Battle Of The Geeks

Having a discussion on a GURPS forum where someone asked how we'd stat out the Santa-Barbara Sistemas 106mm M-DN11 high explosive anti-personnel round.

I posted the description of the round here. 

I gave two ways of doing it.

First is to just treat it like it's an HE round and let it do 6dx7(0.5) pi++, linked 6dx3[5d+1] cr ex.

Second is to come up with a new round combining shrapnel and HE which has 1,000 1d-1 pi+ balls expanding from the detonation point with a linked 6dx3 cr ex.

Them: But what about X?

Me: I accounted for X.  You forgot a lot of things figuring out the weight of the projectile and your reply to that tells me you have a reading comprehension problem.

Them: But I don't like how you did it!

Me: OK, do it how you like it.  I don't think that matches the description of the round and I explained why when I gave stats for the new shrapnel HE round.

Them: But I don't like that way of doing it, what about Y?  This makes new rules that do a better job of describing the shape of the pattern that I'm getting wrong because I'm not accounting for the fact that the round is traveling down range at the same time it explodes.  Plus, let me compare it to a round I rejected as a model for this earlier.

Me: Don't care.  I've figured it out to my liking and it even "will it GURPS" OK with Argentinian and Chilean usage.

Them: But you didn't answer about Y!

Me: Not going to.  I explained my reasoning, said I was happy with what I came up with, and didn't need to write new rules.  There's no need for Y now that I'm done.

The thing that ticks me off the most about this is Chile and Argentina appear to be the only customers for this Spanish designed and made, German type designated round.  It's just not going to come up in anything I'm going to be playing.

The whole rest of the world is using clones of the US designs. 

Speed Test

Now that Derpyputer has replaced The BeastMac on the desktop, I wondered if I'd see a speed difference if I plugged the CAT6 cable into it.

In a word, yes.

It also led to checking the speed with both logins on the router.

Insertrouternamehere got:

53.76 Mbps down and 40.01 Mbps up.

Insertrouternamehere-5G got:

300.27 Mbps down and 237.94 Mbps up.

The wired connection to Insertroutername got:

 503.36 Mbps down and 421.70 Mbps up.

I think I can live with that. 

M16ish At 50 Yards and/or Meters

Little Black Book TRAVELLER 

Traveller is my first game that had guns at all.

In Traveller the "M16" would be an assault rifle from Book 4: Mercenary.

Defenders range modifiers are (semi/auto): Close -4/-4, Short +1/+1, Medium -1/+2, Long -2/0, Very Long -4/-3; Wound Inflicted 3D; Defender's Armor: Nothing +2/+4, Jack +2/+4, Mesh -1/+2, Cloth -3/-1, Reflec +2/+4, Ablat 0/+2, Battle -5/-4.

The skill you use it with is Gun Combat, with a specialization in assault rifle.  We're going to go with Gun Combat: Assault Rifle - 2 to be consistent with the skill level 12 in GURPS later on.

The basic roll to hit is an 8 or higher on 2d6.  The average roll of 2d6 is 7, so you need some modifiers, like your skill, to actually hit on average.

You get +1 for every level of skill you have. 

If your Dext is below 5, you get a -1 to hit.  If it's 8 or higher you get a +2. 

50 yards meters is "Medium" range.  -1 to hit with semi-auto fire (one shot per round), +2 to hit with auto (4 shots per round).  The magazine holds 30 shots.

If the target is unarmored, +2 to hit with semi, +4 with auto. 

If our Gun Combat: Assault Rifle - 2 character with Dext 8 fires on someone at 50m they need a 3 or more (97.22% chance) with semi-auto fire and 2 or more (100% chance) with automatic fire on 2d6.  The average damage applied to any stat will render our target unconscious.

But if we're dead average across the board, our Dext is 7.  That means we need a 5 or more (83.33% chance) with semi-auto and 2 or more with autofire.

It'll do 3d6 damage when it hits.  Each die is applied, randomly to Strength, Dexterity or Endurance.  When one stat is reduced to zero, the victim is rendered unconscious; two is seriously wounded and all three is dead.  Two dice hitting the same stat can end the fight in a single round.

Notice that firing more rounds increases your chance to hit, not the amount of damage done. 

All in all, it's pretty straight-forward and simple.  There's an unneeded complication with range bands we never bothered learning or using.  I remember we changed armor to absorbing damage rather than making it harder to hit, but I don't remember the specifics.

Top Secret

Top Secret is the first game I owned that had an assault rifle called M16 by name.

The M16 is PWV 79, Range modifiers of: PB +5, S -8, M -50, L -160, WS S, Rate 3, Ammo 20, Cost 325, DECP NC, HWV 14.

I remember TS being convoluted in figuring out combat and I did not misremember. 

First you need your "Offense Value" this is the average of your Coordination and Courage.  You rolled percentiles to get those and the average percentile roll of 55 gets you a score of 65.  (65+65)/2=65, so the average Offense is 65.

How much damage you can take is determined by your "Life Level" which is the average of Physical Strength and Willpower.  Same average of 65.

Once again, 50 yards is medium range.

To hit you take your Offense Value, add the weapon's PWV (Projectile Weapon Value) subtract the Range Modifier and subtract the penalty for extra shots.

Semi-auto fire is 1 shot per turn, the M16 can fire up to 3 per turn.  The second and third shot get -11 and -22.  The Top Secret M16 has a 20 round magazine.

That extra shot penalty adds up until you take a round to recover, it can grow to be very severe.  It's actually quite GURPS like!

There are other penalties for movement and position we're skipping for now. 

So, at 50 yards with our M16 we have 65 + 79 - 50 = 94 or less on percentiles against a standing opponent for our first shot, 83 or less for the second and 72 or less for the third if we fired automatically.  On average, all rounds will hit.

That's more like sniping, ain't it.

If we're firing from rice-paddy prone (-5) at a target who's running and dodging (-20)...  That drops our chances to 69, 58 and 47 respectively.  On average only the first two hit.

On to damage! 

We roll on the General Injury Determination Chart to see where we hit with those two rounds.  The average roll of 55 will generally hit the abdomen or lower back.

Then we roll two d10.  The first tells us what type of damage from abrasion to internal damage.  The second tells us if the wound is serious or light.  The average roll of 5 gets a light laceration which applies 5 points against the target's Life Level, down to 60 from 65.  At the other end, a 6 and a 10 gets a serious internal injury and does 12 points of damage, down to 48.

It's going to take more shots than I remembered to shoot someone to death.  Top Secret trends to the cinematic end of the scale!

There are optional rules in the Top Secret Companion that give the location, type and severity in a single d1000 roll.

Twilight: 2000

Stats are determined by rolling 4d6-4, making the average 10.  A favored stat averages 15 and a slighted stat 5.

Hit Capacity varies by hit location.  Head is equal to CON, body is STR+CON+STA, other locations are equal to CON+STA.  Average person has 10, 30 and 20 respectively.

Everyone starts with the Combat Rifleman (CRM) skill at 20.  You can buy that up using skill points.  We'll buy it up to 74 to match the Skill 12 in the GURPS 2e example.  The skill is modified by range to get a "Base Hit" number which you need to roll, or less, on a d100.

An M16A1 has: ROF 4, Mag 10, Rng 50, Dam 2, and Arm -.

ROF is rate of fire in "shots," Mag is magazine capacity in "shots" which are 3 bullets each.  Rng is a range increment in meters.  In our example 50m is close range (the "Base Hit" is 60% skill or 44), 100m is medium range (30% skill or 22) and 200m is long range (10% skill or 7) and 400m is extreme range (special to hit rules), Arm is the armor multiplier which makes armor more or less effective against some weapons (no effect here).

Did you hit?

On average, a 74 skill is going to be missing at 50m.  If you spend a turn aiming, your first shot of the next round is at double the "base hit", or 88 in our example.  The aimed shot will, on average, hit.

Where did you hit?

An aimed shot can hit a specific hit location by halving the base hit number, which was normally doubled by aiming, returning it to it's original value, or 44 in our example.  Sniper weapons don't suffer this penalty!

If you didn't aim at a specific hit location, you roll 1d10 on the appropriate hit location chart.  Most likely hit the abdomen.

How much damage did you do?

At close range the M16A1 does the 4x the base damage plus 4d6 or 4d6+16; average of 30.  That's enough to drop someone's body damage capacity to zero.  This is a serious injury and they need to make a CON roll (d100 of CONx5 or less or 50 in our case) or fall unconscious.  This is beyond negative head damage capacity (a critical injury), so they'd be automatically unconscious and die in 1d10x10 turns if no medical assistance is rendered.

NPCs are supposed to use a simpler set of rules that gives them less damage capacity, 2d10x2 or 22 on average.  We never did use this rule, it doesn't add that much bookkeeping to the game and it made the fights better. 

I don't think we adhered to the rules very closely at all. 

GURPS 2e

All GURPS skill rolls are 3d6.  We're ignoring passive defense.

We don't have an M16, so we'll let the M-26A2 from GURPS: Autoduel 1e stand in.

With a, commonly taken, 12 skill in Guns/TL7 and straight 10 stats.

Our 10 ST is above the minimum of 8, so no penalties from that. 

It's Inc. is 20, so there's a -3 for range.

You can fire 2 shots semi-automatically or 3 shots in a burst.  We get 30 shots.

If you take turn to aim before firing, you take no penalty to the first semi-auto shot or any of the rounds in the burst.

If you don't take a turn to aim, they are all "snap shots" and have a -4 penalty.

So, chance to hit with an aimed shot is 9 or less (37.50% chance).  Snap shots are 5 or less (4.62% chance).

Two aimed, semi, shots are at 9 and 5.
Two snap, semi, shots are at 5 each.
Three aimed, burst, shots are at 9 each.
Three snap, burst, short are at 5 each.

On average you're gonna miss.

But if you aimed, you can pick a body location, and take a penalty to hit.  The body is a -0 though.  Some locations do more damage and have special effects, like crippling a limb or knocking them unconscious before their HP drops to zero.  The head, for example is -5 to hit, has DR 1 for the skull, but gives double damage and damage of HT/3 or more causes them to be stunned and HT/2 or more knocks them unconscious.

The hit location of a snap shot is determined by a 2d6 roll and looking at the table.  Coincidentally, the average roll of 7 on 2d for a random location also hits the body!

The M-26A2 does 2+2 dice of crushing damage. 

The average damage is 9, and will do 9 points to an unarmored torso; they keep fighting.  This same damage roll would do 16 points to the head, this both stuns and knocks the target out; but you'd need a 4 or less to hit with an aimed shot. 

We didn't play much Autoduel, so we never really got the warts located. 

GURPS 3e.

Update: I forgot the blow-through rules. 

The average person has straight 10 stats and we're sticking to a skill of 12 in Guns/TL7 - Lt Auto.

An M16 does 5d crushing damage, SS of 12, Acc 11, 1/2D 500, Max 3,843, Wt 8, RoF 12*, Shots 20, ST 9, Rcl -1, Cost $540, TL 7.

First, the unaimed semi-auto shot:  The range of 50 yards is a -9 penalty giving us a net skill of 3.  That's below the SS number of 12 so we get an additional -4 to hit for a -1 chance on 3d6.  Any roll of 9 or higher is a critical failure, so...  maybe don't make this shot.

Aimed, semi-auto shot:  -9 for range, +11 for Acc, for a net +2 or 14 or less (90.74% chance) to hit the body, 13 or less (83.79% chance) for a second shot and 12 or less (74.07% chance) for a third.  On average, all three hit!

5d crushing does an average of 17 points of damage to the body, but is reduced to 10 because of the blow-through rule on p.B109, which is enough to warrant a "consciousness roll" against HT on 3d6 to stay awake.  On average, they make it, but are very penalized by the damage with regards to movement and DX based skills.  The second shot drops them to -10 and this adds a "death roll" against HT to keep from dying.  The third shot drops them to -20, another consciousness roll and two more death rolls.  This is bad.  Three death rolls in rapid succession rarely yields happy results.

Aimed, semi-auto shot at the vitals:  -9 for range, +11 for Acc, -3 to hit vitals, for a net -1 or 11 or less (62.50% chance) to hit the body, 10 or less (50% chance) for a second shot and 9 or less (37.5% chance) for a third.

On average two rounds hit. 

Vitals do triple damage after subtracting the DR of the target, which is 0 here.  So our average roll of 17 damage does 30 points dropping the target to -20 and requiring 4 death rolls.  The second shot takes them to -50 and 6 more death rolls.

How about an unaimed blast of full-auto fire?  Same chances as before, but with an additional -1 for recoil on the first burst, -2 on the second, -3 on the third, and -4 for the fourth.  Spraying and praying doesn't really work.

An aimed blast is 13 or less for the first burst, 12 for the second, 11 for the third and 10 for the fourth.  Using our average rolls of 10 we look at the table on p B120 and find: we hit with 3 rounds from the first burst, 3 from the second, and 2 from the third.

8 rounds to the body doing 10 each on average because of blow-through totaling to 80 points of damage which is well past the 60 needed to get auto-death.

The players really liked rolling for each separate round/burst. 

GURPS 3eR with High Tech 3e.

The average person has straight 10 stats and we're sticking to a skill of 12 in Guns/TL7 - Lt Auto.

An M16 does 5d crushing damage, SS of 12, Acc 11, 1/2D 500, Max 3,843, Wt 8, RoF 12*, Shots 20, ST 9, Rcl -1, Cost $540, TL 7.

First, the unaimed semi-auto shot:  The range of 50 yards is a -9 penalty, -5 for bullet-shyness, giving us a net skill of -2.  That's below the SS number of 12 so we get an additional -4 to hit for a -6 chance on 3d6.  Any roll of 4 or higher is a critical failure, so...  maybe don't make this shot.

Aimed, semi-auto shot:  -9 for range, +11 for Acc, -5 for bullet shyness for a net -3 or 9 or less (37.50% chance) to hit the body, 8 or less (25.92% chance) for a second shot and 7 or less (16.20% chance) for a third.

On average, all three miss!  But let's assume one does. 

5d crushing does an average of 17 points of damage to the body, which is reduced to 10 because of blow-through, which is enough to warrant a "consciousness roll" against HT on 3d6 to stay awake.  On average, they make it, but are very penalized by the damage with regards to movement and DX based skills. 

Aimed, semi-auto shot at the vitals:  -9 for range, +11 for Acc, -3 to hit vitals, -5 for bullet shyness for a net 6 or 6 or less (9.25% chance) to hit the body, 5 or less (4.62% chance) for a second shot and 4 or less (1.85% chance) for a third.

Even though we probably missed, vitals do triple damage after subtracting the DR of the target, which is 0 here.  So our average roll of 17 damage does 30 points of damage because of blow-through dropping the target to -20 and requiring 4 death rolls.

How about an unaimed blast of full-auto fire?  Same chances as before, but with an additional -1 for recoil on the first burst, -2 on the second, -3 on the third, and -4 for the fourth.  Spraying and praying doesn't really work.

An aimed blast is 8 or less for the first burst, 7 for the second, 6 for the third and 5 for the fourth.  Using our average rolls of 10 we look at the table on p B120 and find: we missed with all 12.

Adding in that bullet shyness penalty, because combat, really pissed the players off. 

GURPS 4e

The average person has straight 10 stats and we're sticking to a skill of 12 in Guns/TL7 - Rifle.

The M16A1 is TL7, does 5d pi damage, Acc 5, Range 500/3,200, Weighs 7.2/0.7, RoF 13, Shots 20+1(3), ST 8†, Bulk -5, Rcl 2, Cost $550/$34, LC 2.

Snap shots have been eliminated!  So has blow-through for the body.

Skill 12, -8 for range, 4 or less to hit with three rounds of semi-auto fire.  Yeah... No.

Aim for a second.  Skill 12, -8 for range, +5 for Acc.  9 or less.  On average, still a miss.

Aim for two seconds.  Skill 12, -8 for range, +5 for Acc, +1 aiming bonus.  10 or less!  On average, one hit.

5d pi to an unarmored ST 10 torso is about the same as before, doing 17 points of damage on average, but without blow-through, all of those points do damage.  It takes the victim to -7 points of damage, requiring a HT roll to remain conscious.

13 round blast without aiming?

Skill 12, -8 for range, +3 for volume of fire.  7 or less.  Prolly missing with all of those too.

After aiming?

Skill 12, -8 for range, +5 for Acc, +3 for volume of fire.  12 or less.  Average roll of 10 with a Rcl of 2 means two rounds hit.

17 damage from the first round gets to -7 and a consciousness roll.  17 from the second round gets to -24, another consciousness roll and a death roll.

4e angered several players because their characters became ineffective with the golden standard of a 12 skill.  I'd been looking for a means to simulate the vast expenditure of ammo to a single hit since I started playing GURPS and 4e solves for it nicely. 

2 3 3r 4

I've been swimming in this water for 40 years and no longer see it.  Some of this will be clear as mud to some people.

Gun stats changed a lot between GURPS 2e and 3e.

In 2e there are two kinds of ranged attack.  Snap and aimed.  If you don't aim, you get a -4 penalty.  If you take an action aiming, no penalty.  If you aim for up to three more turns you get a +1 for each turn of additional aiming!

In 2e an Assault Rifle (I think it's supposed to be an AK-47) was TL7, did 2+3 dice of crushing damage, had a point blank range (P-B) of 3, an increment (Inc.) of 10, 1/2D range of 75, Max range of 1,500, cost $800 and weight 12 lb. with a minimum ST of 8.

P-B range is the range, or less, that you get +4 to hit and +1 damage for a missile weapon.

Inc is the step, in yards where you take a -1 to your chance to hit.  For the example assault rifle, -1 at 10 yards, -2 at 20 yards, etc.  This seems fine until you start using more than one weapon and totally lose track of where you are.

You are -1 to skill for each point below minimum ST.

Notice a lack of ammunition and rate of fire in 2nd edition?  There's, literally, no rules for anything that can fire more than one shot a turn!  They admit that details like that would be coming in later supplements.  Autoduel, for example, has the rules for multiple shots and firing bursts.

3e has rules for multiple shots and bursts built right in.  You roll separately for each shot in semi-auto and for each burst in automatic fire.  Bursts are 4 shot unless your RoF isn't divisible by 4, then the last burst is 1-3 rounds.  There's a table for seeing how many rounds in a burst of a given size hit depending on how well you make the to-hit roll.

In the 3e (and 3eR) Basic Set an AK-47, 7.62mm R, SU does 5d+1 of crushing damage, with a Snap Shot (SS) of 12, Accuracy (Acc) of 7, 1/2D range of 400, Max range of 3,011, Weight of 10.5 lb., RoF of 10*, Shots of 30, minimum ST (ST) 10, Recoil (Rcl) -1, Cost $290 and is TL7.

The SS penalty is a -4 to hit if your skill, without aiming, is lower than the SS number.

Accuracy is a bonus you get if you aim for a full turn, you still get that +1 per turn of additional aiming.  The rules assume you're at a nice, safe, range by default.  Bullet shyness (up to -10 depending on the volume of incoming fire), buck fever (-1 to -10) and flinch (applies the Rcl penalty before firing) are added for combat situations.

The RoF is shots per turn (second) the asterisk means it's select-fire.

Rcl is the penalty of each burst of up to 4 shots, fired per turn.  -1 for the first 4 rounds, -2 for the second, -3 for the third... etc. until you spend a turn recovering from recoil.  If your skill is below 12, double the recoil penalty.  If your ST is below the minimum for the weapon, double the recoil penalty.  If both, quadruple the penalty!

If your ST is below the minimum, take two turns to recover from recoil instead of one.

Range penalties are now on the speed/range table.

High Tech 1e to 3e amends these numbers slightly with the AK-47, 7.62x39mm, Guns(LtAuto), adding the full name of the chambering and what skill you needed to run it, rounding Max down to 3,000, the Weight to 10 lb.; adding an Ammunition Weight (AWt.) stat of 1.8 lb., Shots are changed to 30+1.

There's rules in High Tech distinguishing bullet damage from crushing damage that becomes piercing damage in 4e. 

Rcl is changed slightly, adding the recoil penalty to the second and third shots fired semi-automatically as well as for bursts.  -0 for the first shot, -1 for the second, -2 for the third and keep going until the shooter takes a 1 turn pause in firing to recover from recoil.

Just more detail from the Basic Set, really.

4e rolls to hit once per turn, regardless of the number of rounds fired.  You get a bonus to hit for firing a lot of bullets, but after that it's effective skill and multiples of the Rcl number from there.

This is unpopular with a lot of players and many kept on with the 3e rules because of it.

In the 4e Basic Set, we're back to generic guns, but the AK looking one is the Assault Rifle, 7.62mS, TL is still 7, Damage is still 5d+1, but now we have piercing to replace crushing.  Accuracy is lower at 4, 1/2D and Max ranges are consolidated into Range 400/3,000, as is the Wt and AWt into Weight 10.5/1.8, RoF 10, Shots is 30+1(3), ST 10†, Bulk -4, Rcl 2, Cost $300, LC 2.  With a note about how a semi-automatic version differs from the real thing.

The lower accuracy is because several penalties have been built into the combat rules that were tabulated separately.  However the term "aiming" changed a bit and there's no longer a snap-shot penalty for a low skill.

There's now a bonus to hit depending on the number of rounds fired, this comes up with the new recoil numbers.

Shots now includes, in parenthesis, the time it takes to reload the gun using the generic rules.  More detailed rules come later.

4e reverts back to -1 to skill for every point below the minimum ST your character has.  The † next to the ST means you need to use two hands or take a penalty in firing it.

Bulk, essentially, replaces the Holdout penalty and is a modifier to using the move and attack maneuver.

Recoil is completely changed.  This is the number you must "make it by" to get a second or subsequent hit on a target.  Thus, if your effective skill was 14, you need to roll a 12 to get two hits, 10 to get three, and so on.

High Tech 4e, again, makes minor changes to the stats but it's Izhmash AK-47, 7.62x39mm, now.  Range changes to 400/3,100, Weight to 11.3/1.8, ST to 9†, Bulk -5 Cost to $450/$30.  Shots are shown as 30(3), but I think that's an (unaddressed) errata and should stay 30+1(3).

Cost now incorporates the price of a magazine after the slash.

The number of hit points the average person has did not change at all between all the editions.  4e gets it from ST, all others from HT.

The 2e Assault rifle's 2+3 dice does 5-15 points of damage, averaging 10.

The 5d+1 (pi or cr) does 6-31 points of damage, averaging 18.5.

Guns are a lot more deadly in 3e and beyond.

But Wait! There's More!

Remember when I said the window on the PMAG25 SR/LR W was useless because it wasn't numbered?

In the process of taking pictures to see what showed in the window every five rounds, I noticed:

They're very faint.

For the record:

0-rounds:

5-rounds:

10-rounds:

15-rounds:  No number for the orange coil to point at, but the bottom round lines up with a dot in the window.

20-rounds:

25-rounds:  Again no number for the coil to point at, because the coils are below the window, but the bottom round is lined up with a dot in the window.

I Totally Need This!

Goodyear sent out a van to change my tires in my driveway.

I need one.

Tire machine in the back, balancer amidships.

Compressor for your air tools.

Four tanks for different grade oils and a pump to move used oil into a waste tank.

Decent amount of storage space for the tires you're bringing to your customer.

I wonder if one could make money driving such a thing behind the Hot Rod Power Tour.

It was totally cool and I spent some time geeking out about it. 

Slow Your Roll

Harvey found me sloth themed dice!

They're absolutely the cutest!

Unhandy

I forgot to mention that when comparing the definitions from a paper dictionary to an online dictionary on your blog:

You're going to be doing some typing because the copy paste function from paper to blog is so non-functional it is nigh nonexistent.  Wait.  It's ACTUALLY nonexistent.

No.  Going back to nigh...

I used a high resolution optical scanner to transfer the words to an advance neural net processor to transcribe the words digitally.

In a sense, I used the oldest computer I own to copy paste. 

Just So You Know

If you hit play on Attack of the Clones as you begin construction of the Lego Acclamator set, you will be able to finish it before its first appearance in the film.

The same cannot be said for making the Lego Venator set.  But you will be done before Order 66.  

Details

In the T2K Small Arms Guide the M16A2 they show has some, oddites.

There's no groove for the charging handle latch.

There's a retaining pin for the buffer retaining plunger.

The lower doesn't have the reinforcement that an A2 lower should where the receiver extension screws in.

The markings say "CAL .223" instead of "CAL. 5.56 MM." and "MODEL SP1" but do not say "PROPERTY OF US GOVT."

Like my clone, there is no pin for the auto-sear despite being marked for burst.  Also, like my clone, that's a semi-auto hammer.

The upper has the distinctive "shelf" for the cut-away half-moon bolt-carrier that kept SP1 owners from being evil and converting them to full auto.  It also has the SP1 screw at the front instead of the more normal captive pin.

Some details of the rear sight and handguard make me think the artist was working from a picture of an A1 style SP1 and they used artistic license to change them to resemble M16A2 parts.

That author drew over several photos that I've found later to make them more T2K from the original sources.  Several Vietnam photos got that treatment, his "kevlar" helmets are obviously M1 pots with skirts added than the real deal. 

T2K Small Arms Guide 2025 Edition

Now with KaBar, taped magazines and dog tags!  The angle of the painting is impossible in real life.

 

The original:

I noticed that you can't insert the magazines taped like they are.  Wanna bet a nickel that the original artist didn't try and only had a short period of time to paint what they had?

My previous attempt in 2016:

If anyone recognizes the crate from the OG artwork, please let me know.  I'd love to get one.  I don't recall ever seeing one that used hex-head bolts and didn't have a rib at the ends of the lid.

You Learned The Wrong Divination

Octospheromancy doesn't work because it's really icosahedromancy.*

Adjust your spell books accordingly.

*Yes, I just made up those two words. 

Three Inch Scale

I've been playing Car Wars for a while.  A long while.

It didn't take us very long at all to notice that our Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars would be perfect game pieces.

That led all of us to repaint our battered cars!

One of my favorite cars was the Hairy Hustler.

I'd had that car since I was three or four.  It was not in as good of shape as this image I stole from ebay.

I don't know what nostalgia bug bit me to try and recreate my old car from my middle school days, but...

OMG, that looks like shit.  That might even be a 100% accurate recreation of what it looked like for reals, but my mind's eye says it looked better.

So I gently pried it apart and stripped the brushed on enamel paint off with acetone.

Where it sat for more than a month waiting for a rattle can of the color I wanted to arrive!

It came out a lot better with a spray can than brushing!

 

I intentionally left the paint chips from the old paint intact because I had them on the original car.  The color looks far better in person than my camera is capturing.

Reassembly went smoothly.

 There's still some painting left.  I had some small numbers on my AutoDuel car and I painted in the tail-lights.

How it compares to the original car:

 The OG example is in far better condition than the one I repainted.

Matchbox Commodore

Matchbox released a model of the Holden VF Commodore SSV in 2022.

As a South Australia Highway Patrol car.

In 2023 they rereleased it in metallic orange.

This year in metallic black.

The Commodore is a close relative of the Caprice.

The VE Commodore, lengthened, is a WM Caprice; like The Beast.

A VF Commodore, lengthened, is a WN Caprice.

Most of the differences are under the skin and in Matchbox scale, you can't even, really, tell a Commodore is too short to stand in for a Caprice.

The only VE Holdens Matchbox made were of the Ute.  It's like an El Camino. 

 

Unconventional Dice

Harvey got me a neat dice set!

 The carrier is at least as nifty as the dice.  It's in the form of a swing-out revolver cylinder.

The dice are little bullets!

The "cases" are flat and you read the number at the top when it comes to a rest.

 It also came with a wrist strap in that looks like a cartridge belt.

Very neat!

I Can Quit Whenever I Want

I really like the Chessex Vortex series of dice!

 Now I have all three colors!

Illegal Aliens

Phil Foglio and Nick Pollotta co-authored an amusing science fiction novel titled "Illegal Aliens."

It was a book I gave away to people to share my enjoyment.

To my horror, I discovered that later editions didn't have the illustrations that Mr Foglio made for the book.

Thanks to the wonders of the intertubes, I have secured a first printing and I now have an illustrated copy again.

I wonder why the illustrations are omitted from current editions.

Tech Level 9

According to GURPS: Basic Set (Vol 1) page 27:

It is now TL9.

We have entered into the "Microtech Age".

Adjust your character sheet accordingly.

PS: WHERE ARE THE FUCKING FLYING CARS!?!?

Beeep Weeeeet Booop Weet

I wonder how many times R2-D2 tried to warn people that Darth Vader was actually Anakin Skywalker before just giving up because only C-3P0 could translate and Threepio kept getting his memory wiped.

Nerd!

I just made a spreadsheet for keeping track of all my GURPS characters.

Since there's a "date created" line on many of them, I can even sort them chronologically.

My first, ever, GURPS character was a Car Wars character.  December 26, 1986 for 1e.

I never played that character.

The first character I ever played was an elf when I cajoled FuzzyGeff to run the recently published Yrth (then GURPS: Fantasy).

Never looked back, honestly.

Even as early as 2e, GURPS solved problems I'd been having with made for the setting games.  The one that really sticks out is getting a genuine sword in T2K.

LBB Traveller was an awesome setting with a mediocre system.

Generally, we simply liked the feel of the GURPS magic system over AD&D and there wasn't really anything special about the D&D rules to keep us using them with the worlds we were making ourselves.

The World of Greyhawk was the only published setting I knew anything about and we weren't dropping our hard earned on that when we could make up our own shit for free!