Energy Weapons

[runebeo]

with ATL-7 Anti-Tank Laser we jury-rigged a Universal E-Clip Recharger in Merc Ops into a backpack and connected it to weapon for our warrior borg to use.

[TechnoGothic]

I had a GB using dual Anti-Tank Lasers in one game. His BG was destroyed. So we fixed him up with dual laser cannons linked to the power supply. Was great.

[anarchclown]

Where have you found any references to the rifle actually firing laser? I assumed it wasn't a laser rifle but rather a particle beam or ion rifle or something else that might concievably have a kick?

[Zer0 Kay]

with ATL-7 Anti-Tank Laser we jury-rigged a Universal E-Clip Recharger in Merc Ops into a backpack and connected it to weapon for our warrior borg to use.

And how big is the charger? Nah just use the 10x pack from Phaseworld battle armor.

[anarchclown]

Why wouldn't ion be able to have a kick? You are shooting a contained lightning at the enemy if I understand things correctly (I don't always do that when it comes to sci fi weaponry and their supposed effects). Lightning tosses people around like pinballs and does all sort of nasty stuff to them. I'm thinking a 5000 feet long lightning with 1d4x10 damage could give some sort of kick to the user?

[Zer0 Kay]

Where have you found any references to the rifle actually firing laser? I assumed it wasn't a laser rifle but rather a particle beam or ion rifle or something else that might concievably have a kick?

Good point, it DOESN'T actually say its a laser. However, none of the other types of damage have any recoil as per canon, either. The only energy weapon that does have a kick is Plasma, and that can't be the damage type, as I can't believe Triax would make such a weapon when the vast majority of enemies they face are immune to fire.


EDIT: Upon looking at the description once again, it states that the nuclear power supply "boosts the energy drawn from the E-Clip to give the blast the power of a heavy, single barreled laser one might find on an armored vehicle". So, I vote laser.

Lasers have recoil... its just so miniscule you can't feel it but at max range with a constant beam you may see the point of contact actually climb. But Particle beams would produce more recoil than a plasma ejection. That is if we are really using plasma and not some advanced napalm.
Laser stream of photons traveling in the same direction (a photon has mass so it would create recoil)
Particle Beam stream of particles traveling in the same direction (in many other games it is believed that a laser must be fired first to make an electric "bridge" and to clear the path of particulate matter. In Gundam a Particle Beam is more deadly than a laser because even a near miss will cause damage because not all of the particles will stick to the core. Finally Plasma is highly excited gas and comes two varieties the type that is hot which can be seen as fire, lightning bolts, the suns corona and then there is industrial plasma which is relatively cold as that seen in neon lights, those really cool electricity spheres, and flourescent lights. So I'd guess it isn't using industrial plasma but the hot plasma can be produced from a gas which is then converted to plasma and then ejected using a magnetic bottle. Its not really a bottle for those who don't know, but a theoretical way to contain plasma... how to do it while its flying through the air is the difficult part, which makes the Naruni plasma shells more believable because they may also launch a battery and magnetic field generator along with the plasma mass. So the Naruni shells likely produce a kick because of the battery and field generator. While the standard CS plasma (IF it isn't advanced napalm) shouldn't produce much kick as it is just pushing chaotic charged particles out the front.
Lightning does that because of the electricution not the impact of the beam so it shouldn't do that out of the barrel.

They all have recoil but would likely all be so miniscule that you wouldn't feel it. Maybe on continuous beam weapons it would feel like a vibration.

[anarchclown]

Explaining how plasma works really has nothing to do with Ion guns does it?

[anarchclown]

And lightning throws people around because of the shockwave it creates not the electrocution itself. The shockwave that can be heard for several miles. Also known as thunder.

[Zer0 Kay]

Explaining how plasma works really has nothing to do with Ion guns does it?

NOPE but someone mentioned that plasma would kick while the others wouldn't.

[Zer0 Kay]

And lightning throws people around because of the shockwave it creates not the electrocution itself. The shockwave that can be heard for several miles. Also known as thunder.

Hmm... I'll have to ask my wifes Grandpa if he got thrown around... BOTH times.

[Zer0 Kay]

I said that plasma weapons provide a kick. But, that is merely following canon, not physics.

Yeah... I'm also saying they do... just not much, especially compared to a particle beam firing particles heavier than photons at near light speeds. Ion however has been described many ways one way is that it is also a particle gun but the particles are charged allowing it to cause additional damage to electronics. Then their is the concept that it is effectively a lightning gun. So if you think about it, it is kind of funny that three of the four energy weapons are technically particle guns. If the Ion isn't then it is nothing but a super (and this is funny) static electricity gun. While the fourth energy weapon is in limbo as it is often described in Rifts as an advanced napalm but then couldn't be a real plasma weapon since plasma is not a liquid. Hmm I don't really think it matters though. I go with:

Spoiler:

Fire Arms
 Can’t be dodged unless the weapon can be seen. It is the weapon not the projectile you dodge.
 Are fast, all dodges are done as straight rolls (no bonuses, unless stated specifically for ranged combat).
 Are loud and move the target in the opposite direction of the impact. Because of this the attacker may be traced by following the noise and the direction from which the shot came.
 Damage caused by a combination of blunt trauma (hydrostatic shock) and piercing. Criticals cause double damage.
 Range reduced to 1/3 underwater. There are several methods to alleviate this problem.
Ion (blaster1, bolt2, beam3)
 May be seen as a sphere1, short beam2 or arc of electricity3.
 Produces a crackling sound while traveling1&2 or a crack of thunder3.
 Is visible and can be tracked back to the attacker 1&2. Is visible but difficult to track to attacker because it happens at the speed of light3.
 Damage is electricity based.20% chance of overloading electrical systems; including force fields (unless description specifically says it’s hardened against this type of attack). On a critical hit vs. a bio system (animal or machine) it does 1.5 damage roll again if a natural 20 is rolled shot equivalent to a death strike, per HtH.
 Can not be used underwater.
Plasma
 Is very hot, it’s extreme leaves behind a “con-trail”. The contrail is easy to spot and track back to the attacker.
 Is very bright, and therefore easy to see as it travels toward the target. +4 to dodge if target is at M or M-.05M where M is the maximum range.
 No matter the size of the weapon the launch is quiet. However since it only damage the side it touches it limits the search area.
 Is contained in a magnetic field called a bottle. When the plasma strikes an electronic device that is not shielded against EMP it as a 5% chance of disabling any component in the immediate area. If 5 or less on a percentile is rolled then roll again on the following table:
 01-40%- A weapon system down
 41-70%- Weapon Systems Down
 71-94%- Power Output 50% (effects everything, speed, built in weapon damage and range, etc.) 95-00%- Complete Shutdown
 *Note: effects are cumulative
 Also due to the magnetic bottle the plasma shot may be redirected by sudden large magnetic anomalies (i.e. a Boom gun firing, some sort of magnetic shield that is the same polarity as the bottle, [select polarity before game]).
 Is a superheated gas. When the plasma strikes a solid object the bottle collapses, releasing the plasma. When released the plasma will act like a fluid and splash. This creates a small splash radius that is 10% of the weapons max damage rounded to the nearest whole number, in feet.
 Damage is surface heat. It will not penetrate anything unless it is completely burned way. Because of this no critical damage is done. On the bright side (no pun intended) the intense heat will cauterize large areas making natural regeneration of the area impossible, unless the creature is immune to fire.
 Can not be used underwater.
Lasers
 Are invisible, so can’t be visually tracked back to the attacker, unless passing through a mass of particulate matter, like smoke.
 Are silent, so can’t be audibly tracked back to the attacker.
 Large “caliber” lasers (i.e. vehicle mounted or ATLs) produce the classic laser sound as their capacitor discharges, but the noise produced can only be heard in the immediate area of the weapon.
 Depending on damage the shot may be traced back in the direction of the hole. If the shot went all the way through then there’s two directions to search.
 Are light therefore they can be reflected. However, different frequencies of light can pass through different reflective mediums. The armors owner chooses a number from 1-10, before combat begins. The attacker must roll this number on a d10 to negate the effectiveness of the reflective /refractive/absorbing armor.
 Are really fast, hmmm a laser travels at the speed of uh…light! Because of this the target is –10 to dodge. If there are any arguments about “I can see the light when it’s fired.” They’re invisible but even if you can that means the beam is already there.
 Damage is piercing heat. It will penetrate armor and flesh, but cauterizes wounds causing no blood loss (causing damage an a half on critical hits.)
 Range reduced to 1/3 underwater unless using a spectrum complimentary to the fluid it is passing through.
Particle Beams
 Fire a laser beam nanoseconds before firing the particle beam. This is done to produce an ionized path for the beam that is clear of particulate matter.
 Are not completely cohesive it has a dense core surrounded by a periphery of less dense particles that were traveling slower, or ran into anomalous particulate matter, and get deflected out of the core. Due to this even a near miss up to 2 points off causes damage at one quarter of the roll.
 Depending on damage the shot may be traced to the attacker. Low damage or a near miss results in tiny micro punctures that can’t be seen. Median damage results in a hole on one side, easy to discern which way the blast came from. High damage causes a clean hole to go through the target making for two possible directions from which the shot could have come.
 Are invisible, so can’t be visually tracked back to the attacker, unless the laser passes through a mass of particulate matter, like smoke.
 Are silent, so can’t be audibly tracked back to the attacker.
 Large “caliber” PB weapons (i.e. vehicle mounted or PBCs) produce an audible energy pulse as the accelerator magnets fire this can only be heard in the immediate area as a low accelerating thrum to a low whine.
 If something manages to alter the course of the laser beam before it’s intended target (without getting hit by the particle beam) the PB will drastically loose range and damage. One half of the remaining range and damage (i.e. if a weapon’s rates are 200’ @ 2D6MD and it’s traveled 150’ already it can only travel an additional 25’ doing 1D6MD).
 Even though PB weapons fire a laser, laser resistant armor does not effect the damage.
 Damage is penetration. The weapon does damage by shoving billions of particles through a body at near light speed thereby creating an equal number of microholes in your flesh. Critical hits cause 2x damage.
 Damage is explosive. Against hardened targets (vehicles & armor) the damage is greater because the metal doesn’t give as much as flesh the impacts actually cause micro explosions. Critical hits cause 4x damage.
 Range reduced to 1/3 underwater. If the lasers spectrum is complimentary to the fluid the range is increased to ½.

In this way I give some of the lesser used weapons of Rifts a reason for existing beyond... they're less expensive.

[TechnoGothic]

Where have you found any references to the rifle actually firing laser? I assumed it wasn't a laser rifle but rather a particle beam or ion rifle or something else that might concievably have a kick?

SOUTH AMERICA 2 page 166

ATL-7 Anti-Tank LASER Rifle

The Name of the Weapons says it all. It is a Laser weapon.
If it was a particle beam or ion beam they would have said Particle Beam Rifle, but they did not. Since the term LASER was used in the very name itself the writter figured the reader could figure out it was a Laser Rifle for Anti-Tank shooting. Silly Writter.

[TechnoGothic]

The ULTRA Sniper Rifle sound like a Burst or Pulse Laser weapon from what you posted. I dont have the book so I cant say.

Lasers no Kick. Even if Pulse.
Ion Electricy has no Kick until it Hits You.
Particle Beams should have Kick. In HU2, NB, they do have kick. In fact PB weapons in the SDC setting are so unweildly for Anyone they require a 12&higher to Just Hit a Nick. With 18-20 Direct Hits. That sounds like alot of kick to me.
Plasma. I see them having some, a Shotgun like kick at most.

[The Galactus Kid]

Let me reply to part of this, since it is really my mistake.

3)TX-SL13 Ultra Sniper Rifle

This is listed as a laser rifle. Since laser rifles have no kick (which I totally knew but which slipped my mind during the writing process) you can play this one of two ways. Either make it a hybrid energy beam that has a kick, or keep it as a laser weapon, remove the kick and make the penalties be from poor balance or something. Strong characters and borgs wouldn't have as many penalties. Personally I would slightly increase the damage to 1D4x10+10. I would also give it an additional +1 to strike when making an aimed (or aimed called) shot above and beyond what it gets when properly braced. When used with improved balance and custom grip, the sniper skill, the W.P.s sharpshooting and Energy Rifle, scopes etc, a trained sniper character could put a lot of hurt on some people.

[Zer0 Kay]

Where have you found any references to the rifle actually firing laser? I assumed it wasn't a laser rifle but rather a particle beam or ion rifle or something else that might concievably have a kick?

SOUTH AMERICA 2 page 166

ATL-7 Anti-Tank LASER Rifle

The Name of the Weapons says it all. It is a Laser weapon.
If it was a particle beam or ion beam they would have said Particle Beam Rifle, but they did not. Since the term LASER was used in the very name itself the writter figured the reader could figure out it was a Laser Rifle for Anti-Tank shooting. Silly Writter.

I think he was refering to Darkchilde's comment on the Ultra as that is the only place I can see where a kick is mentioned... but I could be wrong.

[Zer0 Kay]

Let me reply to part of this, since it is really my mistake.

3)TX-SL13 Ultra Sniper Rifle

This is listed as a laser rifle. Since laser rifles have no kick (which I totally knew but which slipped my mind during the writing process) you can play this one of two ways. Either make it a hybrid energy beam that has a kick, or keep it as a laser weapon, remove the kick and make the penalties be from poor balance or something. Strong characters and borgs wouldn't have as many penalties. Personally I would slightly increase the damage to 1D4x10+10. I would also give it an additional +1 to strike when making an aimed (or aimed called) shot above and beyond what it gets when properly braced. When used with improved balance and custom grip, the sniper skill, the W.P.s sharpshooting and Energy Rifle, scopes etc, a trained sniper character could put a lot of hurt on some people.

Hey... there is one other way it could be done that you didn't think about.

Spoiler:

Just like the silly device to give laser guns a noise this gun has an electro magnet in the butstalk that draws a 2 pound (or however much is needed for the effect, maybe its half the weight of this weapon) weight connected to a heavy spring to the rear, and then releases it when the trigger is pulled. If the feature gets good reviews the device will go on the market by the fall in the form of a box that can adhere to the side of your weapon with a remote trigger device or an installed unit that replaces the stock butstock.

Why would anyone want this? Because it is a little more noticable that a tactile click from the trigger when your in full enviro armor or PA, especially when you can't see the damn thing shoot.

[Zer0 Kay]

The ULTRA Sniper Rifle sound like a Burst or Pulse Laser weapon from what you posted. I dont have the book so I cant say.

Lasers no Kick. Even if Pulse.
Ion Electricy has no Kick until it Hits You.
Particle Beams should have Kick. In HU2, NB, they do have kick. In fact PB weapons in the SDC setting are so unweildly for Anyone they require a 12&higher to Just Hit a Nick. With 18-20 Direct Hits. That sounds like alot of kick to me.
Plasma. I see them having some, a Shotgun like kick at most.

Ah but I bet you that the particle beams from the SDC settings was influenced by the Ghost Busters Particle Thrower on the Proton Packs
How do you play plasma? Do you do it as the fourth state of matter or as an advanced napalm?
You do realize that technically all of these weapons (as long as your playing plasma as plasma and not napalm) are particle accelerators?

[anarchclown]

I think it should be a particle beam weapon since apparently those make a bang and have a kick.

[Elthbert]

canonically speaking olny lasers are kickless. ion weapons particlebeams, and plasma ejectors should all have recoil. Ion weapons are firing blast of charged particles at high speed right, that should have a hell of a recoil. Plasma ejectors too should have some serious kick to them, assuming that the plasma ejector is just super heating the air in a chamber ( probably through compression) until it becomes a plasma and then ejects it forward. Particle beam weapons would also have a kick.

In my campaign P-Beams are continuious beam weapons and must be held on target momentarly for full damage, so recoil would indead matter.

[Zer0 Kay]

canonically speaking olny lasers are kickless. ion weapons particlebeams, and plasma ejectors should all have recoil. Ion weapons are firing blast of charged particles at high speed right, that should have a hell of a recoil. Plasma ejectors too should have some serious kick to them, assuming that the plasma ejector is just super heating the air in a chamber ( probably through compression) until it becomes a plasma and then ejects it forward. Particle beam weapons would also have a kick.

In my campaign P-Beams are continuious beam weapons and must be held on target momentarly for full damage, so recoil would indead matter.

So you use ghost buster guns?
So if Ion causes a kick because it launches particles at near light speed... then why don't lasers? A photon is a particle.

[The Galactus Kid]

A photon is a particle.

Your mom's a particle.



sorry Zero...it was too easy.

[Elthbert]

canonically speaking olny lasers are kickless. ion weapons particlebeams, and plasma ejectors should all have recoil. Ion weapons are firing blast of charged particles at high speed right, that should have a hell of a recoil. Plasma ejectors too should have some serious kick to them, assuming that the plasma ejector is just super heating the air in a chamber ( probably through compression) until it becomes a plasma and then ejects it forward. Particle beam weapons would also have a kick.

In my campaign P-Beams are continuious beam weapons and must be held on target momentarly for full damage, so recoil would indead matter.

So you use ghost buster guns?
So if Ion causes a kick because it launches particles at near light speed... then why don't lasers? A photon is a particle.

Well a photon may or may not be a particle, it depends on what type of test you are running I ussually discribe it as a packet or light, but regardless it has no mass, and is not matter, therefore it has no recoil. A blast of extremely ionized air on the other hand is matter, and is going to have significant mass, if it is fired at the speed of a bullet ( and more so if it is faster than that) it should have a real kick.

Ion weapons are firing ions .... not subatomic particles but ionized atoms, ones that do damage through heat and the force of the blast and the disabling of a targets molecular structure because of the need of the atoms in the blast to balance thier valence shells. This is a blast of regular matter.

And Lasers would have some measure of recoil, based on the same principle that solar sails work on, but it would be so significant as to be meaningless.

No my particle beams are not ghost buster guns. They function more like a star trech phaser. I found this necessary back in the old days when anythig could be burst fired, and i see no reason to change it now ( particle beams were excluded do to their beam nature)

[Elthbert]

The ULTRA Sniper Rifle sound like a Burst or Pulse Laser weapon from what you posted. I dont have the book so I cant say.

Lasers no Kick. Even if Pulse.
Ion Electricy has no Kick until it Hits You.
Particle Beams should have Kick. In HU2, NB, they do have kick. In fact PB weapons in the SDC setting are so unweildly for Anyone they require a 12&higher to Just Hit a Nick. With 18-20 Direct Hits. That sounds like alot of kick to me.
Plasma. I see them having some, a Shotgun like kick at most.

Ah but I bet you that the particle beams from the SDC settings was influenced by the Ghost Busters Particle Thrower on the Proton Packs
How do you play plasma? Do you do it as the fourth state of matter or as an advanced napalm?
You do realize that technically all of these weapons (as long as your playing plasma as plasma and not napalm) are particle accelerators?

ion guns do not fire lighting, that would be a lighting gun.... a particle beam might actually fire lighting. An ion weapon would damage things more like an acid by disrupting molecular bonds.

I play plasma as the fourth state of matter. I ussually discribe the weapon as firing little balls of the sun.


And if you want to be really technical, a .45 is a particle accelerator.

[Balabanto]

A photon is a particle.

Your mom's a particle.



sorry Zero...it was too easy.

A photon is also a wave. Most high energy packet beams are.

Personally, this takes Rifts into the realm of "Too Much Physics" for me, though. However, it does spark the need for custom gun rules so that everyone who uses guns and not magic or psionics gets a little bit of a boost, and maybe take the edge off those massive piles of credits that mid to high level characters seem to accumulate. There's only so much a GM can charge PC's in rent and things they want to buy if they're not a PA character (Always get a spare, preferably tricked out by an operator), and cool custom guns should be part of the deal.

[Elthbert]

I've been looking into it recently, but ions cover, in itself, a wide range of effects that they could be a subclass of energy weapons by themselves. I think the most common class is the electrolaser, were lasers ionize a path through a medium to deliver a lightning-like charge. Or ion weapons could be firing ionized blue plasma bolts. Or ion weapons could fire ionizing radiation that strips electrons from matter. The only difference with the latter and particle accelerators is the choice of charged particles being thrown out (electrons).

Either way, they all have differing effects, as energy from an electrolaser would be hazardously conducted in water and cause displacement in air or water (which would cause a crack and recoil because of the excited air), but an ion radiator would silently deliver concentrated electrons at a submerged target, although it's path would have a substantial afterglow from Cherenkov radiation.

Electron beams are not ions, particle beams would probably use an ionizing laser a part of the weapon, ion and plasma weapons might also. But to be an ion one must have an atom, not a subatomic particle. since there would be no advantage to using anions over a simple stream of electrons (which would be a partical beam) one can assume these are cation discharges and that they strip the electrons from the target's atoms. These would differ from particle beams in that they would fire ionized atoms not subatomic particles, and while hot would not be nearly so hot as a plasma weapon, doing damage by sloughing off electrons from the molecular bonds and breaking them down rather than simply massive heat disrupting them. In both cases the discharge should be travelling really fast, certianly plasma should be, much faster than a bullet and that momentum would then help it travel through the air with out disipation.
Particle weapons would fire streams of subatomic particles, could be electrons, protons, or even neutrons. these should be traveling at massive speeds, significant portions of the speed of light. doing damage by impact as well as atomic disruption.

[Elthbert]

As far as I can tell, lasers shoot coherent light and all other energy weapons shoot incoherent technobabble.

There is... there's really not a whole lot of effort at making non-laser weapons consistent with any particular kind of physical phenomena in this game.

Well I can't argue that the authors of Rifts are like most modern Sci-fi writers, they don't have much science in there but I don't think that the weapons are that much outside ofthe realm of actual possibility, and they are discribed vaguely enough to allow thier discribed effects to fit real possibility, at least on the whole.

[Zer0 Kay]

A photon is a particle.

Your mom's a particle.



sorry Zero...it was too easy.

Your mom's easy... tag... your turn.

[Zer0 Kay]

I've been looking into it recently, but ions cover, in itself, a wide range of effects that they could be a subclass of energy weapons by themselves. I think the most common class is the electrolaser, were lasers ionize a path through a medium to deliver a lightning-like charge. Or ion weapons could be firing ionized blue plasma bolts. Or ion weapons could fire ionizing radiation that strips electrons from matter. The only difference with the latter and particle accelerators is the choice of charged particles being thrown out (electrons).

Either way, they all have differing effects, as energy from an electrolaser would be hazardously conducted in water and cause displacement in air or water (which would cause a crack and recoil because of the excited air), but an ion radiator would silently deliver concentrated electrons at a submerged target, although it's path would have a substantial afterglow from Cherenkov radiation.

It still wouldn't cause recoil. "Excited air" is excited in an outward direction from the beam which is foward of the gun. Recoil is caused by the gun creating motion within it not the result of that which is fired after it has left the gun. A bullets sonic boom (most bullets do) doesn't cause the recoil or kick it is made from the round being pushed foward in the gun which means the gun gets pushed back and because the gun's barrel is at the top of the weapon over the top of the hand it also results in an upward climb. That is one of the reasons the Kriss has little recoil and climb. Because of positioning of the barrel as well as the super V retirecting the recoil.

[Zer0 Kay]

I've been looking into it recently, but ions cover, in itself, a wide range of effects that they could be a subclass of energy weapons by themselves. I think the most common class is the electrolaser, were lasers ionize a path through a medium to deliver a lightning-like charge. Or ion weapons could be firing ionized blue plasma bolts. Or ion weapons could fire ionizing radiation that strips electrons from matter. The only difference with the latter and particle accelerators is the choice of charged particles being thrown out (electrons).

Either way, they all have differing effects, as energy from an electrolaser would be hazardously conducted in water and cause displacement in air or water (which would cause a crack and recoil because of the excited air), but an ion radiator would silently deliver concentrated electrons at a submerged target, although it's path would have a substantial afterglow from Cherenkov radiation.

Oh yeah and water is one of the best shields against radiation because of it bonding. With a full outer shell it is difficult for radiation to cause a chain reaction unless enough force is used which I think would split the molecule.

[Zer0 Kay]

As far as I can tell, lasers shoot coherent light and all other energy weapons shoot incoherent technobabble.

There is... there's really not a whole lot of effort at making non-laser weapons consistent with any particular kind of physical phenomena in this game.

Ahhh I've been hit.
Sorry son there is nothing we can do... you've been riddled with technobabble... your going to... make no sense.

[Zer0 Kay]

As far as I can tell, lasers shoot coherent light and all other energy weapons shoot incoherent technobabble.

There is... there's really not a whole lot of effort at making non-laser weapons consistent with any particular kind of physical phenomena in this game.

Well I can't argue that the authors of Rifts are like most modern Sci-fi writers, they don't have much science in there but I don't think that the weapons are that much outside ofthe realm of actual possibility, and they are discribed vaguely enough to allow thier discribed effects to fit real possibility, at least on the whole.

? What effects? Damage? I can make a dirt gun make sense that way. If they want it to be more "realistic" they should give them additional affects. Ion guns messing with electronics, particle beams causing micro explosions in hard targets and totally f-ing up soft ones like a super shotgun with near superluminal birdshot.
plasma in a magnetic bottle would cause EMP damage and once release act like a super heated gas spreading a little rather than acting like a viscous liquid like napalm. The plasma itself should also be hazardous to electronics as it is highly conductive so moving across any exposed contacts would be like turbo charged water. Does anyone not know that water itself (pure H20) is not conductive? It is the same thing that allows water to boil that allows electricity to pass through it... the impurities. Lasers also should do more damage to hard targets than soft on criticals because lasers have been known to cause crystaline destabalization causing explosions instead of just melting.

[Elthbert]

As far as I can tell, lasers shoot coherent light and all other energy weapons shoot incoherent technobabble.

There is... there's really not a whole lot of effort at making non-laser weapons consistent with any particular kind of physical phenomena in this game.

Well I can't argue that the authors of Rifts are like most modern Sci-fi writers, they don't have much science in there but I don't think that the weapons are that much outside ofthe realm of actual possibility, and they are discribed vaguely enough to allow thier discribed effects to fit real possibility, at least on the whole.

? What effects? Damage? I can make a dirt gun make sense that way. If they want it to be more "realistic" they should give them additional affects. Ion guns messing with electronics, particle beams causing micro explosions in hard targets and totally f-ing up soft ones like a super shotgun with near superluminal birdshot.
plasma in a magnetic bottle would cause EMP damage and once release act like a super heated gas spreading a little rather than acting like a viscous liquid like napalm. The plasma itself should also be hazardous to electronics as it is highly conductive so moving across any exposed contacts would be like turbo charged water. Does anyone not know that water itself (pure H20) is not conductive? It is the same thing that allows water to boil that allows electricity to pass through it... the impurities. Lasers also should do more damage to hard targets than soft on criticals because lasers have been known to cause crystaline destabalization causing explosions instead of just melting.

I fail to see why ionic weapons would do anything special to electronics, ion weapons would work like and acid, not like a lightning gun.

Plasma in a "magnetic bottle" is kind of silly, how do you make a magnetic bottle which will hold in 10000k plasma but breaks on impact with a target. Plasma bolts should be moving at tremendoes speed and have short ranges, and still should probably be a continuous stream of plasma rather than a bolt to prevent disipation.

I think P-beams are pretty much discribed like that. Very nasty, vaporizing weapons.

Lasers should be discribed as leaving the nasty wounds that they would I agree but I don't think that they need extra damage on a crit, the vast majority of the time lasers simply cut and do nothing more.

discription of the effects of a weapon is the role of the GM, and a subtle dscription differance is all that is needed.

[Zer0 Kay]

As far as I can tell, lasers shoot coherent light and all other energy weapons shoot incoherent technobabble.

There is... there's really not a whole lot of effort at making non-laser weapons consistent with any particular kind of physical phenomena in this game.

Well I can't argue that the authors of Rifts are like most modern Sci-fi writers, they don't have much science in there but I don't think that the weapons are that much outside ofthe realm of actual possibility, and they are discribed vaguely enough to allow thier discribed effects to fit real possibility, at least on the whole.

? What effects? Damage? I can make a dirt gun make sense that way. If they want it to be more "realistic" they should give them additional affects. Ion guns messing with electronics, particle beams causing micro explosions in hard targets and totally f-ing up soft ones like a super shotgun with near superluminal birdshot.
plasma in a magnetic bottle would cause EMP damage and once release act like a super heated gas spreading a little rather than acting like a viscous liquid like napalm. The plasma itself should also be hazardous to electronics as it is highly conductive so moving across any exposed contacts would be like turbo charged water. Does anyone not know that water itself (pure H20) is not conductive? It is the same thing that allows water to boil that allows electricity to pass through it... the impurities. Lasers also should do more damage to hard targets than soft on criticals because lasers have been known to cause crystaline destabalization causing explosions instead of just melting.

I fail to see why ionic weapons would do anything special to electronics, ion weapons would work like and acid, not like a lightning gun.

Plasma in a "magnetic bottle" is kind of silly, how do you make a magnetic bottle which will hold in 10000k plasma but breaks on impact with a target. Plasma bolts should be moving at tremendoes speed and have short ranges, and still should probably be a continuous stream of plasma rather than a bolt to prevent disipation.

I think P-beams are pretty much discribed like that. Very nasty, vaporizing weapons.

Lasers should be discribed as leaving the nasty wounds that they would I agree but I don't think that they need extra damage on a crit, the vast majority of the time lasers simply cut and do nothing more.

discription of the effects of a weapon is the role of the GM, and a subtle dscription differance is all that is needed.

an ion gun doesn't seperate ions it fires them so it wouldn't be like an acid.

a plasma bottle is a magnetic containment field not a physical bottle plasma is slow. Fire... is plasma a lightning bolt is plasma created from the static discharge. The bolt didn't travel fast the discharge did and made the plasma. Plasma travels slow in comparison to a bullet.

a particle beam isn't a vaporizing weapon it accelerates particles and launches them out as a cohesive beam its an energy shotgun

Lasers don't leave nasty wounds they cauterize the wounds making a reduced critical on living things but in optimal damage conditions (critical hits) on hard targets they'd harmonize with the crystaline structure shattering them at a molecular level resulting in some impressive explosions... but not atomic.

[Zer0 Kay]

Besides it can't be 10000K because it would vaporize everything around it including the shooter.

[Elthbert]

an ion gun doesn't seperate ions it fires them so it wouldn't be like an acid.

Your right, it fires a load of ions ( most likely cations for the reasons mentioned above) at significant speed and probably heat at a target, striking with both kinetic and thermal energy, but you are wrong about how the ions themselves would work. The valence shells of the ions in the blast would be desperate to balance themselves and literally rip the electrons out of the molecular bonds of the target, metals give up electrons easily so they would be particularly vulnerable, this would make the molecular structure of the target collapase thereby doing damage... pretty much exactly like an acid

a plasma bottle is a magnetic containment field not a physical bottle plasma is slow. Fire... is plasma a lightning bolt is plasma created from the static discharge. The bolt didn't travel fast the discharge did and made the plasma. Plasma travels slow in comparison to a bullet.

A. I know you mean a magnetic containment field and my statment still stands, any field that would work would be so strong it would not break on impact.... lets not even addess the magical crap that would have to go on to have an unpowered containmentfield that flys through the air and stays together. No plasma, would probably use an ionizing lazer ahead of it and be in a stream.
B. if it isn't 10,000k or so it is useless, and now it woudln't vaporize everything around it, plasma is not very dense, that limits its thermal transfer. Pretty much the stuff would have to be touching you to do it.

C what makes you think plasma would be slow, here is absolutly no reason for it to move slow. In fact, moving slow would make it almost useless... plasma would need to hit its target in a small fraction of a scond to do any significant damage unless it was a constant stream.... see above suggestion on plasma weapons.

a particle beam isn't a vaporizing weapon it accelerates particles and launches them out as a cohesive beam its an energy shotgun

and what do you think they do to their targets..... they deliver huge amounts of kinetic energy to the enternal parts of a target, but this is at an atomic level, so it is effectively thermal energy. You deliver a 100 MJ of heat into a persons body it is going to be vaporize parts of them, and probably cause an explosion as that vapor tries to escape that container we call skin.

Lasers don't leave nasty wounds they cauterize the wounds making a reduced critical on living things but in optimal damage conditions (critical hits) on hard targets they'd harmonize with the crystaline structure shattering them at a molecular level resulting in some impressive explosions... but not atomic.

total myth, lasers would almost never cauterize, the water in the surrounding tissue would boil and explode and the laser would simply cut the target anyway. Now that said i always discribe lasers as punching nice neat little holes in the targets and have other discription for other weapons.... but that is not because thats what they would actually do.

[Zer0 Kay]

an ion gun doesn't seperate ions it fires them so it wouldn't be like an acid.

Your right, it fires a load of ions ( most likely cations for the reasons mentioned above) at significant speed and probably heat at a target, striking with both kinetic and thermal energy, but you are wrong about how the ions themselves would work. The valence shells of the ions in the blast would be desperate to balance themselves and literally rip the electrons out of the molecular bonds of the target, metals give up electrons easily so they would be particularly vulnerable, this would make the molecular structure of the target collapase thereby doing damage... pretty much exactly like an acid

a plasma bottle is a magnetic containment field not a physical bottle plasma is slow. Fire... is plasma a lightning bolt is plasma created from the static discharge. The bolt didn't travel fast the discharge did and made the plasma. Plasma travels slow in comparison to a bullet.

A. I know you mean a magnetic containment field and my statment still stands, any field that would work would be so strong it would not break on impact.... lets not even addess the magical crap that would have to go on to have an unpowered containmentfield that flys through the air and stays together. No plasma, would probably use an ionizing lazer ahead of it and be in a stream.
B. if it isn't 10,000k or so it is useless, and now it woudln't vaporize everything around it, plasma is not very dense, that limits its thermal transfer. Pretty much the stuff would have to be touching you to do it.

C what makes you think plasma would be slow, here is absolutly no reason for it to move slow. In fact, moving slow would make it almost useless... plasma would need to hit its target in a small fraction of a scond to do any significant damage unless it was a constant stream.... see above suggestion on plasma weapons.

a particle beam isn't a vaporizing weapon it accelerates particles and launches them out as a cohesive beam its an energy shotgun

and what do you think they do to their targets..... they deliver huge amounts of kinetic energy to the enternal parts of a target, but this is at an atomic level, so it is effectively thermal energy. You deliver a 100 MJ of heat into a persons body it is going to be vaporize parts of them, and probably cause an explosion as that vapor tries to escape that container we call skin.

Lasers don't leave nasty wounds they cauterize the wounds making a reduced critical on living things but in optimal damage conditions (critical hits) on hard targets they'd harmonize with the crystaline structure shattering them at a molecular level resulting in some impressive explosions... but not atomic.

total myth, lasers would almost never cauterize, the water in the surrounding tissue would boil and explode and the laser would simply cut the target anyway. Now that said i always discribe lasers as punching nice neat little holes in the targets and have other discription for other weapons.... but that is not because thats what they would actually do.

1. So ion motors will do that to things? Gee I've never seen that happen with the ion engines.

2. A plasma bottle would likely have to be a massive EM bottle to be able to travel through the air and an EM bottle would break on anything that is capable of conducting electricity.

How is say 3683 K? It's the highest melting point of any element and belongs to tungsten. At least for "SDC" materials. So are you When I say slow I mean slower than a bullet and saying that going slower than a bullet would make it useless then how do arrows work? How is plasma not very dense got to do anything with heat transfer. Again flame is plasma as is lightning or at least part of it and both of those can cause severe burns and they aren't anywere near 3683 K let alone 10000 K seems like plasma conducts heat just fine without touching.

3. "enternal" parts eh.

4. So is that why laser scalpels are all messy with blood spurting everywhere? Oh wait... they don't.

Next your going to tell me that Radar's produce ionizing radiation and that there is no such thing is spacial attenuation of a radio signal and that you can't spin radiation.

[Elthbert]

an ion gun doesn't seperate ions it fires them so it wouldn't be like an acid.

Your right, it fires a load of ions ( most likely cations for the reasons mentioned above) at significant speed and probably heat at a target, striking with both kinetic and thermal energy, but you are wrong about how the ions themselves would work. The valence shells of the ions in the blast would be desperate to balance themselves and literally rip the electrons out of the molecular bonds of the target, metals give up electrons easily so they would be particularly vulnerable, this would make the molecular structure of the target collapase thereby doing damage... pretty much exactly like an acid

a plasma bottle is a magnetic containment field not a physical bottle plasma is slow. Fire... is plasma a lightning bolt is plasma created from the static discharge. The bolt didn't travel fast the discharge did and made the plasma. Plasma travels slow in comparison to a bullet.

A. I know you mean a magnetic containment field and my statment still stands, any field that would work would be so strong it would not break on impact.... lets not even addess the magical crap that would have to go on to have an unpowered containmentfield that flys through the air and stays together. No plasma, would probably use an ionizing laser ahead of it and be in a stream.
B. if it isn't 10,000k or so it is useless, and now it woudln't vaporize everything around it, plasma is not very dense, that limits its thermal transfer. Pretty much the stuff would have to be touching you to do it.

C what makes you think plasma would be slow, here is absolutly no reason for it to move slow. In fact, moving slow would make it almost useless... plasma would need to hit its target in a small fraction of a scond to do any significant damage unless it was a constant stream.... see above suggestion on plasma weapons.

a particle beam isn't a vaporizing weapon it accelerates particles and launches them out as a cohesive beam its an energy shotgun

and what do you think they do to their targets..... they deliver huge amounts of kinetic energy to the enternal parts of a target, but this is at an atomic level, so it is effectively thermal energy. You deliver a 100 MJ of heat into a persons body it is going to be vaporize parts of them, and probably cause an explosion as that vapor tries to escape that container we call skin.

Lasers don't leave nasty wounds they cauterize the wounds making a reduced critical on living things but in optimal damage conditions (critical hits) on hard targets they'd harmonize with the crystaline structure shattering them at a molecular level resulting in some impressive explosions... but not atomic.

total myth, lasers would almost never cauterize, the water in the surrounding tissue would boil and explode and the laser would simply cut the target anyway. Now that said i always discribe lasers as punching nice neat little holes in the targets and have other discription for other weapons.... but that is not because thats what they would actually do.

1. So ion motors will do that to things? Gee I've never seen that happen with the ion engines.

what type of ion engines are you working with, what power range? Remember these guns are using huge power loads, in the megawatt range and then compressing them into a bolt. but yes, except for the straight out kinetic hit of the bolt that is the only way ions would do damage, by addeding or subtracting electrons to a target and disrupting the molecular bonds.

2. A plasma bottle would likely have to be a massive EM bottle to be able to travel through the air and an EM bottle would break on anything that is capable of conducting electricity.

right . i don't have time to address that i'll answer it later.

How is say 3683 K? It's the highest melting point of any element and belongs to tungsten. At least for "SDC" materials. So are you When I say slow I mean slower than a bullet and saying that going slower than a bullet would make it useless then how do arrows work? How is plasma not very dense got to do anything with heat transfer. Again flame is plasma as is lightning or at least part of it and both of those can cause severe burns and they aren't anywere near 3683 K let alone 10000 K seems like plasma conducts heat just fine without touching.

Wow so much here. Short answer not hot enough... not to damage hardened materials, not at the density the plasma is going to have. Density is tremendously important for thermal transfer. A plasma could be a million degrees but if the density is low enough it wouldn't even burn your shirt. Thermal transfer comes from the collision of atoms/particles with other substances, if there aren't very many atoms to collide not much heat is transfered. Thats how it works. If plasma was moving as slow as an arrow it would lose a tremendous amount of heat to that great sink of heat we call the atmosphere. Also arrows , unless fired in mass or by suprise don't work that well, thats why we changed over to bullets.

3. "enternal" parts eh.

well i was typing with an 8 month old on my lap...sue me.

4. So is that why laser scalpels are all messy with blood spurting everywhere? Oh wait... they don't.

You realize that laser scalpels are very low power.... and they do exactly what i said even at that power, ablation of soft tissue through vaporization of water in the target tissue is one of thier primary uses, look them up. Now scale that to a laser 2 or 3 thousand times as powerful.


Next your going to tell me that Radar's produce ionizing radiation and that there is no such thing is spacial attenuation of a radio signal and that you can't spin radiation.

[Zer0 Kay]

an ion gun doesn't seperate ions it fires them so it wouldn't be like an acid.

Your right, it fires a load of ions ( most likely cations for the reasons mentioned above) at significant speed and probably heat at a target, striking with both kinetic and thermal energy, but you are wrong about how the ions themselves would work. The valence shells of the ions in the blast would be desperate to balance themselves and literally rip the electrons out of the molecular bonds of the target, metals give up electrons easily so they would be particularly vulnerable, this would make the molecular structure of the target collapase thereby doing damage... pretty much exactly like an acid

a plasma bottle is a magnetic containment field not a physical bottle plasma is slow. Fire... is plasma a lightning bolt is plasma created from the static discharge. The bolt didn't travel fast the discharge did and made the plasma. Plasma travels slow in comparison to a bullet.

A. I know you mean a magnetic containment field and my statment still stands, any field that would work would be so strong it would not break on impact.... lets not even addess the magical crap that would have to go on to have an unpowered containmentfield that flys through the air and stays together. No plasma, would probably use an ionizing laser ahead of it and be in a stream.
B. if it isn't 10,000k or so it is useless, and now it woudln't vaporize everything around it, plasma is not very dense, that limits its thermal transfer. Pretty much the stuff would have to be touching you to do it.

C what makes you think plasma would be slow, here is absolutly no reason for it to move slow. In fact, moving slow would make it almost useless... plasma would need to hit its target in a small fraction of a scond to do any significant damage unless it was a constant stream.... see above suggestion on plasma weapons.

a particle beam isn't a vaporizing weapon it accelerates particles and launches them out as a cohesive beam its an energy shotgun

and what do you think they do to their targets..... they deliver huge amounts of kinetic energy to the enternal parts of a target, but this is at an atomic level, so it is effectively thermal energy. You deliver a 100 MJ of heat into a persons body it is going to be vaporize parts of them, and probably cause an explosion as that vapor tries to escape that container we call skin.

Lasers don't leave nasty wounds they cauterize the wounds making a reduced critical on living things but in optimal damage conditions (critical hits) on hard targets they'd harmonize with the crystaline structure shattering them at a molecular level resulting in some impressive explosions... but not atomic.

total myth, lasers would almost never cauterize, the water in the surrounding tissue would boil and explode and the laser would simply cut the target anyway. Now that said i always discribe lasers as punching nice neat little holes in the targets and have other discription for other weapons.... but that is not because thats what they would actually do.

1. So ion motors will do that to things? Gee I've never seen that happen with the ion engines.

what type of ion engines are you working with, what power range? Remember these guns are using huge power loads, in the megawatt range and then compressing them into a bolt. but yes, except for the straight out kinetic hit of the bolt that is the only way ions would do damage, by addeding or subtracting electrons to a target and disrupting the molecular bonds.

2. A plasma bottle would likely have to be a massive EM bottle to be able to travel through the air and an EM bottle would break on anything that is capable of conducting electricity.

right . i don't have time to address that i'll answer it later.

How is say 3683 K? It's the highest melting point of any element and belongs to tungsten. At least for "SDC" materials. So are you When I say slow I mean slower than a bullet and saying that going slower than a bullet would make it useless then how do arrows work? How is plasma not very dense got to do anything with heat transfer. Again flame is plasma as is lightning or at least part of it and both of those can cause severe burns and they aren't anywere near 3683 K let alone 10000 K seems like plasma conducts heat just fine without touching.

Wow so much here. Short answer not hot enough... not to damage hardened materials, not at the density the plasma is going to have. Density is tremendously important for thermal transfer. A plasma could be a million degrees but if the density is low enough it wouldn't even burn your shirt. Thermal transfer comes from the collision of atoms/particles with other substances, if there aren't very many atoms to collide not much heat is transfered. Thats how it works. If plasma was moving as slow as an arrow it would lose a tremendous amount of heat to that great sink of heat we call the atmosphere. Also arrows , unless fired in mass or by suprise don't work that well, thats why we changed over to bullets.

3. "enternal" parts eh.

well i was typing with an 8 month old on my lap...sue me.

4. So is that why laser scalpels are all messy with blood spurting everywhere? Oh wait... they don't.

You realize that laser scalpels are very low power.... and they do exactly what i said even at that power, ablation of soft tissue through vaporization of water in the target tissue is one of thier primary uses, look them up. Now scale that to a laser 2 or 3 thousand times as powerful.


Next your going to tell me that Radar's produce ionizing radiation and that there is no such thing is spacial attenuation of a radio signal and that you can't spin radiation.

Congrats on the baby. Got four myself one turning 12 months here soon.
Plasma. Why does the heat only have to be thermal and not radiant? The plasma they use for plasma windows seems to be pretty dense to me, able to keep air in and space out.

[Elthbert]

[quote="Zer0 Kay]
Congrats on the baby. Got four myself one turning 12 months here soon.
Plasma. Why does the heat only have to be thermal and not radiant? The plasma they use for plasma windows seems to be pretty dense to me, able to keep air in and space out.[/quote]



Thank you. She is number 3. number 2 will be three on tuesday.

Of course plasma is going to radiate heat, thats one of the reasons it has to be reasonably fast, but it isn't going to melt steel via radiant heat.

[Zer0 Kay]

[quote="Zer0 Kay]
Congrats on the baby. Got four myself one turning 12 months here soon.
Plasma. Why does the heat only have to be thermal and not radiant? The plasma they use for plasma windows seems to be pretty dense to me, able to keep air in and space out.[/quote]



Thank you. She is number 3. number 2 will be three on tuesday.

Of course plasma is going to radiate heat, thats one of the reasons it has to be reasonably fast, but it isn't going to melt steel via radiant heat.[/quote]

but the sun's surface is less than 10000K! Are you telling me that if a piece of metal mate it through the sun's corona and just flew over the surface without touching it it wouldn't melt?

[anarchclown]

Officially has a headache. Anyway. I vote for P-beam.

[Elthbert]

[quote="Zer0 Kay]
Congrats on the baby. Got four myself one turning 12 months here soon.
Plasma. Why does the heat only have to be thermal and not radiant? The plasma they use for plasma windows seems to be pretty dense to me, able to keep air in and space out.[/quote]



Thank you. She is number 3. number 2 will be three on tuesday.

Of course plasma is going to radiate heat, thats one of the reasons it has to be reasonably fast, but it isn't going to melt steel via radiant heat.[/quote][/quote]

but the sun's surface is less than 10000K! Are you telling me that if a piece of metal mate it through the sun's corona and just flew over the surface without touching it it wouldn't melt?[/quote]

Actually, yes that what I am telling you . The corona of Sol is about 1,000,000 k and being in it would not burn you but don't take my word for it. Here is a nasa expert onthe subject.


In order to incinerate massive objects, a gas (or plasma, which contains electrically charged particles) must not only be hot; it must also be dense enough so that its heat makes a difference. The solar wind is a plasma. The corona (or the solar wind) at the location of the Earth features densities of about 1-50 hydrogen nuclei per cubic centimeters, whereas air that surrounds us is about 3x1019 (3 with 19 zeros) molecules per cubic centimeter. Because of the very low density, the heat of the corona is not even enough to heat the surface of a tiny spacecraft in any noticeable way. (Heat can, however, build up in spacecraft through its own electrical energy consumption and because of the Sun's light that the spacecraft intercepts. To stay cool, the spacecraft has to radiate that energy back into space. The particles of the solar wind or of the Earth's magnetosphere - both pretty hot when expressed in degrees - don't play a noticeable role in that heat balance. Their input is negligible compared with the Sun's light.)

http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sun.html#bfield


You can find that here.

[Zer0 Kay]

In this way I give some of the lesser used weapons of Rifts a reason for existing beyond... they're less expensive.

Nice run down.

Thank you.

[Zer0 Kay]

[quote="Zer0 Kay]
Congrats on the baby. Got four myself one turning 12 months here soon.
Plasma. Why does the heat only have to be thermal and not radiant? The plasma they use for plasma windows seems to be pretty dense to me, able to keep air in and space out.[/quote]



Thank you. She is number 3. number 2 will be three on tuesday.

Of course plasma is going to radiate heat, thats one of the reasons it has to be reasonably fast, but it isn't going to melt steel via radiant heat.[/quote][/quote]

but the sun's surface is less than 10000K! Are you telling me that if a piece of metal mate it through the sun's corona and just flew over the surface without touching it it wouldn't melt?[/quote][/quote][/quote]


Actually, yes that what I am telling you . The corona of Sol is about 1,000,000 k and being in it would not burn you but don't take my word for it. Here is a nasa expert onthe subject.


In order to incinerate massive objects, a gas (or plasma, which contains electrically charged particles) must not only be hot; it must also be dense enough so that its heat makes a difference. The solar wind is a plasma. The corona (or the solar wind) at the location of the Earth features densities of about 1-50 hydrogen nuclei per cubic centimeters, whereas air that surrounds us is about 3x1019 (3 with 19 zeros) molecules per cubic centimeter. Because of the very low density, the heat of the corona is not even enough to heat the surface of a tiny spacecraft in any noticeable way. (Heat can, however, build up in spacecraft through its own electrical energy consumption and because of the Sun's light that the spacecraft intercepts. To stay cool, the spacecraft has to radiate that energy back into space. The particles of the solar wind or of the Earth's magnetosphere - both pretty hot when expressed in degrees - don't play a noticeable role in that heat balance. Their input is negligible compared with the Sun's light.)

http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sun.html#bfield


You can find that here.[/quote]

Interesting, thanks.

[Zer0 Kay]

In this way I give some of the lesser used weapons of Rifts a reason for existing beyond... they're less expensive.

Nice run down.

The only thing is that it is often too complicated for players to want to remember what they do.