A few thoughts: A large mass(they don't sound like they walk in a long line) shooting shotguns at a designated target are going to kill a lot of their own.
Unless they are wearing armor(something that they probably cannot make themselves the way you describe them), one round from your average pistol or hunting rifle can kill them with a decent hit. Unless someone is supplying them with equipment, ammo, and other supplies, they don't have any sort of support structure and should generally be using natural or improvised weapons. How do they keep themselves fed? Particularly while traveling? Even if one of them finds a gun they can use, how long can they use it before they run out of ammo? If they eat each other, then killing one should take half a dozen others out of the fight as they eat their dead comrade(and possibly fight over the remains, possibly using up what few rounds they had). Quite frankly 1/400 with enough brains to realize that they need to make equipment to be more effective means that they are only really useful as shock-troops, and will quickly die out without a large support structure that they cannot provide for themselves. Even if the food and supplies are available in shipping containers of some sort, 1 thinker out of 400 animals is not enough to keep them fed and equipped even with pheromones for 6-12 specific behaviors that would be carried out without flaw.(and since they are mad, not engineered as soldiers, those behaviors would not include 'collect one weapon, your kit, and a meal, then form up') What if you have a mock-up of a commander that then shoots at the real commander. Why would they not then mob their commander(even 50% of them)? Pheromones don't really provide IFF when they are already immersed with 'shoot my target' pheromones. The Zendretti at least had technicians that 'know the secrets of levers 3 and 7' and they still had only a small percentage of their self-repairing ships powered by a regenerating power source still working after a few hundred years.(and they were basically humans with a warrior culture, not the unthinking killing machines you describe) I can see the warrior kings having good equipment(mostly found), but their minions should be easy to mow down with conventional rounds as they swarm in to attack at melee range, often distracted by stopping to eat their own dead. Even ancient warfare with ranged weapons required substantial support for supplying food and rounds to the troops. I can see these things used as a weapon, but they would need to have a great deal of maintenance and built-in safe-guards to protect the maintainers, not just a 'go there next.' Food and ammo are reasons survival horror so often involves undead using their claws and teeth. Anything else is pretty hard to support believably. (now, if they were robots using energy weapons, that might work too, but then you can't use a chainsaw) -Terwin On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 11:39 AM, Nigel McCarty-Eigenmann<[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Sounds like your average FPS >> > > Oh... do you normally die immediately when play unless you are in heavy > cover with massive artillery support? > > I would have said the opposite of most FPS - they normally have > nigh-indestructible PC equipped with better weapons facing set-piece > enemies. > > The posleen are a tide that engulfs regions. > > Perhaps you think you are playing Call of Duty and the computer is playing > Command and Conquer? > > Seriously though; > > We have in the past mentioned how the section of Archers should be modelled > as a machine gun, in that they are 20 "weapons" that shoot at Rof 12 for a > net Rof of 120 > > On the same line of thought; an oolt, a Posleen unit, of 400 strong, all > firing at a party of PCs with the lowest capability weapons - shotguns with > notional Rof 3 per is Rof 1200. ok, this is over a much larger beaten area, > and should be at skill 9 for a base but this is a +17 to hit at least. > Assume suppression fire over the area locking this down to +6... > That's still a 15 at base. And that's discounting a guess at the bonus for > multiple projectiles. > > Replace the shotguns with a few of the 1mm railguns that are fatal in any > body armour and able to pierce light armoured vehicles from the front. > > Throw in the odd 3mm railgun, Plasma Cannon or Hypervelocity Missile > launcher. Armour is doomed. This will be what the Godking has so it will > be aimed at decent skill - 16-20. And if mounted on a tenar (anti-grav > flying saucer platform) stabalised and equipped with good electronic sights > if the godking is willing to use them. > > If the players use trad tactics they will open fire, kill a few dozen normal > posleen and die. If they are stealthier, they will kill fewer up front, get > run down and die. > If they make use of the deliberate weaknesses of the setting and chose the > way they fight then they can kill all of the oolt and get away. > [dig in deep, lay mines, pick an exposed location to make the possies bunch > up, call in lots of artillery! Use heavy weapons - belt fed] > One of the points of the setting was: Man meets a force that he cannot beat > with conventional methods of warfare. > > Most of the time this type of game will be survival horror - more about what > man does to man than about the posleen. Like zombies. They are the > wallpaper...that will eat you if lean on it. > > [mental note - find wall paper like that] > > <McE > > _______________________________________________ > GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> > http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l > -- The man that holds fast to his bitterness will eventually be consumed by it, but if you let it go, your arms will be free to seize the glory that is life. -Terwin _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
