Solid Ammunition Damage Ratings

[Syaoran]

Looking at this thread I noticed somehting, and it probably needs to be calrified. @Wes continues to say things like "Normal Pistols ammo" but everyone is taking it as "All pistol ammo". So I think we need some clarification on what he means by "Normal pistol"

I personally agree with the numbers given, if by normal Wes means 'average'. Most pistol ammo should be T1, but there are some rounds that would be higher that still are 'conventional' like the .50AE or some 10mm and above. While there are rifle rounds that should be weaker than T2 that are 'conventional' (I'm looking at you .22LR).

So yeah I think the numbers work if it's 'average' and not 'all', but I also have a question, where does this put shotguns? I mean personally I think shotguns depending on teh ammo type could be anywhere between T1 and T4 no problem.

 

[HarperMadi]

While shotguns are nasty at close to medium range. the real danger in them comes from the sheer variety of ammunition for them, from birdshot to buck, hollowpoinr slugs and Diablo pellets, straight through armor penetrating discarding sabots (APDS), incindiary, and other exotic ammunition.

This isn't even counting the less than lethal classics like rock salt and beanbags.

 

[HarperMadi]

Oh, hey, forgot to ask. Due to the HAR1-1's ablative T5 impacts (On targets not moving laterally above 30km/hr), and T2 rounds, is it still within the rules, despite being an exotic rail class weapon firing exotic ammunition at an extremely high ROF?

 

[raz]

Seems to me that the point of this ruling is that, on the DR scale we use, the damage potential of the ammunition and explosives commonly found in real life is limited to DR 1, 2, or 3. Sure, individual rounds within each tier might have differing wound patterns, but ultimately are so similar that the minutiae is lost within our scale.

Basically: Luger 9mm, 10mm auto, and .45 ACP are all going to do essentially the same thing even though the wound pattern is different in-narrative.

 

[HarperMadi]

I still think that an M67 fragmentation grenade, which has a kill radius of five meters, injury radius of fifteen, and danger of up to 250 meters, is going to be a lot more harmful to most PA systems than a mere tier 3. Especially considering an M67 fragmentation grenade is quite happily capable of immobilizing modern main battle tanks and armored fighting vehicles.

Ever wonder why the US military is so afraid of IEDs? Explosives are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture, and their high gaseous expansion rates make stopping death or injury very difficult even in heavily armored applications. Combined with high velocity shrapnel thrown alongside the initial blat wave and I don't think a hand grenade should be tier 3. It should be Tier 4 or 5. If you're not wearing power armor and are within five meters when that thing goes off, you are dead. If you are in power armor, your shit just got rocked so hard your grandkids felt it. And your day is going to suck.

 

[Alex Hart]

We can’t be completely realistic all the time, and damage is at best an approximation. Plus, since most PA use super-futuristic materials, grenades aren’t a lethal threat. Tier 3 makes sense for grenades, even if they can disable unshielded vehicles and knock a PA of its feet.

DR is measured by killing potential. A grenade wouldn’t outright destroy a PA or an armored vehicle. However, we’re talking about killing potential for solid munitions and that brings me to the point of a storm rifle.

Individually, how lethal is a single shot (not a burst)? Like a pistol shot or a rifle shot?

As for bursts, you’ve always described them as hitting as hard or less hard than a grenade, so they should be at best normal to high tier 3, even if they can kill unshielded armored targets through weight of fire.

 

[Syaoran]

I still think that an M67 fragmentation grenade, which has a kill radius of five meters, injury radius of fifteen, and danger of up to 250 meters, is going to be a lot more harmful to most PA systems than a mere tier 3. Especially considering an M67 fragmentation grenade is quite happily capable of immobilizing modern main battle tanks and armored fighting vehicles.

Ever wonder why the US military is so afraid of IEDs? Explosives are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture, and their high gaseous expansion rates make stopping death or injury very difficult even in heavily armored applications. Combined with high velocity shrapnel thrown alongside the initial blat wave and I don't think a hand grenade should be tier 3. It should be Tier 4 or 5. If you're not wearing power armor and are within five meters when that thing goes off, you are dead. If you are in power armor, your shit just got rocked so hard your grandkids felt it. And your day is going to suck.

I get what you're saying here, but remember the DRv3 has allowances for, but does not quantify 'critical hits'. So a GM would be allowed to say a well placed grenade incapacitated a tank in 'one shot'. The Tier damage is supposed to be a dead on 'generic' hit.

It's also worth mentioning that teh damage is only the damage to the armor. The armor coudl take the hit and be just fine, but the systems inside the PA could be damaged or the pilot have blacked out from getting jostled around.

 

[FrostJaeger]

@HarperMadi - In my opinion (based upon my personal intepretation of how DRv3 works with grenades), the reason grenades are “only” Tier 3 is because for something like a fragmentation grenade, each individual sliver - not the entire explosion, each one of the fragments - is treated as a separate Tier 3 “projectile.” Could something like, say, a Mindy or a Raider withstand a hand grenade exploding next to them? Yes - but that many impacts is going to effectively disable (or at least severely damage) the power armor.

 

[Alex Hart]

Assuming it’s unshielded, they’ll wreck a PA’s joints and sensors if most fragments hit vulnerable areas.

 

[Kai]

We're kind of getting off topic- the point was that, a conventional, normal-sized pistol, of a commonly found caliber, such as 10mm KZ, should only be tier one. this isn't counting exotic ammunition, shotguns, or dedicated anti-material weapons. you can still have your massive .50BMG bear hunting pistol do tier 3 damage, it's just going to have crappy range, but it isn't exactly conventional in that it's not a pocket sized pistol meant for self defense against unarmored personnel.

same thing with the hunting rifles- a basic .223 or 5.56 rifle isn't terrifically more powerful than a generic pistol but it is enough to boost it into T2, but again, that .50BMG DMR or some crazy 25mm anti-tank rifle will probably hit that T3 mark, especially if you move from a solid conventional round to something more exotic like a plasma shell or something with say a DU penetrator, etc.

 

[Syaoran]

That's why I wanted to see if @Wes would confirm what he meant by 'Normal' Pistol and Rifle rounds. Cause there are some 'conventional' rounds that shouldn't be the same tier as the rest in their class. Just because they're specifically under or over powered. So I wanted to see if it was 'All' or 'Average'

 

[HarperMadi]

@FrostJaeger One of the major problems I see with this especially given the current behavior and misinterpretation of the DR system is that people will see a fragmentation grenade at tier three and have their tier 5 heavy power armor laugh it off rather than taking any kind of damage, or a tier 6 unarmored car. That's not how this works.

Rhinohiding behind a 2-up tier bonus isn't not taking damage at all. It's just that it takes more rounds to put that down.

If I may offer a solution, a 2-down hit reduces the target's damage capacity by one full tier for each strike. This still allows well placed grenades to kill power armor, and allows them to be doing that at tier 3. It also makes any kind of shrapnel or shotgun a lot more dangerous in close quarters, and prompts people to move around a lot in combat, forcing subsequent hits to be off target.

This comes from my BCT brief on the IOTV that we wear for combat and training. It'll stop a 7.62. Hell, it will stop two or three shots. After that, it gets chancy, as the plate is too damaged to provide adequate protection. I believe the same concept should be written into the rules for damage rating.

 

[Alex Hart]

By the way, I was thinking and I don't really think it's reasonable for the SR to be doing tier 5 damage. I think tier 4 at best is where it ought to be, though considering that you often describe it hitting like a grenade would, maybe tier 3 is more accurate. Tier 3 or 4 is where it probably should be, not tier 5.

 

[raz]

people will see a fragmentation grenade at tier three and have their tier 5 heavy power armor laugh it off rather than taking any kind of damage ... That's not how this works.

That's exactly how it works. A Mindy — and most actual power armors in-setting — could take quite a few T3 hits and weather them just fine (though the concussive force should be narrated properly). Plus, the GM can dictate whatever damage to characters that they want.

 

[Syaoran]

That's exactly how it works. A Mindy — and most actual power armors in-setting — could take quite a few T3 hits and weather them just fine (though the concussive force should be narrated properly). Plus, the GM can dictate whatever damage to characters that they want.

I think the point Madi is getting at is that a grenade isn't something that a PA or vehicle can just shake off, but putitng it at T3 would make that the case.

 

[HarperMadi]

That's exactly how it works. A Mindy — and most actual power armors in-setting — could take quite a few T3 hits and weather them just fine (though the concussive force should be narrated properly). Plus, the GM can dictate whatever damage to characters that they want.

Again, that's bullshit and you know why. Shrapnel and concussive force are not something to be taken lightly. Tier 3 bullets, sure. Not a grenade. @Syaoran has my thought process down. A MINDY SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO TAKE A GRENADE LIKE IT'S NOTHING. The pilot's hurt, his armor's damaged, and his weapons are fried. AT A MINIMUM.

I see any kind of genade hit on PA and I expect to see incoherent cursing, blood, armor fragments, missing auxiliary equipment, broken shit, and one pissed off, wounded pilot.

 

[Alex Hart]

Actually, it depends on the tier of the target. A tier 3 grenade on an unshielded tier 4 target would do heavy damage (but probably not lethal) on average. A tier 3 grenade on an unshielded tier 5 target would do moderate damage (but not lethal) on average. It all depends on shields being down though, and for vehicles it depends on how the GM plays it out.

All of these damages though are obviously subject to how the GM plays them out and they're a guide, but so long as you down the shields on a PA it won't just shrug it off like it's nothing. It probably won't be a kill, but there's stuff in DRv3 right there that tells you what's going on. Now that we've addressed those concerns which were frankly unfounded given that there's something already in DRv3 that addresses that just fine, we can move onto figuring out where the Storm Rifle should be.

 

[Legix]

I think the point Madi is getting at is that a grenade isn't something that a PA or vehicle can just shake off, but putitng it at T3 would make that the case.

If grenades are T3, then they definitively would no do impact. I said on the Discord when I saw the discussion as to why it makes sense, however.

• T3 ammunition is designed to punch through armor that is below the PA grade; grenades would logically be T3 unless they were PA-sized or anti-PA grenades. These grenades would specifically be T4 or higher. But standard infantry grenades being T3 should not harm PA unless bundled (just like you'd need to be firing T3 weapons en masse) to overwhelm PA.

I think it's reasonable that most personnel grenades on SARP fall under T3; most of them are glorified/sci-fi'd HE replacements. And as we tried to beat into someone's head, there should be no reason a squad of infantry should be able to engage a squad of PA. Giving them grenades that allow them to 1-1 or 1-2 equal PA is simply absurd and makes no sense with the existence of PA as a buffer between infantry and heavier vehicles. If PA was that soft, then they wouldn't exist.

All of this is still moot regardless; there's almost no reason for a PA to get hit by a grenade thrown by infantry because of how fast they are. But assuming they are, I see no reason why most PA couldn't stomp or facetank infantry grenades with little or even no damage; shields come back online for most PA very rapidly as well. The basic trauma systems of PA are also built to endure forces generally much stronger than most grenades and to handle far more hazadous scenarios (see THE ENTIRETY OF SPACE).

This is honestly another part of the problem with this forced change; we're sitting here acting as if what in sci-fi and most representations is "the death of squads" as if infantry squads could rationally go "we're taking this PA down" with anything but a dedicated anti-PA weapon.

That's not story; it's just being silly for the sake of making PA appear as a glorified heavy personnel suit. Moderate Damage or even Heavy Damage wouldn't be losing limbs or hands; it'd be shearing away parts of armor or denting it. Lethal damage is where we start seeing "swiss cheesing"/functionality loss. PA is meant to be strong; this is why for years it dominated and blurred the line (through RP) with most mecha. It's not supposed to be THAT strong but treating it as if a squad could grenade a PA to death is just silly.

That's exactly how it works. A Mindy — and most actual power armors in-setting — could take quite a few T3 hits and weather them just fine (though the concussive force should be narrated properly). Plus, the GM can dictate whatever damage to characters that they want.

This guy gets it right here.

 

[SirSkully]

I wish there was a reason to argue all of this, I really do but Wes isn't going to change his point on this and that sucks.

 

[Wes]

Seems to me that the point of this ruling is that, on the DR scale we use, the damage potential of the ammunition and explosives commonly found in real life is limited to DR 1, 2, or 3. Sure, individual rounds within each tier might have differing wound patterns, but ultimately are so similar that the minutiae is lost within our scale.

Basically: Luger 9mm, 10mm auto, and .45 ACP are all going to do essentially the same thing even though the wound pattern is different in-narrative.

Right.

I was asked to clarify what normal ammunition meant and I mean a typically-sized self-propelled ammunition cartridge (e.g. 9mm Parabellum) equivalent to the IRL Earth's pistols which can be fired safely from a firearm by average humans. It doesn't include cartridges so strong only Nekovalkyrja can fire them safely or railguns or unconventional weapons.

Again, the reason why conventional rounds have DR ratings is because they can be fired by various weapons and generally the damage is the same.

1. It wouldn't make sense for multiple 10mm guns in SARP (e.g. the GSP and the MPP of Yamatai) to have different damage ratings.
2. Ammo is its own weapon if you're some sort of guerilla terrorist. For example, many IEDs are made with old tank rounds and stuff. You can even fire a round with a metal tube and a nail (this was used in booby traps in Vietnam IIRC).