Topic: Laser weapons should have increased chance to hit!

[Mark999]

The laser is the most accurate weapon in SM. The beam isn't affected by gravity, wind, and etc. Yet the chance to hit is nearly the same as other weapons such as the blaster, but that doesn't make realistic sense. Lasers should be more accurate than a projectile, but blasters should be even less accurate than the projectile IMO. I'm considering adding a +5 or +10 OB to the laster attack table and giving a -5 or -10 OB to the blaster, but I wanna do some play testing before I decide on this. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[Mungo]

I thought this is taken care of by the distances, i.e. with a laser you can shoot at longer ranges with the same accuracy.

BR Juergen

[Defendi]

If you're talking about Privateers, you misunderstand what a blaster is.  No time to explain.  I'll hop on later it no one picks up the slack.

[markc]

Mark999,
 Welcome to the forums.

 I think Mungo has a very valid point in that looking at the range of the weapons in question show that the laser is more accurate over longer distances. But havind said that if you want to add modifiers for your game then go right ahead. I am a big house rules fan or even just moding a few rules to fit your gaming style or group.
 Another option you have is if you have SM:P Blaster Law in which you can build energy weapons for your game. You can adjust the tables to your likeing, adding or taking away as you see fit.

 Also a note light is affected by gravity but not by a lot.
MDC 

[yammahoper]

Take a laser light in hand and aim it at something from the hip.  Chances are, you will miss the first shot.

Now aim the laser pen down your arm.  You will hit new objects on the first shot more often, but believe me, you will still miss from time to time.

[Defendi]

A blaster is a particle beam in privateers.  A particle beam is nothing more than a laser with more efficient heat management.  The reason that they have worse range is from blooming and atmospheric lensing.  In a vacuum, not even that would happen.

But change the game to suit your taste, of course.

[Mark999]

I thought this is taken care of by the distances, i.e. with a laser you can shoot at longer ranges with the same accuracy.

BR Juergen

Oh i'm sorry I forgot to mention I was talking about SM2 where the "blaster bolt" tends to lose cohesion and becomes rather random in it's flight and hitting power.

[Mark999]

I thought this is taken care of by the distances, i.e. with a laser you can shoot at longer ranges with the same accuracy.

BR Juergen

After much thought and comparing range modifiers of the laser pistol, 10mm pistol, and the blaster pistol here's what I come up with...If a PC w/10mm conventional pistol and an NPC w/blaster pistol take shots at each other approximately 16 meters away(for example), that would be just enough distance for the PC to take a whopping -30 range modifier for his attack(MR) whereas the NPC's range modifier would still be only 0(SR) with the blaster. Because SM2 stresses that the "blaster bolt" tends to become "rather random in it's flight" so i'm assuming that a blaster is at least a little bit less accurate than a projectile and that the laser is more accurate than both blasters and projectiles alike. However, the ranges listed for these 3 types of weapons would suggest 3 things...A)Blasters have the same accuracy as lasers at PB - SR ,B)Blasters have less accuracy than lasers at MR - LR, and C) Conventional projectile weapons would be the most inaccurate of all 3 weapon types at any range. That doesn't seem correct(for the most part) unless i'm wrong about a conventional projectile weapon being more accurate than a blaster. Thanks for your response.

[Mark999]

A blaster is a particle beam in privateers.  A particle beam is nothing more than a laser with more efficient heat management.  The reason that they have worse range is from blooming and atmospheric lensing.  In a vacuum, not even that would happen.

But change the game to suit your taste, of course.

Oh sorry, I was talking about SM2 weapons.

[Mark999]

Mark999,
 Welcome to the forums.

 I think Mungo has a very valid point in that looking at the range of the weapons in question show that the laser is more accurate over longer distances. But havind said that if you want to add modifiers for your game then go right ahead. I am a big house rules fan or even just moding a few rules to fit your gaming style or group.
 Another option you have is if you have SM:P Blaster Law in which you can build energy weapons for your game. You can adjust the tables to your likeing, adding or taking away as you see fit.

 Also a note light is affected by gravity but not by a lot.
MDC 

Hmmm I didn't know that light was affected by gravity(even though it doesn't affect it that much). Thanks for your response

P.S. - Also read my response to Mungo.

[markc]

  I will take a stab at what they were trying to say but it is going to be a guess on my part as I am just a volunteer mod and only played SM2 a couple of times but I have read the rules quite a few times.

  I think as others have said is that rifled pistols are the least accurate of the other two. And I think in RL they in fact would be the worst of the three. If you look at some stats for pistols they are generally used for close range of about 25 feet.
  Lasers should IMO be the most accurate as light travels in a straight line. But you also have to take into account the fact that the bolt loses energy after travelling some distance.
  Blasters however they describe them in SM2 [I do not have my books right here or the PDF?s] as supposed to inflict more damage but be not as accurate as lasers.
  So what I think is going on was using popular weapons back in the 80?s and creating rules for them. So some are weapons have more energy, some have longer range, some more accurate and some weapons are easier to make and have less up keep.

  A house rule you may want to put in would be to have a smooth bonus for the point blank range. For example if a weapon has a ?bonus? of -10 from 0 meters to 20 meters, would have a -1/2 for each meter or distance. So if the player was at 6 meters they would only has a penalty of -3.
  You may also adjust any or all the weapons to fit your game. But if I was to guess why the designers did what they did from a rule perspective it might be that any type of modern or future weapon is very deadly compared to fantasy RPG?s.
  In your situation adding a bonus for short range or any range bracket IMO would be partially dependant on how available energy shields are as well as how much of a bonus to DB advanced armors provide. So if almost everyone has an energy shield that provides a bonus of +60 or so to DB for all energy attacks. I do not think that the small bonus you propose would make a big difference.

  Also if you are stating the game at 1st level the bonus for some weapons would have a huge impact on starting players OB?s. What I would suggest would be to start PC?s at 3rd level. Why? Well this gives the PC?s more DP to round out their characters skills and the characters skill bonuses will be higher.
  In my RMSS or SM:P game I start pure arms at 3rd level, semi?s at 4th  and pure or hybrid at 5th level. As I have found that the semi , pure and hybrid characters need more DP to be effective in play. I also give the lower level professions extra exp to make up for the boost that other professions receive. This has greatly helped play in my game as vary rarely is there some PC that is not effective at something. The only one I sort of had trouble with was a psionic doctor a player made as he was only a doctor in my SM:P game. And quite a few of the other PC?s had more than 1 area of expertise that a starship would need. But then again in SM:P you need to have the training packages to become a doctor and they are not cheap in time, DP or $.
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

Another possibility, one that I think yammahoper was trying to point out, was that well made projectile weapons are already at the point where the inaccuracies of the human nervous and muscular system outweigh the inaccuracies of the weapons themselves. So realistically, the limiting factor will be how (or if) they are mounted and if so how they are controlled.

[Mark999]

Take a laser light in hand and aim it at something from the hip.  Chances are, you will miss the first shot.

Now aim the laser pen down your arm.  You will hit new objects on the first shot more often, but believe me, you will still miss from time to time.

I know that somewhere I had come across modifiers for snapshots/aimed shots/carefully aimed shots(long time ago), but cant remember which game system. Based on my long experience with various "combat games" I would say that the larger the percentage of the combat round the attacker takes to aim his weapon then the higher "to hit" chance he would recieve, but the more time that is taken to aim the weapon the more likely that his foe will get to fire first(i.e. IMO it could take 1/2 melee round accuire a target and the rest of the round to aim down the barrel and fire the weapon. If the firing PC/NPC just wants to point his/her weapon in their target's general direction(i.e. firing from the hip) and fire asap  in an attempt to "get off the first shot(s)" then that type of aiming would give the lowest possible bonus that the GM would allow(i.e. +0) because aiming like that would take the least amount of time(i.e. Quick Draw skill). I'm thinking that a carefully aimed shot through a scope would give the best possible bonus allowable by the GM,but that could easily take longer than a full combat round to do. Also consider this...if a PC accuires a new target(i.e. at the start of the fire fight) then he misses on the first shot and can also see where the shot went when he missed, he could use that info to help him adjust his aim on his next shot so that his chance to hit would be a little higher than the first shot(especially if the target has a fixed position and doesn't take an unpredictable action, move erratically, and etc.). Thanks for your input.

[Marc R]

As aside. . .You shoot twice every 10 seconds. . .5 seconds to aim and fire is a decent amount of time if you didn't draw that round. . .

[Mark999]

A blaster is a particle beam in privateers.  A particle beam is nothing more than a laser with more efficient heat management.  The reason that they have worse range is from blooming and atmospheric lensing.  In a vacuum, not even that would happen.

But change the game to suit your taste, of course.

Oh sorry, I was talking about SM2 weapons.

Also, I looked up "particle beam accelerator" and noticed there were several different types of particle beam accelerators(including 1 type that sounded like it would do an Electricity Critical), I havent found my copy of SM:P yet. Since your description of the SM:P version of blasters sounds different than what the SM2 version sounds like, a GM might wanna use both types(or more) to add variety to the campaign. Although i'd suggest not to allow any given weapon to have too many pros and too few cons as those weapons could cause 1 or more other weapons to be considered obsolete(i.e. increasing the weapons chance of malfuctioning, giving a maximum number of shots that it can be fired before it's power cell is drained even if a malfunction on the attack roll occurs or not, are just a few ways that a GM could help balance things) especially if they are not hard to obtain. Super powerful hand held energy weapons in the hands of the PC's/allied NPC's and thier NPC enemies alike would make it much easier and faster to kill/injure one another which can produce some boring battles IMO.

Tks for responding,

Mark999

[RandalThor]

I do agree that lasers should have a greater bonus to hit - but only at Point Blank range. That is when the convergence of weapon speed, attacker control, and target reaction speed work the most in favor of the laser. The majority of the time, a person misses with a firearm (or laser/blaster/disruptor/etc in a sci-fi game) mostly due to the movement of their firing hand. Little movements there translate into huge movements down range, and the further the range the worse the effect. So, even if a laser has huge ranges (and I fully believe that their long and extreme ranges should far outstrip most of the other weapons out there) the greatest influence on the successful attack is the hand of the user. (Yes, that sound very basic, and it is, but it truly applies here.)

For this, I would give them a larger bonus for a point blank shot and, maybe even, short range, but keep the rest. And I would increase their medium, long, and extreme ranges a bit.

[markc]

Mark999,
 One thing SM:P blasters can do is radiation crits. Or you can even build a blaster without it. I sort of like it that way as you can have some blaster weapons have a very bad rep or people might think twice if they see you draw one.

 As the laser bonus idea I could also see a larger bonus at PB range but again I would have to see about game balance. I might also give a bonus and allow it to be doubled if the person had cyber-equipment and eyes. IMO this would allow for faster better shots and IMO would deserve a larger bonus.  In my game I have different levels of cyber-weapon linkage so only the military gets the really high bonus. I have also toyed with the idea of having one or two races receive higher bonuses from cyber linked weapons or have them the only races that can accept a specific "bonus" cyber weapon link. I picked up on this idea from a Warhammer 40K reading book and it has sort of stuck with me and IMO it should make the game better and have a lot more flavor.

MDC

[RandalThor]

The cyber-enhanced attack modifers would really apply to any weapon they can hook it up to. If the .50 cal pistol has a cyber-jack (or whatever you are calling it  ) then it should get the bonus as well.

I just see the PG bonus being higher for lasers as

Well, as I was typing I was struck by the thought, "The speed difference between PB and the other ranges is negigable for a laser. A person's reaction time doesn't make much of a difference when you are talking about light-speed." So, it really wouldn't make much of a difference. I guess just uping the ranges a bit should be good enough.

Perhaps, greater OBs should be left to weapons with greater power not speed -  unless that speed is measurably different.

[Marc R]

In a vacuum, where the laser diffuses less, and extreme ranges become possible, the speed variation would make much more of a difference. Even in zero G, where bullets would have a better max range (no diffusion so max = infinity) the scales begin to mean more and more leading the target for bullets. By the time you start needing to lead the target with a laser you can no longer see it with an unaided eye.

[markc]

 I was leaving the door open for cyberware to be more effective with one type of weapon over another.
MDC