Scientifically Calculated Conversions for StarTrek Weapons in the World of Rifts
As devastating as phasers are, they are by far not the deadliest weapons in the Federation Arsenal. According to the Tech Manual, the antimatter systems listed contain 1x1015 MegaJoules, the power of 1000 Photon Torpedos. Thus, the power yeild of a single photon torpedo is around 1x10e12 MegaJoules, or MegaWatts. One trillion Megawatts of energy. Back to phasers, shipboard phasers can emit beams of energy around 5.1 MW of energy output, whereas handhelds max out at 10 kW. Thus, a Ship Phaser can be at most, 510 times more powerful than a type 1, 2, or 3 phaser. That�s deadly. Still it pales in the comparison to a photon torpedo, which is 196,078 times more powerful than a ship phaser, measured by energy output alone. Or, about 10 million times more powerful than that phaser rifle. The frightening Truth: (from http://www.cakes.mcmail.com/StarTrek/photontorpedo.htm ) What we will do is calculate for a detonation of 100% efficiency for simplicity. The amount of matter is 3kg (1.5 antimatter mass combined with 1.5 mass of matter. , E=mc2. Photorps use 1.5 kg of matter, and 1.5kg of antimatter. c is the speed of light which we will approximate to 299,792,500 ms-1 1 photon torpedo equals 2.6962662916875*10e17 joules 269,626,629,168,750,000 (269 quadrillion joules) or roughly 52,867,966,503 (52 billion) times the energy output of ship phasers. This contradicts the measurements given in the technical manual, but is actually more accurate. We can assume that the numbers were "estimated" for TV Convenience. Assuming that level 4 (Light Burns: Extensive CNS damage & epidermal electromegnetic (EM) trauma. Visible thermal shock) equates to 2d6 sdc, we can use the ST:TNG Tech Manual "Damage Index" to get a coherent progression of damage. Statistically speaking, a single d6 will average 3.5 per roll. Thus, 2d6 will average 7 SDC of damage. From there, all phaser settings can be expressed as an average amount of SDC or MDC damage. (2 x [Damage Index]) Average Average Ship Phaser Level SDC MDC Dice Roll (Mega Damage) 1 Sleep for 5d4 melees 2 Sleep for 3d4+3 Minutes 3 Sleep for 1d6x10 minutes 4 7 - 2d6 S 35.7 1d6 x10 5 14 - 4d6 S 71.4 2d6 x10 6 30 - 8d6 S 153 4d6+1 x10 7 100 1 3d6x10 S 510 1d6+2 x100 8 240 2 1d4 M 1224 3d6+1 x100 9 600 6 2d6 M 3060 8d6 x100 10 900 9 2d6+3 M 4590 1d6 x1000 11 1340 13 4d6 M 6834 2d6 x1000 12 1880 19 5d6 M 9,588 2d6+2 x1000 13 2200 22 6d6 M 11,220 3d6 x1000 14 2860 28 8d6 M 14,586 4d6x1000 15 3700 37 1d6x10 M 18,870 5d6+1 x1000 16 4900 49 1d6+1x10 M 24,990 8d6x1000 Original (Flawed) Math: Hand held Phasers max out at 10 kW of power output. This would be their maximum setting of level 16. To be nice, we�ll assume that level 8 is average though. If a Photon torpedo contains 10 million times the energy of a Phaser (at setting 8) then the damage for a single Photorp is 1d4x10 million MDC. However, a phaser is a tight beam of energy, whereas a photon torpedo has a dispersed explosion, so the target would NOT absorb the full effect. Let us assume that only one tenth of the energy actually gets transferred to the target, this gives us only 1d4 x1 million MDC. If we go with 16�s numbers instead, we get a blast of 3d6x 100 million MDC, which I think we can all agree is unfair to our targets, unless we feel munchy. Using real scienceE(joules) = 269,626,629,168,750,000 joules. 269 quadrillion joules or watts. A single photorp averages 1,321,170,482,909,970 MD (1 quadrillion) or 37,747,728,083,142 (37 trillion) d6 worth of MDC. Assuming 10% effectiveness, we get only: 3 trillion,774 billion d6 of damage. I don�t know how to make that more manageable, even if only a tenth of a percent of the energy is absorbed by the target, we�re still looking at 37 billion d6 of damage. I think that the damage can be defined as �Absolutely destroys everything in it�s blast radius, to include large planetoids� Better Math: Okay, a Photorp contains 269,626,629,168,750,000 joules according to physics math, and a phaser can put out 1,550,000 joules at setting 16 according to the manual. This gives a true energy joule comparison. A photon torpedo is, strictly by calculated joule energy output, 173,952,663,979 (decimals dropped) (173 Million) times more powerful than a portable phaser set at setting 16. Multiply by setting 16�s average damage (49 MD) to get 8,523,680,535,012 (8 trillion) MDC on average. If only 1 joule out of 10,000 causes effect to your target, we now get an average of 852,368,053 (852 million) MDC. That�s much lower than my initial figures. This equals out to 243,533,729 d6 of MDC. (243 million d6) The SDF-1 from Robotech has a total structural MDC equal to 77,800 MDC. At 100% efficiency, a single photorp destroys 109,558,875 SDF-1�s. At 1 joule out of 10,000 efficiency (0.01%) the photorp can only destroy 10,955 SDF-1�s. Look out Zentraedi. And Invid. And Robotech Masters, and Gene-Splicers, Prometheans, Spluugorth, Janus, Vampires, SPOCTs (Small Planetary Outposts Causing Trouble), Large Planetary Outposts Causing Trouble, and well, most anything else out there, to include greater deities. Technically, a single photorp (correctly aimed) will destroy Xy in one shot, who has only 60,000 MDC (Rifts: Africa, stats for Thoth) THAT�S a munchkin Weapon.
