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Cheap and creative instruments of destruction

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Tue, 2017-05-23 04:57
#1
CordialUltimate2 CordialUltimate2's picture
Cheap and creative instruments of destruction
Recently there were two threads about mechanics of shard pistols and various chemicals which quickly dEvolved into discussion of very dangerous yet simple combinations of equipment. So far the wasp knife and swarmanoid with injectors reigned supreme with options like intravenous thermite delivery or air-fuel mixture into a body cavity of the enemy. So I raise you. Can you make even more destruction for less buck? Any more one hit weapons, you can assemble without full CM? Bonus point for explosions of gore and robotic parts. PS Firewall's guide to unconventional weapons doesn't count since every weapon in there requires rare blueprint or dedicated resources to manufacture it. Example:
Spoiler: Highlight to view
Wasp knife filled with thermobaric grenade mixture should give you: [1d10+SOM/10+2 -1 AP] [+2d10] for things that internal pressure is bad for and [+3d10] for explosion of the mixture. Potentially ignoring most of the armor. Maybe you could rule that it only works on Excellent Success (good penetrating stab)
—
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Tue, 2017-05-23 06:18
Kojak Kojak's picture
One of my players regularly
One of my players regularly grip-tapes shaped charges or clusters of microgrenades onto saucers and kamikazes them at high speed into opponents; he's also a big fan of taking innocuous-looking servitors, installing a hidden compartment with various stealth mods, and then packing it full of explosives to be used as a suicide bomber.
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"I wonder if in some weird Freudian way, Kojak was sucking on his own head." - Steve Webster on Kojak's lollipop
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Tue, 2017-05-23 07:49
Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture
My preferred weapon is simply
My preferred weapon is simply having multiple instances of ambidexterity and extra limbs. Nothing quite like summoning a wall of bullets with easily concealable light pistols. Not very inventive, but it's effective. Also worth it to see people double take at what the heck just turned their partner into swiss cheese given my preferred 4-limbed morph. Edit: Oh, I did recall one cruel and unusual weapon I've used in the past: Just get someone alone and beat the shit out of them with Eelware. Sure, it'll take forever, but they're basically helpless and that can be a benefit if you really feel like being a dick.
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Tue, 2017-05-23 10:15
Baribal Baribal's picture
Ectos wired into the
Ectos wired into the otherwise isolated control circuits of airlocks make for good explosive decompression just when you need it; trigger it when your opponent is passing in front of the airlock, or when you wear smart vacsuits and they don't. Weapons may be fun, but when you manage to change the battlefield itself into your weapon, things get spectacular, downright Burn Notice.
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Morgan's Butchery | Body bank, morph individualization and upgrades | Psychotherapy and Psychosurgery, therapeutic and recreational | http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59484#comment-59484
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Tue, 2017-05-23 13:56
Kojak Kojak's picture
Oh man, I can't believe I
Oh man, I can't believe I forgot this one: a couple sessions ago one of my players used grip pads to rip a dude's face off while brawling with him (like me, he's a big Takeshi Kovacs fan).
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"I wonder if in some weird Freudian way, Kojak was sucking on his own head." - Steve Webster on Kojak's lollipop
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Tue, 2017-05-23 14:43
eaton eaton's picture
Doors.
My players have an infomorph whose idea of combat hacking is simple and depressingly effective: Take control of bulkhead doors and airlocks whenever possible. When enemies walk through them, override safety features and close the doors. On them. Repeatedly. At the *very* least, it's an effective distraction…
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Tue, 2017-05-23 15:50
NotActuallyTim NotActuallyTim's picture
Spam!
Literal spam advertising, blinding enemies with VR. Also deafening them.
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Wed, 2017-05-24 00:05
MrWigggles MrWigggles's picture
But what does Tim do?
But what does Tim do?
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Wed, 2017-05-24 22:51
NotActuallyTim NotActuallyTim's picture
Tim does taxes
He's an accountant. Gives enemies great deals in exchange for betraying their causes.
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Wed, 2017-05-24 23:28
eaton eaton's picture
Last time our group's
Last time our group's infomorph hacker burned his infosec rolls breaking into a hab's security system, he responded by firehosing a cache of uplift porn onto the network, spamming bad ponzi scheme offers, and bailing out before ditching his burner ecto. "Figured it would be best to blend in."
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Thu, 2017-05-25 02:02
UnitOmega UnitOmega's picture
That's good tradecraft.
That's good tradecraft.
—
H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog http://ephrep.blogspot.com/
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Thu, 2017-05-25 08:12
Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture
eaton wrote:Last time our
eaton wrote:
Last time our group's infomorph hacker burned his infosec rolls breaking into a hab's security system, he responded by firehosing a cache of uplift porn onto the network, spamming bad ponzi scheme offers, and bailing out before ditching his burner ecto. "Figured it would be best to blend in."
"So you just had all that already lying around?"
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Thu, 2017-05-25 09:12
BalazarLightson BalazarLightson's picture
Beat me...
Beat me to it Urthdigger.
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Thu, 2017-05-25 09:27
Baribal Baribal's picture
Wouldn't be that weird in the
Wouldn't be that weird in the case of an uplift-born hacker, now would it?
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Morgan's Butchery | Body bank, morph individualization and upgrades | Psychotherapy and Psychosurgery, therapeutic and recreational | http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59484#comment-59484
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Thu, 2017-05-25 10:19
eaton eaton's picture
The punch line is that he's
The punch line is that he's an 11-year old AGI who mutters disparagingly about "meatsacks." Sadly, also has the best Deception and Persuasion in the group…
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Mon, 2017-05-29 19:39
Aurell1an Aurell1an's picture
While trying to escape a
While trying to escape a TITAN-heavy Martian mining town, my players encountered an enormous async Flesh Party that was blocking their path. It was too big for conventional weapons, so they decided to take the isotopes out of a few nuclear batteries to build a tactical warhead for a Disposable Seeker. It worked.
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Discontinuity is a lifestyle choice
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Tue, 2017-05-30 05:49
CordialUltimate2 CordialUltimate2's picture
Now of course you got me
Now of course you got me thinking, what are the requirements for acheving sufficiently supercritical mass for a nuclear explosion with things other than uranium and plutonium. Wait there is Wikipedia site for that. Nvm. What a time to be alive. When knowledge required to build nuclear weapons is public domain. My Argonaut guardian angel sheds a tear.
—
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Tue, 2017-05-30 07:30
Baribal Baribal's picture
CordialUltimate2 wrote:What a
CordialUltimate2 wrote:
What a time to be alive. When knowledge required to build nuclear weapons is public domain.
Well, critical masses aren't the most difficult part. With gun-style devices, you've got to acquire lots of material. With implosion devices, you've got an amazing engineering problem that you better get right, or you'll be looking at a very expensive fizzle. All that can be improvised without special access to special facilities is a dirty bomb, and frankly I doubt that even in the Eclipse Phase universe, many fabbers are even physically eq1uipped to assemble a nuke's pit. Even if some Martian maker nomads had fabbers sophisticated enough to process the materials needed for radionucleid batteries, they'd probably still lack the capability to refine them to the grade needed for nukes. So even *if* some teenage Anarchist hacker is skilled enough to crack what little DRM there is on his friendly neighborhood fabber, and downloads the usual blueprints off the mesh, he's still "acquiring materials" and "find a specialized fabber" away from putting a nuke under his bed.
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Morgan's Butchery | Body bank, morph individualization and upgrades | Psychotherapy and Psychosurgery, therapeutic and recreational | http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59484#comment-59484
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Tue, 2017-05-30 19:16
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
Yeah, good luck finding good
Yeah, good luck finding good explosive speed ratios and physics package hollow diameters for implosion-type nukes. Found out how hard it is to get that info when I first started playing Children Of A Dead Earth. Making a pit is probably not very hard for a fabber, they're just a shaped material. The hard part is handling radioactive particles on a nanoscale without the handling machines being destroyed I think. I'm not really sure how hard it is for EP to do that, but I suspect they can. That said, there's some wriggle room here, because even a nuclear fizzle is frequently measured in tons of TNT. I suspect it's pretty easy to make a nuke, but doing without everyone in the panopticon society knowing well in advance is much harder.
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Thu, 2017-06-01 15:41
o11o1 o11o1's picture
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:Yeah
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:
Yeah, good luck finding good explosive speed ratios and physics package hollow diameters for implosion-type nukes. Found out how hard it is to get that info when I first started playing Children Of A Dead Earth. Making a pit is probably not very hard for a fabber, they're just a shaped material. The hard part is handling radioactive particles on a nanoscale without the handling machines being destroyed I think. I'm not really sure how hard it is for EP to do that, but I suspect they can. That said, there's some wriggle room here, because even a nuclear fizzle is frequently measured in tons of TNT. I suspect it's pretty easy to make a nuke, but doing without everyone in the panopticon society knowing well in advance is much harder.
Yeah, but those tones of TNT is half the time, the fact you've got that much conventional explosives all in one place. As fun as nukes are, a fuel-air bomb (MOAB style) device might actually be easier to achieve, since you can do it with pure CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) and only need to set up a high speed aerosolizer and and ignition spark. Scale up to however big of a fabber you have.
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A slight smell of ions....
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Thu, 2017-06-01 19:13
Baribal Baribal's picture
o11o1 wrote:As fun as nukes
o11o1 wrote:
As fun as nukes are, a fuel-air bomb (MOAB style) device might actually be easier to achieve [...]. Scale up to however big of a fabber you have.
They're technologically far easier to achieve (and definitely don't need a specialized fabber), but they also come with all the drawbacks of conventional bombs. Even at their largest, they don't make as much of a boom. They have to be large, as opposed to the briefcase size that nukes can scale down to. Difficulty of delivery scales with the warhead's size, and the smallest delivery vehicle for a fuel-air bomb would be a missile of significant size, whereas nukes can be delivered by mortar-like devices. And to abstract from the specific circumstances mentioned above, fuel-air bombs are useless in space, but then again, characters aren't outside of air-filled areas *that* often, and if so, a shaped charge still deals a lot of structural damage, and is similar in complexity to a fuel-air bomb. In those circumstances, nukes are only necessary if you need to destroy a whole habitat, or punch through something really thick and hard with a nuke-pumped laser rod. For *some* reason, there always seems to be another, easier way to wreak *that* kind of destruction, though. Although I *have* found myself in the position of asking Firewall for an interplanetary thermonuclear missile strike. You've given me an idea, though. If you manage to hack all the fabbers in a habitat, you can make them all pump out poison gas simultaneously, or fuel-air mixture, and ignite it everywhere at the same time.
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Morgan's Butchery | Body bank, morph individualization and upgrades | Psychotherapy and Psychosurgery, therapeutic and recreational | http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59484#comment-59484
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Fri, 2017-06-02 07:16
ThatWhichNeverWas ThatWhichNeverWas's picture
It's a Bad Trip in a Can!
When I actually get to play (*grumble grumble real life grumble*) I'm the GM, so I'm usually less restricted by RAW. It's also hard to beat a Kinetic weapon loaded with Hollow-Point Biters if you're looking for DV/Cost. The reason for the disclaimer is that one of my personal favourites requires a little bit of houseruling – namely synchronising drug onset times. The toy in question is a Splash grenade filled with a happy little cocktail of of DMSO, BringIt, MRDR, Kick and Buzz. All together, it's a contact mix with an onset time of with an Hour. When it kicks in, the affected experience increased aggression (and provoke it in others) and significantly increased combat ability... and also start hallucinating wildly. :D I call it 'Greyhound'.
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In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few. But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
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Fri, 2017-06-02 18:06
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
Nitpicking: Biter (or flayer)
Nitpicking: Biter (or flayer) and hollowpoint ammo can not be combined. Both are still good options for cheap damage alone though. It's not that destructive compared to other options, but dazzlers are great. It's a little ambiguous if they blind biomorph eyes as well as sensors (maybe second edition can clear that up!) but they prevent people from looking at your stuff at a range of 200 meters. Put one on a rifle's side rail and dominate a firefight, strap several to a group of saucer bots and turn the sky white, if you're Red 5 or a TITAN, make them flicker as an Incapacitating Input basilisk hack for extra oomph! Dazzlers are also great for doing public direct action while denying as much information as possible to the panopticon.
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Fri, 2017-06-02 19:18
BalazarLightson BalazarLightson's picture
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:I
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
I call it 'Greyhound'.
I hear they have started abusing this stuff at a MMA club on Luna. Folks sleeve into a cheap Slicer destined for recycling, so most are already a bit damaged, then they dose up under the showers and start drinking and dancing until someone throws a punch and suddenly it is on. Last morph standing wins trophy and a years free entry to the club.
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Wed, 2017-06-07 07:00
ThatWhichNeverWas ThatWhichNeverWas's picture
I'm a bad person.
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:
Nitpicking: Biter (or flayer) and hollowpoint ammo can not be combined. Both are still good options for cheap damage alone though.
Riiiight, that was my military-grade houserule. Wooops, Embarassing. Accushot then. For hack-heavy teams, you can have a lot of fun with Creepies equipped with Skinlinks and Lasercoms, or the more advanced variant - capsule rounds with protean nanoswarms set to make mesh inserts (or rather just a WiFi antenna hardwired to the target's system which they can't turn off) or an Optogenetics Module. They be laden down with Faraday suits and be Jamming every band, but it won't help them at all - the Hack is coming from inside the house. I just realised just how much I like turning people against each other. This is slightly disconcerting.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few. But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
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Wed, 2017-06-07 18:21
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
Not that we'd ever put this
Not that we'd ever put this in a book, but... I was thinking about ways of implementing the Peasant Railgun in EP. It seems like you ought to be able to make a swarm of ring-shaped induction coil drones that can assemble into a giant railgun and then scatter if they start taking fire.
—
J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
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Thu, 2017-06-08 22:12
Dilf_Pickle Dilf_Pickle's picture
With this ring, I thee kill
jackgraham wrote:
Not that we'd ever put this in a book, but... I was thinking about ways of implementing the Peasant Railgun in EP.
I'd never heard of [url=https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Peasant_Railgun]this thing[/url] before. Pretty funny read, along the lines of such classics as [url=http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html]Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex[/url] and [url=http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp]Heaven is Hotter than Hell[/url].
jackgraham wrote:
It seems like you ought to be able to make a swarm of ring-shaped induction coil drones that can assemble into a giant railgun and then scatter if they start taking fire.
If it were, collectively, massive enough to transmit significant muzzle energy to the projectile, the modules would have a hard time flying (or be highly numerous and complex), would [re|dis]assemble slowly, and would be vulnerable to anyone nearby running in and knocking the modules around. But it could be fun!
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Fri, 2017-06-09 00:46
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
Dilf_Pickle wrote:jackgraham
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
jackgraham wrote:
Not that we'd ever put this in a book, but... I was thinking about ways of implementing the Peasant Railgun in EP.
I'd never heard of [url=https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Peasant_Railgun]this thing[/url] before. Pretty funny read, along the lines of such classics as [url=http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html]Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex[/url] and [url=http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp]Heaven is Hotter than Hell[/url].
jackgraham wrote:
It seems like you ought to be able to make a swarm of ring-shaped induction coil drones that can assemble into a giant railgun and then scatter if they start taking fire.
If it were, collectively, massive enough to transmit significant muzzle energy to the projectile, the modules would have a hard time flying (or be highly numerous and complex), would [re|dis]assemble slowly, and would be vulnerable to anyone nearby running in and knocking the modules around. But it could be fun!
I was thinking of it as a space combat weapon. Imagine a few hundred of them flying in a swarm, assembling (they just need to link together in a cylinder), firing a big metal ingot, and then scattering. I suppose you could even sacrifice swarm members as the ammo if they were ferrous.
—
J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
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Fri, 2017-06-09 01:22
Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture
jackgraham wrote:Dilf_Pickle
jackgraham wrote:
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
jackgraham wrote:
Not that we'd ever put this in a book, but... I was thinking about ways of implementing the Peasant Railgun in EP.
I'd never heard of [url=https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Peasant_Railgun]this thing[/url] before. Pretty funny read, along the lines of such classics as [url=http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html]Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex[/url] and [url=http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp]Heaven is Hotter than Hell[/url].
jackgraham wrote:
It seems like you ought to be able to make a swarm of ring-shaped induction coil drones that can assemble into a giant railgun and then scatter if they start taking fire.
If it were, collectively, massive enough to transmit significant muzzle energy to the projectile, the modules would have a hard time flying (or be highly numerous and complex), would [re|dis]assemble slowly, and would be vulnerable to anyone nearby running in and knocking the modules around. But it could be fun!
I was thinking of it as a space combat weapon. Imagine a few hundred of them flying in a swarm, assembling (they just need to link together in a cylinder), firing a big metal ingot, and then scattering. I suppose you could even sacrifice swarm members as the ammo if they were ferrous.
Make it a TRUE peasant railgun and get one of the clanking masses in there.
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Fri, 2017-06-09 01:40
UnitOmega UnitOmega's picture
This reminds me a lot of
This reminds me a lot of other talk I've had about eclipse phase involving casaba howitzers, throwing asteroids and other sudden space attacks. Anyway, on the subject of the thread I did some entries over on H-Rep in the past about what sort of tools you might find lying around a transhuman hab to [url=http://ephrep.blogspot.com/2016/12/tools-as-weapons.html]use as weapons[/url] which should be fairly common if you just scrounge around, and another one on some different [url=http://ephrep.blogspot.com/2016/12/explosives.html]explosives[/url] including some stuff you can make in your bathtub or on a rocky planet when you're all alone vs a reptile alien. Some people looking for quick and dirty instruments of mayhem might find them helpful.
—
H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog http://ephrep.blogspot.com/
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Fri, 2017-06-09 02:10
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
The drone idea sounds kind of
The drone idea sounds kind of like a Starseed Launcher in a can, albeit less powerful. I could see it being a bit of gatecrashing tech to some places. Or a fairly impractical cannon with a muzzle velocity of .3 c...
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Fri, 2017-06-09 13:35
Baribal Baribal's picture
jackgraham wrote:I was
jackgraham wrote:
I was thinking of it as a space combat weapon. Imagine a few hundred of them flying in a swarm, assembling (they just need to link together in a cylinder), firing a big metal ingot, and then scattering. I suppose you could even sacrifice swarm members as the ammo if they were ferrous.
The idea struck me as a weapon of assassination. Be a swarm, go to a vantage point that only swarmanoids can reach while still being undetected, assemble yourself in barrel configuration, and fire. Depending on your preferences, the recoil will spread you over a large area, making you harder to detect, and let you reassemble slowly until enough swarm cohesion is established to restart your ego simulation; or the heat of you firing destroys the individual swarmbots, destroying much of the evidence, and still scattering it over a large area.
—
Morgan's Butchery | Body bank, morph individualization and upgrades | Psychotherapy and Psychosurgery, therapeutic and recreational | http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59484#comment-59484
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Sat, 2017-06-10 00:08
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
Probably better to use an AI
Probably better to use an AI or jam it if you're running a one-use self-constructing cannon.
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Sat, 2017-06-10 02:10
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
Baribal wrote:jackgraham
Baribal wrote:
jackgraham wrote:
I was thinking of it as a space combat weapon. Imagine a few hundred of them flying in a swarm, assembling (they just need to link together in a cylinder), firing a big metal ingot, and then scattering. I suppose you could even sacrifice swarm members as the ammo if they were ferrous.
The idea struck me as a weapon of assassination. Be a swarm, go to a vantage point that only swarmanoids can reach while still being undetected, assemble yourself in barrel configuration, and fire.
Also interesting! I'm not sure how this would work at swarmanoid scale, except as a one-shot thing, or the same reasons that we prohibit smart ammo from working with rail guns. But a one-shot swarm sniper rifle? Sure!
—
J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
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Sat, 2017-06-10 23:16
TheGrue TheGrue's picture
jackgraham wrote:Dilf_Pickle
jackgraham wrote:
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
jackgraham wrote:
Not that we'd ever put this in a book, but... I was thinking about ways of implementing the Peasant Railgun in EP.
I'd never heard of [url=https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Peasant_Railgun]this thing[/url] before. Pretty funny read, along the lines of such classics as [url=http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html]Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex[/url] and [url=http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp]Heaven is Hotter than Hell[/url].
jackgraham wrote:
It seems like you ought to be able to make a swarm of ring-shaped induction coil drones that can assemble into a giant railgun and then scatter if they start taking fire.
If it were, collectively, massive enough to transmit significant muzzle energy to the projectile, the modules would have a hard time flying (or be highly numerous and complex), would [re|dis]assemble slowly, and would be vulnerable to anyone nearby running in and knocking the modules around. But it could be fun!
I was thinking of it as a space combat weapon. Imagine a few hundred of them flying in a swarm, assembling (they just need to link together in a cylinder), firing a big metal ingot, and then scattering. I suppose you could even sacrifice swarm members as the ammo if they were ferrous.
I like it, but the components would need to be able to absorb the recoil while firing. Newton's Law, remember; imparting a force onto a big metal ingot necessitates imparting an equal force onto the magnetic field and thus whatever's generating it. So depending on how big your projectile and how fast you want it moving, the swarm elements might need a more rigid connecting structure than simply joining hands into a cylinder. I think a more practical use of the idea would be a giant mirror; get a few thousand drones with reflective surfaces, arrange them in a parabolic shape, catch the sun's light and turn it into a death ray. Since the drones don't need to physically link together, they can maintain independent station-keeping and individually adjust bearing and attitude to track the focal point of the beam. I wonder if you could take the same principle and apply it to a true laser...
—
Thermonuclear Banana Split - A not-really-weekly Eclipse Phase campaign journal.
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Sat, 2017-06-10 23:46
NotActuallyTim NotActuallyTim's picture
OOOOOH! Drones, you say?
Consider the following. Objects have mass. Mass alters spacetime, observable as gravity. Often, when thinking of using physics to ruin a perfectly good day...for someone else, mass is simply chucked at people at high speeds. However, in the solar system, there are sorts of fun things to do involving orbital mechanics. Around the Sun, loop back past Jupiter and the eight ball goes in the corner pocket. Yet, we're still not thinking with rubber sheets just yet... Instead of hitting a single target dead on, we can drag them in a gravitational wake from a larger mass object. Since we have plenty of time, we can use single drones and simple fabbers to accelerate, say, a [s]potato[/s] massive object past several targets on a carefully planned path, dragging each one into, essentially, a gravitational whirlpool. Each new object makes the entire thing less stable, more deadly and more massive! And all this potential mayhem can be yours for a little bit of math!
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Sun, 2017-06-11 01:52
TheGrue TheGrue's picture
NotActuallyTim wrote:Instead
NotActuallyTim wrote:
Instead of hitting a single target dead on, we can drag them in a gravitational wake from a larger mass object. Since we have plenty of time, we can use single drones and simple fabbers to accelerate, say, a [s]potato[/s] massive object past several targets on a carefully planned path, dragging each one into, essentially, a gravitational whirlpool.
I mean, it's a neat idea...but to drag an object in the "gravitational wake" of a more massive object, that second object would have to be considerably more massive in order to have any appreciable effect. As in, massive enough that if you can fling it around willy-nilly, why not just use a fraction of a percent of the energy you used to do that to fling the target object directly?
—
Thermonuclear Banana Split - A not-really-weekly Eclipse Phase campaign journal.
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Wed, 2017-06-21 01:30
ShadowDragon8685 ShadowDragon8685's picture
TheGrue wrote:NotActuallyTim
TheGrue wrote:
NotActuallyTim wrote:
Instead of hitting a single target dead on, we can drag them in a gravitational wake from a larger mass object. Since we have plenty of time, we can use single drones and simple fabbers to accelerate, say, a [s]potato[/s] massive object past several targets on a carefully planned path, dragging each one into, essentially, a gravitational whirlpool.
I mean, it's a neat idea...but to drag an object in the "gravitational wake" of a more massive object, that second object would have to be considerably more massive in order to have any appreciable effect. As in, massive enough that if you can fling it around willy-nilly, why not just use a fraction of a percent of the energy you used to do that to fling the target object directly?
I am forced to agree. If you [i]can[/i] do this, then you're basically throwing around [i]moons.[/i] And not small-assteroid ones, either. If you can do this, and you choose to do this rather than, say, to directly ruin someone's day, you're not using a weapon made to ruin someone's day as efficiently as possible, you're using a weapon made to [i]show off[/i] how much more energy than them you can access and effectively focus. It's like a Death Star: at every imaginable level, it's hilariously gross overkill. It's not an effective weapon for winning wars, because there are almost never - in this case defined as "during the lifetime of the weapon" - going to be circumstances in which complete and total planetary annihilation is the level of kill required to render an enemy non-combat capable. For the resources invested in a Death Star, you could have had three fleets of Imperial-II class Star Destroyers - [i]themselves[/i] gross overkill - along with attendant smaller craft which Impstar Dueces often operated bereft of - which could either focus in the unlikely event that the Empire has an enemy which requires a fleet of Star Destroyers, or spread out as necessary. It's like that line from Stargate SG-1, where the military dude is explaining to a bunch of recruits/indigenous/whatever (I forget which,) "This" he said, indicating a [url=http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Ma%27Tok_staff]Goa'uld staff[/url], "is not an efficient weapon. It is designed to strike fear into the hearts of those against whom it is turned. This," he said, indicating an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_P90]FN P90[/url] "is a weapon designed to [i]kill[/i]." So, yes, if you can throw around such a huge mass that it drags significant objects - like space habitats - around in its wake, you can [i]absolutely[/i] ruin the day of the Transhumans living in those habitats. And [i]if[/i] you are capable of doing so, you have an energy and materiel budget which rivals that [i]of the Galactic Empire[/i], and you can just roll in with Star Destroyers - or more likely, one aging, creaky Dreadnought-class second-line starship - and do exactly the same at a tiny fraction of the actual cost*. *As long as you don't let any plucky band of transhumans bring the fight to personnel scale within your vessel. The Empire - indeed, every sci-fi franchise I've ever seen - will get its shit [b]absolutely wrecked[/b] - by Transhumanity. Only the Romulan Star Empire stands a chance, because they have sensors advanced enough to [i]maybe[/i] detect transhuman tech, and are ruthless and quick-witted enough to [i]quickly[/i] weaponize their transporters. (The UFP wouldn't get into that fight, the UFP would back the Titanian Commonwealth in building up transhumanity, even if the whole 'trans' part skeeved them the fuck out; the Cardassians lack sensor tech and would quickly hand warp drives to transhumanity; Klingons are too honorable to rapidly decide to transporter-frag anything with a whiff of transhuman tech about it and same deal, and the Jem'hadar are psychologically and technically incompetent to do the job and would quickly hand warp drives to transhumanity as well.)
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Thu, 2017-06-22 06:03
Baribal Baribal's picture
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:It's
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
It's like a Death Star: at every imaginable level, it's hilariously gross overkill. It's not an effective weapon for winning wars, because there are almost never - in this case defined as "during the lifetime of the weapon" - going to be circumstances in which complete and total planetary annihilation is the level of kill required to render an enemy non-combat capable.
If memory serves, somewhere in the Extended Universe, there was a mention of a mighty empire from outside the Empire's area of space, that was slowly bearing down on it, and that the Emperor knew of that, and that his reign of terror was not just power for it's own sake, but also to set up an economy of total war. Whether the Death Stars were only instruments of terror for that end, or were the first of what would have become relevant weapons in that war, I don't know.
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
It's like that line from Stargate SG-1, where the military dude is explaining to a bunch of recruits/indigenous/whatever (I forget which,) "This" he said, indicating a [url=http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Ma%27Tok_staff]Goa'uld staff[/url], "is not an efficient weapon. It is designed to strike fear into the hearts of those against whom it is turned. This," he said, indicating an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_P90]FN P90[/url] "is a weapon designed to [i]kill[/i]."
Colonel O'Neill and the Rebel Jaffa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjlCVW_ouL8
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Morgan's Butchery | Body bank, morph individualization and upgrades | Psychotherapy and Psychosurgery, therapeutic and recreational | http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59484#comment-59484
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Thu, 2017-06-22 07:00
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
The big purpose for the death
The big purpose for the death star was breaking planetary shields, that's one of the reasons Alderaan was chosen, because it had a planetary shield which would have protected it from a conventional fleet. There are somewhat smaller stations which can be used to crack a shield, but they aren't also a nearly invulnerable terror weapon.
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Thu, 2017-06-22 11:59
R.O.S.S.-128 R.O.S.S.-128's picture
Simple but effective
An option that is remarkably simple, and almost completely obvious, yet surprising in just how easy it is to pull off: good old fashioned nitrocellulose. Nitrocellulose, otherwise known as guncotton, smokeless powder, or modern gunpowder, is made through a surprisingly simple procedure of immersing common cotton (or any other convenient source of cellulose fiber) in nitric acid. There is a bit more to it than that (mostly having to do with safety and quality control) but I will of course avoid going into detail for obvious reasons. This means that any fabber capable of making clothing is theoretically capable of making it with a bit of hacking to bypass safeties and DRM. Depending on the quality of the fabber (mostly whether it can do full molecular synthesis or only basic chemistry) the necessary feedstock would be air, water, and either carbon or plant-based fiber. It may not be the most destructive thing ever, but it does mean you can produce a weapons-grade explosive pretty much for free, using the second-most ubiquitous type of fabber (I'd expect that food fabbers are first). So it certainly performs well on cost. Of course if the fabber is not capable of nitrogen fixing you may also have to provide a source of nitrates, but high-school chemistry should be well within the reach of a typical transhuman.
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Thu, 2017-06-22 19:28
ubik2 ubik2's picture
R.O.S.S.-128 wrote:but I will
R.O.S.S.-128 wrote:
but I will of course avoid going into detail for obvious reasons.
The details aren't important here, but in this era (today) of free information, preventing people from creating dangerous things isn't about limiting information. A quick internet search will turn up an instructables tutorial for this (don't blow yourself up, please). I would expect a fabber or nanofabricator to be able to handle nitrogen fixing. I think the makers probably need to be able to do that as well, since I expect them to be able to make things like an apple. Basic carbohydrates and fats don't need this, but to construct proteins, you need that nitrogen. Other trace nutrients may actually come as raw feedstock, rather than being created in the maker. My assumption is that if it's a chemical reaction, the fabbers can do it. Conversion of elements, or switching isotopes is beyond the fabbers, so you're reliant on your feedstock for that. As you point out, these will probably have safeties that prevent the manufacture of explosives, though an anarchist habitat might allow the production, and simply publish the details. In any case, an Infosec test will bypass those safeties. I think the cellulose would be constructed (rather than coming from feedstock), since it can easily be created from carbon and water. While the maker may not have stock blueprints for this, it shouldn't have any difficulty in crafting it. There's nothing exotic about TNT either, so I imagine you can just churn this out with a fabber too (which may be more convenient). In any case, all we're really doing here, is taking power that we have available to the fabber, packing it into a chemical form for easy transport, and releasing it elsewhere. Fission bombs will require isotopes that will be harder to acquire, but really, these are pretty easily available in the outer systems. You can go mine an asteroid (or buy from the guy selling it on an open market) to get some uranium. Take it back to your nanofabricator (perhaps on your ship, if you have one), and make a nuclear bomb. This, however, is out of scope of the OP, since I've used a nanofabricator (CM), a restricted blueprint (pretty sure nukes are going to be restricted), and rare elements (hard to get onto a hab or planet, though relatively easy to acquire). That's the trifecta of disallowed things. Edit: After reading some other thoughts, I've reconsidered the uranium refinement (to isolate the preferred isotopes). It seems reasonable to rule that this cannot be done in the Nanofabricator (it's the major hurdle in current manufacture).
"Urthdigger" wrote:
My preferred weapon is simply having multiple instances of ambidexterity and extra limbs. Nothing quite like summoning a wall of bullets with easily concealable light pistols
Get that Arachnoid, 5 levels of ambidexterity, and 6 shredders :D
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Thu, 2017-06-22 20:11
R.O.S.S.-128 R.O.S.S.-128's picture
Indeed
From what I understand isotope separation is at the very least difficult for CMs, so if it's not beyond their reach at the very least it would require one at the very high end. Though, another thing to consider is if you aren't able to bypass the safety blocks on the fabber (or don't want to risk bricking it in the attempt), you could just program it to spool up a nice big reel of cotton and do the rest with a Knowledge: Chemistry test.
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Wed, 2017-10-04 12:45
DoomSmith DoomSmith's picture
Munchkin time
Hehe, four months and we're coming back to this? Lets see what I can munchkin. Lets start off with an Octomorph, for maximum limbs. First we get Cyberclaws, a skin pocket and Eelware. For skills, max out infiltration, unarmed and moxie. For Gear, pick up a supply of Synth-only Neuropath. Use whatever is left to pack on as many limbs as possible. We pick cyberclaws because a single purchase of the implant will give each and every limb on our morph a cyberclaw weapon. Cyberclaws are concealable and can deliver both shock attacks and nanotoxins. Since claws are melee weapons, they don't suffer from off-hand modifiers and act as a single attack roll. The drawback is that the extra weapons can only deliver a maximum of +3d10 damage. However, since all of the weapons are being used at once, this means that a successful roll will hit with each and every weapon. This will be important. Normally, eelware only delivers a single shock-attack on touch. However, the rules for cyberclaws state that "if combined with Eelware, they can also perform electric shocks". Since that is shocks, a /plural/, This means each cyberclaw can deliver a shocks /individually/. Since a single successful attack roll counts as hitting will all melee weapons, this means is that any biomorph being attacked by our Octo-killer will have to make "DUR + Energy Armor Test" for each and every one of the Octomorph's many, many claws. Failing any of them will mean being incapacitated for a MINIMUM of 3 actions, meaning we can stack this endlessly until whatever we're fighting has the common decency to die. But it gets worse. Shock attacks don't work on synths, so we get around that with our Synth-only Neuropath. Normally this would work better with a Nanotoxin Implant, but since we're operating on a tighter budget, we can't afford that and must therefore be rules munchkins. Instead, we can get a bootleg Nanotoxin implant via a skin-pocket that we fill with a supply of our Synth-only Neuropath. Since it only affects synths, our Octomorph can freely dip their claws in the pocket without fear of being affected. So why Synth-only Neuropath? Every time a victim exposed to Neuropath, they must make a Willx3 test or be incapacitated. According to the rules as written, a victim can be exposed to a drug when stabbed with a coated weapon, and by the rules, a Nanotoxin (e.g. Neuropaths) is just a drug used offensively. Taking the Rules as Written, since all of the octomorph's coated claws will hit on a single successful attack, this means that an enemy synth will has to roll a Willx3 test for every claw your octomorph has, or be instantly incapacitated. All those tests will add up very, very quickly as your octomorph gets more and more cyberlimbs. If you have 14 limbs and your target only has a 5% chance of being afflicted by a Neuropath/shock attack, there's a 51% chance that ONE of the claws will do what it needs to. And finally, if you're having trouble bypassing AV to deal damage, just use one of your moxie points. Is this legal? It might be. Was it intended to be legal? Dubious. Will your GM allow this abuse? Either "Not likely", or you will be facing a /lot/ of Synthmorphs with Nanophages.
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Wed, 2017-10-04 16:43
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
Minor note, a non-flexbot can
Minor note, a non-flexbot can only have 10 limbs max.
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Sat, 2017-10-07 16:22
CordialUltimate2 CordialUltimate2's picture
After slight digression on
After slight digression on impractical terror weapons in space operas lets talk about mayhem and destruction on the cheap again. Swarmanoids and Swarms reign supreme in today's lesson kids. Two exhibits: 1. Engineering Microswarms and Swarmanoids with diamondoid chewers can be used to create difficult terrain and pit traps. Program them with algorithm pilfered from Barsoomian Movement fighters. Set them loose on a piece of terrain with some substantial volume (preferably with gravity). You get a perfectly normal looking surfaces with hellish escherian maze of structural instability beneath. Done right it is hard to detect even with enhanced senses. If the trap has sufficient depth it will trap any morph incapable of flight. It works by creating a structure beneath the surface with maximum structural integrity and at the same time minimum possible load bearing. Add to that pieces designed for reinforcing the rubble after its collapse and you get a infuriating combination of quicksand and bog without any water. Some mad Anarchist with entirely too much computational power on their hands designed this with unholy unity of non-newtonian fluids dynamic and particulate solids' physics. This are the things you get when you stop aproximating a particle with a sphere. Disgusting. And so, so effective. Modification of the structure can be used to better entrap the land vehicles where the part under the wheels collapses but car chassis itself stops the fall. All four or more wheels starts buxing. There is basically no way to get the vehicle out without lifting it wholesale. Prefferably from stable vantage points. I have once seen the reaper having trouble with traversing one of these. Saved my life it did. 2. Do you have some Dissasemblers handy? Saboteurs or Engineers will do too, but to lesser expl... effect. Have a program. NanoSieve.exe You all know the solid hydrogen tanks. Such a dependable tech. A foundation of transhuman space exploration. The program you have just downloaded is a library of common tank and auxiliary machinery designs. With instructions on how to break them for best effect. Straightforward explosion of such a system is actually not the best for maximum sanitisation. If you want that it is simple enough. But the beauty and potential for destruction of this app is fully realised when given time to perform its work. To allow its full potential habs nanodetection systems should be neutralised first. When it is done you can trust your little industrial saboteurs to bore canales and capillaries within habitat/ship structure. It lessens its structural integrity, but hey we are talking about destroying it completely. When you set of the detonator the tank is decompressed somewhat "mildly". Canals distribute expanding hydrogen creating air fuel mixture in the entire volume of habitat. And then you spark it. You know what's goes well with explosive decompression of solid hydrogen? Red oxygen decompression. It is rare for habs to store it but when they do... you can sterilise everything with style. To be sure these two require time and preparation so be advised. Have fun. EDIT: Added a patch that includes common Rocket synthmorph propulsion designs. You can now change your robotic buddy into a Flying Crowbar miniature for few precious seconds.
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