

Spoiler: "Sibilus" Rocket/Gauss Hybrid Rifle (click to show/hide)

Description:A Rocket Rifle which has had the explosives swapped for a metal penetrator, and gauss coils added to get the rounds up to speed faster.
Magazine:75 rounds, Unknown TPU draw.
Features:
Special:
    Burst: This weapon can fire in 3-shot bursts for added effect.
    Overcharge: This weapon can fire an overcharged shot. (Req. 7 STR)
    Super-Overcharge: This weapon can fire a massively overcharged shot. (Req. 11 STR)
   
MK.1: Look it up.
Synthbody: Look it up.
1" thick plate of steel: Look it up.
Battlesuit: Look it up.

Things to test: This was developed within the first hundred pages of on-ship, IIRC around 40-60.  Unsure.  Look it up.

Spoiler: Cutting Laser (click to show/hide)

Description: A large laser, that can kill things with great ease.  It's about the size of Ol' Painless.
Magazine:60 second battery, at 8 TPU.
Features:Unknown.  Likely diffraction, possibly intensity.

MK.1:Minor sweeps will kill easily.
Synthbody: May need somewhat more concentrated shots to kill.
1" thick plate of steel: Minor sweeps cut through easily.
Battlesuit: No effect.

Things to test:Verify effectiveness.  Secret features.

Spoiler: High energy projector (click to show/hide)

Description:Basically a very wide laser shotgun.  Intensity is lower than the cutting laser, but beam is much wider.  Pistol sized, but somehow very heavy, or has recoil.
Magazine:5 TPU.  Uses 300 per shot.
Features:Unknown, probably none.

MK.1: Disappearing act.
Synthbody: Unknown.  Likely severely harmed, may survive.
1" thick plate of steel: Disappearing act.
Battlesuit: No effect.

Things to test:Hidden features, synthbody effectiveness.

Spoiler: Heavy Gauss Cannon (click to show/hide)

Description:Three times the size of the gauss rifle in every way, and usually fires nuclear rounds.  This page assumes you're using normal slugs.
Magazine:3 rounds, 4 TPU generator & capacitor
Features:Overcharge?  Special rounds.

MK.1: He's dead.
Synthbody: He's probably dead if you hit the torso.
1" thick plate of steel: Penetrates.
Battlesuit:Unknown.  Probably makes significant cracks in armor, may do more.  Cripples joints.

Things to test:Effectiveness against battlesuit and synthbody.  Special rounds.  Price of normal mag.  Secret features.

Spoiler: Piezoelectric Shard launcher (click to show/hide)

Description:This wonderful gun feeds a liquid solution into a firing chamber, and then runs an electrical current through it, solidifying it into a two-foot long shard which is as wide as your wrist in the center.  It is then forced out by electrical repulsion at high velocities, and explodes into shards, electricity, and pain once it impacts something.
Magazine:30 shards worth of fluid.  4 TPU generator.
Features:Can fire a charged volley, draining 10 shard's worth of fluid in half a second, continually crystallizing the fluid as it's fired.  About twenty pieces leave the barrel.

MK.1: Goes right through the person.  Ironically less lethal than lower tier weapons.
Synthbody: Unknown.  Probably does serious damage, killing it if you hit the torso.
1" thick plate of steel: Unknown.  Probably gets stuck, then explodes and makes a big hole.
Battlesuit: Exact power unknown.  Penetrates in to some extent, then explodes.  Shatters at least one layer of armor, may kill the pilot.  Probably separates joints from body.

Things to test:  Exact power against non-MK.1 enemies.  Hidden features.

Spoiler:  Plasma Projector (click to show/hide)

Description:The lavalamp cannon fires a basketball sized glob of plasma contained with automanips, in a straight line.
Magazine:3 shots, 150 TPU battery
Features:Fires slowly.  Possible for enemies at a range to dodge easily. 

MK.1: Guy's dead if you hit the torso or head.
Synthbody: Dead if you hit anywhere near the braincase.
1" thick plate of steel: Nice perfectly round foot wide hole.
Battlesuit:Makes a nice foot wide tunnel right through.  Try and hit the cockpit.

Things to test: Hidden features?

Spoiler: LESHO rifle (click to show/hide)

Description:A extremely fancy railgun which usually fires nuclear shells, guided directly to the target by advanced technology.  This assumes you're firing non-nuclear ammo.
Magazine:Single.
Features:Unknown.

MK.1:Dead.
Synthbody:Dead.
1" thick plate of steel: Penetrated.
Battlesuit: Unknown.  Several layers of armor shattered probably.  Pilot may die.

Things to test:Hidden features?  Effectiveness against battlesuit?

Spoiler: Fission Instigator (click to show/hide)

Description:Teleports an overloading 3-token microwave manip to where you point it.  Actually, no, just creates a short-lived star there, but might as well teleport a manip. >.>
Magazine:100 TPU.  Burns out after one shot.
Features:Unknown.

MK.1: Gone.
Synthbody: Gone.
1" thick plate of steel: Gone.
Battlesuit: Gone.

Things to test: We're probably only ever gonna use one in the final mission where we betray Steve and shoot him with one, so there's no real point.

Oh sure, I see what you're saying. Some of those could be easily translated into fields, I actually meant to add one for "Effective Range" but I forgot.

I'm just looking for ways to express if Weapon X is good against Target Y. And there are certainly varying degrees of effectiveness (as an example, a gun that kills a man on the spot is better than one that makes him bleed out 30 seconds later, even though he's just as dead either way. Some sort of huge scatterblast attack against unarmored targets is probably better than something like a gauss round, since aim isn't as important etc. etc.) Some sort of number rating for the general consensus for "effectiveness" of the weapon versus the target is the idea, and I hope we can get some more feedback and iterate.

As far as actually scoring the weapons, my thoughts were that all relevant parties [i.e. Heph team] could each score weapons and average the results. But again, I'm open to any and all feedback: we just need a useful measurement system.

Adding token costs and range seems bad to me- we already have that in the armory.  We might want to merge this list with the armory, but I didn't include unimportant info like that.  Also, range bonuses lie.  The heavy gauss cannon is, if anything, less accurate than the gauss rifle, but has a higher bonus to force it into overshooting.

Also, number ratings can be confusing.  Taking my list there, the cutting laser would probably get a 10 against an MK.1 suit.  A gauss rifle, if we're comparing to other guns, would probably get a two or three.  But a gauss rifle is still gonna kill if you hit the person in the head or torso.

Worse, giving stuff like "will bleed out in a short period" is bad, because damage is variable depending where you hit them.  A .22 LR bullet, shot directly into the forehead, will kill a man.  But shot into his foot, it'll have negligible effect.  Especially considering how the RTD system works; a 5 with any gun will probably kill someone, but a 2 will never harm them unless you're using something with a big bonus.

[GreatWyrmGold]

But it's not a standard issue thing.  Unless I misunderstand how the armory works, the default lists are stuff they have laying around in storage, while specific parts and special orders are things that the AM makes with her amp.  Which is why they're usually more expensive.

I thought she made most everything with her amp.

Okay, this just confused me for awhile.  I think our disconnect is whether or not understanding how things work make them cheaper.  I'm arguing that if we examine how Simus' phase armor phases, we could see that there's a metal rod here, here, and here, and they get shocked with a specific charge, which phases stuff.  We don't know why it phases, but we certainly can manufacture the rods and the shockers.  Presumably there would be some experimentation, seeing how much position affects the rods or charge level or whatever, but the point stands- just because we don't know why the rods make things phase, doesn't mean we can't manufacture phasing rods.

Big if.

And we made the sandbag from perfectly live organisms, which operated by a principle we'd already seen, or heard as the case may be.

Aren't the sandbag critters synthetic replicas?

@GWG You can stop posting those cents things.  I don't care, and I don't read them.

Are you reading it now?
Jerk. They're not even all aimed at you!

EDIT FOR GWG: On the Sibilius, maybe instead of trying gas recoil methods, you could try simply making the rifle easier to control? Like better grips/padded stock/etc.? Maybe make it lighter, but reduce recoil too if you go that route.

The gas spring is...a spring, but it works by compressing gases instead of squeezing metal coils.
I'm 60% sure that the problem with the recoil is at the point where it's knocking people back instead of just kicking the gun up. I'll add those, though.

[Unholy_Pariah]

@Syvarris
Nice list, very informative/useful.
In a related note im pretty sure i remember something about the piezo launcher having a "printing" hidden feature where you pour the goo into a mold before it crystallises allowing you to make single use exploding popsicle knives, among other things...

Also im not sure piecewise even uses the range bonuses anymore, should definately get confirmation before including them.

[Hapah]

Giant List O' Sheets

Nice, and thank you!

Adding token costs and range seems bad to me- we already have that in the armory.  We might want to merge this list with the armory, but I didn't include unimportant info like that.  Also, range bonuses lie.  The heavy gauss cannon is, if anything, less accurate than the gauss rifle, but has a higher bonus to force it into overshooting.

Oh sorry, I communicated poorly. I meant that if something performed very well but required some ultra-rare element that was a manufacturing bottleneck, it would be something to take into consideration in the weapon specs. I don't think these sheets should replace the armory, but it could make for a useful supplement. Even just your list that you posted could make a very useful quick reference for a newer player.

For effective ranges, I wasn't thinking range bonuses: I just wanted there to be a quick at-a-glance idea of how far your weapon can be expected to reach. If you've got some death tazer with a 10 foot reach it's not going to do anything to a target across the street, and potential range is definitely something that should be considered. I would think that grading should assume that the weapon is in optimal or near-optimal range (though again, open to disagreement and discussion).

Also, number ratings can be confusing.  Taking my list there, the cutting laser would probably get a 10 against an MK.1 suit.  A gauss rifle, if we're comparing to other guns, would probably get a two or three.  But a gauss rifle is still gonna kill if you hit the person in the head or torso.

My thoughts were that the sheets wouldn't compare a weapon directly to another weapon, but just rank how well the weapon performs against each target. It could get messy if you have to re-evaluate every existing weapon when any new weapon is added.

Worse, giving stuff like "will bleed out in a short period" is bad, because damage is variable depending where you hit them.  A .22 LR bullet, shot directly into the forehead, will kill a man.  But shot into his foot, it'll have negligible effect.  Especially considering how the RTD system works; a 5 with any gun will probably kill someone, but a 2 will never harm them unless you're using something with a big bonus.

I didn't want to include that as a stat, I just think characteristics like that should be taken into consideration when grading. As an example, if you had two guns that were identical in every way, except the first killed/incapacitated with a center torso shot and the second allowed the target to continue fighting for some length of time, the first is obviously preferable. If you compare the gauss rifle and the electric flamethrower (tesla arc?) against fleshy targets, the latter is probably superior: they both kill people dead in short order, but I imagine you've got the aim less with the latter and it's less finicky even if you don't roll great. I'd probably call it a 6/7 and a 9/10 accordingly.

((Also let me know if I need to start spoilering this))