So I'm curious about the two man-portable laser weapons from Arsenal, the Ares Redline pistol and the Ares MP Laser 3 assault rifle.

Now, it clearly states they can mount Underbarrel and Top accessories, but can you also mod these particular weapons? Of course certain mods don't apply if the weapon doesn't fire bullets, but still, in particular I'm curious about...

Firing Selection Change? - Yes, you'd use an entire clip in one shot on FA, but that could easily be worth it.
Extended Clip? - Specially optimized and more efficient power clips seem reasonable.
Smartgun System? - Would this be standard anyway?
Laser Sight? - Would this even work?
Silencer / Surpressor? - Are laser weapons silent to begin with? Are they visible? Are they sustained beams, or discrete "blasts"? Would a Thermal Supressor work at least?

~Umidori

Modifications and accessories are two different things, so weapons and gear can pretty much always modified. Some things exist both as accessories, some of those are better as modifications, some exist only as accessories, some only as modifications.

There is not much point in many modifications for a laser, though – silencers would be one of those, as would be electronic fireing or the environment mod.

Firing Selection Change : IMHO no.
Extended clip : Not really, the power packs of laser weapons are already state of the art technology without much room for improvement beyond physically enlarging the clip. See Satchel Power PAck or Power Backpack for prolonged fire.
Smartgun system : why not ?
Laser sight : it will work fine, even better than with a firearm since there is no drop with a laser
Silencer/Suppressor : forget it, there is no expanding gases to slow/stop. A laser is almost silent, but you may have some crackling due to air ionisation but it's probably less noise than a bullet moving through the air. Air is not perfectly transparent, there is dust and/or water droplets or smoke that will diffuse the beam a little bit and briefly show... if you are able to see the wavelength of the laser - an infrared laser won't show up unless you have thermographic vision. They most likely fire a "blast" (either a continous beam sustained for a short duration, or a burst of very short pulses), too short in duration to be "walked" across a target. A Thermal suppressormay help to hide the weapon itself building up heat when fired repeatedly, but since there is neither a muzzle flash nor a gas burst to begin with, it would be closer to Signature Masking

firing mode change : it might be done, but would need a complete redesign of the weapon to both speed up battery discharge and improve cooling. Since weapon-grade lasers are probably already quite maxed out there, I dont think it's doable as a retrofit.

extended clip : one can assume laser battery paks are already quite maxed in power density, increasing the number of shoots would either require a hideously expensive pack, or an increase in bulk proportional to the increase in capacity.

Laser sight : piece of cake, your only concern is to line it up properly. You could even have a two-stages trigger, with a light pressure shooting a 'pointer' beam and full pressure releasing a full power shot

smartlink : no problem here, it's even simpler than projectile weapons as you won't have to bother with projectile drop and the like.

silencer/thermal : the only noise from the weapon is caused by the air heated by the beam on it's way. The only way to reduce it is to reduce the beam's power - which means lowering the damage.

Laser Sights would definitely be valid. Not all lasers operate on a wavelength in the visible spectrum.
Smartgun Systems would have to be reprogrammed for a laser system.
Silencers wouldn't be needed, these aren't the "blaster" weapons from star wars or similar fiction.
The smell of ozone is another matter entirely.

What's wrong with "physically enlarging the clip"? That's the same for slug-throwers – the ammunition isn't getting smaller.

The real issue is that it's much harder to manufacture those non-standard-issue batteries than to manufacture non-standard-issue clips.

I vote no. Laser Technology is still state of the art technology in SR. If a semi-automatic discharge is the most peak power power cells in SR canhandle, then fully automatic firing is simply impossible. Yeah, I said it: impossibe.



I vote no here as well. Reason: Those specialized, optimized battery packs already exist in the arsenal and are readily available for players already, even without the need for further modification. The only thing this mod would "achieve" is to pretend it was reasonable to press the poower output of a satchel sized battery into a clip-sized battery. That's nonsense.



It wouldn't be standrad, but it would be plausible, especially since it is already available as a top-mounted accessoire. I woud allow it, but I would also think it's stupid to use that mod, as a regular top-mounted smartlink would be cheaper, with the same efficienty.



See smartlink above.



Are they silent to begin with? Up until the point where they interact with something. Depending on the power of the Laser, they can be very loud on impact. Any sufficiently weapons grade laser would be about comparable to yoour average handgun.

Can they be silenced? No. The noise does not emit from the weapon but from the point of impact. It is impossible to silence them.

Would a thermal suppressor work? Lasers are directed energy weapons. You won't have much of a heat signature from your weapon to begin with (although the power packs might get pretty hot, you could argue that thermal dampening on the power packs would help a bit. I'd call this a matter of house rulings, though)

I thought it was just the M1 garand that had clips I thought most modern firearms had removable box magazines.

The Shadowrun terminology for a detachable box magazine is "clip".

Yeah, Go Figure...

Keep the Faith

I don't think it would be impossible, but I definitely think that it would turn the weapon into a heap of red hot slag at the least, or cause it to explode.

Why would one even need smartlink/laser-sight?
Isn't laser-weaponry basically the pinnacle of point and shoot?
You don't have to deal with gravity or wind moving your projectiles.
There ARE no projectiles. And the shot goes off and hits in the same femto second, due to speed of light.
So you don't need to lead your shot either.

Sure, but knowing exactly where your weapon is pointing is helped by a laser sight or a smartlink.

Ah, right @.@

try an experiment. get a laser pointer and try hitting a target no more than 3" diameter from at least 25yrds, then 50 then 100 yrds. In high energy military lasers other smaller lasers are used for aiming. I seem to remember ABL uses 3; two lasers for aiming/beamshape and the third is the one that causes damage. Also, gravity and wind are generally only factors in long range shooting (long range for each firearm). Finally, a laser sight only helps in closerange anyway; if the bullet dropps 10" or a few feet laser sights will not help.

I want to know why you even need an exotic weapon skill to use a laser. Like Stahlseele, said it's the ultimate in point and shoot. I would say that you need the skill... unless you have a smartlink and then you just use the skill of the form factor of the laser (use pistol skill for Redline, automatics for the rifle)

Exactly because it doesn't work like a slug-thrower.

Clearly the laser weapons need their own special customizations.

*Laser Customization I - Allows the laser to be colored as you see fit, from any color in the rainbow.
*Laser Customization II - Laser changes color through patterns while firing, can be synchronized to music.
*Sound FX Kit - The laser plays Hollywood style laser sound effects every time the trigger is pulled. Programmable.
*Laser Disguise Kit - Replaces the default laser gun frame with a mockup body imitating Hollywood/Video game laser guns.

That would be the Custom Look Modification…

Pew pew!

Hence the reason I said if you have the weapon smartlinked then you don't need the skill.

Without the smartlink, the person firing it might have problems.

They are in general easier to use, and would require even less training then guns. Also if you can point a pistol, you CAN point a laser pistol. If can you point a laser pistol, you 'may' not be able to point a regular one.

No recoil, no draft from wind and gravity, no smoke from the barrel, no loud bang and muzzle flash to distract. Practically no reach limit either.

Only because the devs learned everything they know about firearms from "The A Team".

Firing Selection Change: Th is modifi cation is not available
for weapons using unusual loading mechanisms or exotic
ammunition, like the Sakura Fubuki or Pain Inducer.

I'm surprised so many people forget the first line of the firing selection change mod description. No, a laser definitely has exotic ammunition so you can't mod it to fire faster.

A smartgun or laser sight would be fine, but extended clip just doesn't work, you don't have a clip, you have a battery. The way you get more shots is hitching your laser up to a bigger power source, aka, backpack or whatever other RAW laser batteries there are, or just plugging it into a house and having fun.

Lasers are completely silent to begin with (unless of course you get the Sound FX Kit ) so a silencer isn't going to help you at all with sounds coming from your muzzle, and I don't think there's anything you can do about the sound of impact. I could see the price of a thermal suppressor being used to pay for making your laser fire infrared instead of a visible beam.

Technically, a laser does not use ammunition. And neither does the Pain inducer. I'd applay that line to things like the gauss rifles. Now THAT is exocit ammunition.
And if i can draw on a battery to fire one shot, then why can i not minimize the time between the draw and the release with better batteries/capacitators?

Because the system has to cool off after firing. This is a state-of-the-art weapon, it has the best batteries and capacitors that money can buy. Trying to make this thing fire any faster is just going to make it melt. Plus, your point about it having no ammunition is moot, because as you said, the Pain Inducer has no ammunition either and it is mentioned specifically as a weapon that cannot get a Firing Selection Change in the description of Firing Selection Change.

and the differance in a laser weapon that has overheated and one that hasnt is one works and the other doesnt. probably no hazards to the operator. Those darn crystals dont like to give up thier heat.

I have to agree on firing selection... SA is about as fast as you're going to get.


If someone seriously was interested in more, I could only see them forming a 'gatling' laser in some kind of a heavy vehicle mount.


Also, something I had to point out to someone was the missile defense system states you gain +4 for a laser, or +2 for less exotic automatic weaponry. So the laser does not have to be full auto to be usefull there. (still doesn't hurt to be pulling vehicle power instead of backpack power).

I disagree. I'd say that even if you hacked the laser and disabled the safeties to try and get more speed out of it, not only would the laser not fire faster for any length of time, it would then fatally overheat with a possibility of discharging its shot in a random direction.

The reason I'm so against giving lasers Firing Selection Change capability is A) by the wording of the mod it is specifically not intended for use in laser weapons and B) Lasers don't get recoil, so without anything more than the FSC mod you now have a weapon that can fire 16P damage in a full auto burst at AP -half with no recoil. And if FSC is allowed, why not the High Velocity mod? It's just firing even faster right? So now it's 18P damage at AP -half, for 28,600:nuyen:, or about 11 BP at chargen for the nuyen and the quality to buy it, plus a backpack battery for another 2200 nuyen and the quality, so about 17 BP total for a weapon that, while expensive, can take out military attack helicopters in one shot. If this sounds broken to you, it is.

If you have a RAW quote for this fire away otherwise,

I have recently worked in the lab at work on a laser and and have been delving into lasers in general to support this. When things get too hot they stop lineing up just right, crystals start warping and defocusing the beam. When lasing materials overheat even more the optical coatings can melt, the crystals themselfs can change enough so they no longer are an optical gain medium. When that happens it just stops working. Lasers are not like firearms where there is explosive pressure that has to go somewhere; when the parts of a laser are not in tolerance the energy input just becomes heat, which is easily dissapated. no random discharges, no explosions.

There is only one way I can see someone making a Laser rifle fire bursts... multiple barrels (Gatling config) and backpack power supply. Fire one barrel, rotate to a fresh barrel, rinse and repeat.

This turns a "cheap" weapon into something a little more INSANE.

INSANELY HEAVY. there are no barrels for lasers like there are for firearms, so that would be multiple whole units. Could be interesting for vehicles perhaps.

IMO the peak discharge batteries, and similar, that laser weapons use qualifies as a form of exotic ammo.

My favorite part of this thread so far was the proposed Color Change mod.

*snickers*

That said, I had really hoped for more in the way of my having missed rules, but I suppose this is one area in which logic actually is the deciding factor for once.

~Umidori

No, I don't have RAW on this, mostly because by RAW it's not legally allowed to happen. I'm assuming a house rule here. By RAW, you can't modify a laser to shoot faster with a Firing Selection Change because it has exotic ammunition (I don't possibly see how you could dispute this). I don't know too much about lasers except that they're made of light and they burn/melt things so maybe your allignment scenario is more realistic, I'm just saying that lasers shouldn't be allowed to go above SA mode because to allow them to do so would be unbalancing.

How about additional clip? This should work. Even if there are no better batteries, you should still be able to attach more than one.

Because of their ammo rules, there'd probably have to be some tweaking, but otherwise that mod should be acceptable.

Might wanna house rule that the Ares Redline doesn't suffer the -25% ammo loss per magazine pistols take since the peak discharge batteries don't come any smaller. As a side effect, up the concealability by +3 instead of +2.

On top of that, it'd also likely be house ruled that the Ares MP Laser 3 only gets a +50% for the extra peak discharge battery since it already has the capacity for two. GMs could allow the mod to be taken one additional time (for 4 slots total) to get the typical double ammo capacity from the peak discharge batteries. The mod description is pretty specific that you're making space for an additional clip (i.e., singular, only one). More generous GMs can let this slide; one mod allowing for two more peak discharge batteries to be added to double the ammo capacity as the mod intends.

The Ares Heavy MP Laser probably wouldn't be able to take this mod since it does not seem it can take the peak discharge batteries at all, requiring a more robust power source.

The Additional Clip mod doesn't need to be houseruled, per se, in regards to the 50% ammo increase.

The mod adds a clip, it doesn't double the ammo. If you only have one clip to begin with, naturally adding a second one offers twice the shots. However, if you start with two clips and add a third, you still only gain one clip's worth, even if the ammo total is increased by 50%.

Although, really, if you're willing to suffer the concealability penalty, you might as well just use the satchel pack instead. Size and weight of a canteen? That should be around a +2 for the pack itself at best, and you get 30 power points instead of the 10 of a clip. You get the same total amount of ammo that you'd get from adding a third clip. Instead of making the already bulky assault rifle even more noticable with a non-removable mod, just stick the satchel under a lined coat to drop its modifier to +0.

Oh hey. Quick, tangential question.

Can a weapon have and benefit from both a Camouflage Shroud and a Chameleon Coating?

The one breaks up the silhouette of the weapon, while the other adaptively changes the colors of the now-disrupted silhouette? So for example a Woodland shroud makes the gun itself physically resemble a leafy branch, while the Chameleon Coating allows it to change color to suit the environment? (Change the normal leaf green segments to autumn colors / mask movement of the gun by changing as it moves.) Similarly, an Urban shroud would disguise the gun to resemble an article of clothing, a bag, some rubbish or trash, a household object, a cardboard box, et cetera, and the Chameleon Coating would again let it change its design and coloration?

~Umidori

Would not including a tank of compressed gas coolant work? Release some over the internals of the laser while firing at higher rates to bleed off the heat? Just a thought.

So, a laser can blast 8 times in 3 seconds with no problem for a guy with 4 IP, but if you fire a couple 3 burst streams in that same 3 second period in one IP, it melts? Seems suspect.

Even with a battery pack, a fully automatic assault would discharge a whole 20 kg power backpack from a redline pistol in less than 10 seconds at full HV. About 17 seconds on FA. That means that it can maintain a beam, on the weak side of the equation, for a max of 17 solid seconds. Not that hard to pull off if you look into modern military laser tech. Besides, it's both costly and leaves your without a weapon at the end since I doubt you're wandering around with spare, massive backpacks. So, I've got no problem with an overclocked laser weapon. It's not like the opposition couldn't follow suit against appropriate threats. It's all a matter of efficiency of ammo consumption.

Burning a 300 nuyen clip in an IP is no less effective or messed up than dropping 400 nuyen for a DMSO + Slab combo for that instant takedown. Even half AP is going to be less than CP in most every case, plus you don't need an exotic proficiency to work capsule rounds.

Why would it have to be the whole unit? The only thing you would need is the barrel and maybe the heat sink. The aiming mechanism doesn't need to be replicated. The backpack would be "compartmentalized" to fire the multiple lasers.

I'll agree with that.

The 'heart' of a laser is the lasing material. Whatever type it is, solid, gas, that is part of the system that needs cooling after each shot. So you'd need multiple lasing chambers.

Which is not that much unlike gatling-style mini-guns. The heart of a standard firearm is the firing chamber. Most miniguns have one firing chamber per barrel.

The aiming mechanism on a minigun isn't replicated per barrel, nor is the ammo feed.


-np

I still want to know what these weapons look like.

Think about the gattling laser from fallout 3
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/...tling_Laser.png

And if that same four IP guy shoots it would be 24.... certainly more than enough to fry the system. The rules as they are can't represent rates of fire accurately. A more accurate ROF houserule for lasers could be that 'no matter what, the thing can't fire more than 'x' times in a round without an overheating shutdown. If you're into FASA, you might even want to retrofit the 'mech overheat chart from battletech.

i can help with that:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2278/225235...dd4fc534f_b.jpg

Sorry, that is what I meant. I just made the assumption that people would know that the lasing material would be in the "barrel" of the weapon.

The whole reload/ammo cap thing is what really puts the kibosh on such a scenario. If a character tried that with an ares MP Laser 3, each of those shots takes double ammo. That means the character has just discharged the lion's share of his entire rare and expensive Power Backpack in a single combat pass just to grab an extra 2DV per shot. If a character wants to do that in my game, and then continue to carry around his massively heavy totally conspicuous 14,200¥ weapon system around, or just ditch it and eat the lost yen, I don't particularly care. A loadout like an FA laser has very limited utility and can be fairly easily substutued for with other equipment which is cheaper and easier to acquire. An Ares Redline Pistol modified to FA with a 30-charge hip pack loses to an MGL-12 full of White Phosphorous 9/10 times. So, I don't care if a player wants to beam away with a laser pistol. It's mostly a stylistic choice.