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In Progress Extend the DR Scale by one Tier Category

Yuuki

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15 can't go into infinity. Suggest we add a category of 1-3 tiers for Megastructures in size category only. I do not suggest extending weapons tiers above 15. Can be anything from a single "15+" tier in the category, up to 3 full tiers. Forget the Izanagi, what is a Dyson Sphere? What is that crazy ringworld thing Baron Gello Kordoon is building in Kimirthro?
 
Voting on this suggestion has been paused.
I like the idea of just increasing the size category but not the weapon category, though it feels a little wierd to have Fortresses and not have even a single Anti-fortress weapon (which will probably be, most of the time, only going to be a better heavy anti-capital weapon).

Then again, I'm thinking about what I recently saw in Legend of Galactic Heroes.

I think I'm good either way. If increasing size but lakcing weapon becomes a problem, it's not like that can't be fixed later.
 
though it feels a little wierd to have Fortresses and not have even a single Anti-fortress weapon (which will probably be, most of the time, only going to be a better heavy anti-capital weapon).
I feel like that's kind of in the same boat of "We shouldn't quantify these, this ought to be a plot device type thing that should remain extremely rare."
 
that's almost but not quite functionally the same as a single ^ tier and a few convincing arguments for it when viewed from that perspective
 
A Tier 15 weapon against a Tier 18 target would cause 7% barrier face damage and "light" hull damage according to the DRv3 wiki article. A Tier 15 weapon would have to fire fifteen times at the same spot to even get at the hull, assuming the target's barrier power was not supplemented from any of the other five probable facings under DRv3, and would face similar difficulty achieving any meaningful damage against the hull even once the barrier was down. One could amass every vessel capable of Tier 15 firepower in their fleet and have a high probability of accomplishing nothing before they were fully wiped out by the target's defensive weapons. The one upshot is that a Tier 18 ship could only have a maximum of 16 Tier 15 weapons, which might slow things down a bit in larger engagements provided the Tier 18 thing is fighting alone. Still, for an RP that is supposed to at least allow for a chance at victory in engagements based on player action, the extreme set by the math doesn't sit well with me.

By contrast, compartmentalizing into multiple Tier 15 'sections' would allow for something more realistic that makes concentrated fire practical, albeit very risky with the target surely having insanely powerful point defense on the scale of gunship armament on the low end(Multiple Tier 15 sections can have far more weapons than one Tier 18, but spread across the hull as would be prudent for high-grade point defense). Crews could still try to resist concentrated fire through RP by diverting barrier power from nearby areas to a degree as well. As for hull damage, the hull is unlikely to scale linearly with size past Tier 15 and overall durability would be more a function of just how much target there is to damage before it is fully incapacitated.

Armament should scale properly with surface area, which the DRv3 system can't achieve properly with the massive leaps between Tiers 15, 16, 17, and 18. Number of barrier facings should also scale with surface area, rather than making one insurmountable set of six barrier facings. Hull thickness also will not scale linearly with size. The more I think about it, the more I feel that splitting superstructures into deadly and mutually supportive Tier 15 "sections" is the way to go. DRv3 just falls apart at these scales otherwise.

I'm trying to balance 'risky but remotely possible to damage with concentrated fire' due to an increase in general armament against a hypothetical Tier 18's 'virtual mathematical invulnerability'.

Edit: Replaced 'negligible' with 'light' due to an error.
 
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A Tier 15 weapon against a Tier 18 target would cause 7% barrier face damage and "negligible" hull damage according to the DRv3 wiki article. A Tier 15 weapon would have to fire fifteen times at the same spot to even get at the hull, assuming the target's barrier power was not supplemented from any of the other five probable facings under DRv3, and would face similar difficulty achieving any meaningful damage against the hull even once the barrier was down. One could amass every vessel capable of Tier 15 firepower in their fleet and have a high probability of accomplishing nothing before they were fully wiped out by the target's defensive weapons. The one upshot is that a Tier 18 ship could only have a maximum of 16 Tier 15 weapons, which might slow things down a bit in larger engagements provided the Tier 18 thing is fighting alone. Still, for an RP that is supposed to at least allow for a chance at victory in engagements based on player action, the extreme set by the math doesn't sit well with me.
You need a fleet to engage a "maximum size" space station, which makes sense, and once you get through the hull with a bunch of ships firing their main guns at it, you're doing "light damage" which means you need to shoot it a lot. That makes sense to me, these things are meant to be ultra tough, and maybe players need to get creative. That said, they're not nearly as invulnerable as you make them out to be since "Light damage" is up to the GM.

In short, do a trench run or something! Target the bridge! This is a space opera, after all.
 
That's the issue. Concentrated fire on the bridge or doing a trench run will accomplish virtually nothing under the DRv3 rules as presented. The damage to smaller sections is essentially 'absorbed' by the whole structure's stats by merit of being tens/hundreds/thousands of kilometers long.
 
That's the issue. Concentrated fire on the bridge or doing a trench run will accomplish virtually nothing under the DRv3 rules as presented. The damage is essentially 'absorbed' by the whole structure's stats even if its tens or hundreds of kilometers long.
No it's not, you need to shoot it a couple of dozen times to break the shield (Oh no, you need to bring a fleet to fight a fortress!), and then anything after that is up to the GM so long as it's "light damage". You're three tiers below, which isn't "negligible" or hardly nothing. And at the end of the day, this is a guide, as GMs we can get creative and bend things a little bit if we feel like it serves the story and it's not PVP.
 
That's because while such a hit might turn the tide of the battle, it's probably not going to destroy the thing as a whole.
 
DRv3 calculates hull damage as a function of 'the whole thing'. When the main method of attacking an enemy structure like this is concentrated fire, handwaving and saying the GM should handle that scenario doesn't excuse making a rule that doesn't quite work well in the first place.

However, thanks for the correction. It's classified on the wiki as 'light damage' rather than 'negligible'. I counted one tier down too far. The shield value is still correct. Will adjust my post, though it doesn't really alter the core meaning.

DRv3 just isn't scaling right with these massive leaps in surface area in terms of weapons placement (too weak) and hull strength (too strong). Shield strength might turn out a rough parity overall with a larger number of Tier 15 barriers, but be more vulnerable to concentrated fire. I'm not hearing this particular technical concern being commented on beyond 'it's supposed to be tough, let the GM handle the details'?
 
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DRv3 calculates hull damage as a function of 'the whole thing'.
DR doesn't calculate anything aside from shield damage, the rest is intentionally left vague and described either as "One shot" or "A little, a medium amount, or a lot of damage"
 
DR doesn't calculate anything aside from shield damage, the rest is intentionally left vague and described either as "One shot" or "A little, a medium amount, or a lot of damage"
I suppose a key disagreement would be if concentrated fire sufficient to make a hole in a Tier 18 vessel could be considered 'light damage' then? Especially if it were equivalent to destroying a Tier 15 craft by surface area and left the inside of the superstructure vulnerable? Maybe it's that concept that doesn't scale quite right?

That's not sarcasm. I'm honestly having trouble defining that sort of thing as the 'light damage' we were talking about. It's like calling a nuke 'light damage' because it didn't hurt the planet at all, even if the 'notable' things on the planet tend to be surface-deep.
 
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it's light damage to a planet, to a city though, that's a diffrent matter. A 9mm round can cause you a very bad day, but even the worst a 9mm shot can do isn't going to do anything to a city.
 
I suppose a key disagreement would be if concentrated fire sufficient to make a hole in a Tier 18 vessel could be considered 'light damage' then? Especially if it were equivalent to destroying a Tier 15 craft by surface area and left the inside of the superstructure vulnerable? Maybe it's that concept that doesn't scale quite right?
I don't even think of it in that much detail in terms of a gamified system. Light damage is "The station is a little bit dead, and I'll tell the players exactly what that means on a case by case basis depending on how they're fighting it and what part they're shooting at." to me. Maybe they made a hole in the hull by firing their battleship's main gun and exposed some of the station's insides, maybe they blew out some of the stationkeeping thrusters and now it's drifiting a bit, maybe they just hit the shield array or power distributor, etc. etc.
 
Well, I'm still not a fan of just pumping the DRv3 system up to 18, because the technical issues cited are still in place. Too few weapons, too much hull, impractical barrier implementation. No one's mentioned anything about the technical problems, only why they think 'what we have is fine'.
 
I don't mention them because I don't really think this is anywhere close to as hard "system" as you do. It's not like a D&D game, where what you can and can't do is codified hard and fast, but simply a guideline for how much something hurts when you get shot by it. It's entirely possible for a relatively small fleet of battleships and escorts (~100) to siege and destroy a megastation, and that's fine because such fleets are a backdrop to actual player actions and it's fine to have them helping players so long as players are the ones taking the pivotal actions.

I don't see how there's "Too much hull" when hull isn't measured, or "Too few weapons" when we're considering doubling the normal weapons allotment for megastructures/megaships, or "Impractical barrier implementation" because I'm not even sure what you mean by it.
 
For me, I think we should be moving away from a gamified version of the tier system and more towards a 'here is our standardized list of what weapons are designed to shoot at."
 
I'm not a fan of the whole DR system to start with, but my logic is "don't codify it halfway because someone, somewhere, will use it to the absolute limit rather than as a guide".

As for too few weapons? Imagine this. Dyson Ring of Tier 18...only allowed to have 16 Tier 15 weapons under DRv3. 32 if you double them. I've explained the other concerns thoroughly in other posts, so I don't know how to convey them to you any better.
 
Something like a Dyson ring/ringworld wouldn't even have DR IMO, it's far too big for that. That's not merely a "Really big spaceship or space station" which is the proposed limit of this DR update, it's a setting unto itself, so far beyond even a planet in scale it's scarcely imaginable and planets are already beyond DR as far as most people are concerned.

Also, a Tier 18 superfortress or whatever would be able to have something to the tune of 80 tier 15 weapons before you implement anything like doubling the standard TEWG allotment so I scarcely see how they'd be considered underarmed.
 
I really need to stop reading these things when I'm tired and out of practice. My numbers for the Weapon groups were way off. My math now says "64 + TEWGs" rather than your 80, but still. Ugh. Still not a fan of "slap more tiers on". The very concept feels fundamentally lazy from a scaling perspective, but it's looking more and more like it'll happen.
 
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