Damage Rating Conversion Chart

Eis has the right idea of it when we're talking about bullets. The shorthand of "caliber" refers to ballistic performance -- speed, energy, penetration, tissue destruction. If you want to rate weapons by a "caliber" system, you're on the right track.

You want your bullet to kill in one hit. It often doesn't. ROF compensates by giving you more chances to hit lethal areas. Burst fire exists as a balance between automatic and semi-automatic fire, giving you additional, more accurate chances to hit.

To @Syaoran's point -- people who are familiar with modern ballistic protection might think that "Class 5 kills Class 5" is a little weird, but it's designed for the sake of players unfamiliar with that system.

That class 5 weapon will kill a class 5 unit if it can hit in lethal spots. A class 4 unit would have to be even more precise, and possibly land more rounds in a single spot. A class 6 weapon will kill a class 5 unit without targeting potentially lethal areas.

Well, the thread moved pretty quickly.

Eistheid said:

I don't understand the adversity to writing weapons a class or two below a target if you want to avoid hyper-lethality with the weapons system.

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For me, there's a few reasons. It doesn't seem to be very intuitive or easy to use. Rather than addressing the weapon as a whole, it only focuses on a single aspect of it. Because of that, each weapon will have to be examined in more detail, and the interpretation of it's effectiveness against selected targets will vary greatly from person to person. And no as much due to deliberate choice, but more thanks to the guess-work that will have to be done. If, going by Fred's guideline, the LASR would be a Class 3. Since one round will defeat another Class 3, but do 25% damage, does that mean it'll take 4 rounds to defeat a Daisy's chestplate since it's Class 5? The LASR, IIRC, has an RoF of 15 rounds a second. Plus shields, that's still half a second.

It seems too loose in some places, and too strict in others, and in the wrong ways.

It appears to suggest that combat time, and how quickly people can be killed, is very quick by clearly defining weapon lethality and armor effectiveness. Those are two tools that are made less effective for various GMs to use since they're not as open to interpretation, leaving primarily evasion and shot-placement. That's why I would prefer to include RoF in the DR Guideline. As a result, a Class 4 Offense would be defined as being able to defeat a Class 4 Defense within a reasonable amount of time. However, the time would be left up to a GM's interpretation, which would also mean that the number of impacts necessary or the resilience of armor is more up to them.

I'm basically worried that what Fred's suggesting may go directly against my own interpretation of the setting.

Exclude time in all instances. Let GMs figure that out.

Or hell, let players figure that out. We don't need this to be D&D/Pathfinder.

@Doshii Jun , I don't think you even addressed the bulk of my own post.

The hang up here seems to be that while some people are able to take basic stats into consideration and run with them, focusing on the narrative and meta as a whole, others need much more stringent guidelines to tell them exactly how A affects B, C, D, and if possible E - Z as well.

SARP, in my opinion, isn't nearly as "game" like as everyone is making it out to be, so I can not understand why we need a system that makes SARP any more like an MMO and less like the narrative focused storytelling the forum embodies. If SARP is supposed to be a true game, then we have a lot of work to do beyond figuring out how to label weapons and their respective damage.

Let me try it while still being succinct:

Focus on a single, broad aspect of a weapon (its lethality) instead of creating additional divisions of how it is rated (RoF, etc.). This creates a simple, flexible system.

CadetNewb said:

Because of that, each weapon will have to be examined in more detail, and the interpretation of it's effectiveness against selected targets will vary greatly from person to person. And no as much due to deliberate choice, but more thanks to the guess-work that will have to be done.

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Bingo! A winner. That's what we should have. The system works well enough to give players an idea, but effectiveness will vary from GM to GM. Which is brilliant.

In your example, considering what the LASR will do -- what it means is that Class 3 weapon had better be accurate as hell and in the hands of an expert if it wants to do any damage. Or it will need to utterly pour fire onto a target in a critical area. Something like that. Is it consistent? Not especially. It isn't supposed to be.

It gives you an idea of the weapon's general effectiveness against a target's class. Beyond that, talk to your GM.

Eliminate time. Eliminate math. Make things simple. Empower GMs AND players.

I don't want to get to involved in this (because I don't know a lot about this topic), but I personally agree with Doshii Jun.

Maybe it's the number of posts I had to read through, but I'm starting to see what you're getting at.

With Fred's guideline, we'd have to begin from the starting factor - individual projectile/shot damage - and work our way up as we take into account how much each various factor adds to the overall effectiveness. Why do you prefer that over starting from the end-sum when the weapon and armor are at an 'average', and being able to choose to either add or subtract from that? From my perspective, it's still very flexible, but consistent enough that it'd be able to act as a guideline.

And I'm not sure my concern about hyper-lethality has been addressed yet either. Right now, Fred's Guideline looks like 1 projectile for a same Class comparison, but only 4 projectiles if it's against something two classes higher. The LASR suddenly sounds like Yui's Buzzsaw.

"Four projectiles" sounds more like a ballpark. It might be four in the most lethal spot for some weapons. GMs can figure it out.

If you really want to add another component to a weapon's damage class, change what it does, i.e. the NSP's Standard and Heavy shots.

I prefer to start and end with one-shot effectiveness as the definition. I don't want to add or subtract so much as I want a vehicle to be in a class as a whole, a weapon to be in a class as a whole, and let the rest be up to GMs and players.

Long story, short: I don't want numbers or modifiers. Classes work fine.

CadetNewb said:

And I'm not sure my concern about hyper-lethality has been addressed yet either. Right now, Fred's Guideline looks like 1 projectile for a same Class comparison, but only 4 projectiles if it's against something two classes higher. The LASR suddenly sounds like Yui's Buzzsaw.

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Doshii Jun said:

...what it means is that Class 3 weapon had better be accurate as hell and in the hands of an expert if it wants to do any damage. Or it will need to utterly pour fire onto a target in a critical area. Something like that. Is it consistent? Not especially. It isn't supposed to be.

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Hyper-Lethality only exists if you have a perfect accuracy 100% of the time, which boils down to a player's ability to craft such posts that warrant such. And who determines that? The GM. Not every shot every time is going to hit a vital spot to do critical and decisive damage. If they do, that GM needs their head checked.

I'd also say that the 25% that you keep going back to, Cadet, should be used as a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. Class 3 versus class 5 doesn't mean that it's exactly 4 times as difficult to kill the target. It's a general range to work with. Rather than going to hard numbers, use it as a framework and work within that, with class 4 not quite being capable of single shot kills without incredible precision, and class 3 only being capable of one shot kills with a hell of a lot of luck AND precision. The further we try to quantify it down into hard, striated numbers, the more detailed it ends up being, and that's the opposite of what we want. We want a loose guideline that gives you an idea of what a weapon is capable of, not a hard number of "It will do x in y number of shots, period."

To return to the guns example, a .22LR round is fully capable of killing a person in a single shot. That said, you have to hit a number of very small, specific points on the body for that to be true, and you have to get lucky in how the bullet tumbles, and so on. It's possible, but not likely. Then you have 5.56 rounds, which aren't much bigger, but are a legitimate step up in lethality, where it's also entirely possible to kill in one shot, but still requires some precision, because it's still only a limited range of targets that can guarantee a one shot kill. Easier to arrange, but still not perfect. Then you have the larger, heavier rounds like 7.62, or most of the .30 range of rounds that hit much harder, and do much more damage regardless of where you hit, and are much, much easier to guarantee a kill with. And so on.

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to give us an idea of what is possible and what is likely, and we can extrapolate from there based on post quality and, depending on the GM, a certain amount of pure luck. It doesn't need to be more complicated.

I prefer to go from some sort of point of reference and go up and down from there. For my point of reference, it's a weapon hitting the armor at center-mass where it's thickest, but if I apply that to Fred's Guideline, the end result is going to be exactly what I don't like or want. Hyper Lethal. I'd be ok with what he's suggesting if it weren't for this result when I put it into practice, because as a GM, I prefer armor having a feel of toughness to it. Keep in mind that I also run a Nepleslian plot. I need to be able to have their shields down and the armor itself to take a beating, not end up cheesed.

The biggest point you seemed to miss in my post was that, from my perspective, it's tossing my freedom as a GM right out the window.

I'd like to have a DR Guideline that caters to both our needs. If we stick with what Fred is suggesting, what if we go with what @Aendri said and took the percentages off the lethality chart and use some phrases like Very, Super, Ultra Effective/Uneffective? That way, Cross-Class lethality is up to interpretation from GM to GM.

Hitting center of mass is not the same as hitting a vital area. There are vital areas in the center of mass, but just because you shot someone in the torso, it doesn't guarantee a kill, especially with a weapon that has a harder time getting through the armor or isn't as accurate. Luck is a variable too, on both sides of the coin. Just as someone can fire off stupidly lucky shots and kill something much stronger, much quicker than intended, on the flip side enemies can have near misses where they took damage but missed vital organs.

I fail to see the limits imposed by taking the damage as per shot when the idea has been explained to mean effectiveness when striking a vital spot and not damage when shooting center mass.

Archander said:

I fail to see the limits imposed by taking the damage as per shot when the idea has been explained to mean effectiveness when striking a vital spot and not damage when shooting center mass.

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This.

And guess what, Cadette? It's your Nep plot. If you want to work with your players as to how a weapon ought to work, and how their armor to work, you still have that freedom. This doesn't take away the freedom.

It's a guideline. Not a damn rulebook.

I've made my points. Fred's system, unmodified, works best in my opinion. I'll step out unless asked to return.

@Archander , the whole Class chart focuses on Offensive measures vs Defensive measures, and looking at how the Lethality chart compares the class of a weapon to a target, I wouldn't be surprised of that section of the article was misnamed since it's a WIP.

@Doshii Jun , I would like a guideline that I could actually use, not toss out the window or ignore like the current one. Not only that, I would like a guideline that both of us could actually use, not just one of us. Though it may work well for you, I simply don't think I can use it in it's current state. That's why I'm trying to figure out what you want out of it, and come up with something that will work for both of us.

However, seeing my suggestion be ignored, I feel like I'm being tossed under the bus now that you have what you want.

CadetNewb said:

I would like a guideline that I could actually use, not toss out the window or ignore like the current one. Not only that, I would like a guideline that both of us could actually use, not just one of us. Though it may work well for you, I simply don't think I can use it in it's current state. That's why I'm trying to figure out what you want out of it, and come up with something that will work for both of us.

However, seeing my suggestion be ignored, I feel like I'm being tossed under the bus now that you have what you want.

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OK, you called me back, so here I am.

If you can't work with the guideline in its current state, then you have the freedom to not use it. That's how a guideline works. We, the members of Star Army, who have seen you rightly and properly elevated to the level of GM, trust YOU to figure out what works best for your players. If the guideline does not work so well -- it is just a guideline, after all -- we TRUST YOU to do whatever you feel is necessary for your players.

They are most important.

As for not getting what you want -- sometimes that happens, sir. You don't always get what you want. I don't want what you want, so no, you're not gonna come up with a guide that works for both of us. I don't share your desires or values on this. Fred might or might not. He'll speak to that himself.

Again, I said my piece. Where it goes from here isn't my chief concern.

From what I've read in the past several posts I think the biggest point that needs to be highlighted is that a weapon of equivalent class to an armour class is potentially lethal. Potentially being the key word.

If circumstances are ideal the weapon will kill its target, IE a direct hit with no complicating circumstances. Now, unless your players are going to be standing in the line of a weapon, your opinion as a GM comes into play. Is the weapon hitting at an angle? Could it possible ricochet? Is it hitting a joint in the armour or the heart of the plate? Is the player in motion and how does this affect the shot? These are all questions that a GM should consider, even if in passing.

This still gives the GM plenty of flexibility in how they present the weapon hitting, as while a shot could potentially prove fatal, multiple shots could also fail to score a kill due to the circumstances involved.

This would tie into the differences between YSE and DioN starships with the latter being more structurally robust. In the same way a DioN PA would be able to endure more punishment than a YSE PA. However both would be able to potentially survive weapons designed to kill them based on circumstance and the whim of the GM.

Just because a weapon is intended to ideally defeat a system does not mean it will succeed. Anti-tank missiles are not 100% effective, nor are anti-personnel mines, or various firearms, they can be survived and with skill on the part of a user they will likely survive some punishment.

This gives the GM and the players the knowledge that an Anti-Heavy PA weapon will probably kill a Heavy PA, however they still need to earn their kill by properly employing the weapon.

Ok, talked it over with Doshii on the IRC, and we're fine now.

Though I agree with @Eistheid , I prefer to work off of a 'control', however, most of you don't want to do that and wish to use a single-shot system instead. That's fine. Because of that, I want to work out something that would work for all of us, which is why I suggest taking the percentages off of the lethality chart. Those are hard numbers, and if the current system is put through it's paces and sort of stress-tested, it becomes inflexible very quickly. That, and for several other reasons which aren't as important, is why I wanted to switch over to a system where the guideline operated off of a 'control'. Again, that's not going to work.

So to reiterate, I suggest removing the percentages on the lethality chart.

That suggestion leaves me with a question @CadetNewb ... The percentages tell me that at a class above I can expect a weapon to be roughly half as effective, and two above it becomes roughly a quarter as effective. How do you propose conveying the lessened effect if not with a percentage? As it is for me it makes a fairly easy point of reference to say that a weapon one class below would be half as effective as a weapon designed to fight that class. I'm not sure how you would present the relative effectiveness without them, I'm curious as to what your alternative is.

We've gone into a discussion balancing my revision. I'll remind everyone that my original goal was making the article itself understandable and user-friendly.

• Several seem to actually get it... which is nice. At least, it seems pretty clear when they try to explain how they think it works that they've a good grasp on it.
• One returned to me with comments on semantics. Answering that quibble seems to demand either pushing every label down one class, or litterally halving all lethality suggestions.
• One seems to really care to tie in damage and rate-of-fire together to have somesort of DPS expression describing how mean the weapon actually is and have that be what the Damage Rating system actually be.

Syaoran's semantic point already seems to have been argued against by others with no rejoinder improving his position. Personally, I didn't relate much, but I was willing to adjust if there was more support.

As for Cadetnewb, there are a few aspects that seem to bother him. One is not liking the "per-shot" expression, rather wanting something evocative of "per-use". The other is how the revision is much more lethal than the current system as-outlined, even though as expressed, the revision is much more faithful to the setting baseline (Wes' arbitration). Cadetnewb made his reticence clear, but unfortunately, I've had little constructive feedback to go on. Basically, I haven't seen a better idea yet.

So, I step back and I look at what this achieves.

Pros:

Cons:

I know Cadetnewb already houserules the present DR system, so, I'm not too alarmed to the idea that he'd houserule a new one to his liking. Still, we're talking about grandfathering a lot of stuff, so, I'd rather have as many invested people onboard as possible to make the move 'worth it'.

From those whom get it, I'd like some more focus on the wording of the article, if you please. It's going to have to sound official someday. From detractors, well, I'm still open to discussing it as long as it remains constructive (I feel we've gotten a bit circuitous).

edit:

CadetNewb said:

So to reiterate, I suggest removing the percentages on the lethality chart.

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Eistheid said:

As it is for me it makes a fairly easy point of reference to say that a weapon one class below would be half as effective as a weapon designed to fight that class. I'm not sure how you would present the relative effectiveness without them, I'm curious as to what your alternative is.

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Estheid took the words out of my mouth. I feel removing the percentile will make it more vague (something you actually raised as a concern previously, ironically).