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]

If you want a tank from Yamatai, maybe the Type 35 MBT? I'm still worried about mini-missiles though; even with ADR 2, I've used them to limit enemy maneuvering options so that guns could more easily track them. They'd either dodge the guns, or get hit by missiles if they couldn't shoot them down fast enough. Changing it to be much more damaging is quite a retcon, and I'm pretty wary about that.

 

[Legix]

A swarm of dedicated anti-starship heavy fighters/mecha could deal minor damage to a ship's armor but have no chance of penetrating it.

This would not only require a specialized anti-starship design, but it would also require the players give up all of their weapons except the single anti-ship cannon.

@Syaoran That isn't how shield thresholds work. A shield threshold of 3 means that the first 3 points of damage from a shot are applied to the shield's HP value, and the rest overflow to the ship's HP.

As an example: an SDR 5 shot against a ship with 30 Shields, Threshold 3 and 30 HP would result in the ship taking 3 shield damage and 2 hull damage to end with 27 Shield HP and 28 Hull HP.

It SHOULD require specialized designs and that sort of mentality. It's no different from if you want to bomb an enemy without being sighted, you use something that flies higher or faster than they can detect, but otherwise incapable of defending itself if it did somehow get discovered.

And it's not about killing it. It's about crippling it. Bombers carrying heavy torpedoes would aim for hardpoints/turrets, trying to disable weapons and sections near the outskirts of the armor. It should be the bigger ships like Destroyers and even Cruisers going after the biggest ships.

 

[CadetNewb]

It SHOULD require specialized designs and that sort of mentality. It's no different from if you want to bomb an enemy without being sighted, you use something that flies higher or faster than they can detect, but otherwise incapable of defending itself if it did somehow get discovered.

And it's not about killing it. It's about crippling it. Bombers carrying heavy torpedoes would aim for hardpoints/turrets, trying to disable weapons and sections near the outskirts of the armor. It should be the bigger ships like Destroyers and even Cruisers going after the biggest ships.

I have to agree with this; capitol ships should be a big deal and require a massive investment to destroy or sink. With just fighters and mechs, scoring disabling subsystem hits like the allies did with the Bismark is going to be your best bet unless you have very specialized anti-ship systems.

 

[Zack]

Here's why bombers (and anything with missiles) sucks under the new system:

The 'per shot' rule means you can take a cannon or a single missile at the same damage output. There is now no point in taking missiles since the cannon's performance is so much greater.

You're also not going to be crippling a ship that you can't deal any real damage to.

 

[Syaoran]

A swarm of dedicated anti-starship heavy fighters/mecha could deal minor damage to a ship's armor but have no chance of penetrating it.

This would not only require a specialized anti-starship design, but it would also require the players give up all of their weapons except the single anti-ship cannon.

@Syaoran That isn't how shield thresholds work. A shield threshold of 3 means that the first 3 points of damage from a shot are applied to the shield's HP value, and the rest overflow to the ship's HP.

As an example: an SDR 5 shot against a ship with 30 Shields, Threshold 3 and 30 HP would result in the ship taking 3 shield damage and 2 hull damage to end with 27 Shield HP and 28 Hull HP.

Yes Zack and that means no damage will ever bleed it's shields. And do you really thing a bunch of mecha can out power that?

Base Structural Points
Each ship class can take about ten hits from its equivalent weapon type. Armor, mecha, and tanks can take about five. The capacity for a vehicle to endure damage is loosely represented under a number of Structural Points (abbreviated SP). The base number of Structural Points a vehicle has is abstractly represented in the tables below:

That is an exerpt from the system itself. So a battle ship with 50 SP can take about 10 hits from a battle ship class weapon (SDR 5). So you would need 50 hits of SDR1 just to pass it's shields. And then 50 more take it out.
However in the new system using a class 10 weapon, you do 7% damage to a class 14(Battle ship) shield in 1 hit. So you need 14 and some change hits, to take out the shield. And another 14 and some change to take out the ship. That's 30 hits vs 100.

Edit: And for clarification, a class 10 weapon is a medium mecha going up 2 slots, and a heavy going up 1. So a medium can equip 2 class 10s and a heavy can equip 4

 

[Legix]

Here's why bombers (and anything with missiles) sucks under the new system:

The 'per shot' rule means you can take a cannon or a single missile at the same damage output. There is now no point in taking missiles since the cannon's performance is so much greater.

You're also not going to be crippling a ship that you can't deal any real damage to.

Wrong. Light damage implies you'd be denting armor or even causing small ruptures. On a small craft, that seems minimal, certainly... but this isn't a small craft. The biggest of ships are designed to be massive, meaning "light damage" to that would likely be devastating on anything small. It'd be like setting fire to multiple decks if you breached the armor at a weak point or venting an entire gun's staff if you ruptured a turret.

And this encourages groups. If you fly in a cluster of fighters or bombers, then you're going to deliver your payloads in mass. It promotes more fighting smart when alone or fighting together when in groups.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

I'm vaguely okay with the system itself, but it does seem like the serious lack of Tier-9 heavy anti-mecha platforms is going to make fighting larger vessels impossible even for specialist weapon platforms. There is one singular example of a bomber that uses the type 31 dual-cannon turret listed. Everything else is a much larger vessel that mounts it as a defensive gun, making it basically a non-example.

Unless this gap is open to some kind of new 'artillery' mecha equivalent with a larger punch but less maneuverability, I don't really see how it's supposed to help RP opportunities by ruling out one mission profile completely.

Actual tanks on the other hand should probably get away with having a higher offensive rating than shuttles, too, I feel. Having the entire hull dedicated to the gun, and not having weight considerations to worry about, means they must be marginally more powerful than the standard fighter bolt-on laser weapons.

Also slightly concerned why this was given a three day deadline over new years, to be honest.

 

[Syaoran]

Wait messed up the numbers it's class 11 not class 10 so that's 1 and 2 carry on medium and heavy respectivly

 

[Legix]

I'm vaguely okay with the system itself, but it does seem like the serious lack of Tier-9 heavy anti-mecha platforms is going to make fighting larger vessels impossible even for specialist weapon platforms. There is one singular example of a bomber that uses the type 31 dual-cannon turret listed. Everything else is a much larger vessel that mounts it as a defensive gun, making it basically a non-example.

Unless this gap is open to some kind of new 'artillery' mecha equivalent with a larger punch but less maneuverability, I don't really see how it's supposed to help RP opportunities by ruling out one mission profile completely.

Actual tanks on the other hand should probably get away with having a higher offensive rating than shuttles, too, I feel. Having the entire hull dedicated to the gun, and not having weight considerations to worry about, means they must be marginally more powerful than the standard fighter bolt-on laser weapons.

Also slightly concerned why this was given a three day deadline over new years, to be honest.

Based on if we convert it, I'd say most of the mecha weaponry is medium and heavy (8 and 9), due to it being ADR 4 and 5/SDR 1. Even if changed down, they're still effective against lower class starships... and, as Zack pointed out, could give up their guns for a Tier 12. This would, essentially, be the "Artillery" mecha/specialized bombers.

 

[CadetNewb]

I'm vaguely okay with the system itself, but it does seem like the serious lack of Tier-9 heavy anti-mecha platforms is going to make fighting larger vessels impossible even for specialist weapon platforms. There is one singular example of a bomber that uses the type 31 dual-cannon turret listed. Everything else is a much larger vessel that mounts it as a defensive gun, making it basically a non-example.

Unless this gap is open to some kind of new 'artillery' mecha equivalent with a larger punch but less maneuverability, I don't really see how it's supposed to help RP opportunities by ruling out one mission profile completely.

Actual tanks on the other hand should probably get away with having a higher offensive rating than shuttles, too, I feel. Having the entire hull dedicated to the gun, and not having weight considerations to worry about, means they must be marginally more powerful than the standard fighter bolt-on laser weapons.

Also slightly concerned why this was given a three day deadline over new years, to be honest.

I think the lack of heavy weapons on mechs can be attributed to the current system; under it, there's nothing that'd fall into the new category due to the metagame. And I do agree that tanks and their weapons should be pretty hard hitting. Having a foot of armor and everything devoted to a primary gun should have stats to reflect this. I honestly think tanks should be 'monster slayers' thanks to their big guns.

 

[Syaoran]

I'm vaguely okay with the system itself, but it does seem like the serious lack of Tier-9 heavy anti-mecha platforms is going to make fighting larger vessels impossible even for specialist weapon platforms. There is one singular example of a bomber that uses the type 31 dual-cannon turret listed. Everything else is a much larger vessel that mounts it as a defensive gun, making it basically a non-example.

Unless this gap is open to some kind of new 'artillery' mecha equivalent with a larger punch but less maneuverability, I don't really see how it's supposed to help RP opportunities by ruling out one mission profile completely.

Actual tanks on the other hand should probably get away with having a higher offensive rating than shuttles, too, I feel. Having the entire hull dedicated to the gun, and not having weight considerations to worry about, means they must be marginally more powerful than the standard fighter bolt-on laser weapons.

Also slightly concerned why this was given a three day deadline over new years, to be honest.

Since the way the system works you can attribute more than one slot to a weapon to make it stronger, and I don't know any tank that has 8 weapons (most only have 2) they can actually make tanks pretty strong. You could make a tank with 2 +2 tier weapons. Or if the Setting approves are nice, since tanks have a main gun and something lower. Maybe a +3 tier weapon and a -1 or -2 tier weapon. And it would literally come out like a real life tank.

 

[Zack]

This is why decoupling size from armor is what needed to be done for a new system.

Or maybe just cap the system at Tier 10, but then allow larger ships to take more HP worth of shields.

 

[CadetNewb]

I suggest we keep on 'practicing' what can be done with the new system before approval; that way, we can see what it's made out of and if there's any weak spots we haven't covered.

 

[Syaoran]

This is why decoupling size from armor is what needed to be done for a new system.

Or maybe just cap the system at Tier 10, but then allow larger ships to take more HP worth of shields.

The reason why size is partially coupled with armor is because of this little thing called structural stability. The bigger something is, the rougher it's frame and walls need to be to support it. So in theory you have ot build something more durable just to make it bigger. It's the same reasoning as to why scientist believe there are no more mega-fauna on land.

 

[Legix]

By far I think the biggest thing has been it seems tanks/ground vehicles were overlooked. But I think what Syaoran has said is a viable option to fixing it. Just give tanks recognition more within the mecha scale (where they make sense as Tier 8, 9, and even 10 as I said in chat). I don't think there's any glaring or immediate holes, just based on what I've read and how we've been able to answer almost every problem with something most of us have seen as sensical.

TLDR: It isn't glaringly broken or appears flawed the more we take shots at it. Implementing it seems a safe step, just based on the fact that it fixes many flaws in the old system blatantly.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

In that case, just a little more clarity in the charts would definitely be nice. Even if it's just an admission that something is needed to fill the gap.

Definitely in support of having ground vehicles added as a point of comparison. Heck, it would even give those attempts at creating tank destroyer/artillery tank hulls have an actual point to them.

 

[Zack]

@Syaoran

You're thinking of the inverse square law.

It means that you have to dedicate more of the object to structural stability the larger you make it. In other words you have to devote more of the weight of the object to its structure to make it equally as strong as something smaller.

 

[Syaoran]

@Syaoran

You're thinking of the inverse square law.

It means that you have to dedicate more of the object to structural stability the larger you make it. In other words you have to devote more of the weight of the object to its structure to make it equally as strong as something smaller.

Yes, and external walls also bare weight, not all of it, but some of it. Which means the bigger something gets in most cases, the more durable the walls will become just out of necessity.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Actually, it would only be thicker if it has a monocoque chassis. The modern method of building things tends to entail more heavy support frames, but with lighter panels in between. Mostly because the former is extremely hard to repair efficiently.

On the other hand, you could also argue using an armor penetration weapon against a civilian ship could just pass right through without doing any damage, due to the comparatively large amount of empty space inside.

Unless somebody is willing to put in some kind of bonus for explosive weapons against large but poorly armored targets, I'm not sure how to deal with that one.

 

[Syaoran]

Here's why bombers (and anything with missiles) sucks under the new system:

The 'per shot' rule means you can take a cannon or a single missile at the same damage output. There is now no point in taking missiles since the cannon's performance is so much greater.

You're also not going to be crippling a ship that you can't deal any real damage to.

ANd reponse to this, what you should be doing is asking if weapons with highly limnited ammo, get special allowances for being limited shots. Like asking if say a class 10 missile cost only as much as a 8 because it's only 1 missile. Or is a class 5 missile pod that can only hold for shots counts as a 4. Or the inverse and saying, how many single shot missiles that are class 10 can you buy for 1 class 10 point.

Actually, it would only be thicker if it has a monocoque chassis. The modern method of building things tends to entail more heavy support frames, but with lighter panels in between. Mostly because the former is extremely hard to repair efficiently.

On the other hand, you could also argue using an armor penetration weapon against a civilian ship could just pass right through without doing any damage, due to the comparatively large amount of empty space inside.

Unless somebody is willing to put in some kind of bonus for explosive weapons against large but poorly armored targets, I'm not sure how to deal with that one.

Only talking about a general case, not an absolute, and only the external walls. But yeah you also bring up another good point, the larger something is, the less likely you are to hit something vital.