> I always thought of the hand weapons in Star Wars as 'blasters', by which
>I mean a weapon that actually launches some sort of physical projectile. Kinda
>like a plasma pistol. Any guesses as to what tech level would be needed to
>make such a thing in MT. I.E. is there any good correlation between the tech
>level at which a rifle (large version of a weapon) comes out and when the
>equivalent pistol comes out?
>
>Andrew "Hiding behind 7-bit ASCII" Salamon
Well, the Star Wars blasters are a version of the classic S-F pulp zap
guns, and as such they don't really have to obey any sort of reality. If I
*HAD* to, I guess I would call them a kind of a plasma pistol.
In one of my campaigns, one character funded a research project, the
culmination of which was the construction of a device he called the PPMP-16.
It looked like a rather large hair dryer, connected to a backpack power
supply (approximately the same size and weight as that for a laser rifle).
Its combat statistics were approximately the same as a PGMP-12, but it
contained only about half the ammo. In MegaTraveller terms, that would be
a pen/atten of 20/1, damage of 12, and difficulty as pistol.
The thing was a one of a kind, and the total cost of the prototype was over
a million credits (the total cost of the research program was considerably
more than that, in addition). The design was offered to Instellarms, but
they declined production; not only was the weapon realtively expensive to
make, it had a limited market, and was very sensitive to maintainance.
Because it is so close to the "bleeding edge" of technology, the PPMP-16
suffered from a couple of problems. Both of these are maintainance related;
the operating characteristics of the gun time, barrel wear, and power pack
charge. A special hand computer program, combined with a maintainance kit
were used to keep the weapon in top shape.
Without proper maintainance (and generally whenever the firer rolled a "2"
for his to-hit roll) one or the other of two things would happen.
First, the hydrogen plasma "seed" could fail to be properly contained for
plasma heating. The effect was a low powered shot (half pen and damage)
that did not form into a proper beam; instead, it spread out like a
flamethrower in front of the weapon (and with about the same range).
Secondly, the plasma could be over-contained, and may actually start to
fuse (pen/atten 25/1, damage 14). Unfortunately the higher recoil is
usually not compensated by the gravitic system, resulting in loss of control
of the weapon, muscle strains, sprained joints, and in one case a fractured
wrist (the PPMP-16 was really *NOT* designed with Vargr in mind).
The weapon was last seen before the 5th Frontier War, in the Spinward Marches
region (specifically in the hands of a mixed Aslan/Human starmerc outfit
operating out of the Darrian Confederation).
Wildstar
You want to take good care of your star, otherwise it gets all dark and icky.