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Solid Ammunition Damage Ratings

Wes

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To be clear, any normal pistol round meant for humans to fire (e.g. .45, 9mm, 10mm) should be Tier 1 on the Damage Rating V3 scale, and any normal rifle round (5.56mm, 7.62mm, etc) should be Tier 2. Tier 3 is for anti-personnel grenades and things that explode like grenades, and Tier 4 is for mecha weapons or weapons designed to kill power armor. I've updated the damage rating page to make this more obvious because people keep trying to creep their weapon numbers up when it makes no sense for the current damage system.

Submissions which are not aligned with the above may be adjusted to correct scaling. I've started with Yamatai's weapons but this applies to all factions.
 
Would things like sniper rifles, projectile weapons with sufficiently high bullet velocity, and some DMRs also fit in tier 3, since their lethality is somewhat similar to that of a grenade, just on a single person basis?
 
Generally not, unless they're something with a massive round like the .50 BMG.
 
What about things like the LASR or weapons with a very high bullet velocity like personal scale railguns, sniper rifles and DMRs? They can't really be expected to do the same level of damage as a normal/assault rifle, can they?
 
Additionally, what about energy-based or plasma-based weapons? I’m not trying to call anyone out here or make any passively-aggressive attacks, but if I were someone trying to “circumvent the system” I would make all of my faction’s weapons energy-based, then point to this ruling and say “but it doesn’t cover energy/plasma weapons” when the NTSE mod reviewing my submission says that the weapon’s tier needs to be lowered.
 
Alex Hart said:
What about things like the LASR or weapons with a very high bullet velocity like personal scale railguns, sniper rifles and DMRs? They can't really be expected to do the same level of damage as a normal/assault rifle, can they?
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They and power armor weapons are not addressed by this announcement, which was only about personnel-scale weapons.
 
FrostJaeger said:
Additionally, what about energy-based or plasma-based weapons? I’m not trying to call anyone out here or make any passively-aggressive attacks, but if I were someone trying to “circumvent the system” I would make all of my faction’s weapons energy-based, then point to this ruling and say “but it doesn’t cover energy/plasma weapons” when the NTSE mod reviewing my submission says that the weapon’s tier needs to be lowered.
Click to expand...
Energy weapons that are essentially personnel-scale pistols will live in the Tier 1 or Tier 2 range depending on how powerful they are. For example the NSP is Tier 2 because it can take off your whole arm like a rifle round can. Most energy pistols should probably be Tier 1 like their solid ammo counterparts.
 
Sniper rifles, DMRs and personnel scale railguns are personnel scale, in that they're able to be used by personnel without power armor. I don't think it's a good idea to make Tier 3 exclusive to explosives since other things will kill a person just as dead, but only one person at a time.
 
Wes said:
To be clear, any normal pistol round meant for humans to fire (e.g. .45, 9mm, 10mm) should be Tier 1 on the Damage Rating V3 scale, and any normal rifle round (5.56mm, 7.62mm, etc) should be Tier 2. Tier 3 is for anti-personnel grenades and things that explode like grenades, and Tier 4 is for mecha weapons or weapons designed to kill power armor. I've updated the damage rating page to make this more obvious because people keep trying to creep their weapon numbers up when it makes no sense for the current damage system.

Submissions which are not aligned with the above may be adjusted to correct scaling. I've started with Yamatai's weapons but this applies to all factions.
Click to expand...
I know a lot of us are ex-mil or firearm owners but should point out that plenty of pistol rounds are excessively strong? Like lumping a .45 in with a 9mm is a bit silly; the damage they deal is significantly different. This is why .45 (for example) is used in SMGs that blur the line between SMG and AR.

This change is a good move on paper but I think it really needs to be different than the pistol round and all that. Especially given that high powered anti-personnel pistols has been a thing on SARP for ages. This would effectively neuter a TON of iconic weapons in tier and make the tiers not correspond with RP; which isn't what we want. We want tiers to correspond to RP as they're a guideline to help people interpret weapons properly.

It really should not be "well if it's a pistol round, it does pistol damage". Because - as I tagged in Discord - tons of pistol ammunition is absolutely devastating at close range; bullets aren't inherently just "better" in rifles as much as they maintain their initial firing power in most cases for much further. We need to seriously sit down and not just lump them all together when the rounds are IRL not so absurdly simple. Because I for one wouldn't want to pull out an HHG and shoot it... only to see someone walk it off because it's now a Tier 1. It's a high powered pistol and has been tier 2 for that reason.
 
@Legix - The HHG, in my opinion, would be one of those rare exceptions to the rule due to its status (as far as I’m aware) of being the “hard-hitting heavy hand cannon” of Star Army.
 
I'd like to propose changing/adding
  1. The tier 1 example from pistol rounds to "Normal pistols"
  2. The tier 2 example from rifle rounds to "Normal rifles"
  3. Adding "High-caliber or high-velocity weapons" to tier 3
 
For normal ammunition, it's the ammo that does the work, not the weapon. Conventional ammo should almost always do the same amount of damage no matter what weapon is firing it, at least on something simple like the Damage Rating system. Does it matter if the 9mm is fired by a Beretta, Glock, or a Taurus when it hits an enemy soldier? No. That's why ammo has a DR on SARP, and why tiers mention ammo.

Note: This doesn't apply to railguns or weapons that propel the projectile themselves.
 
I gotta agree with Frost and Legix on this one, and as a personal note being active duty military. Most pa in game operates at T4 and above, so a T3 grenade is not going to ruin a day nearly as realistically. Even then, AP, or armor piercing, rounds are a thing, in that they penetrate armor and still kill the person behind it. limiting personnel scale firearms also limits the use of anti-armor weapons, large calibers, and point penetrating exotic rounds like Section 6's HAR1 flechettes. The HAR1 being designed specifically for Infantry personnel to be able to neutralize heavier armored threats. It's overkill for most missions, and impractical as a primary weapon to boot, but things like it exist in game specifically because of what is already here.
 
10mm master race lumped in as lousy T1...
I wont point out im ex-mil to add any credibility to my statements since most people already know. But most pistol calibers are larger and have more stopping power than common rifle rounds. Its the ballistics that make rifle rounds more dangerous.

Im grey area about energy weapons tho. On one hand they shouldn't have ballistics so they aren't like rifles. But on the other its a powerful beam that essentially melts through you and your armor in the blink of an eye and shouldn't be compared to a bullet.

I made the Nova under this thought process. That its a powerful hand cannon of a laser that burns a golfball sized hole through armor and flesh alike and might even melt through some soft areas of light PA if you let it, or stagger them with continued fire. So every single officer of the NPF has the option to carry something with a little more capacity than the HHG, but with a similar punch when someone buys a suit of impulse armor or builds one out of junk instead of having to wait for someone to roll up with a T3 weapon.
 
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