[Rules] Weapon Limitations

[Toshiro]

No, I lose any reasonable ability to include Ke-Z1 missile launchers and have to lose the upgraded launcher system that I developed as a cost saving swap-in component for the Plumeria and Chiaki, which combined dumb down the Plumeria and Chiaki both to previous levels. I'm also irritated enough that the Plumeria and Chiaki are both Tier-1 for their size, but this makes it even worse to deal with. I don't want Tier+3 gun, never cared about Tier+3 Gun, never asked for Tier+3 gun. My plan for a Chiaki variant would have qualified as Tier 11 anyway even if I had gotten to that point.

Yes, I have turrets now. At the cost of every other upgrade made that justified the refit from an armament perspective.

It also means that ships can't be symmetrically armed without center-lined armaments because it was decided to tack in an odd number in a system designed to work with powers of two, meaning that many ships will functionally be "6/3" unless they potentially alter the ship design they wanted in a way that rules like this should not need to intrude in.

 

[META_mahn]

Also because one tiny ship would have far too much armor penetration. With +3, a tiny little frigate can take out a dreadnought with a single well-placed blow. It's, to say, a little dumb to have +3 guns.

With +4 it's even worse. A Plumeria-sized vessel can nuke just about anything in the site.

 

[Zack]

How would a tiny ship have too much armor penetration? At the Tier 12 range your 8 on tier weapons will kill something just as fast as a Tier 15 weapon.

 

[Fred]

@Wes in order to save Toshiro from any distress, we probably ought to put this back to 8/2

Probably better to deal with the extra 2 tier-equivalent-groups as a bonus to what was already there.

The argument on Tier+3 being a thing or not can be made at some other time. Probably on a per-submission basis, even.

 

[META_mahn]

Except they won't. Because the average time to kill will be lowered.

If your first shot kills the enemy, you've won. With multiple small shots you'll have to whittle away the enemy armor until you hit the critical point.

 

[Zack]

@META_mahn Can you walk me through the math here?

firing 8 shots at once from 8 guns would deal 8 on tier worth of damage.

Firing 1 shot from a gun 8x as powerful would deal 8 on tier worth of damage.

What you're talking about is something that isn't even a part of the rules system since there is no accounting for rate of fire in the guidelines. With the exception of a few awesome edge cases like allowing for torpedo-bombers or A-10 style craft its basically the same thing.

 

[Toshiro]

Upon reflection, I have to confess something. My points about the symmetry problem intruding on fundamental ship design and the problems with being forced to exclude missiles (Except in cases where they're apparently strapped to the hull of a ship as if they were a star-fighter, but that never made sense to me) stand. My point about sticking the Plumeria (which at least made sense from an armor standpoint) and even more so the Chiaki (no justification whatsoever aside from "it's smaller than a Plumeria") at one point under Tier for their size also still stands.

But upon reflection, if I wasn't panicking about a year of work being thrown down the drain, I might agree with some of this more readily. if I have to retcon my work, so be it. We can revert to the 2D and such until I figure this mess out. I'd prefer the Chiaki Refit to be brought to the tier it should already be though, which should make it work fine enough after the mutually shared pylon modules are redone to halve their output.

 

[Zack]

That's silly though. Having to throw out a lot of work because the rules weren't clear ahead of time is terrible. You 100% can panic about that. I would even recommend double-panic because it would be so much easier to have the rules fit what the ship builders want to do and then just carry that forward as the fair standard.

If your problem can be solved by just changing one number here, then that is what should be done.

 

[Toshiro]

I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I liked it, but I'm also realizing that I'm being partially selfish. The Plumeria 2E has other things in it that make her worthwhile at least.

 

[Zack]

How is that selfish? You made a cool thing, and the proposed rules break that. The rules are in the wrong here not you.

 

[Rizzo]

I'd like to point out that if a captain knows they're able to be one-hit out of the sky they should probably avoid attrition. Just common sense.
I'd also like to quote the words of the Great Jedi Master Yoda, "size matters not."

A nuke the size of a suitcase can level a small city. I feel like imposing a limit because "it's too powerful" is kinda unfounded since it's never that simple. Every action has an equally opposite reaction. Therefore a tier 10 ship with a tier 15 weapon could realistically only fire once since it'll have a distinct lack of cooling systems and power systems. Flying guns also tend to not survive flanking maneuvers and often forgo armor to make room for oversized components. In the case of these ships I think that moderatorsshould be allowed to simply exercise good judgement.

Really, this whole numbers concept is driving me nuts. Why can't we just trust our moderators to protect the setting were all familiar with?

 

[Toshiro]

Part of the problem is that we're so inefficient with internal space that when a ship comes along that tries to be, it seems broken. Compare the Plumeria to a warship in size, and compare their crew, compliment, and armament. Even when considering added internal space for systems and hardening for use in space, there's a ridiculous disparity -- even when comparing the 2E to them, much less the 2D.

Problem is, this effort is causing more problems in other places now that this rule has been decided.

 

[club24]

Honestly I'm seeing a lot more sense in what rizzo has suggested than these numbers, while you can make equations for everything the time effort and everything else put into it is just going to be more confusing, speaking of which wasn't that a topic we had a while ago?

To provide a simple case irl where this system works i would refer to my workplace where managers are taught how to deal with customer problems which no handbook can twll you exactly how to. Its about case by case judgement and im not saying make everyone happy but educate the ntse if need be to be able to perform this kind of work perhaps.

After all, drv3 is a guideline and its not always the hard and fast deciding factor in rp fights, especially from what I've seen it almost works without it since its gm discretion

 

[Wes]

Fine, we'll do 8 OTWs +2 TEWs. This gives people more flexibility (because you can still do 6+4 or 7+3 etc under the 8+2 rule).

Approved (again).

 

[META_mahn]

@META_mahnfiring 8 shots at once from 8 guns would deal 8 on tier worth of damage.

Firing 1 shot from a gun 8x as powerful would deal 8 on tier worth of damage.

Because if you were looking at it like it was HP, you'd be right. Unfortunately, DRv3 is NOT an HP-based model!

This is where the Robocraft-style physics nerdery that @Arbitrated and I are used to comes into play. In this model of damage, a single shot does NOT deal X damage to your HP bar. Instead, it deals a certain amount of damage to your armor.

"But that's like...the same thing, right?" That's a bad connotation HP-based systems have left in you. Instead of your ship being able to take up to [Tier] of damage, it's moreso that your armor can negate up to [Tier] damage. Also, you forget that all 8 shots are not fully accurate. This means that 8 shots will ping in random places on the enemy craft, but very close together, dealing up to but not guaranteed +3 damage. Meanwhile one +3 shot will hit for all of +3 damage. Each shot weakens your armor a little bit, which might make it so your next hit will be critical.

It's like throwing 10 pounds of lit firecrackers at a wall, vs opening up the 10 firecrackers, making a keg of the explosives, and setting it next to the wall, lighting it, and watching it explode. The damage should theoretically be the same, but since the former case is ever so less focused it'll actually end up doing LESS damage than one big hit. This is shown as how in the damage listing, -4 tiers will do "next to zero damage."

But what's the point over using multiple small guns, then? Accuracy. If you miss your one big shot, you missed your one big shot. Awox your weapons op, he sucks. But if you missed one of your little shots, you might not miss a few others from the spread.

 

[Toshiro]

Under 8+2, I can at least preserve the Plumeria 2E at the cost of the torpedo tubes. It has 1 TEW of Tier 9 turrets, and 15/16ths of a TEW of Tier 7 Turrets... How many 'underslung' torpedoes should it have? Normal Plumeria has two.

 

[META_mahn]

@Toshiro We're still dealing with how the hell to make missiles work. Because on fighters, missiles are awesome. On ships, not so much.

 

[Toshiro]

Yeah. It doesn't help that I have since realized that Ke-Z1s are Tier 12 and not Tier 11. Unless you have a missile boat like the Yuuko, you're not as likely to see launchers on smaller craft with this.

 

[Zack]

You’re pulling in mechanics that aren’t even part of DRv3. If you want to treat your RPs like that then ok, but it isn’t actually part of SARP.

 

[Fred]

It's a pretty informed point of view from where I stand.

This thread is approved and my concerns have been alleviated by the discussion. Thanks for having indulged me.