Re: [HoE] Junker Questions... (Everyone, especially JOHN HOPLER)

[DarrinBrig@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/26/99 8:11:17 PM Eastern Standard Time, Disco92@aol.com
writes:

> << 1. When making a gizmo, which way do you round?  Up or down?  Or is it to
>  the
>   nearest number?  This is for use in determining the costs of Drain,
>   Components, etc.

Round everything up would be my guess.

>   2. If you were to try to make a "stealth suit,"  (for vision or hearing,
>  say),
>   would you need to purchase 360 degrees (so it would work all around), and 
> ECM
>   and a range?  Or would it be "Touch" for range?  Or would you need to go 
> with
>   the 360 degrees?

I'm a little fuzzy on the ECM stuff, but I'd say you'd have to go the full 360
degrees, and then decide up to what range the suit effectively masks
vision/hearing... let's say 50 yards. Any listener outside that radius would
be able to detect it normally, I'd imagine.

>   3.  What would be the percentage cost to add a variable damage dial to a
>   weapon (kind of like the one for the Ripper gun)?  I have some weapons
that
>   I've come up with where the cost is 50 points exactly (after
modifications,
>   AP, etc.) per die, and it would be nice if the weapon didn't always have
to
>   use 5 GR (or 6 GR, or whatever) per usage, but could be lowered to 1GR for
> 1
>   die damage if the user wanted to...

Use the cost for the highest possible damage. I'd say a simple modification
for variable settings might be 10%, and the posible settings it would depend
on the drain.  Let's say you've got a weapon that uses 6 GR, you add variable
settings at 10% cost for half damage (3 GR) and low power (1 GR), and scale
the damage down accordingly.  I'd do it in terms of GR depletion, though,
rather than scaling down the dice and trying to recalculate the GR drain. 

>   4.  What would be the percentage cost for a melee weapon to exceed the "0
>   Range" thing?  For instance, if you made a weapon kind of like a
lightsaber,

Melee weapons should not ever have a range above 0.  Range above 0 means it it
some sort of projectile weapon. Even a lightsabre style weapon that extends
out several meters or whatever isn't actually a projectile weapon unless you
throw it. Once a weapon becomes a projectile, it's no longer a melee weapon
and you have to use a throwin' or shootin' aptitude to hit something with it.
There are some weapons like shooting knives that work as both melee and
projectile weapons... treat them either as two separate gadgets, or decide if
the contraption is going to be one or the other. If you design an energy gun
and want to add a bayonet style blade to the front so you can use it as a
melee weapon, just treat it as a normal bayonet and give it knife stats
(STR+1d4/1d6 or whatever). If you want to design some vibro-axe and work a
hold-out pistol in the handle, treat the pistol part like an ordinary
derringer.  Otherwise design both weapons separately (like a vibro-axe with a
hold-out one-shot laser in the handle) but just say the two weapons have been
joined when you've worked out all the points. Give them separate batteries or
plug them into the same one.
 
>  I've got another question to add.  What about Blast Radius.  My Junker 
> player
>  and I were kidding around about making a 20d20 grenade, and he said it
wasn'
> t
>  a grenade, it was a bomb, and I said it had no blast radius.  I was kidding
> of
>  course, but what would the point cost be for blast radii?

Well, you can do a grenade with 20d20 damage and no blast radius. It could use
shaped charges, or some sort of psychic micro-implosion, or a self-contained
anti-matter vortex... the fluff text is pretty much up to you and what your
marshall will allow.  But grenade and bomb are pretty much synonymous... they
are both explosives with detonators.  One may be better balanced for throwing,
but they both do the same thing. Any conventional explosive really ought to
have a concussion wave (and hence a blast radius) unless you can think of a
good reason not to have one.