Composite-Beam Lasers

[CRMcNeill]

Anyone else ever think of just saying "screw the crossover implications" and just calling these things "phasers"? Composite-Beam Laser really is quite a mouthful, and Trek Phasers are almost entirely beam-type, instead of firing blasts.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Darklighter79]

But they also use "phasers" for bolt type weapons, both starship and personal.

It is what blaster/laser is for SW: "a general term for energy weapons".
_________________
Don’t Let the Rules Get in the Way of a Good Story.

[CRMcNeill]

[Whill]

[CRMcNeill]

I suppose the other option would be Fusion Beamer...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[jtanzer]

I know I'm a little late to the party here, however, I think I have an explanation as to why we don't see composite-beam lasers in SW more. That reason is that they're finicky - and therefore expensive - as hell to sustain. If you don't maintain precise alignment of the beam emitters, than it won't work correctly - potentially leading to an explosion. This is why the Republic removed them from the LAAT/i, the Rebellion switched to a more 'conventional' weapons set for the B-Wing, and the Empire never mounted them on anything smaller than a Star Destroyer. It's not that they don't scale well - they do - rather that trying to mount them on smaller - and less stable - platforms leads to a maintenance nightmare that even the Empire isn't willing to deal with.

Now, I can already here you saying that the Republic and the Empire can simply throw more money at the problem. However in one of Perun's videos (I forget which one), he explains that even superpowers like the US have to make compromises in their defense budgets. Therefore, I would posit that with the Empire and the Republic simply lacked the budget to design small, easy to maintain, composite beam laser systems. The Republic simply dropped the idea altogether, while the Empire opted to compensate for the alignment issue by simply making the damn thing so massive that alignment ceased to be a problem. All of this stands in stark contrast to the Rebellion, who lacked the resources to even begin to think about building - much less sustaining - the thing.

Of course, the Rebellion has it's own...procurement and sustainment eccentricities, but that's besides the point.
_________________
The GM runs a living setting. Players unstick their own s***.

[CRMcNeill]

A worthwhile idea, certainly, but it would necessitate incorporating a repair & maintenance / reliability mechanic. Not that it hasn’t been attempted over the years, but for something like this, it’d need to be more of a snapshot, where the GM decides that x piece of equipment hasn’t been well maintained, and thus suffers reliability issues, maybe becoming damaged or inoperable on a Wild Dice Failure.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[jtanzer]

TLDR; it was an attempt at an in universe, not game mechanics explanation.

I understand your point, however game mechanics wasn't even mentioned, or considered. I was merely concerned with the in universe reasons, and I drew on real-world information in an attempt to draw a conclusion that was reasonable and logical. Now, I do agree that a 'degradation' mechanic for equipment is interesting on paper, however I'm concerned of excessive 'weight' of a rule/mechanic that doesn't provide any meaningful gameplay value.

I feel your concern with modeling everything is detrimental to the game. I'm autistic, however I understand that not everything needs to be categorized, standardized, quantified, and placed into a nice, neat, little box and kept there. Modeling everything with an in-game mechanic, especially in a TTRPG, is inherently impossible and impractical. What you are proposing would lead to more bookkeeping that would slow down the game. Not everything needs a mechanic to go with it. Not everything needs to be defined to the nth degree to order to be 'playable'.
_________________
The GM runs a living setting. Players unstick their own s***.

[CRMcNeill]

In-universe fluff about a thing’s operational characteristics is useless without some framework for incorporating it into the actual stats. While I personally have no serious need for such a blanket reliability mechanic for everything, incorporating this reasoning into composite-beam lasers in the Rebellion era (presumably when maintenance standards would’ve been most likely to decline) should include a rule mechanic for them to fail occasionally, applied at GM discretion. GMs have a lot on their plate, after all, and having the rule incorporated into the game stats themselves is extremely helpful during tabletop combat.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[jtanzer]

And that rule is one more that the GM has to remember on top of all the others. So you really haven't addressed either my reasoning as to way we don't see more of them or as to why have a reliability mechanic might be dead weight. If anything, I'd simply rule that there aren't many of them for the exact reasons that I stated. People don't want to deal with the maintenance issues, and so development of the system has been slow, or even degraded, due to lack of interest - interest that drives funding.
_________________
The GM runs a living setting. Players unstick their own s***.

[CRMcNeill]

I actually did address your reasoning; I said it was a decent explanation, and further proposed a mechanic to be included at GM discretion. You’re awfully antagonistic for a newcomer.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[jtanzer]

And my point was that they were too difficult and expensive to maintain to be worthwhile, hence obviating the need for a reliability mechanic. And even if a reliability mechanic were to be implemented, it likely would add dead weight to the game.
_________________
The GM runs a living setting. Players unstick their own s***.

[CRMcNeill]

Very well, then, I will reiterate my earlier point. Should characters in the Rebellion Era encounter such weapons and attempt to use them, it can be assumed that they may not be receiving proper maintenance, and will thus be finicky and unreliable. As such, any stat equipped with them in that era should include a rule that reflects that unreliability, which can be applied at the GM’s discretion. And since said mechanic will be included in the stat itself, the GM will have it readily available as a reference every time they look at the stat. If they consider it “dead weight”, they may ignore it if they so choose. Of course, any failure mechanic would likely be based around a Wild Dice Failure, which the GM will almost certainly make use of should it occur.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[jtanzer]

I guess the reason why I'm against a reliability mechanic is because I try not have mechanics that are single purpose. I vastly prefer mechanics that emphasize risk-reward. Having said that, here's my writeup for a composite beam laser.


Composite Beam Laser
Crew: 2 (1 min)
Body Strength: 2D
Scale: Speeder
Fire Control: 3D
Damage: 4D (+4D against unshielded targets or targets who failed their shield roll)
Reliability: On a Wild Die roll of 1-2, roll 1D on the following table
1-2: Weapon catastrophically explodes, dealing 4D damage to everyone within 3 meters
3-4: Weapon overheats and cannot be fired for 1D rounds
5-6: Weapon becomes misalinged, suffers -1D penalty to Fire Control and increases the Wild Die threshold by 1. This penalty may stack up to three times, to a total penalty to a total of -3D. After this penalty is reached, treat each Wild Die roll as a roll on this table, ignoring this result.
_________________
The GM runs a living setting. Players unstick their own s***.

[Whill]