This Is Why We Get Terms Like Rape-Rape

November 30, 2014, 2:57 pm

Shia LeBeouf's rape...

I know what murder is.

I know what robbery is.

I am losing what rape means.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that unless there's express written consent, sex is rape. Andrea Dworkin wins on a technicality?

All my life rape has included rendering the victim, through threats, intimidation, and or physical or chemical restraints; unable to resist the assault.

But sitting there and letting someone assault you is so alien and inhuman to me that I can't conjure understanding.

It probably is rape. If she'd announced, "I am going to shoot you in the forehead," and he sat passively until she'd shot him there, it'd still be murder. Taking his wallet would still have been theft.

What I can't comprehend is letting someone rape, steal from or murder me. I'm going to resist in some manner. So would everyone I've talked to. That I might fail doesn't matter; you just don't let someone violate you.

Maybe the process of becoming a dancing monkey so breaks you that you're no longer truly human anymore.

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One Shot Stops

December 1, 2014, 12:13 am

≫ Next: You Weren't There Man

≪ Previous: This Is Why We Get Terms Like Rape-Rape

...And GURPS.

Common self defense ammo... Let's go from small to big.

.25 ACP. The smallest unless we count .22 LR, but there's not near so many actual concealable guns for the rimfire as .25.

.25 ACP pulls 1d pi-. Center mass hits are body hits, so that's 1-6 raw damage, so 1-6 damage to penetrate then divide damage by 2 (round down min 1), so 1-3 points of damage vs the average of 10 HP. Not even a major wound!

Changing to hollowpoints bumps the pi- to pi; but adds a 0.5 armor divisor. That also makes normal clothing be DR 1. That gives us 0-5 for reals now! Now we have a chance to get a major wound.

On average vs the body: .25 ACP ball does 1 point and hollow point does 2.

.32 ACP is next. 2d-1 pi-. 1-11 raw damage. 1-11 penetrate then is divided in two for 0-5. HP negates the pi- for pi and there's the DR 1 for normal clothes: 0-10 penetrate.

On average vs the body: .32 ACP ball does 3 points and hollow point does 5.

.380 will depend on the barrel length. Short barrels like a SIG P238 get 2d-1 pi and longer barrels like a Colt 1908 Pocket Hammerless get 2d pi.

Short barrels get 1-11 that penetrate and stay 1-11! While HP gets bumped from pi to pi+, the 0.5 armor divisor still lurks in the shadows (0-15 can penetrate).

On average a short barrel .380 ACP gets 6 points and HP gets 7. An aside here, the similarity in damage between ball and HP was actually noted in a recent ballistics gel test of .380 rounds! Go GURPS!

Long barrel .380's get 2-12 with ball (1-16 with HP). pi+ with HP and the divisor.

On average that gets us 7 for ball and 9 for HP.

.38 Special from a snubby is 2d-1 pi and gets the exact same effects as a short barreled .380.

.357 Magnum from that snubber or 9x19mm from a full sized automatic is 2d+2 pi. Ball 4-14 and HP 4-19!

Averages 9 for ball and 12 for HP.

Smaller 9mm's only get 2d+1 pi. 3-13 damage that averages to 8 for ball and 2-18 that averages 10 for hollow point.

Unorthodox rounds like .357 SIG and .38 Super get 3d-1 pi. 2-17 damage; averaging 9 for ball and 1-24 averaging. 12 for HP.

.40 S&W is an anomaly in GURPS. 2d+2 pi+. Like all pi+ rounds damage that penetrates does 1.5x as much damage. So it's 4-14 raw damage for ball that becomes 6-21 in tissue. The hollow point bumps the damage to pi++ though, still with that damned armor divisor for 6-26.

Average damages will be 13 for ball and 16 for hollow points.

The beloved .45 ACP is a "mere" 2d pi+ for ball. 2-12 that becomes 3-18. Averaged out, it's 10 for ball and 2-22 averages to 12 for HP.

Now that we've done all that math!

5 points of damage is a major wound on a typical ST 10 10 hit point person. That means they're likely stunned and knocked down because they only have about a 50% chance of avoiding it with such a non-PC HT score. Plus, any bullet that manages to do more than 10 means another HT roll to avoid being knocked unconscious.

While the benefit of the hollow points seem marginal on average, they can make the difference in whether the target keeps fighting next turn.

SUMMARY

Round - Dmg - Ball, min - avg - max; HP, min - avg - max.
.25 ACP - 1d pi-; 0, 1, 3 -- 0, 2, 5.
.32 ACP 2d-1 pi-; 0, 3, 5 -- 0, 5, 10
.380 ACP 2d-1 pi; 1, 6, 11 -- 0, 9, 15
.380 ACP 2d pi; 2, 7, 12 -- 1, 9, 16
.38 Spcl 2d-1 pi; 1, 6, 11 -- 0, 9, 15
9x19mm 2d+1 pi; 3, 8, 13 -- 3, 10, 18
9x19mm 2d+2 pi; 4, 9, 14 -- 4, 12, 19

.357 Mag 2d+2 pi; 4, 9, 14 -- 4, 12, 19
.357 SIG 3d-1 pi; 2, 9, 17 -- 1, 12, 24
.38 Super 3d-1 pi; 2, 9, 17 -- 1, 12, 24
.40 S&W 2d+2 pi+; 6, 13, 21 -- 6, 16, 26

.45 ACP 2d pi+; 3, 10, 18 -- 2, 12, 22

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You Weren't There Man

December 2, 2014, 11:31 am

≫ Next: Time Delay

≪ Previous: One Shot Stops

Reading this post...

I am reminded of a day at the Union where Mikhail and I were playing GURPS and getting a little too much into character. It was a mercenary campaign and we were playing out the hiring process waiting for FuzzyGeff to finish with Bear's World.

We were confronted by a well meaning gentleman who told us, "Bullshit, you were never in Vietnam!"

Mike and I looked at each other, blinked twice, looked back at him and Mike (master of comebacks) brandishes his character sheet and says, "I was so in Vietnam, see that?" pointing at his quirks, "-1 Vietnam Vet! I'll bet YOU don't even have a character sheet!"

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Time Delay

December 2, 2014, 2:16 pm

≫ Next: Expanding On It A Bit

≪ Previous: You Weren't There Man

Because of the time delays involved, space traffic control (STC) for Starport types A and B cannot give direct commands most of the time; but there needs to be a means to get everyone on the same page to lessen the chances of collisions.

This is complicated by the fact that jump drives will insert traffic that literally wasn't there a second ago.

For initial guidance from the jump in points there are beacons transmitting generic instructions to get the ships on the proper vectors to get them into predictable lanes. Ships that aren't doing this in a timely manner will attract the attention of STC and other authorities, deviate too much and you might get shot!

Essential to STC is all traffic make noise! Ships are equipped with transponders that make it a lot simpler for the controllers to identify and locate them. Serious fines are levied for a non-functional transponder, regardless of the reason.

The pattern of traffic is kind of a double helix so that outgoing and incoming ships don't conflict. One spirals out one spirals in slightly off plane from each other.

As ships get closer to the destination world, more direct control is asserted to the incoming ship via direct communication.

No matter what, though, the individual ships are responsible for avoiding collisions and following instructions from STC.

Starport type C will only have very local control due to the much smaller volume of traffic they experience and will focus mainly on keeping the orbits around the destination world deconflicted.

Types D, E and X typically don't have any space control with type D having what we'd recognize as AIR traffic control over the down-port itself.

A note on transponders: They can disabled with the flick of a switch from the bridge. There are many legitimate reasons for shutting one off, like not providing a source of radiation for a seeker head to track in on. The heavy fines are to ensure that captains have a good reason for shutting them off.

A ship not squawking its transponder should be as communicative and cooperative as it can be with the Navy and local patrol ships. You're a valuable training tool now, and you get to pick the training scenario! Intercept to render aid or a shoot-x; your choice!

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Expanding On It A Bit

December 3, 2014, 5:38 am

≫ Next: Quest For The Holy Grail

≪ Previous: Time Delay

Adding in some other rounds for comparison, like .357 Magnum from a full length barrel...

SUMMARY

Round - Dmg - Ball, min - avg - max; HP, min - avg - max.
.25 ACP - 1d pi-; 0, 1, 3 -- 0, 2, 5.
.32 ACP 2d-1 pi-; 0, 3, 5 -- 0, 5, 10
.380 ACP 2d-1 pi; 1, 6, 11 -- 0, 9, 15
.380 ACP 2d pi; 2, 7, 12 -- 1, 9, 16
.38 Spcl 2d-1 pi; 1, 6, 11 -- 0, 9, 15
.38 Spcl 2d pi; 2, 7, 12 -- 1, 9, 16
9x19mm 2d+1 pi; 3, 8, 13 -- 3, 10, 18
9x19mm 2d+2 pi; 4, 9, 14 -- 4, 12, 19

.357 Mag 2d+2 pi; 4, 9, 14 -- 4, 12, 19
.357 Mag 3d pi; 3, 10, 18 -- 3, 13, 25
.357 SIG 3d-1 pi; 2, 9, 17 -- 1, 12, 24
.38 Super 3d-1 pi; 2, 9, 17 -- 1, 12, 24
.40 S&W 2d+2 pi+; 6, 13, 21 -- 6, 16, 26
10mm ACP 3d-1 pi+; 3, 13, 25 -- 2, 18, 34
.44 Magnum 3d+2 pi+; 7, 18, 30 -- 8, 22, 38
.45 GAP 2d pi+; 3, 10, 18 -- 2, 12, 22

.45 ACP 2d pi+; 3, 10, 18 -- 2, 12, 22

Oh, and why is a pistol something you use to get to your rifle?

5.45x39mm 4d+2 pi; 6, 16, 26 -- 7, 22, 37 (AK-74)
5.56x45mm 4d pi; 4, 14, 24 -- 4, 19, 34 (11.5")
5.56x45mm 4d+2 pi; 6, 16, 26 -- 7, 22, 37 (14.5" or 16")
5.56x45mm 5d pi; 5, 17, 30 -- 6, 24, 43 (20")
.30 Carbine 4d+1 pi; 5, 22, 25 -- 6, 21, 36
7.62x39mm 5d+1 pi; 6, 18, 31 -- 7, 25, 45 (AKM)
.30-30 6d pi; 6, 21, 36 -- 7, 30, 52
7.62x54mmR 7d pi; 7, 24, 42 -- 9, 34, 61 (Mosin 91/30)
7.62x51mm 7d pi; 7, 24, 42 -- 9, 34, 61
.30-06 7d+1 pi; 8, 25, 43 -- 10, 36, 63

Notice how the average damage for even a short barreled 5.56 gun is almost the same as the maximum damage for most any pistol?

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Quest For The Holy Grail

December 4, 2014, 12:18 pm

≫ Next: The War Is Over...

≪ Previous: Expanding On It A Bit

Willard is now in possession of BOTH boxes of .300 Savage.

He as also stated he is not honoring the tradition of firing one round and passing the box on to the next .300 Savage owner.

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The War Is Over...

December 4, 2014, 3:34 pm

≫ Next: Been Said Before

≪ Previous: Quest For The Holy Grail

The cats have won.

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Been Said Before

December 4, 2014, 6:02 pm

≫ Next: .50 Cal Bottle Opener

≪ Previous: The War Is Over...

The most popular rifle in the US is the AR or some variation thereof.

But it's not new that military style rifles being popular among the general populace is a new thing.

Bolt action rifles weren't developed for snuffing hoof-rats then later applied to snuffing ourselves.

They started life as a way to raise the rate of fire of an infantry platoon. As was adding a magazine to them.

That scoped Remington, Ruger, Savage or Winchester shares a lot of DNA with guns that fought in both world wars and lots of others between and after.

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.50 Cal Bottle Opener

December 4, 2014, 9:24 pm

≫ Next: Armee Universal Gewher

≪ Previous: Been Said Before

The Lovely Harvey bought me a bottle opener made out of a .50 BMG round.

Marv expressed enough interest in it that she bought him one too.

Except... The vendor she bought mine from was out. So I found her a link to a different vendor.

It arrived today. It's a bottle opener made from a .50 round alright. 12.7x108mm instead of 12.7x99mm...

Russian brass!

Kind of neat, actually.

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Armee Universal Gewher

December 4, 2014, 9:52 pm

≫ Next: Astrogation/TL7

≪ Previous: .50 Cal Bottle Opener

I kind of have a soft spot for bullpup rifles, even if I don't think they're all that great.

The Steyr AUG was swoopy and cool when I was playing Twilight 2000. I've several character sheets with an L85A1 on them too.

But the AUG marks a bit of funny for me.

There's a bit in the film Jackie Brown where Samuel L Jackson's character is going on about this gun or that on a video and he mentions the Steyr; along the lines that if someone would put it in a movie, they'd sell like gangbusters!

This makes me giggle because: Well, apparently I can't show you because I keep getting warnings about how much malware is on the internet movie firearm database; but I'll get a link as soon as someone sounds the all clear. The AUG is no stranger to film! The earliest appearance I can remember is the Arnie action movie Commando. I've seen it off and on in lots of other movies too.

Perhaps the reason that it wasn't selling like gangbusters has a lot more to do with the legal climate?

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Astrogation/TL7

December 4, 2014, 10:43 pm

≫ Next: .40 Anomaly

≪ Previous: Armee Universal Gewher

Well worth a half hour of your time!

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.40 Anomaly

December 5, 2014, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Routine

≪ Previous: Astrogation/TL7

Should you find yourself playing in one of my worlds in GURPS want to use a .40 S&W pistol...

Take the published Damage, reduce it by 2 and increase the Rcl by 1.

Thus 2d+2 pi+ becomes 2d pi+ and 2d+1 pi+ becomes 2d-1 pi+... and so on.

For SMGs and pistol caliber carbines, only reduce the damage.

I think this accurately portrays the real world damage relative to 9x19mm and .45 ACP.

To the contingent that thinks that because .40 is a more modern round than those and deserves to do more damage, the modernity is reflected in the weight and number of shots. Glock is a good place to see it. A Glock 21 gets 13+1 shots of .45 and weighs 2.4 lb. loaded magazines are 0.8 lb. A Glock 22 gets 15+1 shots of .40, weighs 2.1 lb. with magazines which are 0.7 lb.

I am tempted to say where the stats are derived from a 9mm gun, increase ST by one as well. The only gun in High Tech 4e that's .40 S&W as the main table entry is a Kahr K40 and it's ST is 8, same as a Glock 17. All of the other pistols stats are based on the stats from the 9mm parent gun.

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Routine

December 5, 2014, 1:50 pm

≫ Next: Beanstalk On Mars!

≪ Previous: .40 Anomaly

Tam notices that these launches were supposed to be as routine as backing out the family car...

They sure could have been.

Just in case anyone doesn't know.

The space program was in direct competition with LBJ's Great Society for funding. There was a constant hue and cry that continues to this very day about how much money we're wasting on space and how it could be better spent right here on Earth.

It's one of the first examples of me noticing the media can manipulate things.

We plopped two dudes on the moon in 1969. Ten months later not one of the three (yes just three) national television networks bothered to air the launch of the THIRD mission to the moon or cut into normal programming for a live broadcast from space. Ironically that mission was Apollo 13; which got lots and lots of coverage.

Two successful all up flights and the media of the day decided it wasn't worth covering anymore!

There was nothing routine about a Saturn V launch. First, they were damn near hand built with a bewildering array of variations and revisions. Some were official changes, some were from the people building them figuring out a better way to assemble something and just implementing it. Read this about the F-1 engine and pay attention to what they say about how the engine they have doesn't match the blueprints. Every launch was different, yet eerily similar. I wonder how many small mistakes were made because CSM-103 was different from CSM-108.

It also bears mentioning just how marginal the entire Apollo stack was. It could do the job with almost no room to spare. Those changes I mentioned to the vehicle? Apollo 11 couldn't have carried the lunar rover and made it back.

On our evolution to becoming Pierson's Puppeteers we're going to insist on wider margins for our manned craft. Challenger and Columbia underscoring the demand. It's an awkward place to be. Aviation is a dangerous place to learn on the job, but sometimes there's no other classroom.

I notice the freak-outs associated with V-22A crashes and compare them to the numbers who died learning helicopter. Or how many who died just learning winged flight? Every venture into the unknown is literally filled with unknowns. Sometimes you find them the hard way.

Apollo 1 did. Soyuz 1 did. 56-6672 did. Soyuz 11 did. Challenger did. Columbia did. Spaceship Two did.

There. Will. Be. More.

We. Should. Keep. Going.

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Beanstalk On Mars!

December 7, 2014, 10:21 pm

≫ Next: Things That Don't Work

≪ Previous: Routine

Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist from Erik Wernquist on Vimeo.

Thanks APOD!

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Things That Don't Work

December 8, 2014, 3:39 pm

≫ Next: Poking Around

≪ Previous: Beanstalk On Mars!

Attempting to hold up my end of the conversation with Willard after just an hour of sleep and half a pot of coffee.

Also, the thin skim of a nation's history you need to make to have a gaming world hold up to players who've never bothered to go that far does not make one even remotely knowledgable.

Even if I feel rested and alert, the back of my head knows the front is on mush.

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Poking Around

December 9, 2014, 4:05 am

≫ Next: Thag Remember

≪ Previous: Things That Don't Work

In a vain hope of finding The Lovely Harvey's stolen gun, Willard and I canvassed the local gun and pawn shops.

What I have discovered is the used market is awash in M&P40's. So many that you save about $100 if you're willing to go .40 S&W instead of 9mm.

It seems about even whether they will have the external safety or lock or not.

The local market is not awash in used Glock.

I noticed the shift back to 9mm a bit ago (just after everyone else started talking about it!) and understand why there's lots of used .40's out there.

I wonder if we're seeing more M&P than Glock locally is the much larger number of optional features on the S&W. Manual safety or not; internal lock or not; magazine disconnect or not... and people discovering they didn't like said feature as much in real life as they thought they would.

With Glock your only options are generational.

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Thag Remember

December 9, 2014, 5:39 pm

≫ Next: Pulsing Beams

≪ Previous: Poking Around

I do recall when a certain someone blogged about taking a class on the disassembly and repair of the item in question.

It's so amusing watching them deal with helpful suggestions.

Related, I learned that roofing tar is not a recommended firearm lubricant.

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Pulsing Beams

December 9, 2014, 6:51 pm

≫ Next: Civilized

≪ Previous: Thag Remember

I've been reading my Little Black Books again.

In Book 2 there's no combat difference between the beam and pulse lasers. Despite descriptions that imply that beam weapons are more likely to score a hit and pulse lasers do more damage; neither gets a die modifier that differentiates them.

The pulse laser is half the cost of the beam laser, so I'd go with those.

You'd have thought I'd have noticed this thirty years ago, but I've honestly never used Book 2's combat rules.

Book 5 rewrote the entire combat system and there is a difference between beam and pulse lasers there that make beams worth paying extra for; it takes fewer beam lasers to increase the USP code rating for a given battery. A single triple beam laser turret has the same rating as two triple pulse laser turrets.

Book 5 also adds plasma guns, fusion guns and particle accelerators in both turreted and barbette form.

Most of this is now trivia since GURPS: Traveller uses an entirely different combat system derived from 3e GURPS: Vehicles.

The difference between beam and pulse lasers there is a firing mode and not a physical difference in the weapons.

Traveller Tuesday officially belongs to Erin, I'm just dangling from her coat tails on the idea.

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Civilized

December 9, 2014, 9:23 pm

≫ Next: For Once Ahead Of The Curve

≪ Previous: Pulsing Beams

It's very depressing when you read a line , "The last enemy we fought that even paid lip service to these rulebooks was Nazi Germany, a lifetime ago," and realize that despite the holocaust the FUCKING NAZIS were more civilized about warfare than anyone we've fought since.

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK!?!?

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For Once Ahead Of The Curve

December 10, 2014, 12:56 pm

≫ Next: How Far

≪ Previous: Civilized

I notice lots of folks talking about sitemeter today.

Welcome to January under the desk.

Nuking sitemeter also dropped hits from spam collectors too.

I am astonished that I figured this out on my own months before everyone else. It doesn't normally work that way.

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