RE: [Traveller_TNE] Stupid Lasers

I used your table of battery discharge rates and it helped some. However, I still cannot replicate the lasers in the Ire, Confusion & Raw Deal supplement. I'm beginning to think the designers A) didn't use the same design sequence as in the book, B) didn't double check their results, or C) both.

What I am going to end up doing is recreating every frickin' laser in the game just to have some consistency.

Besides, it doesn't appear lasers are all that great personnel weapons anyway. They have no penetration against armored targets, and are relatively large and clumsy for the damage they do. I'm going to work up the various lasers from the different House Rules games and 2300AD, and maybe a Martian heat ray or two. Won't be worth a darn, but they'll be there for completeness sake.

From: [] On Behalf Of Patrik Holmstrom
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 21:14
To:
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Stupid Lasers

On 10/5/06, Rupert Boleyn <> wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 06:49:56 -0500, you wrote:
> >It was the battery pack that was giving me fits. The rules don't make it
> >clear what the discharge rate for such batteries are (I think I ended up
> >using 50 small batteries of the ×125 output). As for output, what the
> >insert gave as the weapon's damage was what I got for its "Thin Atmosphere"
> >performance.
>
> The discharge rate you need is something faster than the shortest time
> the laser can empty the battery. If the laser fires once per turn and
> has 50 shots (for example), it can empty the battery in 5 x 50 = 250
> seconds, so you need to use a battery that can discharge faster than
> that (ie a 36 second discharge battery). The battery's output needs to
> be the total input energy of all the shots divided by the battery's
> discharge time. So, if you example laser has an input energy of 0.05MJ
> per shot, it has a total energy storage of 50 x 0.05 = 2.5MJ, and the
> battery needs to be able to supply 2.5 / 36 = 0.07MW.

If you don't mind extrapolation of the battery output modifier I have
a convenient table (and the formula behind it) posted at
http://user.it.uu.se/~paho9211/trav/weapons/battmods.html

Calculate the minimum time required to empty the magazine at the
required RoF and find the output modifier for that time using the
table/formula. If you are designing a gauss weapon halve this value
(since the rules allow them to fire twice). Then just calculate power
input according to p130 in FFS and add a battery capable of supplying
enough juice (using the custom discharge rate/modifier). I use this
method for all battery powered weapons and I think it's much more
straightforward than the official one. It also helps to keep the
weight of batteries down especially for gauss weapons where the rules
assume a ~1 second discharge rate.

Patrik Holmström