Superheroes versus Spaceships

[Michael Thayne]

Re: reactionless drives, I noticed in another thread you said you limit the speed of your reactionless drives to 360 mps. That's like 16 levels of Enhanced Move (Space), which is not out of the question if your point budgets also support enough levels of ST (Super-Effort) to tear through spaceship hulls. Though aside from ramming, the utility of that many levels of Enhanced Move is questionable relative to heavily enhanced Warp—which also takes care of competing with stardrives.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Re: reactionless drives, I noticed in another thread you said you limit the speed of your reactionless drives to 360 mps. That's like 16 levels of Enhanced Move (Space), which is not out of the question if your point budgets also support enough levels of ST (Super-Effort) to tear through spaceship hulls. Though aside from ramming, the utility of that many levels of Enhanced Move is questionable relative to heavily enhanced Warp—which also takes care of competing with stardrives.

Yeah but ramming combined with damage reduction based invulnerability is the easiest way to crank up even a big-budget flying brick's damage to the point where they can threaten a lightly armoured ship. Of course one can cheat with the world building by not using armour but just shields that weirdly don't work against organic missiles.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

This is what Detect with the Long-Range enhancement is for!

Yep. Just because it requires multiple abilities to do it, does not make it impossible or even more difficult than it should be.

[Bengt]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Of course one can cheat with the world building by not using armour but just shields that weirdly don't work against organic missiles.

Or have them work like Dune shields and let the heroes pass through at a slow velocity, then punch/claw/whatever the hull to board.

[AlexanderHowl]

I can just imagine a HP 40 superhero getting rammer by a spacecraft going 360 mps. Even a m-scale hero would be a grease smear.

[ericthered]

If you're having flying bricks face down spaceships in dog-fight/naval barrage way, you should build your bricks as spaceships. And probably tweak the spaceships rules so that spaceships are a good deal tougher and have weaker weapons.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Think about the Heroes able to take on starships.
Directly

• Silver Surfer
• Phoenix
• Superman (some iterations)
• Jack of Hearts
• Quasar
• Nova Prime
• Mon-El

Boarding

• Vision
• Thor/Beta Rae Bill
• Fantastic Four
• Hulk
• Many X-Men
• Nova

Those are among the highest powered supers in thier setting.

I would add Vision, Thor/Bill, Thing, Human Torch, Hulk, Nova, and Havok to the Direct list. Havok, the smallest point value hero in the list, once casually destroyed an alien flagship while drunk in Austalia (and quipping “that’s not a plasma blast; That’s a plasma blast”).

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I can just imagine a HP 40 superhero getting rammer by a spacecraft going 360 mps. Even a m-scale hero would be a grease smear.

True. Though if you use the space combat rules (rather than the regular slam rules) you'll have a massive penalty to the ballistic attack roll... if you use the space combat rules. I don't think such a penalty exists for slams in the standard combat rules.

Honestly part of my feeling here is that the two things GURPS does worst are spaceships and supers designed to take on TL7+ fighting vehicles (jets and tanks, much moreso than helicopters or armored cars). So you run into problems like "do you use the standard combat rules, or the wildly different space combat rules?", and the problem that the ~1,500 point buy-in for c-scale would be better spent elsewhere, and having supers fight spaceships bare-handed ends up being just about the worst thing you could use GURPS for.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Culture20

I would add Vision, Thor/Bill, Thing, Human Torch, Hulk, Nova, and Havok to the Direct list. Havok, the smallest point value hero in the list, once casually destroyed an alien flagship while drunk in Austalia (and quipping “that’s not a plasma blast; That’s a plasma blast”).

If we are making a comprehensive list, we need to add Green Lanterns, Lobo, and Shazam (DC), other heralds of Gallactus, and Adam Warlock (Marvel).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

True. Though if you use the space combat rules (rather than the regular slam rules) you'll have a massive penalty to the ballistic attack roll... if you use the space combat rules.

Which I wouldn't. The space combat rules weren't designed to cover people, even absurdly powerful people.