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.

 

[Navian]

The zesuaium was the one candidate I specifically named that explains why the Mindy can be used as a medium unit despite being rather small. Pointing it out is part of my argument, not something that debunks it. More on that later. The material does carry some trade-offs on its own, in that the material is expensive and impossible to repair. I don't think it's fair to say that it doesn't have any drawbacks, though I could still understand someone complaining that the drawbacks aren't enough, especially if they're of the opinion that Yamatai doesn't have that big a tech gap when it comes to designing power armours.

Deciding to recast the Mindy as 'not that great after all' seems like it would shake SARP right down to its foundations, though, and ultimately... I don't think it unbalances the setting if they are that great. For one thing, Yamatai seems to use them for everything, even when it would be more effective to field other unit types. A faction with a different doctrine could compete well, despite the tech gap, by using combined arms tactics and relying on anti-PA weaponry, as well as weapons specifically designed to punish a foe for using units that aren't heavy to fill in for heavy units. (PCs can breathe a sigh of relief that GMs usually make sure that their opponents aren't this smart.)

My argument is that the materials should be part of what determines a unit's tier. If you make a golem, it doesn't matter if it looks exactly like a man with no clothes; it's a heavier unit than a knight in full plate is just from being made of a different material. Adding an extra step to check what it's made out of before you can figure out how tough it is not only defeats the purpose of classifying units for quick reference, it's also confusing, because a new interpretation has to be independently made every time it comes into play.

It's like telling someone to roll a die to determine how many dice they have to subtract from a dice roll--it'd make more sense to just make the assignment directly. This DR system relies on GM discretion enough already, without asking people to use their own judgement in order to determine how to use their discretion in order to determine what damage is actually done.

If the goal of the DR system was to make the GMs' decisions that matter most to the players exceptionally counter-intuitive and obfuscated, determining and presenting tiers before filtering them through materials properties and other special qualities would be a champion idea. But, I think the goal is to do the opposite, so it doesn't look good to me.

 

[Syaoran]

Under most circumstances in normal Roleplays, making the material listed as part of the tier would show benefit. But we have two things that that becomes a problem here.

The first being we have some very lop sided materials in SARP. For reference. Zesuaium is totally immune be being reshaped by kinetic force under normal circumstances. So technically a pierce of Zesuaium when dealing with bullets no matter what size the plate, it'd be above max tier, cause a bullet just plain and simple wont break it. But that wont stop the person underneath from dieing from the impact force, but that gets into G calculations which the GM would have to handle anyway, but is much harder to calculate. And also this would also result in having to write out the different tier levels vs different things. Because a lot of materials that would 'tier up' something against one thing are useless against other things.

The second problem we run into are 'non-quantifiable' values. These aren't per say truly things that can't be put to numbers, but we'd have to go back and reconsider the entire wiki, for instance, we have ion weapons which just 'work' for destroying systems. But does that mean a taser can work on a Mindy? No idea probably not, but there isn't really much talk about electrical resistances. But if we started using armor properties to decide tier, we'd have to consider that, because even if it's immune to bullets, if a handheld taser can cripple it that would be a big 'drop' in tier. Pretty much there are too many oversights in statistics for us to quantify something like material and construction properties fairly.

 

[raz]

Pretty much there are too many oversights in statistics for us to quantify something like material and construction properties fairly.

It isn't fair that Yamataian power armor are receiving a total nerf under the new system just because a couple people think size dictates survivability.

 

[Syaoran]

It isn't fair that Yamataian power armor are receiving a total nerf under the new system just because a couple people think size dictates survivability.

You've been told a million times it's not an actual -nerf-. You're simply miss reading the intentions of the system. If you're going to be thick headed and not listen, even when the person who -made- the system is saying they're not nerfed, then you're hopeless.

 

[raz]

Okay, stop trolling and insulting me, first of all. You seem to have a bad habit about doing that.

Further, you're ignoring Navian's entire post with your assertion. Plus, I'll restate this:

Or we could just do the simple thing ... 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.

Having to come to a thread to get the article creator to explain stuff counter to how the DR article reads means it's not working as-is.

If the goal of the DR system was to make the GMs' decisions that matter most to the players exceptionally counter-intuitive and obfuscated, determining and presenting tiers before filtering them through materials properties and other special qualities would be a champion idea. But, I think the goal is to do the opposite, so it doesn't look good to me.

The above quote sums everything up pretty well.

 

[Syaoran]

You continue to call me a troll and a yamatai hater...yet you speak of insults. You have contributed so little substance to the discussion and merely restated the same things over and over, yet you speak of other people trolling.

The statement you quoted of yours, I literally answered already. I also answered Navian's statement as well in that even if we filtered materials in we'd still have things that you just can't convert into stats that the GMs would have to handle anyway, and those things would be harder to calculate.

So I suggest you go back and actually you know, read my post and stop trying to bait me into saying something against the rules so you can report me.

 

[Rizzo]

So... I'm trying to make sense of this. perhaps someone could pick my post apart with clarifications to ensure my understanding is corrected.

The bigger the PA is the more base health they have. This is because there is more of it to kill.

Armor material determines how much damage you take.

Shields absorb damage outright.

Is that correct?

 

[Syaoran]

So... I'm trying to make sense of this. perhaps someone could pick my post apart with clarifications to ensure my understanding is corrected.

The bigger the PA is the more base health they have. This is because there is more of it to kill.

Armor material determines how much damage you take.

Shields absorb damage outright.

Is that correct?

In the most basic sense it's something like that. Size determines your base line durability, then materials and construction can move that up or down, as well as adding other effects, like straight up imuneities. And shields just soak damage for you. (They can probably have special properties too but at the moment I don't think any that would give 'effects' exist)

 

[Fred]

SARP certainly has its share of barrier technologies. We could have entertained 'effects' in stating what a barrier could've protected against.

Graviton-based protection could have been for defensing against physical projectiles. Scalar fields to prematurely detonate missiles before they hit their target. Distorsion fields (though I suspect those are not much different from scalar) might serve to bend beams away from the intended target.

I do make mention of this in when talking about 'multiple shield sources'. However, tech is just so advanced in SARP that I don't think many of the bigger factions would actually bother with anything else but "protects vs all" barriers, and those not quite as big would be pressured to do the same to 'compete'. So, I hint at it, and it's certainly there if someone wants to create a less potent barrier system (for instance, the CAMIE could have had something sorely for protecting against kinetics, a freighter could have basic barrier protection vs micro-meteorites, etc...)

 

[FrostJaeger]

Apologies that I keep asking questions about this, @Fred, but how would armor-piercing and barrier-piercing weapons work? Deal damage at a tier above to their intended defense (and a tier below to the other; i.e. a Tier 7 AP weapon would be treated as Tier 8 when attacking an un-barriered target and as Tier 6 when attacking something protected by barriers) - or would it just be treated as normal?

 

[Syaoran]

Apologies that I keep asking questions about this, @Fred, but how would armor-piercing and barrier-piercing weapons work? Deal damage at a tier above to their intended defense (and a tier below to the other; i.e. a Tier 7 AP weapon would be treated as Tier 8 when attacking an un-barriered target and as Tier 6 when attacking something protected by barriers) - or would it just be treated as normal?

I'm just taking a guess but since weapons are tiered by intended damage, unless it's specifically only doing high damage in certain conditions, it'll just be tiered based off how much damage is intended. So if you have an anti vehicle rifle that's personnel use, it'll just do damage at vehicle tier. (Since the LASR was opposite)

 

[Fred]

I'm starting to see elements during the submission process which are including "gets to be more effective at defending against X thing, making it cause one tier worse damage", so I figure that's within the realm of reason if the NTSE mods choose to approve that. That's not the approach I'd personally prefer, though.

Personally, I'm not very versed in the mayhem different bullet types cause, so as a GM I'd just read the description and play it by the ear. That's kind of how I expect most people to handle this, with people more knowledgeable perhaps throwing more credence if they feel more strongly about it/know better.

 

[Fred]

DRv3 has a section called How much weaponry? which had been added mostly at the behest of Cadetnewb. As posts in this thread may show, this is something that I tried building to appeal to the NTSE mod concern that somesort of guideline was needed to know what kind of weapons could be on vehicle, and some of the values that cropped up seemed to line up nicely, encouraging adoption and integration.

However, since then, implementation has been thorny. Rather than being a guideline, I've been displeased to see this get used as a straightjacket, especially when I didn't want it in the first place and only did so out of the desire to compromise. Fairness and balance are points which keep cropping up, and when they do all I can think is that DRv3 shouldn't even care about the NTSE mods' concerns, it should care about supporting storytelling.

Therefore - provided I have the approval of @Wes - I intend to remove that section. If mods want to work on a different article to enforce stat-based ship building, something we unfortunately seem to be unavoidably sliding toward for no good damned reason (none!), that's their problem, not DRv3's. DRv3 was conceived as a nomenclature guide and it should have stayed that.

If at some point something workable is fleshed out, the section could be re-added to point to the other resource on the wiki. Until then, I feel it needs to be removed.

 

[Wes]

I concur with Fred.

 

[Fred]

Changelog:
- The "How much weaponry" heading and everything under it (the "giant dinosaur robot" build example) was removed.

In lieu of protests against this; I'd recommend the people unsatisfied with this outcome to make their own article. If they were happy with the 8-same-tier-weapon budget for units, nothing stops them from using it as a starting point. However, the DRv3 guidelines no longer support a metric defining a maximum amount of weaponry a ship is supposed to have.