Re: lasers

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]
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