Author Topic: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments  (Read 3004 times)

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Offline Thot

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Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« on: October 07, 2016, 09:01:07 AM »
The concept of armor classes does not seem to be very scalable for the upper end of the imaginable, or does it?

I mean, if you have a powered exoskeleton made of sci-fi-stuff like "formed energy" (as Perry Rhodan would call it) or some kind of unpenetratable unobtainium that is supposed to make you truly invulnerable to a dagger, then SM cannot cover this right now - or am I reading the rules incorrectly?

Offline Hurin

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2016, 10:12:20 AM »
Which version are you playing?

SM2 had rules for power armor that made it very difficult if not impossible to be injured by a dagger.
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Offline Thot

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2016, 12:39:17 PM »
I have both SM2 and SM:P, but have more experience in using SM2. Against an AT20 in SM2, a dagger can still produce an A crit rather easily (for which you need to have a combat roll result of 90).

So, imagine armor like that of Iron Man from the Marvel movies. Imagine the dagger. Roll a 57 on SM2's slash critical strike table. Explain how a bleeding wound is even possible.

I cannot help but feel that 20 table columns for 20 armor classes is not scaling well for all possible (or even thinkable, imaginable, or just described) armor technologies.

Maybe something more scaleable like "one column for a given weapon, armor adds DB" would work better?

Offline Malim

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2016, 01:27:24 PM »
GURPS ultra tech handles it very well. Maybe peak at that and see if you can " steal" ideas from that.
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Offline Thot

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2016, 02:04:34 PM »
GURPS scales well - however, its whole approach to armor is completely incompatible with the RoleMaster approach.

GURPS compares raw numbers of damage with raw numbers of damage substraction. In principle, there is nothing that stops one from firing a 125mm tank cannon at a man in combat armor and let the game system tell you what happens.

RoleMaster/SpaceMaster uses a table for each type of attack, with separate columns for twenty predefined types of armor. That works fine until you have something in your game world, be it weapon or armor, that does not fit into the existing categories. And given the vastness of possibilities in science fiction "doesn't fit into our categories" must eventually happen.

Unless the categories of both weapons and armor are redefined much broader than they currently are, to encompass everything between "unarmored" and "truly invincible" on the armor side, and "pea shooter" to "10km asteroid coming in at 10,000 km/s".

Offline Hurin

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2016, 02:10:26 PM »
I would consider Iron Man's armor to be powered armor, and use the rules for that in Armored Assault. The armor wouldn't be AT 20, but CAT 21 at least, making it very unlikely he would ever suffer a scratch from a dagger.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

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Offline Thot

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2016, 02:37:47 PM »
I am unfamiliar with those. Could you describe how they solve this?

Offline Hurin

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2016, 03:02:35 PM »
Sure. Basically, Armor Types 1-20 are for personal armor. Vehicles like tanks and Starships have armor that goes from 21-30, and is called Construction Armor Type (CAT) rather than just Armor Type. The construction armor types have their own attack charts and critical tables, and are much harder to damage when using small arms. So for example, on the Small Arms vs. Construct Armor Types table, the maximum at Dagger could do against AT 21 would be 3A, and that critical will be against the armor rather than the pilot; it will be things like servo malfunctions, damage to shields, etc. Against AT 22, the maximum result a dagger could get would be 2 hits (no criticial).

So basically, CATs are heavier armor types of the sort you find on powered armor, tanks, and spacecraft. These are much harder to damage if you are using small arms, and the damage goes to the vehicle rather than the pilot.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

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Offline Thot

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2016, 10:52:52 PM »
Hm, that should work. I do have Star Strike, but for a small arms tech table I'll need Armored Assault, I guess. Gotta get the PDF. Thanks. ^^

Offline Thot

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2016, 11:44:17 PM »
Allright, got it, skimmed through it. There doesn't seem to be a fitting table for melee weapons vs vehicles, but I guess one could use the Smal Arms vs. Constructs table and just declare Melee weapons a "Force 0" attack, which would then mean a max result of 90.

On the other end of the spectrum, like a star being thrown at you, the rules for the bigger nuclear or antimatter warheads should do the trick!

There is just the one problem of using high-tech weaponry vs low-tech armor. But I think that could be solved by declaring equivalencies between Role Master armor and Space Master armor, such as "Role Master AT 20 is like Space Master AT 10 to SM weapons".

Offline Warl

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #10 on: October 08, 2016, 01:50:34 AM »
another way to handle it is to apply Modifiers and restrictions. Much like you would when creating magical armor or a Creature.

Reduce critical by "X" (reducing the critical once twice or even thrice can make it harder for things to "penetrate" the armor.
No stun,
Puncturing Weapons reduce Hits by half.

Things like this can make basic Armor Types More effective and more invulnerable to basic Attacks. You can also define these modifiers as only effective against Melee, or Regular weapons, but not apply to High Ballistic or Energy weapons.
D Puncture crit 100
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Offline gog

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2016, 09:27:52 AM »
SM:P might be more help, looking at the armour rules (page 132-33), AT1-20 are the same as RM, then extra ones added.

With a dagger (or combat knife) against the Full Combat armour (Table A-8.8.7) criticals would be ignored, and maximum damage would be 3 hits.

Offline Thot

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2016, 01:20:37 PM »
I don't read Space Master: Privateers' AT's as equivalent to Role Master AT's - they do have some similarities, but given the much higher quality of material in SM:P, it is unlikely they are meant to be the same.

Ah, I'd love to see RMU with some kind of unified structure that covers all thinkable armor classes...

Offline gog

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2016, 01:43:03 PM »
I don't read Space Master: Privateers' AT's as equivalent to Role Master AT's - they do have some similarities, but given the much higher quality of material in SM:P, it is unlikely they are meant to be the same.

Ah, I'd love to see RMU with some kind of unified structure that covers all thinkable armor classes...

From Blaster Law (page 14), the SM:P armour types 1-20 are the same ones as found in RM, also the rules in 10 Million Ways to Die show it as a unified table.

Offline Thot

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2016, 03:25:11 PM »
[...]
From Blaster Law (page 14), the SM:P armour types 1-20 are the same ones as found in RM, also the rules in 10 Million Ways to Die show it as a unified table.

So armor makers in 1250 AD are supposed to be basically as good as those a thousand years and several technological revolutions later. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

Offline gog

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2016, 03:39:48 PM »
So armor makers in 1250 AD are supposed to be basically as good as those a thousand years and several technological revolutions later. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

Not really as the armour type is based on material and not manufacture, thus it is the strength of the materials used that is in question. Also why there are 10 extra armour types for those that are more technologically advanced.

Also from memory not much changed in amour for a very long time. Apart from it falling out of fashion with black power coming in as it didn't do much, and it was then new materials that changed things.

Of course some AT are linked to the tech-level of the society, so not all would be available. Also the production methods improvement is more likely to reduce weight and encumbrance (amour manoeuvre penalty) or otherwise would add a material bonus (so reducing the damage roll).

Offline Ynglaur

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Re: Armor classes in ultra-hightech environments
« Reply #16 on: October 11, 2016, 08:03:53 PM »
I have both SM2 and SM:P, but have more experience in using SM2. Against an AT20 in SM2, a dagger can still produce an A crit rather easily (for which you need to have a combat roll result of 90).

So, imagine armor like that of Iron Man from the Marvel movies. Imagine the dagger. Roll a 57 on SM2's slash critical strike table. Explain how a bleeding wound is even possible.

I cannot help but feel that 20 table columns for 20 armor classes is not scaling well for all possible (or even thinkable, imaginable, or just described) armor technologies.

Maybe something more scaleable like "one column for a given weapon, armor adds DB" would work better?

Powered Armor in SpaceMaster 2nd Edition was considered a construct, and used ATs 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, and 30.  It was detailed in Armored Assault, though: not the base rule books.