permanent spells

[Blue_Lion]

Please stop discussing physics in this thread as admin has warned 2 times.

[eliakon]

With the note that Featherlight lasts until the weapon is sheathed or put down....A TW device that simply casts Featherlight when the weapon is picked up shouldn't be to expensive. The spell will last until the weapon is put down. Add in an 'off switch' so you can fire at need (This assumes the most rigid interpretation of the 'useless as a weapon') The other advantage of a TW device is that it can be made switchable, which is nice for that same reason. There are a number of variables that would have to be determined before you could make the TW device (caster level, how much PPE you want the spell to cost per casting, etc.) but with just the one spell it should be relatively easy to make. If you want to get adventurous I am sure that you could make a spell chain that would allow you to have the weapon be light as a feather AND still be fully useable.

[Blue_Lion]

With the note that Featherlight lasts until the weapon is sheathed or put down....A TW device that simply casts Featherlight when the weapon is picked up shouldn't be to expensive. The spell will last until the weapon is put down. Add in an 'off switch' so you can fire at need (This assumes the most rigid interpretation of the 'useless as a weapon') The other advantage of a TW device is that it can be made switchable, which is nice for that same reason. There are a number of variables that would have to be determined before you could make the TW device (caster level, how much PPE you want the spell to cost per casting, etc.) but with just the one spell it should be relatively easy to make. If you want to get adventurous I am sure that you could make a spell chain that would allow you to have the weapon be light as a feather AND still be fully useable.

Well If I was on foot and using most rail guns when I shoot them I would treat them as a crew served weapon and fire from a bipod placing it on the bipod would be putting it away.

What if instead of making the weapon feather light we carrying it a device such as a high tech back pack that makes every thing in the pack feather light. This way you could cover both weapon and ammo in the pack along with say rations. Would that fit the posters intent? I see a back pack using Macs formula as a great field item with much greater array of uses.

[Zamion138]

The duration on the spell Featherlight does not run out until the item is sheathed or put down. A quick TW conversion and an activation whenever the weapon is picked up will do the trick. Unfortunately, while the Featherlight spell is active the weapon cannot deal damage, so this has travel applications but not really combat applications.

If the ammo is not featherlightned then the rail gun still does damedge, the spell is talking about swords and hammers. So shooting something out of a feather light weapon, it still does work. Espicaly sense a railgun doesnt have the same as a gas operated rilfe, so the bolt carrier doesnt have to come back to battery or recock something via weight of the gas espansion.
A railgun would work as would a laser, but not a AK or M4, a bolt action rifle would still work. The first round out of an automatic rifle would work as well just not the next shot unless the pc manualy cycles the rifle by hand...unless the extreme lightness of the bolt damedges the internals from being moved from the spring or gas moving them so fast.

If the weapon is made featherlight then the ammo in it is featherlight as well. The spell specifically says featherlight objects cannot be "thrown" and gain their mass back, so the weapon would fire featherlight ammo and do no damage. It's magic, it doesn't have to make sense - it just has to follow its own rules.

Why does the ammo have to be feather light as well?
If you connect the ammo drumor load it after the spell kicks in nothing states you have to feather light it.
You just want it to fail. Hahaha
That said for a laser youd agree it could still work thoughas the weight of the the shots dont matter.

[Blue_Lion]

Sigh are you guys trying to get the thread locked just to get it locked?

[Glistam]

Sigh are you guys trying to get the thread locked just to get it locked?

I don't understand how my posts aren't on topic for this thread but yours are? Please PM me if you wish to discuss something specific with me further - this thread is not the place for personal conversations.

To pick up where the OP left off:

Permance Ward is the only thing that I'm aware of.

Thanks for replying killer

Thanks for appreciating my futile assistance.

Actually... there's a strange tickling in the back of my brain as I think about your question.
There might be an obscure Rifts-Earth magic class that has a power/ability/spell that can make things permanent. Those guys in South America that can re-arrange ley lines, maybe.
Or somebody Russian...?
Not sure.


Then again, the tickling might just be the spiders hatching.

o.0 .... put a bot fly on your head so its eggs can hatch and feed the spiders.

Okay, nevermind. I don't really know where to go in this thread from here.

[eliakon]

With the note that Featherlight lasts until the weapon is sheathed or put down....A TW device that simply casts Featherlight when the weapon is picked up shouldn't be to expensive. The spell will last until the weapon is put down. Add in an 'off switch' so you can fire at need (This assumes the most rigid interpretation of the 'useless as a weapon') The other advantage of a TW device is that it can be made switchable, which is nice for that same reason. There are a number of variables that would have to be determined before you could make the TW device (caster level, how much PPE you want the spell to cost per casting, etc.) but with just the one spell it should be relatively easy to make. If you want to get adventurous I am sure that you could make a spell chain that would allow you to have the weapon be light as a feather AND still be fully useable.

Well If I was on foot and using most rail guns when I shoot them I would treat them as a crew served weapon and fire from a bipod placing it on the bipod would be putting it away.

What if instead of making the weapon feather light we carrying it a device such as a high tech back pack that makes every thing in the pack feather light. This way you could cover both weapon and ammo in the pack along with say rations. Would that fit the posters intent? I see a back pack using Macs formula as a great field item with much greater array of uses.

This sounds promising. The other thing that came to mind is a weapon harness like in Russia. The TW spell kicks in when the weapon is in 'stand by mode'.....but when you pull it out it disengages and you can rock and roll. And then go light when you are done.....and it would take what ever weapon you wanted to slot in it.....
*ponders*

[Tor]

For people not understanding why the ammo would also need to be enchanted...

Consider a cannon with 0 mass and weight firing a cannonball.

Even a full-weight cannon would sometimes roll backward when fired.

How far back will that cannon go if it weighted next to nothing?

Focusing on the TW issue though, since TW apparently allows some kind of spell combination (like lending the duration of Circle of Flame to a Firebolt to make the Flaming Sword) it may be possible to do this with Featherlight to be able to enchant ammo.

If they got their hands on one of the Nightbane spells which enchants weapons, it has a property that auto-enchants the ammo (much better than FoM ritual) so perhaps a TW device could extend that property to other item-modifiers like Featherlight.

The 3 versions in Nightbane have varying durations, the highest-level one lasts a good long while so it's almost as good as permanent. Sticking solely to Rifts magic I don't know if there is a spell to auto-enchant ammo as a result of a single enchantment on the weapon though.

I do like the idea of temporarily featherlighting railguns for relocating and cancelling before firing.

I believe addressing the ramifications of a mass-less rifle is important in addressing the OP's question.

If a railgun is featherlighted then I believe you would need to install a secondary system to fix the gun in place so that the magnets will propel the bullets away from the gun. If featherlight made the gun lighter than the bullets then you could end up shooting the gun away from the bullets.

One option would be a temporary Carpet-of-Adhesion system that would activate whenever fired. Kind of similar to the Glitter-Boy's pylons and toe-hooks, you supplement your weight with the weight of the terrain you're on.

Another option would be something like wind rush, have the wind rush fire behind you every time you fired the rail gun, kind of similar to a Glitter Boy's rear jets.

OP deserves to know what problems a featherlighted rail gun without compensatory things would encounter.

[Blue_Lion]

Other option would be instead of making the rail gun light build a TW device to give the operator supernatural strength and endurance. This would counter the weight of the rail gun by making it less of a max weight and you would not tire out.

A partial exoskeleton for lifting on the legs and attached to the rail gun could work for the same goal.

The partial exoskeleton can probably be done by an operator while keeping the man made material below the level of affecting the mage.

The super natural strengthen and endurance device would probably need to be done with a spell chain to increase the duration. Doing this would probably require knowing what spells the mage has to work with. It seams the original poster had an intent to use it for a charter so it would be nice to know what he spells he has to work with and how hard the GM makes it for him to get new spells.

(Tor I stopped talking physics here after the first warning so before that I was wrong.)