 March 10, 2019 - 12:20am | Background: I've already submitted stories to Frontier Explorer magazine looking at grenades, which converts the Zebulon grenades into the Alpha Dawn system, plus gathering information about other grenades that were in Star Frontiersman, Frontier Explorer, and on this website. Part 2 of the story looked at the Zebulon missiles, plus rockets -- both the Alpha Dawn rocket plus those from Tanks a lot! including the guided missile. This story is intended to build upon those earlier works. As yet, it is unfinished, but I would like any feedback or suggestions that anyone has. Update: I am splitting the intended article into two pieces so it is more manageable. Part 2 should incorporate the information on more advanced detection methods, such as using ground penetrating radar, maybe even some sample minefields and minelaying/tending robots. Joe Cabadas |
August 19, 2019 - 11:57am | Mine Clearing Techniques Besides having a character going out into a minefield to clear it of dangerous weapons, an assortment of mine clearing methods are used including mine clearing machines and robots, plus mine-clearing line charges. Mine Clearing Machines. Numerous demining machines have been created over the years. Mounted on character-operated or robotic vehicles, these include tillers tha thave heavy drums fitted with spikes that are meant to destroy or blow up mines near the surface. Some drawbacks of tillers is that they may just push mines farther down into the ground. These types of machines have problems with rocky ground, steep slopes and heavy vegetation. Another demining machine uses flails. Using an arm-like apparatus, flails have rotating drums with chains and weights. Pounding the ground, flails either smash mines, damage them to the point where their firing mechanisms malfunction, throw them up onto the ground, or cause them to explode. Armored vehicles or heavy-duty robots can be equipped with rakes and blades to plough through the ground, pushing mines off to the side. This can clear a path for other vehicles, troops and robots to move through the minefield. This method can destroy fertile land, however. In many cases, mine clearing machines will miss a number of mines, leaving hazards that might not be found until years later. Mine-Clearing Line Charges. Basically, this is similar to the fireline explosive provided for in part 4 of “Things that go boom!” In this case, a large artillery rocket (a weapon that is much larger than a Type III missile and will need to be detailedlater) is fitted with a line charge. The rocket is fired over the minefield and the line charge with 400 kilograms of Tornadium D-19 is deployed. When the line charge explodes, it should clear a path that is 100 meters long and 8 meters wide. Conversely, a line charge could be deployed by a robot or jetcopter, though at the risk of setting off mines such as the grasshopper or locust. Joe Cabadas |
August 19, 2019 - 12:46pm | Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) Rifles. Introduced in Dragon Magazine, a ECM gun fires a beam of magnetic energy. Its main function is to disrupt robots and computers, though it may affect living beings by causing disorders in the iron content of the creature’s blood and by jamming the creature’s neural synapses. It can also scramble the electronics in advanced mines, though ones that use primitive mechanical pressure and tripwire sensors are immune to its effects. To find the chance of disabling a mine or jamming a computer or robot, multiply the number of SEU used by five for a base percentage chance of success. From this base, subtract the level of the computer or robot multiplied by four; this will yield the chance of a malfunction. When a malfunction occurs, roll on the malfunctions table for the results To cause damage to living targets, an expenditure of two SEU is necessary. When firing at vehicles or armor, treat the number of SEU used as the number of dice of damage done when using the damage table. Even if 15 SEU are fired at an armored soldier, the attack still does 5d10 to the wearer, but it is a 15-dice attack for the damage table. Statistics for the ECM Rifle. Cost: 8,000Credits. Mass: 15 kilograms. Damage: 5d10 or jam. SEU Usage: 2-20. Rate: 2. Defense: Gauss. Range: PB 0-10, Short 11-30, Medium 31-100, Long 101-150, Extreme 151-300. Joe Cabadas |
 August 19, 2019 - 1:33pm | Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) Rifles. Introduced in Dragon Magazine, a ECM gun fires a beam of magnetic energy. Its main function is to disrupt robots and computers, though it may affect living beings by causing disorders in the iron content of the creature’s blood and by jamming the creature’s neural synapses. It can also scramble the electronics in advanced mines, though ones that use primitive mechanical pressure and tripwire sensors are immune to its effects. To find the chance of disabling a mine or jamming a computer or robot, multiply the number of SEU used by five for a base percentage chance of success. From this base, subtract the level of the computer or robot multiplied by four; this will yield the chance of a malfunction. When a malfunction occurs, roll on the malfunctions table for the results To cause damage to living targets, an expenditure of two SEU is necessary. When firing at vehicles or armor, treat the number of SEU used as the number of dice of damage done when using the damage table. Even if 15 SEU are fired at an armored soldier, the attack still does 5d10 to the wearer, but it is a 15-dice attack for the damage table. Statistics for the ECM Rifle. Cost: 8,000Credits. Mass: 15 kilograms. Damage: 5d10 or jam. SEU Usage: 2-20. Rate: 2. Defense: Gauss. Range: PB 0-10, Short 11-30, Medium 31-100, Long 101-150, Extreme 151-300. so how many SEU and chance to disable a mine with this weapon? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 19, 2019 - 1:58pm | Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) Rifles. Introduced in Dragon Magazine... . so how many SEU and chance to disable a mine with this weapon? That is something I still need to figure out. I rather dislike the original description for this weapon anyway, but I suppose it is like using a sonic stunner or shock gloves, the target gets a saving roll. I also need to come up with some better stats for the various mine clearing machines. A chance of success, X amount of mines that aren't cleared, etc. Joe Cabadas |
August 20, 2019 - 12:25pm | Here's a revised look: Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) Rifles. Introduced in the January 1988 issue of Dragon Magazine, an ECM Rifle fires a beam of magnetic energy. This is actually a heavy weapon! It was originally created for use by soldiers wearing powered armor, but it can be mounted on a tripod or a vehicle turret. It uses 2-20 SEUs per shot, as determined by the user. The ECM Rifle’s main function is to disrupt robots and computers, though it may affect living beings by causing disorders in the iron content of the creature’s blood and by jamming the creature’s neural synapses. It can also scramble the electronics in advanced mines, though one sthat use primitive mechanical pressure and tripwire sensors are immune to its effects. The chances of disabling an electronic device is based on the amount of energy that is used. To determine the base chance o fsuccess, multiply the number of SEUs used by five. Computers, robots, mines and other electronic equipment have a resistance level to avoid shorting out. This resistance level is the robot or computer’s level – for landmines, it is the sensor level minus 1. Multiply the resistance level by four, then subtract this from the ECM Rifle’s base chance of success; this will yield the chance of a malfunction – see the ECM Rifle Chance of Success Table. When a malfunction occurs, roll on the malfunctions table for the results.
For example, Jt’Tek’l the Vrusk has an ECM Rifle mounted o mine-resistant, armored Explorer. He adjusts the power to 15 SEU and fires the weapon at a grasshopper mine with a level 5 sensor. Jt’Tek’l has a base chance of 75 to disable the mine. The grasshopper actually has a resistance level of 4 (subtract 1 from its sensor level). Jt’Tek’lnow has a 64 percent chance of disabling the mine. The player rolls a 63, which is just good enough. The weapon will cause 5d10 points of electrical damage to living targets no matter how many SEUs are used. When firing at vehicles or powered armor, treat the number of SEU used as the number of dice of damage done when using the damage table. If 15 SEU are fired at a vehicle, treat it as a 15-dice attack on the vehicle damage table, but that same attack against a character will only cause 5d10 points of damage. A gauss screen will offer complete protection, but its power pack is drained by 1 SEU per SEU used by the ECM Rifle. An anti-shock implant will reduce damage by half to living beings. If the target robot or computer has an anti-shock implant, subtract an additional 20 percent from the chance of success for causing a malfunction. Targets that have been shielded from electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attacks receive no damage. Statistics for the ECM Rifle. Cost: 8,000 Credits. Mass: 15 kilograms. Damage: 5d10 or jam. SEU Usage: 2-20. Rate: 2. Defense: Gauss. Range: PB 0-10, Short 11-30, Medium 31-100, Long 101-150, Extreme 151-300. Joe Cabadas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
August 20, 2019 - 1:16pm | I probably will tweek the ECM Rifle description some more, especially when it comes to the defenses. That aspect was lacking in the original Dragon magazine story. Joe Cabadas |
August 20, 2019 - 2:45pm | Making this change: For robots and computers that have been shielded from electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attacks, subtract an additional 20 percent from the success roll for causing a malfunction. For vehicles and powered armor that have been shielded from EMP attacks, reduce the dice of damage done by half, rounded down. Joe Cabadas |
August 20, 2019 - 4:45pm | Anti-Mine Lasers. This is a heavy laser that has been modified to detonate underground explosives from up to 300 meters away. Its maximum range has been shortened to increase its power so it can more easily burn through soils. It does 4d10 points of damage per SEU. Normally it is set to fire at 5 SEU, which will detonate most mines with a hit. In this case, the laser can be operated by someone other than a Demolition specialist. Cost: 1,500 Credits; Weight: 15 kilograms; Damage: 4d10 per SEU; Ammo: 100 SEU pack or larger; SEU: 5-20; ROF: 1; Defense: Albedo; Range: PB --. Short 0-100, Medium: 101-300, Long: --, Extreme: --. Joe Cabadas |
August 20, 2019 - 5:15pm | Anti-Mine Lasers. This is a heavy laser that has been modified to detonate underground explosives from up to 300 meters away. Its maximum range has been shortened to increase its power so it can more easily burn through soils. It does 4d10 points of damage per SEU. Normally it is set to fire at 5 SEU, which will detonate most mines with a hit. In this case, the laser can be operated by someone other than a Demolition specialist. Cost: 1,500 Credits; Weight: 15 kilograms; Damage: 4d10 per SEU; Ammo: 100 SEU pack or larger; SEU: 5-20; ROF: 1; Defense: Albedo; Range: PB --. Short 0-100, Medium: 101-300, Long: --, Extreme: --. Like this one- simple and easy to add to a game. great idea. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 20, 2019 - 5:30pm | Anti-Mine Lasers. This is a heavy laser that has been modified to detonate underground explosives from up to 300 meters away. Its maximum range has been shortened to increase its power so it can more easily burn through soils. It does 4d10 points of damage per SEU. Normally it is set to fire at 5 SEU, which will detonate most mines with a hit. In this case, the laser can be operated by someone other than a Demolition specialist. Cost: 1,500 Credits; Weight: 15 kilograms; Damage: 4d10 per SEU; Ammo: 100 SEU pack or larger; SEU: 5-20; ROF: 1; Defense: Albedo; Range: PB --. Short 0-100, Medium: 101-300, Long: --, Extreme: --. Like this one- simple and easy to add to a game. great idea. Thanks. I'm just ripping off an idea from the U.S. military, including the range description. Joe Cabadas |
August 20, 2019 - 6:40pm | Mine Clearing Drones. Drones are fairly inexpensive, remote-controlled robots that are much cheaper than standard Frontier robots. These qualities make drones excellent platforms to detect and clear mines. They can be equipped with various sensors and anti-mine lasers or an ECM Rifle. Some drones may fly, others may operate on the ground. See the story “Drones for Star Frontiers” by Tom Verreault in issue 19 of Frontier Explorer magazine for more information on how to create one. Sathar Sandflee Drones Types I, II, III. Used by the Sathar, these are small drones with a 5 kilogram body and six legs. The move up at a Slow speed, up to 10 meters per turn. The Sandflees are all equipped with a Type AA GPR scanner, which is used to detect mines buried up to 4 meters deep. The Type I has a specialized Laser Drill that can burrow into the earth up to 5 meters that can be used to set off a mine. It has two 2 SEU clips and uses 2 SEU per charge, which does 5d10 points of damage. Its range brackets are: Point Blank: 0-2, Short: 3-5, Medium: --, Long: --, Extreme: --. The Type II has an electronic discharge gun that isused to neutralize the electronics found in Frontier mines so they can be collected and reused by the Sathar. This weapon functions similar to the ECM Rifle, but has a much shorter range and lower power requirements. It is set for 5 SEUs, which gives it a 100 percent base chance of success. Its range brackets are: Point Blank: --, Short: 0-5, Medium: 6-10, Long: --, Extreme: --. The Sandflee Type III carries 20 shaped charges with the equivalent power of Tornadium D-20. Each charge is 100 grams. This drone travel to the spot over a buried mine and then drops off whatever number of charges it will take to blast into the ground before leaving. When the shaped charge detonates, the blast is directed toward the mine, which should destroy it. Creative Sathar commanders have sometimes used these drones in offensive capacities to attack enemy positions, even though they were apparently not designed for those purposes. These Sathar drones are not found on the open market as Star Law and the Landfleet would confiscate any that are found. Joe Cabadas |
August 21, 2019 - 1:36pm | Sample Minefields Frontier militaries and paramilitary groups purchase mines by the hundreds or thousands. With such buying power, they receive a 20 percent savings on bulk purchases of mines. Simple Anti-Personnel Minefield. This type of minefield uses 200 mines that will cover 500-square-meters, or basically 20 squares that are 5-by-5 meters. Each square would have 10 small mines equipped with a fragmentation grenade and a level 2 pressure/tripwire sensor. Each individual mine would normally cost 75 Credits and weigh 2.5 kilograms. Normally the cost would be 15,000 Credits for 200 such mines, but when bought in bulk, the cost is 12,000 Credits. The total package weight is 250 kilograms for the mines plus another 250 kilograms for packing material. The mines would be set to explode on contact with anything over 15 kilograms but less than 200 kilograms. Non-lethal, anti-intruder minefields would probably swap out the fragmentation grenades for a combination of dose and tangler grenades. Figure that the cost of such a package would be the same for the fragmentation minefield. Joe Cabadas |
August 21, 2019 - 2:32pm | Simple Anti-Personnel and Anti-Vehicle Minefield. This type of minefield package adds 20 Type I mine kits equipped with a Type I standard explosive missile warhead and a combination pressure/motion sensor detonator that can detect hover vehicles. The total cost for each individual mine anti-vehicle mine would be 365 credits and it would weigh 4 kilograms. With thepackage, all 20 mines cost 5,890 Credits plus 12,000 for the anti-personnel mines for a total cost of 17,890 Credits. The additional weight would be 80 kilograms for all 20 Type I mines plus an additional 160 kilograms of packing material. Joe Cabadas |
August 25, 2019 - 3:53pm |
Joe Cabadas |
August 25, 2019 - 3:55pm | An observation, I notice that with the infamous "bap bins" is that there is no cost given for a transmitter and receiver. Not in Zebs and not on this site or the wiki site... at least, nothing that I have found. So, I'm assuming they aren't cheap, especially for the bap mine and bap grenade. I'll have to come up with a cost for the receiver. Joe Cabadas |
August 25, 2019 - 5:30pm | Mobile Bap Bin Transmitter/Receiver. This device is not a mine, but is part of the system needed for the bap mine and bap grenade to work properly. ... I am getting tempted to pull the bap mine and grenade out of the second installment on mines. One, it would save space, and two the whole bap bin thing needs some more fleshing out. The original concept for this comes from a 2008 posting by user Anonymous: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/2647. It was an incomplete one at that. If a remember correctly, someone wrote a story in one of the magazines taking the HALO teleportation device and providing stats for that rather than the Zeb's bap bin. One of the descriptions for the bap mine/grenade was: "A bap bin receiver is constructed and mounted on a hover transport. Star Law Agents carrying Bap Bin Grenades or Bap Bin Mines and cool looking chronochomes in their ear look for their quarry. Once found a SINGLE mine or nade is placed/thrown. Upon a successful hit, the effected area is bap binned to the hover transport and arrested. Non-animated objects do not get arrested. Didn't think so." Creative, but lacking stats. So, while I would like to include the bap mine & grenade system, it probably would need its own separate article... including tackling the horrendously bad descriptions given in Zebs for this device. I had done a little bit of thinking about bap bins on this thread: "Feedback Requested on Matter Transferrel Devices." http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/9382 Joe Cabadas |
August 25, 2019 - 5:32pm | I mean, instead of worrying about "more than one bap bin device going off" and a "bad thing" happening, what if the bap mine or grenade are used and no receiver is around? Does the target get zapped into nothingness? Their molecules scattered around the universe? (To use a Star Trek-ism.) Joe Cabadas |
August 25, 2019 - 5:44pm | I'm also thinking of pulling the ECM Rifle out of the story as well. It could use its own story too... and it would shorten and simplify the second part of the mine article. Joe Cabadas |
August 25, 2019 - 6:00pm | An observation, I notice that with the infamous "bap bins" is that there is no cost given for a transmitter and receiver. Not in Zebs and not on this site or the wiki site... at least, nothing that I have found. So, I'm assuming they aren't cheap, especially for the bap mine and bap grenade. I'll have to come up with a cost for the receiver. I always assumed that a bap bin was plugged into the main line power- either the atomic drive of a ship or the power network of a city. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 25, 2019 - 6:18pm | Yes, I decided to pull both the bap mine/grenade and the ECM Rifle. It shaves more than a thousand words off the story... which is still long. Joe Cabadas |
August 25, 2019 - 6:20pm | An observation, I notice that with the infamous "bap bins" is that there is no cost given for a transmitter and receiver. Not in Zebs and not on this site or the wiki site... at least, nothing that I have found. So, I'm assuming they aren't cheap, especially for the bap mine and bap grenade. I'll have to come up with a cost for the receiver. Yes, you wouldn't want that thing losing power. I always assumed that a bap bin was plugged into the main line power- either the atomic drive of a ship or the power network of a city. Joe Cabadas |
August 26, 2019 - 4:20am | Yes, I decided to pull both the bap mine/grenade and the ECM Rifle. It shaves more than a thousand words off the story... which is still long. That is the thing with the magazine, its limited in size to 40 something pages. I think one page in the zine is 900 words approx. so being exhaustive on a topic is a challenge. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 27, 2019 - 10:54am | The FASCAM and sample minefield ideas are also yanked, which now trims the story to about 6,500 words. I still need to put a conclusion on it and finish up the pricing charts. Joe Cabadas |
September 15, 2019 - 6:32pm | Submitted Part 6. I'll now switch to bombs. Joe Cabadas |
September 20, 2019 - 3:54am | The FASCAM and sample minefield ideas are also yanked, which now trims the story to about 6,500 words. I still need to put a conclusion on it and finish up the pricing charts. That should put it in the 7 page length. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
