[Basic] Skill Question: Dropping vs Artillery (Bombs)

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Bombsights in both cases though.
Artillery is a weird and confusing skill in GURPS. It's still unclear to me why it is an IQ based skill at all, if it doesn't include any fire direction.

Why is artillery an IQ skill?

Artillery is about calculating where your shot (or bomb) will end up, depending on:

Initial velocity of your projectile (and velocity of the plane you fly on if you are in a bomber or an AC-130).
Strength and direction of the wind.
Correcting for leading a moving target.

And more, but none of these depends on your arms and how accurate you are with them. An AI with no arms could just as easily do that.

Hell, the german supercannon in WWI fired shells so high they had to compensate for the curvature of Earth!

Artillery is all about mathematics and physics, at no point it involves physical accuracy, so it's an IQ skill. Dropping is all about having a good aim with your arms, so DX skill.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

Oh, no joke. The smily was to say I'm not trying to be mean with this question. Fireworks go back farther... they are little bombs themselves...

You don't target fireworks.

any explosive device (or just a heavy thing... for example in the skill of the week thread, Refplace commented on using it to target a magical meteor strike...)

If you are dropping the heavy thing or bomb with your manipulators directly on a naked eye target then you use Dropping. If you are using a bomb-sight and a hard-point or bomb-bay to drop bombs from an aircraft or spacecraft then you use Artillery.

Seems to me it isn't just about technology and bomb sights...

I think it is. If you drop a hand grenade from an open cockpit that's Dropping, if you deploy a bomb from a hard-point on the same aircraft that's Artillery (Bombs). Since you don't have bomb-sights, aircraft, and hard-points and/or bomb-bays before TL6, it is a TL6+ skill.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit

Why is artillery an IQ skill?

I have no idea. I've been trying to figure that out for years now. I think I have some ideas, and maybe will write them up for Pyramid if a suitable issue ever appears.

Artillery is about calculating where your shot (or bomb) will end up, depending on:

No it isn't. That's fire direction, and apparently that isn't what Artillery is.

Artillery is all about mathematics and physics, at no point it involves physical accuracy, so it's an IQ skill.

Nobody on a mortar team is using mathematics and physics. The FDC is, but they aren't the ones that roll Artillery. You can load a gun with ST-Based Artillery (this is RAW) so that's clearly not fire direction. You set site dope, perorm the gun crew drill, get up on the aiming stakes, and drop the round with Artillery; none of that is math or physics, all of it is intensely physical.

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit

Dropping is all about having a good aim with your arms, so DX skill.

I think it is more about knowing when to let go of something, and thus it could easily be IQ (as you are calculating that "if I drop it now the momentum I have given it will carry it forward and it will hit that location I am about to pass over") but it could be hand-eye coordination also which would be DX-based.

I see it as an either/or.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

That makes sense Varyon, I guess it is a conflict between the RAW and the RAI.

Actually, I was thinking about the IQ-based nature and realized why the skill actually does make sense as-is, without defaults or secondary rolls or whatever. See, I initially was thinking of Artillery skill telling you "This is where you should aim to hit your target," and then the character aiming their weapon at that point and shooting. Essentially, the character sees a nice little "X" in the air that he needs to line up his crosshairs with.

This isn't the case. Not by a long shot. (EDIT: Or... maybe it is? sir_pudding's comments imply my initial assessment was on the right track) Artillerymen don't fire their weapons the way gunners do - they don't point them at a target and pull the trigger. Rather, they adjust the various bits on it to change its aimpoint purely based on equations and map coordinates, likely without ever bothering to sight down the barrel (or whatever) and certainly without the idea of "I should point the weapon at this part of the sky." If you want to use Artillery to shoot something you can see yourself (such that you'd normally use Gunner), you'll need to take the role of forward observer (using the skill of that name) and determine the proper map coordinates of your target, then adjust your weapon to hit that (using Artillery).

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Okay, when do artillery require any fine motor skill? Would an AI unable to manipulate anything that doesn't imply moving and reloading the cannon or dropping the bomb be able to use artillery? Does artillery represent fast compensation and precise movement, or is it just about calculating the right angle to point the cannon at and/or the right time to fire/drop your projectile within fixed parameters so that it ends where you want it to?

It may be doable instinctively, but it's still mathematics and physics to set an angle so that a projectile with a certain initial speed and mass ends where you want it to.

About dropping: Unless you have some form of grip that can be withdrawn without imparting motion to the item you're dropping (magnetic field, fixed straight rail or somesuch), you need DX to drop something.

[sir_pudding]

Off-topic response to WaterandWindSpirit in on-topic thread.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

I think it is more about knowing when to let go of something, and thus it could easily be IQ (as you are calculating that "if I drop it now the momentum I have given it will carry it forward and it will hit that location I am about to pass over") but it could be hand-eye coordination also which would be DX-based.

I see it as an either/or.

It pretty much couldn't be IQ, because a human (and hence a standard-issue GURPS character) can't actually do that calculation in any sort of conscious way in the time frame of making the attack. You either use trained hand-eye-subconcious-ballistics-routine to take the shot (Dropping), or you have tools (based on previous calculation) to reduce the calculation to a much simpler exercise (Artillery (Bombs)).

Originally Posted by Varyon

Actually, I was thinking about the IQ-based nature and realized why the skill actually does make sense as-is, without defaults or secondary rolls or whatever. See, I initially was thinking of Artillery skill telling you "This is where you should aim to hit your target," and then the character aiming their weapon at that point and shooting. Essentially, the character sees a nice little "X" in the air that he needs to line up his crosshairs with.

This isn't the case. Not by a long shot. (EDIT: Or... maybe it is? sir_pudding's comments imply my initial assessment was on the right track) Artillerymen don't fire their weapons the way gunners do - they don't point them at a target and pull the trigger. Rather, they adjust the various bits on it to change its aimpoint purely based on equations and map coordinates, likely without ever bothering to sight down the barrel (or whatever) and certainly without the idea of "I should point the weapon at this part of the sky." If you want to use Artillery to shoot something you can see yourself (such that you'd normally use Gunner), you'll need to take the role of forward observer (using the skill of that name) and determine the proper map coordinates of your target, then adjust your weapon to hit that (using Artillery).

This is, I think, not actually related to Artillery (Bombs). Artillery (Bombs), like Artillery (Guided Missile), doesn't have the 'necessarily about non-line-of-sight attacks' element that some other Artillery specializations do. The fact that they're all technically considered to be specializations of the same skill should not have too much read into it.

That said, for things like Artillery (Cannon), GURPS has a problem where the rules as intended (and written) don't really care about how artillery actually works. They've got a skill for the cool dude who hides in a bush with radio and binoculars and calls in the fire, and they've got a skill for people who manipulate big tubes that go "boom", and the fact that there's an absolutely crucial intermediate step between those just gets flat-out ignored.

EDIT: copied this to the off-topic artillery thread too, but I'm leaving it here for the 'not actually related' point.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

This is, I think, not actually related to Artillery (Bombs). Artillery (Bombs), like Artillery (Guided Missile), doesn't have the 'necessarily about non-line-of-sight attacks' element that some other Artillery specializations do. The fact that they're all technically considered to be specializations of the same skill should not have too much read into it.

If you're flying a bomber and decide to drop a bomb on that fighter passing beneath you, that's something like Dropping or Gunner (Bombs), at some crazy-high penalty. If you decide to drop a bomb on that particular building right there as you fly over, it's similar. If you're not really paying attention to the buildings beneath you (other than to orient yourself and determine your location and trajectory on the map) but are trying to hit the factory outlined on your map, that's where Artillery (Bombs) comes in.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

If you're flying a bomber and decide to drop a bomb on that fighter passing beneath you, that's something like Dropping or Gunner (Bombs), at some crazy-high penalty. If you decide to drop a bomb on that particular building right there as you fly over, it's similar. If you're not really paying attention to the buildings beneath you (other than to orient yourself and determine your location and trajectory on the map) but are trying to hit the factory outlined on your map, that's where Artillery (Bombs) comes in.

Gunner (Bombs) doesn't exist. Can you find any RAW reference to it whatsoever?

Real full-up bombing is sophisticated enough that you don't have to have your attack pre-planned before you start the mission. (Consider that the behavior you attributed to Artillery (Bombs) would be almost entirely inferior to the behavior you attributed to Gunner...)