Yeah it is the one on one of Pauls "never were" pages

My font is no where near ready for prime time but if you get the program you can use one of the fonts from here. It is not as complete as my font (which leads to difficulties in use I am still working on) but still might be be able to produce neat looking TO&Es.

It's an expensive program -- between all his MS programs and all his computers, I think Kato may be rich!!!

LOL I rarely purchase anything technical. The majority of my computers (4 rackmount webservers) came in exchange for work done from a company which went under and needed my help when they were selling their data assets. I also got a very expensive router and a web based surveillance system (neither of which I use) instead of payment. Overall these types of trades are fun.

I often get software in similar ways. My copy of visio is an older version which actually came with office 2003. I don't know why they split it out of the suite of software or why they think that they can charge so much money now. (Actually the Database builder stuff is worth the money but the number of people who could use that portion would be so small I still don't quite understand it)

Yup I totally agree with you but .454 Casull is NOT a combat round its a hunting round.

It's also carried as a "backpacking" gun by some hikers -- a couple of .454 Casull rounds hitting them will usually make a bear or cougar think twice -- if you see them coming in time.

2013 is The BEST game out there!

We melted faces on Sunday.

Maybe Gabe will provide an after-action report.

We have had our first engagement in combat and my original statement remains unchanged!
2013 is a GREAT game, I don't see ANY reason someone would not like this game! It is totally worth the money to buy the book. You would NOT be dissapointed. Just be prepared for some heavy studying thats all.

Melted faces indeed!
 

Well, it all started something like this in short.
We needed some info. Went to an ureputable scumbag for some info exchanging. A meet was set up. We met. Scumbag #2 wasn't REALLY Scumbag #2. We give them the finger and start walking away. Thay raise weopons and theeennn..................
A PC pulls a pistol and starts melting faces before they knew what hit em' , then my PC turns to a bunker with 2 NPC's manning an MG-42 in a bunker and melts one of thier faces with a 6 round aimed burst. Then another PC and Snake Eyes PC start exploding people from a sniper position they had set up the day before, And when I mean EXPLODEING people thats EXACTLY what I mean! Snake Eyes PC is calling shots w/ Lapua rounds, and the other sniper PC is calling shots with a .50 cal.
It was like a ballet of face melting carnage, beautiful! Well done brother Snake. And fill in any details I mite have missed dude, I was just trying to spit out a quik report.

454 Casull --> Not a serious gunfighter's gun in the real world, but in a game it kind of depends on how stridently realistic you want to be. On the plus side, using a revolver of any sort in a T2K/apocalyptic/etc setting makes keeping up with your brass easy. A source for bullets with which to reload it would be more of a trick in Europe.

This is exactly why we came up with a three stage system. The default level, Stage 2, is what most normal gamers would expect, striving for a balance between crunch and speed of play. Stage 1 is for the people who really don't care about anything except the most basic of rules and want to focus on the story and speed of play. Stage 3 is for people who want to know the fine details of everything and want to mimic reality as closely as possible, though not to the level of games like Phoenix Command and Rolemaster.

The beauty is, the stages are designed to be interchangeable. You want detailed task/skill resolution but don't care about combat, mix and match the stages to give you what you want. I'm not going to open a debate about the backstory, but the ruleset itself is very solid. Not perfect, but pretty damned good.

I think the only thing Gabe missed was some well-timed 40mm HEDP carnage on his guy's part. Over three exchanges of fire, in relatively clear weather on a calm morning, my guy went four for six with center mass hits against moving and partially concealed hostiles in previously marked and ranged locations with a Desert Tactical .338 Lapua SRS from a fixed prone firing position at ~200m distance in at least one case thru a cinder block wall. He didn't hit on every shot, but that which he hit, he either killed or removed from further tactical consideration.

And, in defense of 2013's levels of staged rule interchangeability, it should be noted and loudly disclaimed that our group tends to play out on the extra-crispy fringe of crunch - including miniatures and house rules to make certain aspects even more complicated. Sometimes it flows clunkier than we'd like but we have fun and at the end of the day that is what it's all about.

Well said Snake.

Yup
 

Great combat system!

The bullets would not be the constraining factor I think in the reload process in Europe or other locations (even in US after the TDM), rather the primers. Bullets can be cast from lead (or gold??? silver??) where as the primers are MUCH more difficult to construct, not saying it can't be done, just extremely difficult. Even more so than powder.. Which lends a thought of revolver v. semiauto.. I think you could use black powder in ANY revolver load (experimentation required for the proper amount of course) while I seriously doubt you could get a semi-auto to function for long using said 'dirty' propellant. ?????

Grae

reloading in T2K
 

I agree with Grae on this - primers are difficult at best to make without proper equipment and raw materials.

I also think that using blackpowder loads in a semi auto or full auto would rapidly clog everything up with residue / fouling to the extent that after as little as 5 - X? rounds you would in effect have a singleshot weapon like a bolt action or similar .Also -getting the required amount of power to move the mechanism could be a problem in small caliber autos like 9mm. Unless you have quite potent blackpowder and reliable loading data ,getting an auto to work is hard -all in my humble opinion .A revolver like the .454 would be a good choice as you could use a hard load of BP ,and because the length of the chamber leaves wide tolerances regarding the fit of the cartridge after its been reloaded.

There has been written some OT sci-fi material on it called "Guns of the South" by mr.Turtledove i think .(AKs in the Civil War )

But when that is said , designing an auto small arm for blackpowder loads isnt totally unrealistic - I believe it could be done .I do not however see that it would be possible to make it very accurate or reliable on the level of modern firearms -you would need a system that is geared towards handling major fouling and uneven quality of cartridge and load .Even then it would only be able to function properly a limited number of rounds -whereas something like the AK-47 can take hundreds or thousands of modern cartridge rounds without being fieldstripped.

Further ,I think the brass would present a major obstacle a little down the road .Modern brass can be reloaded 10-20 times or so depending on quality ,loads etc .But they have tight tolerances regarding dimensions etc meaning that 1/32 of an inch differnce could mean a jam .

In a revolver type weapon this would not be as critical as the chamber allows for this.Most modern firearms will easily handle the pressures from blackpowder loads - theoretically it generates a lot less pressure than nitrate based propellants.

I agree. You should be able to keep a revolver firing indefinitely using black powder loads.

Most lever-action rifles function well with blackpowder rounds -- many these days are specifically designed for it, for use by Cowboy Action enthusiasts. They offer you a decent rate of fire while still being able to use blackpowder rounds, and many are chambered for revolver rounds, allowing you to interchange rounds between your rifle and revolver if necessary.

I think the real lesson here is: Don't run out of ammo.

LOL
 

too true

But once the electricity has stopped and the factories are no longer working and the skilled workers are all dead or impressed into military or farm service EVERYONE is going to run out of ammo.
Unless they can make their own

Two words: Sticks and stones...

BTW, does anyone remember the Microgame called Sticks & Stones that was made by Metagaming (later Steve Jackson Games) in the late 1970s? It was about warfare in the Stone Age -- scenarios included inter-tribal warfare, hunting large game, and one really big scenario that someone came up with in Space Gamer magazine that pitted Cro-Magnons against Neanderthals. Talk about taking warfare down to its roots!

Provided you had dies to make the bullets with, or the skills to make them (a lot of stuff in T2K is real easy if you have the knowledge to build the tools needed to build the tools . . .).

Revolvers and black powder should work out well -- all revolver cases are oversized for what they are and so you'd better be able to deal with the drop in power by switching to black powder. You'd still have fairly anemic loads compared to +P+ smokeless loadings, but you'd be putting rounds downrange when a semi-auto couldn't.

Blackpowder will work in semi-autos if you're willing to accept that your weapon is going to be a straight-pull bolt action. You likely wouldn't ever get enough pressure to cycle actions built for more modern powders at all, or possibly just enough to get misfires even if the weapon is spotlessly clean.

Does anyone know any real information about using these metals in bullets? I've heard that a gold bullet would be dense and heavy, but pretty soft; it would have poor penetration, but make a bigger mess than a dumdum on soft tissue. I don't have any real idea what the characteristics of a silver bullet would actually be.

I remember asking this on the Yahoo group about 10 years ago, but never really got a good answer: on some cop show, they couldn't at first find the bullet in the body, even though there was no exit wound. It turns out that the bullet was made of ground beef frozen in liquid nitrogen. Other than the difficulties of keeping such a bullet frozen, what would the characteristics of a ground-beef bullet really be?

I saw an episode of Mythbusters a few months ago, where they tested the idea of an ice bullet. Turned out that every time they tried to fire the ice bullet (even when frozen in liquid nitrogen), the bullet just shattered inside the barrel and did no damage to the target. So that idea's out the window.

Hmmm -- interesting question, and I don't really have any answers.

Silver is nearly the same specific gravity as lead, so a silver bullet should retain energy and such as well as a lead projectile. No idea on how the other characteristics of the metal would translate into ballistic performance.

I'd think a gold bullet would behave like a lead one, only be quite a bit heavier. You might have to use some sort of gas check or similar to protect the base of the bullet from powder gasses (and some sort of jacket as well if you're using it in an autoloader).

Initiative
 

We have had combat and now I can answer your question. I would not say the initiative system is too slow. While it may not be the fastest of other systems I think it plays out fine. We had fun and the game rolled on quite smoothly. I give it a thumbs up! I definitely like the details of combat with 2013.

Interesting to hear. I might break it out and have another look at it. I agree with you that the details are quite good - especially the gun range and visual range modifiers being split.

Do it.
 

Yeah man, I would definitely dig it up and give it a try. I really must press the issue on you about TRYING it, the way I see it you really got to get some people together a actually PLAY the game before you can opinionize it brother. I only say this because alot of people I know could have passed on the system as well for it seemed too complicated and involved to run smoothly, but when they actually got some gametime in with it ,they saw as well as I did at how smoothly the system really does run. And it rocks! The detail in the game and combat are sweet, the details in combat really play out a story so you can imagine exactly whats happening. Its something else man! 93 Games Studio really knocked this game out of the park, and hopefully when you get some gametime in you'll see exactly what I mean my friend.

Too true.. KNOWLEDGE is the KEY weapon in survival, along with APPLICATION for said knowledge.