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Mystweaver
Straight to the point:

Does APDS ammo half Armour spell ratings? If not and it does indeed count as hardened, does it stack with Military Grade armour?

Naturally your overall B/I values could get in excess of 20 with a good rating spell.
Does this mean that the power of the attack has to be over 20 to do any damage or do you count the highest of the two armours?

i.e. 11/11 is Military 9/9 Armour spell - if the power of the attack is above 11 it is defeated...

hyzmarca
APDS halves the armor spell. It doesn't count as hardened by itself but it should stack with hardened armor.

If you are playing at the power level where you can have military armor and Force 9 armor spells then are are playing at the power level where the opposition has access to weapons that have a N in their damage code so there isn't too much of a balance issue. .
Mystweaver
what do you mean an N in their damage code?

We have been playing for a long time. Characters have between 400-700 earnt karma... i have a force 12 armour spell! smile.gif
Aku
N=Naval weapons
TheNarrator
Naval Weapons are to regular anti-vehicular weapons what anti-vehicular weapons are to regular weapons.

Light Naval Damage is 15 boxes.

APDS halves all armor ratings. Period. Spell, Hardened, whatever. Ditto for AV ammo.
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (TheNarrator)
APDS halves all armor ratings. Period. Spell, Hardened, whatever.

Except vehicle armor. Or Bulwark. wink.gif
caramel frappuccino
Nor, I believe, Immunity to Normal Weapons.
Zeel De Mort
...and the armour confered by the powers of Hardened Armour, and Immunity to Normal Weapons. At least according to the FAQ:

QUOTE

When a spirit or critter with Immunity (Normal Weapons) is attacked, do you only compare double its Essence to the base Power of the weapon (regardless of modifiers, as with the Hardened Armor power), or do you also count modifiers to the Power from burst fire, ammo type, extra successes, etc?
Treat the Immunity power as you would the Hardened Armor power--only use the base Power of the weapon, unmodified by burst fire, ammo type, etc.


Personally I'd let APDS penetrate armour on critters with the Hardened Armour power better than regular ammo, but there it is.

I'd also (and we do in our games) let burst fire (but not APDS) increase your chances of penetrating Immunity to Normal Weapons.


Edit: Stop posting while I'm typing! smile.gif
caramel frappuccino
*points and laughs*
Mystweaver
Question therefore goes to:

Regular ammo 8M Rifle shot at Hardened Military Armour 11/11... doesnt penetrate

OR

APDS ammo 8M Rifle shot at Hardened Military Armour halved to 5/5 and of course penetrates...

Therefore what is the point of hardened armour over regular armour vs APDS?
We run it that APDS counts as regular vs hardened (and hardened counts as regular) but AV ammo keeps the same rules and halves vs hardened...

What do ya think?
Aku
Umm, im probably wrong here (as i'm oft to be) but dont you compare, and then divide? so either way the 8m wouldnt penetrate, but if the hardened armour was 7/7, then it would and then for determing power reduction it gets halved?
TheNarrator
QUOTE
Therefore what is the point of hardened armour over regular armour vs APDS?
We run it that APDS counts as regular vs hardened (and hardened counts as regular) but AV ammo keeps the same rules and halves vs hardened...



Um... I'm afraid I'd have to disagree. The point of hardened armor over regular armor is that you can ignore (not "almost certain to soak" but literally ignore) lots of less powerful attacks. If one has Hardened armor 11, then you're ignoring assault rifles, heavy pistols, shotguns, heavy machine guns, any but the most direct of grenade hits, any but the strongest of melee attacks, and any sniper rifle except the Barrett. You're a human armored vehicle. APDS halving the armor is the only hope anyone has of hurting you without resorting to an AV rocket.

Armor-piercing discarding sabot rounds use a tungsten penetrator to cut through armor better than regular rounds. IRL, the principle is used in tank cannons to penetrate other tank armor, so I think it will apply against hardened armor in SR as well. It hsould apply, in my opinion, to any armor. It's just physics. It won't let you overcome Immunity to Normal Weapons (that's different than armor, even if the mechanics feel the same) and it doesn't keep the power of your attack from being halved if you're attacking a vehicle (only AV does that) but it will halve armor.

They're 28 nuyen.gif per bullet. That's 14 times as expensive as regular ammo. I'd say it deserves to not suck.
nick012000
QUOTE (TheNarrator)
QUOTE
Therefore what is the point of hardened armour over regular armour vs APDS?
We run it that APDS counts as regular vs hardened (and hardened counts as regular) but AV ammo keeps the same rules and halves vs hardened...



Um... I'm afraid I'd have to disagree. The point of hardened armor over regular armor is that you can ignore (not "almost certain to soak" but literally ignore) lots of less powerful attacks. If one has Hardened armor 11, then you're ignoring assault rifles, heavy pistols, shotguns, heavy machine guns, any but the most direct of grenade hits, any but the strongest of melee attacks, and any sniper rifle except the Barrett. You're a human armored vehicle. APDS halving the armor is the only hope anyone has of hurting you without resorting to an AV rocket.

Armor-piercing discarding sabot rounds use a tungsten penetrator to cut through armor better than regular rounds. IRL, the principle is used in tank cannons to penetrate other tank armor, so I think it will apply against hardened armor in SR as well. It hsould apply, in my opinion, to any armor. It's just physics. It won't let you overcome Immunity to Normal Weapons (that's different than armor, even if the mechanics feel the same) and it doesn't keep the power of your attack from being halved if you're attacking a vehicle (only AV does that) but it will halve armor.

They're 28 nuyen.gif per bullet. That's 14 times as expensive as regular ammo. I'd say it deserves to not suck.

No, actually, most sniper rifles have a damage code of 14S. The Barret has a damage code of 14D. It's possible to get custom sniper rifles with damage codes of 16S.

My character owns one of the latter. He's named it the Cat's Claw, because his street name is Katklaw, due to his extensive cosmetic modifications.
Phelan_patrick
And I think the barret has custom ammo which act like APDS
TheNarrator
That, too.
Mystweaver
Coolio thanks for the advise.
Phelan_patrick
Question:

If for example you use armor layering rules and you have hardened armor, ex. ballistic 7, over soft armor, ex. ballistic 4, so you have a combined total of ballistic 9. Do you ignore attacks with base power of 7 and below? or 9 and below?
TheNarrator
a) Only the Hardened armor is hardened. So it's 7 and below.

b) Cannon Companion specifically says that you can't wear any other armor with Hardened Military Grade Armor. (It's the only armor in any book that says that, and I assume that applies to form-fitting as well, since it's on the same page.) I actually just noticed this a couple weeks back myself. Honestly, it makes sense, since the Mil-Spec armor probably includes a form-fitting layer under the heavy plates, and needs to be fitted for the wearer.
Phelan_patrick
Gotcha. Thnx
Mystweaver
Yeah we play it that you have to have your Military armour pretty much taylored for you. Plus the cost is shot through the roof as we have quite a lot of cash and want all the extra bits (like Ruthidium Polymers n such). Our armour costs about 1.5mil Nuyen a piece... Maybe Ill post the stats of it here later... High-Karma/Cash campaign (though no karma for cash or visa versa rules are played)...
jervinator
What about armor with Gel packs?
Zeel De Mort
You can layer that if you want. It's pretty likely to mess your combat pool up even with out layering though.

But yeah, by the rules, you can layer heavy security + gel packs, with form fitting. Might have half a chance of keeping your combat pool healthy too. Obviously the form fitting wouldn't count for hardened, and that'd probably cost you MORE than buying heavy military because of the silly pricing, but at least the availability is a bit lower.
nick012000
No, you can't. Gel packs state that you can't layer armor equipped with them with any other armor, which makes them pretty useless in anything less than Security Armor.

In anything less, all you're ignoring is Hold Out Pistols, and they're not worth the trouble.
Zeel De Mort
My mistake.

You can layer FFBA with non- gel-packed security armour - which is I guess where I was mixed up.

I would definitely agree that gel-packs are all but useless though - which is possibly why I don't remember the rules on them too well! Security armour is indeed the only thing worth considering them for, but there it costs an absolute fortune to put them in, they hammer your combat pool, and you look like an idiot. smile.gif
ShadowDragon8685
Jay-suze Christopher. 1.5 M nuyen.gif PER SUIT?!

Why not just buy a goddamned MBT? Or a GMC Banshee? Even with the street index, you should be able to make it.
Zeel De Mort
I thought it was more like a little under 500,000k per suit (including helmet). But anyway, quite expensive!

I'd also thought that the one saving grace was the availability wasn't as bad as for heavy military armour. However, heavy security with gel-packs has an availability of 32/56 days, compared with a mere 28/2 months for heavy military. Both insane target numbers, but hey at least the heavy military is around half the price.

I'm struggling to find anything that makes security + gel-packs a better option on this one piece of armour I actually thought there was a point in having them on... I guess eh, technically, you can get a permit for it?

Oh no hold on, never mind, you can get a permit for security armour but can't get one for gel-packs. I give up!
Mystweaver
1,500,000 nuyen.gif gets you in our game:

B: 13
I: 13

Heavy Hardened Military Grade Armour.

Helmet: Hazardous Materials Enviroseal, Coms Unit: 10 with Battletac Systems. Optical Mag: 3, Lowlight, Thermographic, Ultrasound, Smart-2, Vidcam, Tracking Sig: 10, Sig Locator: 10, Vid Trans: 10, 1000np HUD, Chem-seal respirator.

Suit: Hazardous Materials Enviroseal, Fire Resistance: 8, Insulation: 8, Cold Resistance: 8. Inner layer (the effective form fitting) has Thermal Dampening: 8.
Ruthedium Polymer Skin w/ 12 sensors.

Each suit is sculpted for the user. As you can see this is some high spec gear so the expense is justified. When we started asking for some expensive gear and flashed a little cash (from a lucrative data run) we though that these would indeed be the best thing for the group. Bit of stealth mixed with invulnerability cant help!... Predator Styleee!
Zeel De Mort
I went for the dikote on mine, rather than rythenium, and just got colourchange paint for some camo, plus various other mods. Worked out to pretty much exactly 1.5M too as I recall. smile.gif

We kept the rules as per the books though, so that still "only" gets me 12/12.
Sunday_Gamer
APDS ammo will definitely half an armor spells rating.

It will however do nothing to a creature with Immunity to Normal Weapons.

Bob: Drek! We gotta stop that fire elemental *fires colt manhunter*
Fred: Stop that, it's immuned to normal weapons.
Bob: Oh! *fires Ak-98*
Fred: What part of immuned to normal weapons don't you get?
Bob: So APDS then?
Fred: *SLAP*

Sunday
Zeel De Mort
Quite right.

In fact, the FAQ says the following:

QUOTE
When a spirit or critter with Immunity (Normal Weapons) is attacked, do you only compare double its Essence to the base Power of the weapon (regardless of modifiers, as with the Hardened Armor power), or do you also count modifiers to the Power from burst fire, ammo type, extra successes, etc?
Treat the Immunity power as you would the Hardened Armor power--only use the base Power of the weapon, unmodified by burst fire, ammo type, etc.


However, Critters says the following about Hardened Armour:

QUOTE
HARDENED ARMOR
Type: P • Action: Auto • Range: Self • Duration: Always
Creatures with the Hardened Armor power possess an
exoskeleton or outer shell of extraordinary strength. If the
unmodified Power of an attack against the creature does not
exceed the rating of the being’s Hardened Armor, the attack
does no damage.
Against APDS or AVM ammunition, Hardened Armor only
counts as half its rating.


The first one implies that Hardened Armour is unaffected by APDS, but the second says it is. Or is the first talking more about EX explosive and the like? Not that I'm too bothered, it's usually Immunity to Normal Weapons that's a problem for characters like mine who have, well, normal weapons.
hyzmarca
AV and APDS doesn't modify the power of the attack, if modifies the value of armor.

However, Immunity to Normal Weapons isn't armor, therefore one could argue that AV and APDS do not modify it.
Zeel De Mort
Seems sensible enough. Well as much as these things can be!
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