Disabling a car's engine

[Juca]

Hi guys, recently we came to a situation where an engine block ("vital" hit location) from a standard sedan (ST 46, DR 5) was shot by a 5d+3 small piercing attack for 22 damage.
I have two questions, the first one is: what should be the DR of the engine? 25-35 as suggested on Tactical Shooting? In this case we will have engine blocks that are impervious to 7.62 shots, and I've saw more than one engine block being wrecked by 12 gauge slugs (5d huge piercing). We used double the normal car's DR, or DR 12, which left us with 10 points of damage, AND the next question.
A piercing shot to the "vitals" of a car deals triple damage, no big deal, but triple damage based on what? The normal 10 points that gone through the DR or we must first reduce it because the car has injury tolerance: unliving, lowering it to 10/5 (small piercing) = 2 before tripling it to 6?

Thanks and sorry for the messy writing

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Juca

I have two questions, the first one is: what should be the DR of the engine? 25-35 as suggested on Tactical Shooting? In this case we will have engine blocks that are impervious to 7.62 shots, and I've saw more than one engine block being wrecked by 12 gauge slugs (5d huge piercing). We used double the normal car's DR, or DR 12, which left us with 10 points of damage, AND the next question.

Should usually be the same as the car's regular DR. Unless the car has added armor specifically to protect the engine.

The DR in Tactical Shooting is the cover DR from hiding behind the engine block, not either the DR of the engine block or the DR of the engine-block-as-car-vitals.

Originally Posted by Juca

A piercing shot to the "vitals" of a car deals triple damage, no big deal, but triple damage based on what? The normal 10 points that gone through the DR or we must first reduce it because the car has injury tolerance: unliving, lowering it to 10/5 (small piercing) = 2 before tripling it to 6?

Thanks and sorry for the messy writing

As always, the vitals hit location wounding modifier replaces the wounding modifier for the damage type.

So your 22 pi- damage should have done 48 HP injury to the car.

[Anthony]

The engine block isn't a good candidate for 'vitals' because it is, in fact, one of toughest parts of the engine; try components that aren't big blocks of solid metal, such as fuel, electrical, steering, lubrication, etc. I suspect tactical shooting was more interested in cover value than what wrecks the engine, though.

[Nymdok]

The block may not be, but the systems that DO connect directly to the engine (Lubrication, cooling, Ignition, Fuel) etc have interface points close enough that Im willing to hear arguments.

Nymdok

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Juca

what should be the DR of the engine? 25-35 as suggested on Tactical Shooting?

That's the value of the engine as armour to someone hiding behind it. That's equal to something like Vehicle DR + Engine DR + Engine hit points.

I'd just deduct Vehicle DR and then apply the x3 wounding modifier from B555. That seems to override the reduced damage from Unliving. That gives you 17x3 = 51 damage, enough to put the car on negative hit points.

If you want to shoot out car engines with some certainty, a more powerful gun has advantages.

[gilbertocarlos]

Cars are unliving, that'll reduce damage by a fair amount.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Cars are unliving, that'll reduce damage by a fair amount.

Not to the Vitals. Unliving changes the general wounding modifiers for piercing damage types but it has no effect on the hit location rules.

[starslayer]

I would increase DR of the true engine block as a target however. Much like how the skull is a great target, but has +2 DR over other parts of the body. In fact I might be tempted to do something like follows:

Engine block DR 3x car DR
Vital wounding modifier *3, *3 (9x total)

It is hard to damage an engine block, but basically any damage to one results in a non-functional car, possibly with a catastropic breakdown (tossed piston, small explosion, shattered driveshaft)

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Not to the Vitals. Unliving changes the general wounding modifiers for piercing damage types but it has no effect on the hit location rules.

Wait, so with only -3 I can negate a 40 point advantage AND get triple damage?

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Wait, so with only -3 I can negate a 40 point advantage AND get triple damage?

Well, you still have to get through DR, so only triple wounding. But yeah, unless they buy No Vitals and No Brain, the Unliving guy you're shooting at still has weak spots.