Jo Jaquinta [email removed] writes:
>
> It is my understanding from the MT rules that laser weapons (other
> than a one-shot integral laser) require this large backpack to power them.
> This puts rather a damper on their use as a personal weapon. If someone
> out there who knows the power consumption for modern lasers cross-references
> that with the battery/fuel cell/micro-fusion outputs of the Traveller sources
> then it would be interesting to see what size this would have to be.
Do the MegaTraveller books not give such figures? Very well; Striker did,
and MT took most of its combat data from there.
TL Weapon Weapon weight Power pack weight Penetration
8 Laser Carbine 5 kg 3 kg 7
9 Laser Rifle 6 kg 4 kg 9
9 Laser Pistol 3 kg 1 kg 4
12 PGMP-12 6 kg 3 kg 20
13 Laser Carbine 4.4 kg 2 kg 12
13 Laser Rifle 8.8 kg 4 kg 20
13 Laser Pistol 2.2 kg 1 kg 6
13 PGMP-13 9 kg 60 kg 25
The penetration figures are for effective range; the TL 13 laser rifle
has a greater range than a PGMP-12. The weight of the PGMP-13's power
pack means you have to wear battle-dress to carry it. The early lasers
get 50 shots from a power pack, except for the rifle which gets 100;
the PGMP-12 gets 40. All TL 13 weapons get 200 shots, except for the
PGMP-13 which gets unlimited shots.
> In my own campaign only special squads/comando units use laser or
> plasma weapons. They are just too expensive (don't forget the cost of
> maintaining them) to kit out your entire armed forces with. Unless your
> potential opponent is going to be dressed in (expensive) combat environment
> suits of (prohibitively expensive) battledress a good, simple rifle will
> do just as well. Does anybody have a counter-argument I haven't thought of?
The enemy may also be wearing cloth armour, or vacc suits, whose armour
factor of 5 will stop or seriously hinder a bullet from an assault rifle
(penetration 3). As of TL 10, you can use ACR's whose sabot ammo has a
penetration of 6; at TL 12, a gauss rifle gets a penetration of 7. These
things are into the CR 1000 range, as is the combat environment suit. At
TL 11, combat armour costs CR 20000, and its armour factor of 8 is good
against everything except laser rifles or heavy support stuff. At TL 12,
it gets an armour value of 10, and a price tag of CR 30000; at TL 13,
battledress with the same armour factor costs CR 200000. Finally, at
TL 14, combat armour and battledress have armour value 18, and cost
CR 60000 and CR 350000 respectively - you need at least a TL 13 laser
rifle to penetrate that.
To summarise: at higher tech levels, you may only be able to kit out a
small force for the same cash, but you can make it invulnerable to anyone
who doesn't do the same. There's also the matter of ammo; a laser power
pack gets recharged from the starship's power plant (assuming you have
access to one). Finally, you can use a laser to illuminate a target for
the benefit of laser-guided missiles - the first people to get laser
carbines are forward observers for this reason.
[email removed] writes:
> Lasers...Is it a typo or is the TL 13 laser a kilo-and-a-half more than the
> TL 9 version.
For the rifle, yes; pistols and carbines are lighter than the earlier ones.
- --
"Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott
Adrian Hurt | JANET: [email removed]
UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: [email removed]