Plasteel weapons?, Probably an old question Options

[Neruda's Ghost]

I used the search tool, but could find a reference. First off, is "plasteel" a special type of polymer that's as hard as steel? I remember that they make roads and buildings out of the stuff, so I'm assuming it's not terribly expensive.

Could a pistol and ammo components be made out of it to avoid metal detection? I'm trying to find a reasonable pretext to avoid this, rather than simply saying no to the player.

[Herald of Verjig...]

High impact and tensile strength does not ensure high temperature tolerance. The option in CC is for ceramic composition which increases the TN for MAD systems to detect the firearm.

Just say that it starts melting after 3 shots in one turn.

[Calvin Hobbes]

Hi-C rounds, as I recall, are Plasteel.

[Ancient History]

SR is not unique in using plasteel - it's actually come up in Frank Herbert's Dune series among other places. What it actually consists of has never been told - possibly a metallic polymer.

[Neruda's Ghost]

Good for a couple of shots only. That's perfect.
Thanks, all.

[Tiralee]

[Shrike30]

If memory serves, the "C" stood for cellulose.

Cannon Companion's ceramic composition option added a +2 to MADs per level, or at level 3 just made the gun nonmetallic.

[Glorian]

[Brahm]

It's page 38 in CC. They are densiplast (plastic) rounds, that are not detectable by a MAD. I would imagine that building the slugs out of the ceramics used for the weapon would be a bad idea, for at least the jacket. You typically want a realtively soft material for your slugs to allow it be molded to the rifling when shot (as opposed to being nearly as hard as the barrel's material and smoothing out the barrel or just flat out jamming and blowing up in your face). Although I suppose it is possible there are relatively "soft, plyable" ceramics it isn't something that they are known for. But that's really a question for a materials guy.

[Austere Emancipa...]

You could make the jacket out of plastic and the core out of ceramic. The biggest problem would be much lower projectile weight, leading to radically shortened range and lesser terminal effect -- which, to their credit, the writers of CC apparently understood. Still, something like -1 Power per range category beyond Short would be more reasonable than just -1 Power at Long and Extreme.

[Shrike30]

I think that the Hi-C rounds were mostly aimed at the handgun-toting crowd, where that -1 power happens at 15-20 meters, and the round magically ceases to exist at 50-60 meters.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Oh, right. I was thinking of the ranges of firearms in my games. :)

[Catsnightmare]

[Dog]

In regards to justifying the existence of plasteel in the game world, you could say it's just a cheap compound that has no special benefits but to replace steel in many circumstances at a lower cost. That way, you can refer to it in all kinds of mundane circumstances, but don't have to worry about new rules.