New NG Particle Beam Rifles

[popscythe]

Hey guys! I wondered if we could get some designer input on the three NG Particle Beam Rifles that are featured in NG-1. I love this book, by the way so let me start by saying thanks! You guys are the best.

Anyway, I was looking at the NG-P5, the NG-P7 and the NG-P9.

To make plain my confusion without in-game stats, I'll compare everything to the NG-P7 Block III.

NG-P5 is the Light Particle Beam Rifle. It does less damage, has the same range, has a higher payload and weighs 2 pounds more than the P7 Block III.

NG-P7 (Block III) has the same range, has less payload and does more damage than the P5. So this makes sense to me, aside perhaps from the weight, but the NG-P5 hasn't been refined 3 times, so that makes sense to me.

NG-P9 is the Heavy Particle Beam Rifle. It weighs the same amount as the P7 (which is two pounds less than the P5 Light Particle Beam Rifle), has a higher range than the P5 and P7 and has a lower capacity and costs twice as much as the P5 and P7. It says in the text that the P9 is often out-shined by other weapons, so maybe that explains it, but I get this feeling like maybe the P9 was supposed to do one dice-size higher in damage or something instead of being the same as the P7 but with a little bit higher range.

Of course, I can understand if the P5 and the P9 are supposed to supplant the older P7 entirely and that explains why the P9 and P7 are similar, but I could sit here saying maybe this and maybe that all day and I still wouldn't know my biocomp from the elbow.

Thanks for reading and please, if anyone reads this and feels like making some snarky anti-palladium comment, just save it this time, eh? Let's show a little decorum and try to foster some community involvement from our friends at Palladium.

[kaid]

Looks like the P9 is probably a revamped P7. Depending how much the range is boosted longer range for less ammo effiency would be a pretty sensible trade off when talking high energy weapons. The P5 is good for less expensive good punch good ammo efficiency. NG9 looks like trying to trade off efficiency for longer ranged stronger punch and may not have turned out as well as they hoped.

There are not a whole lot of particle beam weaponry in rifts so nice option to have something that does damage levels similar to plasma without being heat/fire based which is something WAY to many supernatural critters are immune or highly resistant to.

[popscythe]

nice option to have something that does damage levels similar to plasma without being heat/fire based

Completely agree! I love the new PB weapons brought to us by PB. (couldn't resist)

[torjones]

Hey guys! I wondered if we could get some designer input on the three NG Particle Beam Rifles that are featured in NG-1. I love this book, by the way so let me start by saying thanks! You guys are the best.

Anyway, I was looking at the NG-P5, the NG-P7 and the NG-P9.

To make plain my confusion without in-game stats, I'll compare everything to the NG-P7 Block III.

NG-P5 is the Light Particle Beam Rifle. It does less damage, has the same range, has a higher payload and weighs 2 pounds more than the P7 Block III.

NG-P7 (Block III) has the same range, has less payload and does more damage than the P5. So this makes sense to me, aside perhaps from the weight, but the NG-P5 hasn't been refined 3 times, so that makes sense to me.

NG-P9 is the Heavy Particle Beam Rifle. It weighs the same amount as the P7 (which is two pounds less than the P5 Light Particle Beam Rifle), has a higher range than the P5 and P7 and has a lower capacity and costs twice as much as the P5 and P7. It says in the text that the P9 is often out-shined by other weapons, so maybe that explains it, but I get this feeling like maybe the P9 was supposed to do one dice-size higher in damage or something instead of being the same as the P7 but with a little bit higher range.

Of course, I can understand if the P5 and the P9 are supposed to supplant the older P7 entirely and that explains why the P9 and P7 are similar, but I could sit here saying maybe this and maybe that all day and I still wouldn't know my biocomp from the elbow.

Thanks for reading and please, if anyone reads this and feels like making some snarky anti-palladium comment, just save it this time, eh? Let's show a little decorum and try to foster some community involvement from our friends at Palladium.

I kinda gotta agree. I really don't understand the stats for the particle beam weapons. The only thing that really changes is the range, and the P5 is less damage. I would understand if the P5 also had a line something along the lines of "Even though the P5 is a Particle Beam weapon, it is usable by those who are trained in WP E Rifle" or something to that effect, making it's "Light" status actually mean something other than "Hey, this weapon deals less damage." Unless I'm mistaken, the only weapons that qualify for "E Rifle" are laser and ion rifles. P-Beams, Plasma, and rail guns are all e-heavy. I believe I would have liked to see a bit more differentiation between the five particle beam weapons published in NG1.

The other thing I wonder about then new stat-block for the NG-P7. Is it is intended to have that +50% damage on critical hits for all versions of the P7, even the older ones? Does this retcon what was available in 103PA?

The Last comment I have about the NG1 book is that I wish that they had included the body armor in NG1 and moved the robots to NG2 with the power armor and vehicles...

[Pepsi Jedi]

Hey guys! I wondered if we could get some designer input on the three NG Particle Beam Rifles that are featured in NG-1. I love this book, by the way so let me start by saying thanks! You guys are the best.

Anyway, I was looking at the NG-P5, the NG-P7 and the NG-P9.

To make plain my confusion without in-game stats, I'll compare everything to the NG-P7 Block III.

NG-P5 is the Light Particle Beam Rifle. It does less damage, has the same range, has a higher payload and weighs 2 pounds more than the P7 Block III.

NG-P7 (Block III) has the same range, has less payload and does more damage than the P5. So this makes sense to me, aside perhaps from the weight, but the NG-P5 hasn't been refined 3 times, so that makes sense to me.

NG-P9 is the Heavy Particle Beam Rifle. It weighs the same amount as the P7 (which is two pounds less than the P5 Light Particle Beam Rifle), has a higher range than the P5 and P7 and has a lower capacity and costs twice as much as the P5 and P7. It says in the text that the P9 is often out-shined by other weapons, so maybe that explains it, but I get this feeling like maybe the P9 was supposed to do one dice-size higher in damage or something instead of being the same as the P7 but with a little bit higher range.

Of course, I can understand if the P5 and the P9 are supposed to supplant the older P7 entirely and that explains why the P9 and P7 are similar, but I could sit here saying maybe this and maybe that all day and I still wouldn't know my biocomp from the elbow.

Thanks for reading and please, if anyone reads this and feels like making some snarky anti-palladium comment, just save it this time, eh? Let's show a little decorum and try to foster some community involvement from our friends at Palladium.

No need to look deep into it. Palladium ranges/payloads/weighs/damages are often.... non linear. In this case it's very likely there's not thought put into it. 1) The weapon was meant to have a one die higher damage out put and it got missed in editing or more likely 2) It HAD a higher value but somewhere along the line someone glanced at it and went "NG weapons are supposed to be less than Traix and CS, knock down that big one a die"


It's very likely not calculated as per energy out put, as per range indicated and weight. I love Palladium, they just don't go that deep into number crunching.

[Deadboy Dakka]

Hey guys! I wondered if we could get some designer input on the three NG Particle Beam Rifles that are featured in NG-1. I love this book, by the way so let me start by saying thanks! You guys are the best.

Anyway, I was looking at the NG-P5, the NG-P7 and the NG-P9.

To make plain my confusion without in-game stats, I'll compare everything to the NG-P7 Block III.

NG-P5 is the Light Particle Beam Rifle. It does less damage, has the same range, has a higher payload and weighs 2 pounds more than the P7 Block III.

NG-P7 (Block III) has the same range, has less payload and does more damage than the P5. So this makes sense to me, aside perhaps from the weight, but the NG-P5 hasn't been refined 3 times, so that makes sense to me.

NG-P9 is the Heavy Particle Beam Rifle. It weighs the same amount as the P7 (which is two pounds less than the P5 Light Particle Beam Rifle), has a higher range than the P5 and P7 and has a lower capacity and costs twice as much as the P5 and P7. It says in the text that the P9 is often out-shined by other weapons, so maybe that explains it, but I get this feeling like maybe the P9 was supposed to do one dice-size higher in damage or something instead of being the same as the P7 but with a little bit higher range.

Of course, I can understand if the P5 and the P9 are supposed to supplant the older P7 entirely and that explains why the P9 and P7 are similar, but I could sit here saying maybe this and maybe that all day and I still wouldn't know my biocomp from the elbow.

Thanks for reading and please, if anyone reads this and feels like making some snarky anti-palladium comment, just save it this time, eh? Let's show a little decorum and try to foster some community involvement from our friends at Palladium.

I kinda gotta agree. I really don't understand the stats for the particle beam weapons. The only thing that really changes is the range, and the P5 is less damage. I would understand if the P5 also had a line something along the lines of "Even though the P5 is a Particle Beam weapon, it is usable by those who are trained in WP E Rifle" or something to that effect, making it's "Light" status actually mean something other than "Hey, this weapon deals less damage." Unless I'm mistaken, the only weapons that qualify for "E Rifle" are laser and ion rifles. P-Beams, Plasma, and rail guns are all e-heavy. I believe I would have liked to see a bit more differentiation between the five particle beam weapons published in NG1.

The other thing I wonder about then new stat-block for the NG-P7. Is it is intended to have that +50% damage on critical hits for all versions of the P7, even the older ones? Does this retcon what was available in 103PA?

The Last comment I have about the NG1 book is that I wish that they had included the body armor in NG1 and moved the robots to NG2 with the power armor and vehicles...

As for the PB weapons I do agree with Torrey on this one. The LIGHT should be able to be used as a E-Rifle, I mean look at the pistols While I do wish that BODY ARMOR was with I don't know... the INFANTRY GEAR I can see from a page count view why it was maybe done that way. My main problem with the PB weapons as has been stated is the Damage on the NG-P9. Give us that die or a bonus. Hell, make the CANNON a CANNON, not a heavy rifle with an extra 4 damage. Again as stated it is AWESOME to not have that fire penalty for damage, yet almost the SAME performance. Just please guys, give them something for the last 6 years of reverse engineering stuff...

[Hotrod]

It may simply be a question of design and manufacturing. Maybe one of those models is a newer, more advanced material that benefited from reverse-engineering some Naruni tech, while one or both of the others were older, mass-produced, second-rate knock-offs of a Coalition system.

Weight doesn't always equal damage, and I don't imagine that Northern Gun keeps all its production right at the cutting edge. Just because one weapon outclasses another doesn't mean that NG will stop making the outclassed weapon. If there's an established market for a well-known gun, I'm sure they'll keep making and selling them.

My grandad was in the Army Air Corps back in WW2. He once told me that, in terms of performance, the B-24 was the best all-around bomber we had in Europe, but that, given the choice, crews would choose the B-17 over the B-24 every time.

People in-world can't necessarily see statistics, and it isn't like there's a Consumer Report magazine reviewing every gun out there (and if there was, most people couldn't read it anyway).

[Deadboy Dakka]

It may simply be a question of design and manufacturing. Maybe one of those models is a newer, more advanced material that benefited from reverse-engineering some Naruni tech, while one or both of the others were older, mass-produced, second-rate knock-offs of a Coalition system.

Weight doesn't always equal damage, and I don't imagine that Northern Gun keeps all its production right at the cutting edge. Just because one weapon outclasses another doesn't mean that NG will stop making the outclassed weapon. If there's an established market for a well-known gun, I'm sure they'll keep making and selling them.

My grandad was in the Army Air Corps back in WW2. He once told me that, in terms of performance, the B-24 was the best all-around bomber we had in Europe, but that, given the choice, crews would choose the B-17 over the B-24 every time.

People in-world can't necessarily see statistics, and it isn't like there's a Consumer Report magazine reviewing every gun out there (and if there was, most people couldn't read it anyway).

'Cept NG HAS been keeping their weapons on the cutting edge. An as for the reverse engineering, maybe IF the newer weapons showed it really. Except for the most, they really don't. The book is good, but the Particle, leaves something to be desired...

[Hotrod]

Maybe the "light" and "heavy" terms simply refer to the types of particles they shoot. Maybe the "light" version shoots single protons, while the "heavy" shoots alpha particles?

[torjones]

Maybe the "light" and "heavy" terms simply refer to the types of particles they shoot. Maybe the "light" version shoots single protons, while the "heavy" shoots alpha particles?

Which is why I was hoping either the authors or the designers responsible for deciding the stats on those weapons would chime in and give us their thoughts on why things are the way they are. I don't want to complain about something just because I don't understand something that seems simple to them, especially when there's a good reason for something being the way it is. Maybe it's a typo. Maybe the Cannon was supposed to get an extra die of damage, but never made it to the final copy that went to the printers. Maybe there's something that I just plain missed when flipping through my gamer's copy. I haven't bought it yet, but I hope to do so by the end of the year... Money gets kinda tight this time of year...

[Deadboy Dakka]

Maybe the "light" and "heavy" terms simply refer to the types of particles they shoot. Maybe the "light" version shoots single protons, while the "heavy" shoots alpha particles?

Which is why I was hoping either the authors or the designers responsible for deciding the stats on those weapons would chime in and give us their thoughts on why things are the way they are. I don't want to complain about something just because I don't understand something that seems simple to them, especially when there's a good reason for something being the way it is. Maybe it's a typo. Maybe the Cannon was supposed to get an extra die of damage, but never made it to the final copy that went to the printers. Maybe there's something that I just plain missed when flipping through my gamer's copy. I haven't bought it yet, but I hope to do so by the end of the year... Money gets kinda tight this time of year...

ROFL!! Mine Tor! But yes, we do need some writer input. The tech given should have more damage, and I don't see a reason presented that makes sense for some stats. Northern Gun has always been the American Particle Beam company, yet they reall got no boost to PB at ALL. At least thats how it seems.

[Rimmerdal]

Maybe the "light" and "heavy" terms simply refer to the types of particles they shoot. Maybe the "light" version shoots single protons, while the "heavy" shoots alpha particles?

Which is why I was hoping either the authors or the designers responsible for deciding the stats on those weapons would chime in and give us their thoughts on why things are the way they are. I don't want to complain about something just because I don't understand something that seems simple to them, especially when there's a good reason for something being the way it is. Maybe it's a typo. Maybe the Cannon was supposed to get an extra die of damage, but never made it to the final copy that went to the printers. Maybe there's something that I just plain missed when flipping through my gamer's copy. I haven't bought it yet, but I hope to do so by the end of the year... Money gets kinda tight this time of year...

ROFL!! Mine Tor! But yes, we do need some writer input. The tech given should have more damage, and I don't see a reason presented that makes sense for some stats. Northern Gun has always been the American Particle Beam company, yet they reall got no boost to PB at ALL. At least thats how it seems.

It probably would be similar to our conjecture. I'm pretty sure they have the same level of Physics know how most folks have in this thread..or leass since we all pick up some sort know how on energy weapons, as in 'what' PB's do and not the "how" PB's do it.

In fact if you asked they probably use the same websites we do to look up these facts.

[popscythe]

It probably would be similar to our conjecture. I'm pretty sure they have the same level of Physics know how most folks have in this thread..or leass since we all pick up some sort know how on energy weapons, as in 'what' PB's do and not the "how" PB's do it.

In fact if you asked they probably use the same websites we do to look up these facts.

Comon man, let's not pretend that anyone talking about rpgs online is then going to CERN and trying to quantify the difference between a game and real life. The reasons to have the authors weigh in are:

Community Involvement: An open dialog between the fan community and palladium books will help the community grow and mature. If I were PB I too would be wary of stepping into this arena because of the massive amount of highly toxic behavior that goes on here and on most other hubs of internet discussion. However, if we can prove ourselves to behave like adults when discussing something simple like one thing in one book, perhaps the discussion will eventually grow and foster a healthy open dialog between ourselves and PB.

Errata: If there was indeed a typo we can help disseminate the information to our local play groups as a stopgap between now and the next printing. If some fan starts going "huh??? THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE" us would-be Megaversal Ambassadors (also knows as "the local rifts GM") can say "calm down, here's what happened it's no big deal"). This is a tradition that dates back to three-pamphlets D&D.

Sales: Community involvement online isn't a new idea, but the internet has made it so easy to maintain a web-presence for game designers that the online fervor that develops when "omg its one of the designers!" steps in to grace fans with their presence helps drive sales.

I know it would be a treat just to read a direct response about something from PB, let alone receive one to one of my own questions.

[Rimmerdal]

It probably would be similar to our conjecture. I'm pretty sure they have the same level of Physics know how most folks have in this thread..or less since we all pick up some sort know how on energy weapons, as in 'what' PB's do and not the "how" PB's do it.

In fact if you asked they probably use the same websites we do to look up these facts.

Comon man, let's not pretend that anyone talking about rpgs online is then going to CERN and trying to quantify the difference between a game and real life. The reasons to have the authors weigh in are:

Community Involvement: An open dialog between the fan community and palladium books will help the community grow and mature. If I were PB I too would be wary of stepping into this arena because of the massive amount of highly toxic behavior that goes on here and on most other hubs of internet discussion. However, if we can prove ourselves to behave like adults when discussing something simple like one thing in one book, perhaps the discussion will eventually grow and foster a healthy open dialog between ourselves and PB.

Errata: If there was indeed a typo we can help disseminate the information to our local play groups as a stopgap between now and the next printing. If some fan starts going "huh??? THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE" us would-be Megaversal Ambassadors (also knows as "the local rifts GM") can say "calm down, here's what happened it's no big deal"). This is a tradition that dates back to three-pamphlets D&D.

Sales: Community involvement online isn't a new idea, but the internet has made it so easy to maintain a web-presence for game designers that the online fervor that develops when "omg its one of the designers!" steps in to grace fans with their presence helps drive sales.

I know it would be a treat just to read a direct response about something from PB, let alone receive one to one of my own questions.

Depends on the writer if they wish respond and the good do take time to read them. I did get a response on a PM I sent to kevin once so they do read these forums. But ya I agree with the reasons the good you listed. Its PR and Good community presence that makes a Pally writer truely great..or at least one that reads these forums...

Now where they did there tech research on Particle beams....I'd like to know that.

[torjones]

It probably would be similar to our conjecture. I'm pretty sure they have the same level of Physics know how most folks have in this thread..or leass since we all pick up some sort know how on energy weapons, as in 'what' PB's do and not the "how" PB's do it.

In fact if you asked they probably use the same websites we do to look up these facts.

Comon man, let's not pretend that anyone talking about rpgs online is then going to CERN and trying to quantify the difference between a game and real life. The reasons to have the authors weigh in are:

Community Involvement: An open dialog between the fan community and palladium books will help the community grow and mature. If I were PB I too would be wary of stepping into this arena because of the massive amount of highly toxic behavior that goes on here and on most other hubs of internet discussion. However, if we can prove ourselves to behave like adults when discussing something simple like one thing in one book, perhaps the discussion will eventually grow and foster a healthy open dialog between ourselves and PB.

Errata: If there was indeed a typo we can help disseminate the information to our local play groups as a stopgap between now and the next printing. If some fan starts going "huh??? THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE" us would-be Megaversal Ambassadors (also knows as "the local rifts GM") can say "calm down, here's what happened it's no big deal"). This is a tradition that dates back to three-pamphlets D&D.

Sales: Community involvement online isn't a new idea, but the internet has made it so easy to maintain a web-presence for game designers that the online fervor that develops when "omg its one of the designers!" steps in to grace fans with their presence helps drive sales.

I know it would be a treat just to read a direct response about something from PB, let alone receive one to one of my own questions.

I agree 100%.
There are other games I play, (Shocking, I know...) where the people who develop the game are VERY heavily into the forums. There are a couple of devs over at Little Red Goblin Games who spend their entire day on two computers, one they are actively working on, and the other is on the forums, and they are always paying attention to new threads, and comments to/about developers. Posting here, I often feel like all I'm doing is getting the opinion of the community, no feedback from the people who write these books. NMI is cool, and there are a few others who've chimed in from time to time, especially the artist who worked on the NG book (Though, I apologize, I've forgotten his name at the moment).

To be honest, the feedback from people on the inside, the ones who can and do answer questions, it's come to be expected in this digital age. We gamers miss it when it isn't there, and we don't like it.

So, while I am now off to play my Friday Rifts game, I hope that someone will get one of the developers to please explain what is going on with the particle beams in NG1?

[Tor]

Little beats the original NG particle beam rifle in RMB, 1d4x70 per full-mag burst for only 2 melee attacks per CB1 (originally it could even out-do the GB's boomgun, prior to burst multiplier changes). Half the time you can take out a Glitter Boy's boom gun with it. 3/4 the time you can take out the hands.

Sadly, RUE retconned the ability of most energy weapons to burst out of existence even though CB1 went out of its way to establish the existence and normaly of bursting tactics and even included an example of a CS soldier doing this with his sidearm.

[popscythe]

Little beats the original NG particle beam rifle in RMB, 1d4x70 per full-mag burst for only 2 melee attacks per CB1 (originally it could even out-do the GB's boomgun, prior to burst multiplier changes). Half the time you can take out a Glitter Boy's boom gun with it. 3/4 the time you can take out the hands.

Sadly, RUE retconned the ability of most energy weapons to burst out of existence even though CB1 went out of its way to establish the existence and normaly of bursting tactics and even included an example of a CS soldier doing this with his sidearm.

Is that stuff still in CB1 revised and updated? If you don't have the new CB1 and do have the old one, I can check if you've got a page number.

[Tor]

I'm not really sure, haven't gotten around to getting the revised version of CB.

The section was called "Rules for using High-Tech Weapons" (originally on pg 8 but could be moved, if present at all in CB1rev) and on pg9, top of the left column, under the bolded Automatic and Semi-automatic Weapons (energy and conventional projectile types) and a 2nd "For example: A short burst..." paragraph there was a third paragraph that went:

"See the data and explanation under Bursts or Sprays from automatic weapons and sub-machineguns in Rifts, page 34. These rules apply to automatic energy weapons, as well as conventional bullet shooting, automatic and semiautomatic weapons. Unless otherwise noted, most energy weapons are considered to be automatic weapons. Only weapons that state a specific limited number of shots per melee are not atuomatic.

I underlined the last two (as I did in my physical copy) since they're the critical phrases here, and correspond with the 'Standard' rate of fire CS pistol being able to fire a burst, something it can no longer do as of RUE.

The rate of fire for these weapons was changed between editions, and I think the FAQ somewhere contradictd the original CB1 by instead stating that 'Standard' meant '1 shot per action' which was clearly never true originally, and also a retcon which fundamentally shifted the shape of technological combat.

[torjones]

The rate of fire for these weapons was changed between editions, and I think the FAQ somewhere contradictd the original CB1 by instead stating that 'Standard' meant '1 shot per action' which was clearly never true originally, and also a retcon which fundamentally shifted the shape of technological combat.

Ah! Thank You!

I was looking for that today, and couldn't find it!

[popscythe]

"Rules for using High-Tech Weapons"

I don't think it is in CB1R&U, which was published after Ultimate Edition, of course. It goes into the -10 dodge rule and etc, but there is nothing as you've described unless I missed it. I do believe that PB went out of their way to clarify and simplify the burst and spray features of weapons due to the interpretations such as those you've talked about before in the BtS2 combat rules that eventually made it into Ultimate Edition.

I'm going to say that I prefer the newer rules myself, but I also prefer that GMs run the rules however they feel will be the most fun, as PB practically begs us to do in the books over and over.

[jaymz]

I prefer to allow my player use thier weapons as is. Semi-automatic. Being able to burst a semi auto weapon is fairly normal and logical to me but hey that's me.

[kaid]

Well finally got my copy and read the weapons. I have to say of the partical beam weapons I really like the pistol. Really nice sidearm that fires a rather rare energy beam type that bypasses a lot of immunity types.

The sweet spot for the rifles definitely seems to be the midrange one and not the highest end one. The newest highest end one looks like a case of hitting diminishing returns trying to extend its range out.

As for the burst fire rules the R:UE changed it so pretty much all the modern energy weapons now have the firing rates listed in their weapon description only. So typically single shot or specified burst. I know some miss the old full round spray and pray huge damage sillyness but the hand weapon damage is already kinda suspect when compared to vehicular damages and it gets really thrown out the window sanity wise with the old burst rules. Under the old burst rules most higher end rifles wind up doing double or triple the damage of vehicle mounted weapons and it also makes combat for infantry incredibly deadly with the -10 to dodge type rules.

[Eashamahel]

It's really too bad the burst firing rules, rules for the Energy weapons and 'hi-tech' WP's weren't worked out better originally. The whole system of bursting being tossed and the 'one attack = one shot' fix just lost a lot of the 'neat' factor, especially for really characterful guns like the JA-11.

[kaid]

It's really too bad the burst firing rules, rules for the Energy weapons and 'hi-tech' WP's weren't worked out better originally. The whole system of bursting being tossed and the 'one attack = one shot' fix just lost a lot of the 'neat' factor, especially for really characterful guns like the JA-11.

There are still quite a few burst weapons two or three shot bursts and a few like rail guns do 10-40 shot bursts. Frankly the damage from these built in bursts still tends to slant hand held weapons up the scale damage wise a bit to much but at least its not the I am going to do a full round burst with my wilks laser rifle to one shot this URA1 enforcer type damage levels we used to see.

[Eashamahel]

Well, even before the Conversion book changed the multipliers, that would still only be 3D6x10, meaning that the above average damage rifle would successfully overcome above average resiliance heavy body armour (CS Heavy) after a full clip burst, and take up 50%-100% the attacks of an average character. Using up the entire clip of a good damage rifle to kill one infantry man in good armour seems pretty reasonable to me.

There are still a lot of 'pulse' weapons in the game though, and that's where the game was heading pretty much right off the block, even the old RMB included the old L-20 pulse rifle (one of my favourite weapons of the time, actually).


Really, as long as the 'light' rifle either does less damage/less range/less weight than the 'medium', which itself does less damage/less range/less weight than the 'heavy', that's about all I would expect. Even if the 'heavy' only gets six shots per clip and requires a PS-24 to use it and the only advantage over the 'light' is +6MD/shot and an extra 500ft range. Silly stats are nothing new, as long as they're not outright wrong (the 'medium' does MORE damage than the heavy, the 'light' weighs MORE than the 'medium', ect).

[Tor]

I don't think it is in CB1R&U, which was published after Ultimate Edition, of course. It goes into the -10 dodge rule and etc, but there is nothing as you've described unless I missed it.

They probably removed it, since Kev changed his mind or something. Nerfing tech fits hand in hand with beefing up magic. Obviously all the mages were complaining, even though mages were still workable with good planning (like Batman) in the original system.

I do believe that PB went out of their way to clarify and simplify the burst and spray features of weapons due to the interpretations such as those you've talked about before in the BtS2 combat rules that eventually made it into Ultimate Edition.

Whatever they did to change the bursting rules isn't what I'm focusing on here, but rather how they removed the ability to burst from the vast majority of energy weapons. Now it's basically only explicit pulse rifles which can do it (and they do so at their prescribed rates, not using any calculation rules) rather than most being able to do it and pulse ones just being more efficient at it.

at least its not the I am going to do a full round burst with my wilks laser rifle to one shot this URA1 enforcer type damage levels we used to see.

Are you talking about attacking the main body of the UAR1 or some kind of called shot? Which model wilk's laser rifle do you mean? Even with bursting rules I'm having trouble calculating this in my head.

I found PA/Bots still pretty fortified. The bursting rules moreso meant that people in body armor could still be threatened by guns. With single-shots, it takes forever to die from all but the best weapons.

[kaid]

I had thought one of the wilks rifles had the 5d6 MDC single shot ability which on a max roll would have put it close to one shotting a URA-1. Really though even with the old 3d6x10 any basic rifle that did 3d6 damage on a single shot matching damage output with a glitterboy boomgun never made a lick of sense.

Hand weapons in rifts in general are inflated damage wise when you compare them to large vehicle mounted weapons. With the old rules things like the old partical gun doing 1d4x70 on full clip burst could potentially do 280 damage in that one burst. That means it was quite capable of one shotting most power armor in the RMB and capable of nearly taking out a URA-1 with a single shot it would only have 70 MDC left. No vehicle mounted weapon not even the weapon stated to be the high end balancing point the boomgun could do anywhere near that damage.

It also made infantry combat nearly unsurvivable. If you were not behind hard cover and somebody opened up with a full burst no armor at the time could survive unless the attacker rolled miserably.

The rule change while a bit of an awkward retcon did help yoink the hand weapons back to some semblance of balance with everything else in the system. The pulse weapons I would argue are still overbalanced damage wise but I think they were the bone thrown to those who liked the old burst styles while keeping the damages somewhere in the realms of sanity. So at least they are only as strong as basic vehicle mounted weapons and not superior in every fashion.


As for time to live in the new rules medium body armor which has an avg of around 60 MDC could survive around 8 shots on average from a weapon that does 3d6 MDC which is low end rifle and midrange pistol damage. For heavier weapons like plasma/ion/particle weapons or burst weapons it will allow you to survive one maybe 2 hits. Maybe its just me but as a player having armor that can actually allow me to survive one unlucky hit seems like it is not asking for to much.

For light armor and things like the plastic man they can barely take more than a few hits from pistols let alone anything stronger. Heck with pistols these days doing up to 5d6 MDC even without the old burst fire rules light MDC armor is barely survivable in combat.

For heavy MDC armor which averages 80 to 100 MDC it can take 3 maybe 4 hits if lucky from a pulse weapon/heavy energy weapon and could take as little as 2. I am not sure how that would equal to taking forever to kill the target.

[azazel1024]

Hey guys! I wondered if we could get some designer input on the three NG Particle Beam Rifles that are featured in NG-1. I love this book, by the way so let me start by saying thanks! You guys are the best.

Anyway, I was looking at the NG-P5, the NG-P7 and the NG-P9.

To make plain my confusion without in-game stats, I'll compare everything to the NG-P7 Block III.

NG-P5 is the Light Particle Beam Rifle. It does less damage, has the same range, has a higher payload and weighs 2 pounds more than the P7 Block III.

NG-P7 (Block III) has the same range, has less payload and does more damage than the P5. So this makes sense to me, aside perhaps from the weight, but the NG-P5 hasn't been refined 3 times, so that makes sense to me.

NG-P9 is the Heavy Particle Beam Rifle. It weighs the same amount as the P7 (which is two pounds less than the P5 Light Particle Beam Rifle), has a higher range than the P5 and P7 and has a lower capacity and costs twice as much as the P5 and P7. It says in the text that the P9 is often out-shined by other weapons, so maybe that explains it, but I get this feeling like maybe the P9 was supposed to do one dice-size higher in damage or something instead of being the same as the P7 but with a little bit higher range.

Of course, I can understand if the P5 and the P9 are supposed to supplant the older P7 entirely and that explains why the P9 and P7 are similar, but I could sit here saying maybe this and maybe that all day and I still wouldn't know my biocomp from the elbow.

Thanks for reading and please, if anyone reads this and feels like making some snarky anti-palladium comment, just save it this time, eh? Let's show a little decorum and try to foster some community involvement from our friends at Palladium.

No need to look deep into it. Palladium ranges/payloads/weighs/damages are often.... non linear. In this case it's very likely there's not thought put into it. 1) The weapon was meant to have a one die higher damage out put and it got missed in editing or more likely 2) It HAD a higher value but somewhere along the line someone glanced at it and went "NG weapons are supposed to be less than Traix and CS, knock down that big one a die"


It's very likely not calculated as per energy out put, as per range indicated and weight. I love Palladium, they just don't go that deep into number crunching.

I suprisingly don't have much of an issue with it. I do kind of feel like it should maybe have a +4 to damage or something, something to make it ever so slightly higher damage output, or maybe a crit on a 17, 18 or 19 instead of 18-19. Something to make it likely to do a little more damage, other than just having slightly longer range.

At anyrate, my issue still comes down to PA/vehicle damage and damage capacity versus handheld weapons. The PB rifles do roughly as much damage as the main guns on most of the NG bots. Sure, the bots can absorb a lot more damage, but the range advantage isn't that significant.

Yes, I know the argument that bots are going to have a lot more attacks than a lone infantryman, but come on, 5-8 guys in body armor with medium/heavy handheld weapons could take apart a bot in a round most likely and that bot might be lucky to take 2-3 of those guys in armor with it.

Yes, I know real life examples, a guy with a $1,000 anti-tank rocket launcher can possibly take out a million dollar tank, let alone a dozen guys all with anti-tank rockets versus a tank...yet that tank's main gun is also significantly more powerful than those anti-tank rockets.

I think the biggest issue is that power creep impacted armor and infantry weapons significantly more than vehicles and PA.

I'd be much happier if the "standard" was the a robots main gun typically did around 2x the damage of a heavy infantry weapon and PAs typically did about 1.5x.

So the scenario you'd have is a heavy infantry weapon would probably be doing around 1D4x10 damage, PA doing around 1d6X10 or so and robots doing 2D4x10-2D6x10, with the biggest and badest robots and vehicles maybe having a gun doing around 3D6x10 or so.

You find some scenarios where that is true, but not many.

[kaid]

Hey guys! I wondered if we could get some designer input on the three NG Particle Beam Rifles that are featured in NG-1. I love this book, by the way so let me start by saying thanks! You guys are the best.

Anyway, I was looking at the NG-P5, the NG-P7 and the NG-P9.

To make plain my confusion without in-game stats, I'll compare everything to the NG-P7 Block III.

NG-P5 is the Light Particle Beam Rifle. It does less damage, has the same range, has a higher payload and weighs 2 pounds more than the P7 Block III.

NG-P7 (Block III) has the same range, has less payload and does more damage than the P5. So this makes sense to me, aside perhaps from the weight, but the NG-P5 hasn't been refined 3 times, so that makes sense to me.

NG-P9 is the Heavy Particle Beam Rifle. It weighs the same amount as the P7 (which is two pounds less than the P5 Light Particle Beam Rifle), has a higher range than the P5 and P7 and has a lower capacity and costs twice as much as the P5 and P7. It says in the text that the P9 is often out-shined by other weapons, so maybe that explains it, but I get this feeling like maybe the P9 was supposed to do one dice-size higher in damage or something instead of being the same as the P7 but with a little bit higher range.

Of course, I can understand if the P5 and the P9 are supposed to supplant the older P7 entirely and that explains why the P9 and P7 are similar, but I could sit here saying maybe this and maybe that all day and I still wouldn't know my biocomp from the elbow.

Thanks for reading and please, if anyone reads this and feels like making some snarky anti-palladium comment, just save it this time, eh? Let's show a little decorum and try to foster some community involvement from our friends at Palladium.

No need to look deep into it. Palladium ranges/payloads/weighs/damages are often.... non linear. In this case it's very likely there's not thought put into it. 1) The weapon was meant to have a one die higher damage out put and it got missed in editing or more likely 2) It HAD a higher value but somewhere along the line someone glanced at it and went "NG weapons are supposed to be less than Traix and CS, knock down that big one a die"


It's very likely not calculated as per energy out put, as per range indicated and weight. I love Palladium, they just don't go that deep into number crunching.

I suprisingly don't have much of an issue with it. I do kind of feel like it should maybe have a +4 to damage or something, something to make it ever so slightly higher damage output, or maybe a crit on a 17, 18 or 19 instead of 18-19. Something to make it likely to do a little more damage, other than just having slightly longer range.

At anyrate, my issue still comes down to PA/vehicle damage and damage capacity versus handheld weapons. The PB rifles do roughly as much damage as the main guns on most of the NG bots. Sure, the bots can absorb a lot more damage, but the range advantage isn't that significant.

Yes, I know the argument that bots are going to have a lot more attacks than a lone infantryman, but come on, 5-8 guys in body armor with medium/heavy handheld weapons could take apart a bot in a round most likely and that bot might be lucky to take 2-3 of those guys in armor with it.

Yes, I know real life examples, a guy with a $1,000 anti-tank rocket launcher can possibly take out a million dollar tank, let alone a dozen guys all with anti-tank rockets versus a tank...yet that tank's main gun is also significantly more powerful than those anti-tank rockets.

I think the biggest issue is that power creep impacted armor and infantry weapons significantly more than vehicles and PA.

I'd be much happier if the "standard" was the a robots main gun typically did around 2x the damage of a heavy infantry weapon and PAs typically did about 1.5x.

So the scenario you'd have is a heavy infantry weapon would probably be doing around 1D4x10 damage, PA doing around 1d6X10 or so and robots doing 2D4x10-2D6x10, with the biggest and badest robots and vehicles maybe having a gun doing around 3D6x10 or so.

You find some scenarios where that is true, but not many.

The other option would be axing the pulse fire option from energy weapons. So basically only things like rail guns are using burst damage. This would drag hand weapons back fully into scale with robot weapons. Most rifles would be doing 3d6-4d6 MDC with heavy energy weapons like plasma guns creeping close to the low end vehicle range of 6d6 MDC. This would make it so that in general unless you are using a squad support weapon any vehicle mounted gun is doing basically double the damage of any hand weapon and probably well more than double the damage.

[jaymz]

Want to make Main guns on Robots and vehicles more deadly (especially since most of the them are railguns of some kind of projectile weaponry). Apply the armour piercing missiles rules to them doubling damage on a total of 18+ and tripling damage on a natural 20. Hell apply it to lasers as well since lasers could considered an "armour piercing" energy weapon while the others are not.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I had thought one of the wilks rifles had the 5d6 MDC single shot ability which on a max roll would have put it close to one shotting a URA-1. Really though even with the old 3d6x10 any basic rifle that did 3d6 damage on a single shot matching damage output with a glitterboy boomgun never made a lick of sense.

Except it doesn't match the damage capability of the Boomgun, not at all. Or power, as damage is NOT the sole metric of how effective a weapon is, despite your constant claims to the contrary. You can't take things in a vacuum like you seem to insist that they be; yes, an old mid-range damage laser rifle (3d6 was the mid-range, most did 2d6, a very few did 4d6, but IIRC those were single-shot) could do 3d6x10 (for about... 10 months until CB1 was printed) by emptying an entire clip (and costing at least 2 attacks, which, at the time, was your entire round's worth of actions unless you had boxing). So 180 damage per round, potentially. At about 1/3 the range of the Boom Gun. In the meantime, that Glitter Boy pilot fires 3 or 4 more times. So, he does literally four times the damage at three times the range.

Then, after CB1, the infantryman's damage goes down to x7 at the top end (a change i agree needed to be made. Myself, i'd like have just made it easy and changed the numbers to x2/x4/x6), bringing him even further out of whack with total damage capability per round. And keep in mind, to do this, he's burning through his entire stash of ammo in record time.

Really, it's the pulse weapons that were the real culprit. They provided burst-like damage without consuming burst-like ammo.

Hand weapons in rifts in general are inflated damage wise when you compare them to large vehicle mounted weapons.

Only because you *insist* on applying your 20th century preconceptions that if a weapon is attatched to a vehicle it MUST be massively more damaging than one that isn't. I think even just the fluff for Golden Age makes it clear that that was one of the sea-changes in warfare - we'd figured out how to bring vehicle-like damage to the infantryman. For whatever reason, the technology really only goes downward, not upward. It's not a hard concept to grasp.

Which doesn't change the fact that, even at this point, most vehicle weapons are STILL better than hand-held weapons by being much longer ranged, having an infinite payload, and being part of a vehicle in general, meaning the operator has a lot of armor (generally speaking - did anyone else find the Mark V APC only having 350MDC to be a little weak?) between him and you. There are ways to be quantifiably "much better" than just "how many damage dice does it roll".

With the old rules things like the old partical gun doing 1d4x70 on full clip burst could potentially do 280 damage in that one burst. That means it was quite capable of one shotting most power armor in the RMB and capable of nearly taking out a URA-1 with a single shot it would only have 70 MDC left. No vehicle mounted weapon not even the weapon stated to be the high end balancing point the boomgun could do anywhere near that damage.

In one shot, no. In two attacks? The Boomgun can. In an entire round? The boomgun and even most vehicle mounted railguns and heavy weapons can, easily. Remember that by those rules, the guy with the particle beam rifle (with a paltry 1200ft range, i might add) pretty much gets to shoot once a round. At first level he's only got two attacks, maybe three (well assume 3, so he can reload the weapon after he empties the entire clip and be ready for next round). Most of the people he's going to be going after will turn him into a memory before he gets more than one or two shots off, at best. Even a (relatively weak-ass example of a Robot, the) UAR-1 cold turn that guy into a bloodstain, even if he got the drop on them and got his first attack off for free. Theyll just drop a volley of mini-missiles on him and that's the end of him. He cant even dodge. In better circumstances, the UAR-1 triples the guys range and he (and all four of his similarly armed friends) are corpses before they even range on the UAR-1.

It also made infantry combat nearly unsurvivable. If you were not behind hard cover and somebody opened up with a full burst no armor at the time could survive unless the attacker rolled miserably.

I agree, here. That's why i had my bad-guys practice something resembling real-world fire discipline. They dont just go popping off full-clip bursts for the funsies. They have ammo they have to conserve. No need to mist the guy with the entire clip when just taking 4-5 shots will do and not waste ammo, especially if you miss (and remember, back int hese days, missing was EASY; few bonuses to ranged combat and no -10 rule of any kind). However, the full-clip bursting isn't really the issue. Why bother hosing a guy down with a full-clip burst when just picking up that particle beam rifle and shooting him 2-3 times will do the job anyway? Heavy infantry weapons were already seriously lethal in infantry combat as it was.

The rule change while a bit of an awkward retcon did help yoink the hand weapons back to some semblance of balance with everything else in the system. The pulse weapons I would argue are still overbalanced damage wise but I think they were the bone thrown to those who liked the old burst styles while keeping the damages somewhere in the realms of sanity. So at least they are only as strong as basic vehicle mounted weapons and not superior in every fashion.

I agree, though, that the low-end, infantry-scale game has always been pretty lethal. The rules changes really didn't change that, though. Taking 1d4x10x7 in two attacks (really three, when you think about it, since you need to reload) isn't practically more lethal simply being shot for 1d4x10 three times. In either case, you're still likely dead in all but the heaviest armor. So the lethality wasn't really changed for the infantry scale game at all, but the ability of infantrymen to successfully cope with vehicles was neutered.

At anyrate, my issue still comes down to PA/vehicle damage and damage capacity versus handheld weapons. The PB rifles do roughly as much damage as the main guns on most of the NG bots. Sure, the bots can absorb a lot more damage, but the range advantage isn't that significant.

Then those NG bots are bad bots. Most of the CS bots and Triax bots (the only real makers of full-scale bots other than NG and Titan) have substantial range advantages over infantry - in a lot of cases, 2-4x times, before you take missiles into account.

Yes, I know the argument that bots are going to have a lot more attacks than a lone infantryman, but come on, 5-8 guys in body armor with medium/heavy handheld weapons could take apart a bot in a round most likely and that bot might be lucky to take 2-3 of those guys in armor with it.

I wont go into the full breakdown of this one, but we did it in a thread a year ago or so about "Why do people even use Robots" - you can look up the full round-by-round breakdown there, if you want - but, yeah, no. It really depends on the circumstances and what "Robots" we're talking about. The first few Robot Vehicles printed were pretty awful. They weren't really much more than slightly larger power armor (UAR-1, IAR-2, the first few Titan bots in RMB, the Triax Forager (though that was at least sold as "old and obsolete, thats why we're selling them so cheap") etc, were all sorta bad. Even a few of these bots, though, could handle an entire squad of infantry pretty roughly.

When Palladium finally switched gears and gave robots and heavy vehicles a serious treatment (Triax and the NGR being the first book to do so) - those bots will crush infantry in all but the most rigged situations, burst-fire rules or not. Basically, if the bot lives through the alpha-strike, the infantry is deader than a doornail. We did round-by-round breakdowns. It didn't work out any other way. In most cases, except for a rigged "bot walks into a close-range ambush where all infantry guys are already within range of their own weapons", the Bots dont even get significantly damage and manage to kill most or all of the infantry before they can even come into effective combat range.

So the scenario you'd have is a heavy infantry weapon would probably be doing around 1D4x10 damage, PA doing around 1d6X10 or so and robots doing 2D4x10-2D6x10, with the biggest and badest robots and vehicles maybe having a gun doing around 3D6x10 or so.

You find some scenarios where that is true, but not many.

You're actually not too far off of reality. There's only a few "heavy" infantry weapons that violate this rule (the "New" C-29 is one, at 1d6x10) - most top out around 1d4x10 or so. PA do about that damage - the older C40R not quite keeping up, but most newer PA's from serious manufacturers do do around 1d6x10, and most medium robots and tanks DO have guns that can do 2d6x10 (the CS tanks guns do 1d6x10, but can be fire-linked, in most cases, same with the medium robots like the Hellfire), and the "really big bad-ass vehicles" DO have guns that do 2d6-3d6x10 or so (Juggernaught heavy tank, Triax super-heavy robots, tanks).

Also remember that, unlike a lot of other Palladium games, Robots and Heavy Vehicles are pretty much the *only* platforms for heavy missile loads. Some Power Armors have decent loads of mini-missiles, but most of the serious heavy robots have medium and long-range missiles, and sometimes in significant amounts, giving them the ability to kill infantry from MILES beyond their own range, and perform devestating alpha-strikes on enemy formations.

[kaid]

While its true there is more to a gun than just damage but the old burst style turned nearly every fight into a mexican stand off. Sure you wound up blowing all your actions for the round but if you managed to hit which with energy weapons is not that hard to do in the palladium system the full burst did an unsurvivable amount of damage to any infantry and with some luck many power armors as well depending on the weapon.

Back when the normal armor was 30 to 50 MDC and the heaviest was 80 MDC a normal rifle able to do 3d6x10 damage means even with an average roll you just one shot killed your target. If everybody in your group does the same tactic then that is one dead target for everybody in your group with even moderately decent rolls. And since the opponents could do the same thing basically if you were not in hard cover whoever won initiative won the fight and all their targets would go up in a poof of mist after one turn of fight. It does not matter how many extra attacks you may have if you are dead.

And since the opponents could turn around and do the same thing right back to you it was never really a choice of if you should do the full burst because if you did not and your target survived your first attack you probably were not going to survive their attack.

What made it even sillier is when we tried using those rules for a while people were happy when they went against robot vehicles because their armor would at least save them from one solid hit and so the vehicles were much less deadly overall than squads of infantry were.

Really if you have a choice of one glitterboy doing 3d6x10 damage or 10 infantry each doing 3dx10 damage or more it is pretty clear the infantry is more dangerous than the glitterboy was. That and with the damage of full bursts a normal squad all going after one glitterboy has a really good chance at killing or disabling the GB before it gets more than one shot off in return. Even if it survives long enough to take the second shot its highly unlikely it would live to get the third shot off. Only losing one or two infantry in return is a pretty good trade off for evaporating a GB cost wise.

[Pepsi Jedi]

what 'Normal rifle' is doing 3D6X10??

[jaymz]

Probably something like the C-14 where you used to be able to do a full melee burst doing x10 thus 3d6x10 emptying the eclip in the process.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Ahh I see.

[Tor]

I had thought one of the wilks rifles had the 5d6 MDC single shot ability which on a max roll would have put it close to one shotting a URA-1. Really though even with the old 3d6x10 any basic rifle that did 3d6 damage on a single shot matching damage output with a glitterboy boomgun never made a lick of sense.

I don't have any problem with it. Boom Guns still have superior range and accuracy and ammunition capacity.

Also with the original x2/x5/x10 rates (prior to CB1's 2/3/7 nerf) you had to have 6d6 to match the boom gun, because a x10 full burst took 2 attacks to do.

With the old rules things like the old partical gun doing 1d4x70 on full clip burst could potentially do 280 damage in that one burst. That means it was quite capable of one shotting most power armor in the RMB and capable of nearly taking out a URA-1 with a single shot it would only have 70 MDC left.

I have zero problem with this.

You'd basically get how Jack Harkness rigged his rifle to spend its entire supply in 1 shot to take out a Dalek when they teleported the TARDIS on top of it.

No vehicle mounted weapon not even the weapon stated to be the high end balancing point the boomgun could do anywhere near that damage.

You do have a point about the vehicles, and that's pretty much always been an issue since vehicles lacked standard rate of fire and usually specified 1 shot per action or 'equal to attacks' which counters standard/bursting assumptions.

Then again, what vehicles lack in immediate destructive power, they make up for in sustained firepower.

It also made infantry combat nearly unsurvivable. If you were not behind hard cover and somebody opened up with a full burst no armor at the time could survive unless the attacker rolled miserably.

That's good, it would encourage the use of cover and stuff like that, make combat more strategic.

As for time to live in the new rules medium body armor which has an avg of around 60 MDC could survive around 8 shots on average from a weapon that does 3d6 MDC which is low end rifle and midrange pistol damage.

That just sounds so prolonged.

[azazel1024]

Ummm, yeah, "science fantasy" RPG or not, it still makes no sense that a hand weapon is doing near as much damage as a rifle mounted weapon.

You have significantly more energetic power sources in a vehicle and nothing like the weight restrictions that an infantryman faces.

All you have to do is apply the same technology you just invented for your infantry weapons to your vehicle weapons and BAM, much more powerful vehicle weapons.

Looking at kinetic weapons, the maximum you are likely to encounter is something punching out roughly 40KJ of energy in a round or very short burst. That is basically THE LIMIT to what a stong human would be able to manage without knocking them on their butt. Unless you happen to weigh more than average and be much stronger than average, you litterally cannot fire anything more powerful than that. In some ways you can achieve exceptional damage in a railgun by utilizing that energy cap, but firing extremely small diameter, very dense, ultra high velocity rounds. They'd likely vaporize on impact, but they'd also vaporize a piece of any kind of armor they hit, enabling them to basically chip through any armor, even a battleship or main battle tank, even if it took many bursts in the same relatively small space to chew through the armor (where as something with similar energy, but much lower velocity and higher weight would just bounce off the armor).

By comparison, something like a tank could mount a gun chugging out a 10-30MJ round. The better part of 500 times more energy in the round. It is GOING to do more damage. Much, much, much more. Instead of chewing through said main battle tank armor, a single round might well tear right through.

Energy weapons, we have NO idea how much an eclip can really hold (yes, there are a few places in the books where it states the energy, they are ALL conflicting). Even if you don't have a starting place, we know that nuclear power supplies can recharge an eclip and we also have a good basis for how long this might take (pretty quick, especially for a vehicle sized nuclear power supply). At a minimum vehicles can utilize, and should, accumulators of some type (be they physical (homopolar generators) or electrical super/ultra capacitors). What you can fit in to an infantry rifle is a much, much poorer version of what you can have in a large vehicle.

Plasma weapons, laser, PB, ion, etc all can have significantly larger accumulators, bigger power sources driving those accumulators, much better heat dissipation to handle higher outputs, larger lasing/firing mechnisms, etc. Saying double damage with double the range isn't even particularly realistic comparing a crew served infantry weapon against a medium vehicle weapon main gun.

You'd likely have a similar scale between energy weapons as there is in kinetic weaponry.

At the very least, saying 2-3x the damage of a high end crew served weapon versus a typical vehicle weapon is some stab towards slightly better reality.

With the best infantry crew served weapons dealing 1d4x10 or 1d6x10 for a very small number and most vehicle weapons only doing around 1d6x10, you don't have that.

Also damage capacity, the fact that heavy infantry armor has between 1/3 and 1/5th the damage capacity of a typical robot vehicle or tank is a little ridiculous also. Ignoring how huge those vehicles are, just straight armor thickness those bots can probably mount at least 2-5 inches of armor, versus maybe half an inch (on the high end) for heavy infantry armor. They should easily have 10x or more of the damage capacity of your typical heavy infantry armor.


Stepping back from reality, my big issue isn't that infantry weapons can potentially take out a robot vehicle or tank in just a couple of bursts and a few pulses or shots and that same infantry is likely to survive 1-3 shots from the main gun of said robot vehicle or tank. Its that it is with not atypical infantry weapons. In real life you have infantry weapons that can take out an MBT in a SINGLE shot.

Look at the compendum of contemporary weapons, a typical rifle does 3d6-5d6SDC. However, look at antitank rocket launchers, they typically do 1d6x100-2d6x100 damage and tanks have 500-1,500SDC and are immune to light weapons, period.

I don't have an issue with even a light laser doing damage to an MDC tank, but there SHOULD be a difference between a typical infantry laser rifle and an anti-tank plasma canon or rocket launcher.

That laser rifle might do 3d6-4d6 damage and have a 20-30 shot capacity in its eclip with a range of maybe 1,400-3,000ft. That plasma canon should probably be 2-3 times the weight, larger, maybe only have a 3-5 shot capacity from its eclip, but belt out 2d6x10+ damage and have a range of 3,000-5,000ft. A mini-missile launcher similar damage. A short range missile maybe more like 3d6-4d6x10 damage.

Tanks and heavy robot vehicles, 1,000-2,000MDC with a typical gun doing 2d6x10-3d6x10 damage with a range of 4,000-10,000ft and some heavy weapons doing 1.5-2x the damage and even longer ranges (a modern MBT main gun has a range of about 3 miles or so, about 15,000ft+, if you have a good gunner...so why is it that most guns in Rifts have a range of maybe 4,000ft. In an open battlefield that isn't very far. IE "typical" tank country).

A typical infantry rifle really shouldn't have a realistic chance of doing much to a tank or heavy robot vehicle. Heavy crew served infantry weapons or anti-tank weapons should have a realistic chance of doing some real damage to such a heavy vehicle, even if they are rather under powered compared to a robot vehicle weapon. Heavy bots and tanks should have a realistic chance of shredding a man in heavy infantry armor with a single shot with an average roll.

Don't like the fact that surival odds are almost nill in combat against a heavy robot vehicle as an infantryman? Bring your own bot. Or bring some suits of PA where you probably have the damage capacity to survive 2-3 hits from the main gun of a tank, and also heavy weapons that are the equivelent to crew served infantry weapons. Or maybe your PA has a specialist anti-tank energy canon that can dish out as much as a heavy robot vehicle, but your PA is much faster, all though very lightly armored compared to a tank or robot vehicle.

Or as infantry, you ambush or sneak up on the tank/robot vehicle and several of you attack with anti-tank weapons and duck behind cover to do it again.

You don't happen to have anti-tank weapons...RUN.

Want to make it vaguely realistic to, maybe make anti-tank weapons, heavy PA weapons and typical tank/bot heavy weapons have a serious penalty to strike infantry and maybe even PAs. They are big, probably a little slower to "bring to bear" and possibly not the most accurate in the megaverse. Give them a -7 to strike infantry and -4 to strike PA smaller than 8ft in size.

Those bots and tanks are probably going to have one or more anti-infantry weapons that have no penalties to strike, but are going to be much lighter. Maybe the bot has a heavy anti-infantry rail gun that does 1d4x10MD, a range of 6,000ft and fires a burst of 40 rounds (saturating the target area to hit the infantry). Infantry in heavy body armor is likely to surive 2-3 hits, maybe even 4-5 if the rolls aren't good.

The bot isn't likely to bring to bear its massive plasma cannon on some 6ft infantryman, or if it isn't, it has a pretty good chance of not hitting. That infantryman annoys the bot enough, and it just might "waste" some shots with its plasma cannon on the hope of hitting (or at least having the infantryman soil their armor). Or maybe the bot will use its main gun to excavate the hill the infantryman is trying to hide behind so that its anti-infantry weapons can try to nail him once he runs/loses his cover.

A handful of infantry trying to take out a large robot vehicle or tank should be just as difficult a tactical and role playing situation as going up against "a boss". It shouldn't be a throw away encounter because there are 5 of you in armor with some pulse laser rifles and a ley line walker and there is only one spider skull walker and a SAMAS.