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Rejected Submission Damage Rating v3 Addendum

CadetNewb

CadetNewb

Well-Known Member
Submission Type: Damage Rating v3 Addendum
Submission URL: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=wip:drv3_missile_addendum

Faction:
FM Approved Yet: N/A
Faction requires art: N/A

For Reviewers:
Contains Unapproved Sub-Articles: No
Contains New art: No
Previously Submitted: No

Notes:

In addition to addressing the hot topic of missile spam, this is also meant to take the place of the 8x DR Output rule we've gone by in the past. To note, the vagueness is deliberate in order to focus on storytelling and RP as a flexible guideline, rather than be a hard numbers and rules system that is too rigid we've seen in the past.
 
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While I'm still not certain the baseline lethality this aims for is at the level we want, the article seems good enough at explaining some reasons why not all weapons can be fired at a single target effectively, and it gives some sort of precise definition to the terms 'missile' and 'torpedo' in this setting, without being exclusive.

It doesn't say anything about limits on weapons use based on heat management or power allocation abilities, but those aren't issues that missiles have, so that might help to avoid someone inferring that missiles are somehow 'better' on this basis. It still doesn't thoroughly address the underlying assumption people make about the effectiveness of weapons being proportionate to their damage tier, but maybe it will be the start of a trend toward accepting that doctrinal approaches that look 'overpowered' won't necessarily work at full strength, if at all, unless they're intended to.
 
Navian said:
It still doesn't thoroughly address the underlying assumption people make about the effectiveness of weapons being proportionate to their damage tier
Click to expand...

Honestly, I think people forgot about Murphy's Law, and how it applies to missiles too. That's more or less part of this article's purpose as well. Though, regarding your baseline lethality comment, are you referring to the missiles/torpedoes, or the 8x DR thing I messed with a little?
 
"Integrity or Acceleration/Agility" "Integrity Tier" (Why are these factor all of a sudden necessary? Why are you pushing these into the submission when it complicates things and then using the words "easy to use" in the submission, as well?)

"Regarding the Acceleration/Agility in specific however, the projectile gains enough additional propulsion benefits that it is has handing characteristics similar to a 'Base' missile or torpedo that is a tier lower." (This is one of the only mentions of Acceleration/ Agility and, truly, it does little to enlighten.)

"Any excess firepower is ineffective, but may be focused on other targets in the area. However, with each additional target, the efficiency decreases as sensor and targeting systems are taxed."
(I may need you to explain what you're getting at here in order to fully form an opinion on it)

"Though each nation, empire and star army attempts to arm their ships as best as possible, there are certain limitations regarding just how much firepower can be brought to bear. Generally, the best warships are capable of destroying an equal target several times over in a single instant given the vast array of weapons at their disposal. However, as these weapons open fire, their effective firing arcs may be limited due to their positioning on the hull of the ship relative to the intended target. Additionally, sufficient amounts of weapon fire focused on one target has the shots beginning to interfere with one another. Energy weapons may cross paths close enough that their fields offset each other enough to push them gently off course, or even impact one another should the focused fire be intense enough. Missiles and torpedoes similarly risk crowding a target and even damaging or setting each other off prematurely should they be detonated. Worse still, the weapons fire itself, in sufficient quantities, may obscure the target or cause sensor interference."
(This all feels like filler. I have no idea why this would need to be included. It makes the submission overly verbose.)

"Basic Missile Integrity = Damage Tier - 5 Tiers
Basic Torpedo Integrity = Damage Tier"
(Can you do some math to back this up?)

"For this reason..." (What reason? You just spent a paragraph [Specifically, the one I just called verbose.] describing ten possibilities and then said the paragraph was one reason. Making reason plural won't help either at the next statement ["...a single ship can only effectively bring eight times (8x) its own Damage Tier against a target.'] doesn't follow from the paragraph precluding it.)

"Additionally, similar tiered targets are multiplicative regarding the additional targeting and sensor system load, while much lower tiered targets such as fighter craft give a low system load that increases exponentially as their numbers rise."
(This is confusing the situation more than it needs to. It seems you talk more about sensors and systems than you do about missiles and torpedoes.)

"8x Tier Limit for Damage Output
Diminishing targeting efficiency per additional target
Fighter Craft = Individual Low Targeting Computer Load, Exponential ↑ with Numbers"
(This has nothing preceding it and therefor is just hanging out without any context to give it a place in the submission. I would like to know what's going on with this bulleted list. You seem to just reiterate DR V3 in the first bullet, then go on to talk about what happens to sensors and systems without specifying sensors and systems, which you talk about a great deal. The next bullet makes little sense. Exponential ↑ with Numbers is probably my tenth least favorite thing about this submission.)

"For this reason, point defenses are recommended against missiles, while emergency evasive maneuvers are best against torpedoes; alternative actions are possible, but results may vary." (You're giving tips and tricks on how to write instead of actually creating an addendum to rules.)

"For an example, a self propelled projectile may surrender 1 Damage Tier in order to gain 1 Tier in Integrity or Acceleration/Agility." (I can't believe this is the only concrete example in the entire submission and yet it is so incredibly simple. I need more examples and examples that are varied in difficulty and understandability.)

Can this submission include more of the math behind it and less of the flowery language?

Add another header and section to give it an index. I feel like this submission requires ease of access to its different parts, especially after it has been added to.

These are just my initial thoughts on reading it a few times.
 
I'll kind of echo Ame.

I get a feeling this article takes to long to get to the point. I was reading and re-reading it, trying to dessiminate the point, and was thinking it probably could be lightened to a degree. Especially if it's meant to patch the DRv3 article (which is already pretty big).

I'm having a hard time tracking the self-guide projectile part. I get that the distinction is made that missiles are faster/frail, and torpedoes slower/tougher. I get that there's role-warfare being encouraged, with point-defense being for missiles and evasive maneuvers more feasible for slower torpedoes (how slow is slow, exactly? To me, torpedoes are like Star Trek photon torpedoes and those don't seem slow).

I'm not enchanted by torpedoes being typecast as slow because I personally view missiles as a non-starship weapon and torpedoes as a starship weapons (essentially, 'missile' has been the prevalent term for any guided warhead generally not meant to kill a ship so far); but if I'm a minority, I can deal with it. The torpedo/missile distinction can bring about a strange loophole: power armors carrying mini-torpedoes? o_O

I can see this being in, because it covers how tough a torpedo/missile is - which is a defining purpose of DRv3. Hopefully it can be more more comprehensible.

* * *

I'm not surprised to see the 8-same-tier weapon concept show up as a maximum weapons fired limit. I still view Wes as being inconsistent in his previous ruling of it, and it shows to me that at least Cadetnewb found the work previously leading to its creation sound, even if the straightjacket adherence to it in the NTSE wasn't. It achieves painting it as a guideline much more strongly than any previous iteration, which pleases me.

What doesn't please me is that I still think it's a weak and lame rationale... but I don't exactly have something better to propose, so please consider that a peanut-gallery-level nitpick on my part. After all, I do find this convenient. It does solve some submitting issues with my own creations. I should be going "Yay! \o/ " but...

This actually brought about notions of another matter which remains poorly covered: lethality is not the definitive expression of a weapon's damage potential; rate-of-fire seems to play a large role in the perception too. That's still not addressed. But it seems thematically taken into account here, which is why I bring it up. This needs to be solved, though: if there's going to be a metric for calculating how much deadly crap you can send out, Rate-of-fire can't be ignored. It'll be brought up again. So will ammo. Shots fired at once simultaneously. And ultimately the room it'll take inside a vehicle, like Cadetnewb groused about in Frost's submission.

And this is what, I think, actually compounds on the problem of maximum loadout. It's not a good reflection of it, because it doesn't deal with DRv2's damage-per-interval value. Again, DRv3 was not meant for ship-building in its scope.

Therefore, on the same basis that Wes denied Frost's submission, I can't endorse this facet of the article. If you want a maximum allowed weapons to be fired kind of thing, it doesn't belong in the DRv3 article.
 
The article doesn't actually say anything that'd help clarify or advance the current DR rules. Seems more like a monologue discussion of DR system thoughts for consideration rather than an easy-to-understand guideline page.

Maybe adding some substance outlining what you want changed would help.
 
Though, regarding your baseline lethality comment, are you referring to the missiles/torpedoes, or the 8x DR thing I messed with a little?
Click to expand...

The 8x DR thing. If taken at face value, it implies combat will usually be over in one round of attacks. Not only does that set a certain tone, it also implies even 'dreadnoughts' have much to fear from smaller vessels if they don't shoot first. I understand that it wasn't your idea, and certainly that hypothetically having that ability to do that much damage isn't the same as really having it, I was just noting it's still here, and I'm concerned about that.
 
Ok, focusing on the big posts here. Sorry guys.

@Ametheliana

I went and used "Integrity" because I wasn't too sure what to call the defensive examples in DRv3 when I was writing it up. That, and I was sleepy at the time, and as I wrote the article, that's what I ended up sticking with as I went along. Previously, we would have called it Structural Points or SP. I could call it "DR Defense", if that sounds better; if you have suggestions, let me know. Really, it's just referring to the SP/HP/what-have-you of the missiles and torpedoes. As for 'Acceleration/Agility', that's referring to innate traits that the missiles and torpedoes already have. It's simply referring to how well the projectiles accelerate and how well they can turn. However, as I worked on this article, I tossed around several different terms. When I finally settled on 'Propulsion', I apparently didn't swap out everything.

Regarding the "Excess Firepower" though, the idea is that you can only apply X amount of firepower at a target accurately and effectively, and the rest is wasted. Let's say I'm in a Mishhu Battleship for an example, and I shoot at one of four Plumeria Gunships. Let's say, for this scenario, the very most I can effectively hit it with is Tier X damage, even though that's only 25% of my total DR Output, Tier Y. If I did try firing Tier Y at that Plumeria anyways, anything past Tier X is going to miss because I'll be unable to aim it all, as there's going to be too many explosions, aether beams and EM interference and all the rest. Basically, blinded by my own muzzle flash.

It's meant to explain why ordering gunnery to "Fire Everything" at just one target is a bad idea. However, there's still the three other Plumerias. I can start targeting them with the weapons I'm not using on the first. However, the more of them I try and shoot at once, the less accurate I'll get as my targeting computer and sensors has to cope with more and more going on. If I try shooting all four Plumera gunships at once, that means my accuracy for all four will be very poor; instead, what I can do from there is prioritize which targets get the most of my targeting computer's attention. As a result, I can have my Battleship firing on all four at once, but with different priorities for each.

It may seem wordy, but the way that this is meant to function is more from an In-Character perspective, rather than an OOC one where we put arbitrary rules and numbers to limit what happens in RP. Because of that, it will be wordy because it is effectively also describing in detail how the RP itself plays out, even if a GM doesn't take their time to describe it all in their posts. It is, effectively, what is going on under the hood and why the rules function the way they do.

If you'd like, I can change "For this reason" to something else that's more accurate and inline with what I'm trying to get the article to say. That is, there are multiple reasons why a ship can only dish out X amount of firepower accurately on a single target even though they have Y amount of firepower on hand.

The reason why sensors and fighters are brought up is because it's the in-character explanation as to why firing everything at one target doesn't work. As mentioned before, this submission isn't just something to properly define missiles and torpedoes though. In addition to that, it's also meant to address the firepower cap we've tried using in the past - naturally, this is easy to change as we work on this submission.

More examples can be included easily, though reading your post and Fred's I'm thinking of something that would help organize this better.

@Fred

In order to make this more readable, would having a hard separation of the rules from the In-Character explanations help? It seems that people reading it are muddling the whole thing together due to its current layout.

With what's being planned however, you shouldn't worry about the torpedoes. The idea is that the system is flexible enough to incorporate not just missiles and torpedoes, but variations of them. The basic torpedo defined in the article is something that can either be shot down with a lot of focus fire or dodged altogether, but if you want Trek style torpedoes? Shed some of the firepower and increase the protection so that enemies bother less with even trying to shoot them down, and more with dodging or simply taking the hit where they're strongest.

The 8-tier weapon damage thing is simply a benchmark that I decided to work off of. We can move it up, down, or toss it out altogether for something else if that suits us, since the whole idea behind this is to have it be based off of things In-Character, and flexibility where it's OOC.

You do bring up a good point regarding rate of fire though, and are correct that I attempted to take care of that thematically. Focusing a bit more on that, what if higher rate of fire weapons produce more 'noise' so to say. Various forms of interference that further degrade the accuracy of targeting systems? It fits right into things IC I believe.

As mentioned earlier, we can toss out having a hard limit altogether. Perhaps a soft limit would be better? We'd have the article state that there is a limit to how much firepower can be focused on a single target IC, but it would never actually specify exactly what it is. Maybe give some guideline words at most. It'd give us a lot of room to work with I think.
 
The purpose of the NTSE forum is to receive and judge new member submissions to see if they can belong broadly in the setting. The job of the NTSE mod seems to be to make sure that these pass muster.

DRv3 doesn't care, though. And neither does the written roleplay. Whether an NTSE mod finds a creation too powerful or not falls entirely to the wayside compared to a GM's interpretation of a article's spec. Nowhere does it say in the specs of articles that "if you fire too much, there's going to be noise and your shots won't be as effective".

Essentially, a measurement of how many weapons can be fired in the DRv3 article is an useless ruling that no one will end up following because it's not intuitive to the narrative (something DRv3 is supposed to try and go along with, that's its selling point). So, adding a maximum amount of weaponry fired as a metric satisfies... what exactly? A placebo effect that the NTSE mods will have, to feel that there's some hurdle stopping overpowered submissions to be overpowered?

I'd say that's kind of useless. At least the limit on loadout is a coherent metric, even if it doesn't end up filling for values such as occupied volume for weaponry. You might as well just stay in the current limbo

End result: we circuitously run into the same problem. And the conclusion is, you can't base loadout solely on damage value. Especially not in the DRv3 article. DRv3 offers one value out of the many the NTSE mods would seem to need in order to rate weapons. Frost/Zack/myself were going to abstract it, but that got shot down. Short of building a 'value' system to quantify general weapon qualities and developping a Battletech-style unit-building system, you won't find the answer you're looking for to give the metric you seek to have in the NTSE.

And if an abstract expression failed under the aegis of "we should avoid turning this into a boardgame", going more complex won't help either.
 
You should break apart the self propelled projectile rule and the maximum damage output rule into separate submissions. It will be much easier to discuss each one individually than it will be to try and get both approved at the same time.

I do like the projectile rule, and being able to make more armored / more splody / more faster missiles by trading something out is something I know I want. While the rule makes sense to me now, swaping out speed grades for tiers and such, it wasn't apparent to me what you were going for on the first read through.

The 8x tier rule 'per one target' I feel is more rules than needed and I'd rather see it just go back to '8x teir per ship'.
 
I'll take all this into consideration as I get back to work on it then. I'll give you guys a heads up once I get there.
 
Alright, the portion regarding the damage limit was removed so we can focus on just this, and besides that, I cut down the flavor text as much as possible. Now we need to toy around with the system and see if it works. Right now, I haven't thought of anything that'd throw it off yet since I haven't sat on it for a bit yet, but I decided to go ahead and mess with Fred's suggestion of an "Anti-PA Torpedo". It'd actually be something like Mass Effect's Concussion Shot, but much harder hitting I believe. Definitely something you can just leap out of the way of however.
 
This still doesn't have mathematical examples for it like I asked, but I guess the DR page itself doesn't, now, either.

"In general, missiles are best shot down, while torpedoes are evaded." (This is the kind of fat you trimmed earlier, I'm wondering why it's still here. At least put it in a more fitting place than on the tail end of a bulleted and arrow-filled list.)

Where that above statement is, can you put a succinct description of what that bulleted arrow-filled list is entailing? I know that could be quite difficult/ might seem redundant, but I think it would help people grasp what that list is getting at in a different form. The way some people's mind works is different than the way yours does and having an alternative form of direct explanation may help.
 
Also, I don't think this is something I can review. I think it's something that @Wes as SM needs to handle.
 
That's true. Like Frost's recent attempt, this isn't really a setting submission that can just be reviewed. It's something the administration needs to check out and decide on.
 
Thanks but no thanks. I'm not looking for any rules changes at this time. Also this one is not very intuitive to read/figure out either.
 
Initially, it seemed like there was a panic over the role of torpedoes and missiles in the setting, as well as a lack of understanding of their pros and cons in-character. With the previous one, I saw that it was almost nothing but numbers, so I sought out a more narrative driven design. However, I've cut a lot of that out at request, leaving us with, well, this.

In order for me to work on the next version, could you give me some more feedback on this @Wes? I need to know what parts are confusing, what's not intuitive and so forth.
 
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