[Torg] Theoretical Discussion on Plasmatic Ammunitions

[Jerry S Fisk]

Greetings Everyone,

   Long weekend by myself.  :(  It let my mind wonder back to the 
days of good play time with friends.  :)  And I decided to write 
about some of the things that at that time I see was, "outrages," at 
the time.  But hey we were teenagers just wanting to play and did not 
care about logistics.  Ok, ok, some of you know that is not true 
about me.  So, any ways lets get to the discussion.

      Well, plasmatic rounds for some of you who are new here or have 
not played in a while are from the Tharkhold realm.  Page 118 of the 
TK Source book describes these rounds as having the following 
properties.  A firearm ammunition outfitted to be a plasma round 
increases its damage by +1 and damages all opponents in a 2 meter 
radius blast.  That is right.  The plasma round has a blast radius of 
2 meters or 6 feet.  Making it a 12 foot diameter blast.  Incredible 
I know.  A single shot 9/Gam Snub Pistol Tech 25/Dmg 15(16 plasma 
round)/Ammo 9 could take out a door or other light obstacles out of your way.

      As the descriptions on page 118 says "The effect when firing 
automatic weapons is impressive, and a chain gun firing plasma rounds 
has to be seen to be believed."  I whole heatedly agree with this.  I 
wish I could see something like that.  :(  Earlier in the same 
passage it mentions that each round has a nanotech laser trigger that 
causes a micro fusion blast when the built in control circuits detect 
proximity to the target.

      This tells me that each round of ammunition has two basic 
components in its construction.  First it has a fusion 
charge.  Second it has a control chip to detect proximity and trigger 
the blast.  So, these rounds never make penetration and the true 
damage of a plasma round comes from the concussion and burn 
effects.  Yes, I know that even with a concussion effect you can 
still get a hole through the body with the proper shaping of the 
charge.  But with the blast radius would this be the case?  Would the 
micro fusion blast be shaped enough to do that?  How far away could 
the control circuit's proximity sensor be programmed?

      If I can get a little ghoulish here.  What if the proximity 
sensor was programmed to go off late?  While the round is within the 
victim?  You would still get a blast and damage to others, but your 
original target would be history.  It sounds like something the 
demons of the realm may come up with.  I know some of my characters 
would do it for S&Gs.  Seeing the demons fly apart like the worms on 
"Tremors."  He would probably have one of those umbrella hats as an 
incidental equipment item. :)

      Lets turn our attention to the shotgun shell.  I am not going 
to open up the whole shotgun can again.  I know that there was a 
lengthy discussion about the mechanics  and so forth for it.  Albeit 
many years ago, that is.  I just want to focus on the shells.  Lets 
say a Ultracad designer liked the shot gun and made a pattern.  He 
then made the pattern for a slug and traditional scatter shot 
shells.  He wanted to make a plasma version of the two shells.  I see 
that the slug variety would be created similar to the ammunition of 
other hand guns.  Personally I would not see a reason to make this 
shell, but if the character liked it he would make it any 
ways.  Which leaves the scatter shot shell being the more popular to create.

      If my memory and limited knowledge of this kind of shell is 
accurate.  The shell is composed of the outer shell called the 
jacket.  The jacket houses hundreds of pellets packed in with 
gunpowder.  When the rear of the jacket is struck.  It ignites the 
powder, sending the pellets out the barrel of the gun.  Pretty 
straight forward.  Well in Tharkhold they do not use powder.  On page 
117 of the TKSB  they use case less ammunition with integral 
propellant charges.  Instead of a mechanical firing system they use 
an electronic one.

      So, how would a scatter shot be made then?  Lets look at a pump 
action shotgun.  You load the shells basically into the pump portion 
of the gun I believe.  Sorry, I do not know much about these guns and 
I am guessing.  But if that is case you could do the same with the 
Tharkhold version of the shotgun.  However instead of shells, you 
would be putting pellets.  Like in a BB gun.  This one I do know 
about. ;)  When making the pumping action what you are actually doing 
is moving an amount of pellets into the firing chamber.  The rest of 
the firing is as normal.  A plasma variant of this would be just as 
impressive as an auto fire weapon I would believe.  The blast radius 
I do not see as being any larger and the individual pellets would 
probably have a sync proximity detection system for not only the 
target by the rest of the pellets.

      Since this scatter shot is nothing but pellets.  What would 
happen if some CE fire arms comes across these pellets and mistakes 
them for normal shotgun pellets and then proceeds to load them into 
jackets?  Would the firing of the shotgun cause the gun to blow up in 
face of the person firing the gun?  Or would the pellets just act as 
regular pellets?

      What about a BB gun?  The BB gun uses compressed air to fire 
the BB.  Would this activate the pellet?  I personally do not think 
so since there is no electronic ignition system saying "go."  But 
would the integral propellant fire if its on bard control chip 
detects rapid motion?

      There is the whole issue of if the character doing the firing 
is Tech 23 or 26.  And if a Tech 23 weapon can even use Tech 26 
ammunition.  I leave that to all of you to decide and discuss.

      Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoy this 
discussion.  TTFN and have a Safe and Happy Halloween! :) 
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