Stats thought: United Galactica Weapons Developement Labs Ba

[director_slayton]

Note: Please note that this contains some custom material from my own custom 'verse and material from the Metal Gear series of video games and is my first attempt at creating a unique weapon of this nature for a player's suggestion.

Also, please give me advice or thoughts on how to fix this-I'm open for suggestions.

Capsule: The Ballista-class of Rail Gun was one of the last experimental weapons to come out of the design labs of United Galactica in the years shortly before the events of the United Galactica Civil War and the "Long Dark Night" that occured afterwards but this weapon was left in the weapon design labs on the planet of Northrend for a hundred and twenty years before it was accidentally discovered by a woman known only as "Fortune" who took the only two in existance with her during a mission on the planet by the black operations unit that she was apart of.

The Ballista prototype allows a person to use a man-portable rail gun which while compact packs as much firepower as a tank turret and can punch through pretty much anything (within reason) that it's used against and like all prototypes, it's got a few bugs mostly due to it's recoil due to a design flaw with the inner rail electromagnetic release system which while granting it's ability to fire a projectile the size and weight of an average pencil through even the toughest armor, it produces enough of a recoil that it requires a strong grasp or powered aid to keep the weapon from bucking out of the wielder's grasp.

As previously stated only two prototypes of this weapon exist-both in the hands of the PMC known as "Werewolf" (as Fortune is a member of this group along with the other members of her old black ops unit).

Name: United Galactica Weapons Developement Labs Ballista-class Rail Gun
Type: Magnetic Accelerator Weapon
Scale: Speeder
Ammo: 40
Cost: Unknown
Availability: Rare
Range: 5-50/500/2000
Fire Rate: 1/2, Delayed (see below)
Damage: 8D
-Melee: STR+2D Physical (Blunt)

Game Notes:
RATE OF FIRE (1/2, delayed): This weapon has a specific rate of fire for how it functions. Because of it's charge time before discharging it's energy beam, the operator will have the last initiative in a combat round. If they are attacked, Dodge, or any other appropriate action to distract them, the weapon's charging stops and must start again. This is the "delayed" portion of the fire rate. Further, because of the time needed to cool down the weapon before it can fire again, the operator must wait a full round before making another attack with the weapon. This is the "1/2" portion, as it operates similar to a turbolaser weapon from the Star Wars setting.

CHARGING: The rail gun needs to charge up for 1 round before firing each shot.

RARE: There are only at present two Ballista-class Rail Guns currently in existance despite however there have been rumors that somewhere a factory rushed several production models into existance but as of yet, these rumors are unfounded.
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"I've never seen a sloppier, more amateurish operation in my life... If you ever do something like this again -- count me in!"
- Leck to Quark, upon rescuing Ishka. (DS9: "The Magnificent Ferengi")

[Crimson_red]

As a piece of tech for a story or two to revolve around, that is a good one... people would kill to get their hands on it... it may be even too powerful for a, what's the term, Mcguffin? Is that possible?

The damage is huge, solid for an anti-materiel weapon, but you also made it speeder scale. It has the advantage of making harder to target personnel, a good thing, but that might be excessive damage dice for that scale of weapon. I'll note, I haven't looked at vehicles or vehicle scale weapons, so I could be off.

If you expect this weapon see regular use in game, particularly by the PCs, it might be advisable to reconsider its stats. A good starting point could be the Verpine shatter gun, which is basicly the same weapon, but much smaller.

Model: Verpine Shatter Gun
Type: Magnetic accelerator weapon
Scale: Character
Skill: Firearms: Verpine shatter gun
Ammo: 100
Cost: 30,000, 1,000 (ammo)
Availability: 4, F, R or X
Body: 1D
Range: 50-400/900/1.5 km
Damage: 6D
Game Notes: If the shatter gun is jarred, dropped or
otherwise banged in any significant manner, roll damage
against the weapon’s body.
Source: Galladinium’s Fantastic Technology (pages 91-92),
Arms and Equipment Guide (page 38 )

But like I said, depending on the weapon's role in-game, it could be just fine as is. EDIT: For your weapon, because of its excessive damage, it may be worth considering what skill it uses. It may just be firearms, but it might be a better fit under something like blaster artillery or missile weapons... that thing is an absolute brute, and with the scale difference, it likely doesn't handle like a regular firearm.

[director_slayton]

Crimson Red: That's just the thing though, I'm not sure what skill would go with this weapon due to it being a rail gun. Does it fit under blaster artillery or firearms-if there was a speeder weapons skill, would it fit there?

Also, this weapon is going to be used against my players but I'm thinking about toning it down-keeping it speeder scale but dropping the damage dice to 2D. What do you think?
_________________
"I've never seen a sloppier, more amateurish operation in my life... If you ever do something like this again -- count me in!"
- Leck to Quark, upon rescuing Ishka. (DS9: "The Magnificent Ferengi")

[Crimson_red]

Well the Shattergun above is basically the same type of weapon and it uses the Firearms skill, so if you reduced the weapon scale that would be a reasonable skill to use. Though I think I've seen multiple discussions on these boards musing about where a rail gun best fits.

I could see using the verpine stats, remove the jarring disadvantage, reduce rate of fire to match yours. Could be a good place to start. You could feasibly raise the damage back to 8D (that would be 6D vs speeders, 4D vs walkers, and so on) solid damage against those types of vehicles or even the range... maybe consider requiring a bi-pod for its use.

Either way, I'm sure there are some better qualified people than I, here, who can and will give some advice.

[Crimson_red]

I came across another rail gun in gry's weapon guide:

EMRG-50 Rail Gun
Model: Arachnica EMRG-50 Rail Gun
Type: Electromagnetic rail gun
Scale: Character
Skill: Rail gun
Ammo: 4 shots
Cost: 10,000
Availability: 3, X
Range: 100-1/2/4 km
Damage: 5D
Game Notes: Character must have Strength of 5D to hold
gun due to recoil.
Source: Twin Star of Kira (page 63)

It may have an answer for what skill to use; the EMRG-50 uses a separate Rail Gun skill, which makes sense. It might serve as a better example of this type of weapon, and along with the shatter gun, help get a better idea of what you want to accomplish with your weapon.

[Fallon Kell]

[ZzaphodD]

[Bren]

[ZzaphodD]

[garhkal]

[Bren]

[ZzaphodD]

[Bren]

I always assumed this was sort of a spider-portable version of the Guass Gun in the Mechwarrior computer game. Those things had a huge range, far beyond that of energy weapons - basically line of sight or farther - but accuracy suffered at longer ranges.

Better would probably be an extended range more along the lines of this:

Range: 100/500/1km/2km/4km

100 = easy
500 = moderate
1km = difficult
2 km = very difficult
4 km = heroic

And some sort of macroscope or targeting computer.

[atgxtg]

Perhaps the veprine weapon has some sort of built in guidance. It would explain why it can shoot so far, and also help to account for the weapon's ultra sensitivity. There is an HB-4 "rifle" that fires wire guided projectiles that can hit out to 8km, so the there are other examples of man portable firearms with that sort of range. And ultra-high speed would give a flatter trajectory.

Still, I'd have been haper if the shatter gun were a long arm with a scope, instead of a pistol.

[garhkal]

I always thought it should have been a rifle as well..
And i mentioned the HB-4 already, but one thing i forgot to mention, is that since it IS a tow line guided missile, NOT a bullet, it takes 1 round PER KM to get to the target...
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