Alternate Weapons Systems?

[Tellon]

I am curious -- especially if anybody decided to go outside the box and design some cool Traveller weapons systems ...

Since I like realism -- my lasers are gonna be junk...(gravitic tweaks are handwavium)
Gauss has a velosity of basically 3k to 4k m/s -- to generally useless for space combat
Plasma/Fusion has a velosity of 6k m/s so a target would need to be inside of 15,000 km for a shot to be able to hit in 1 combat turn (30 min)

So that basically leaves PAW/Meson Spinal Mounts and Missiles (Oh and Kinetic E weapons)

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in other words -- we have Vargyr, Zho, Aslan, Droyne, many, many minor races, Humans, Vilani and so on -- all came up with the exact same system -- no variation, no racial specialtiies -- nothing to differentiate them from any other race for combat? and all this with space travel for how many thousands of years ?????

has anybody asked ... why?

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So while I take a look at Mass Drivers/CPR guns and a few other ideas for vehicles -- nothing speaks out for space combat... SO am I gonna have to look at SFB and homebrew a few plausible ideas

or have people tinkered with ideas already?

 

[Icosahedron]

Unfortunately, Tellon, if you get too much of a realism OCD, space combat becomes impossible. You need to bear in mind that sci-fi is by definition not realistic.

Personally, I'd keep your lasers and just handwave that they get better at higher TLs. I usually find that any attempt to describe how they improve (eg gravitic focussing) creates more problems than it solves, and I generally ignore such ill-advised addtions to canon.

KE weapons and missiles will be slower than plasma/gauss, so you should reject them for the same reasons (though admittedly missiles can give chase when they eventually reach the target vicinity).

Sorry, I don't have any magical weapons that are less magical than the magical weapons already used. Avoid the path to madness and accept lasers as a sci-fi staple weapon.

 

[sabredog]

Because they work...boring, but they work without having to make leaps and bounds of handwaving.

But here are some possibly useful ideas for some alternate weapons:

Bomb-pumped laser missiles (like in Traveller:2300+): they give a little extra reach when you need extra lasers, plus at closer range they can do some radiation damage.

Not just hypervelocity - but high ROF, low caliber railguns (or mass drivers): bigger versions of the VRF gauss gun that send out a high volume of fire to do damage as a missile, but at very short range (shorter than high energy weapons anyway - like visual range). Something that is useful against incoming missiles and defenseless merchants up close. A larger caliber version would be good for ortillery, mid-sized good for fighters or small craft.

Induced radiation weapons to inflict radiation hits, maybe the really higher tech ones can blind an opponent's sensors for a turn or two.

 

[Tellon]

KE weapons and missiles will be slower than plasma/gauss, ...

wow, no kiddin? .. wow

And to think, the KE style warheads were supposed to be spit out at such high velosities that they could just thru sheer speed, rip apart small ships ...

hmm, ok

Thx Icos ...