I’ve always had a little bit of a problem with slug-throwing weapons in SD for the same reason that you don’t see them used as much in air-to-air combat in real life.  The problem is that compared to guided missiles, even a Vulcan or CIWS anti-missile defense system spitting 6,000 slugs a minute has a hard time hitting any airborne targets unless you are very close.  The reason isn’t hard to see; you have a firing platform and a target moving at speeds in the supersonic range, and in the time it takes the slug to close the distance between shooter and shootee, the target will have moved.  Another way to say it is that slugs are just too slow.

That is the way it will stay with conventional, chemical explosive-driven bullets.  The upper bound of the speed you can attain will be governed by the speed of the expanding gases used to fire the round.  It’s an upper limit you can’t overcome.

Now railguns are a different story.  The navy has been experimenting with shipboard railguns with enough power to throw a mailbox into orbit (figuratively speaking).  The difference here is that because railguns use magnetic fields to move the projectile, if you want more speed, you add more electricity.  Your limiting factor (in theory) becomes the amount of voltage your circuits can handle or the capacity of your power source.

In Silent Death, railguns are very long range weapons–maybe longer than they should be just because of the inherent limitations of projectiles.  It’s a quibble without a little back-of-the-envelope calculating.  But the miniguns and the autocannons seem to me to have more range that is good for them.

So here’s a suggested optional rule: Miniguns’ optimal range is one hex.  Long range is two.  For autocannons, short range is one, long range is three.  Compensating for this limitation is the fact that when they hit, they hit hard.  I would use a multiplier; low x 2 for minis, low x 3 or medium x 2 for autocannons.  Add one point to hit and to damage (before the multiplier) for each additional gun in the mount.

This way, you have to move in and get very close before you strike.  This has some interesting tactical implications for big targets such as warhounds whose point defense systems can swat anything one hex away, and probably some others as well.  Try this optional rule sometime, and let us know what you think.

MXSavant