EMP Weapon

[parmasson]

Last week a character started building an electromagnetic pulse device at TL-13 that he wants use to disable robots and other annoying pieces pf electronic equipment. He is building it on the "frame" of a laser carbine so it will have some added kick. My question is would gauss rifles be disabled by the weapon or would they come shielded from the factory? I was ready to say that a TL-13 EMP weapon would disable a TL-12 but not a TL-14.

We are playing CT with naught but the first three books if that matters.

 

[far-trader]

This might be more info then you want but it's a good read:

EMP Weapons

Last I read the smallest working EMP beam weapon was the size of a small truck with a 3m dish antennae and a focal range of some 30m. Of course that is what, TL7?

For CT, off the cuff, I like the idea of building with the guts of a laser weapon and would make the focal range (Range columns) step left one place. So for the laser carbine converted it would be +1 at Close, +1 at Short, +0 at Medium and no effect beyond that. Damage (beyond the EMP effect) I'd also drop, probably to 1D for the Carbine and 2D for the Rifle. Telescopic sights would not help.

As far as shielding, I think you have it about right. Or just allow a -1 to hit per TL difference for shielded equipment. Shielded equipment should cost double but you could consider that all the equipment is shielded for space hardiness in the first place and only obviously civilian equipment wouldn't be shielded.

 

[Rossoneill]

If its so easy to build a portable /or handheld EMP weapon by just anyone who wants to, then just about everything or at least all the important items and i would include Spaceship/Starships,Gauss weapons Robots etc in it would be shielded ,
Because since it is so simple then it would have been built before and used before many many times during the imperiums Loong Life and especially by the Empire and by Organized Crime,Terrorists ,Extortionists ,Mercenaries and just plain troublemakers,Militaries would Love a weapon to Disable other Armies weapons ,So in my opinion almost anything important would be EMP shielded if possible and practical .
Otherwise you have police ground or grav cars chasing suspects and suddenly stopping or falling out of the sky,Or a grav tank stopping dead in the air and 40 or less tons falling splat at high velocity after a few of those i would see EMP Shielding all over
I might be off the subject you did say robots and other electronic devices but i think my conclusions are fairly logical .
Of course its your TU so its up to you .

 

[parmasson]

The characters are trying to sneak into the guarded compound of a bad guy named 'Dom' Esat Ichmull a strong man with a villa in the hinterland of a banana republic on a balkanized TL 10 world. Guarding his estate he as some clunky TL 10-11 warbots and the players want to enter forcefully but quietly. The engineer of the group decides the best way is to make an EMP weapon out of his laser carbine. He has the intelligence, skills and tools so I said give it a try.

As a side note, at what point to EM fields disrupt human neurological function? At what point would it be portable?

 

[Andrew Boulton]

As my players discovered, EMP weapons have a nasty habit of zapping their own gear if they're not careful...

(And then there was the guy flying along in a suit of cheap, nasty battledress with a civilian grav belt, when somebody nuked the starport a few km away...

FZZT went the grav belt. And the suit.

"ARGH!"

THUD!

"Ow. Err...anyone got a tin-opener?")