Edward
Apr 27 2005, 03:55 PM
Vehicle problem
I would like to see fixed in SR4
In SR3 drones all had low bodies. Because of the way armour worked high armour made them invulnerable but any attack that could penetrate the armor likely did the full (or near full) damage level because there where so fiew soak dice.
The result is that for an armoured drone there is almost know chance of minor damage from automatic or heavy weapons. Ether it bounces of the armour or dose huge damage. Conversely a metahuman character with lots of body dice and armour that is rarely certain protection has a good chance on being hurt without it being REALY bad
I would like to see drones in SR4 with armour that dose not have this discrepancy. The revised cor mechanic may have this effect but I would like to draw it to the attention of those that care for comment and consideration.
Edward
blakkie
Apr 27 2005, 04:07 PM
Funny, it actually makes sense to me that it works that way. Well the armouring is kinda bizzare that it keeps the drone from getting knocked around by kinetic energy. But a single bullet that manages to pierce the armor of a tiny drone should do a good deal of damage, but not piercing the armour it wouldn't do much of anything...other than knock it over.
Blitzen
Apr 27 2005, 06:09 PM
I would like to see more Hydrogen and fuel-cell powered vehicles in SR 4 due to the fact that these technologies apprear to be the direction the automotive industry is headed in the real world.
Austere Emancipator
Apr 27 2005, 06:14 PM
I kinda agree with blakkie here. Very small vehicles would be screwed if a bullet penetrated them -- let alone several bullets or a very large/explosive projectile (automatic and heavy weapons). I think it's far more problematic with large vehicles, which should be capable of taking quite a few holes and still function.
My biggest beef with the small drones is that they can pack so much armor. That a smaller-than-dwarf-sized rotodrone can take HMG fire and not be ripped apart is just stupid. Fortunately that sort of thing is extremely simple to fix in SR4 -- assuming the game designers agree that tiny little drones shouldn't be invulnerable to small arms fire.
Kagetenshi
Apr 27 2005, 07:10 PM
By smaller-than-dwarf-sized you mean Body 1, right?
Oh, wow, the armor values do break down atrociously at Body 1. Yeah, maximum armor rating of a jet turbine Body 1 rotodrone is 90. This started as a disagreement, but I guess that's not going to happen now…
~J
Edward
Apr 28 2005, 04:48 AM
They truly tiny drones should be destroyed yes but those are body 0 and have special rules now to kill them off quickly.
It is the body 2 drones that illustrate the problem to me most clearly. A steal lynx attacked with a assault canon for example will take a serious wound in almost any case where as a metahuman that is comparatively as heavily armoured without combat pool could easily soak to moderate or even light. (assumed not more than 2 net successes on the attack roll and metahuman having 8+ ballistic armour and 10+ body for damage resistance purposes, that is to say he is a typical samurai in obvious combat mode.)
Edward
sapphire_wyvern
Apr 28 2005, 05:35 AM
| QUOTE (Edward) |
They truly tiny drones should be destroyed yes but those are body 0 and have special rules now to kill them off quickly.
It is the body 2 drones that illustrate the problem to me most clearly. A steal lynx attacked with a assault canon for example will take a serious wound in almost any case where as a metahuman that is comparatively as heavily armoured without combat pool could easily soak to moderate or even light. (assumed not more than 2 net successes on the attack roll and metahuman having 8+ ballistic armour and 10+ body for damage resistance purposes, that is to say he is a typical samurai in obvious combat mode.)
Edward |
A Steel Lynx hit by non-AV assault cannon rounds will take 0 damage, always.
The power of the round is halved (for shooting at a vehicle) and drops one damage level, so 18D changes to 9S.
The Steel Lynx has 9 armour, and vehicle armour is always treated as hardened. The assault cannon round's power is 9, which is not higher than the hardened armour rating. Therefore no damage can occur.
If the assault cannon is firing AV ammo, the drone is more or less guaranteed to be destroyed. There is no halving of power, no reduction of damage level - therefore you're rolling a 2-die damage resistance test against TN 9 with a base damage level of D, plus any over-damage.
So the bullets either bounce off or completely obliterate the target.
In short, I agree with you... it needs to be fixed.
I can't see any reason why (small) drones should not operate on the same body/armour scales as metahumans. Save the scaling for larger vehicles, ones big enough to take passengers or a pilot, if you use it at all.
Personally I think there's much to recommend a single damage scale in SR4.
blakkie
Apr 28 2005, 07:51 PM
I think this is more an issue that there is no risk of the vehicle armor itself degrading when defending. Ablative armor especially should tend to wear out.
Well that and the silly things you can do within the letter of the custom vehicle creation rules. I don't it is feasible to make anything custom vehicle rules close to airtight though. To tighten them up that much would either make them even more cumbersome to use and/or severely limit the types of vehicles and options. Same goes for custom firearms. I suspect they will remain munchkin wonderlands.
P.S. Damage soaking definately has to change in some way with the advent of fixed TNs. But i'm not sure that it's a good idea though for vehicle armor (that is in good repair) to lose a lot of it's potency to defend under SR4 rules.
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