You know, now that I'm thinking of something on a comparative scale... this could turn up to be not so complicated and remain pretty much the guideline it was before, except there would be a clearer understanding of just what sort of damage 'heavy' damage would stand for here.
Right now, I can think of 2 things to pay attention to for the ships, and that's :
- A Hull value to signify how generally tough and armored the vehicle is. Should work for power armor up to big capital ships...
- A Shield value that would act as a buffer for damage. Damage recieved would be reduced by the shield rating (assuming the ship's shields are in good condition - shield can weaken and should still go down after it's ship takes a significant amount of punishment).
And then, there would be weapons. For the sake of the content of this post, I won't bother with their special abilities (if any) and scale their damage ratings so :
Very Light (1)
Light (2-3)
Moderate (4-6)
Heavy (7-8)
Very Heavy (9)
Massive (10+)
Now, when an actual strike would be made on a vessel with a said weapon, the shield would first come into play, then, the remaining damage would be applied against the hull and we could take that result to judge the probable outcome of an attack based on the difference between the two values. Like so :
Damage caused is...
Negligible if the damage is 4 less than the hull value
Minor if the damage is 2 or 3 less than the hull value
Average if the damage is less than 1 to more than 1 of the hull value
Severe if the damage exceed the hull value by 2 to 3
Crippling if the damage exceeds the hull value by more than 3
So, um, how about I make an example with that?
Attacking ship's weaponry :
- Big Cannon : Heavy Damage (7)
- Not-So-Big Lasers : Moderate Damage (5)
Defending ship's resistances :
- Hull rating : 5
- Shield rating : -2
The attacking ship closes in, opening the battle with a shot of it's Big Cannon. The Big Cannon's shot strikes the defending ship, whamming it hard with a 7 damage value, but the defending ship has shields which reduce that by 2, making the end result a 5... so, the defending ship's shields blunted an attack which could have dealt it grave damage and ends up having the struck part of its hull smoldering and twisted from the hit... but that's better than a hull breach.
The attacking ship turns and makes a broadside attack, firing it's Not-So-Big Lasers at its hated nemesis and scores a few hits. Of course, the defending ship still has its shields up and strong, each hit sees its potential weakened and only minor damage is scored, leaving tracks of superheated scorchmarks on the ship's hull.
I hope this was a good enough example to illustrate what I mean. ^_^ Things is that there'd be a more clearly drawn line inbetween say power armor (hull 1, no shields), scoutships (Hull 3, shield -1), gunships (Hull 5, shield -2) and battleships (Hull 8, shield -4). It takes really beefy weapons to score significant hits on a Chiharu-class flagship, but there'd be no way a Yui-class scoutship would stand up to the same kind of abuse!
I'm just mentioning the basics though. I make no mention of how shields would weaken, of how anti-shield missiles and aether beams would affect them. A very damaged ship's hull rating could even disminished from extended battle (recieving many times moderate or light damage does take it's toll)... but that sort of stuff could very well be left to the GM's interpretation too.
This is meant as a guideline after all XD
