Weapon v. Armor Competition

[apoc527]

Thomas Rux-

Good point about the meson guns (that would be overkill too), but I'm more curious about battledress specifically. After all, it's glorified combat armor, not a real "vehicle." I think I might go with a half to SI, half to Lifeblood rule since the person is going to take up a lot of room inside the battledress and the BD systems themselves will be spread out over the whole thing.

My experience with Traveller is limited to GURPS (though I own TNE and T4) but I'm just trying to figure out if a BD armored marine can survive a direct hit from another marine's FGMP. In GURPS, this would be impossible (IIRC).

Anyway, I think I'll test out some of the rules I've found on here. (Oh, also I'm thinking of the picture in T4 FF&S with the marines shooting their PGMP's. One marine has been hit and his entire torso, including armor, has been reduced to a steaming goo. Is that the proper power of PGMP's or can you keep going after being hit with one?)

 

[justacaveman]

Due to it's simplicity I prefer Secret Cow's fix.

1/2 Stamina damage to character's wearing rigid armor seems to cover the problem of hits with small weapons on heavy armor.
And Rather than bypassing all armor on a critical hit, I would halve the AR (round down) on fully-enclosed armors. No miracle shots with .22's if you please.

 

[apoc527]

I'm inclined to go with Darth Sillyus's suggestions. They are just as simple as the 1/2 damage vs rigid armor, and actually cuts the calculations by one, since you have to do the Lifeblood damage anyway.

It's not usually going to be relevent, but I'd add that plasma guns do full stamina damage to anyone not in sealed armor. That's basically overkill though.

 

[justacaveman]

Note: In the standard D20 rules, damage multipliers increase the number of dice rolled and multiplies bonus points. You do not multiply the result of a roll.

Example: 2d10+2 with a x2 Critical hit result = 4d10+4, not (2d10+2)x2.

 

[Vladimir]

Battle dress is way to effective, given the fact that it is a vehicle. The gauss rifle with a 10 round burst only does 1d12-1(1) damage applied to a AR of 10(2). You have to roll a 12 just to do 1 point of SI. When you consider that it has an AC of 24, you have a higher chance of getting lucky on a critical and hitting the pilot, but wait, since battle dress is a vehicle the driver can wear armor wich is applied to any damage he takes.(section 8, page 165, driver/pilot).
On a side note, in the vehicle design rules, armor can be applied up to the vehicles tl. I don't get it. How can a suit of tl 13 battle dress have more armor than say a tl 10 main battle tank. There needs to be a balance that accounts for size.

(1) 2d12 base damage + 3d12 for 10 round burst - 5 die reduction for targeting a vehicle
pages 149, 151, and 200
(2) section 13 page 286

 

[justacaveman]

How good the armor material is would be irrelevant to a person in a few hundred kilograms of Battle Dress being hit by the 120mm main gun of an M1 Abrahms battle tank. At a minimum, the poor fellow will be launched into the next county!

I use the following rule:

The Maximum AR of a vehicle = The Maximum AR by Tech Level - the Size Factor of the vehicle.

The Size Factor of a vehicle = The maximum possible vehicle size - the actual vehicle size.

Example: TL-13 Battle Dress
Size: Large
Maximum AR by Tech Level: 13
Size Factor: 3 (Colossal - Large = 3 steps)
Maximum AR: 10

This is not a perfect fix, but is quick and easy to use.

 

[justacaveman]

I also use the the following modified scale rules:

The Scale Factor = 6 - the Size Factor

Example:

Example: TL-13 Battle Dress
Size: Large
Size Factor: 3 (Colossal - Large = 3 steps)
Scale Factor: 3 (6-3)

Normally the scale factor is always 5 for personal weapons vs vehicles of any size.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Jim Bunk:
How can a suit of tl 13 battle dress have more armor than say a tl 10 main battle tank. There needs to be a balance that accounts for size.

Either you could say it a better Armor (not just *thicker* but a better alloy or you could just compensate by reducing the AR depending on size (ex: huge = +4, large = +2 normal = +0, small = -2, tiny = -4)

Anyway, for me I`d say it`s better Armor alloy & design. Compare the Modern Humvee to WWI Tanks.