Re: Everyone is a sharpshooter

"Gregory L. Hansen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Jlerpy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Rupert Boleyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
> >
> >> When in comes to blaster damage, IMO it's too high, given they're
> >> impaling weapons, and I prefer to treat them as either plasma weapons
> >> (flame rather than impaling damage, and a splatter radius of 2 yards
> >> around them which takes 1/4 damage), or 'needle beam' weapons (1/3rd
> >> damage, but every four points of DR only stops one point of damage).
> >
> >The only real problem with it is that high-tech armour will shrug
> >anything less, but to punch through such armour, you need so much
> >power that you'll just incinerate an unarmoured man.
>
> I've already ranted about that in this thread.  But you don't have to
> "punch through" such armor.  When you get relativistic, a suitable energy
> per particle or a suitable x-ray wavelength will largely by-pass the
> armor.  An ion beam of suitable energy could, for instance, cause a steam
> explosion in someone's abdominal cavity with minimal cooking of surface
> tissue, and no hole in the armor.  For protons, that would be somewhere
> around 250 MeV per particle for an unarmored person, more if he has armor.

You're only thinking from the weapon's side of things.  Think of the armor
maker's side of things as well.  That is, a suitable material(s) to block
various wavelenghts of light and reflect, absorb, and/or disspate them might
be used, or the suit might contain a special pocket of water to absorb this
"steam explosion" and vent it in a sudden blast outward, leaving the person
wearing the armor unharmed.  Such armor might also be powered, to keep
mobility despite extra weight of lugging water around.

Even more, cinematic style rules might be more appropriate, as I'd imagine a
lot of TL10 combat would take place with robots, autotomous or remote
controlled.  Granted, there are probably no end of cheap idiots willing to
risk their life toting a gun, but important people might not risk their
lives in such deadly combat.  That is, cinematic rules might account for a
more flavorful game that doesn't involve the distant robotic proxies that
only mean cash.