Centaurus Gate, Trauma Squad Session 1

So I finally started a new campaign! I started prepping it in <gasp> March, as far as I can see in my Discord chat logs. It took way too long for my liking, though there were significant periods where I couldn’t spare the time for it.

“A TL9/10 planet-hopping space campaign of elite commandos inspired by XCOM and Stargate Atlantis. Shoot aliens, bugs, and robots. Uncover the mysteries of elusive alien masterminds, and recover their tech for Earth.”

That’s the synopsis. A setting similar to that of the XCOM and Chimera Squad games, where aliens invaded Earth, but we drove them away and now live with our erstwhile enemies because their Masters left them here stranded. Long story short, while Earth now has FTL travel, the “near space” around it proved utterly uninteresting, but a wormhole gate was discovered on Mars that led to the Centaurus Arm of the Milky Way… Where the alien masterminds left other minions, apparently a long time ago, and also some of their tech.

The campaign follows the exploits of Trauma Squad, a team of elite operatives of the Offworld Exploration Branch (OFF-EX for short) of AEGIS, Earth’s post-War defense force. OFF-EX established a base on the other side of the gate and is tasked to explore the surrounding space and retrieve any useful tech for Earth. Encounters with local aliens have so far gone poorly (read: they attack all outsiders on sight), and OFF-EX is currently mostly avoiding direct contact and focusing on exploration while it works to decipher the locals’ language.

I’m considering running this campaign with more than one group, but while Trauma Squad are my longtime friends with whom I play via voicechat, eventual other groups will be in PBP format. I still haven’t committed to anything, I wanted to get the primary game running first and see how it goes. So more on that later.

Date: 2023-10-27

Player Characters (~300 points):
M2M2M, mech vehicular and robotics engineer, drone operator, hacker
Dr. Heinrich Schüler, human xenobiologist, physician, search and rescue specialist
Dr. Link Mercury, nanoswarm combat medic, pilot
Nectahii, edari sniper
Miko, human melee specialist, silent killer, psi

NPCs of note:
Captain Zek-12, gray commanding officer to Trauma Squad

CP awarded: 2

The session started with Captain Zek-12 briefing Trauma Squad on their mission. Another team, Boron Squad, missed a scheduled check-in, and a standard rescue mission was being engaged 24 hours later. they were on an exploration mission on the planet Vectrosis, where surveys found traces of previous local alien habitation and potential Masters’ technology. In their last communique, Boron Squad reported that they found an alien facility built into a mountain, which they started to investigate. They reported no contact with sentient life, or any other dangers. After a bit of Q&A, Trauma Squad geared up and departed.

Jumping with their shuttle to Vectrosis, they found the region where Boron Squad landed enveloped in an immense storm. This caused them to land quite a ways off, and the storm apparently also messed with radio and sensors, which couldn’t reach more than 50 yards. Luckily, their piloting skills avoided a crash landing.

On their way through some woods to Boron Squad’s shuttle, the M2M2M was shot with a massive lightning bolt which disabled it, and feline-looking predators ambushed the team. Luckily, the only contact they made was when one of the six-legged creatures pounced on M2M2M who was already prone and knocked out, and didn’t manage to rake through its heavy armor. Trauma Squad’s gauss shotguns, sniper railguns, and magnum pistols loaded with APHEX ammo made short work of the beasts. They made their way back to their shuttle, M2M2M and one fresh corpse in tow. There, they kickstarted the mech back up, who then proceeded to repair itself while Heinrich dissected the big cat. He determined the cats had organs which produced electricity, which suffused their claw and bite attacks, and which they could also shoot in the form of lightning. However, a single specimen could not nearly produce lightning as strong as the one which disabled M2M2M. A theory that multiple individuals can together produce a larger bolt remains unproven so far.

The team eventually made their way to Boron Squad’s shuttle, which they found vacant, if undisturbed. Ship logs revealed nothing extraordinary, but automatically uploaded bodycam footage proved more illuminating. Boron Squad did indeed find an alien facility under the mountain, including a large vault door which they haven’t managed to open on any existing footage. Instead, the latest footage shows the onset of the storm, and how Boron Squad evacuated into the facility to shelter themselves within.

At the hillside entrance, Trauma Squad found the remains of a camp ravaged by storm, and also two corpses of the familiar feline predators, shot by standard-issue OFF-EX weaponry. Heinrich also noticed the corrosive traces of antax blood, concluding that Alx Thorox, the Boron Squad antax cybersecurity and electronics expert, was severely wounded. Proceeding into the hillside entrance, they found a simple elevator platform going downwards, and signs that Alx’ injuries were treated here. Down the elevator, there was a small alien facility, where Boron Squad hauled what equipment they could when the storm started, and a large vault door, opened just wide enough to squeeze through.

There wasn’t anything of immediate interest in this part of the facility, so Trauma Squad proceeded beyond the door. There, after a winding natural cavern tunnel, they found another part of the alien facility, including secure doors which led to a small laboratory. This seemed much more interesting at first glance, but three armored gun turrets popped out of the ceiling as the team entered. Their reflexes allowed them to bail out of the room for cover before the turrets could shoot. They formed up around the door, and made synchronized pop-up attacks… which were interrupted by the waiting turrets. Everyone dodged and dropped, but Heinrich and Link failed. Luckily, Heinrich’s turret rolled low and merely scratched him through the armor, and Link is Homogenous as a nanoswarm, so the 6-round burst he took didn’t amount to more than a scratch either.  While Link’s shotgun and Heinrich’s magnum pistol only managed to temporarily stun one turret, M2M2M’s and Nectahii’s high-caliber railguns blew them all up. We concluded the session there.

Concealed and Integrated Electromag Guns

After publishing my gauss gun rework, I got a request for wrist-mounted weaponry. That got me thinking, so I included some concealable pistols and other weapons fitting the theme.

To understand the weapon statistics, see Weapon Stats in Ultra-Tech: Electromagnetic Guns Revised.

New Weapons

Concealed Rail Pistol, 7mm (TL10): This single shot “pistol” with a 1.5″ barrel is little more than a set of tiny rails and a trigger mechanism. It can be built into an everyday item as small as a pen, and many models are factory-produced in such form factors. It is marketed for self-defense but is mostly used by criminals, who often build it into gloves or knives to discharge upon striking.

Concealed Rail Pistol, 10mm (TL10): This variant of the concealed pistol is too big to fit inside a pen, but can still be built into most small items. Since penetration is already not a concern for such weapons, the larger wound channel is a strict improvement in stopping power. Assassins like to load it with APEX ammo if they can get their hands on it.

Underbarrel Gauss Shotgun, 18.5mm (TL10): This is effectively a gauss shotgun pistol which can be mounted on any Bulk -3 or larger weapon. Some models are just the barrel integrating with the main weapon’s controls, with a selector switch or HUD link changing firing modes between the main weapon and the shotgun. Others come with a separate trigger, and some even come with a small pistol grip.

Gauss Urban Assault Weapon (TL10): Intended for close quarters police work, this is a combination of the gauss PDW and shotgun. The gauss carbine is no less compact and deals better with armor, but the PDW is cheaper.

Wrist-Mounted Guns

A staple of space opera bounty hunters and gadgeteer heroes, any electromagnetic pistol can be made into a wrist-mounted version. Depending on the conversion, this can be a standalone weapon mounted on a bracelet, or something that must be integrated into a suit of armor. It can have either external fire controls like a button, or be controlled entirely through a HUD link. Converting a pistol like this requires a successful Armoury (Small Arms) roll and 4 hours of work, and costs 25% of the gun’s cost.

Damage, Range, RoF, Shots, ST, and LC are unchanged. Reduce Weight by 25%, and the Cost for off-the shelf models by the same amount. Lower Acc by 2, remove -2 from Bulk, and increase Recoil by 1 (for machine pistols, use their one-handed Recoil of 2 as base).

Ultra-Tech: Electromagnetic Guns Revised

While preparing my upcoming XCOM/Stargate-inspired campaign, I decided to make TL10 gauss guns the primary weapons in the setting. Those published in UT have a bad reputation however, mainly because they’re a marginal improvement over TL8 small-arms, and because TL9 ETC weapons significantly outperform them. What started as a simple rework targeted specifically at my campaign, ended up as a general update to Ultra-Tech electromagnetic guns, inspired by Douglas Cole’s work on UT guns and Cdru’s Ultra-Tech: Small Arms Revised. Thanks to Phantasm for invaluable feedback!

Methodology

This is intended as an update to Ultra-Tech’s electromagnetic guns, not a fundamental rework. I have applied PK’s EM gun tweak, and followed the GURPS simplification of damage and range being proportional to muzzle velocity. The UT EM gun list is a bit sparse when compared to TL9 weapons, and has some notable holes. I have introduced some new EM weapons to fill the missing roles and add a bit of variety, but stopped short of adding completely novel weapons.

I left the UT calibers untouched, even though I am sure the weight and cost of 10mm ammo is a leftover of some past revision and should be changed to fit with the other calibers. I only used the published calibers for the new weapons – the sole exception is a new 100mm mortar.

I intended to change the published weapon stats as little as possible aside from PK’s tweak, but I had to adjust some other stats on certain weapons because they were a downgrade from TL8 guns as published.

Weapon Stats

The notation and abbreviations in the tables follow Weapon Statistics (B268-270), except for the following:

Weight: Weapon weights have three figures separated by slashes. The first figure is the weight of a fully loaded weapon. The second is the weight of a single full reload, including the magazine and the power cell. It is assumed that the power cell is inserted into the magazine along with the ammunition, and provides enough energy for firing the weapon’s specified number of shots. The third figure is the kind of power cell the weapon uses.

Bulk: Weapons with folding or retractable stocks have an asterisk (*) in their Bulk score. When folding a stock, remove -1 from Bulk, reduce Accuracy by 1, increase Recoil by 1 (unless the weapon had Recoil 1 to start with), and multiply ST with 1.2 (round up).

Cost: Weapon costs have two figures separated by a slash. The first figure is the price of an unloaded weapon. The second is the price of ammunition for a full reload, for players who prefer purchasing ammo for their characters by reload rather than in bulk. The power cell must be paid for separately. Magazine costs are ignored for simplicity.

Unless otherwise noted, all weapons can be fired in subsonic mode which gives -3 to hear the gunfire, halves damage and range, and reduces recoil by 1 (down to a minimum of 2). All 4mm weapons do pi- damage in subsonic mode. Switching modes is done via a selector switch or a HUD link and requires a Ready maneuver. The Lightning Fingers perk (or an equivalent perk for operating computer-connected gear) reduces this to a free action on your turn. Unlike in UT, there is no high-velocity mode – all guns are already calibrated for the highest velocity safe for weapon operation.

The Weapons

To avoid reprinting text from Ultra-Tech, this section only contains information on new weapons, and weapons with significant changes from UT.

As per PK’s tweak, electromagnetic weapons don’t have an armor divisor by default, but all ammunition options from Ultra-Tech, pp. 152-159 may be applied. Use the base ammo stats as published in Ultra-Tech, p. 143.

Pistols

Gauss Holdout Pistol, 4mm (TL10): This is a compact version of the gauss pistol. The subcompact role is filled by the minineedler.

Gauss Heavy Pistol, 4mm (TL10): A heavier version of the gauss pistol with a longer barrel and stronger coils. This allows it to fire at higher velocities, at the expense of worse recoil. It can be downshifted to shoot at lower velocities instead – use the stats for the gauss pistol. The subsonic mode uses gauss pistol stats as well.

Gauss Magnum Pistol, 7mm (TL10): An oversized pistol firing the same round as the magnum rifle, this pistol is mostly used by target shooters and enthusiasts. Some highly skilled gunfighters do prefer it as a backup weapon, because it comes close to rifle penetration levels.

Gauss Magnum Pistol, 10mm (TL10): Somewhat of a novelty weapon, this variant of the magnum pistol fires the same round as the portable railgun. Delivering the same energy as the 7mm variant, it has worse penetration, and is primarily intended for use with APEX warheads.

Submachine Guns

With electromagnetic guns, there is no difference between pistol- and rifle-caliber rounds. This reduces the number of weapon roles in the SMG category to that of machine pistols and PDWs. With full-body armor easily available at TL10, SMGs lose most of their appeal, but they’re still used in situations where their compactness is more important than firepower. Improvements in recoil mitigation also give them an effective Recoil of 1.

Gauss Machine Pistol, 4mm (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. When fired one handed with the stock retracted, change ST to 9 and increase Recoil to 2.

Gauss Heavy Machine Pistol, 4mm (TL10): A heavier version of the gauss machine pistol with a longer barrel and stronger coils. This allows it to fire at higher velocities, but requires reduced RoF to keep Recoil at 1. When fired one handed with the stock retracted, change ST to 11 and increase Recoil to 2. It can also be downshifted to shoot at lower velocities – use the stats for the gauss machine pistol. The subsonic mode uses gauss machine pistol stats as well.

Gauss Heavy PDW, 4mm (TL10): A heavier version of the gauss PDW with a longer barrel and stronger coils. This allows it to fire at higher velocities, but requires reduced RoF to keep Recoil at 1. It can be downshifted to shoot at lower velocities instead – use the stats for the gauss PDW. The subsonic mode uses gauss PSW stats as well.

Rifles

Gauss Carbine, 4mm (TL10): A gauss rifle with a shorter barrel, which slightly reduces penetration but also makes it easier to handle. Most models include a retractable stock.

Gauss Magnum Rifle, 7mm (TL10): This gauss rifle fires a heavier, 7mm round. It is preferred as a DMR, and by hunters who can afford it. Some models have a rapid fire selector, which increases its RoF to 12, ST to 12†, and Recoil to 3, but reduces LC to 2. Cost is unchanged.

Payload Railgun, 25mm (TL10): A bulkier variant of the portable railgun which fires 25mm rounds. Some models have adjustable rails and can shoot 10mm rounds as well – switching between modes takes 5 seconds. When shooting 10mm rounds, use portable railgun stats. Increase weight to 30 lbs, and cost to $23,000.

Shotguns

Applying PK’s tweak to gauss shotgun damage stat published in Ultra-Tech would give them  better penetration than that of the gauss rifle, which is nonsensical. So I’ve instead left them at 150% the velocity of conventional shotguns, as described in UT, but calculated with more precision to better represent the lower penetration they should have. I’ve also increased the ST score of the gauss shotgun pistol to a value more appropriate for one-handed firing of a sawed-off shotgun, using the guidelines published in High-Tech. This was a rare case where I’ve nerfed the published stats instead of improving them.

Gauss Shotgun, 18.5mm (TL10): A civilian shotgun, omitting the need for rapid fire reduces its weight in relation to the CAW. The lower rate of fire also means worse recoil control, however. Most models include a retractable stock.

Gauss Shotgun Pistol, 18.5mm (TL10): This is a gauss shotgun in “whippet” configuration, with a very short barrel and no stock. When used two-handed, ST is 12† and Recoil is 4.

Gauss CAW, 18.5mm (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. Most models include a retractable stock.

Machine Guns

Gauss GPMG, 7mm (TL10): Half way between the gauss magnum rifle and the gauss HMG, the gauss GPMG offers more firepower than the gauss LSW but better portability than the gauss HMG.

Assault Railgun, 25mmG (TL10): A machinegun variant of the payload railgun. Its main use is delivering explosive payload at ranges greater than that of the auto EMGL and with higher accuracy.

Electromag Auto Grenade Launcher (Auto EMGL), 40mmG (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. As published, this weapon was worse than its TL8 equivalents, and wasn’t “auto” at all. This update remedies that.

Grenade Launchers

Electromag Grenade Launcher (EMGL), 40mmG (TL10): As per Ultra-Tech, p. 141. As published, this weapon was worse than its TL8 equivalents in several regards, and this update remedies that.

High-Capacity EMGL, 40mmG (TL10): This EMGL holds the grenades in a large drum. For some models, the whole drum can be replaced, prefilled, instead of reloading each grenade individually. This increases the weight of a reload to 7 lbs, and such swappable drums cost $100. Change Shots to 12(5) – weapon price is unaffected.

Light Underbarrel EMGL, 25mmG (TL10): This is just the Underbarrel EMGL, 25mmG from Ultra-Tech, renamed for easier differentiation from the new 40mm underbarrel EMGL.

Gauss Payload Pistol, 25mmG (TL10): A standalone version of the light underbarrel EMGL in the form factor of a large pistol.

Mortars

Light Electromag Mortar, 64mm (TL10): A stripped-down version of the 64mm electromag mortar. It sacrifices accuracy and range for much better portability.

Heavy Electromag Mortar, 100mm (TL10): A larger mortar firing 100mm bombs. It is more accurate and longer-ranged than the 64mm version, but also much heavier. The 100mm bombs have WPS 8, CPS $80.

Light Electromag Mortar Box, 40mm (TL10): If TL9 firearms included mortar boxes, why are they suddenly no longer in use at TL10? Similar to its TL9 counterpart, this is just four 25mm underbarrel EMGL tubes on a tripod with a backplate and linked fire control.

Electromag Mortar Box, 64mm (TL10): Similar to its TL9 counterpart, this is a pod with six mortar barrels, each containing five stacked 64mm bombs.