Pyaload Questions for Weapons

Medieval fantasy mechs powered by steam, magic, or the labor of a thousand slaves.

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Guesty the Guest

Pyaload Questions for Weapons

Post by Guesty the Guest »

Haha, here I am again causing trouble. I was just wondering about payload. It says a weapon's PUs take into account payload for ranged weapons. However, what do you feel would be a good amount of payload? For example, 30 bolts for a balalista? I couldn't find anything in the rules about this, so I was just wondering if I missed them or its just up to the players to decide.
Reese
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Post by Reese »

i would say, go by weight

if you figure 1 PU counts as X amount of weight

check page 87; on coal storage...

convert 1 PU to store 1/2 ton of coal

or; store up to 1000 pounds of coal in 1 PU

figure you can get about as much ammuniiton, by weight, into a single PU of ammo storage

i would also say any weapon should include 1 'magazine' of ammo in it's PU requirements... say a group of 10 or 20 ammo, depending on rate of fire. allowing for 1 minute(10 rounds) of continuous fire sounds fair
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
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Reese
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Post by Reese »

i'm surprised that noone else has said anything...

anywho, to go further on the above, you could find the relative densities of coal and whatever it is you want to store (iron is much denser, for instance, but balista bolts, which are primarily wood, would be about the same) and adjust the ammount of ammo that can be stored by weight accordingly

for instance, 1 PU holds about 1000 pounds of coal; if iron has twice the density of coal, then you might adjust it so that you can hold 500 pounds of iron ammunition

i googled up a nice table here:

http://www.mcelwee.net/html/densities_o ... rials.html

the table does include iron, coal, and wood (multiples of each, different types)

iron (figure most steam cannon ammo will be cast iron) at 7.207
coal (bunch of types, i have no idea which is typically sued in steam power, so i picked the most 'average' one) at 1.346
wood (i picked the one most likely to be used in disposable arms, pine being both straight and cheap) .65

so iron is 72/13 approx 5.5
and wood is 7/13 approx 1/2

so you could say 6 times as much iron as coal, or 5500 pounds
and 1/2 times as much wood as coal, or 500 pounds

more favorable to steam gun ammo, and less favorable to balista ammo

for things that don't stack as neatly as balista bolts and iron balls, you would obviously be storing less

that, of course, assumes that the ammunition weighs as much as a real version of it would
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
Guesty the Guest

Post by Guesty the Guest »

Thats the problem though, its not really that I want storage, its that I want storage FOR ammo. And ammo takes up different space not only by weight but by shape. For example baslista bolts are long, while cannon balls are very compact. Also in the rules it says assume that the pus for ranged weapons include ammo. I mean these things are mobile fortresses and weapons. So I'm thinking they would have enough ranged ammunation for more then one minute of fire. I'm wondering how anyone even made mechs without wondering about this!

It also says the Javelin Rack has 10 foot long javelins as ammo! Thats quite a large amount of space!
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Re: Pyaload Questions for Weapons

Post by mythfish »

Guesty the Guest wrote:Haha, here I am again causing trouble. I was just wondering about payload. It says a weapon's PUs take into account payload for ranged weapons. However, what do you feel would be a good amount of payload? For example, 30 bolts for a balalista? I couldn't find anything in the rules about this, so I was just wondering if I missed them or its just up to the players to decide.
I would take a different strategy than Reese and say "Um, yeah, 30 bolts sounds pretty reasonable." :)
Reese
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Post by Reese »

Guesty the Guest wrote:Thats the problem though, its not really that I want storage, its that I want storage FOR ammo. And ammo takes up different space not only by weight but by shape. For example baslista bolts are long, while cannon balls are very compact. Also in the rules it says assume that the pus for ranged weapons include ammo. I mean these things are mobile fortresses and weapons. So I'm thinking they would have enough ranged ammunation for more then one minute of fire. I'm wondering how anyone even made mechs without wondering about this!

It also says the Javelin Rack has 10 foot long javelins as ammo! Thats quite a large amount of space!
when you consider that a PU doesn't have to take up a specific shape (a one PU storage space for javelin rack bolts may be 10 foot long narrow tube!)

and when you stack enough of one thing in one place, thier shape doesn't make much of a difference in storage, especially since both balls and bolts are basically spheres and cylinders... which can be stacked together with very little wasted space

the sad fact is that, in terms of cargo hauling, mr goodman didn't give us much more to work with than half a ton of coal per PU
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
Reese
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Post by Reese »

heh, whups, forgot that other section <_<

the secton on PU indicates how much weight/space a mech can hold

considering the least dense stuff you're going to carry around is wood, just go by weight, since one PU = a 6 foot cube, and allows the carrying of up to 1000lbs (2000 if you have the proper add-on)

so, yeah, it also says that a weapon's PU cost includes ammo storage area unless otherwise noted
(i still say that enough ammo for five minute of continuous fire sounds about right for what a weapon should store as part of the PU cost... yes, i did raise that from 1 minute, 10 shots per siege weapon sounds a little low on second thought, and that's with the fastest fire rates only)

in case you're wondering about the number of 5 minutes i arrived at... sailing ships often stored cannon balls on 'monkeys' that could hold 25 balls in a 5x5 grid, and you could stack 16 on that in 4x4, and so on, and this comes out to 55 balls... the smallest cannon (fires every round, it is presumed) would probably be firing similar sized shot, which makes a loaded monkey the ideal ammo storage device, taking the top 2 layers from that would reduce a tendancy for the top of the pyramid of balls to fall and roll away, the top two rows (1x1 and 2x2) would be 5 balls, leaving 50 balls

i noticed, however, that weapon rates of fire are not listed for javelin rack and steam cannon (and all catapults and balistae seem to have a 1 round RoF with full crew)
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
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