Saturday, 13 February 2016

Playbook: High-Cyclic Controlled Bursts for Ultra-Tech Guns

GURPS High-Tech has a great little rule where some guns can fire "high-cyclic controlled bursts". For those who haven't read the book, this is when a gun fires several rounds so quickly after each other that they all leave the barrel before the has moved due to recoil, giving the entire burst Recoil 1. GURPS Ultra-Tech was written before this rule was devised, so lacks rules for them, even though it explicitly mentions that ultra-tech firearms can stack cartridges within the barrel for ultra-fast firing speeds! So I wrote some quick rules to fix this.

Conventional Firearms
In general, caseless firearms can have an alternate fire mode which allows them fire high-cyclic controlled bursts at one-third their normal rate of fire (round down). If this number comes out to 1 or less, they cannot fire high-cyclic controlled bursts. This modification adds +0.5 CF.

Alternatively, a caseless firearm can be built with a replaceable barrel, containing cartridges stacked up end-to-end, allowing the gun to fire high-cyclic controlled bursts at half their normal rate of fire (round up). This modification halves magazine capacity, doubles reloading time, doubles weight and cost of empty magazines and decreases Malf. by 1. At TL10, the magazines are normal weight and cost and there is no effect on Malf. +1 CF, but this replaces the CF for the modification above.

Binary liquid propellant firearms cannot fire high-cyclic controlled bursts.

Electromagnetic Guns
Electromagnetic guns can fire high-cyclic controlled bursts at one-third their normal rate of fire (round down) at no additional cost. If this number comes out to 1 or less, they cannot fire high-cyclic controlled bursts.

An additional modification (+0.5 CF) allows electromagnetic guns to fire high-cyclic controlled bursts at half their rate of fire (round down).

Incompatible Weapons
Gas-powered air guns, grav guns and gyrocs cannot use high-cyclic controlled bursts at all.

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