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Damage Rating Conversion Chart

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Going back to the shielding concerns from earlier, doesn't the current implementation make them more protective than same-class armor? Though something with a shield Endurance of 1 would have parity with armor of the same class, shields that are of the same class but with an improved Endurance would simply be superior in the protection that they provide. They'd be able to take multiple hits of the very same thing that would have otherwise penetrated the armor in only one shot. It would likely shift the meta-game towards shield-heavy designs.
 
I think this is where the flavour of factions would colour the gear more than the mechanics of the system. For example Nepleslia's shields function by reducing the impact on the armor rather than flat out stopping a projectile. Turning a lethal blow into a ricochet usually. To this end I could see Nepleslian armors having shields of a Class generally one step lower, but with higher Endurance. If you had to convey it in terms of the system.

Personally I'd worry more about how the fluff conveys the operation of the shielding and have the way the system explains it be a little spotty. Since GMs and players make up their minds about how the equipment works or doesn't work anyway, not being 100% accurate with the statistics doesn't really bother me.

Though I'd like to get feedback on the above suggestion for Nepleslian shields. Nepleslia has always seemed to care more about armor than shielding, and I think that should be represented in submissions and IC writing. As always this system is intended to say this Class of weapon can kill this Class of unit if properly employed. I don't think this means that an Aggressor's heavy armor will be negated, rather it just means that if it gets hit in a vulnerable spot by a same Class weapon it will die. This encourages roleplaying the strengths of the unit rather than letting the numbers shield you.

Edit: Since the thought occurs to me, I would still say that were you to point a Hostile and a Daisy at each other, that the Hostile would chew up the Daisy and come out the victor. However this is an impression given by the fluff of the articles more so than the statistical values. (I can't even come up with a Hostile or Daisy's SP off the top of my head.) I suppose this is just a long winded way of me saying that I value the fluff and description portion of any tech submission more than the numbers.
 
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Well, there's no rule saying that the shields have to be stronger than or even as strong as the armor of whatever is using them.
 
I'm loving this article you guys are working on, to me it makes more sense than what we have currently :3
 
It may not be a rule Kirkitan, but the metagame is still a concern.

The problem I'm seeing here is that at the same 'Class', shields have more 'Side Grades' or options which improve on them, while armor does not. This would mean that shields the preferred protection to use since they're more effective, and makes it harder to have a more armor-centric setup if someone wants it. We could remedy this by giving armor materials 'Grades' perhaps, but this makes the whole thing more complex, which I'm not sure we'd want.

Regarding faction flavors though, I recall discussing with Kampfer switching over to a shield that mitigates attacks to the point that they're ricochets, but pointed out that high-explosive or shaped charge shells would still do their damage, so it was tossed out the window. We still use full-deflection shields, but emphasize overall protection and firepower. Meanwhile, the Daisy would comparatively have mobility and firepower, since it'd be pretty foolhardy to not equip the 50mm cannon.
 
That's precisely why the article's description carries the gist of the peculiarities of the submission.

Technically, a 9mm pistol can potentially hurt a M1 Demon, one of this setting older low-tier power armors. But change the plating the Demon has for zesuaium, and it becomes an entirely different situation. The GM, understanding the properties of zesuaium on the unit, would know that the 9mm bullets from that handgun would at best scratch the paint since zesuaium can't be altered by kinetic impacts. That would actually apply to more than that particular pistol, up until the point where you'd have a weapon carrying enough kinetic impact for it to - once transfered to the M1 Demon's exoskeletal frame - stress it to the point of breakage. While something like an LASR might not make the cut, the 50mm gauss cannon likely would.

Whereas a Daisy power armor's plasma rifle likely would deal its usual damage, considering plasma is one of the damage sources that behaves normally against zesuaium.

So, that already kind of exist. It'd be applied that way, the quality of the armor and material granting conditions. So, if a tech submitter write in that his tracked battle tank is protected by reactive armor, the GM looking at it could construe that missiles would be less effective against it.
 
Shield classes and endurance make sense to me. They're not confusing, though if a chart were possible with some examples, that'd be kinda nice.

Also, I want to copy edit the article, but I don't have time this weekend. The upside -- I'm off work this week.
 
Let me try putting this into practice.

So we have shields and armor that are both Class 3, Light Armor. The shields themselves can be anywhere from Endurance 1 and up, but let's say it's Endurance 3. That means it can take 3 hits of something that would have otherwise just gotten through in 1. Meanwhile, assuming the armor was Durandium, that would equate to just one hit of something of its own class to penetrate the shields. Meanwhile, if the armor was made of Yama-Dura, that would be Endurance 2, while Yamataium would be Endurance 3, meaning two and three hits to defeat the armor.

This sound about right?
 
While I suppose that does work, I personally wouldn't want to run something like that. While the shield section as it is written is very mechanical and number centric in nature, I personally don't like to think of it that way.

Let me first use an example:

With how the system is set up so far if I took two Neko in Daisies and handed them each a plasma rifle, then I told Neko A to Shoot Neko B in the foot three times, on the second shot Neko B's shields would drop, and on shot three she might loose her foot. I'm not too clear on the effectiveness of a Daisy vs its own plasma rifle. If after this I then told Neko B to shoot Neko A in the face three times, on the second shot Neko A's shields drop and on the third she's looking at a possible trip to the morgue, or at the very least damage that would disable her helmet's function.

While the shield is described as being able to take two hits, the purpose of this is providing players with two hits that don't damage their PA. The third, fourth, and fifth hit might not put down the PA. This is the armor doing its job. However with how compact PAs are, especially Yamataian (Yamataian?) PAs are there is a high chance that even if the damage is non-critical it will still reduce the capacity of the PA to function optimally. As such while you can take hits and tank them with your armor at the GM's discretion you're likely to loose capability as you take damage this way. The purpose of shields is to give players the capability to wade into a little bit of fire or take a risk without having to worry about loosing function, life or limb.

Further shields allow a clever and synergistic group of PCs to handle large threats potentially without getting scratched. This would show the difference between an elite unit that works well together compared to green soldiers or a group of solo heroes. A group that works well to manage fire and slips in and out of cover could potentially down a dangerous foe without damaging their equipment. This would be a reward earned through intelligent writing and play. Where as a less cohesive group would sustain damage and need to be more careful in future encounters due to not being at 100%.

To summarize: Shields aren't the end all be all in the setting they're just one tool available to players and GMs to extend action in the field without needing to return to base to repair and restock.

Also the difference between a heavier Nep PA and a lighter Yam PA at the end of a protracted campaign would be really interesting to me. With the way Nepleslian PAs are written I can see them shrugging off damage and scars that would leave a Yamatai PA crippled. While the mobility and teamwork of an Elite Yamataian(?) force might allow them to come through a heavy firefight without a scratch on their paint. Both are awesome in their own ways, and I wouldn't say one is superior to the other aside from personal taste.

How you write the scene, gear, and characters is the most important part. Not the mechanics of it.
 
Shields are also not picky on where you hit them - a hit that would threaten to kill a Daisy if on a vital section like the head or the chestplate would drain as much shield power if the shot hit on the foot or on the head.

The difference between durandium and yama-dura is that durandium is lighter while yama-dura regenerates a bit. If you get yama-dura on a Class 4 armor, you're still getting 'light' protection from it since you layered it just thickly enough to be considered 'light'. A Mindy doesn't magically increase a class by getting its plating uprated to Yamadura (though you can excuse thinner plating with a 'superior' material in order to justify adding more stuff to the volume of the unit, like the 2D model did). Mindy armors also benefit from the Star Army sometimes sheathing them with zesuaium... and thanks to Zesuaium's properties, this lengthens the staying power of the Mindy a lot.

Adding sufficient armor to have that category rise effectively makes it a different unit, since you need to build something that has the required framework to support that much armor. Which... is essentially what the M6 Daisy is.

Whereas most Nepleslian power armor are bigger and typically have thicker plating.

Read: Durandium does not suck. Under this umbrella, it is armor generally as protective as most of the others, except it simply happens to have no great exotic properties, with the benefit of being light.
 
To be honest, that's what has my attention, and is what I'm trying to figure out. What are the effects of armor material on the system here?

Let's say we have an older 2A Mindy that's using Durandium armor. Upgrading the plates so that they have a composition Yama-Dura that's something along the lines of the mix that the Daisy uses, what happens then? Does it become tougher/multi-hit but remain Class 4? Or does it jump up to Class 5? What effect would purely Yamataium plates create, or even Zesuaium?

I'm worried that, in addition to emphasizing shields more, it doesn't quite give enough of an idea of what happens with armor.
 
I don't get why you ask a question I already specifically answered. I don't get why you feel shields are over-emphasized when I just debunked that idea.
 
I think I see the disconnect.

Cadette, if you upgrade the plates with the intention of making that Mindy harder to destroy, you are upgrading the class.

If you upgrade the plates with some other focus in mind — using Yama-Dura means your armor regens a bit — you maintain the same class because the assumption is that you only upgraded the plating enough to get the effect you wanted, not toughen up the overall armor.
 
Basically, Cadet, stop worrying so much about materials, and start thinking about it more like it would be in real life. Different materials will need different densities to obtain the same amount of protection. Some materials, even though they're different, will have about the same protection for the same quantity, but other qualities instead. Durandium and Yama-Dura have roughly the same protective capacity, but offer different benefits, Durandium being lightweight, while Yama-Dura comes back, given time. Benefits don't have to be purely in terms of protective capacity, and this system tries to make that a bit more clear.
 
Well, to be honest guys, I was lead to believe that Yama-Dura was more than just a pinch of Yamataium in the mix. Basically enough to make the material a middle-ground between Durandium and pure Yamataium, which was why the Daisy was tougher than the Mindy 2A, which used only Durandium. Because of that, the examples given were a bit tough to chew, since it went directly against what I was lead to believe. And Zesuaium, thanks to its properties, I have always felt was best to simply discount when working on these things since it's an exception, and not representative of normal materials at all, which didn't help me when it came to trying to understand what you're all saying. Double that since I'm also keeping Nepleslian armors in mind; they don't have access to that stuff. The same goes with material quantities as well - the examples using small amounts of one material or another only made it more confusing, though what Aendri has said has helped to clear that up.

With what Doshii pointed out though, the disconnect I'm feeling only seems to be more stark.

Going back to parity between shields and armor, it seems that if shields get upgraded, the benefits are always fairly substantial. Enough to either graduate class, or gain a hard benefit of being able to take another shot or two of something that would have depleted it entirely. Meanwhile, with armor, it's either a full upgrade to the next class, or having some soft benefits such as regeneration, which simply doesn't have as much influence on the situations at hand unless it's a Zesuaium coating. It also bothers me that those examples given aren't even applicable to every other faction. Forgive the language, but even though Fred is correct that a shield will be depleted regardless of where it's hit, with armor, it's all varying degrees of screwed, as Eistheid pointed out. That's just not acceptable.

Though I keep Yamatai in mind, I also need to keep Nepleslia there as well, and given that they're much more armor-centric, I'm feeling uncomfortable with where this is going.
 
Okay. So I'm presently suffering a cluster headache so I might come off poorly so forgive anything that comes off harsh. I write this with the best intentions.

To actually get started here we go: Using different materials doesn't necessitate a change in class. There is no reason why this should be believed. If I build a car out of aluminium I have no reason to believe that it will have the same function as one of steel, or titanium. In the same way there is no reason why switching between one metal to another should alter the class. If you alter the mass and volume of the armor that is one thing, but replacing durandium, yama-dura, zesuaium, or nerimium or whatever, isn't going to change the class so long as it is just applied for the base features of the material. It's like applying an anti-beam coating like a mirror coat, or a conductive layer. It doesn't make the unit exceptionally different, just functionally so in how the material interacts.

The reason the Daisy is tougher than the Mindy is because not only is it constructed of a different material, but it is also more heavily armored. It is designed to cover more of the body, with a larger volume of material. If you melted down a Daisy and a Mindy the Daisy would have more volume. There is more to it and as such it is a tougher unit. Stood side by side made of the exact same material the Daisy and the Mindy are going to still be in different classes, in the same way that a truck and a car are the same even if they have the same materials making them up. The Daisy is bigger, tougher, and built to last compared to its dainty sister.

You reference my pointing out that taking damage to armor is varying degrees of screwed, however I specifically meant that in regard to Yamataian PAs which are pretty much glorified skin suits. This would be like comparing a sports car to a tank when stood beside a Nepleslian PA. Nep PAs are designed to have big thick plates of armor. A GM and a Player should go into the role of a Hostile or Aggressor with the full knowledge that there is a huge chunk of armor between the pilot and the core systems. This gives anyone who isn't an idiot in one of these units the capability to mitigate damage by placing the big fat plates of armored material between them and whatever wants them dead.

If a GM is treating a player or foe hosing down a Mindy, a Daisy, a Hostile, and an Aggressor with a LASR in the same way. They're honestly doing it wrong. Like... Completely missing the point of the way the units were written wrong. There is no way that one should treat the armor of the tissue paper clad Mindy the same way as the bulk and structural integrity enhanced Aggressor. The only way there could possibly be an issue with this is if you magically assume that everyone is going to be packing ordinance specifically designed to counter the Class of the foe.

Given the trend to reduce the use of weapons like the Aether Saber Rifle in combat, a crew of Yamataian PAs should be horrified at the prospect of encountering a Nepleslian PA in any environment where they can't outflank them. Even after they whittle down the Nep PA's shields the armor so long as the Nep doesn't let the Neko shoot them in the face is going to take ages longer to fell than the Neko wants. Because the armor is designed to last and take punishment. It's written into the article. It's the core of their existence.

That you're uncomfortable and think that armor is useless is honestly something I don't get. It seems obvious to me that a heavily armored Nep PA assuming it doesn't get nailed in a vulnerable place isn't going to fall easily. This is why I have repeated time and time again that this system de-emphasizes the STATS and instead makes the FLUFF the important part. We should not be judging a piece of equipment based on a hand full of numbers that we slap onto the stupid thing. Those numbers only exist to give players and GMs an idea of what sort of things they're dealing with. A guideline to stop poor players down the line from wondering, "How much exactly does this incredibly complex warhead achieve? I wanted to roleplay a Marine not a theoretical physicist!" If we expect the system to do more than tell Players what Weapon A will do roughly to Target B we're doing it wrong. Even worse we're devaluing the portion of the technology that the authors actually put effort into. THE FLUFF.

When I write articles I don't care about the DR or the Class, or the SP. I care about the flavor and feeling of the submission. I want to inspire an image of the vehicle in action. I want players to think this is cool! I want to see this in roleplay! I don't believe anyone looks at an article and is immediately impressed by the "ADR 5" notation or the "6 SP Vehicle" Honestly I would feel insulted if that was all that my work was judged by. I write articles to give an impression of a complex system the same way someone would describe a car, or a motorcycle, or a jet fighter in real life. No one is going to say, "Ah yes that F-18 is so cool because it has 13 SP" We care about the shape, how it moves, the sounds it makes in operation. Yes it is handy to know that the missile payload can leave a tank as a flaming husk, but the how of that is much more interesting than the statistical aspect.

TL;DR - The Damage Rating System is a guideline to help GMs and Players get a general idea of what will be effective against what. If someone ignores the huge body of text that describes how something is built and functions, and instead focuses on the little numbers and decides that a Mindy and an Aggressor are able to take the similar amounts of punishment and suffer similar effects I honestly don't know how to help them apart from pointing them back to the article and demanding they re-read the fluff and question how the hell they thought such a light unit could possibly reflect the performance of something over four times its volume.
 
I'm doing my best to keep an open mind, and I understand what you're saying Eistheid as well as agree. Without shields, a Mindy or Daisy would take fire far differently than a Hostile or even Aggressor would, there is no doubt. And I'd be a fool to portray them all reacting the same to this one weapon, even though they're all drastically different systems. However, this doesn't address what I'm focusing on, which I hate saying given the amount of time and effort put into your post.

In this situation, I'm talking about an armor facing an equivalent weapon class. Not any one armor in specific, but just an armor facing a weapon that will defeat it due to being the same class. The shields will be gone in one hit, and the armor defeated in one hit in this case. However, the shields have the option of being improved to take one or more additional hits of something that would have otherwise just collapsed it, while armor does not. Whereas a character can tinker with their shield systems to eek out this extra performance, there is currently no provision for something along the same lines with the armor. At the very best, there's the Zesuaium coating, but that is restricted to only one faction, as I pointed out earlier. If allowing shields to have an Endurance is like giving it side-grades in performance, why is armor without the same option? The examples given so far are all 'soft' benefits rather than 'hard' ones which the shields get, but armor does not. This is baffling to me why one is with, and the other without.

As this goes on, I am wondering if I'm seeing something others are not, or am simply having this all fly over my head.
 
Hmm, I think I see the problem now.

Perhaps it needs to be made more clear in the article itself, but here is the way it is supposed to work: A Class 6 weapon will only kill a Class 6 target if it hits a vital area. This means that if you take a Class 6 Weapon and shoot an Aggressor in the face with it, the Aggressor is likely to die. However, if you shoot the Aggressor and it is in motion, with the pilot actively trying to use the armor to defend, the damage is likely to be mitigated, or completely avoided in the case of a ricochet.

To reiterate: A same Class weapon kills a same Class target on a hit to a vital point.

I believe it was touched upon by mentioning that if you shoot someone in the arm with a pistol (Class 1 vs Class 1) that it isn't going to kill them, unless they go into shock, or bleed out for some reason. However that same pistol has the potential to kill someone if you shoot them in the eye.

Perhaps it isn't made clear enough in the article but the effectiveness of Armor and the damage it takes is largely circumstantial to be decided by the GM in a case by case basis. "Did the player actively try to avoid taking damage? Or did they try to tank an anti-armor weapon with their face?" The former is going to make the unit last much longer than the latter without shields.

Also; How much cushion is given to a heavily armored PA like a Nep PA is like all things according to GM fiat. The better a GM knows the unit the more likely they'll portray its durability in the field properly. This includes demonstrating its ability to take hits that other PAs wouldn't dream of after its shields fall.
 
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