Re: [HOE] Junker's, Railguns, AP Ammo, Ammo Processors (somewhat long?)

[Robert Holland <robert@macauley.com>]

>Rail Guns do use a Range Increment. It call for you to use the Gunsmith for
>Range Increment and RoF.

What I meant was that the range increment of the gun has no effect on the drain.
It seems to me that a range increment 500 railgun would require more power than
an RI 10 railgun firing the same size projectile. Or, at least, that reducing
the AP below its maximum value reduces the range by 10% per AP level lost, so
(for example) if you have an AP3 RI 500 railgun and drop its power output by 75%
(to AP0) then you wind up with an RI of (500 - 30%) = 350, because the decreased
muzzle velocity also decreases the speed and range of the projectile. This,
actually, would be an effective brake on the maximum AP value for processed-ammo
guns; the higher AP it's capable of achieving, the worse the RI will be when
fired at low AP levels. (If you wanted to be a real bastard, you could make the
range penalty equal to the power drop, so the aforementioned AP3 RI 500 railgun
fired in AP0 mode would have an RI of 500 - 75% = 125...)

>Lastly a Rail Gun uses energy to hurl lead at an object, increasing the
>power would make for hire penetration. Bigger projectiles cause bigger
>wounds, not faster ones.

This does make sense, now that I think about it. I still have beef with the
range thing, but (at least for game-mechanics purposes) I can see how boosting
the velocity would not necessarily increase damage.

--Robert Holland