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Devourer Rounds

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Thu, 2012-04-05 11:53
#1
rbishop rbishop's picture
Devourer Rounds
This is a really nasty type of ammo that my players recently encountered. The round is a small swarm of disassembler nanos within a shell. On impact the shell shatters releasing the nanos on/in the target. The nanos activate on impact and remain active for about 15 seconds. -1dv due to the lower mass of the projectile, but add 1d10-1 damage per action turn. Hits that do not penetrate armor release the nanos onto the armor itself, each hit resulting in a cumulative 10% chance the armor is destroyed. optional rule: on a critical hit consult table 1-3 heart shot double the damage per action turn 4-6 lodged in a joint, after first action turn joint becomes unusable until medical attention is recieved. 7-9 other internal organs hit, +2 damage per action turn 10 head shot, make a LUC test to avoid corruption of ego and the resulting back up in the cortical stack. Treat as back up complication on page 270 of main book. Devourer rounds are highly illegal in the inner system. Anyone suspected of having them is generally killed on sight and their stacks taken so the ego contained can be brought to justice. It's not been unknown for the ego to be resleeved in a restrained body and having a devourer round shot delivered to their head. In the outer system, while it is not illegal to own, those who are known to have devourer rounds are looked on with some suspicion. generally each use (each combat encounter, not single shots) will result in a 1-2 point rep decrease with any faction witnessing the use of the round.
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Thu, 2012-04-05 13:36
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: Devourer Rounds
rbishop wrote:
This is a really nasty type of ammo that my players recently encountered. The round is a small swarm of disassembler nanos within a shell. On impact the shell shatters releasing the nanos on/in the target. The nanos activate on impact and remain active for about 15 seconds. -1dv due to the lower mass of the projectile, but add 1d10-1 damage per action turn. Hits that do not penetrate armor release the nanos onto the armor itself, each hit resulting in a cumulative 10% chance the armor is destroyed. optional rule: on a critical hit consult table 1-3 heart shot double the damage per action turn 4-6 lodged in a joint, after first action turn joint becomes unusable until medical attention is recieved. 7-9 other internal organs hit, +2 damage per action turn 10 head shot, make a LUC test to avoid corruption of ego and the resulting back up in the cortical stack. Treat as back up complication on page 270 of main book. Devourer rounds are highly illegal in the inner system. Anyone suspected of having them is generally killed on sight and their stacks taken so the ego contained can be brought to justice. It's not been unknown for the ego to be resleeved in a restrained body and having a devourer round shot delivered to their head. In the outer system, while it is not illegal to own, those who are known to have devourer rounds are looked on with some suspicion. generally each use (each combat encounter, not single shots) will result in a 1-2 point rep decrease with any faction witnessing the use of the round.
You can already put any type of nanobots in a capsule round (kinetic weapons) or splash round (seeker/grenades). I don't know much about the balance, but I don't think disassembler nanos with that short of a lifespan will really do significant damage to a cortical stack. Also, the rep rules and such tend to be something I wouldn't link to a specific weapon as there are plenty of really cruel ways to kill people (and habitats) that aren't similarly marked. There are nanos that specifically eat away at your cortical stack, nano-toxins that intentionally cause pain and suffering, and plasma cannons that can put a hole in a habitat and require thousands to be resleeved. The idea is interesting, but there are already rules for cruel nano rounds.
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Thu, 2012-04-05 21:35
rbishop rbishop's picture
Re: Devourer Rounds
The rounds dont actually do anything to the stack itself. It's damage to the ego, from damage directly to the neural structure, which then becomes part of the copy stored in the stack. As far as the rep hit, nobody wants a weapon being firing that has the potential to eat holes in their habitats.
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Thu, 2012-04-05 22:07
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: Devourer Rounds
rbishop wrote:
The rounds dont actually do anything to the stack itself. It's damage to the ego, from damage directly to the neural structure, which then becomes part of the copy stored in the stack. As far as the rep hit, nobody wants a weapon being firing that has the potential to eat holes in their habitats.
You can have a dimond axe pass-through your temporal lobe without ego damage, so I figure the stack has some error-checking for itterative back-ups to keep things from getting too screwed up. And while I could see the possibility that the use of nasty weapons could potentially negatively impact one's rep score, it tends to be highly context sensitive. Criminal networks include some high-rep psychopaths that will feed their own mothers to a fabber to save some creds, so they are more worried about who you're shooting (i.e. not them) than what you're shooting. Heck, kill the right people in a needlessly cruel way and you might increase your rep. Context matters!
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