Anti Vehicle Weapon Damage

[shankfisher]

How do you do it without slowing down or halting a game though?

It's the same as ship combat. If ship combat happens your players may be very interested in the details of the outcome. If the details are needed, you have them. If not, you gloss over them until they are needed.

 

[shankfisher]

No, the constant converting between scales is needlessly complicated. One scale for everything. Don't fear large numbers.

Agreed! The right HP formula and damage formula, properly scaled, handles this.

 

[infojunky]

Car doors are harder to shoot through than people think, especially with handguns.

Or more correctly it is a lot harder place a aimed shot through a car door than people think. (Remembering the six slugs from a .38 being dug out from the interior of a CrownVic after a disgruntled ex-employee put a 6 inch grouping through the center of the shield painted on the door of a patrol car). Only one hit the passenger door, the rest where in the dash and passenger seat. Rifle sized rounds don't tumble as much...

Unless you hit hit the engine, drivetrain or fuel tank, it's hard for a bullet to significantly damage a car.

Actually that is more to the point. For years I used the Smallcraft Hit table in Book 2 for vehicles. Recently, I have been using MgT1sted vehicles 5-6 which mostly works...

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Agreed! The right HP formula and damage formula, properly scaled, handles this.

Or just say that broadswords do no damage against Detroit steel.

 

[shankfisher]

Or just say that broadswords do no damage against Detroit steel.

Haha. Lol! If this were true car doors would be better protection than medieval armor.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Haha. Lol! If this were true car doors would be better protection than medieval armor.

In some games, they are. Just depends on the cinematics is all.

Or give the broadsword a super-crit trait that means cars are damaged by the weapon only when a critical success is rolled.

Anyway, it sounds like you're actually ok with broadswords chopping through cars, even if a rare event in a game. Unless your plans for running a Swords and Cadillacs game got derailed while reading MgT2's damage rules. I was able to do it with MgT1 rules. Same broadswords. Same Pintos.

 

[shankfisher]

Anyway, it sounds like you're actually ok with broadswords chopping through cars...

I can't understand how you would think that. I've made my position clear. It's disingenuous to imply otherwise. If you want to handwave actual criticism of the game's pathetic excuse for rules to "cinematics," that's on you. You'd be better served by trying to figure out how to improve it, rather than insist all the critics are just wrong and don't understand "context."

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I can't understand how you would think that. I've made my position clear.

First, you say broadswords shouldn't damage cars. Then you say cars are as weak as plate armor.

If you had anything to do with GURPS Gun Fu, you would know what cinematic refers to.

I gave two house rules for broadswords. MgT2 has a Rule Zero. Technically, that one rule is your fix for things that you don't know the context of.

 

[shankfisher]

First, you say broadswords shouldn't damage cars. Then you say cars are as weak as plate armor.

I said in Mongoose Traveller a sword can destroy a car in one blow, and you asked what sword and which car. I told you. Don't be angry or impatient with me because I answered your question, this is simply what the rules say. Maybe you think that's good, bad, whatever. I also said that "Detroit steel" is not medieval armor, that's just a fact. There's big difference between the two. That does not mean that a single sword blow ought to destroy a car beyond repair.

If you had anything to do with GURPS Gun Fu, you would know what cinematic refers to.

Oh, I was a co-author on GURPS Gun Fu alright, I understand very well what "cinematic" means, but you know those rules in Gun Fu were explicitly "cinematic." Traveller is not. If Mongoose Traveller is, it ought to say so on the tin. Alas, it does not. Buyers have an expectation of verisimilitude. But hey, throwing rocks at or punching a car will destroy it in 3-4 few hits, too. I love those cinematics...in a superhero game. Pretty awesome, huh? Mongoose Traveller is a cinematic superhero game. Wow.

I gave two house rules for broadswords. MgT2 has a Rule Zero. Technically, that one rule is your fix for things that you don't know the context of.

I don't think you know what "context" means, and mouth breathing all over the thread like I'm just uninformed isn't making you look good. I don't think you understand that the problem is bigger than swords (which you seem obsessed with). The problem is that most 2d-3d weapons in the game will kill a vehicle in one or two hits. This means the rules don't work. Simple as that. Yes, of course they can be changed by a GM, and everyone knows this. I couldn't care less about the house rules you seem to think make the problem go away, as this discussion is about how broken the published rules are in the first place. Which is why you are continually posting on this thread, because it irks you that I'm pointing it out. I suggested earlier you ought to move on, or really try to understand the problem. You want to make it about the messenger. It's not a good look for you, bud.

 

[kilemall]

This isn't a bad idea. But there are a couple of half steps that muck up the process. In that common commercial and light vehicles are as easily damaged by smallarms as people are. And Smallcraft which are much more vulnerable to fire than a starship.

Sure, I'm just trying to make it as simple as possible within the context of desired MgT simplicity.

The tiered thing was suggested by both CT Striker's difference between melee and gun personal armor, and by the starship scale in MgT. The mechanics I suggested could no doubt be improved, it was just a quick one off to illustrate a potential approach that didn't break all the published stats.

CT Striker largely will deal with civilian vehicles vs. military, just a little bit of plate will stop most personal weapons short of the HEAT/EW variety.

This is less theoretical for me gamewise then one might think at first blush. One of my little side projects is upgrading the melee weapons with high tech materials to three design ends-

• Ultralight allowing weaker characters to wield melee weapons without the STR hits
• Same form factor as steel versions but high tech material giving more penetration
• Doubled weight coupled with high tech material for BD-equipped troops to do truly awesome damage

This is mostly aimed at anti-personnel use, sort of a sidearm without batteries/ammo and answering what a Marine service cutlass actually is.


But inevitably someone is going to want to use a BD-polearm as a tank can opener and I have to have answers for that.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

But inevitably someone is going to want to use a BD-polearm as a tank can opener and I have to have answers for that.

Ha! Yep.

 

[aramis]

Unless you hit hit the engine, drivetrain or fuel tank, it's hard for a bullet to significantly damage a car.

Heavier small arms (.50 BMG) can do a lot. And you missed a few key elements:

• break the rack of the rack and pinion
• Break the steering column

For anything where pressure integrity is important, popping the capsule is itself a vital element, too.

 

[Brandon C]

And you missed a few key elements:

• break the rack of the rack and pinion
• Break the steering column

For anything where pressure integrity is important, popping the capsule is itself a vital element, too.

Most vehicle damage systems cover these under "suspension" if it addresses them at all. "Powertrain" is often subsumed in "power plant" or "suspension".

 

[McPerth]

Well, for MgT (at least 1E) vehicle combat Works as space combat (xd6-armour and the table for damages).

A ground car has armor 6 (as cloth), 3 hull and 2 sructure. I don't see so easy to destory it on one single sword (or handgun) hit, though it can be chiped by several of them (but the idea of destroying a car with several axe hits, not to talk about swords, don't seems too wrong to me)...

OTOH, retourning to the OP question (I undertand it was about MGT2300AD, and so MgT1E):

A German LkPzIX has armor 90-150 (depending on the zone hit), while its gun makes 16d6 mega AP. In the anti-armor ammunition section, I don't find mega AP, but super AP means it ignroes double the number of damage dice points of armor (so it would ignore 32 points of armor).

If it is so, armor would be 58 in the thinest parts of the tank, so allowing for the possibility to damage it (as 16d6 may mean up to 96).

If mega AP means even increased reduction of armor, it escalates even more...

It's true that grenade launchers are at most (HEAP) 6d6 AP (so reducing armor by 6 points), anti vehicle missiles are at most 9d6 super AP (so ignoring 18 points of armor) and Plasma guns are at máximum 14d6 (they are not markes as any AP, but I guess they should), so the tank is imprevious to them...

BUt this thak is one of the most advanced ones, and combat walkers are armor 22, while other AFVs hav armor ranges of 24-48 (Kangaroo APC) or 70-120 (AC 8)...

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Amusingly, this vehicle combat problem and several others were brought up during the playtest of MgT2e and were ignored.

 

[Brandon C]

Doing some quick math, it appears that in MgT 1e starship armor is 15x vehicle armor, at the same percentage of the hull and armor type.

So, for example, a grav tank railgun fired at a starship would either (1) divide railgun damage by 15 or (2) multiply starship armor by 15. If the starship fired back with a laser, the laser damage would be multiplied by 15 or grav tank armor divided by 15.

 

[McPerth]

Doing some quick math, it appears that in MgT 1e starship armor is 15x vehicle armor, at the same percentage of the hull and armor type.

So, for example, a grav tank railgun fired at a starship would either (1) divide railgun damage by 15 or (2) multiply starship armor by 15. If the starship fired back with a laser, the laser damage would be multiplied by 15 or grav tank armor divided by 15.

And yet the conversión factor is stated at 50...

 

[aramis]

Amusingly, this vehicle combat problem and several others were brought up during the playtest of MgT2e and were ignored.

These and many other issues. It's almost as if Mongoose wants an echoing chorus of "good job" and ignores everything else. Several much more important items required "Summon Marc" to get fixed.

In the end, it's like much else by Mongoose - just good enough to play, but with over the top attempts at "pretty". Style over substance.

(The key exception seems to have been Conan d20.)

 

[Brandon C]

And yet the conversión factor is stated at 50...

For those playing at home, I used the armor tables on p.106 of the core rules and p.12 of Supplement 6, calculating the armor value at 5% of hull devoted to armor. This was easy for TL10 and TL14 armor, but required some manipulation at TL7. The core rules lists titanium alloy, which does not appear in S6. It does have light alloys, but at TL6. This seems a better match than TL7 advanced composites. The rough average ratio of the starship numbers to vehicle numbers is 15:1.

 

[McPerth]

For those playing at home, I used the armor tables on p.106 of the core rules and p.12 of Supplement 6, calculating the armor value at 5% of hull devoted to armor. This was easy for TL10 and TL14 armor, but required some manipulation at TL7. The core rules lists titanium alloy, which does not appear in S6. It does have light alloys, but at TL6. This seems a better match than TL7 advanced composites. The rough average ratio of the starship numbers to vehicle numbers is 15:1.

I may undertand this, but MgT1E LBB1: Mercenary is quite clear for rules in page 73 (Ground Forces versus Starships) in that the factor used is 50 (though infantry scale fighting against a starship adds damage to a point, so enough laser pistos might even damage a Spaceship ).

Of course your House RUles are out of it, and they may even be more acurate in other senses...