So I've looked at a bunch of the community's feedback on all the DRv3 stuff going around right now, and I've decided to compile what seems like the best additions or restorations to DRv3 to make DRv3.1
- Bring back the 8 on tier rule with a slight twist.
Small (in universe) factions are allowed 8 on tier, medium sized (in universe) factions are allowed 9 on tier, and large factions (in universe) are allowed 10. This allows for some variation to allow factions such as Nepleslia and Yamatai to maintain their superiority when it comes to weapons. Point defense weapons (tier 7 or lower) cost half their normal amount (meaning that you can have twice as many of them as you would normally)
- Adding some basic rules for missiles.
Rule 1, a missile weapon costs one on tier weapon slot if its maximum payload is on tier, for ever tier downwards the maximum payload you go, you can double the number of missile tubes while still costing one on tier point. All missile weapons have to have a reload time per tube.
- Armor;
An armor classification system shall be created, dividing armor materials into unarmored, light, medium and heavy catagories. Armors can benefit or detract from speed, meaning that there's consequences to armoring your craft as well as benifits
Unarmored craft take damage as if said damage was two tiers higher. Unarmored craft gain a +.05c speed bonus with a maximum of .425c STL
Light armor takes damage as if the damage was either one tier higher or on the level of the attack (up to the GM). Lightly armored craft gain a +.025c speed bonus with a maximum speed of .4c STL
Medium armor takes damage as normal. It gains no speed bonuses and has a maximum speed of .375c STL
Heavy armor takes damage as if the incoming attack was one tier lower than it actually is. It loses .10c STL speed and has a maximum speed of .35c STL.
- Weapon damage. Damage will now be measured in how much damage you do per second. It will now be up to GMs to determine what a single round does, but well, it'll be less than a lot of rounds do.
If you're so inclined, you can change your rounds for weapons to do less damage to account for this new system, you can determine their damage by taking the weapon's damage and subtracting anywhere from no tiers(for slow firing weapons) to 4 tiers( for really fast firing ones) to determine the single round damage.
1: We do not need this "rule" because it was never a rule. This was proven at the time to not work and never actually get applied
because DRv3 was a guideline. Wes spoke against it and, even if I think the limit helped gauge where weapons landed, it didn't work. This is why it was removed. It's not a rule and it's not fixed in stone. It shouldn't be because it turns weapons into a numeric game and will encourage people to go back to maxing out their weapon loadouts.
If someone can't defend the amount of weapons on their vessel logically and in many ways, they shouldn't get X amount.
2: Why do we need rules for missiles? Missiles are just a weapon. Aside from this being a guideline,
no weapon should be treated differently because of what it is. The type of payload does not change the weapon slot. That being said,
it should be capped at its largest payload's tier. This means that if a rocket launcher can fire a T6, then it should be a T6 weapon. However (as a prime example from my upcoming SMASH micro-missile launcher), it shouldn't be treated only as a T6 weapon if it's being used exclusively for an X payload on something. A good example of this currently in RP is the fact that Curbstomper Torpedoes are scattered across the board into various tiered uses.
3: As I said in Discord, we do not need this. Period.
"But it promotes consistency!"
No. You know why it doesn't? Because DRv3
is a guideline. If people aren't following it/are choosing to be inconsistent, this change will not help solve that problem. This is a person-related problem that can be fixed by talking with that person for a staff-based discussion related to the setting itself. Adding the additional tier modifications onto what we already have is ridiculous because it adds more calculation. So any GM that
does use DRv3 will start to use this as Old Testament and start arguing with anyone (such as myself) who does not use DRv3 as the be-all-end-all.
This addition, at best, will do nothing for the setting. It's smoke and mirrors. Worst case, however, it will promote arguing between GMs and possibly even between GMs and Players because it gives players more cards to go "but it's lightly armored so muh attack should do better".
And that's before mentioning that more emphasis on armor value will put a bigger emphasis on weapons and their tier ratings.
Yes, you heard me right: why, you ask?
Because when someone is considering that their target is a heavy target and they're using DRv3 as "rules" (which is apparently a mistake many newer members are having), then they'll start leaning toward a bigger weapon instead of one that might have been effective before this change.
DRv3 is something that should NEVER have any chance of modifying the outcome of RP. It's here to balance ships/streamline creation. More rules, more decisions, and more numerics will bring this closer to something that messes with RP.
4: No damage per second. This needs to be kept vague. Make it "damage per use" or "damage per action", as I suggested before. This stuff is kept vague because the idea is that weapons should be treated similar.
"But missiles and guns and stuff will lose value!"
No, they won't. People want to use a missile or a gun because the written picture and scenic portrayal. I'd hope that's the case, because if they're using it for stats then they're not my kind of people.
"But low rate of fire weapons and high rate won't be different!"
They never were. This must have been some sort of mentality that rate of fire was a problem because of Arieg. The problem I raised with his missile boats and everything is because he wanted to min-max damage via assigning damage values
per missile and trying to turn it into a stat-based interpretation/hard ruleset. Rate of Fire has
never been a problem to me as a player, GM, FM, or creator.
Now, all that aside.
I do not "hate" this change. I find it fundamentally flawed and have stated why multiple times. Being accused of being a hater "just to hate" is honestly one of the most disrespectful things that happened to me today. I've been told my "opinion" (which still has more experience than those who've been apparently in hard support to DRv3) isn't knowledgeable but the fact that I was agreeing with Zack on certain points, the fact that I was echoed by Rizzo that additional "rules" were bad, and with Fred that this is a step in the wrong direction.
The only reason I approved of DRv3 in its current state back when it was originally discussed is because it was always intended
to be a guideline. All of these changes make it seem like a move to make it
law. This is the fastest way to make members like myself lose interest in DRv3 when it worked perfectly fine before. This is adding things just to add it and does not really "help" but promises to do so. This is something that could be done simply by sitting down and better wording the document (such as my solution for #4) and ensuring people understand things like the fact that
regardless of RoF or weapon type, all weapons should be treated equal if they're at the same tier.
If someone wants to make a high RoF weapon act like a shredder, then the valid solution is to speak with them and explain that it shouldn't be different effective-wise as one that's low RoF. This doesn't seem like it's hard to understand, but it is because we're here trying to make it super-clear that a weapon should be judged on damage per second which already seems wrong to me.
Every change here can be done by simply
communicating with DRv3 offenders. We don't need to give in and throw more numbers (armor weighting being forced into more value) and specific rules for types of things.
