Rifts Rail guns, one GMs answers.

[wolfsgrin]

This is awesome! Now where do I get a shark tank?
I love the mod for larger bots and their rail guns. That's a great fix. Good job.

[strtkwr]

Ummmm......They now have a GB with dual rail guns in Triax 2. And the the rapid fire boom gun is being covered in the upcoming title Rifts: Super Uber-Cool Robots and Weapons book. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[Snake Eyes]

nice article King Harrold
Not sure if this would apply to Rifts rail guns, the Aliens Unlimited Galaxy Guide, but rail gun rounds can have the damage enhanced by making them HEAP.....though the rounds, because of the velocity, are AP anyway

[glitterboy2098]

a point: a railgun's round is going to touch the rails. thats how they work. the alternative, a coilgun, will have a normal barrel which the round fits into, including rifling.
a railgun also does not need a metal slug. infact it works best as a non-metal bit, or as a core of a heavy metal in a non-metal jacket. all it needs is a conductive bit at the rear to bridge the gap between rails. a coilgun requires a metal slug because it uses magnetic feilds to work. (railguns just exploit a condition caused by electrical current)
generally, rifts 'railguns' behave more like coilguns.

i would point out that you can increase the damage of a rail or coilgun by modifying it's muzzle velocity..since it's a kinetic weapon, the faster it's projectile goes, the more damage it does. however this increases the recoil, certainly beyond the built in recoil management systems ability to counter. i'd say, increases the P.S. requirement to fire "offhand" (as a rifle, not a tripod mount) by 50%, and even as a tripod or fixed mount i'd say you'd be looking at a P.S. requirement to keep it steady.


personally, i prefer to assume the powerpacks are micro-fission plants using Uranium or Thorium...but use what you prefer. canon is still (annoyingly) slpit over the issue. (pre-RUE books assume fission/Atomic, as shown by their fluff. post RUE you have more fusion references...)

[tuvermage]

Fun notes for GMs is rail guns actually take massive wear and tear; depending on their construction they can anywhere from 10 shots to 1000 shots before the rails have to be replaced. other fun notes is if the player upgrades their rail/coil gun you can offer the lowered cost of improving the system and not the shielding so every time they fire the gun there is the affects of the massive EM field to deal with. Remember the tech of the world when upgrading too. On Rifts you wouldn't be able to pass the Boom gun, in fact in most places you would be lucky to get half of what the boom gun can do. Phase world you could pass the boom gun but remember the problems with the boom gun both the sound and kickback, remember the sound is from the round breaking the sound barrier a few times over, of could all those magnetic coils won't be quite either.

[llywelyn]

Fun notes for GMs is rail guns actually take massive wear and tear; depending on their construction they can anywhere from 10 shots to 1000 shots before the rails have to be replaced.

This.

"Hand-me-down" GBs should not be anything like a new Chromium set, and in fact could use a nice canon table to show to players.