Meson gun damage
- Thread starter Enoki
- Start date
From HG. I always assumed it would look a lot like a missile or bomb had gone off inside the ship, essentially a spherical area X meters in diameter that is pretty much mangled, if not outright destroyed or vaporized. I'm also assuming this is a rather large area, especially for spinal mounts, but even meson bays would have a pretty fair zone of destruction. And radioactive, although I'm not informed enough to figure out what kind of half-life or levels such would have.
If the mesons decay inside the ship, it's almost assured that some of them are going to decay inside solid matter (fuel, bulkheads, etc), I would think. Perhaps that time-space coincidence is what generates the explosion. If that's the case, I think you'd see destruction zone where anything that is still there would probably look like it blew up from within. Just my .02 Cr, but that's always the assumption I've used.
Well, meson guns also get a roll on the "internal explosions" table, which suggests to me there has to be some explosive component. The mesons decaying inside matter explanation is purely what I use, but I would think if it was only radiation, it wouldn't get a second internal explosion roll right off the bat. Rolls on the radiation damage table cannot give you an internal explosion result, and for other weapons, the only way to get a roll on that table requires penetration from the outside, and the heat/blast effects provide the energy for the internal explosion.
When I had to answer this question for my players, I began with the description of how a meson gun worked. (I'm not going to address whether that description is plausible
)A meson gun accelerates "meson" particles to near-c velocities, the relativistic time effects associated with those velocities mean the half-life of the particles is extended, and that extended half-life means the particles catastrophically decay somewhere well downrange in space and time of the meson gun instead of mere nanoseconds beyond the muzzle. Because those particles are not stopped by matter, the decay can occur inside any given target. So, we're looking at an internal explosion with, according to the HG2 damage tables, radiological attributes.
It's the shape of that internal explosion which always intrigued me.
Even with Traveller's magic technology, the production and acceleration of "mesons" is not going to be perfect. Some particles are going to be marginally earlier, some particles are going to produced marginally later, some are going to be accelerated marginally faster, and some are going to be accelerated marginally slower. That means some particles are going to decay and release energy at marginally different times and places.
And that means the energy density of a meson detonation is going vary across a given section of time and space.
Putting it another way, the energy density "profile" of a meson detonation isn't going to be "spherical". There isn't a discrete point at which all those particles decay and release energy. Instead, the energy density "profile" is going to resemble a three dimensional bell curve with the steepness of the curve most likely depending on tech level and the ability to tightly "group" particles by production time and velocity.
Applying my admittedly suspect 3D bell curve "energy density" model to a ship damage, imagine the "rod & brick" shape of an AHL cruiser. A perfectly aimed meson shot will see the "bulge" of the bell curve placed in the direct center of the cruiser with the curve's tapered "spikes" extending outward. In your mind's eye, you can rotate the 3D bell curve within the cruiser's hull, place it outside of the hull, have the "spikes" within or outside of the hull, or any other orientation.
The damage caused by the meson detonation is going to depend on orientation of the 3D bell curve "blast" to the target's hull. While there can be any orientation between the curve and blast, the center line of the curve always points back to the meson gun's location at the time of the shot.
I've most likely overlooked many many things, but this explanation worked well enough for my players.
Thats always been the way I have I have seen it played, and played it myself when Meson weapons have been used. Only defense against them are Meson Screens and Black Globes.
I've already talked about this video form our absent friend in another thread with similar topic. I guess the spinal weapons are Meson Guns, as the explosions they produce seem to come from inside the ships (see that this would make the Azhanti involved one of the ones refitted with a MG):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsX4e7sZ_Ek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsX4e7sZ_Ek
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I can see the "football" shaped area of effect. Since these are subatomic particles decaying into atomic particles, thinking a bit about it, I'd think that if there were enough energy concentrated that these particles would interact in several ways with matter within the target:
1. Some would simply 'crash' through it like a bowling ball hitting the pins on an atomic level. This could cause embrittlement of the material by disruption of its atomic structure as well as irradiate it by changing the isotope nature of the individual atoms.
2. Some would interact with the atoms and molecules present changing their chemical structure to become new "stuff." Sort of like instantly turning steel into rust.
3. These interactions would cause a considerable amount of thermal energy to be released (the internal explosion).
4. Any electronics and such would be completely wasted by what would be an "ultimate" EMP burst.
So, the boarding crew might be moving and find a bulkhead that simply turns to dust or nearly so because it was so embrittled and chemically modified that it has lost all integrity, a mere touch causing it to crumble away.
1. Some would simply 'crash' through it like a bowling ball hitting the pins on an atomic level. This could cause embrittlement of the material by disruption of its atomic structure as well as irradiate it by changing the isotope nature of the individual atoms.
2. Some would interact with the atoms and molecules present changing their chemical structure to become new "stuff." Sort of like instantly turning steel into rust.
3. These interactions would cause a considerable amount of thermal energy to be released (the internal explosion).
4. Any electronics and such would be completely wasted by what would be an "ultimate" EMP burst.
So, the boarding crew might be moving and find a bulkhead that simply turns to dust or nearly so because it was so embrittled and chemically modified that it has lost all integrity, a mere touch causing it to crumble away.
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
I'm with Navanod - energy releases inside and outside of matter, and Whipsnade's variable timings and velocities makes sense, too. However, I'm not sure his idea would result in a significantly assymetric shape, I picture the bell curve relating more to intensities within a roughly spherical volume centered on the point of aim.
From Striker, the effects of a dirtside surface meson blast are:
All personnel within the burst area of a meson accelerator are killed, all vehicles and weapons are destroyed, all buildings collapse and any smooth ground surface becomes broken ground.
So yeah, a bit like a nuke but without the crater.
From Striker, the effects of a dirtside surface meson blast are:
All personnel within the burst area of a meson accelerator are killed, all vehicles and weapons are destroyed, all buildings collapse and any smooth ground surface becomes broken ground.
So yeah, a bit like a nuke but without the crater.
On Meson Gun damage.
While I have not really played HG, I have poked through it now and again.
I pictured the blast being more like the spray patterns seen in the atom smashers, but that might just be me. It sure would explain all those cascading criticals I keep reading about.
Laterness,
Craig.
While I have not really played HG, I have poked through it now and again.
I pictured the blast being more like the spray patterns seen in the atom smashers, but that might just be me. It sure would explain all those cascading criticals I keep reading about.
And only slightly off topic, I think the Main Weapon of the Death Star is not a laser weapon, those crack the planet at point of impact, but is in fact a giant meson gun array. I mean Alderan (or however it is spelled, can't say I care much any more) just explodes from within. Case closed. 
Laterness,
Craig.
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I have a system IMTU where the last decisive battle of the recent interstellar war took place. In one area of the mass of wreckage drifting throughout the system there are two heavy cruisers locked together in a slow spin from when one was fatally hit by the other’s spinal meson gun seconds before impact.
The one with the meson hit looks like the metal hull swelled in the center like a bubble formed inside. The bulge ruptured in places where it couldn’t stretch any further under the strain of containing the small nuclear explosion that happened deep inside the ship from the meson blast. The seams of the hull are burst and distorted, and the layers of decks twisted inside, and flow together near the edges of the blast. The area of the blast itself is a spherical space with the bulkheads and decks along its edges pancaked and welded together. Overall, from the outside the ship looks a little like a gigantic needle that has transfixed a ball.
The one with the meson hit looks like the metal hull swelled in the center like a bubble formed inside. The bulge ruptured in places where it couldn’t stretch any further under the strain of containing the small nuclear explosion that happened deep inside the ship from the meson blast. The seams of the hull are burst and distorted, and the layers of decks twisted inside, and flow together near the edges of the blast. The area of the blast itself is a spherical space with the bulkheads and decks along its edges pancaked and welded together. Overall, from the outside the ship looks a little like a gigantic needle that has transfixed a ball.
Awesome! Snagging that as an Adventure Seed for an upcoming game. Thx!
That's pretty much my thinking too. You just expressed it more elegantly.
The "3D bell curve" I wrote about is a plot of meson particle density at the time of decay and thus a plot of energy intensity from that decay.
Little variation in MT (PH; Pag80):
Just specifies that not only personel are killed, but other life too :rofl:.
And about no crater... maybe many small ones will fit more in the uneven ground reference?
I’ve thought about this on and off over the years and the way I always read it was that the difference between a meson gun and a regular PAWS was the beam particles, being mesons, found matter to be transparent until they decayed into more conventional particles. That being the case it would appear to be a normal PAWS beam but starting at some point in space … the trick is to get that start point to occur inside the target.
Off the top of my head I’m thinking of amending the rules to make the ToHit roll the same as for a PAWS but have a second 2D roll:
Off the top of my head I’m thinking of amending the rules to make the ToHit roll the same as for a PAWS but have a second 2D roll:
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2-6 Beam decayed short (damage as per PAWS)
7 Beam decayed on target (damage as per meson gun)
8-12 Beam decayed late (no damage)What if it means that the result of the blast is that everything is just shattered, maybe at the molecular level? So it all blurs to dust and crumbs, then settles in the same place leaving a pile so wreckage and goo where buildings, vehicles, and life forms were? Maybe the ground level lowers slightly, but now it is covered in a layer of shattered rubble. If you scooped out the shattered area below ground it might be spherical, but the damage in the atmosphere less so from the air displacement and any terrain disrupting it.
This description isn't consistent with a nuclear explosion effect. A nuclear explosion radiates out from a central point, with diminishing effect as you get farther from the center. This sounds very much like something analagous to a fuel-air-bomb explosion: fairly evenly deadly throughout the affected area, not as much impact outside of it.
I have often wondered if that meant the mesons were intended to convert not at a single focal point but within a large spherical volume, in effect creating a large volume of space densely packed with a vast number of incredibly tiny little explosions: everyone and everything superheated by the effect of all those tiny little explosions within them. I see tanks sagging into piles of glowing metal, people reduced to black sooty corpses, buildings crumbling almost to sand as every square millimeter of their mass and the region around them is suddenly filled with gamma photons, accompanied by an electron flash and radiation of gamma into neighboring regions.
And variances in meson production and velocity mean that that theoretical spherical volume more resembles a 3D bell curve...
