FGMP and PGMP are *NASTY*

Scott Kellogg asks:
: What exactly does a Fusion/Plasma gun DO?
....
:I have seen references where a PGMP-12 was fired in an enclosed room and the
:contents of the entire room were fried.  (Annic Nova)

Probably depends on the size of the room, but sounds about right.


:I have also seen references where an FGMP-15 was fired in an enclosed room
:it hits a robot who is standing next to human characters and all that happens
:is the robots arm gets blown off.  No one else is injured.  (trav Digest #8)

Ugh.  I disagree, unless it was a clean miss and the robot was sideswiped.
(Or some other fiction to save the GM.)


:My reading of MegaTrav is that it does damage more akin to the former
:description, but I have seen this vary from referee to referee.
:I personally, would blow up the room.  But in the PBEM, at
:'Leadfoot's Last Stand' a fusion gun was used without doing so.  (I think)

Actually one of the engineering rooms _WAS_ fried.  Also turned radioactive.
Also everything loose was thrown around like rag dolls.  The robot was
damaged considerably, as were all of the room occupants.  Heat and radiation
spilled out into the adjoining corridor.

My reading is that in origininal Traveller the FGMP and PGMP were really
crew-fed weapons, like mortars or really light field artillery.  This means
the things are slow, hard to set up, and incredibly devastating in small
areas.  I've always treated the PGMP as an "improved" FGMP without the
hard radioactivity, but more heat and blast effects.

The Traveller computer game "Zhodani Conspiracy" treats the PGMP like a
truly expensive carbine with great penetration and damage.  And this
game is authorized by GDW...


:Perhaps the current PBEM ref's have different ideas about the performance of
:the humble fusion gun than Richard does.  If so, I think the security team
:should know just in case they feel footloose with such a weapon while standing
:next to MY character... :-)
:	(Mark?  Metlay?  Richard?  Comments?)

I'd like to know this too, considering the current state of affairs in our
quiet little expedition.

As a rule of thumb, I use 1m _radius_ (not diameter) for full blast and
heat effects, 2m radius-->50% 3m radius-->25%  4m radius-->10%  (not
truly the profile of a blast, but easy to do on the fly).  Penetration
falls off together with blast.  Walls contain blast, but only half the
heat.  (In a small room, you might set the next compartment afire.)
Walls do nothing against radioactivity unless they are armor or bulkhead
or otherwise clearly superior to cloth and paper.

Balls of plasma are ballistic, and have really high drag.  That is, they
don't go line-of-sight, like lasers, and they don't go a long ways, like
bullets.  But for 10m out there, they sure beat grenades.

I still speculate as to the wisdom of using an FGMP inside engineering
of a starship in jumpspace... :=)  Orders is orders, though.
- --
Richard Johnson      [email removed]
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.