Shadowrun Pub
General => Creative Corner => Topic started by: Pimp-Boy 2000 on June 11, 2005, 09:55:10 PM
-
I've been working on several gaming projects lately, not the least of which include Fallout HERO, another post-apocalyptic campaign of my own design, and slowly, slowly reading the rules for Shadowrun.
Now, recently, I've decided I want to create my own "Dark Future" campaign setting. The plotline and the backstory are still way out in limbo, and I'm looking for inspiration for them. One of the first things I want to work on, though, is designing a large, comprehensive, flexible, and interesting weapons set. It's still in the concept phase, of course, which is the best time to get input from fellow gamers; as veterans of Shadowrun, I would truly value any input Pub members are able to offer concerning this endeavor.
I face several challenges in approaching this project:
-- I want to create categories of slugthrowing (ballistic) firearms which operate in a futuristic fashion, yet are not based solely on "rubber science", nor on modern conventions of how slugthrowers should work, nor on concepts which are already cliches in the SF genre. Something all-new, in other words.
-- I want to create energy weapons which are based, however loosely, on physics as we know them today. For example, Star Wars blasters shoot laser bolts that sound like "PPPEEWW!! PEEEWW!!" What would be the most feasible types of energy weapons in the future, what would they look like, and how would they work, realistically speaking?
-- Aside from traditional (fictional or real) physical and energy weapons, what other sorts of weapons might develop in the "Dark Future"? How would they be used to attack an opponent? How would you hold them? What would they look like?
I'll be posting my own ideas to this thread, and I strongly encourage you to help me out when and if you can. If this "Dark Future" project pans out, I can (and will) publish it to a PDF; any contributions from Pub members, or anyone else, will be prominently noted in said tome. Fallout HERO is one thing, but I'm copying someone else's work there... I want to go out on a limb and see what I can do on my own, with the help of friends, of course.
I'm truly passionate about game design and all the aspects that go along with it. There's a lot of crap out there today, and if I can create something that's fun, innovative, immersive, and unique, it would really make me happy.
But I cannot do it alone. Ruski, you often have time at work to think and type and plan and imagine... if you're interested in collaborating in designing a game, we can do a lot with our spare time. That goes for anyone else, as well.
-
Although this thread is doomed to become one of those "we don't care" threads -- as do all my threads here in fiction -- I'll continue posting here.
I have an idea for a firearm, which is inspired by the anime movie Kite. It's a pistol which fires a special bullet; once the bullet enters its target, the shooter can press a button on the grip of the pistol, causing the special bullet to explode (while lodged inside the target). Obviously, this causes devastating amounts of damage. Of course, the bullets would probably be expensive, illegal, and hard to come by.
Suggestions, anyone?
-
Not so much a special pistol as a special bullet, and a gun with a build-in RC.
Caliber should probably be pretty low, both to ensure that the projectile doesn't just pass entirely through the body of the target and to reduce the risk of ballistic deformation destroying the detonator (which AFAIK is the main part of the reason why we don't have these bullwts already).
A larger scale version is ofcourse possible, and see use today, as an anti-armor munition, but there the detonation is designed to take place outside the body.
-
advanced laser technology would probibly end up being more a cross between a lightsaber and a whelding torch.
it'll melt things, set things on fire, (not be a quick little foot long shot) more like a beam that you have to drag acrost the target. (the slower the drag, the better the dammage)
i would imagine that a room after a laser fight would have a lot of 'S's' drawn on the walls, from where people 'walked' their beam into their opponents...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
ROOTless, excellent observations on the gun/ bullets. As you mentioned, the gun needs to have the remote detonation transmitter installed to make it an effective system. It'd take a significant amount of retrofitting to allow a normal firearm to shoot these bullets, but it sounds fine to me.
Ruski, I agree with your assessment of laser weapons. I've always thought that REAL futuristic lasers would not shoot energy packets, but simply project powerful laser beams.
-
And even if they do "hurl energy packets" (that is, use a pulsed laser), the laser pulses move at the speed of light and so would seem continues to humans, assuming we'd percieve them at all.
Ofcourse, we'd probably need some serious advances in laser technology before something like that happened. At the moment, lasers tend to be extremely energy inefficient, except for a few solid state lasers that have very low output limits.
-
Yea. but hey, it is the future right?
actually, plasma weapons would look like little bolts of light.
they basicly heat up something (like iron) to a point way beyond it's boiling point, and then release it by throwing it. (like hucking a handfull of mud) at that point it burns everything to a crisp.
i'd imagine that it would look more like a flame thrower through. what with oxygen burning quite easily at thoes tempatures and all...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Funny thing that, how everyone talks about plasma weapons, and then imagine firing off a blob of superheated liquid, and not actual plasmatized matter.
-
Well, it's hard to get it that hot, and still do something with it.
you could probibly get it pretty close though...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
It's difficult to get it that hot, but easy to CONTROL plasmatic material. You have to use supermagnets to contain the plasma in a field so that it is not touching anything.
I know this because I read about some machine at a university that is capable of creating plasma.
-
still, the space between the plasma and the magnets would have air in it, and air burns quite nicely... would have to operate in a vacume...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
so what?
Compared to the requirements for making plasma, a vacuum (well, a good enough vaccum) is easy.
-
hmm... good point. but what about delivery?
how are you going to get the plasma from your vacume sealed magnetic creation device to some space other than it's extreamly protected enviroment?
opening it up to the air would cause a huge firestorm.
and if that's the effect you wanted, a flame thrower would work much better.
perhaps a plasma gernade would be a better idea?
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
You can get the plasma delivered by pushing it with the same magnetic field that's restricting it, just the way your throat muscles help you swallow water, or the way your stomach muscles allow you to vomit.
-
but as soon as the plasma hits air, it's going to go to hell. how far can you create a vacume infront of the gun to deliver the plasma... and wouldn't the vacume destroy most things you'd be trying to plasma-attack anyways?
could work good on a space ship as a ship to ship weapon perhaps, but I see only limited use inside the atmosphere...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Ruski, electromagentic fields are quite capable of propelling things at ludicrously high speeds. The force of its expulsion should carry the plasma onto a target in a split second, before the plasma "disperses" or whatever it is plasma does.
Railguns use the same "ultravelocity" principle -- in fact, the US Navy is almost done developing an electromagnetic "railgun" so powerful the projectile goes into low orbit before coming down to obliterate the target -- through sheer destructive velocity, no explosions.
-
well, speed is one thing, but you have to think about resistance.
the railgun shoots a round projectile. (or bullet shaped, perhaps, but the current model is a giant marble made of zinc)
plasma will create a backwards force through the atmosphere, in effect a jet enginge burning away from the dirrection it's traveling. pushing it back the way it came. it would be like firing a backwards missle. you can throw it as fast as you can, but the jet is on the wrong side. if you throw it really hard, it'll still end up stopping short, because it's velosity will be reduced to 0 or -1 by the force exerted by it's burning O2...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Also remember that a plasma is positively (electrically) charged, and so has internal coulomb repulsion.
Now, who want's to explain to the class why a weapon firing a small amount of antimatter at your opponent is a BAD idea?
-
Ohh Ohhh!
*Raises Hand*
Matter (like your oponent) + Antimater (Plasma) = Possible nuclear reaction?
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Yeah, but one particle of antimatter would actually be an effective weapon. As long as you stayed a good way away from your target.
Like... half a football field or so.
I read about that somewhere (it was a gaming book, but true research was done for the weapons section... maybe I can find it later), and it IS backed up by science, although I must, as always, defer to ROOTless' judgement on the issue, being no expert myself.
-
OK, it's a multiple answer question, in that no choices are provided, but several answers are correct.
Ruski, one word for you: Air.
Another (three) word(s) to consider: Hard Gamma Radiation.
Oh, and I forgot a little something for everyone's favorite pimp. How much does a "single anti particle" weigh?
-
The internet resources I just skimmed do not say; but, from what I gather, antimatter doesn't weigh significantly more than matter, at least, not on a microscopic scale with respect to human perception.
-
well, i had already beat the 'air' horse long after it died, and he talked about clearing a 'path' with some magnet aray that would work inside an atmosphere.
*shrug*
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
If the idea he was presenting is the one I've seen, it doesn't work.
(or rather, it requires a rather long and unwieldy magnetic array attachement at the front of the gun, preferbly more than half the distance to your target, and even so, it'll only work on ionized air. Which you can't garantee, unless you pump enough power into the magnetic fields to ionize the whole thing, but that's even more silly.
It's been suggested one might use a fairly high-powered laser to ionized the air in a specific area, then use a magnetic field generator to move the ionized air to create a "beam" of vacuum to propel the antimatter through.
The magnetic field would have to be rather interesting though.
And even so, there are 3 little words that make the whole effort a bit silly, unless you think really fast: Hard Gamma Radiation.
-
ROOTless, do you mean the plasma rifle idea, or the antimatter rifle idea? o.O
-
well, perhaps if you were wearing 3' thick lead armor...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Mostly the antimatter one. The gamma problem with the plasma one is way smaller. Though ofcourse the plasma weapon would probably require a similar magnetic array, I've never really looked into that.
NeoP, you have any interesting input to add?
-
awww... radiation poisioning is fun!
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
ER...let's see... no. Not at all, really.
-
but you have the burning feeling... and the fingers falling off your hand feeling... and the cancer feeling... and all your hair falling out feeling... and the going blind feeling...
the drounding in your own blood as your lungs slowly fill up and your liver dies is also one of the hometown favorites!
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
"You've got... that bu-urnin' fee-ee-lin'...
You've got that bu-urnin' fee-ee-lin'...
You've got... that burnin' fee-ee-lin'
'Cause it's gone.. gone... gone... go-o-o-ne gone...."
-
well, use some Rad-A-Way, get over the skitters that it gives you for the couple of weeks, and BAMMO! good as new(clear)
-RuskiFace the nuclear pirate
-
here are 2 possiblew weapons sonic "lasers" and microwave"lasers"
psi amplfylers laser weapons might be solar rechargeable or at least the power packs anti matter missles
-
Sonic weapons are usually thought of as stun weapons, which is all very fine. I think though that the "*ASER" bit would be a bit hard to do to sounds. As for the Microwave thing, it's called a MASER and was build around the same time as the original LASERs. the caps are there because we're talking about abriviations, after all, laser just means Light Amplification through Stimulated Emission Radiation - which is actually a pretty accurate description of how it works.
-
a fitting acronym... who would have guessed.
microwave weapons, while effective, have a limited apeal.
yes, you can instantly cook someone's heart to medium rare from 5,000 feet away, but it takes a lot of power, is kinda unweildy, and dosn't work on metal. if they had a simple sheet of aluminum foil in their clothing it would catch on fire before cooking them, giving them a chance to escape.
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Yeah, Maser weapons were first mentioned in the Alternity sci-fi roleplaying system, I think. Definitely a candidate for inclusion in my game, since they'd work in a fairly realistic fashion.
-
okay, if you want to go super-sci-fi, you could have reality filters.
let's assume that you have a way to travel to diffrent dimensions.
okay, what's the point of going there? nothing. however, if you have an unlimited number of dimensions, you could pick one that would be exactly the same minus one thing... like... that guy trying to shoot you there... and crash it into yours.
could be computer controlled, centrally located, and have ultimate power over the entire galaxy.(s)
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Yeah, Maser weapons were first mentioned in the Alternity sci-fi roleplaying system, I think. Definitely a candidate for inclusion in my game, since they'd work in a fairly realistic fashion.
Really? What year was that?
-
I'm not sure when Alternity was first published. The game books are... elsewhere at the moment. Let me check Google and edit this post.
Can't find it. I KNOW it was published when TSR was still TSR (before it became the property of Wizzers of the Goat), so I am guessing early- to mid-nineties.
-
That still makes it newer than Gamma World (also by TSR), which also had Maser rifles.
And ofcourse whatever SciFi-novels they stole it from.
-
you mean that it's not all totally original ideas?
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
lol!
-
how about nanno weapons
-
By whch you mean what?
Juicers, as per the 'Man and Machine' book? Pretty futuristic, I think.
More generalized? I'd probably classify most or even all chemical weapons as nano-weapons, as anano mainly referes to an order of magnitude with respect to size. And most chemical compounds are (roughly) of the right order, that is, less than a micron long.
-
Well, ROOTless, the word "nanobot" was coined by Eric Drexler in 1986 in his book, Engines of Creation, and it is used to refer to nanoscopic robots.
I'm fairly sure this is what mercy is referring to here.
-
yep nanites
-
The trick is that certain chemical compounds can best be viewed as nanites for these purposes.
Nano-robots are a bit... tricky. We're ata scale where we pretty much have to talk about chemistry and functional groups, not about gears and matelic saws. Partially because a number of materials (including metals) change properties at the nano scale.
Nanolink of today: delayed until tommorrow.
-
I think there's a fine line between a nanobot and a nanoscopic compound: nanoscopic compounds occur naturally, whereas nanobots must be engineered, grown, or otherwise created in a laboratory or factory, and do not occur within nature.
-
well, instead of nano-bots, you could have nano guns... just reaalllllyyyy small fire-arms.
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
going back to lasers have a intresting concept to recharge a weapon you just shake it for about a min or two the technolgy is already out
-
That's a chemical based power supply.
they aren't very reliable.
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
actural was refering to eletro-magnitc kinitic engergy metheod they have flashlights now that use it
-
OH, like the self-winding watches...
it takes almost constant movement to keep a watch working.... i don't know how well that would work to power a laser,... they aren't very energy efficent...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
That's funny, because the other day I had an idea for Power Armor that was powered by kinetic energy collectors.
Also, I remember how ROOTless was telling us plasma guns weren't likely to ever be created because of the size that the barrel would have to be to launch plasma at the target....
So I came up with a new idea: plasmathrower. Like a flamethrower, except it uses plasma.
Eat that, crazy physicist person!!
-
would have been cooler if you based it on a catapult design instead.
-RuskiFace the Pirate
(gernades are so much easyer)
-
acturaly based on the comercials and the ones have seen at wall mart they stay charged for quite a bit
-
I've read the package on the 'high end' ones... they use ultra bright LED lights and perfectly reflective dirrectional mirrors to create as much light for a little effort as possible, and to get an hour charge, you have to shake the thing silly for the better parts of fifteen minutes... and that's on a super efficent model.
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
So I came up with a new idea: plasmathrower. Like a flamethrower, except it uses plasma.
Eat that, crazy physicist person!!
That's actually not too bad an idea. I wrote one up for GURPS a few years ago as I recall.
-
wouldn't you burn your own face off?
it would be like a gernade that was on the end of a stick...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
C'mon, dude. You put a thick shield on the end of the nozzle or near the handgrip, which is concave in respect to the plasma blast and highly reflective to stave off the heat, while still being lightweight.
Sheesh. Elementary!
-
and when all the air for a quarter mile catches on fire?
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
It'll shoot a very thin stream of plasma.
Besides, lightning is plasma -- heating the air to over a million degrees farenheit -- and it doesn't catch "on fire" except in the very immediate vicinity of the bolt. A plasma stream would look just like a straight lightning bolt, more or less.
Wow, good catch though, Ruski... the superheatng of the air around a plasmathrower would cause a crack just like a lightning bolt and smell like ozone!
SWEET! FRICKIN' SWEET!
-
well, i guess it depends on how much plasma you intend to release.
if it's a stream one molecule in width... perhaps it would just look like a lightning bolt, and cause EMP dammage to everything within 10 yards.
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Does plasma cause EMP damage...? I don't think so, else we wouldn't be able to create plasma....
There's a question for you, ROOTless: would a small stream of plasma create an Electromagnetic Pulse effect?
-
i think it would look more like the ghostbuster's gear than anything else.
probibly in effect too...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
There's a question for you, ROOTless: would a small stream of plasma create an Electromagnetic Pulse effect?
Wouldn't expect so, unless you use a lot more plasma than what you'd use for a flame thrower effect. I mean sure, it'd be an accelerated gas presumably positively eectrically charge, so you'd have both an E and a B field, but I oubt they'd be of an order of magnitude to affect surrounding electronics.
-
lol well, more than MELTING the surrounding electronics you mean...
so the heat would be more of an effect than EM...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
yep.
-
but, let's assume they were heat shelded electronic components, but not EM shelded...
-RuskiFace the Pirate
-
Well, even so.
Ofcourse the plasma carries a charge of it's own, and so is likely to disrupt electronics it comes into contact with, even if it does not disturb surrounding devices. Not sure how much though
Would depend on the density of the plasma.
-
so, you could jumpstart your car with it!
-RuskiFace the pirate
-
This is a post to keep the General Fiction area full of nice old things to read.
-RF