mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Not sufficiently to cause critical hits to the officers through the vests?
What works? How are ships and vehicles armed?
- Thread starter Badenov
- Start date
That, I have no specific information on. All I know is training videos seen some time ago. But ballistics videos on youtube show bullets failing to penetrate bulletproof vests but still breaking ribs in test dummies. That sounds like a critical hit to me, though since we're not talking about spacecraft, the analogy is imperfect. You are of course welcome to houserule things as you like.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
So in high guard terms the weapon is penetrating, causing an "internal explosion".
No, because the Merville Battery and Pointe du Hoc are too large to get size criticals.
You also might want to check on the propagation speed of a shockwave. I think it exceeds your 6G's
And you're getting all this from GDW's failure to update the USP form in the shift from HG79 to HG81 and move armor to a different section?
Could it be possible that they overlooked it? Didn't want to interfere with established USP's already in print? Didn't think it mattered because the tables had all been removed? Are none of these remotely plausible?
By the way, this is the first time I have ever seen this interpretation in 35+ years of playing Traveller and talking to other Traveller fans. If it was at common an interpretation you'd think there'd have been a memorable flamewar or three on the matter on the TML back in the day, but I don't recall any.
Ironically, what you're describing is the normal function of the damage table: a degree of parity between weapon and armor. So, in this example what is your idea of a spinal weapon comparable to the handgun/ballistic vest example? A small caliber antitank gun? A speeding bus? How does armor react to those?
Inertial compensators absorb the shock? So all craft, large and small, civvie and military have 6G mil-spec compensators? Where are these documented? What happens when you splash your Type-S in the ocean? Is it possible that some of the damage comes from overloaded compensators failing under the strain?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
There is a mechanism for damage to go from surface to internal to critical - something that no factor 9 battery can achieve except the nuclear missile. if damage is pushed off the table with no effect then no effect means no effect - it does not mean "no effect apart from the criticals that cause no normal damage, not even SE->IE->Crit, but somehow can still vapourise a ship"
No effect means no effect. I'm not going to change your mind, you are not going to change mine, or the others I have actually fought HG battles with.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I have already stated the same thing.
Up to 6G ... I seem to remember from accident data that an Automobile Crash can involve over 100 G of force ... so Acceleration Compensation would reduce it to 94 G of acceleration/deceleration felt by the occupant. That equates to hitting a wall at 940 m/s instead of 1000 m/s ... will it make a difference?
The argument IS more substantive than that.
Giving credit where Credit is due:
- HG does say Criticals apply to attacks that "hit and penetrate defenses"
- HG does identify ARMOR as a defense in places other than just the ship form.
- There WAS an explicit armor penetration in the HG 79 rules, and an implied Armor penetration in the Damage Table with the "no effect" result based on armor factor modifiers.
I was responding to this: (My edits in BOLD)
But you are correct and I withdraw the assertion. Please feel free to edit the post to include this retraction if you wish.
It is not a problem, I just wanted to maintain civil discussion without it appearing to degrade to oversimplifications of what the OTHER PERSON believes (a common problem in all debates).
With respect to that particular point (the location of the box in the USP), you make a very valid point. That is not a rock to build a castle upon, just a pebble to step over (it had to go somewhere).
Since Mr. Wrightman won't help me with this question, maybe someone else will:
What am I looking for, muzzle energy of a 9mm? And then weapons that are x10, x100, x1000?
Is this a valid comparison?
Thanks in advance.
Any firearms/physics wonks out there?
What am I looking for, muzzle energy of a 9mm? And then weapons that are x10, x100, x1000?
Is this a valid comparison?
Thanks in advance.
So if I hit a 10-ton fighter with 15 armor with a 100-ton particle beam bay, which if I read the chart on page 24 correctly does damage code 9, and hit per step 5B on page 46 and penetrate on steps 5C and D, I roll damage in step 5E. Step 5E seems to tell me that I roll +15 for armor, and +6 for my weapon being factor 9 or less. That's a 21 already, so a 23 if I roll snake eyes, that means a 100-ton particle bay can't hurt a 10-ton fighter with armor 15. A pulse laser applies a -2, so snake eyes with a pulse laser scores damage once every 36 tries. But the automatic crit still doesn't apply because the largest pulse laser is rating 7, which is 7 auto crits on a size 0 craft, but 7 autocrits are negated by 15 armor. Larger ships won't even take the autocrit on a snake eyes hit. Nuclear weapons apply a -6 to the roll, so if you roll 6 or less on 2d6, you can get a hit, but 30 missile turrets are only rating 7 so no autocrits for 30 missile turrets. Luckily 50-ton and 100-ton missile bays can get to rating 9 and can get up to 2 rolls on the autocrit table against fighters, and even if half the crit table is meaningless for a fighter, it reduces armor by one. Now at 300 tons and up, size 3, those missile bay autocrits go away also (and no more autocrits from anything of size 9).
This is presuming your opponent has somehow gotten a hold of lots of nuclear missiles, which I understood were not handed out like candy at Halloween. I wouldn't expect pirates to have them, for instance. That means 15 armor means pirates without spinal mounts can't touch me, and I would expect spinals to be uncommon with pirates also?
So I am immune to 100-ton particle bay hits (and any other non-meson beam weapon, and non-nuclear missiles) if I max the armor, and nuclear missiles don't get it easy - half fail to hurt me, and the ones that hurt do pretty trivial damage. Why would anyone not max the armor at TL15? Why do I see so many warship designs that don't have max armor at TL15? I understand that at lower TLs armor weighs a lot more, and doesn't go up as high, so maybe isn't worthwhile, but at TL14/15, it seems it should be ubiquitous.
This is presuming your opponent has somehow gotten a hold of lots of nuclear missiles, which I understood were not handed out like candy at Halloween. I wouldn't expect pirates to have them, for instance. That means 15 armor means pirates without spinal mounts can't touch me, and I would expect spinals to be uncommon with pirates also?
So I am immune to 100-ton particle bay hits (and any other non-meson beam weapon, and non-nuclear missiles) if I max the armor, and nuclear missiles don't get it easy - half fail to hurt me, and the ones that hurt do pretty trivial damage. Why would anyone not max the armor at TL15? Why do I see so many warship designs that don't have max armor at TL15? I understand that at lower TLs armor weighs a lot more, and doesn't go up as high, so maybe isn't worthwhile, but at TL14/15, it seems it should be ubiquitous.
There is documentary evidence that nuclear weapons that do not penetrate, do not inflict size criticals*.
‐------‐------
* on refrigerators, anyhow.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
‐------‐------
* on refrigerators, anyhow.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
the factor 9 particle bay will still inflict 2 additional critical rolls
the bay weapon did hit and penetrate
there is no penetration roll
factor 9 minus size 0
reduced by 7 for the armor
the no effect was the result for the damage roll
this does not eliminate the remaining critical hit 2 rolls
the 2 critical hits also reduce the armor rating by 2
making damage easier on following hits
the bay weapon did hit and penetrate
there is no penetration roll
factor 9 minus size 0
reduced by 7 for the armor
the no effect was the result for the damage roll
this does not eliminate the remaining critical hit 2 rolls
the 2 critical hits also reduce the armor rating by 2
making damage easier on following hits
Well, that's what I had thought, but if it penetrates in Step 5D, but does no damage in Step 5E, did it really penetrate? How would you tell, if no damage was done? This is how I understand the other side of the debate. And if the ship is over 300 tons, those factor 9 autocrits go away.
It mentions this in one place in HG80, and that is in an overview of the rules, not the combat rules themselves. Penetration is mentioned many times in the context of active defences and screens, and is never used in the context of armour.
To me, reading the rules, it's very clear that 'no effect' is for that roll only. If it negated all other rolls, the rules would have said so.
Yes, well there's a reason I don't use HG and MT spaceship combat. Small craft and small military spaceships can't hit each other, massively armoured small ships are immune to anything but spinal mounts (and meson guns, but meson screens trash anything but spinal meson guns), and so on. HG works okayish for medium-large ships of about TL9-13, bit it's not particularly exciting even then, being mostly an exercise in statistics.
This is my conclusion also. I cranked out a 20,000-ton ship as a thought experiment, and noticed exactly what you said. A duel between 2 of these would be a coin flip to see who could hit a 9 on 2d6 first. That's not really very interesting or tactical.
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