Approved Submission [Mechanic] Damage Rating Revision

[Eistheid]

Submission Type: Narrative driven damage guidelines.
Submission URL: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=fred_s_damage_rating_revision

Notes: Much of default the form doesn't really apply since this isn't a typical setting submission. I hope you don't mind me removing those components.

This is probably going to take some work to get finalized. I will however be more than happy to fill in blanks and update this as we go along. Additionally post-approval I'll be happy to update old DR values as needed, likely including both systems for a while to smooth over the transition.

A final note, the article will probably need to be moved to a new page location as I believe the current one is just WIP storage.

As has been determined the final call of what is done comes down to GM fiat. As such it is best to view this as intended: A set of guidelines to help players and GMs understand the effects of what they're working with rather than hard rules that must be adhered to.

 

[CadetNewb]

I honestly appreciate the effort Fred, but I also have misgivings as well. It's a little bit complicated to do - nobody likes math, except for the insane(ly smart) - but might be on to something there. I think it's worth exploring further.

 

[Fred]

I really don't get how hard it could be to grasp that if my weapon is better than the category the target is in that I might be able to hurt it a lot more. Seems pretty intuitive to me and entirely in-line with the ways the vagaries of our written narratives work. >_>;

@CadetNewb
Just bear in mind its sprawling because I was transparent in my thought processes.

Basically, I determined that with 8 weapons 'worth' of the same class, you can kind of get the loadouts to some of our existing ships, then tentatively established that as the 'budget' you seemed to want. Conveniently, it might apply to ship of any class. Weapons of a class under that are worth half, over that are worth double.

So, a Class 10 scoutship which could carry 8 light anti-ship guns. Or four medium anti-ship guns. Or two heavy anti-ship guns. Or one heavy anti-ship gun and 4 light anti-ship guns.
Depending on how you divy up the alloted budget.

Is that more concise?

* * *

@Navian
The Structural Point system did take armor material into account, but it was in relation to their protective weight: light was a x0.6 SP multiplier, medium x0.8 SP and heavy x1.0

Going with the idea that hit points were bad, I tried to introduce the idea that the lighter armors weren't actually bad at protecting things. They just had different qualities.

For example:
Durandium is light and inexpensive.
Xiulurium is not as light (just average, like many of the others), but when power is conducted through it can camouflage what it covers from sensor readings.
Yama-Dura, an alloy of durandium and yamataium, is still kind of light but also shares a bit of yamataium's regenerative properties.
Yamataium is comparatively heavier and regenerates, but is hard to work into fine components (due to its tendency to self-repair gaps)
Zesuaium comes with tons of stuff, like being indestructable to physical damage, not being conductive to electricity, only being marred by high-outputs of energy; and is hard to manufacture and impossible to repair.

I thought it was a decently good idea. I remember being shutdown about it mostly through the refusal to believe each was near-equally competitive protection-wise. I thought it was a good idea to give value to the different material without having to quantify them with more cumbersome numbers.

 

[raz]

Seems pretty intuitive to me and entirely in-line with the ways the vagaries of our written narratives work. >_>;

This is precisely why our current system is great and doesn't need to be replaced. What we have is intuitive. It's concise enough to give an accurate site-wide balance but flexible enough for GMs to maintain great narrative control.

 

[CadetNewb]

It does @Fred , but I wonder if it's suitable. Unless we find something better though, it'll have to do. If that's what is eventually settled on, adding it to the article would be great.

Regarding this system you've come up with ad-hoc, how we convert some of the weapons is going to be important when it comes to seeing how this works out I think. Personally, I'd prefer the ASAs to be the same class as the ship it's on, and with a 'lowest limit' so that it always has a certain level of punch, but that's my opinion.

Also, It's ok right up until you start messing around with heavier vehicles such as tanks and frames. Even then, it's very iffy regarding ships - the investment vs what they can take or dish out is disproportionate. I think that's why it's been a point of contention for a very long time @raz . I don't think we would have brought it up so many times if it was as good as you claim.

 

[raz]

I don't think we would have brought it up so many times if it was as good as you claim.

This is just a symptom of people never being happy with what they've got, tbh.

 

[CadetNewb]

Putting the blame on us? Not cool man. Not cool.

Honestly, if it worked, this really wouldn't be a thing. I'm glad it works out for you, and the way you use it, but we have different needs that it simply doesn't support. Don't act like we're the problems.

 

[Gallant]

In the end, the GM always has the final say about the Damage Ratings.

Attempting to refine the damage ratings to be more understandable, or more useful to GMs and more easily accessable to players, is not a crime.

 

[Navian]

I'd probably have ships rate their armour from 0 to 4 (0 for civilian ships, up to 4 for top-of-the-line battleships) and have them outright negate weapons of lower ratings (rated 1 to 5, like usual), but have the armour rating drop when their armour is hit by a weapon that does exceed their rating, with any extra damage overflowing to systems damage, and compared to the ship's structure rating to determine whether a system is simply disabled, destroyed, or overpenetrated with a potential for the remainder to carry on to other parts of the ship.

Structure rating could count down just like armour damage, so that a ship that keeps getting hit hard in the same place would gradually become more vulnerable, heightening the drama for the defenders, and giving smaller-scale units much more to do, at least in cases where the total destruction of the enemy isn't the goal.

It's a bit early for me to explain something I haven't actually come up with yet, though... especially since I still have no idea how to work shields into what I just described.

I like the outcomes Fred's idea would produce better than those the current DR system would when used as-written, chiefly because the current system never has damage from underpowered weapons become truly 'negligible', nor does it allow for any sort of 'critical hit', at least until someone's hit points reach zero. While this is fun in games because it gives players a great sense of control and confidence, I can't think of anything else good about it. Even that much isn't really a positive here, since we don't want people to game the system.

 

[raz]

but we have different needs that it simply doesn't support. Don't act like we're the problems.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

 

[Fred]

Hit points in a written forum roleplay that shouldn't actually track them and cannot track them in all circumstances is simply inaccurate and not how people have proven to have progressed so far.

5 SDR is not the same as saying "this weapon can do heavy damage to capital vessels"

To someone not in the know, 5 SDR means nothing. Reading that something is a Heavy Anti-Capital Ship weapon does.

If you read up on the Sharie and see that it's classified as a Medium Capital Ship, it's kind of self-evident that a Heavy Anti-Capital Ship weapon will inconvenience it bigtime.
And you haven't even looked at the DR wiki article yet. The reader just gets it. Because it's normal.

That's all there is to it. The intended end result is just that simple.

@raz thus far, I've seen conservative nay-saying coming from you. I know what your opinion is - you've made it amply clear. I can tell you I'm invested enough to not slump my shoulders in defeat on your say-so. I still haven't seen anything constructive from you besides your asking for backward compatibility (which was an excellent point, I will make sure to do it)... but looking up to your recent replies, I don't see what your contributions are amounting to besides being increasingly disruptive. I believe you usually hold yourself up to higher standards, and I'd like to see more of that. Please.

* * *

@CadetNewb
Well, the way I tried to build it would be for it to scale properly as your ships get bigger.

As in:

- It's normal for a (Class 10) scoutship to be armed with 8 Light Anti-Ship weapons (Class 10) or the equivalent.
- It's normal for a (Class 11) destroyer to be armed with 8 Medium Anti-ship weapons (Class 11) or the equivalent.
- and so forth...

And you can get 1 weapon of a higher class at the cost of two of your default budget. Or get two of a lower class for one of your default budget, etc etc...

* * *

@Navian
Adding complexity for a board game would probably fit in pretty well.
As is, I think it's simply better to remember materials by what makes them special, rather than by a default numerical defense value. I mean, there are tons of variables: what if you put on much thicker armor? What if you use a composite?

In the effort of discouraging one-upping and encouraging well described designs that will excite the imagination of readers, it just seemed best to think of ships as being built as sturdy as possible within their categories. Make the distinction "I'm in a cruiser, I'm better armored than a frigate" rather than "my ship is sheathed in zesuaium, I'm better armored than anyone else". I mean, zesuaium tremendously would help.

Personally, between "This cruiser has an armor value of 4, it should lead the charge" and "I'll make this cruiser lead the charge, its zesuaium plating will fare much better against the enemy's positron railguns", let latter feels more in-universe and immersive. If you're aware of the materials and expect a certain toughness out of cruiser, then the rest is just as self-evident.

I'm not saying that your ideas aren't promising, but there's the medium to take into account. I've certainly been at the stage where I thought more numbers and more complex detail was desirable, but this whole thread (and another also containing brainstorming about this same system back when it was more in its infancy) is kind of an effort to shed those due to repeat occurences of the edn result just being cumbersome.

 

[raz]

I believe you usually hold yourself up to higher standards, and I'd like to see more of that. Please.

I'm honestly just following the example you've laid out when opposing something you don't like every detail of.

So, again, I don't think this should be implemented. It's too complex compared to the really perfect system we have.

 

[Navian]

'Really perfect'... heh. Really basic, I guess. I don't think the system we have achieves much aside from telling us that an NSP is much more powerful than an ordinary pistol, and similar comparisons.

I wouldn't say complexity is the weak point of the system in this thread (is that still the 'this' that we're talking about?) I find it hard to understand and predict results using it, not because it's too complicated, but because it just doesn't give me a clear idea of what the result of an attack would be except in extreme cases. That could be fixed without changing the system, just by making it more descriptive and removing confusion...

There's other reasons I don't like it, though, so it feels weird to go out and defend it. If we were going to use it, I could try to review all of them. Like... the bits that suggest anti-capital ship weapons can also destroy celestial bodies--does that mean in one shot?--that part confuses me.

Armour thickness is definitely more important than armour material, although they tend to multiply together. Zesu is tricky, if it really is impervious to physical damage. I don't want to open a can of rock/paper/scissors-style weapons and armour... I was thinking armour type would be blended into the ship designs, rather than applied as 'tiers of protection', so that a small ship with the most advanced armour would still have a lower rating than a truly massive one with mere steel plating.

 

[Fred]

Celestial bodies wasn't my idea. Just a vestige of other people that contributed to the examples. I was told that the examples were ultimately going to be determined by the mods... so, I would consider the examples subject to change. That's the kind of thing I'd rather take the time to ask Wes "is that okay?" "And this, want it higher, lower?" because that's the only way we're likely to get an accurate baseline.

Moving on. You said... hard to understand/predict result from it. No clear idea from it. Alright.
This rests all on the basis that if you use a weapon qualified to kill its target, the weapon should ideally be able to perform that job.

So, let's go for a mundane case:
Navian, how would you describe the kind of damage a combat knife can do on a human being?

For my part... I think that if you use a knife on someone unprotected, just in normal clothing, you're unlikely to deal immediately fatal damage unless you deal a hit to a good spot on the torso or the neck. That's its potential lethality. If you cut the person on an arm, a leg, disemboweled him, struck an artery... those are all variables. The weapon description of the knife (or your base knowledge of the knife in this case) would normally be able to flesh that out for you and the GM to figure out what to expect from the weapon.

But in that description, you'll see Light Anti-Personnel Weapon, because you expect it's the kind of weapon that can be lethal to a lightly protected person. That's all there is to it, really, because a knife attack in itself can result in many different outcomes. Ultimately, when your character lunges with the intent of plunging a knife in the side of another person's neck, it's pretty much going to be up to the GM to decide how effective your attack will turn out to be.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Stop. Already this thread is chewing on my nerves again.

We are writers. We write. Let's start there.

Second, @Navian: I truly appreciate your analysis, but I'm asking you to stop. Your heart is pure, but it isn't helping.

DR exists for two reasons:

1. To give us a floor of understanding from which we can point to two objects and say with enforced certainty, "These are similar." I say enforced because we know they are not similar, but we have to draw lines somewhere, and reviewers must enforce them.

2. For PvP, which we don't really do and heaven stop us if we ever start.

With those two facts in mind, I do not much care what system we have. Fred's system works more narratively, and that's great. I can still draw lines on a submission well enough. The DR system we have now has numbers people quibble over, but it has numbers and they're something. It's fine too.

@raz, you're being an jerkoff, but you're right. Focus on the right and try to be polite.

Different problems, different needs, different solutions.

I don't care about PvP; people can use the current DR if they wish to engage in that behavior.

I want the first reason for the DR's existence to be found in this system as well. At this time, here, now -- I believe it is there.

This discussion has been open for almost a year. Unless there are truly strenuous objections, I aim to approve this in a week's time, so long as the conversion between FDR and DR is made.

 

[Navian]

The only 'truly strenuous' objection I've got is that the article is poorly written right now. As much as half of it needs an overhaul so that it doesn't look far more complex and disruptive than it really is. After it's clarified, other objections might reveal itself that are currently buried in the text. If it's 'not helping' to point this out, it looks like 'helping' means getting it approved without any quality control... and if that's the case, it's probably not going to be useful to many after being approved, the way it's been going.

If it's only supposed to be useful to those who can grok it, then I can just let it go, since it's not a submission that affects anyone that isn't using it personally.

 

[raz]

you're being an jerkoff, but you're right. Focus on the right and try to be polite.

Okay. Navian has brought up some really good points, especially about readability, and all they've received in response are expositions on why it's right as it is and being told to "stop."

I'd really like to see the community's input taken seriously and worked with rather than explained away. That's impolite. Isn't the submission process for including community input? Taking what others say seriously starts with heavily clarifying and simplifying the article because it's almost useless as-is. Don't just insist it's right. Numbers are cool, but the instructions on how to use those numbers are extremely cumbersome; if someone has to ask here, someone else will have to ask in the future. Having to explain an explanation makes it poorly written.

These points have been brought up before, too, and in other threads. So why no change yet? Is it just because "A lot of people whom had disagreement with it have left"? That's not cool.

 

[Fred]

Because making it sound more official made it cumbersomely heavy to read and I was stuck having to explain it over and over. Only to realize that my more casual explanation in posts worked much better.

Then I got people, namely Wes, asking why this wasn't approved yet. I was asked to bring the topic back up to life, pointing out the version Wes wants approved.

Let me spell that out for you again:
I was asked to bring the topic back up to life, pointing out the version Wes wants approved.

So, I did. I'm well aware that this needs some sprucing up, but I've banged my head against this thing for more than a year (in my case) and I'm sort of tired of working for nothing and getting the carpet yanked from under my feet. So, I'm asking - mostly the mods at this point - "before I do anything further with this, do you approve of the mechanics I've explained. If so, let me know, and then tell me what you want done for this to go live".

 

[raz]

I'm asking - mostly the mods at this point

At least you're admitting that you don't care about community standards and input. Thanks.

 

[Doshii Jun]

I'm typing this on a computer instead of my phone, so I have more to say. My apologies for sounding so short before; the medium doesn't do me any good.

The only 'truly strenuous' objection I've got is that the article is poorly written right now. As much as half of it needs an overhaul so that it doesn't look far more complex and disruptive than it really is. After it's clarified, other objections might reveal itself that are currently buried in the text. If it's 'not helping' to point this out, it looks like 'helping' means getting it approved without any quality control... and if that's the case, it's probably not going to be useful to many after being approved, the way it's been going.

My concern with this objection, and the solutions that followed, is that I don't see the poor writing in it. I was a professional newspaper copy editor of 10 years, and English isn't Fred's most frequently spoken language -- yet the writing isn't the issue as far as I can see.

The added explanations from Fred that are in this thread aren't ones I even considered; no lying here. I have only considered the wikipage as written, and in context of your stated problems, I am not convinced there's anything wrong with it.

so that it doesn't look far more complex and disruptive than it really is

If your problem is wordiness, that's one that I can relate to. The shielding portion of the entry is dense with examples, and the reader could boil it down to: "Weapon class to shield class, you can take two hits. You start going Weapon>Shield, you start touching armor as well as losing shield power." However, an example is worth providing, and the explanations I find helpful enough.

I believe it's worth noting that GM style factors in. This style does not favor numbers, but it agitates them far less than the DR system we had before our current one, which I remember (obliteration level 9, anyone?). If you're a GM and you want harder numbers that let you boil combat into an equation, this system does not assist you like our current one.

As it stands, I have no issue with that lack of assistance. You're a writer. Write it out. Likewise, this system is somewhat less favorable to PvP, an added bonus.

Numbers are cool, but the instructions on how to use those numbers are extremely cumbersome; if someone has to ask here, someone else will have to ask in the future.

A good point, but it's refuted rather well up at the top:

While the values presented on this page are meant to be as accurate as possible it is not intended to be used as a final arbiter as to the function of a weapon. Rather it is a guideline to help GMs and Players determine whether the equipment suits their application before reading the equipment's article to better understand how to best apply the equipment.

A better way to translate this is, "The numbers matter less than the words. Use the words." If you are trying to calculate 12.5 percent damage to a target, stop doing so and imagine a weapon's relative ineffectiveness per shot. Then write from there.

This might mean talking to your GM and discussing what's viable or what the GM wants to see. Communication is key.

Even when it comes to submissions, I fail to see the issue. Is it as easy to say, "Give me ADR3 and no higher?" No, but nor do I care. A submitter would need to know in what class they want their weapon/vehicle to fall, then design to that class however they wish. It might mean we get into discussions of class (#election2016?) but that's a less confounding struggle than an arbitrary damage rating. Heck, it would eliminate the irritating "keep starfighters away from harming starships!" rule we've recently made an edict, which I think is a stellar thing to do.

The long and short of my feeling on this is, "It's more narrative and less numbers. Sounds perfect."

So what I'd like from you, @raz and @Navian (and anyone else), are harder specifics about what you think doesn't work or what something does or doesn't need to say. As it stands, I'm not convinced, but I'm willing to listen further.

 

[Doshii Jun]

An addendum that might hurt or help. Want to be sure this is out here too.

If part of the concern is that a "conversion" that lets FDR and DR work in harmony is not a viable prospect, I offer the following (assumes we pass FDR):

• For the first year, beginning calendar year 2017, new submissions can be tailored to DR, F/DR (uses both systems) or just FDR. That is to say, nothing changes unless you want it to.
  
  For the second year, calendar year 2018, new submissions must be either in F/DR or FDR. Submissions submitted, but not approved, by the end of 2017 can still just use DR.
  
  For the third calendar year, 2019, new submissions must only be in FDR. However, if updating a submission that uses only DR, that submission can be updated only with F/DR.
  
  Submissions that are not resubmitted for update can remain with only DR.

The reason I put this forward is so that there is time for people used to DR to adapt to the new system, and also to avoid a straight "ADR3 = Armor Class 6" problem. Considering DR right now does not even account for mecha and vehicles, asking for a straight conversion was foolhardy of me at best.