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Feedback Needed: DR v3

Should we approve and use Star Army Damage Rating System v3?

  • Yes

    Votes: 16 69.6%

  • No

    Votes: 7 30.4%
  • Total voters
    23
  • Poll closed .
Fred said:
Ahem. Not a debate thread. You know where that discussion is.

Cadetnewb asked a question. Raz answered. Who'se opinion is right is beyond the purview of this thread. Just state your position and move on.
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You just don't listen Zack. People have explained it. This isn't even a system. It is a guideline. It is a tool for GM's to use and understand what the /expected/ damage of a weapon is. That is it. No dice will be rolled. We are not doing initiative, or attack, or any other system thing.

Weapon A would do more damage than Weapon B

Armour A would protect more and Armour B

It is not a hard concept to grasp. You are arguing as if it is a system like DnD or Shadowrun. It is more like a general outline of the effectiveness of these devices. GM's after all have final say, but no GM is going to know every single weapon in the setting and be able to appropriately gauge their effectiveness, and if we didn't have something like this then it would all be he said she said. This is a Meter Stick. That is all it is. Yeah, I thought it was a PnP type thing at first but it really isn't. I've realized this.
 
I voted no, because I think the wiki article is overcomplicated and lacks clarity as it is currently written. People are already talking about specific bonuses and weapon effectiveness discrepancies in the other thread.

A bit too sick to dig through multiple walls of text right now, but eh, I didn't decide on the three day deadline during new years.
 
Reactions: raz
CadetNewb said:
My impression is that this system is meant to facilitate RP by acting as a general guideline, and not to serve as a by-the-numbers game system
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A by-the-numbers system is a better abstract guideline than the new, far more lengthy list of tables we are obviously going to end up getting.

If people can't see that the current DR system is more simple, elegant, and effective after reading the wiki articles themselves and seeing the arguments explained, then nothing will change their minds.

But really. Please. Everyone who has voted and those who have not: actually go and read each system in full before the voting period is over. Don't just say "yes" to something because it promises to be the new hotness.

CadetNewb said:
If you got ideas for improving it though, the actual submission thread is where you'll want to post.
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But every time a substantive criticism that needed improvement was posted there, it was ignored and/or explained away as something that didn't need fixing. At least it's been confirmed that the new system is as good as having none at all. Power to the GMs!
 
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Stahp. Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahp.

Just make the Kudhacari dream a reality.
 
Prior to a pool being made, it was my intention to have Wes greenlight the content and its concept before doing two more things:
  • having Doshii Jun - once a professional newspaper editor - finecomb through the SADRv3 article to improve its readability. I am, after all, not a native english speaker.
  • Creating a quick reference article without the justifications or the attempts to make someone new to this understand, but rather give just the data. For people whom get how it's meant to work, but just want to quickly take a glance at it.
The SADRv3 Quick Reference article is complete. It can be seen here. If other articles link from other articles on the wiki to SADRv3, they will first point to the SADRv3 quickref article. Then the reader can click on the link to the bigger article if he wants to go over the whole thing.

Navigation flow:
SADRv3 Full > DRv3 QuickRef
Wiki Article > DRv3 QuickRef > SADRv3 Full
 
Reactions: Wes
I cannot and never did over my 10+ years here understand why some of you guys are so focused on the 'numbers' when talking about imaginary spaceship soap operas like they hold any value over the telling of an actual collaborative story. GM <-----> Players. Two way street and the second my character RP turns into a calculus exam is the day SARP loses its fun to me.

Anything that makes it easier to follow and focuses on the 'optional' side of things gets my vote. Cause really, screw math. XD
 
@Fred: I noticed on the chart it has the DAISY above the MINDY but the new Mindy 4 has more SP than the DAISY does (10 SP vs 8 on the current system). I think the chart should be adjusted.
 
So this just makes the whole thing where Mindys shot out of a catapult at high speed soar in, cut into the hull of an enemy ship with a beam rifle and fight inside a total impossibility now?

For a site which has a huge focus on power armor combat being its flagship appeal, this sure makes power armor useless.

EDIT:

Expanding on it, if it's meant to make things more cinematic, it sort of falls short in my opinion because it means that it encourages people to just turtle up and hide behind a battleship level shield rather than great sprawling battles involving fightercraft and power armor swooping around.

It removes any and all incentive to do the thing which is so iconic (flying around in space in power armor) that it is on Star Army's logo, since it just means that area denial weaponry will reign supreme enough to just cut down mindy's in mass number.

While I can get that it's abstract and not meant to be hard and fast, it's still quite inconsistent.
 
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@Dumont - I have to ask, why do you think it's impossible for Mindy teams to do boarding actions or that the new system encourages battleship turtling? Is it the Aether Saber being placed at Tier 6?
 
More or less, yes.

If lower tier weapons can only scratch high tier hulls' paint jobs it implies to me that you can't saw through a high tier hull with a low tier weapon, instant kills from tiers four higher means that something like a few shots of great big ship grade torpedos which hit hard in a wide area will just slaughter a flight of space power armor if they're trying to converge on a target.

It feels exploitable to me. Not that the old system didn't, either.
 
Fred will have to do something regarding the Aether Beam saber if I had to guess, though regarding the torpedoes, it's already like that with the current system. I also point out that trying to harm ships is even more difficult with the current system as well, given the fact that only ADR 5 weapons will do the job, and everything besides ships are mostly restricted to just that. At least with this new one, you have the option to bust out some heavy weapons, and even use weapons not of one's own tier. I'm also loath to say this, but I feel it should be pointed out; since the current system capped out at an Aether SMG, we've been stuck with just that as the very top of the line regarding PA weaponry. Now, creating and carrying an Aether Chaingun makes sense.

Having small girls with very big guns is now feasible again.
 
Would this imply that we can make weapons under this DR revision which would be above tier scale? Anti-ship weapons carryable by power armor, and the like?
 
I suggest waiting for Fred or Wes to reply, but I'm of the mind that if the standard Aether Saber isn't cutting it, get a bigger sword.
 
Dumont said:
Would this imply that we can make weapons under this DR revision which would be above tier scale? Anti-ship weapons carryable by power armor, and the like?
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There is a section in the new system that actually talks about the cost of carrying above tier weapons. But yeah, even in the old system you could not really fight large star ships with power armor. Any hit from an SDR2 weapon would almost instantly 1 shot -anything- in the mecha category, and every SAoY PA, cause their low SP. Even Gekidos and Aggressors couldn't really take but a few hits. It has never been a good idea to rush a starship and attack it with a PA unless it was already distracted and didn't have the leisure to focus on the little things buzzing around it. (That's why I made the Swordbreaker interceptors in the first place)

But yeah a lot of GMs allowed the PAs to easily approach starships but that was 'rule of cool' and for the sake of RP, the actual system page for the old system makes it pretty clear that a starship would wreck PA. It's also worth noting too that most area denial and point defense weapons on a ship are mecha scale instead of ship scale, so they're cheaper for the ship to buy, that likely wont change, since if you convert them over they'd still be such.

Perilous Siege said:
Maybe some sort of tier bonus for melee weapons given their clear disadvantages?
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Melee will also have a basic disadvantage towards a gun, simply because of range, the key is using melee appropriately and not just going crazy with it.
 
Syaoran said:
Melee will also have a basic disadvantage towards a gun, simply because of range, the key is using melee appropriately and not just going crazy with it.
Click to expand...

That's what I mean. Maybe given their inherent disadvantages we could allow melee weapons to be higher tier then a Personal/PA/mecha would normally be allowed given their lack of range to allow for classic scifi things like cutting into hulls.
 
Perilous Siege said:
That's what I mean. Maybe given their inherent disadvantages we could allow melee weapons to be higher tier then a Personal/PA/mecha would normally be allowed given their lack of range to allow for classic scifi things like cutting into hulls.
Click to expand...
The problem with that becomes that realistically there would be limitations, if it's a physical melee the size/weight would get too big to be properly wielded. And if it's energy, then it would drain too much power for it to be used effectively. We've gotten by without giving them an advantage before, I personally don't think they really need one, otherwise everyone will start picking up melee weapons.
 
If I can try to address one of these questions from a complete Luddite's view: the idea that a mindy can no longer cut into a ship's armor at any point on the ship seems shortsighted. Maybe plating has to be lighter somewhere. Maybe a Mindy team can't cut through in one go but they have to keep sawing at a point with their aether sabers or find an exhaust tube on the ship to fly through. There are and will always be ways to get on a ship.

Getting killed while being in a power armor from an errant beam of a ship's main cannon isn't death by the numbers, it's death by a bad GM who is being a dick. A good GM doesn't put their players in these situations in the first place because getting blown up by something 'off camera' robs the players of the most basic thing in the GM/Player contract: the agency of choice and impact on a story/setting. Sure, a GM can have a power fantasy and kill all the Mindy's with an aether cannon, but there's no benefit in that, for either the GM or the players.

A good GM crafts the story around what makes the best experience for everyone playing. They're not supposed to focus on limitations and hindrances for their players or let the numbers hold them hostage, like I see a lot of people worrying here. No, I believe the only reason people worry is because of the PvP implications in any 'gaming' system.

But SARP isn't a gaming system. It's a storytelling system. Again, don't let numbers hold you hostage from telling or being part of a GOOD story.
 
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