Field Crusher. This shell only damages force fields and other energy screens such as inertia, albedo, gauss, light shift, simp, sonic, shimmer, etc. Refer to the Weapons Charts for the amount of damage it will cause within the immediate blast area to these types of fields.

Foam Types. Foam artillery shells are much larger versions of the foam grenades of the same type (see “Things that go boom! Part 1”), but there is more foam so it is more persistent. The shell will fill the immediate blast radius with opaque, dense foam that cannot be visually penetrated without the aid of radar or other scanners.

After 15 turns, most foams from the small cannon will dissipate; after 20 turns for the medium cannon; after 25 turns for the large cannon; and 30 turns from the small howitzer. Solid foam will last for 20 hours before it begins to break down.

Within the secondary blast radius, cut the foam warhead’s effects in half. For example, if a chemical defoliant bomb is used, not all vegetable matter within the secondary blast radius will be hit (a 50 percent chance of not being hit); an extinguish foam will only put flames out half the time in the secondary blast radius; etc. 

Irritant foam bombs only cause temporary, non-fatal damage—unless a being drops below 0 STA, at which point it stops causing the character damage but then the character loses 1 STA point per turn until they are beyond the point of revival. The temporary damage heals at the rate of 2 STA points per 30 minutes of rest. Characters can defend against this foam by wearing goggles and filter masks. This foam can be flushed off with water.

Because artillery munitions are much larger than grenades, they will affect larger creatures easier.

Gas Types. These shells behave similar to a gas grenade of the same type; however, the gas clouds they produce are much more persistent. Assume that the resulting cloud – barring a fierce wind – will last for 1 turn times the weight of the warhead. Thus, the doze gas cloud from the 5 kg small cannon shell will last for 5 turns but the cloud from the 15 kg small howitzer shell will last for 15 turns.

A breeze will also cause such a cloud to drift from its original location, following the direction of the wind.  The length of the chemical cloud would be four times its width. For example, if a doze shell has a burst radius of 30 meters, the resulting cloud would extend 120 meters downwind.

Any gases will sink into lower lying areas. So, if a character is taking cover in a ditch, the gas cloud from a poison bomb may drift to where he is at. Since the sizes of bombs are much larger than grenades, the gas will affect larger creatures as if multiple grenades had been successfully thrown at it.

If characters do not escape a gas cloud or do not have any kind of gas mask, they will need to keep rolling each turn they remain in the area of effect to avoid falling victim to its effects.

Incendiary. This shell causes fire damage, with the flames continuing to burn long after the initial explosion, which causes more damage. Keep in mind, if an incendiary warhead is used in a highly combustible location, such as a building, forest, etc., it will probably start a conflagration that will spread and grow even after the effects of the incendiary device have passed.

It only has a primary blast area and a secondary radius. As with explosive rounds, characters can make a Reaction Speed check to try to reduce or avoid damage. But, if the characters remain in an area that is on fire, they will start taking fire damage.

Illumination. These rounds include a flare, parachute assembly and an altitude/fuze timer. When it is shot over an area, the flare will ignite at the preset time and height. Burning at 1 million candlepower, the round will light up the primary burst radius with the equivalent of daylight. Characters and objects in the secondary blast will be cast in a deep shadow.

The duration of the illumination round is 2d10 turns for canon fired rounds and 4d10+5 turns for the small howitzer.

Fierce winds, clouds and adverse weather will greatly impact the effectiveness of this kind of round. Like any artillery round, the shooter has to roll to hit the desired square and altitude. A miss will not only affect where the round goes off but also will decrease the duration of the illumination. Roll a 1d10; a result of 1-2 will decrease the duration by 2 turns, a 3-7 will decrease the duration by 1d10+1 turns; a roll of 8-9 will cut the light after 2d10+1 turns; and a 10 will mean the round lands on the ground and may ignite a fire, acting like a half-strength artillery round,

An automatic miss will mean that the illumination round was a dud and did not go off.

Note: the light from the illumination flare can be diffused by the use of dusk, nightfall and smoke explosives or other atmospheric particles such as low lying clouds, fog, etc.

Sonic. This shell generates damage through the use of high frequency sound waves. The damage is halved if someone is using a sonic screen or sonic headphones.

Sonic Stunner. The sonic stunner shell only causes non-permanent stunning damage. Anyone failing a Stamina check within the immediate blast area will be stunned for 1d100 turns. In the secondary blast radius, a character receives a +10 percent bonus to avoid falling victim to the stunning effect, which would only last 1-50 turns.

Since shells are much larger than grenades, they will affect large creatures as if multiple grenades had been used.

Tangler. Tangler shells throw out hundreds of strong, sticky polymer threads. These threads stick to everything within the immediate blast radius. Characters can try to avoid this effect with a Reaction Speed check. An entangled individual cannot move until the threads decay (in 30 minutes) or until solvaway is spread over the threads. Any creature with more than 100 stamina points can break out of tangler threads in one turn.

Note, because artillery shells cast far more tangler threads than a grenade, even if a character avoids being entrapped in the polymer threads, they may be trapped in the “safe” area that they sought shelter until the threads decay.

Characters, robots and creatures within the secondary blast radius also need to make a RS check to avoid entrapment; otherwise they are snared for 15 minutes. Any creature with more than 50 stamina points can break out of the threads in one turn. These bombs do not have a third or fourth blast area.

Concluding Thoughts

Part 10 will look at more artillery weapons from catapults and ballistas to larger howitzers, field guns and railguns. My intention is to also look at some more specialized artillery equipment.

Once Part 10 is completed, will that be the end of the “Things that go boom!” series?  Well, there is the possibility of looking into nuclear weapons. Nukes are a part of the game – especially Knight Hawks. Then there are naval weapons, such as torpedoes.

I have tried to stay as true as possible to the source material for creating statistics for the various weapons, how other munitions (tangler, sonic, etc.) might be scaled up, but some alterations were made to weapon ranges, weights, and costs. One thing I can’t fix is the how the costs of Knight Hawks weapons – which have the range of 10s of thousands of kilometers and should be doing far greater damage than artillery pieces, are priced rather low in comparison to these relatively short-range, vehicle weapons.

I mean, for 10,000 Credits do you want to purchase a Knight Hawks laser cannon or a large cannon artillery weapon which has far less range and damage potential?

I have several other possible spin-off stories in the works from this series – an example of which was the “Disarming things that go boom!” story in issue 30. Yet, I do not want to tease this topic too much if these works never come to fruition. Thank you for your reading attention.