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Approved Submission [Mechanic] Damage Rating Revision

Eistheid

Inactive Member
Retired Member
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.
 
This suggestion has been implemented. Votes are no longer accepted.
I've only been told about the HPAR and how it kills everything like it were Aether only recently. Like, today.

This tosses ALMOST ALL of my plot under the bus. A plot I've put a lot of pain and effort into making work. I cannot possibly articulate how infuriated I am, not only to have this happen, but to have it happen because someone tried shitting out a piece of crap almost as crappy as the aether beam saber rifle. At least they had the sense to keep it from showing up in every soldier's hands as time went on, but the HPAR had been our bread and butter for years, and as far as I could see, never killed so quickly before. Even in Sigma's plot. And you well know how I feel mentioning him. With the way it's now being described, it might as well have been ADR 5 the whole entire time. Making it even worse is that if I were to use the HPAR the way it's being suggested - to kill giants - it would kill even them too quickly, meaning I would have to refrain from using it in the situations it was meant for as well. There is no theatrics to it. No RP. No fun to these absurdly powerful weapons. If it were a rocket launcher that not everybody got, that'd be fine. But this? It's one of the most iconic - and despite how short the article is - flavorful weapons around.

Nothing else lets you splatter a Neko with white, hot, sticky stuff while in combat. Nothing.

This line of thinking you may be supporting might be the 'correct' portrayal, but the times have changed. We're no longer dealing with Ayanee levels of bullshitium armor. It's god damned 2016.
 
Cadet, you have this bad habit where you think having the hardest punching weapon means instant victory, this happened before with the Devastator and is happening again with the HPAR. GMs are in charge of making the challenge to their plots, and saying that one number is gonna keep that from happening and will take all the fun away is something that, frankly, I find hard to believe when you got absolute control over the outcome of every action.

Anyway, what we have here is the Nepleslian FM, the guy in charge of making sure his faction is portrayed right, among other things, telling you that the way you're portraying the main weapon for the DIoN's power armor is not what it should be, and your response is to huff and puff and want to have it nerfed on every post by saying that it's too strong. Nepleslia has always been a faction that has had the 'bigger' stuff; we have the heaviest tank on the setting, the most durable ships and the standard sidearm is a handcannon called the HHG. It only does justice to this trend that their standard PA weapon would hit harder than anyone else's, much like a battle rifle would hit harder than an assault rifle, which is exactly what the HPAR is but on a power armor scale. That's flavor to a faction that sets it apart on a setting from others. Besides, if you still think it's too strong after that, you're still not thinking of the downsides that firing a very fast (but very small and very light) kinetically formed penetrator at people entails. One such downside, for example, is that it would be easily absorbed by shields due to its low mass, and that if it doesn't penetrate, it doesn't do anything else other than splatter hot metal at people, it's very hit an miss and still gives you plenty of room to fudge the numbers a little bit, like you've been told.

To add to that, the HPAR would still be usless against Zesu, since it isn't firing plasma, or antimatter, or Aether. (I don't know about you but that's a lot of flavor to me )

Besides, if you still want to add difficulty to your plot by giving people a lower class weapon, you can still make your own weapon, as it's been stated. Alternatively, if you don't want to bother doing that, you can just use the, and I quote directly from you "The pile of shit that Sigma made" that is the LCA.

Also, no one's asking to you retcon your plot or throw it under the bus.
 
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@CadetNewb at this point, I don't picture the problem really being the HPAR classified as Heavy Anti-Armor, so much as Heavy Anti-Armor not doing what you'd expect it to do. It's too early for you to woked up on on that point; just keep it cool - we're still figuring how to make it work for the common denominator.

The only thing that's really getting dashed at the moment are my expectations as to how this thing might work out.
 
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I made provisional changes here and here to try and clear up some misconceptions.

Let me know if anything could be improved or changed.
 
Both of those sections look good to me. They incorporate the information to clear up a few of the misunderstandings pretty well, I think.
 
Just a reminder, from the reviewer's perspective: While I'm keeping up with the dialogue here, I'm not going over the submission as you folk are working on it.

Also, it previously was discussed and requested that I examine past versions of the submission compared to the current version. That is to say, I consider the entirety of a past version compared to the current version, not pieces.

Unless that's again put toward me as a request, I don't plan to do that.
 
On that subject...

For future review and easy access:

-Current version: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=fred_s_damage_rating_revision
-Original version: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=fred_s_damage_rating_revision&rev=1456422128
-Original version with descriptive examples: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=fred_s_damage_rating_revision&rev=1456556080

On the current version I need to decide on how I want to present the Damage Scaling table, since it has yet to be adapted to the larger Class table. Additionally I believe @Fred mentioned that they wanted to clean up the example table some, but I'm uncertain as to what they are intending with that. Further, assuming the additions to the Damage Scaling , and Armor sections are agreeable they may be permanently incorporated, and perhaps ported over to the Original version should the expanded template not be deemed acceptable.

I'll make more of a head way on the work when I have the energy.

Edit: Thank you @Doshii Jun for keeping us updated with your involvement, and I thank you for your patience given the unorthodox process of this submission. Hopefully things will settle and we can get out of your way soon.

Edit 2: I probably won't be getting involved in the discussions surrounding where items belong on the table, since I don't have the experience with in character writing to draw upon, nor do I claim to know better than the authors/FMs how their equipment functions.

To this end unless requested otherwise I will stick to clarifying language and developing a useful tool for us all as writers.
 
Just doing the job, @Eistheid.

It's everyone in this thread that deserves credit for sticking with this submission until they feel better about it. Changing and rearranging a sitewide mechanic is never easy, but I think this community is doing great!
 
I have reservations for these parts:
I quite frankly think this is a bit of a strange overstatement. When you're shot, you often can't help it. The only real skill that might come into play is when using a shield (the physical kind, not the energy field kind, which is why I refer to physical shields as shields and field-based defenses as barrier). I read the above, and what I imagine are people intentionally contorting in their RP posts.

If I unleash my inner-Battletech fan, I don't deny that facing does carry some importance. If my left side has been mangled, I'd have advantage to expose my right side instead. There's also fencers that go in a stance that exposes as small a silhouette to hit as possible.

I get the message that's trying to be conveyed, I think, but I don't see it as clear so much as possibly begetting more mistunderstanding. I also think it's a bit sad that we have to explain something like that, on top with the concern that I remember Uso - rightly or wrongly - describing the current article as overcomplex. It made me want to trim text and try to be more concise, not add to it.

This represents a degree of optional micromanagement I'd rather have left in the hands of the GM to decide if he wants to go there or not. Adding what might amount to a house rule in the article itself may make it seem like it's mandatory.

Speaking as GM, I wasn't planning to go that far. A Daisy chestplate is at least a foot across and I could imagine a bullet crattering the left breast. Then I could imagine the surface there as damaged. If a hit lands at the exact same place, that place is damaged and the next shot's likely to do internal damage. If a hit lands an inch away, or on the right breast, that surface is still intact, that place is going to be able to take the hit. I'm not sure encouraging the breastplate to degrade as a rule is something that really ought to be mentioned so much as consider it an already ablated/damaged surface.

At least, there has to be a better way of explaining it.

* * *

Wow. I still feel the original version was better. Oh well.

* * *

Current version has stuff that's Anti-Personnel mostly sorted through so far. I tried to stick to two examples rather than the more expansive lists there, prioritizing some on quality, weapon type (slugthrower vs. energy - no point having 2 slugthrowers; examples aren't supposed to be a full listing of what is in that class) and faction representation when possible.

I kind of neutered DocTomoe's descriptions, though not entirely - a part of it is something I planned on inserting into the second table: Lethality. I entirely got rid of the material penetration that went into millimeters because it felt too hard sci-fi for what had been intended as a much looser guideline/handy reference and I wasn't willing to accept Durandium being reduced in feasibility to a total of 3 classes in the expanded list in comparison to its feasibility across the board. I tried to make it work by offering a ratio, but that was refused, so, best to maintain status quo there.

* * *

Since Koenig seems very hung up on the way the previous system worked and how his HPAR was represented, I figured I'd go and show how it'd perform numerically.

HPAR: ADR4
Hull: 15 SP (Armor scale)
Shields: 15 SP (Threshold 3)
1st attack, Shield 12, Hull 14
2nd attack, Shield 9, Hull 13
3rd attack, Shield 6, Hull 12
4th attack, Shield 3, Hull 11
5th attack, Shield 0, Hull 10
6th attack, Shield 0, Hull 6
7th attack, Shield 0, Hull 2
8th attack - unit destroyed

Looking at this, I'm seriously pondering reducing effective lethality of all weapons something around two steps. As in, equal class weapon striking equal class target would deal moderate damage rather than a potential killblow. The caveats I see are on the level of anti-personnel (people are less chewy than power armor and up) and how signifiantly less decisive low RoF weaponry will become, but it will put high RoF weapons in perhaps a better place, especially considering the above example of Old-DR-System-Hostile-being-shot-by-an-HPAR.
 
Noted. As Eistheid showed, other revisions are still there if need be. And it's why I did only 20% of the work for starters - I didn't want to commit fully before meeting criticism. Already took an hour to make those adjustments; didn't want to invest five and then get BOOed for it.

Idle thinking:
I've thought about four-class categories rather than five. Like, Light, Medium, Heavy, Very Heavy. This whole conversion headache is what lead me to it.
remember how I said that the old DR system only had 4 samples for class, since the last one was usually a crossover? (PDR5 = ADR1, ADR5=SDR1)

It'd look like so:
PDR1 (old) - Class 1 (new) - Light Anti-Personnel
PDR2 (old) - Class 2 (new) - Medium Anti-Personnel
PDR3 (old) - Class 3 (new) - Heavy Anti-Personnel
PDR4 (old) - Class 4 (new) - Very Heavy Anti-Personnel
ADR1(old) - Class 5 (new) - Light Anti-Armor
ADR2(old) - Class 6 (new) - Medium Anti-Armor
ADR3(old) - Class 7 (new) - Heavy Anti-Armor
ADR4(old) - Class 8 (new) - Very Heavy Anti-Armor
ADR5(old) - Class 9 (new) - Light Anti-Vehicle
ADR5+(old) - Class 10 (new) - Medium Anti-Vehicle
ADR5+(old) - Class 11 (new) - Heavy Anti-Vehicle
ADR5+(old) - Class 12 (new) - Very Heavy Anti-Vehicle
SDR1(old) - Class 13 (new) - Light Anti-Starship
SDR2(old) - Class 14 (new) - Medium Anti-Starship
SDR3(old) - Class 15 (new) - Heavy Anti-Starship
SDR4(old) - Class 16 (new) - Very Heavy Anti-Starship
SDR5(old) - Class 17 (new) - Light Anti-Capital Vessel
SDR5+(old) - Class 18 (new) - Medium Anti-Capital Vessel
SDR5+(old) - Class 19 (new) - Heavy Anti-Capital Vessel
SDR5+(old) - Class 20 (new) - Very Heavy Anti-Capital Vessel

If I'm going to reduce Lethality from 'potentially lethal' on equal classes, and imply DPS-per-time-period, might as well go for something that's going to convert much more easily.
If that's the direction taken, most of what this would achieve over the 2nd gen system is the loss of Hit Points to focus on narrative, and the addition of the vehicle and capital ship categories.

Here, the HPAR would be Class 8, a Very Heavy Anti-Armor weapon, top dog for that category, simply because it's ADR4 - it's a direct translation. No arguing necessary (though the Hostile itself likely would be Class 7, whereas the Devastator would be Class 8. Hrrm), no fuss about merits of lethality per shot and total killing power thanks to rate of fire. One bit of muddledness that would survive the 2nd gen system... not that we've come to a concensus that fixes it.
 
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I could keep arguing about the HPAR alone, but it's besides the point.

Focusing on the DR system and the parts you're not too comfortable with Fred, it could possibly be re-worded again as suggestions or examples of what a GM can possibly do under the new system. Basically options to consider. As it may be a little intrusive in the main text itself, it may a good idea to consider and see if putting these examples or suggestions into their own section. I'm not sure if it is a good or bad idea however, but it may be worth looking into.

Regarding reducing lethality and slow weapons, I think I may have an idea we can work with. If we have a bolt action rifle that's Class 6, but it only does moderate damage to Class 6 targets, we can actually just have it be considered an Anti-Class 5 Sniper Rifle instead; that is, despite its class, it is meant to be used against things one level lower than itself. Meanwhile, weapons that do have a higher rate of fire, would be the same class as what they're meant to go against. In this case, an Anti-Class 5 Weapon would also be Class 5. Since this is all OOC categorization, it wouldn't really affect the weapons IC I would think.
 
I would like to ask why we're inverting the idea that if a ROF weapon is supposed to threaten a certain class, that you put it a class or two below to compensate for it being high ROF.

It feels counter intuitive to downgrade per shot weapons in favor of ROF weapons.

Following the logic presented above, a single fire anti-tank missile drops to a class below the tanks it is meant to target, where as a weapon that needs to expend dozens of rounds to damage a target is same class.
 
And that just moves directly away from the whole "Class based on per shot" that the whole system is built around right now.

RoF and how it affects the weapon is something that needs to be represented on a weapon by weapon basis, not in the chart, based on how it's written right now.
 
I know. I'm not suggesting these things and actually falling in love with them at the same time. This is not what I originally set out to do.

But consider all the feedback we've been given. Consider the problems we've faced so far as well. Consider the level of simplicity this is supposed to have. Consider Cadetnewb's dismay regarding the killing power the HPAR would attain with the new system, which is admittedly not what the previous system allowed it. Consider how adamant Koenig has been regarding the issues he raised.

If we can disregard what the Nepleslian FM has bludgeoned our way, this gets a lot easier. But even if we get Wes' support (I already had it), even if we get Doshii to rule in our favor, it's still a heck of a lot of drama down the road. There aren't a whole lot of solutions for that. As I see it:

- Screw it, back to the original 3-sample thing, since I'm still not persuaded the 5-sample one is actually any good. Most of the extra detail in the anti-personnel weapons is mostly put to waste. It's the way it was originally built, it was endorsed by a significant number of people too; including site admins.

- Keep to the 5-sample one, which has yielded in return a LOT of debate on certain items being special snowflakes over other items. It's mostly something begeted by FM and tech submitters that devolve in a lot of arms races, and the last few pages are proof that it was likely not an optimal move. Lethality got skewed - especially in regard to the 5s-becoming-3s for ships) and people have been disinclined to have the article help judge the in-universe actual performance of the weapon. The detail is mostly used to one-up other things.

- Make a 4-sample one that's some compromise between the above two since it'd make the conversion headache much less severe, acknowledge that rate of fire and lethality need to be meshed together and abstracted, and reduce the killing power to reflect more what the previous system did. This doesn't accomplish a whole lot, and I kind of consider it being my original idea being watered down to the point of "is this worth implementing over the previous thing?"

- Actually go and bother gauging the penetrating power per shot, quantify it with rate of fire, range and all that other stuff, and calculate it in some value that would quantify it as its purpose "Heavy Anti-Armor" or some such. Correlate killing power with the resilience of the target. Figure out how much it takes to kill it... AND while we're at it, build a table RPG system and lose sight of the original goal which was an easy to reference guideline. And, oddly enough, the people that would actually dig that kind of detail are the same people that would go "keep it simple!"

It's not like any of the above never occured to me before I aired my 3rd gen revision. Abstract groups with more detailed performance actually filled in by the GM's interpretation of the fluff text really had seemed like it'd be the best way to go in practice. The HPAR likely would've done just fine as a Medium Anti-Armor, considering Heavy Anti-Armor was grenades, mortars and bit expody things you'd expect would do more than a battlerifle.
 
The deal with the HPAR, I regard as OOC problems, and not a problem with the system itself. I do like the increased amount of detail that the 5-sample system offers, but I would like it even more if the gap between different classes was not as wide to compensate for the fact that there are more of them to begin with. With luck, I imagine that the first and third Classes of any category in the original 3-sample system have the same 'gap' between them as any first and fifth Classes of any category in the 5-sample system. It may seem more complex, and it is, but I believe that the additional complexity is relatively minor, with any drawbacks of this outweighed by the additional clarity that it provides.

If I recall correctly, Lam said that he did not like having his ammo all mixed into the same bin; the idea of something akin to having your .50 Cal in the same box as a 25mm round was not a very comforting one. Especially considering how large a 25mm round is in comparison.

A Neko could get off on that even, and that's just a 20mm.
 
Do you mean that you'd like some sort of overlap, as in Heavy Anti-Armor would also be Light Anti-Vehicle?

Is caliber/round-size really something that needs to be so quantified for the people doing the roleplaying? I'll admit not being very versed in guns, but based on action movie culture, it kind of got summed up so:

pew: bullet to the head, creates hole
Pew: bullet to the head, most of the head blown off
PEW!: something worse, which I related to sending people flying/dying... usually grenades (which aren't so PEW as they are BOOM)

All this talk of millimeters and caliber goes largely over my head. What my uncultured self did see, though, is that most handguns/submachineguns that seem to be in 1-2 could've been combined as one, and the heftier rifles/assault rifles of 3-4 combined too because I didn't see that much difference in the apparent end result they'd achieve through our roleplay-by-post format.

Basically, I don't see how the greater precision helps you, so I can't grasp what the fuss about it is all about. I know that it's demanded, I know people feel it's important, I just have failed to see any actual evidence that it actually is needed. I'd see the article itself as being what would help skew perception beyond that. I fail to see why going by creating a submission with the thought "I'm making an infantry assault rifle - those are usually Medium Anti-Personnel - so I'll set it that way and then write in my article all sorts of cool detail on it to inspire the players/GM whom will use it". I don't see how they need to be set apart granularily on the general damage that can be expected from them based on their labelled purpose.

The labelled purpose is just used as a guideline to set an expectation. I don't get why in a play-by-post format that you don't think this is good. I don't get why you're so dependent on the numbers it might give to the weapon, I don't get why you have so little faith in the textual description of the item. The Damage Rating into is already mostly a footnote/submission tax to most articles.

The message that came across for me when the sample-size was increased to 5 and example comparison started becoming a thing was... comparison of e-peens. Why is this even a thing? Weren't we supposed to steer away from that?

I don't know guns all that much, and most roleplayers I've touched base actually don't. Admittedly, I'm more used to Star Trek raybeams and Mass Effect guns (whom, I'd add, fire what effectively are grains-of-sand via shoving them out really fast via gravity; bullet size doesn't really apply). It's mostly why I leaned towards accessibility.
 
I don't get why you're so dependent on the numbers it might give to the weapon, I don't get why you have so little faith in the textual description of the item. The Damage Rating into is already mostly a footnote/submission tax to most articles.
This is honestly the sentiment that I agree with most. I started work on this project simply because doing the math with the old/current DR system was a hassle, and no one used them as the system described anyway. Beyond that the old DR system didn't give at all a clear idea of how effective something was without having to calculate the ROF whether by a 10 second increment, or trying to determine how much damage a single round was doing then multiplying the DR value by the ROF, and then comparing it to the SP for an idea of how effective something was. I honestly got nothing out of the structure of the old system.

With this things were simple enough, one Class, if shot by the same Class will probably die on a direct hit. A lower class weapon, will take more and more time/effort/luck to succeed due to being a weapon ill suited for the purpose that you are using it for, and a higher Class weapon will be more effective due to the effects of killing a mouse with a rocket launcher.

To this end the numbers were at most a reference point for me. They weren't a part of a mechanical system, there was no stats, merely reference points like those found in an index in a book. You don't look at p.125 in an index and think that it has any mechanical value. To this end, a Class number was just a fast way of gauging where on the table something was. Beyond that I wanted to focus on the parts of an article that the author actually spends time one, like the function, form, and the way they describe the effect of the item. The only thing this was supposed to do was give you an idea what all of the fancy text was supposed to achieve, since I'll be honest going by hard science, most weapons don't hit hard enough for what they do, and ignoring hard science you're left with a really fancy weapon effect and no idea if it'll kill an unarmoured man, or obliterate a star fortress.

I went along with expanding the examples from three to five, not because I felt it was truly necessary, but because I wanted to manage to get the old systemic mess of numbers and math out of the way in favor of a much simpler reference guide. If people were going to boycott it on principle then that wasn't going to help me in the long run. So I took what I felt was a relatively simple step and added a couple slots to each category since it made people happy.

Now however, it seems that most people are getting hung up over the numerical value of a weapon and insisting on the statistic value of an item, instead of asking themselves, "How is this supposed to function? What am I going to regularly be killing with this weapon? What are its main applications?"

I get that @Koenig808 wants the HPAR to be the answer to the SAoY's ASBR, it makes a lot of sense given that it was even designed to disable zesuaium clad enemies by locking up their joints and weighing them down even if it couldn't penetrate. This was a weapon designed to defeat some of the most dangerous foes of the setting at the time. As it stands it also functions like an explosive penetrator, being a stream of molten high velocity metal, a concept that we use IRL in anti-tank weapons. So to me it isn't surprising that it would put holes in most targets, especially if their armor is at most 6-8cm thick.

However @CadetNewb is set on an effect of splattering the enemy with metal, yet is completely against using a less penetrating ammunition type (for reasons that elude me) and wants an effect similar to a gun based LAG Grenade. Beyond this they have also expressed disdain that the "standard issue" weapon for every marine is powerful enough to make short work of lighter PA targets since it makes narrative encounters too decisive.

In this case, given the way that the weapon is written, and that Nepleslia, has spent most of its history having to worry about zesuaium clad foes, be they old style Yamatai power armors, or Mishhu, I can see why they would want their standard issue gun to be lethal. I believe @Fred encountered a similar problem during his threads which lead to the development of the LASR, giving his players a weapon that allowed for more drawn out combat compared to the ASBR, and the Daisy Plasma Rifle with the justification that it would damage the inside of friendly ships less.

Unfortunately it seems that Neplesla's LASR the LCA is distasteful, for reasons that I am not old enough to know. Also at the same time using a less penetrative/less damaging version of the HPAR rounds is also not acceptable, so we have a case where a GM is upset that a weapon that is interesting to use is taken form their hands due to miscommunication, and the FM revelation that it hits harder than the GM wanted.

So I guess that covers the "why" of the HPAR, since its targets were traditionally much more dangerous foes than the presently common lineup of PAs and units. It's a weapon of the ASBR's age.

Moving along...

From what I understand, the reason there was complaint about mixing .50cal and 20mm rounds is that the latter has much, much more kinetic energy than the former. A .50cal round to my knowledge will potentially kill someone due to shock even if you hit their limbs. A 20mm isn't likely to leave much that is recognizable by way of a limb, because it has much more propellant and a round of a greater mass. To this end a 20mm would disfigure and ruin a car, were you to shoot a human I do not believe that survival would be likely unless you clipped them, or hit an outer extremity like a hand, maybe. Those who know more about firearms can correct me if I have made a mistake here.

While the above stands, I personally didn't care about having them in the same category, since I am of the opinion that were I to read two weapons of the same class, if the author bothered to write any fluff, I would know that the 20mm round would be much more effective on soft and materiel targets than the .50cal. I would also know that the 20mm is harder to carry around due to being bulkier, and for the average soldier they wouldn't be able to carry much. So even if by the old table they were both Class 3, I would know that while they will both kill a man, and not quite pose a lethal threat to a PA, that the 20mm is the much more effective of the two. Since I would be basing my decision off of the weapon fluff, and not the Class.

To this end, having 3, or 5, Classes per category means nothing to me. I interpret them the same way, and I would fully expect that even with the expanded table that there would be weapons with different effectiveness within the same class. After all at most basic I would treat a plasma weapon as more dangerous than a kinetic round, since even if the plasma weapon misses you, you can still be burned by the heat, where as a 20mm round that fails to hit you will mess up what it hits, instead of you. To this end if you had a kinetic rifle, and a plasma weapon both sitting in Class 5, I would choose the plasma weapon for if I wanted to be sure my target dies, and the kinetic weapon for situations where I want any sort of precision, especially among a crowd.

Basically at the end of all of that wall of text, for the tl;dr I just want a reference that tells me what a single round from my gun will probably kill. I don't care about fussing with ROF, or any of that within the DR page itself. I want weapon authors to tell me how their gun works, not the global submission tax system.
 
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Let me be absolutely clear on a few points.

The HPAR was always the standard issue weapon for the DIoN.

It was always at ADR4 - one step below the ASBR - and will stay there at that level.

The dismay some GMs feel about the disconnect between it's actual lethality and it's RPed lethality are a product of the GMs own efforts.

That although within their rights do not warrant a significant downgrade to a class inappropriate for what it was originally intended to be: a HEAVY anti armor weapon.

Furthermore I take offense to @Fred characterizing my efforts as a "bludgeoning." A piece of tech for the DIoN is set to be misrepresented by a newly revised system.

If my valid concerns are dismissed as just kicking and screaming, that shows a clear disrespect on the part of people conceptualizing it as such - which is a worrying characteristic of such individuals responsible for bringing this system to bear in an amicable way.

The burden of ensuring a smooth and appropriate transition falls on the persons introducing this system to ensure all tech is represented in a way that does not cause a downgrade - something I do not feel is occuring, particularly when certain parties have come forward to declare without any basis in their authority that a piece of tech such as the HPAR is situated "too high" in terms of its damage output.

It's clear to me that this system is utterly failing in smoothly bringing a responsible transition to itself.

Hope that was not too hard of a bludgeoning.
 
I think having 5 categories for weapons would be best. Because even in real life there are at least five 'categories' personnel weapons are used under. You have Low power pistols, then you have high power pistols/magnums, then you have your intermediate rifle rounds(assault rifles) then you have full power rifle rounds(battle rifles), and then you have things that are just plain Overpowered for their target, but still technically meant for use on that. I mean there is a full auto shotgun that can shoot grenades. You also have different levels of armor like 'Not armored' "Lightly armored' 'Medium armor" "Heavy armor" and then once again the 'absurd' for it's rank. If you limit the tiers to only 3 you loose the ability to have the 'absurdly over powered" and the 'Foolishly under powered" Which both exist in the real world and in SARP, but with reasons. "Foolishly underpowered" weapons are cheap, concealable, small, and back ups. Whereas "absurdly overpowered" weapons tend to be unweildy or super expensive. Or in SARPs case a walking PR problem if you don't consider -where- you use it (like firing aether at flesh/lightly armored targets)
 
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