Adding a rung to the ladder

I've recently come into a problem with a current system of DR, that can be easily fixed without doing any major changes or even changing the mechanics. it is a problem that can be fixed with a simple addition and would help to balance out gameplay and make certain things more viable in combat, that once may have needed ridiculous values, would now only need average values to do the exact same job.

What I'm talking about is adding a 'Mechanized' scale to the DR system.

The current Scale does not properly cover a certain size category of craft and vehicles which are currently suffering because of a lack of foresight. Armor DR includes everything from powered armor to tanks to even some of the smaller shuttles. However, a shuttle or tank is built considerably tougher and stronger than their powered armor counterparts, and yet are only marginally better, even with somewhat ridiculous values.

The current system goes as such:
Personal - Small arms, body armor, clothing
Armor - Powered armor, Tanks, Anti-armor weapons(PA rifles)
Ship - Shuttles, Starships, starbases

This obviously leaves out proper room for larger vehicles, and the best way to deal with this, in my opinion, is simply adding in another 'rung' on the 'ladder'

Personal - Small arms, body armor, clothing
Armor - Powered armor, Anti-armor weapons(PA rifles)
Mechanized - Tanks, Shuttles, Fighters Anti-vehicle weapons
Ship - Starships, Starbases.

I feel the addition will be a simple process (many wiki articles simply needing to change one letter) and that it will serve to make the current system more complete without making it complex. The rules work exactly the same.

So, My proposition is this: If the GM's can agree that this would be helpful, I would like to post this up to the community as a whole to see their take on the idea, and then we'll see about getting it approved.

That's my two cents, thank you for your time.
- Kai

Made a preliminary proposal version of the DR system. It took me about 15 minutes, and most of that was messing with tables. This change is honestly so easy I'm finding it difficult to comprehend why we didn't do it sooner.

Proposed addition to DR system.

I fully support this idea.

It makes PA like the mindy less overpowered and more balanced, and makes things like Abwehran MBTs and Iromakuanhe Frames more useful; changing the DR system and making it more fleshed out for Project Exfoliation.

I don't see a need for this change. If we really needed to, we could just extend the armor scale.

This again.

No, I'm not in support of it. We already covered this issue as well.

We can agree that powered armor doesn't fit into the Personal scale, yes? And we can agree that Powered armor do not fit into the starship scale.
We can agree that Mechanized weapons (Tanks, Fighters, mecha, etc)in this setting don't fit into the starship scale either, and that they are of a completely different scale than Powered armor.

just 'extending the armor scale' will not fix the fact that a Gun the size as a power armor only does the damage of that same power armor's normal sized rifle, despite similar technology, a larger power source, and a larger round.

It does not fix the fact that a weapon ten times the size of a power armor can only have at most 3 times its armor.

It does not fix the fact that a relatively small rifle is capable of hurting a starship.

The change I am proposing is not difficult to make. It does not break the system, It does not change the dynamic that many GM's rely on.

Our DR System is incomplete. everyone knows this. What I am proposing really is a simple, easy way to make our system more complete, that does not break the system, that does not change its dynamics, that doesn't affect about 80% of the items on the Wiki in any way except making them more realistic and making them make sense.

There has been a push to make SARP more believable. Why are people so willing to go for an extremely complex system that changes the dynamics of the game and makes GM's have to learn a brand new system in order to keep up when we can simply complete the current system and have the same effect?

I'll agree with a few things:

~ The personnel armor and weapon grade is presently next to useless. It's there to be available comparatively and that's it. We don't use it except to know what amidst the small stuff can deal slight harm to a power armor.

~ The damage ratings given to weapons are not being handled in the way I envisioned for the DR system. Wes overruled and and decided that smaller units would have access to the best weapons via the conveniences of aether rather than having Size 2 power armors (SP 10) commonly have ADR 2 weapons and have for their heavy hitting stuff ADR 3.

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I do not believe the heaviest weapons a power armor would carry would be needed to leave a scratch on a giant mechanized humanoid robot. It's my belief that - for example - a M6 Daisy's plasma rifle (say, ADR 2) would be able to go and provide significant hurt to a larger vehicle like the mechas some are so fond of.

So, I still do not agree to a new grade. That perspective shows me that they deserve to be in the same.

Fred pretty much sums it up. We already went through this argument when Five suggested the same thing and it was shot down then.

Honestly, I think this is a symptom of the problem that Fred pointed out. Mecha, tanks and aerospace fighters do not have as much of a place in this setting because the DR revisions were not implemented in the way they should have.

The MDR 5 gun should have been the fare of the Size Class 4 or 5 mechanized unit, not the Size Class 2 and the Size Class 3 is pushing it. We could have avoided all of this complaining, and this arguing if we'd gone the direction of a fair and balanced sandbox, rather than one of continuous escalation.

The desire to add this new rung is a consequence of the inability of the current DR system to properly express the differences between small and large units in this setting, because of this escalation.

I hear you, Exhack.

As I saw it, the M6 Daisy's LASR and plasma rifle would've done around ADR 2 and things like Gauss Bazooka or a flight of offensive mini-missiles would've done around ADR 3.

It was the same deal with starships. A size 2 vessel like the Sakura/Plumeria gunships would've have had their positron railguns do SDR 2 and the main aether cannon SDR 3.

I'm about to sound cynical here:
Unfortunately, Wes' insistence that 'aether weaponry was god' (perhaps combined with the desire to have his signature light gunships be strong in everything) pretty much threw that to the wayside.

Note that I am entirely in support of scaling weapon damage potential to the relative size class of units in the armor and starship grades.

I can fully support what Fred and Exhack are talking about, and will gladly re-balance my stuff if this is the best compromise we can do.

Every scale along the revisions a year or so ago *SHOULD* have been able to comprehensively describe the setting without drowning us in rules and regulations.

A new scale might unbalance combat, so redacting the current one would accomplish two things:

1. The DR system becomes fair and more logical. PA have a reason to be afraid of tanks, aerospace fighters and mecha, but we don't accidentally make those units too powerful by comparison.

2. Stop the arguing about why we'd even need tanks, aerospace fighters and mecha when they actually fit into the DR bracket intended.

What do we lose?

1. Unbalanced gameplay. PA will need to actually think of mecha as 'boss battles' the way that Fred envisions them, and also have a good reason to rely on other unit types for certain purposes. Because they're actually good at them.

2. An IC/OOC arms race with everyone pushing to put an MDR 5 gun in the smallest possible package, or put as many guns on their mecha as possible to compensate for a broken DR system.

Eh, in the light of this, what will become of Anti-Ship PAs like the Mindy?

Another thing I'd point out is that the threshold/absorption value of shields was thought of so to fit with the size class of the unit, and that meant that they were balanced against the expected firepower of said weapons.

So, in general, Size 2 starships had good enough shields to take the hits from most weapons commonly found on size 1-2 ships, but some particularly powerful weapons (such as the main gun of a size 2 ship) were powerful enough to bleedthrough the shielding to cause some damage directly on the hull.

The argument 'aether weapons should be at the top of the food chain' was made before... but the weapons DR had always favored the desired DR over the means used to accomplish it.

Meaning that aether weaponry wasn't meant to do top damage. Rather, an SDR 2 aether weapon was an aether weapon made powerful enough to do SDR 2.

The same applied to other things. Nuclear missile warheads weren't arbitrated to 'these do SDR 3 maximum'. No. Your nuke could've been built to do SDR 5. The rest is roleplay fluff that is for the NTSE forum to refine - weapon intent was more important.

Also, it is best to keep the scale of things in perspective - because the current scale really only suits Size 4 and 5 starships.

A small patrol vessel/gunboat can pack a couple of SDR 1 turrets and sometimes mounts a powerful SDR 2 weapons... but for a Size 2 vessel, SDR 1 turrets are easy to install, it can afford to have a couple of SDR 2 weapon and perhaps one SDR 3 main gun/weapon battery... and so on.

If after that you take a step back, you can see how this really empowers the larger vessels (as it should be, really) because their shields can soak in much of the firepower smaller vessels can send their way without penetration (until depleted) while they have far easier access to larger weapons on their hull to which smaller vessels are more vulnerable to (because of their lower shield absorption values only blocks them partially, meaning more damage on the hull, meaning internal system failures - in extreme cases the ship will break before the shields are depleted, even).

Fian said:

Eh, in the light of this, what will become of Anti-Ship PAs like the Mindy?

Click to expand...

The Mindy II switched from anti-ship to anti-Armor with the Mark 2 (Mindy II, if you prefer). The idea that a lone power armor could go and defeat a ship all on its own a la gundam (like those Samurai in the early YSS Sakura days) was kinda silly.

The only true weapon the Mindy II has for starship-hurting are its forearm weapons, which are hull cutting tools. But melee weapons can ill be evaluated via DR... so it's better to just sum up their lethality to mechas and say that on concentrated/extended application, they can hurt a starship.

Besides, these should be for surgical strikes anyhow. taking out a turret, destroying weapon pods, etc...

In during debate.

This is my personal opinion, I think that a revision is needed, and we also need to address the scope of DR beyond the starship scale as well, with the introduction of super-structure DR, an idea which Wes has had as well to my knowledge. This would provide a better frame of reference to GMs which are conducting operations against planetary installations and star fortresses... which is going to become important as the NMX plot continues.

Furthermore, a damage tier between armor and starship tier would be nice, either that, or facilitate a middle-ground portion between armor and starship to encompass mecha, tanks, and fighters. It would especially be ideal to include a mid-tier since tanks and mecha in some cases are actually of an equivalent size, or have thicker armor than the lowest tier of the starship scale.

Furthermore, this middle-tier would do well to encompass mecha, fighter, and tank weapons designed for starship hunting... which is just realistic. Considering the scope of damage which can be done by individual weapons, it only stands to reason that a large armor unit would be able to inflict sizable damage to low-tier starships. This is especially made apparent in the case of solid munition weapons which can deliver a sizable chunk of hurt in a compact package... especially when sensible thought is applied when considering the matter of payloads (backpack nukes anyone?).

I'm just saying, it would make sense.

I see a few flaws in your suggestions, Tomoe.

Superstructure grade:
Are there larger structures in existence in the setting aside from starships? Yes, totally true.

However, the grade is really a measure of effectiveness. I have this weapon; now can I use this weapon to scratch at your armor or not.

Adding a superstructure grade means that all starship weapons (except SDR 5) will not be able to leave a dent in the said superstructure-grade-armored-structure. That's pretty far out... and don't get me started on superstructure-grade weaponry.

I'd say starship grade armor, shields and weaponry is the best we can afford SARP to have.

Mechanized grade:

I raised this point before. The addition of a mechanized grade essentially renders all but the top tier anti-power armor weapon unable to leave a scratch on a mechanized-grade piece of equipment. However, power armor equipment such as the Mindy forearm weapons, shoulder-mounted gauss cannons or the plasma rifle are capable of hurting something bigger than themselves without necessarily being the top-end weapon that can wield (that being something around the gauss bazooka).

A size 4 or 5 vehicle (in the current armor grade) will however end up having some ADR 5 weapons that are capable of dealing hurt to a small vessel with 10 SP and 10/1 shields. A Main Battle Tank with top-end armor-killing missiles, an aerofighter, a giant mecha... all of these have armament which can prove dangerous to a small military vessel.

Sense is already here. Proper weapon scaling isn't.

The current DR system is working as intended and I do not plan on making any changes to it in the immediate future*.

In order to add a new tier we would have to break the current balance I carefully set up and I don't want to do that.

*other than assigning suggested damage capacity to various species to more easily work with with personnel-level weapon DR.

EG

PDR 1 Kids and small animals
PDR 2 Baseline Humans
PDR 3 Nepleslians and Yamataians
PDR 4 Nekovalkyrja
PDR 5 ID-SOL

Umm. To be completely fair, doesnt it make sense that only the largest weapon a guy in a suit of armor has can damage a tank?

I mean, a M-16 can't really do much to a tank, but a Javelin or an AT-4 can, and those are pretty much the upper tier of man-portable anti-tank weapons.


And fred, can we stop using the size number things? They're confusing, and I don't think anyone besides you actually knows what you mean.

With Wes jumping in and saying this, this makes the debate pretty redundant. I won't claim I'm pleased to see it vetoed like that - but it's been like that since the beginning of what I submitted.

Wes said:

In order to add a new tier we would have to break the current balance I carefully set up and I don't want to do that.

Click to expand...

What balance? Exhack has a very good point and it's the reason of why I had designed the DR revision like I did before you vetoed me and made changes... which pretty much lead to this thread existing in the first place.

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As for Fiver's question...

The stuff you're mentioning are anti-personnel weapons. That upper-tier weapon you mentioned is likely PDR 5, and so can deal some damage to power armors, tanks and fightercraft.