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.

 

[raz]

That looks pretty freakin' clear to me that it says materials matter and can drastically change the defensive ability armor.

No. It's not clear at all.

Take Zesuaium, for example. The chart says that it is "Heavy, expensive, cannot be repaired, resists electricity, kinetics, and heat."

What exactly does that mean? Those words don't tell me that, because a Mindy 4 is plated in Zesu, the Mindy 4 suddenly becomes as survivable as a Hostile (to use the example again). All it says is that something with Zesu is resistant to a few types of energy. Not even "immune."

If the materials chart said "technologies using this metal count as +x tier against electricity, kinetics, and heat," then it would be clear. But it doesn't say that. It's vague and leaves all Yamataian armors in the weakest defensive category when they are all most certainly not the weakest armors in the setting.

 

[Syaoran]

Why does the article have to explain the entirety of the material's properties when materials are supposed to have their own page?

 

[Navian]

I don't think so, Syaoran... I think if we accounted for materials and design qualities in the guide, we could match up small, high-tech medium power armours made of exotic materials with large, low-tech medium power armours made of common materials, so that GMs would know that the two units are meant to be equivalent (at least in role) without having to do heavy research. If they did the research, then they'd understand the difference between the factions' technologies gave them a different style of design, including different sizes and doctrines, even though they fill the same roles.

I don't accept the argument that size keeps people from going too far, because 1) materials and technology keep people from going too far, it's the tech staff's job to tell people they can't block a bullet with three inches of cotton padding, and 2) the 'size isn't everything' argument allows the exact same manipulations that using size as a basis is meant to prevent, so the same work needs to be done to keep the setting intact, anyway.

I don't think the guide serves its purpose if it only tells us how big things are instead of how much weight they carry in a combat situation.

 

[raz]

Why does the article have to explain the entirety of the material's properties when materials are supposed to have their own page?

Sounds like a poor excuse and doesn't address the problem.

The chart literally lists what materials are supposed to do within the DRv3 system. Of course the article should have to explain exactly what they do. Doing so wouldn't even be lengthy, just a rewording.

 

[Syaoran]

Sounds like a poor excuse and doesn't address the problem.

The chart literally lists what materials are supposed to do within the DRv3 system. Of course the article should have to explain what they do. Doing so wouldn't even be lengthy, just a rewording.

No the chart list some materials (not all of them) and gives a brief explanation of attributes of those materials.

 

[raz]

No the chart list some materials (not all of them) and gives a brief explanation of attributes of those materials.

Then the chart is absolutely useless and we're at square one, wherein Yamataian armors are only judged by their size and are suddenly weaker than armors they're supposed to be able to wreck.

 

[Syaoran]

I don't think so, Syaoran... I think if we accounted for materials and design qualities in the guide, we could match up small, high-tech medium power armours made of exotic materials with large, low-tech medium power armours made of common materials, so that GMs would know that the two units are meant to be equivalent (at least in role) without having to do heavy research. If they did the research, then they'd understand the difference between the factions' technologies gave them a different style of design, including different sizes and doctrines, even though they fill the same roles.

I don't accept the argument that size keeps people from going too far, because 1) materials and technology keep people from going too far, it's the tech staff's job to tell people they can't block a bullet with three inches of cotton padding, and 2) the 'size isn't everything' argument allows the exact same manipulations that using size as a basis is meant to prevent, so the same work needs to be done to keep the setting intact, anyway.

I don't think the guide serves its purpose if it only tells us how big things are instead of how much weight they carry in a combat situation.

While size isn't the perfect solution, it's the best proposed one to handle things without having to make the system huge and detailed and limiting. Mass for instance doesn't work, because we have gravity machines in setting and someone could have a machine that makes itself 'heavier' to try and get into a different category. Size isn't perfect, but with the the needs of the GMs that bothered to participate in actually designing this it was the best answer. And one that still meets those needs and is better hasn't really been proposed.

Then the chart is absolutely useless and we're at square one, wherein Yamataian armors are only judged by their size and are suddenly weaker than armors they're supposed to be able to wreck.

Chart isn't useless it's called a quick reference. And we're still not at square one, cause even if the chart was entirely useless, that does not remove the blurb about how material can change effects. So that still means the materials the armor is made out of is important. Which means for instance, Mindy 4s, physical attacks straight up can't break their armor. A star ship could fire a rail gun at them, and their armor wouldn't break from the impact. The user would likely still die form the shock, but the armor wouldn't break.

Nothing you can say can deny the fact that the system does make allowance for material. Now maybe some people wont read it and thus screw up. But that becomes a question of is that information in a good place, as opposed to is the system itself bad.

 

[raz]

that becomes a question of is that information in a good place, as opposed to is the system itself bad.

Well, I suggested that we put information in a good place and have materials get listed tier bonuses or deficiencies and in response you questioned why the article should have to do that.

Or we could just do the simple thing, which the site owner seems to believe in, and place technologies in a tier based on their capabilities rather than just their size. It's more intuitive, and more intuitive is always better than something that is vague or requires deep knowledge of the setting to get right.

 

[Syaoran]

Well, I suggested that we put information in a good place and have materials get listed tier bonuses or deficiencies and in response you questioned why the article should have to do that.

Or we could just do the simple thing, which the site owner seems to believe in, and place technologies in a tier based on their capabilities rather than just their size. It's more intuitive, and more intuitive is always better than something that is vague or requires deep knowledge of the setting to get right.

How do you decide how 'capable' a technology is though? Who makes that call? The NTSE? Okay sure but on what grounds? How do you stop a player from saying "Well I think it's more advanced than that so it needs to be higher tier"? Also what do you do for technology that is not entirely consistent? Like a ship that only has it's front plated with super metal but the rest isn't? Do you treat the whole thing as the front or as the rest of the ship? Also what about materials that are only really good against one thing? How does that effect it's qualification?

If you want to make a complete table though listing all the materials and their properties, go right ahead and do it yourself on a separate page, then send it to Fred, he might replace the old table with that. That's something you can do yourself, so instead of telling someone else to do it, put the work in yourself first.

 

[raz]

so instead of telling someone else to do it, put the work in yourself first.

There is no work for me to do on it. It's Fred's system, he's the v3 czar, so any changes are up to him. Just a suggestion to make what's already there actually work as he's describing it should work.

idk why you're still arguing against making improvements to how the system works, so I'm not going to reply to this line of discussion anymore. Points made. Feels like there's an awful lot of subtle Yamatai hate among the opposition, though, since the current state of v3 only harms Star Army technologies and degrades their canonical power.

 

[Fred]

Syaoran is correct as to my intention regarding the materials.

1. The list isn't exhaustive. I give an idea of some materials that are out there and some properties they offer. I sure hope you'll look at the actual page for zesuaium, because the description of zesuaium over there is a lot more descriptive. "Materials matter. Pay attention to them. And especially to my mention that the tier stuff is a complement to the information you read in the article... which you should actually see as much more important. The Tier just gives you a context, a ballpark to picture things into."

2. I think the issue Navian brings up is a bit of a strawman argument (no offense meant). I mean, everyone and their mother miniaturize. Light armors pack a lot of stuff and miniaturize. Big armors pack a lot of stuff and miniaturize. We've had simple hulled shuttlepods like the T4 Fox (a pointy flying box, really) because of miniaturization whereas craft like these today would never be spaceworthy due to various engineering concerns.

Frankly, after reading the feedback people have given here, I'm left with the impression that the tier themselves and materials work okay, but that the size guidelines might still need adjustment.

The Mindy was pretty much the lightest armor in the setting during its durandium-plated Mark II iteration. I never actually saw armors under it, despite being room for it in DRv2. When the power armors came up in this system, the Mindy was light because there was pretty much nothing else that was actually smaller. Even now, I can't figure out what might be smaller.

I thought Medium was good because it gave an intermediate point between Mindy and Hostile. The Hostile ended up in Heavy. I thought that was appropriate: I look at the Nepleslian armors, and they seem really hard to hurt. Were it not of the high-tech on the Mindy armors, I'd be skeptical as to an armor of their proportions to compete (like like a militiaman with a knife couldn't expect to really hurt a knight in full plate).

But I'm figuring I might understand Wes' alarm at seeing the Mindy at the bottom wrung. Me, I think it's normal. for him, he sees the Mindy as much inferior to the Hostile by two steps.

Looking at DRv2, the Hostile was 15SP, the Mindy IV would be 10SP. I think I can kind of see why Wes would consider it a big jump and too disadvantageous to his creation.

What I'm considering doing is make it so that the Nepleslian power armors might end up in Medium, and leave Heavy for the near-mecha power armors like the Keiko and Aggressor. the contrast between KFY Lamias and NAM Terratech armors will be much less.

 

[Syaoran]

No one is arguing against making actual improvements to the system. What you're suggesting is not an 'improvement' but a preference. And all you would be doing is making a chart that list the attributes of materials that's listed on the materials page. Nothing system related. If Fred wants to use the chart, then he or someone he trust can add all the little Xs and Ys for how things are effected in the system(assuming he wants to go down the route of quantifying those special properties) If you're going to tell someone else to do a bunch of tedium and you're not willing to do work yourself, then well you have no place to stand. It's one thing if Fred decides to do it himself, but you can't tell him to do it and complain that he doesn't while you sit on your butt.

 

[raz]

The Tier just gives you a context, a ballpark to picture things into.

The thing is, the ballpark isn't even close to an accurate range right now. Which is why this is a good consideration:

What I'm considering doing is make it so that the Nepleslian power armors might end up in Medium, and leave Heavy for the near-mecha power armors like the Keiko and Aggressor. the contrast between KFY Lamias and NAM Terratech armors will be much less.

Thanks.

 

[Syaoran]

Fred I think that last part is kinda a bad idea. Because in all honesty the KEIKO and Aggressor aren't really 'armors' in the first place they're vehicles. The KEIKO even more so than the aggressor. At their size they're design and size they're actually small mecha(Hostile is also the same size as the KEIKO anyway)

Edit:Correction Hostile is 6 inches shorter but still, not much of a difference when you consider operator size isn't accounted for in hostile.

 

[Navian]

My issue with the Mindy being described as a light unit is that regardless of how massive it is, it's not built, used, fought, or defeated the way light units are. If it's described as a light unit, I don't think players will get an idea of what light units are really like, or what they're used for.

Light units are skirmishers, flankers, pursuers, and scouts. They travel ahead of the main group and circle around the enemy, they harass and do hit and runs. They don't rush out and meet the enemy head-on unless it's part of a flanking maneuver, or their commanders don't really care about wasting them. They can be sent ahead of a force to seize territory quickly, but they can't be expected to hold it for long before reinforcements arrive. Mindies can be used this way--they can also be used as heavy units--but they look a lot more like medium power armour in terms of their intended role, and features like zesuaium plating are what allow them to function as mid-range units without getting smacked silly.

Medium units are general purpose. They form part of the main battle line and they can engage the enemy head-on, though it's preferable to deploy heavy units to the enemy center, to enter a breach, or to defend chokepoints whenever available. They're not as fast or as flexible as light units, and they're certainly not as expendable (unless special effort is taken to make them be), but they're balanced: Not too slow, not too clumsy, not too weak or too flimsy. Both heavy and light units make some trade-offs, abandoning heavy armour and/or weapons to move more quickly, or giving up the ability to navigate in close confines in order to be nigh-invincible, and while they might be able to serve (poorly) as medium units, there's no way they'll ever function well in the role at the other end of the scale unless pigs are flying that day.

That's it, I guess... medium armour is as medium armour does, no matter how tall it is. If the table doesn't reflect that, I'm going to have trouble using it, and I think others would, too.

If you're looking for armours that are smaller than the Mindy to use as examples of light armour, I don't think that's the right strategy. Armours can be larger than the Mindy and still be light armours if they're designed to be used that way. The extra mass could be used for barriers, propulsion, sensors, or teleportation systems instead of armour. Or they could drop the armour entirely in favour of a huge weapon harness for hit-and-runs. 'Light' doesn't have to mean 'petite' or 'mini'.

We might not have examples of these types of armours yet, and practically speaking, they might be hard to for PCs to use outside a reconnaissance plot, but there's no shortage of possibilities for light armours that still have some military use in the setting.

 

[Fred]

Okay, I feel like we're going in circles and while I'm trying to do my best, I'm being pulled in multiple - sometimes contradictory - directions. Inwardly, I'm made to seethe in a "make up your damn minds" fashion.

The flaw I see in relegating heavy armors to be medium instead is that it essentially leaves 'light' and 'medium' to encompass most of the power armors in the setting. I remember @CadetNewb being worried that there wasn't enough granularity and I dismissed that in a "we'll be fine" fashion. But going down to 2 with heavy essentially being a rather queer and less used tier does leave me with reservations.

And this is where I hiss to myself "dammit, the way I initially set it up was right!" Because, namely, I don't relate with what Navian is saying - it doesn't feel real to me. And I could get away with that, where it not for the Mindy and for Wes' penchant to want to make superlight/small units and seemingly not pay a price for it. Give-and-take, but it doesn't seem to happen here because the value of materials are being secondguessed. And before the issue of superior design/tech, please present to me someone from Nepleslia (GM, FM, NTSE mod) that is comfortable claiming KFY's power armor have that much of a technological edge over NAM's Terratech-line. I believe anyone who's been on both sides of the fence believes both sides are to be reckoned with, whereas Yamatai likes finesse more, and Nepleslia is more brutaly efficient.

I mean, look at the pictures of the Mindy IV and the Hostile. Physically, if you take into account their girth and that they'd both use a less extraordinary material like Durandium... which one do you think would stand the most punishment? I think it's kind of obvious that it'd be the Hostile. I think Navian's argument is handily debunked by pointing out the quality of the Mindy - via the use of the zesuaium supermaterial - is a big part of its success.

DRv2's multipliers for materials were never worth very much. A Mindy IV's SP10 value (+2 over Yama-Dura) is an inconsequential improvement over the qualities zesuaium lends, when those are respected. DRv3 encourages you to. Under no circumstances am I willing to believe, given all I've seen in a decade, that this is inappropriate. It is right. It is what should happen. I don't see why you're trying to waste your time (and mine) trying to state otherwise.

...

So, with all of that said, the only real problem that actually exists regarding some of Wes' preferences. He didn't want the Daisy to have any leg up on the Mindy. Done. Now, he's worried about the Mindy being in the lowest tier of power armors with the belief that this is somehow disastrous to the machine, raising the doubt of 'why does the Star Army both with such a weak unit?' (something I've long wondered about before DRv3). So, I'm going to wait for @Wes to come back after wednesday, and lay down the law on what he wants. Then we'll see about implementing it and history will be the judge of if that is better or not.

 

[Syaoran]

The Mindy, prior to the current one actually was treated as light weight in terms of durability. It actually was the least durable out of the commonly used armors. DAISY was always considered 'tougher' even when it got put to the same SP people still thought it was the tougher one, while the Mindy was the light fast one. And NAM armors were just always in general considered bigger and more sturdy than pretty much anything YAM made. The misconception is that being light means that it's not 'standard'. The Mindy wasn't light in the sense that it was lightly armored, it was light in the sense that lots bigger stuff came out. The mindy isn't used as a skirmisher because its weapons and armor are adequate, but that doesn't change that the thing is small and light. It was made before the other bigger heavier armors came out, and the tactics surrounding it as well. When it was first made it was 'standard sized' but now that technology has moved on past it it is still the most common size, but there is almost nothing below it in side, while there's a lot above it, so it can't be the middle ground. Ever since there was competition the Mindy has always been about favoring maneuverability and flexibility over heavy plating, and then compensating as much for the lighter plating with technology as possible. That sounds like the thesis for a 'light' unit.

I mean the Mindy 4 comes with a built in teleporter now

 

[raz]

The Yamatai hate is strong rn.

The Mindy has always been super tough for its size. It's a crazy technological wonder that allows its already superhuman Neko-computer-insert to take even more damage than she is designed to withstand, and should never be seen as less durable than NAM-Terratech suits like the Hostile or Raider, which it has always been at least on equal footing with. Mainstay LAMIA have never been presented as something easily damaged or hurt. If you've imagined them as such, it's honestly been a false perception that goes against canon depictions of the Mindy (or Daisy for that matter, since a Daisy is just a groundpounding Mindy).

But yeah, anyway. No harm in waiting for Wes to say what he's already said again ^^

 

[Syaoran]

The Yamatai hate is strong rn.

The Mindy has always been super tough for its size. It's a crazy technological wonder

It's technology not size that makes the Mindy what it is. Look at Tank size classifications in real life. Technology does not denote it's class as opposed to is weight and size. No one is saying the Mindy is weak. We're saying it's a light armor with crazy tech that makes it compare to other armor. There is not Yamatai hate, I'm not even sure Fred plays anything besides Yamatai characters. Stop accusing people of stuff and get a real argument.

Also if you look at the SP, the Mindy is less durable than the NAM armors. Actually look at the wiki before you post 'facts'

 

[Fred]

In moderator capacity: the individuals misusing the reporting tool have been warned about it already. Further irresponsible use of it will not be tolerated. Cease and desist.

There have been observable changes done. Wes is busy (funeral) and hasn't been able to take account of them, considering they touch on things he's expressed he hopes to be different. Yes, I weant to see his stance from that point on. As someone whom commissions artists, I know that when I ask for a change and see the newer iterations offered, it places me in a better position to evaluate how to move forward from there.

Your opinion is noted, Raz, but when in doubt, I'll take it from the faction managers. ^_^