Approved Submission [Mechanic] Damage Rating Revision

In what way is saying that a same Class weapon shooting a same Class target likely to kill it more complicated than determining the SP of a unit, and then having to calculate how many shots from an weapon of the proper DR scale will be needed to kill it?

You go from needing to calculate how many shots per unit will kill something, to knowing exactly what range of weapons will reliably kill a target with a single piece of information.

You just replaced an HP bar measured in points with one measured in percents. This would be the exact same thing as just increasing the damage output of exsisting weapons.

The problem is that we could do this a lot easier bytweaking the current system or just capping how much SP units can have.

The new system does this with a massive wall of text. It is empiricaly more complex by any measure, harder to explain concisely, similar/more math due to juggleing percents, and more nebulous (we have the 'no bombastic words' rule for submissions specificly because of this kind of thing leading to power creep.

@Zack I think you are vastly misunderstanding the %s. The percents are not how much damage the attacks do. It's how much damage they do relative to a possibly fatal wound. In other words 2 50% fatal attacks to the arms will not kill you. They do half the damage that a single attack to the chest in a reasonable spot would need to do to kill you. The reason you don't see the difference is because you are only looking at it from a perspective of hitting a simple object while trying to break it. As opposed to trying to to kill a complex organism.

Also tweaking the old system wont work, because of how vague everything was with the old system, like rapid fire. So much would have to be tweaked that in the end it would be a new system anyway.

I'll put my three cents in. (I found a penny on my way in.)

I like this system better than the last DR system, especially with its much wider range of ratings. With examples provided, I can easily find a weapon doing the thing I want to do. Or when I'm creating a weapon, find a weapon that's comparable.

Old DR system wasn't conducive to the story-telling experience. I'm not going to write...

"The soldier snapped his weapon up, lining up his sights and tapping the trigger, sending a burst of weapons fire at the floaty squid thing that happened to have some armor. The rounds connected with a sick thawck, blood starting to flow over the creature's hide, staining the ground. He lowered his weapon and returned to cover, "Alright guys, I hit it for 4 SP! 6 to go!"

I might write something like this though...

"The soldier snapped his weapon up, lining up his sights and tapping the trigger, sending a burst of weapons fire at the floaty squid thing that happened to have some armor. The rounds connected with a sick thawck, blood starting to flow over the creature's hide, staining the ground. He lowered his weapon and returned to cover, "Alright guys, a few more like that!"

Now, that's with a bit of exaggeration, but the old DR system was like that. I prefer the new one. That is all the time my 3 cents bought.

=== EDIT ===

The vagueness of the new system is far superior to the pinpoint accuracy of the previous. You shouldn't describe every little detail to a READER. SARP may be a game in some aspects, but by no means should it have the mechanics of a game. Writing is not precise. We let the reader piece together the puzzle, instead of doing it for them. Show, don't tell.

50% + 50% =100% would have been simpler.

As it is the suggested system is more vague not less. A possibly fatal wound is far more vague than running out of hit points. One is a description that people will argue over. The other is a mechanic that is the basis for a lot of games.

If the suggested system could be explained in less text, or had fewer moving parts then I think you could make the case for it being less complex.

Is 80% any different from 8/10?

Click to expand...

Yup. Because you could receive a 4ADR hit in the back, then another 4ADR hit on the shoulder, then another 4ADR hit on the leg

People ignoring the DR system seems to solve the problem of people wanting hand weapons to deal damage to power armors.

Click to expand...

That's not what we said.

I also don't see how this system addresses people ignoring the DR system. If the problem is the DR system being too complex, using a more complex system is just going to make the problem worse.

Click to expand...

Zack, look at the broader issue. You get a GM whom runs his own thing, and you get this newcomer whom comes in, wants to purchase his own weapon, is inwardly giddy at the idea of being able to kick ass in a power armor, and tries to figure out what does what. 4PDR doesn't say much, saying it's a Heavy Anti-Personnel weapon will have him immediately go "Ah, that's going to tear up most groundpounders".

If the GM that did his own thing already treats in his head the weaponry in a fashion the wiki article says, then he and the roleplayer both end up on the same page. This is a good thing. It's how it was supposed to be from the very beginning.

The rest of the DR revision really addresses other questions like, "okay, so, what if I don't hit a person with my Heavy Anti-Personnel weapon? What happens?" We present that the wider the margin, the less lethality involved, and give him an idea.

Then we present the idea of barrier shielding, and how its a protective buffer/handy GM plotshield, but that it doesn't really distinguish between location aimed/struck. Then I recommend that it count for about two possibly fatal hits before dropping and needing recharge.

The rest is mostly conversion stuff, and trying to make the guys used to the previous thing understand the new thing.

Zack said:

50% + 50% =100% would have been simpler.

As it is the suggested system is more vague not less. A possibly fatal wound is far more vague than running out of hit points. One is a description that people will argue over. The other is a mechanic that is the basis for a lot of games.

If the suggested system could be explained in less text, or had fewer moving parts then I think you could make the case for it being less complex.

Click to expand...

This system is not as 'clear cut' in damage dealt, but that is because the amount of force needed to kill someone by hitting their foot and kill them by hitting their head exponentially different. If you're putting an HP bar on a free form RP that's just bad.

There are multiple parts to this system too. It's vague where it's needed, but it's clear where it's needed as well. The old system is -strict- and vague, and not really clear. That's why it wasn't followed, it wasn't be cause it was 'complex'. It just simply put was not designed for freeform RP. This new system is in the technical sense of the word more complex, but it's -easier- on the GMs because it makes more sense with what the GMs are actually doing, trying to bring in a respectible level of realism while keeping the sci-fi, but not trying to make it like a video game. (And even video games now have started removing the HP bar in place of more realistic damage systems(at least on appearance))

This is not DnD. This is a referential so we can actually figure out what sort of damage a weapon does. Kind of like this thing doctors use for children. Incredibly, incredibly simple to understand what pain is based on this chart.

You guys seem to have a lot wrapped up in this, and it seems like I can't convince you that your system is more complex but not noticeably different.

As it stands it looks like you're trying to make a more accurate system in the vein of patherindering our DnD AND a more free form system in the sense of FATEing our DnD. The two approaches are balancing each other out and you're ending up with no real change in use but a lot of added complexity to do that.

I strongly suggest you work out exactly what your goals are, and be able to describe how your system achieves those goals in a clear way. Having some sort of metric for this is good. Having some play testing with people who haven't used it before is fantastic. You need to have a good idea of how you're improving upon the old system and understand how you can keep tweaking it to continue to improve. This helps filter out the rose tinted goggles you get when working on something that 'you've' made.

I don't mean to sound rude but Zack the reason you can't convince us of that is because it's not true. There are similarities between the old and new yes. But there are a lot of differences. In the absolute most basic sense they might look the same, but the details are what makes things Zack. You're telling us we made the same thing when the old thing was say a civic, and this is a Lexus. Yeah they're both cars and will get you from A to B and come in silver. But there's a lot of difference. Also we've already gotten past the rose tinting by chance since it was filtered between two separate groups.

I believe that there are no hard points in the system. My impression is that the percentages are there to give a rough - and only rough - idea of how much more or less powerful something is in relation to the classes around them. That is, it is a chart of references regarding relationships between different things, not HP, Structural Points, or Stamina done.

On a side note, I think there was a previous concern that the addition of more classes would further weaken weapons, and widen the divide between each? Since the inclusion of more classes was done to give a more even gradient rather than a steep or sharp one, I would suggest cutting back the percentages to compensate.

This isn't a system in the way that DnD and Pathfinder and FATE is. It is like that image I showed - a way to show the kind of damage on the table. Like that chart they use on children to estimate pain that I so kindly linked. If you can't understand that, Zack, then there's really no point in continuing here.

@DocTomoe I'm going to summon you back here, if you don't mind. Even if we don't agree on everything, you're the person who'se given the most constructive critiques so far.

First of all:

You get a GM whom runs his own thing, and you get this newcomer whom comes in, wants to purchase his own weapon, is inwardly giddy at the idea of being able to kick ass in a power armor, and tries to figure out what does what.Saying it's a Heavy Anti-Personnel weapon will have him immediately go "Ah, that's going to tear up most groundpounders".

If the GM that did his own thing already treats in his head the weaponry in a fashion the wiki article says, then he and the roleplayer both end up on the same page. This is a good thing. It's how it was supposed to be from the very beginning.

The rest of the DR revision really addresses other questions like, "okay, so, what if I don't hit a person with my Heavy Anti-Personnel weapon? What happens?" We present that the wider the margin, the less lethality involved, and give him an idea.

Then we present the idea of barrier shielding, and how its a protective buffer/handy GM plotshield, but that it doesn't really distinguish between location aimed/struck. Then I recommend that it count for about two possibly fatal hits before dropping and needing recharge.

Click to expand...

Let me know if that makes sense to you. If so, then we're at least both on board on the same idea, but perhaps not on the execution.

You feel it's more helpful to have a damage range of 21 items, rather than 15. You feel (and are hardly the only one) it is significant to the end user that there are 5 different tiers for personnel, 5 again for armor, etcetera. (for contrast, previous system had 4 personnel, 4 armor, 4 starship for a total of 12 - PDR5/ADR1 and ADR5/SDR1 were essentially the same value). So, as we sit right now, not only do we have 2 extra categories (vehicle, capital vessel) but each of the exiting categories has grown by +1. This is good, rather than alarmingly too much information which might weight things down in the roleplay.

You're on board with this kind of implied lethality, and this kind of reference table is okay:
Weapon Class vs Target | Approximate Outcome
4 Below | Negligible (nothing significant)
3 Below | Light damage (around 12.5% of expected damage)
2 Below | Moderate Damage ( around 25% of expected damage)
1 Below | Heavy Damage (around 50% of expected damage)
Equal | Potentially lethal
1 Above | Potentially lethal ( around 150% of expected damage)
2 Above | Quite lethal (around 200% of expected damage)
3 Above | Very lethal (around 300% of expected damage)
4 Above | Assuredly lethal (instant destruction)

And if we given examples like the following, it's helpful for people like Luca. That's what he seemed to appreciate:

For the Daisy, it could go from:
3 lower | Light Damage | Nicks and scrapes over armor surface
2 lower | Moderate Damage | Pockmarks and gouges on armor surface
1 lower | Heavy Damage | Armor surface twisted, torn or cratered nearly through
Equal | Lethal | Possibly fatal on precise penetration of chest/helmet
1 higher | Quite Lethal | Broader region such as face and chest affected can be fatal
2 higher | Very Lethal | Limbloss/beheaded, nonsurvivable damage to torso
3 higher | Assuredly Lethal | If hit centermass, destruction of the entire suit

For the Plumeria
3 lower | Light Damage | Nicks and scrapes over armor surface
2 lower | Moderate Damage | Pockmarks and gouges on armor surface
1 lower | Heavy Damage | Armor surface twisted, torn or cratered nearly through
Equal | Lethal | Hull breach, possible loss of function on vital system may cripple the ship
1 higher | Quite Lethal | Compartment-wide damage, wide sections open to space
2 higher | Very Lethal | Loss of major structural component such as main gun and pylons
3 higher | Assuredly Lethal | If hit centermass, destruction of the entire ship

For unprotected people:
Equal | Lethal | partial penetration, major burns, wounding, possible fatal wounds.
1 higher | Quite Lethal | reliable complete penetration, gaping wounds.
2 higher | Very Lethal | Severing limbs, eviscerating torsos, massive traumatic injuries.
3 higher | Assuredly Lethal | Incineration via energy weapon, explosive separation of body parts via projectile trauma

Click to expand...

You don't really mind that due to the increase from 3 to 5 items, that some weapons will be cutoff from affected previously feasible targets.
- An infantryman with an assault rifle was capable of doing light damage on a Daisy (this was new), now he won't be able to do a thing.
- A Daisy's plasma rifle (8?) could lightly damage a Ripper mecha (11), but now won't be of much use.
I think you get it. Before, when categories were 3 items, the lethality range allowed passage to the next category (i.e: A medium anti-armor weapon could still do a tiny something on a medium vehicle). The only way of mimicking that would be to make that span going from 1 to 5 lower/higher. That feels uncomfortably stretched thin compared to the previous tigher range, but it seems the only way to attain somesort of equivalency that doesn't tighten the weapons too much compared to their IC useage/validity.
Again, this doesn't feel compatible with the way ships have been layed out. We'd likely either need ships to be listed in a range of 5 like everything else for that to work. (I don't find it desirable to need 10 total entries for ships/capital vessels)

I believe I also saw you mention something about just implying that a weapon would do more damage until a difference of 5, going to the above extreme meaning obliteration of the target, and the lower extreme barely tickles the target. And screw the table, just imply that and let GM/players figure out the rest. (despite Luca liking the example saying when dismemberment happened and such)

You understand that lethality is per single hit.
Meaning that it doesn't take rate of fire into account.

You also understand that when this system was designed, I meant for submitters to create their weapons mostly based on cinematic/dramatic impact; "I see my plasma rifle as taking a few shots to take down a Daisy"; "So, probably a few seconds of continuous fire dead center to make it blow up"; "So, probably Class 6"

If you understand that, then I'd point out that a weapon like the LASR appears misclassified. The LASR has historically proven more effective against softer-targets (Mishhu) and can kind of do something against power armor, but it's mostly thanks to its high rate of fire, rather than its striking power. By contrast, the Daisy power armor's plasma rifle has always proven more reliable in armor-to-armor combat (and it can do something against zesuaium too).

Finally, I still have a difference of opinion with your take on Durandium - one I still want to contest against. Everything in the notions regarding durandium makes it appear to suck much much more than before. You mention sciency reference, but to me, they're non-intelligible. What I do know is this:

Durandium is a lightweight metallic alloy created from commonly available elements including large amounts of processed aluminum and a significant quantity of synthetic carbon nanotubes.

The relative toughness, cheapness, and availability of Durandium have made it one of the universe's most favored material for building vehicle frames and light starship armor. It is fairly easy for technologically-apt nations to produce large quantities of the material. Once created by a processing plant, Durandium is molded into sheets or blocks. Factories press the sheets or melt or the blocks into the desired shapes. There is also a transparent variant.

Click to expand...

Underlining is mine. Basically, I've always considered durandium as somesort of futuristic supermaterial; maybe not the one that was the most optimal protection-wise, but its low-weight-to-mass ratio was its big quality (making it prefered with the Mindy II because it let it better be able to employ teleportation technology without losing too much protection - it wasn't as bad as the stealth materials or more mundane materials)
I'd like to come to a compromise that allows Durandium (and other armor plating that rested in the 0.6 modifier category before) to remain less competitive but viable choices across the board. I still think the ratio of thickness for equivalent protection (durandium 1.0, nerimium 0.8, zesuaium 0.6) is a good way of carrying over established notions from the previous DR system. At least that comes from somewhere. (and would permit us something to follow for other materials too)

Alright, I'm going to follow my own doctrine, we're going to keep it simple.

Yeah, I'm cool with dis shit, yo.

Now let me give you the short and sweet why.

I'm not going to feel bad IRL that an AK-47 can't kill a Bradley IFV, that's what it comes down to for the Daisy, which is in the same bracket as an armored car. Infantry gotta deal with it, suck it up, chumps.

About Daisy Vs. Ripper? Yeah, that's about accurate. I've played with WES against Rippers in a fully armed not-nerfed Kylie, using aether, not some dinky little plasma projector, and that Ripper grabbed its codpiece, made a lewd gesture, then promptly cut into my NH-27's freakin' tits (No, I'm not exaggerating, least about the tits, the codpiece yes).

Now about damage range? Awesome, more gib, we need more gib.

About damage per hit Vs. ROF, yeah, we've accounted for that when we were plugging away at this puppy.

About submitters/designers? Yeah, that's why we have comparative descriptions in it, helps people who are not number-crazy understand what they're doing.

LASR issue; it is just fine where it is. In anti-armor setting it is firing at 6,000 m/s, you need to understand, a real-life Barrett M95 Anti-Material rifle used to take out armored-vehicles fires a .50 BMG at 854 m/s. Kinetics here pan out, with the LASR's boat-tailed dart being able to punch through a Daisy's armor with a 90' angle hit at 500 meters, no problem. LASR is where it needs to be.

Oooh, ooh, I can do underlines too.
'The relative toughness', 'availability', 'vehicle frames', 'light starship armor'. What this means, is that it is tougher than aluminum or other tissue-paper tier materials, vehicle frames are not designed to take direct fire and are not considered armor, and I think 'light' defines itself. What this means, is that it is an ideal material because it is cheap as dirt and is light-weight enough for aerospace applications, meaning, its not meant to be considered rugged, ever.

As for modifiers? Never used them, don't care.

It likely depends on what model of Ripper it is - if it's the original, Zesuaium armored ones, then I would have to agree with what Doc said. With others made of lesser materials, the plasma rifle should be more effective I believe.

Fred said:

@DocTomoe You don't really mind that due to the increase from 3 to 5 items, that some weapons will be cutoff from affected previously feasible targets.

Click to expand...

I did mention that we should likely compensate for the inclusion of more classes to prevent precisely what you're concerned about. Something like this perhaps;

Weapon Class vs Target | Approximate Outcome
4 Below | Negligible (nothing significant)
3 Below | Light damage (around 25% of expected damage)
2 Below | Moderate Damage ( around 50% of expected damage)
1 Below | Heavy Damage (around 75% of expected damage)
Equal | Potentially lethal
1 Above | Potentially lethal ( around 175% of expected damage)
2 Above | Quite lethal (around 250% of expected damage)
3 Above | Very lethal (around 325% of expected damage)
4 Above | Assuredly lethal (instant destruction)

My math is not exactly the best around, but I hope the general concept I'm trying to talk about survives.

@Cadet
From what I can tell, only the percentile representation of the approximate outcome changed. And it's quite higher. x_x

In fact, the lethality for every weapon example listed is in general much higher than I feel they ought to be.
Going by the things I know...

• The NSP heavy setting is a grenade. It shouldn't be higher than 5. Sure, it should bother a Mindy, but here, it can kill a Mindy in a single hit. No way.
• Same for the LASR: I can get the sniper version one-shotting a Mindy in the head/chest, but the conventional model is supposed to chew things to death through a torrent of bullets. And that'd be a Mishhu, which is in fact not as tough as a Mindy.
• About the same goes with the aether forearm weapons, it fires a spray of energy flechettes; it's not the first flechette to hit a pristine yamadura chest/helmet that should kill a Daisy even if unshielded. That's something I'd reserve to the beam setting of an aether saber-rifle.
  
• I figure the KFY weapon that'd start doing overkill on the Daisy would by the gauss cannon the Daisy/Mindy usually equip on a shoulder rack. Or the offensive Mini-missile.
• I'm fairly certain the aether saber can chop/do major damage in anything that's a shuttle/tank/small ship turret/airlock hatch... so it'd do a number on a power armor too. Not positive it'd be as nasty as 15, though.

I'm still not convinced on the topic of durandium, so we've hit an impasse in that respect. As I see it so far, it's DocTomoe's word against mine. Unless DocTomoe's point of view receives an outpouring of support, my preference would be to maintain the status quo, which was there before he made the comparative description entries. This being a soft sci-fi setting and all, I'd rather preserve how it was used than

(basically, what I'm saying is that I'd opt for removing the comparative descriptions from the list so that durandium remains untouched. If it's not mentioned, then it's safe. I can still leave some of the comparative description info in lethality to accomodate people like Luca. Not letting Durandium nerfed into becoming so weak under my watch)

@Wes I'd consider it helpful if you could give your input on your expectation of the effectiveness of KFY power armor weapons, and how effective durandium is as armor across power armor, vehicles and starships.

@Fred

The idea I had in mind was that, since the weapons were potentially 'reduced' in potency by the inclusion of the two new classes, shouldn't we compensate for that by bumping up these percentages just a tad to offset it? They may be a rough range to begin with, but I thought that would help with your concern. As for the durandium, would removing the measurements of thickness help? It may be too specific in its current state. Would using something like "Armored Cars or Medium Yamataian PAs" under the comparative descriptions section of the chart help instead?

As far as I'm concerned, it would have only been offensive and defensive examples without that extra bit, likely because I feel the same way you do. But other people also said they enjoyed it.

I don't consider the penetration mention all that useful to our medium. The mention of getting through some obstacles (bricks/walls) could be useful - that much seemed evocative to me. I don't much care for them at the greater extremes, though - we have weapons which might not destroy a kilometer-long battleship if it doesn't hit a vital spot, but the same weapon will destroy a planet. Riiiigghht. It definitely makes me want to gloss over the detail of the weapon's supposed "planet cracking" capabilities.

@Fred

Here's the deal about penetration. It helps players to get an idea of what they can and can't shoot through, and what is cover and what is not, and where to aim in certain situations. Such as trying to breach a blast-door, it'd be nice for them to know their aether-saber is not going to cut through it like butter, but instead would take time. Or another example would be in an infantry situation, when a tank is encountered, just what weapon is going to be most feasible in punching through a given amount of plate to get at the sensitive innards such as a reactor or crew-compartment.

As for ships Vs. planets. We need to remember, Zesuaium was designed not to transmit energy, in any way. Whatever hits it is going to have to burst through on contact. This means, even against aether, there has to be sustained exposure to breach a given amount of hull thickness. If we're talking antimatter weapons, this means at least a half-meter diameter spherical 'glob' of antimatter would have to be used to breach 500mm of Zesuaium, such as that found on a cruiser of some-sort. That same half-meter glob of antimatter, if flung at a planet, would crack a crust and blast into the mantle of a planetary body. That's just the way it is.

Besides, canon.

View attachment a4.bp.blogspot.com__QL5rX13MLEs_UFRKIb0hcgI_AAAAAAAAC7M_okPcwzTPxyQ_s320_deal_with_it_riker.jpg

Not one person was able to give me feedback on either the GM-arbitrated performance from either KFY weaponry (usually inflicted on KFY units to avoid bias) and the weapons mounted on an Hostile against itself (again, to avoid bias); throughout the week. I asked you, but you failed to answer, so I need to draw my own conclusions.

It's my current estimation that the people that have labeled the examples have done so because they mostly wanted their own creation to be powerful, regardless of intended targets (even if they were what you'd term "own faction player units", and did so without really taking into account how rate of fire would reflect on that.

The end result is an Hostile's HPAR being capable in a single-squeeze of a trigger, to loose a triple-bullet burst which will shear through the shielding and likely total the unit (and its pilot) on a well-placed chest/head hit. I'm not a Nepleslian GM, I don't deal with the Hostile usually, but with the dramatic/narrative flair I have as a GM - even if I'd use the Hostile as an opponent to a Daisy and have the Daisy pick up a salvaged HPAR to use against the Hostile, the killing power of the HPAR is somewhere around 2-3 times more than the ideal level of lethality for me.

@Eistheid @CadetNewb this is where I want your opinion

There's a few ways to address the problem. One is actually to reduce the HPAR's performance in the table to somwhere around "Light Anti-Armor" - that's 2 steps down. That's the behavior I intended for the system, but then again... it's my estimation that no Nepleslian-leaning GM/tech submitter wants to see the primary weapon of a purported 'heavy power armor' be termed as 'light anti-armor' even with the caveat of its firing rate crossing the difference.

Another would be to reduce the inherent lethality of the weapons. To me, it made sense that people would make the weapons with a label intended to say "this kill this kind of thing", but it doesn't feel like SARP as a community is ready for that leap. It'd probably be a narrative step down from the "can kill in one hit" to "can be used to efficiently defeat the target"

The third solution I portrayed would be a return to the "DPS per time interval" format. Meaning it'd be implied that a burst-fire from an HPAR could kill an unshielded Hostile with a few well-placed hits. Same for the LASR being able to kill a Mindy while subjecting to a prolongued stream of bullets; whereas the slower sniper-version of the LASR - due to its lower rate of fire - would be implied as greater penetrative power per single hit.