Ultratech & Traveller
As stated before, I've been looking in an existing Traveller 'campaign' and making notes with regards to various armor & weapons. Since this campaign is done by Mongoose, some translation to GURPS is required and wow ... some of this stuff is crazy.
So, books I'm using for this are Ultratech & GURPS: Traveller (3E). Traveller: Interstellar Wars isn't very helpful.
Straight away, there's a reference to Battle Dress. As the link indicates, this is evidently powered armor, which Traveller 3E gives as PD 5 (passive defense ... haven't seen that in a while!), DR 150, gives ST 25, Speed 5.5, Move of 5. This is easy. Ultratech gives TL 9 powered combat armor, which at TL 11 will have DR 140/100. Problem solved.
The real trouble, I think, is with a referenced FGMP (TL15) which is a "fusion gun, man-portable.) This awesome Tech Level Comparison chart tells me that TL15 is GURPS TL 12 and Traveller 3E (p107) tells me that "Fusion guns are more powerful, higher TL plasma blasters. They aren't Ultra-Tech's fusion guns." Admittedly, this is 3E UT, but still.) Also, Traveller 3E has the FGMP-12 inflicting 8dx20, which averages around 480 points ... right. Okay. And it only required a ST 10 to carry.
So, looking at Ultra-Tech plasma guns I see Heavy Fusion Gun, which does 20D(2) burn ex (only averages 60 points, but halves DR), while the TL10^ heavy plasma gun and TL11^ plasma battle rifle do 3dx5(2) burn ex which only averages around 45 points.
Digging deeper, the entry on fusion weapons at the Traveller wiki, it specifically states that FGMPs may only be used by someone wearing battle dress (aka powered armor), so that either means "heavy as frak" or "requires backpack ammunition." If I go with "heavy," then logically, FGMPs would use Gunner (Beams) instead of Beam Weapons, so I can go heavier. Also, Powered Combat Armor provides +10 to Lifting & Striking ST - per Basic 285, you add an additional +5 to Lifting & Striking ST & another +1 to Super Jump per TL past 9, so if I'm looking at TL 11, that's +20 Lifting/Striking ST for minimum of ST 30.
Plasma Cannon looks good for this: 6dx25 (2) burn ex which averages out to 450 ... but it requires a ST of 240M (!) so that's right out. The Plasma Gatling Gun requires a ST 50M, where the Semi-Portable Plasma Gun (which is back to doing 20D(2) burn ex) only requires ST 27M. It has a RoF 3 where the FGMP-12 in Traveller 3E only has a RoF 1. Let's see ... if all three shots hit and I do average damage, that's only 180 points, well below the kind of crazy 480.
Ugh. I'm just going to go with the Semi-Portable Plasma Gun and say the hell with it. Although I do wonder how that would do against someone wearing the battle armor from above...
So, books I'm using for this are Ultratech & GURPS: Traveller (3E). Traveller: Interstellar Wars isn't very helpful.
Straight away, there's a reference to Battle Dress. As the link indicates, this is evidently powered armor, which Traveller 3E gives as PD 5 (passive defense ... haven't seen that in a while!), DR 150, gives ST 25, Speed 5.5, Move of 5. This is easy. Ultratech gives TL 9 powered combat armor, which at TL 11 will have DR 140/100. Problem solved.
The real trouble, I think, is with a referenced FGMP (TL15) which is a "fusion gun, man-portable.) This awesome Tech Level Comparison chart tells me that TL15 is GURPS TL 12 and Traveller 3E (p107) tells me that "Fusion guns are more powerful, higher TL plasma blasters. They aren't Ultra-Tech's fusion guns." Admittedly, this is 3E UT, but still.) Also, Traveller 3E has the FGMP-12 inflicting 8dx20, which averages around 480 points ... right. Okay. And it only required a ST 10 to carry.
So, looking at Ultra-Tech plasma guns I see Heavy Fusion Gun, which does 20D(2) burn ex (only averages 60 points, but halves DR), while the TL10^ heavy plasma gun and TL11^ plasma battle rifle do 3dx5(2) burn ex which only averages around 45 points.
Digging deeper, the entry on fusion weapons at the Traveller wiki, it specifically states that FGMPs may only be used by someone wearing battle dress (aka powered armor), so that either means "heavy as frak" or "requires backpack ammunition." If I go with "heavy," then logically, FGMPs would use Gunner (Beams) instead of Beam Weapons, so I can go heavier. Also, Powered Combat Armor provides +10 to Lifting & Striking ST - per Basic 285, you add an additional +5 to Lifting & Striking ST & another +1 to Super Jump per TL past 9, so if I'm looking at TL 11, that's +20 Lifting/Striking ST for minimum of ST 30.
Plasma Cannon looks good for this: 6dx25 (2) burn ex which averages out to 450 ... but it requires a ST of 240M (!) so that's right out. The Plasma Gatling Gun requires a ST 50M, where the Semi-Portable Plasma Gun (which is back to doing 20D(2) burn ex) only requires ST 27M. It has a RoF 3 where the FGMP-12 in Traveller 3E only has a RoF 1. Let's see ... if all three shots hit and I do average damage, that's only 180 points, well below the kind of crazy 480.
Ugh. I'm just going to go with the Semi-Portable Plasma Gun and say the hell with it. Although I do wonder how that would do against someone wearing the battle armor from above...
- 1 shot does 60, but halves DR.
- DR will be 100 since this is neither piercing nor cutting. Halved for 50 ... damn. 10 points would get through straight away. That's ... surprisingly not terrible...
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