[DR System] Logic Error, Logic Error, Logic Error

[Anonymous]

I've been thinking(Which is probably a dangerous pastime), about the differences between Frames/Starfighters/Tanks and PAs. And, I had a mental breakthrough.

It doesnt make sense to jump from the damage done by a guy in a PA, which is just an infantryman in a suit of armor, up to ship grade damage. It effectively means that Fighters, Tanks, and Frames are just inferior and not as good as super PAs with ADR 5 weapons out the ass.

What I propose is that we add a fourth tier to the DR system, between armors and starships, for vehicles. Vehicles like Tanks, Starfighters, and Frames. So that we don't get things like "A Railgun with a barrel as long as a mindy is tall, firing rounds the size of a Mindy's head, only does as much damage as a mindy's rifle."

This would serve to make PAs in SARP less broken and Overpowered, and open up new roleplay opportunities (ROLLING THUNDER! CRUSH THE SQUIDDIES UNDER THE TREADS OF YOUR TANK!).


Is this coming out partially because i'm frustrated that a Frame's main rifle can only do about as much damage as a Mindy's aether rifle? Yes. Yes I am frustrated about that, because it doesnt make sense.


tl;dr: Nerf Armors, Buff Fighters

 

[Stovaa]

Uh, the DR system has been mucked around with enough, methinks.

 

[Anonymous]

Uh, the DR system has been mucked around with enough, methinks.

The only mucking around THIS change will do is adding in a new level. We don't have to completely write up and balance out an entire new DR system, just add a new level for vehicles.

 

[Nashoba]

The current system already covers vehicles. The Armor / Mech ranges covers the spectrum of Power armors at the bottom, and Mecha and Tanks.

 

[Anonymous]

The current system already covers vehicles. The Armor / Mech ranges covers the spectrum of Power armors at the bottom, and Mecha and Tanks.

Except that that doesnt make sense, because PAs have weapons that do ADR 5 damage and stuff, making the only difference the SP.

It'd be a lot better to split it into Armors and vehicles.

 

[Zack]

Or you could be reasonable with your tech submissions. Give a reasonable amount of weapons of reasonable strength to power armors, vehicles, ect, instead of giving everything large numbers of guns with the max DR in their category.

Alternatively keep in mind machineguns with DR 4 and 5 are supposed to require about 10 seconds of continuous fire to deal their entire amount of damage, even if that isn't listed in the DR system.

This small change won't really affect anything as everyone will just use the higher DR rating instead of the PADR. There are a lot of problems with the current DR system but I think the correct path to take is an overhaul of the system rather than just adding a new category. After all origin industries Jinkin escort has a small laser turret that does the same damage as the Aether Shock Cannon. Clearly that isn't right either which would in turn call for a DR rating above starship.

 

[Anonymous]

Uso, I hate you so much, but you bring up a lot of good points.


YES, We an overhaul of the system would be better, but No-one, and I mean NO-ONE is willing to go through with that again

Which is why i'm just settling for modifying the current system.

About people raising the damage of stuff to fit into VDR, it wouldn't happen. PA weapons would NEVER be allowed to do VDR scale damage, End of discussion.


Also, goddammit, stop sniping at Origin using my proposal, Its jackassery.

 

[Zack]

Origin also has a gauss rifle that is ADR 3 which is supposed to be reserved for “Heavy mecha rifles, big missiles. “ when it is listed as a power armor rifle (clearly not intended for ‘heavy mecha’). Even NAM has a PDR 4 power armor rifle which the tech mods said didn't need to be toned down during the approval process.

People don’t follow the rules closely now, and adding more rules is not going to change that. Simply adding a VDR scale above ADR is just going to result in people marking their weapons with a VDR rating.

Fixing this problem is going to require one of two things, either a serious look at the DR system, what it does right, where it could improve, and how to make a new system to achieve all of those objectives, or for people to simply tone down their submissions and make them more reasonable.

And like you said, no one wants to go through with the overhaul.

 

[Fred]

When I originally devised the DR revision, I wanted to take into account the scale of vehicles to give something of a guideline as to what sort of weapon they could effectively field.

For example, a size 2 power armor (10 ADR) would have ADR 2 weapons as standard issue, ADR 3 stuff for heavy hitting (anti-armor bazooka?) and ADR 1 stuff for the lighter-hitting stuff it could carry (handgun? mobile drone with lasers? w/e).

With that in mind, it meant that bigger vehicles would be able to carry much more of the top-tier stuff in the appropriate category - shuttles and armored battletanks would get the ADR 4 and 5 stuff and with their already greater resistance, they could soak up much more abuse from the payload carried by smaller units.

However, I was overruled by Wes. Wes liked the grade distinction, but he did not care as much for the size-class I tried to implement into each grade for the purpose for preserving the raw deadliness behind some of this setting's weaponry.

This ended up with the Mindy armor's aether saber rifle staying at ADR 5, or the Plumeria's Aether Shock Cannon at SDR 5 (rather than topping at SDR 3 because it was a size 2 gunship).

Regardless, I did not expect the DR system, as revised, to work perfectly for everyone because I know there is no pleasing everyone. Not to mention many making their own creation want them to be the best at what they do, so they affix high values which hinder the DR system's purpose - which is to give a comparative benchmark (note that this problem existed before the revision, less because of of a flaw in the system and more because of human nature).

Right now, we have three grades. Fiver suggests to add another.

I personally do not think it is needed. We already have three that cover many levels of disparity in resistances: that of the infantryman (from clothing to bodyarmor), that of vehicles (from light vehicles including certain power armor to tanks and shuttlepods/fightercraft) and finally starships. The need of overhaul aside, I see it as redundant. It won't fix the problem that Fiver perceives.

 

[Zack]

A good example why if any changes are to be made, there needs to be a serious effort behind them aimed at identifying what needs to be done. Like the last revision, this revision wouldn't solve the problem you have with the system. Simply changing the rules without adding some sort of control mechanism to address the root problem won't have any results.

 

[Fred]

SARP is not about control; certainly not this kind. If this kind of control was enforced, it would stiffle the creativity behind the setting submission process much more than I would care to subject the memberbase... and I recall some already had such complaints about the revised DR system before. Some inconsistencies are worth it, considering the alternative which is a potentially much greater evil.

You're asking for a better list of numbers to be thought out, but the numbers were never meant to be anything but a guideline. I did not make these up so that the human factor would be cast aside in favor of those guidelines. I made those guidelines to help have a much better impression of what was powerful, what was less so, and how much import using such tool could potentially carry.

It is to the GM to exercise judgment when managing a plot, and the import of actions done there. The DR guidelines give a player of a character an idea of how much said tool can do against said target, and an reference point for the GM to do the same... but that effectiveness is still the province of the GM to adjuciate (for example, zesuaium's unique resistances to physical impacts, heat-impacts and electrical conductivity is fluff not covered by the DR guidelines and for the GM to implement; just as much as yamataiums regenerative properties are).

 

[Anonymous]

Erm, Fred? Not to be insulting, but your idea for the DM system just seems to over-complicate things.

 

[Fred]

Ideas?

Scale weapon strength to size? That was how it was originally intended by me. It did not make the cut. But if you wanted stronger vehicles to be able to use things more in their scale, and smaller vehicles (or power armors) to have the smaller weapons, then it solved your problem.

All units, presently, have a size rating. It's what more or less measures their structural points. It is truly so complicated to standardize weapons of the same number as 'the usual' and big weapons being +1 to that? How is that overcomplicating anything, even if it applied (which it won't).

 

[Zack]

People also made the argument that increased control would stop creativity when the DR system first came out and that didn't happen.

Improving the DR system is a good thing and should be done, however we need to understand that altering game mechanics is a big job and needs to be treated as such. Quick fixes and small changes at this point won't solve the problems that exist just like how the problem with weapon damage creeping up still exists after the last revision.

For now, the best thing to do is just be more responsible with tech submissions.

 

[Fred]

I agree with that last line Uso. That control thing, though, is a matter of opinion. Once upon a time, SARP used stats for characters. SARP no longer does today because it became more freeform. That, my friend, is what we need to stick through, and that's the line the DR system must not cross.

If someone has a better idea, a better system in mind, they're welcome to submit it. It's easy to criticize, but not so easy to actually make something better. Better as in, solving the flaws.

Also, what would be the perfect system for some might not be for others. The DR system is presently far less complex than I would personally like... but then again, I'm not the only person in this community. The DR system has to be, amongst other things, assessible to all and easily mutable to adapt to the needs of different GMs.

What looks like a 'logic error', as Fiver so kindly termed it, could in fact be a compromise in an attempt to get the best of two worlds.

 

[Zack]

The problem with the 'compromise' is that it added nothing to the current DR system in the sense that the problems that it was supposed to address weren't fixed.

SARP also dropped the stat system because no one was using it to determine how good a character was at something. This is because SARP has always been a freeform RP system and using dice rolls or a DnD style DC system doesn't mesh. The system was then changed to the 'skills' system which is more in line with the goals of the CCG, to help players create better characters and help readers understand who those characters are. This would be an example of a good change as the skills system solved the problem of characters being the best at everything by forcing them to really detail who they are.

The DR system already uses a stat point setup like the old skill system so I think it is to late to say we shouldn't use it and stick with a freeform system. After all under the freeform system we had imperial star destroyers, star exploding guns, and weapons that fired black holes. It also rewarded the weapon that had the most absurd description. These are things I am not sad to see go.


This is why the in depth approach is needed to identify problems and correct them with solutions that provide results. Rather than just saying 'it isn't what everyone wants' we can identify where the system has improved and needs improvement.

Of course this also means that to solve the problem of humans 'cheating' a more mechanical system would be needed for the numbers used on ships such as a cap on the total amount of damage, shields, and mass a ship could have which would in turn require a redesign of what SP means which in turn requires.... a lot of work.

 

[Fred]

The problem with the 'compromise' is that it added nothing to the current DR system in the sense that the problems that it was supposed to address weren't fixed.

I dunno about that. It would seem to me that the revision improved on several things from where I stand - such as separating what 'total annihilation' had for scope between a Mindy's aether saber-rifle and a Plumeria's Aether Shock Cannon. Maybe you're indifferent about it, but I count it as a significant improvement.

But hey, if you want to go ahead and remake the whole thing... have a blast. Submit it once you're done and the community will tear through it before finding if they can live with it or not. I mean, I had to make two submissions of the current DR system to convince Wes and a majority to implement the change for something (arguably) better than what we had.

However, for the scope of this thread: no, adding a fourth grade looks rather redundant when the problem brought up actually stems from a certain lack of moderation in how equipment is distributed on the smaller units of the 'armor' grade. That, according to Wes' wishes, is how it'll likely stay due to the desired effectiveness of aether-based weapons.

 

[Zack]

Actually that isn't quite accurate, as the previous DR system had a 1-10 scale where each level was 10x the damage of the previous level. This satisfied the problem of weapons being only as powerful as the amount of science words in their description and brought a bit of consistency as far as weapon vs armor is concerned.

This would be an example of a good change as the problems with the previous system that led to everyone using weapons that tore holes in space and generally screwed around with physics was replaced with one that made weapon side effects irrelevant, promoting the use of more reasonable weapons by making them on par with everything else. In short problem found, problem corrected.

Splitting up the 1-10 system into grades to correct for weapon damage creeping upward would be an example of a bad change. It didn't really contribute to the system already in place and the problem it was designed to address wasn't fixed. If you want to argue about freeform vs rules system you could even say it was a setback as it made the startrek style 'hard shields' standard for everyone. It also brings down the power of starship weapons and brings up the power of hand held weapons when compared to the previous 1-10 system as that system rendered weapons below a certain strength useless against certain types of armor. This of course would work out really well for people in starship battles as ships carried weapons in the 7-10 range meaning armor was useless (Just like it would be in space!) and personal weapons were really weak against armor making ground battles more about bringing the right weapon for the job, lots of low DR weapons for people and higher DR anti-tank weapons for armors (like the saber rifle).

 

[Fred]

I don't agree with your stance, and will just have to settle on agreeing to disagree. I'm no longer interested in continuing this argument, not to mention I feel it has derailed this thread's topic - which as far as I am concerned has been attended to.