Kyber Crystal Gun

[Flintlock Jazz 170]

When my group discusses lightsabers and who amongst them would want to get one, one thing that often comes up with how the Klatooinian Heavy would want to use a auto-fire gun that shoots lightsabers at people.  As in, launches Jedi lightsabers at people at a high volume.  We all laugh naturally, what a hilarious joke.  Except, with Rogue One, I now have a (rather horrifying) precedent: if kyber crystals can be used in the Death Star's superlaser, surely they could be used in a gun right?  Any idea what kind of weapon we'd be looking at here if they haven't already been released?

[HappyDaze 10,101]

There's no reason it has to be scalable down to a handheld weapon.

[Tom Cruise 1,278]

I imagine if it's doable it wouldn't be that impressive anyway. Small bolts of lightsaber wouldn't be nearly as effective as continuous application of a blade, I doubt it'd be anywhere near worth the costs involved.

[Flintlock Jazz 170]

20 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

There's no reason it has to be scalable down to a handheld weapon.

Yeah but it's fun to think about!   Though not as fun as scaling a lightsaber up to Death Star level, or rather hilarious!

[Ferretfur 77]

One of the recently released Force and Destiny books a lightsaber that looks like and can be used as a blaster pistol. Essentially a disguised lightsaber that is also functional in its disguised form.

I think it is in the Endless Vigil book. From what i remember it is not all that powerful as a blaster (or any more so than a regular blaster).

[Ferretfur 77]

My Mistake, it is a lightsaber mod called "Pistol Hilt".

When the Lightaber is not ignited the wielder may fire the pistol using the following profile (Ranged [Light], Damage 6, Critical 3, Range [Short], Stun Damage)

[MDR101 83]

Has there been an official explanation for Rebels - Ezra's lightsaber...? I was just wondering if the (stun?) blaster aspect of the weapon involved the energy being directed through the kyber crystal in the lightsaber? I mean, with the concept of lightsabers being adjusted to a low level output for training purposes exists (Kanan and Ezra do this), could there also be an argument for Ezra's lightsaber capable of an exceptionally brief, low-level 'blast' channeled through the barrel?

 

If you want an example of a 'kyber crystal gun', then this is your best bet... An argument could be to make a more lethal variant of just a gun with no lightsaber aspect to it (possibly with same damage as equivalent ranged weapon, but also included Breach 1 quality), but I would definitely have the Heavy Blaster Pistol limitation of '3 Threats equal complete drain of powercell'...

 

Just a thought.

[kaosoe 7,573]

I always assumed Ezra cannibalized his sling shot to make the pistol hilt.

[LordBritish 1,016]

Funnily enough people die when shot at by blaster bolts. I am not quite sure whether the precise function of death makes that great a difference. I was always under the impression that lightsabers don't make practical guns usually; a continuous death star style beam just consumes too much energy for use on personal scale and lightsabers get away with it by containing energy; I actually am unsure whether lightsaber cells need recharging, but I suspect that the lightsaber itself would rapidly lose energy upon leaving the containment field.

It would be a interesting project for a blaster weapon though; I would likely give the wielder the standard thematic perks of the crystal and call it a day.

[mouthymerc 4,483]

Just make it a special blaster with Breach 1 instead of Pierce X.

[Ferretfur 77]

14 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

It would be a interesting project for a blaster weapon though; I would likely give the wielder the standard thematic perks of the crystal and call it a day.

If that was the case, i'd make it a very hard test (or set of tests) to construct the item, as lightsabers have some very good benefits that most blasters do not. I'd also probably limit it to short range to gain the benefits and give it the heavy blaster negative quality mentioned above.

It'd certainly be a "one of a kind" style of weapon.

[Ferretfur 77]

5 minutes ago, mouthymerc said:

Just make it a special blaster with Breach 1 instead of Pierce X.

This does make for one very powerful blaster!

[SladeWeston 229]

From the book Catalyst, which is essentially the Prequel to Rogue one, it makes Kyber crystals keep more like the thing that generates the energy rather than the thing focusing that energy.  Maybe making energy isn't the right word.  More like Kybers created some kind of positive feedback loop generating more energy than was put into them.  Actually storing that energy and turning that energy into a weapon was I completely different mechanism that had nothing to do with the crystals.  I'm not sure if this conflicts with previous Legends canon, but since Catalyst is an official Disney controlled book, it is what's official now.

It also worth noting that it took basically the smartest person in the Galaxy years to create a stable way to generate that energy.

With all of that in mind, if you still wanted to add Kyber blasters to your game, I'd treat them as a very expensive high end Attachment/Mod.  I think I'd make it give +1 to dmg and the ability to ignore Out of Ammo despair results.  Or maybe something that boosts range by one.  I'd also likely give it an automatic difficulty upgrade to all attempts to mod the attachment, to represent how fragile the tech is.  Given the extraordinary cost of kybers, I'd make it cost a whole hell of a lot too.  Or more likely, I'd make it a unique plot item.

[SEApocalypse 4,443]

3 hours ago, Flintlock Jazz said:

When my group discusses lightsabers and who amongst them would want to get one, one thing that often comes up with how the Klatooinian Heavy would want to use a auto-fire gun that shoots lightsabers at people.  As in, launches Jedi lightsabers at people at a high volume.  We all laugh naturally, what a hilarious joke.  Except, with Rogue One, I now have a (rather horrifying) precedent: if kyber crystals can be used in the Death Star's superlaser, surely they could be used in a gun right?  Any idea what kind of weapon we'd be looking at here if they haven't already been released?

Jup, the crystals amplify blaster shots at about factor 10 … but they overheat as well, so autofire seems not like a valid solution and the factor 10 increase was krystal meant for use for the deathstar, so lightsaber grade crystals might be not as useful and small arms might be actually not possible. Still a composite laser as vehicle weapon using 5 lightsaber crystals sounds like a reasonable thing, might need to add slow firing to it to solve the heat problem. 

http://www.starwars.com/tv-shows/the-clone-wars-legacy

http://www.starwars.com/video/star-wars-the-clone-wars-story-reel-the-big-bang

 

BTW, the kyber crystals act as amplifiers and are part of the force, living crystals, so it is rather likely that the energy used and "created" by kyber weapons is using the cosmic or living force as energy source, just like the jedi use it for their tricks. 

Edited February 13, 2017 by SEApocalypse

[GroggyGolem 2,848]

Isn't there an attachment called like "Force Attuned Resonator" for blasters?

[SladeWeston 229]

21 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Isn't there an attachment called like "Force Attuned Resonator" for blasters?

True but it's basically just a safety lock for non-force users.  Anyone who is asking about firing lightsabers out of a gun isn't too concerned about safety.

[Lareg 367]

23 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Isn't there an attachment called like "Force Attuned Resonator" for blasters?

That's an attachment that allows to build a blaster without a trigger, basically you activate it with the Force. 

[GroggyGolem 2,848]

1 minute ago, SladeWeston said:

True but it's basically just a safety lock for non-force users.  Anyone who is asking about firing lightsabers out of a gun isn't too concerned about safety.

Right, I forgot what it does.

From what I recall in the lore, Blasters are supposed to have their own type of focusing crystals and such. I could see someone making a sort of crafting check to create a blaster with some extra perk (based upon their advantages rolled per normal) and remove a kyber crystal from their inventory to say that "this blaster uses kyber crystals".

 

I have a player that really wanted to have a setup like I mentioned above, where it's just a blaster with a kyber crystal inside, solely so their blaster shots could be a different color than red or green. It was allowed as it's just aesthetics.

[KungFuFerret 4,120]

8 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

There's no reason it has to be scalable down to a handheld weapon.

Except that's exactly what a lightsaber is.  A handheld weapon that utilizes a kyber crystal.  I don't see any reason it couldn't be a gun, other than the "it sounds like someone wants to make an OP blaster for the lulz and so they can pwn stuff"

But I mean, just on it's face, I see no reason you couldn't do it.  I doubt it would be worth the effort though, given how easy it is to just get a freaking blaster pistol and be done for the day.

 

 

[SEApocalypse 4,443]

8 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

Except that's exactly what a lightsaber is.  A handheld weapon that utilizes a kyber crystal.  I don't see any reason it couldn't be a gun, other than the "it sounds like someone wants to make an OP blaster for the lulz and so they can pwn stuff"

But I mean, just on it's face, I see no reason you couldn't do it.  I doubt it would be worth the effort though, given how easy it is to just get a freaking blaster pistol and be done for the day.

Overheating might be an issue when used as a gun, the lightsaber uses a very low energy output, amplifies it and then contains most of the energy in the blade. If you keep shooting away the energy and need to basically create a new blade to "throw" away again, you might overheat the crystal when used in a gun. The deathstar for example has a rather slow fire rate as well, which might be related to cooling the crystals without bursting them. 

Now what speaks against my idea of overheating is the use of lightsaber to breach blastdoors, but we don't know if this actually did cause a lot of strain on the lightsaber crystal or not, nor how long this could maintained. 

[mouthymerc 4,483]

A lightsaber already acts like a melee version of a blaster except for the breach quality. It is not affected by any attribute for its damage as other melee weapons are. You could have one such special snowflake weapon like like a kyber crystal pistol that does damage 6 with breach that is some relic of some bygone era as treasure at some point. If you want to, you can allow for modifications to the crystal as is allowed for other lightsaber crystals. But because knowledge of such weapons is lost the difficulty will be higher and you run the risk of destroying the weapon. You could add the heavy blaster detraction as another negative if you so chose.

[LMasterList 123]

On 2/14/2017 at 0:29 AM, Ferretfur said:

My Mistake, it is a lightsaber mod called "Pistol Hilt".

When the Lightaber is not ignited the wielder may fire the pistol using the following profile (Ranged [Light], Damage 6, Critical 3, Range [Short], Stun Damage)

I loled (i know my work) XD

[KungFuFerret 4,120]

8 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Overheating might be an issue when used as a gun, the lightsaber uses a very low energy output, amplifies it and then contains most of the energy in the blade. If you keep shooting away the energy and need to basically create a new blade to "throw" away again, you might overheat the crystal when used in a gun. The deathstar for example has a rather slow fire rate as well, which might be related to cooling the crystals without bursting them. 

Now what speaks against my idea of overheating is the use of lightsaber to breach blastdoors, but we don't know if this actually did cause a lot of strain on the lightsaber crystal or not, nor how long this could maintained. 

Yeah...I'm just not seeing the problem.  If the tech is viable with literal junk parts that any random PC can pick up for a few hundred credits, to power a sustained energy plasma tube, I don't see how sporadic shots would be more taxing on the equipment.   That's like saying flicking a lighter to ignite a flame for half a second every few seconds, will more quickly heat it up than having it sustain a continuous flame.    If the lightsaber can, as you say use a very low energy output (that's still powerful enough to cut anything), and then amplifies it and directs it, well that's exactly what a gun does   It directs the energy in a certain direction, way from the device.  

So again, I don't see a problem with someone making a kyber gun, or simply utilizing kyber crystals in other ways.  I actually asked this question about a year ago, in case there was lore about them being used more readily for other purposes.  

I still don't think it's practical to make a kyber gun, given how difficult it's supposed to be in New Hope era to find one, when you could just get a regular, mass produced gun and be fine.   Unless you make the gun so OP that's it's just stupid to give it to a new PC, or a veteran for that matter, the amount of effort needed to make it, is probably not going to be worth whatever benefit you would get.  

I mean, thinking of this from your typical gamer mindset, it sounds like someone "wants to make a lightsaber, but where I can shoot the beams!!" kind of munchkin-esque play style, which I personally dislike.   It detracts from the thematic spirit of the game, and makes it less enjoyable for me.  I mean it's not like you need a crazy OP gun in this game.  The rules make pretty much everyone squishy as heck.  Just having decent stats in a ranged skill, maybe a few easily purchased mods for the gun, and some talents related to ranged combat, and you will be a terror in combat.  No need for lightsaber gun at all in my opinion.

[Ferretfur 77]

47 minutes ago, mouthymerc said:

A lightsaber already acts like a melee version of a blaster except for the breach quality. It is not affected by any attribute for its damage as other melee weapons are. You could have one such special snowflake weapon like like a kyber crystal pistol that does damage 6 with breach that is some relic of some bygone era as treasure at some point. If you want to, you can allow for modifications to the crystal as is allowed for other lightsaber crystals. But because knowledge of such weapons is lost the difficulty will be higher and you run the risk of destroying the weapon. You could add the heavy blaster detraction as another negative if you so chose.

I can certainly see this, but my only issue with the gun is the Breach Quality for every shot. At least for the most part your lightsaber user has to get into melee and cant just target anyone.

Without the breach quality, i'd probably allow it.

[Tom Cruise 1,278]

I feel like you're not gonna get nearly as much penetration from a single quick blast of energy as you are from a consistent application of a blade. Even if the power output in the blaster shots is the equivalent to a lightsaber, the different application seems less likely to cut through armour like butter. I'd just give it Pierce, if anything.