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Of course, there is the fact that if a lasgun is a laser it does not follow the rules for laser for example:
It is slower than the speed of light It is visible in a vacuum
It could be similar to SW Turbolasers in which case a laser is used to stimulate whatever it is that is shot (Tibanna Gas in SW).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/18 11:35:21
Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
Orks always ride in single file to hide their strength and numbers.
Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, Gozer the Traveler, and Lord of the Sebouillia
Happyjew wrote: Of course, there is the fact that if a lasgun is a laser it does not follow the rules for laser for example:
It is slower than the speed of light
It is visible in a vacuum
It could be similar to SW Turbolasers in which case a laser is used to stimulate whatever it is that is shot (Tibanna Gas in SW).
QFT
And this is what i mean the people of games workshop created a gun that shoots "lasers" but they have no actual knowledge of how lasers work so the lasgun may be called a laser but cant be from every fluff and game play angle they have ever released of its inner workings. A laser would move at the speed of light which means it can not be seen or dodged, if it was ever weaponized in the future it would still be more expensive no matter what kind of tech they have than to arm them with conventional weapons i.e. slug throwers. Which means either games works shop has no clue what they are talking about or they made the imperium like are modern day goverment who would spend $50,000 on a hammer instead of $5 to do the same thing. And when you are talking about billions of hammers well thats just a waste and no wonder they are losing to the dark powers that be.
... the government doesn't actually spend $500 on a hammer, that's just what the receipts say. They spend $5 on the hammer, the other $495 funds the NSA or even more-shadowy organizations for which acronyms don't exist yet.
But, yes, that's pretty much it. It's a sci-fi weapon in a sci-fi game from an era where the ideas of weaponizing a beam of light was still very much a fictional scenario for the vast majority of people. It's called a laser weapon because lasers are sci-fi and sci-fi is cool. They don't even attempt to explain how they work beyond the most basic "E-cell goes here, squeeze trigger, killy-light comes out here". There's absolutely no scientific consideration given to its actual functionality, and they even made up a word to sound sciency, as Gene Roddenberry did, because it sounded good. As we see in other places (especially the cellular and personal computing industries) our science is starting to catch up to our dreams.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/18 17:16:53
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Lasers are pretty terrible weapons if you want to kill someone, a microwave emitter is much better if...spectacularly messy.
Midnightdeathblade wrote: Think of a daemon incursion like a fart you don't quite trust... you could either toot a little puff of air, bellow a great effluvium, or utterly sh*t your pants and cry as it floods down your leg.
But maybe someday there might actually be something like a lasgun for real who knows? I mean 40,000 leagues under the sea was published in 1870 way before they actually knew how to make anything like a nuclear sub. But you know what if they ever did make a lasgun that worked I would rather take couple of flashlights and tape them together because then it would be the same str but twin-linked.
starraptor wrote: But maybe someday there might actually be something like a lasgun for real who knows? I mean 40,000 leagues under the sea was published in 1870 way before they actually knew how to make anything like a nuclear sub. But you know what if they ever did make a lasgun that worked I would rather take couple of flashlights and tape them together because then it would be the same str but twin-linked.
We can't change physics no matter how hard we try, so better to use a Microwave gun and make people combust and explode into a beautiful fountain of meat chunks, blood, and bone chips (ever put a bug in a microwave?) than fiddle with anti-personnel lasers.
Unless the Geneva conventions comes in and ruins all the fun and denies us our people exploding weapons.
Although it is said that death by microwave beam is perhaps the single most agonizing demise possible.
Midnightdeathblade wrote: Think of a daemon incursion like a fart you don't quite trust... you could either toot a little puff of air, bellow a great effluvium, or utterly sh*t your pants and cry as it floods down your leg.
Although the power pack would make a better bomb as a weapon, and standard firearms are going to be more efficient for small arms, it's not the absurd numbers people have been quoting earlier in this thread.
And when you get to larger weapons, particle beams and lasers are not in the realms of fantasy, but actual science fiction.
Also, energy is energy. A laser delivering 17 kilojoules applies the same damage as a BMG .50 cal delivering the same, as all it is doing is transferring energy. If the projectile weapon goes straight through, it isn't even applying that energy fully to the target; if it knocks the target down, it's energy is going into knocking it down.
It would take a 130 kJ weapon to have the same effect as 31 grams of TNT, or equivalent to an anti-personnel landmine.
Although the power pack would make a better bomb as a weapon, and standard firearms are going to be more efficient for small arms, it's not the absurd numbers people have been quoting earlier in this thread.
And when you get to larger weapons, particle beams and lasers are not in the realms of fantasy, but actual science fiction.
Also, energy is energy. A laser delivering 17 kilojoules applies the same damage as a BMG .50 cal delivering the same, as all it is doing is transferring energy. If the projectile weapon goes straight through, it isn't even applying that energy fully to the target; if it knocks the target down, it's energy is going into knocking it down.
It would take a 130 kJ weapon to have the same effect as 31 grams of TNT, or equivalent to an anti-personnel landmine.
Simple, a Microwave causes immense, all consuming pain and then rapidly boils all the water in your body until you and your friends near you explode, causing a tremendous morale hit.
Of course the killjoys at Geneva will probably ban it.
Midnightdeathblade wrote: Think of a daemon incursion like a fart you don't quite trust... you could either toot a little puff of air, bellow a great effluvium, or utterly sh*t your pants and cry as it floods down your leg.
Just saying, a laser beam powerful enough to cause damage would refract in air, so if you fired it in dim light you would actually see a light beam from gun to target. No idea if it would be visible enough to see in sunlight though.
And I agree. The previous post answers the question. I'm done here.
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BrianDavion wrote: Between the two of us... I think GW is assuming we the players are not complete idiots.
Rapidly on path to becoming the world's youngest bitter old man.
Here is some stats from the Inquisitor Rule book which is a lot better at putting fluff into rules than 40K.
All normal las weapons (ie pistols and rifles) have a damage of 2d6, they are all have between 30 - 60 shots per clip and are whole more accuate at range than an autogun.
The autogun holds 30 rounds and does 2D6+2 damage so a little better.
"Las weapons work by firing a blast of highly charged light which transforms into heat and KINETIC energy upon impact, causing tissue damage and burning"
"Las weapons work by firing a blast of highly charged light which transforms into heat and KINETIC energy upon impact, causing tissue damage and burning"
Retconned,
"Lasweapons work by emitting short, sharp pulses of laser energy from high storage, fast discharge capacitors with a flash of light and a distinctive snap like the cracking of a whip." Only War, page 175
Probably because photons don't pack a lot of kinetic punch.
3rd Ed had yet a different description again for it, IIRC that was the 'blast chunks off'' description.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2013/07/19 03:03:14
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
GW don't invalidate old publications and only war's description does not contradict the 2ed one, as 'energy burst' is a vague description that could refer easily to a pulse laser.
3rd edition was done to a much more imperial in-universe perspective compared with the omniscient narrator in the 2nd book so the 2nd edition wargear book is still more true, as the 3rd ed description is closer in the scale to the uplifting primer, this is less reliable.
The 2nd ed book clearly states its power is on par with a tradition bullet firearm or small shell.
GW also doesn't care much for this level of detail in various licensed products. If you go by Only War, the Vostroyan Firstborn suddenly also recruit women, yet I very much doubt their description will change in the next Codex. The same goes for the Deathwatch's organisation, the proliferation of lasgun power settings, or the nature of the SoB's powers.
The same also goes for Black Library's Uplifting Primer, which (in spite of me loving the book for its style and humour) I still find hilarious in regards to the level of standardisation it suggests for the Guard.
"Blasting chunks off" is also contained in the 6E rulebook description, which I have quoted on the first page of this thread (and which is newer than Only War).
tl;dr: for a "retcon" there must first be a continuity, but 40k as a franchise works by merely presenting lots and lots of different options for us to pick from.
"Pulsed Energy Projectile or PEP is a technology of non-lethal weaponry currently under development by the U.S. military. It involves the emission of an invisible laser pulse which, upon contact with the target, ablates the surface and creates a small amount of exploding plasma. This produces a pressure wave that stuns the target and knocks them off their feet, and electromagnetic radiation that affects nerve cells causing a painful sensation. The technology can also be used as a lethal weapon, and indeed an early name was Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser (PIKL)."
Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!
"Pulsed Energy Projectile or PEP is a technology of non-lethal weaponry currently under development by the U.S. military. It involves the emission of an invisible laser pulse which, upon contact with the target, ablates the surface and creates a small amount of exploding plasma. This produces a pressure wave that stuns the target and knocks them off their feet, and electromagnetic radiation that affects nerve cells causing a painful sensation. The technology can also be used as a lethal weapon, and indeed an early name was Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser (PIKL)."
Except that they couldn't get it to do that (the kinetic knockdown part), and instead it did this:
"According to a 2003 review of non-lethal weapons by the US Naval Studies Board, which advises the navy and marine corps, PEPs produced "pain and temporary paralysis" in tests on animals. This appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells." New Scientist, March 2005. Meaning it functioned as a more precise version of another mothballed (supposedly) project, the Active Denial System
In 2008 wired ran an article on it again, with the following quote:
"For the past 5 years, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program has been supporting PEP bioeffects work to better understand the PEP mechanism of effect. The research finally concluded that the PEP laser could not reproduce the required waveform characteristic of a non-lethal weapon. The initiative was terminated with respect to this specific laser and laser waveform parameters. However, the JNLWP will leverage the work accomplished in the PEP project for other potential initiatives."
According to some sources, the 'other potential initiatives' apparently include an effort to use it to shoot down drones, according to SFC's 2009 budget, though nothing 'official' has been heard on this since then, so this may be a dead effort.
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
... Only War is also not even a GW publication, it's an FFG release, and to take all of FFG's stuff into consideration, you would have to consider that a bolt-pistol is, while superior in armor penetration to a las-pistol, not significantly superior to a las-pistol in actual stopping power (bolt pistol: 1d10+6 Pen 4, las-pistol: 1d10+2 Pen 0). By any standard, though, the man-portable lascannon is a superior weapon for killing any kind of target (5d10 +10 Pen 10).
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote:[...] that a bolt-pistol is, while superior in armor penetration to a las-pistol, not significantly superior to a las-pistol in actual stopping power
... unless you look at FFG's Space Marine "+1" gear, which for some reason (and contradictory to the stats released by GW themselves) is notably superior even to the stuff that Inquisitors are lugging around. Right up to the flamethrowers which also seem to burn a couple degrees hotter.
But to be fair, the stats in those games, in spite of using a largely similar ruleset, change all the time anyways, which may actually be intentional as they largely seem tied to the theme that one game is portraying, rather than attempting to preserve a continuity across the different game lines. It's why I keep recommending against droing crossovers between, say, DH and DW without serious houseruling.
I think Space Marine bolt pistols had three different statlines for raw damage so far - one in a DH adventure (2d10), another one for the DW core rules (2d10+5), and then its errata (1d10+9).
Oh, indeed. Completely OT... but in our DH games, we've established that all bolt weapons do 2d10 Pen 4 (Tearing) with the Heavy Bolter doing 2d10+6 Pen 6. Astartes weapons just get a bit of a "Best Quality +1" trait to them.
... I also changed the Sisters gear from IHB to more closely match that of the Astartes from DW. Their PA now matches that of a Space Marine, less any bonuses the Marine gets from the Black Carapace or other genetic modifications. It's worked out rather well, as our Sister player learned that she cannot wade into a Horde with just her PA and an Eviscerator and escape injury.
But, definitely agreed on the games being (somewhat) internally balanced, but not really intended to be mixed together.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote:Oh, indeed. Completely OT... but in our DH games, we've established that all bolt weapons do 2d10 Pen 4 (Tearing) with the Heavy Bolter doing 2d10+6 Pen 6. Astartes weapons just get a bit of a "Best Quality +1" trait to them.
That sounds cool. I've been thinking of something like this myself, though more along the lines of 1d10+7, maybe 1d10+9. This is gut feeling only, though. In any way I agree that the difference should lie in the quality of the equipment, reflecting the manufacturer's skill and knowledge, and/or the user's means to get their hands on it.
Psienesis wrote:... I also changed the Sisters gear from IHB to more closely match that of the Astartes from DW. Their PA now matches that of a Space Marine, less any bonuses the Marine gets from the Black Carapace or other genetic modifications. It's worked out rather well, as our Sister player learned that she cannot wade into a Horde with just her PA and an Eviscerator and escape injury.
Sounds cool, too.
I would have otherwise offered up my own take on SoB power armour, which is a bit like a compromise between the "low end" DH gear and the beefed up Astartes stuff, mostly in terms of additional qualities / special features. In DW, the list of special traits alone takes up an entire page or so, after all...
Psienesis wrote:But, definitely agreed on the games being (somewhat) internally balanced, but not really intended to be mixed together.
It's kind of a shame. I understand why they did it and would say it's just a matter of preferences, but personally I just like it when things tie into each other, and I think that a lot of crossover potential went to waste with this form of "tiered gameplay". There are many stories from various sources of fluff that are nigh impossible to "replay" without significant tweaks.
That being said, the good thing with P&P is that you can tweak, and with the right system it can even be fun, too.
The irony is that the Deathwatch as a whole was originally created in part to support mixed groups of SM and normal humans, as GW tells us in the "Using Space Marines" PDF in their Inquisitor resources page.
lasguns arent that bad but judgeing that in the novels the ammunition can explode on the user is what would put me of from using a lasgun
on the table top game lasguns are good but they are underestimated and need better rules and strengths considering it can burn holes into walls but cant penetrate a grot
You have to actually set the las-cell of a lasgun to explode, it's a booby-trap of sorts. It's not a "gets hot!" rule or anything translated into a novel.
Of course, if you happen to have a boltgun in your hand and get hit with a flamer, the ammo in your boltgun is likely to cook off as well, so having your ammo payload blow up in your face is not reserved to las or plasma weapons.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote: ... Only War is also not even a GW publication, it's an FFG release, .
Games Workshop's Allen Merritt (sp?) has started for the record that FFG's stuff is just as canon as any of GW's. (The canonization of FFG's material became a very hot issue with the release of Rogue Trader and the overturning of quite a bit of longstanding BFG canon written by Chambers. )
So, while a lot of the fanbase may or may not agree with it being canon, according to GW's rep it's as canon as any Codex.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/20 00:20:15
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
Still, I'd be interested in a source! From experience, a lot of statements concerning such hotly debated topics are transported via word of mouth or transcripted from memory, occasionally with critical parts being lost or "paraphrased" in a way that falsifies their original intention.
Not saying this is the case here (and it wouldn't really change anything anyways), but I'm still curious as to what exactly Mr. Merrett really said.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/20 00:49:26
Lynata wrote: Which of course means not "canon" at all.
Still, I'd be interested in a source! From experience, a lot of statements concerning such hotly debated topics are transported via word of mouth or transcripted from memory, occasionally with critical parts being lost or "paraphrased" in a way that falsifies their original intention.
Not saying this is the case here (and it wouldn't really change anything anyways), but I'm still curious as to what exactly Mr. Merrett really said.
Ok, went back and sadly do not have the actual quote, though I do have Sam Stewart and several other FFG connected persons including playtesters making reference to it.
I also found my response to the whole thing, from nearly 4 years ago, which makes me look a bit hypocritical in hindsight re FFG as canon: Mind you, this is my personal view on it, not if it is or not.
BaronIveagh wrote:
"But keep in mind, is that what really matters is that the status quo will be forever changed until the story is quietly retconned out of existence." - Cyclops, House of M, Part 4.
Let's see:
Zoats, Squats, Malal, Starchild, Illuminati, imperial jetbikes, human/eldar hybrids, slaan, IG beastmen, fimirs, the entire Empire in Flames Campaign, brainboyz, AdMech robots, Psychaneuein, actual space vampires, Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau, the Sensei, any random Imperial tank in any given edition (currently Conquerors), Space Wolf Leman Russ tanks...
Do you guys want the whole list or just the abbreviated version? Be cause the whole thing is gonna take all night...
The point is that saying 'FFG says GW says that it's OK." means that they talked to a licensing drone who may or may not have ever read a book in his life at a company that even under ideal circumstances has a hard time carrying continuity in a bag. It's rather like how in the DH book it shows the local sector bordering the Scarus sector, and in the RT book that's removed because FFG now wants to claim ships are rare in the surrounding sectors. Despite previously showing it boarders the home of one of the Bastion fleets that has so many ships that they sit in huge mothball yards because the Imperium cannot find enough men to crew them all. (please reflect on how many ships that would have to be, if you cannot press gang enough grunts to crew all your ships in the Imperium of Man.)
Considering that GW is apparently not following any retcons FFG is doing, (see the newer codices) I think it would be better to view FFG's work as an alternate continuity. I suspect that will be GW's eventual stance on it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/20 03:03:38
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
Psienesis wrote: You have to actually set the las-cell of a lasgun to explode, it's a booby-trap of sorts. It's not a "gets hot!" rule or anything translated into a novel.
Of course, if you happen to have a boltgun in your hand and get hit with a flamer, the ammo in your boltgun is likely to cook off as well, so having your ammo payload blow up in your face is not reserved to las or plasma weapons.
in the novel "cadian blood" a guardsman trys to charge his lasrounds when one almost exploded
I'm not sure if you've read my excerpt of collected quotes from people working on the franchise, but from how I understand it, GW's stance seems to lie between how you interpreted it back then and from what you are saying now - in that it's all equally official and valid, just not necessarily "true" with one source being capable of overriding another.
Even the playtesters were supposedly told something like that by FFG themselves, going by this review over at Warseer, although the wording "it's only canon for the RPG" is still a bit muddy for my taste. With how fluid this "canon" is, I'd rather they would avoid using this term at all, as it just evokes false feelings of a consistency that does not really exist.
Distilling such statements, one could say that we all have our own "alternate continuities", their contents based on whatever material we have read. It is of note, though, that these continuities do not run parallel to one another like alternate dimensions, but rather that this term merely applies to 40k as we read it from the various books. Kind of like you get two alternate continuities when reading about some ancient war based on the texts of two different philosophers.
... which ties directly into the explanation Marc Gascogne once wrote, and which Aaron Dembski quoted in this thread.
Also, don't worry about the "hypocrisy" - four years is a long time, and my own stance on the topic has changed in it as well, as a result of some debates on dakka as well as discovering the quotes I linked.
I was operating on hearsay for a very long time, which is why I'm tackling this topic so "aggressively"; I'm still miffed by how the fandom's urban rumours have led me astray.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/07/20 17:02:28
the problem is that it gets even muddier since, contrary to what I wrote above, GW seems to have started adding things from the RPGs to 'Codex' canon. Granted, it's not a whole lot yet, but it's no longer the 'nothing' that it was.
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
Aye, but even the codices are not "canon". That's what I meant with the equality between sources. It's all equally optional.
Gav Thorpe touched upon that exact subject in his blog. GW has always occasionally added bits and pieces from non-studio sources into studio books when they thought it would fit - just like they would ignore stuff that doesn't. For example, I for one do not believe that the Vostroyans will become mixed gender in the next Guard Codex just because that's what FFG liked to print in Only War.
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