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guide:damage_rating_v3

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Fred's Damage Rating Revision

Because Fred was tired of the complaints on the present damage rating system, he decided to start working on a new system which would serve as a better guide to support the narrative of the Star Army Role Play.

Pardon the dust. This is being done on the fly.

Offensive/Defensive Class

Class Purpose Defensive Example Offensive Example
Personnel
1 Light Personnel / Anti-Personnel Stab Proof Vest 9mm or .45 Cal Pistol
2 Medium Personnel / Anti-Personnel Steenplast Everyday Armor GP-1, NSP T-33 , M3 Assault Weapon System
3 Heavy Personnel / Anti-Personnel Golem Assault Armor, Durandium Everyday Armor Impaler Beam Rifle, .50 Caliber HMG, 25mm Anti-Material Rifle
Power Armor
4 Light Armor / Anti-Armor M2-A1 Mindy, M1 Demon LASR, 35mm Machine Gun
5 Medium Armor / Anti-Armor M6 Daisy, M2-2D Mindy 50mm Gauss Cannon (Single), HPAR
6 Heavy Armor / Anti-Armor M8 Hostile, Ripper, T-33 Battlepod Assault Ordinance Projector, 50mm Gauss Cannon (3-Rnd Burst), Zesuaium Katana, Aether Beam Saber-Rifle (Rifle)
Vehicle
7 Light Vehicle / Anti-Vehicle Aggressor, Jinsoku Musha, V6 Hayabusa, M9 TASHA 125mm Gauss Cannon, Turbo Aether Cannon, MCPA Cannon, Aether Beam Saber-Rifle (Saber)
8 Medium Vehicle / Anti-Vehicle Erla VANDR II, Ravager, V9 Nodachi -
9 Heavy Vehicle / Anti-Vehicle - VT Sword
Starship
10 Ultra-Light Ship / Anti-Ship Corvettes, Yui-7 Scout -
11 Light Ship / Anti-Ship Chiaki Escort-Destroyer -
12 Medium Ship / Anti-Ship Cruisers, Plumeria Gunship -
13 Heavy Ship / Anti-Ship Super Eikan Heavy Cruiser -
14 Super Heavy Ship / Anti-Ship Sharie Battleship, Primus Battleship -
15 Ultra Heavy Ship / Anti-Ship Dreadnoughts -

Lethality

When you design a weapon to be able to effectively kill something, then when used you expect it to succeed at that task.

Therefore, when using a light anti-personnel weapon on a lightly protected person, a successful hit can potentially kill the target. It doesn't mean it will, as striking a limb - barring health complications such as shock or bleeding - will be less immediately fatal than going for the heart or brain.

Diminishing / Increasing Lethality

A weapon's purpose designates what expected target it is meant to be lethal to. That doesn't mean, however, that it will be ineffective when used against a hardier target. The reverse is also true: it can be that much more deadly if used on a softer target than its intended design.

Weapon Class vs Target Outcome
4 Below Negligible (nothing significant)
3 Below Light damage (12.5% of expected damage)
2 Below Moderate Damage (25% of expected damage)
1 Below Heavy Damage (50% of expected damage)
Equal Potentially lethal
1 Above Potentially lethal (150% of expected damage)
2 Above Quite lethal (200% of expected damage)
3 Above Very lethal (300% of expected damage)
4 Above Assuredly lethal (instant destruction)

This said, this sets power armor like the Mindy to still do its job of protecting its wearer against anti-personnel weapons… but this does not make being peppered upon by smallarms or anti-personnel grenades a trivial matter.

Weapons achieving larger lethality could very well spell the end of a target despite not hitting in a critical location. A man struck in the shoulder by an aether saber-rifle could be vaporized on hit. If you're a power armor stuck in the blast radius of an anti-starship torpedo, that's probably it for you too.

Protection

No, not that kind of protection. Shame on you for thinking dirty thoughts.

Armor

Having extra armor effectively doesn't help much except designate the 'class' of the target.

The nature of vehicles

Being in a vehicle, in itself, also lends a degree of protection to the user. A power armor may endure under fire without breach, and slowly deteriorate/ablate to a point where its breakdown will eventually threaten the wearer on subsequent harm. This is generally done by weaponry under the class-value of the machine.

Shielding

Shielding, in turn, is the plot tool that likely provides GMs with the ability to lend players a certain level of 'recoverable crunchability' when under fire from similar-tier opponents.

“Shield Class” indicates the kind of abuse they are made to withstand at the utmost, while “Shield Endurance” indicates how much of that they can soak up.

In general, most vehicles with good-shielding will be equipped with same-class shields with an Endurance of 2. This is based on the level of lethality displayed by Wes during the Sakura plot. This means that a potentially ship-killing hit will be able to be soaked up by the shielding.

“Shield Endurance” as a number can count fractions as shown above in dimishing/increasing lethality. Excess damage the shield cannot handle will bleedthrough to what the shield was protecting.

To make it more simple, shields usually go from full strength to half-strength when something that could kill a player hits him. It's like the equivalent of two extra lives; though the shield doesn't discriminate on a hit that would've been truly lethal (head, chest) and one that might not have been (limbs).

Shield recovery is usually a matter of player action, depending on opportunities left by both equipment and Game Master;

For power armor, ducking under cover for a little while or shunting capacitor power to the shield generator could help it recover. Full-endurance recovery is recommended. Generally, GMs want players back in the action quickly, it's a good way of rewarding players for being cautious, depending on teamwork for cover, or loadout selection.

For larger vehicles such as starships, shield recovery can be a matter of reinforcing one shield facing at the expense of another, or redistributing power from certain ship systems to compensate for ailing shielding. Using reserve power can also yield such a benefit. This is a facet ideally left to player intervention, as there are few ways to do damage control in a fast paced battle and shield reinforcement/restoration could be one way to do it.

Conversion considerations

Rate of Fire?

Lethality here is being considered per-shot. The damage potential for weaponry that has a very rate of fire is something that's unique to the weapon and its submission process.

This said, if a weapon was made to cause damage to a 'light armor' (Class 4) on multiple hits, it was probably meant to be a weaker weapon than “Light Anti-Armor”.

Weapons and what can use them

Before, an unit's class level created a certain expectation as to what kind of weapon it could field. Following this revision, this would be loosened.

It's entirely possible today to have infantry use anti-materiel rifles to be able to shoot and damage/cripple tanks. Following this real world example shows that today's infantry might very well be wielding (Class 6) “Heavy Anti-Armor” weaponry.

The same could be said within our roleplay, where we expect the KFY-produced Aether Saber-Rifle to be able to cut holes through a ship's hull; this may solidly situate them in the (Class 7) “Light Anti-Mecha” category - in turn making them dangerous even to the larger Mishhuvurthyar mecha.

The same can be said for limited-use weaponry such as grenades. A person can carry a number of anti-personnel grenade and use them for a far larger level of lethality than most other anti-personnel weapons offer.

Missiles/torpedoes on fightercraft usually see the same notion, making bombing runs on larger vessels a realistic threat.

The reverse is also true.

Let's take the Plumeria-class gunship for example.

Plumeria weapon complement brainstorm

It's built around a singular weapon: its aether shock array. Since “pocket battleship” is bandied about, I've no problem thinking that this is meant - especially when used in squadrons - to actually be something that can potentially sink heavy cruisers and battleships. I'd set it as a (Class 13) “Light Anti-Capital” weapon.

The two railguns on its wings strike me more as its dogfighting weapons against ship of a similar-size class. Weave around, get a good firing solution, pew pew and expect it to hurt or die. This kind of slates those as (Class 11) “Medium Anti-Starship” weapons.

The turreted anti-ship cannons, though, don't have me as convinced of that. They pivot, they've a good range of fire, and just giving them equal potency to the pylon railguns just seems to lack in character. No. When I close my eyes to imagine those, I expect them to be serious business against starships, but without being the one-hit KO expected from the pylon railguns. I see those gutting shuttles open, though (and I'm not talking small shuttlecraft here). So, I'd set them as (Class 9) “Heavy Anti-Mecha” weaponry.

The smaller anti-armor weapons I believe were meant as a direct counter to Mishhu battlepods, as well as some extra duty to shoot down power armor and incoming missiles. I don't think a power armor, when hit by that, should really expect to survive unless it has pristine/extremely good armor & shielding. As such, I'd make them (Class 7) “Light Anti-Mecha” weaponry.

The two torpedoes the Plumeria can carry are weapons I expect to directly supplement the ship-killing firepower it can bring to bear with its traditionally slow-charging railguns. They're Z-1s, and not the classical AS-7s (which in my mind would be more for anti-capital bombing). I'm kind of thinking the anti-matter versions would do as much as the positron railguns themselves, so thet'd be (Class 11) “Medium Anti-Starship” warheads too.I see their value as breaking the fire rate/lethality limit/charge time the Plumeria has to make it especially good at what it is: an interceptor that swiftly brings down nimble warships ships or can perform devastatingly (for its size) brief hit-and-run strike on a heavier target without having the extra mass of a full torpedo loadout.


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guide/damage_rating_v3.1440062370.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/12/20 15:49 (external edit)