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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Armor reduction from hits

Posted by: Traks Nov 5 2003, 12:28 PM

As it is, in SR succesful hits do not decrease your armor. I think that it should be houseruled, and made it like: for every penetration roll 1D6, if the result is higher than armor rating, reduce armor rating by 1. So weakest armors will vanish after few succesful hits, while military armor will be, well, military quality Haven't thought out the whole idea to the core though...

How you handle such things, or let everyone wear their armor for years, through thousands of fights and not repairing/buying new piece of armor?

Posted by: Sphynx Nov 5 2003, 12:44 PM

I disagree. I'm no expert on modern body armour, but I have a friend who once showed me a vest that had been shot up heavily. The armour value of it was definitely unchanged, but the black cloth that covered those grey protective sheets had more holes than cheese. He said he could even take out the kevlar and replace it if it ever did go bad.

Anyhows, point being that modern armour (I think) soaks damage instead of attempting to stop it like medieval style armour. The armour isn't solid, but rather flexible to absorb the attack. I don't think it goes bad (at least not fast enough to require House Rules or deterioration rules).

If you want a more Canon ruling, check out pages 85 and 86 of SRComp. SOTA is a nice way to make people replace their armours if you think they should. It reduces Ballistic by 1 point until it's replaced.

But in general, I think it's a bad idea.

Sphynx

Posted by: Backgammon Nov 5 2003, 02:23 PM

There are armour degradation rules in CC

Posted by: Siege Nov 5 2003, 02:25 PM

I'm sure more expert opinions than mine will weigh in on this subject, but:

Modern kevlar is done in layers, instead of a single plate like medieval armor.

Modern armor also has strategically placed "trauma plates" which are like bits of medieval armor, designed to stop high velocity projectiles.

I know cops in the States will turn in their old vests, whether they've been shot or not in exchange for new vests.

I will do some digging, but generally speaking class I to III vests aren't designed to take repeated hits like a combat environment would require.

-Siege

Edit: Interesting read here:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/032003F.html

Posted by: Siege Nov 5 2003, 02:36 PM

From DuPont:

http://www.dupont.com/kevlar/europe/lifeprotection/lps_soft_care.html

Posted by: mfb Nov 5 2003, 02:38 PM

kevlar's tough, but--like anything else--it starts to wear out if you stretch it too much. depending on the circumstances, a vest will probably still be good after four or five hits--but you don't know if the next round might break through a previously weakened spot, so you exchange them whenever they take any hits at all.

same deal with ceramic plates, pretty much, except the demarcation between effective and ineffective is much sharper. ceramic is very, very hard, but once you break it, further fracturing becomes much easier. there's no such thing as a ceramic plate that's only partially effective--they're all or nothing.

this is based on hearsay from people who've used them, not personal experience. it should be noted that line animals aren't always the guys to go to when you want the truth and nothing but.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Nov 5 2003, 03:18 PM

I admit, I really don't know if/how much flexible body armor degrades after getting shot. Certainly if the round penetrates a suit of flexible armor, it's protective value will decrease significantly. But you don't really know whether a suit of armor is penetrated with the canon SR rules. The only way you could know is a hit location system and some other revamping here and there.

The NIJ documents on body armor say a lot more on the subject, read Requirements and Test Methods in the http://www.nlectc.org/pdffiles/0101.04RevA.pdf.

And, in fact, if any armor is designed to take repeated hits, its the flexible armors (I though III-A, II and III-A being by far most common) and the type III rigid. Type IV, the heaviest kind, isn't supposed to protect from more than 1 hit.

Posted by: Ed_209a Nov 5 2003, 08:16 PM

I believe type IV drops to type III after the first IV-class impact.

Posted by: Shadow Nov 5 2003, 08:40 PM

If you are looking for ways to fleice your runners hard earned money, make them replace there armor after each run if they took damage. Use the SOTA rules and force them to stay on top of things.

Adding armor degradation is like adding ballistics to the game, it would make it more realistic, but it is going to add a lot of book keeping on the gm's part. *shudder* I hate book keeping.

Posted by: Cray74 Nov 5 2003, 09:18 PM

QUOTE (Sphynx)

No, modern soft armor is definitely has a one-use aspect to it. As an undergrad student, I had a design project in a composites course. The topic selected by my design group: body armor.

We called up and e-mailed body armor manufacturers for input. One lesson: the panels of kevlar or other ballistic material were in pockets in the nylon carrier vest specifically because the ballistic material was mussed up when shot.

When hit by a bullet, the core layers of non-woven fabric are smushed (<--technical term), moved out of position, and generally have their mobility hindered. Since they disperse a bullet's energy by moving and tugging as much of their length as possible, the ability of a vest to soak a bullet goes down with each hit. (Which is why the core layers aren't woven - woven fibers are locked down by adjoining fibers and thus don't spread the energy as well. The outer layers are woven to act as "catcher's mitts" to the bullet, but don't perform the critical duty of spreading the impact.) The manufacturers I talked to recommended replacing a ballistic panel after it was shot even once.

Ceramic hard inserts are very often single-use. Except for really pathetic bullets they can stop with their ceramic uber-hardness, the ceramic panels absorb energy by cracking and shattering. The process of forming cracks needs energy from somewhere, and the only place to get it is the bullet. The ceramic panels also do the good deed of blunting the bullet, which makes the life of the inner fabric armor layers much easier.

Obviously, the vests can stop more than one bullet. But when you have a chance, get the vest's ballistic panels replaced.

Since most police make it through their careers without getting shot, and fewer are shot in more than one incident, this disposable armor approach seems acceptable. For dumb asses who get shot several times a month (runners), the expense of new ballistic panels might fall under cost of living expenses.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly recommend the armor degradation rules in...the SR Companion? Requiring a medium wound for armor degradation to occur seems like a very reasonable threshold between "armor damage not worth tracking" and "worth altering armor values."

Posted by: Siege Nov 5 2003, 09:24 PM

QUOTE (Cray74)

For dumb asses who get shot several times a month (runners), the expense of new ballistic panels might fall under cost of living expenses.

Sad, but true.

-Siege

Posted by: Mongoose Nov 6 2003, 05:29 AM

There's also the fact the blood is so damn hard to wash out, you might as well buy new armor. That's assuming it didn't get cut off your body by the med-tech who treated you.
[Yeah, lots of runners use "makeover" and recover from serious or deadly wounds with first aid and a heal spell. But still, most times a life threatening gunshot injury and the ensuing hassle is gonna leave your clothes a mess.]

Posted by: Traks Nov 6 2003, 11:05 AM

Well, I guess that I will enforce those rules - degradation aftering having M wound and 1D6 roll after having L wound.
Or else idea of troll not receiving any damage whatsoever being repeatedly shot from heavy weapons is absurd in my mind.
Hell, I'll even enforce that after being shot with heavy weapons armor degrades by 1 point automatically, even if you are not wounded.

Little more bookkeeping, but I feel that it is worth it, making combat even deadlier.
If you are keeping up with fair fight, you should suffer.
Like last time a player alone tried to kill a gang of 7 people and bitched about being powerless when they managed to kill him.

Thanks for input guys, and links. I studied all of them.

Posted by: nezumi Nov 6 2003, 12:52 PM

Have you looked at the CC rules? If memory serves, armor degrades when its armor rating is a certain amount under the power of the weapon. So heavy weapons would always degrade all but the absolute strongest of armors, whereas your .22 will never degrade much more than your boxer shorts. It's in no way related to actual damage done.

Posted by: RangerJoe Nov 6 2003, 04:41 PM

Note to self: Have next PC invest in ballistic boxers (spider's silk?). Maybe they reduce charisma, but at day's end, better safe than sorry.

Posted by: BitBasher Nov 6 2003, 05:00 PM

Word of advice, silk boxers never reduce charisma

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 6 2003, 06:00 PM

Unless you've got some hard armor down there, it won't matter a whit whether or not the bullet actually penetrates.

~J

Posted by: BitBasher Nov 6 2003, 06:33 PM

Was that pun intended?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Nov 6 2003, 06:38 PM

......................................................................It wasn't, actually...

~J

Posted by: BitBasher Nov 6 2003, 06:53 PM

<unconfortable silence>

And back on topic. Armor gets replaced a LOT in my games. thats the main disadvantage of Form Fitting, it takes a while to get, and it's molded. you cannot replace plates on it, you have to rteplace the whole thing, and that's expensive. I let players buy replacement plates for some armor types for 500 bucks a pop. Most outside armor they just have to repalce after a firefight because of bulletholes and asthetic issues not easily fixed. For that matter also the non armored clothing outside needs to get replaced a fair amount too...

Posted by: Cray74 Nov 6 2003, 07:21 PM

QUOTE (BitBasher)

For that matter also the non armored clothing outside needs to get replaced a fair amount too...

Ah, I see runners need http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020408 http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020417 too.

Is the clothing loss due to evil awakened mutant moths, or just conventional combat?

Posted by: TinkerGnome Nov 6 2003, 08:13 PM

QUOTE (Cray74)

Ah, I see runners need http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020408 http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020417 too.

You can get away with flats, so long as nobody sees you in them.