Mass Drivers

[Phaedrus]

Greetings,
First off, gotta say I love this site. Use it all the time!! Secondly, I recently started a d6 campaign with my group of buddies, and I've already run into problems. It has to do with mass drivers.

See the guys bought a light freighter and wanted to put some guns on it. One of the players is fairly familiar with the rules concerning combat, and wanted to put a mass driver on the ship, knowing that shields don't protect against them.

There aren't any rules for it in the R&E rulebook. I was wondering if any of you guys might have some ideas. In particular, ranges and damage. What should the damage be for a weapon like this? Is the effective range on a mass driver really long in space combat?

I feel like the PC has me at a disadvantage here, so I wanted to get some other views on it. Thanks it advance

~ phaedrus
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"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger" - Friedrich Nietzsche

[Ray]

Buddy boy... Check this out: http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=182

All the Mass Driver Goodness you can ask for!!! I just posted it recently!

Mass Drivers have unlimited range, technically (If they hit a powerful enough gravity source, that can pull them in and stop them, but, save for that...). The ranges are based on the targeting ability of the shooter, and the targeting computer system.

Against large, immobile targets, the range is the range of the sensor system's ability to detect said target.

Now for the bad news (Well, good for you, as you're the GM). They're almost UNHEARD OF in known space, and is VERY likely to attract attention. And, while legal, will often incure *ALOT* of questions...

The advantages are listed in my post. Hope this helps, and, please, tell me what you think of them!

Ray.

[Phaedrus]

Man that is tooo cool... thanks for that!

Let me ask you this... if particle shielding contributes 2D to the hull rating, could you increase the partilcle shielding? Or what about ablative armor that would protect against physical damage? Any thoughts?

One of my PC's suggested that any extra armor added on to the hull of a ship count as double hull dice against physical damage. I thought it was interesting, any thoughts?
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"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger" - Friedrich Nietzsche

[Ray]

Rules for boosting armour can be found in "Tramp Freighters". Also note that the Particle Shields are already included in the stats for all craft... Don't add it again. (Yes, this means that Tie Fighters have next to no Particle Shields... THEY'RE TIE FIGHTERS!!!)

DOUBLE armour... No chance in hell!!! Too much weight and space would be taken up due to that... Armouring a Car to resist even light rifle rounds more than doubles it's weight, and requires a special suspension!!! And that is, indeed, with modern armour! Against Mass Drivers, you'd have to give up between 2/3 and 3/4 of the cargo hauling ability... *AND* have the ship move at half speed... *AND* have a -2D to all Piloting Rolls!!! And, worse of all, it'll look bad!!! You won't be picking up Space Chics in that trash hauler!!!

Ablative armour now... That's an idea... Gotta work on that one...

[Vex]

Whats ablative armor, what you just described or something that would actually work?
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"At the end of the game the king and the pawn go back in the same box"

[Ray]

What I described was regular armour...

Ablative Armour is Armour designed to go over regular armour, and come off quickly, and occasionally automatically, when damaged. This way, you're heavily armoured going in, and fast and manouverable getting out.

Some of it is also designed to BLOW OFF and intercept missiles in flight (Modern US Abrams Main Battle Tanks have this.).

It's easy to install, easy to remove, and often effective, particularily against Shape Charged Weapons (Rockets, Missiles, ect.), as the space between the Ablative Armour and the Regular Armour channels the blast downwards/upwards, instead of being directed into the cabin of the ship.

Again, however... It's mass intensive. Better for Tanks than Freighters and Fighters, which have to be *VERY* careful with weight and mass.

Good for Speeders and Landcrawlers (And *KILLER* on Walkers!), but not with Spaceships.

[Vex]

Kool, thanks, I'm gonna have to use that somehow.
_________________
"At the end of the game the king and the pawn go back in the same box"