ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:That the authors intended to give Archie GB technology as far back as SB 1 thus when the Shemmarian's were introduced the first time it was intended to be just a boom gun that had been slightly modified.
Well they do make a connection between the RG-14 and the Shem Railgun in several ways in SB1.
I am curious. What connections specifically do they make in that book, what are they and what is the page number. Because simply asserting that they exist isn't proof of anything other than that you wish us to take your word for it.
ShadowLogan wrote:Nothing really says that GB technology is required to make a Railgun operate this way, Naruni (Mercenaries) has such a weapon (the Arkhons in SA2 use flechettes).
I really must thank you for this. Really. You could not have proved my case for me better if you had tried.
You have just pointed out another 'similar' rail gun.
So, unless this gun ALSO uses compatible ammunition, then simply being similar to the Boom Gun does not mean that the ammunition is compatible.
The Naruni weapon is 'similar to the Boom Gun' (their words not mine) so is the Shemmarian (which is the defense of compatibility) weapon. It gets worse there as the Naruni are notorious for their proprietary ammunition practices... the idea that they some how be using an absolutely identical in all ways shell, on their tank that is thousands of years old, as the Earth Standard Glitter Boy. Well the chances of that seem to be somewhere between zero and none.
Which leaves us with a binary state either state one ALL similar weapons use identical and thus fully compatible ammunitions , or state two similarity in a weapon is
not proof of ammunition being identical.
Which is it?
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:-That even though the other Shemmarian weapons were explicitly fitted with special custom e-clips to support their alien origin story. A story that is so meticulous that the robots are programed to live the cover even when no one is watching and has been built up to a point where neither Lazlo nor the CS Intelligence branch has noticed anything odd... They slipped up and just used the same ammunition as the boom gun. But amazingly no one has ever noticed.
Well considering the Sunji of Atlantis have managed to keep their secret (not to mention Titan Robotics and the Shems), no I don't find it hard (in game) to believe no on has ever noticed. And it isn't the same ammunition as the boom gun, its compatible ammunition with the boom gun that is the question.
And the Sunaj also use totally different weapons, use no atlantian gear at all, allow none of their gear, weapons, armor or bodies to fall into anyones hands....
And most importantly the Sunaj are smart enough to not run around using an ammunition type that is exclusive to the Aerhiman clan.
Which this would be like.
The GB shell is exclusive to Earth. So an alien race having an identical shell (and it must be identical to be compatable, that is what that means for ammunition to be able to be able to feed through feed mechanisims and then fire properly) would mean that they have used a rare propriatery technology only found on earth... as the core of their alien racial technology. A technology that at a minimum predates the development of the Boom Gun by centuries if not millennia.
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:-That Archie, even though he has personally invented enough new technology to make all of his stuff "alien technology" can't design his own railgun and has to copy the GB one.
Could Archie have designed his own rail gun? Sure. One that takes a rather rare approach? Yes. Could Archie have based his railgun on an existing design? Yes. Could Archie be reusing an old design and just applied cosmetic changes? Yes (Shem Nation does confirms this with other weapons stated to be of "shemarrian origin"). Does Archie make mistakes? Yes (his attempt at playing "god", he hasn't changed any access codes to keep out the Republicans, Titan Robotics use of the Shem weapon w/o disguising it, etc).
Again I would point out that not all of his designs are
just cosmetic. They explicitly state that some weapons are cosmetic and some weapons have cosmetic and modifications.
I would also point out that redesigning a weapon WILL change the ammunition if you want to change the ammunition (which it seems they did)
That is because ammunition needs to be of an exact specification to work in modern weapons.
You need to be of an exact length, diameter, and weight to properly feed through the feed mechinisims.
A rail gun will need the round to have the exact proper length, diameter, weight, and magnetic properties
A discarding flechette system will need to have the ammunition be designed to break apart at the exact proper time in the flight to match the desired ballistic curve and spread pattern.
It would literally be impossible to get the 'long skinny shell with horns' we see in the Shemarrian art and the shorter stubby shotgun shell' we see in GB art and use them in the same feeds. They would jam.
Now it might be possible to say that we should discard art.
But then we are back to "they are using identical ammunition and people will notice"
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:-That even though these weapons are explicitly wildly different than the GB (no boom, no recoil, different damage, different range) they are really the same weapons
We are TOLD though the Shem Railgun has technology that "muffles the sonic boom" and reduces the recoil as far back as the original SB1. Damage/Range could come from the round or the gun itself:
-AT-1053 Rail Cannons (Pg160 WB8) use different explosive shells for their damage (same range)
-GAW Howitzerds & Mortors (MerOps pg128-7) and 120mm Auto-Cannon (pg128) uses different shells (same range)
-BRL-3 Rocket Launcher (SA2 pg82, can use conventional Mini-Missiles but at reduced range and only in direct fire mode)
-Various Stock Missile Systems. Each category of Missile (mini, short, medium, long) comes in variable damage/range, but are nearly always universally compatible which would indicate size wise they are interchangeable. This includes the original damage table users, which are also compatible with the CWC revised
-RT 2E also has a few examples (VHT-1 and Monster Destroid, their artillery cannons feature a selection of variable damage and range rounds they both fire)
And again you are proving my point FOR ME
Every one of your "different damage" ones? All use different rounds. As does every single existing rail gun in the canon that I am aware of. And every single caliber of bullet has a fixed damage. It is almost like the damage of a weapon is highly dependant on the round used or something.
As for the dampener and shock system. Yes we are told about them. But the problem is that pesky conservation of momentum thing.
The stated reason for the Boom and recoil is the vast speed of the shell being fired.
And the reason that it has the range and damage is explicitly based on that speed.
So if there is NOT such a speed and recoil then it can't be going at the same speed.
That sort of rules out the same shells (if nothing else they would break apart at the wrong time, or maybe not at all since they might not have sufficient velocity to 'arm' or 'shed')
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:-That even though the Boom Gun round explicitly uses slugs (long rounded soft objects) and the Shemerian explicitly have shards (which implies that they are sharp quite possibly from a fragmentation casing) that they are really the same exact same thing.
SB1o (pg91) states "It fires a single flechette filled cartridge." So "shards" as you call them are likely poetic descriptions, not technical. RMB (pg219 and repeated in RUE and likely the C&Ps in WB8/22/MiO/WB5) when describing the RG-14 "...acclerate its flechette style rounds...". We know from elsewhere that those flechette style rounds are cylinderical slugs in a filled casing, which matches the Shem. system.
They describe the various flechettes each weapon uses.
GBs use slugs
Shemmarians use shards
Arkons use long thin arrows
They are not the same. They are explicitly described and trying to claim that an actual in line description of the weapon should be ignored because it provides evidence countering a potential house rule is...dubious.
ShadowLogan wrote:eliakon wrote:And that the drawings of the ammunitions are not accurate and that they actually intend to have them look identical. Same length, width, diameter, weight, magnetic values... everything.
We only have measurements for the RG-14 (7.5ft long) and its round (7" long), but not the Shem. 6000 Railgun or its round AFAIK. Given these weapons seem to be compared to the RG-14 it stands to reason they could be using compatible ammunition.
Um we have pictures.
Have you LOOKED at them
The Shemmarian rounds length is more multiples of its width. The Shemmarian round has four long horns on the end. Those two things ALONE are issues.
That is why there is a problem
Because the two pictures do NOT have the same length. The two pictures do NOT have identical features (one has horns one doesn't).
And that is before we get into diameter, weight, magnetic value, spin, timing, how they break, magnetic values (so they can be launched by the rail gun) slugs vs shards and all those other pesky internal things.
JUST the art itself has at least
two points of incompatibility.
So at this point I am to believe that all Glitter Boy Boom Guns, All Naruni Flechette Rail Guns, and All Shemmarian Rail Guns all use identical interchangeable ammunition simply because they are "similar"
Even though every other 'similar' weapon in any other book can (and often does) use different ammunition.
To me this sounds like a Group of PCs trying to argue that the Shemmarian Rail Gun they captured isn't actually out of ammunition and they can just go buy all they want at the store because they are the first people in 300 years to ever notice that the two shells are exactly identical.