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Old 09-27-2017, 12:05 PM   #41
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

Of course, I know that minor differences in efficacy won't be noticed by everyone today let alone in the past. But this article's segmented plate is simply FAR too horrible compared to every other type for any reasonable person to miss. It was used too much by the Romans, and for later coats of plate and advanced brigandine for that to correlate to reality.
The article is not reality. I want to know how to adjust it to fit reality.
I'm grateful to everyone's input, but just reiterating that I'm wrong isn't really answering my questions.
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Old 09-27-2017, 12:09 PM   #42
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
[*]ease of maintenance in the field
One of the reasons mail was preferred was its ease of construction and ease of repair. Rings could even have been made as piece work by the relatively unskilled in the winter by the fire, in the same way nails were made by children. All you need to repair it is a bag of rings and some simple hand tools. Plate armor is much more difficult by comparison (you can forge weld a plate over a hole in plate armor, but it requires a workshop and a lot of fuel).
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Old 09-27-2017, 12:15 PM   #43
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I want to know how to adjust it to fit reality.
Assume that this cannot be done. There are many educated opinions about ancient armor. No one has the last word and is the ultimate authority. Given that, you are free to adjust the numbers to work as you see fit.

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I'm grateful to everyone's input, but just reiterating that I'm wrong isn't really answering my questions.
Rather than assuming posters are telling you "you are wrong" people may instead be saying "it depends" or "maybe, but..."
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Old 09-27-2017, 12:27 PM   #44
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by chandley View Post
Agreed. I certainly didnt want to give the impression I don't like this system. I've even tinkered with adding AtE specific materials (steel belted radials, road signs, rebar and concrete, things like that), which is much easier to do in this system. Even if, as is likely, I have these all wrong, they fit into the current materials nicely, which makes for a better game.
David's system is best because it handles all the materials form TL0 and up. As you point out, that makes adding new materials very simple.

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(can't do proper plate when cutting up stop signs or old tires!)
Forming a sheet of metal into plate armor is actually quite easy (it's quicker than mail, and arguably requires less artistry than leathermaking). I've made several pieces of plate armor from sheet metal and all you need is a pattern to work from, something to cut the sheet, and either a stump with a depression in it or a bag of leather filled with sand, and a small round object to planish the armor on and smooth it out. As you might suspect, the real difficulty is making sheet metal. Make a pattern from a piece of cardboard, checking its fit on the wearer. In an AtE setting there will be metric tons of usable steel sheet for plate armor. Cut with a hammer and chisel, shape it, then add straps and buckles, etc. Adding fluting, for instance, simply requires a length of metal rod which you form into a shape you want and then place under the armor piece. You then hammer the plate to shape it to fit the rod beneath. You can harden and temper it if you want, but frankly even real medieval armor was seldom of such uniform quality.
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Old 09-27-2017, 12:36 PM   #45
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

I'm certainly not calling anybody "wrong"! The idea that people would surely be aware that something is a bad idea is dubious, however: Did people who wore one sort of armor get to wear the other, get stabbed while wearing both, and then realize, "Hey, I'm less stabbed than I would have been with this other armor that's a pain to lug around!" or "Hey, I'm less stabbed than I would have been with this other, more expensive armor!"? No.

It's doubtful that every sort of armor or even most sorts of armor lumped into a single GURPS tech level ever coexisted in the same time and place, so the comparison was unlikely to have been made. Yet mail did replace segmented plate, so clearly its superiority was eventually recognized . . . it's just that the process took place over what GURPS calls an 1,800-year span but lumps into a single, neat TL. What's going on here, then, is that we're comparing "TL2.0" and "TL2.5" armor, and overlooking the fact that cultures, armies, and empires that adopted an armor pattern at "TL2.2" might still have been using it at "TL2.8" largely out of tradition and having a base of production for that armor, even in the face of "TL2.5" armor being better because it's 0.3 TLs more advanced.
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Old 09-27-2017, 12:42 PM   #46
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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It's doubtful that every sort of armor or even most sorts of armor lumped into a single GURPS tech level ever coexisted in the same time and place, so the comparison was unlikely to have been made. Yet mail did replace segmented plate, so clearly its superiority was eventually recognized . . . it's just that the process took place over what GURPS calls an 1,800-year span but lumps into a single, neat TL. What's going on here, then, is that we're comparing "TL2.0" and "TL2.5" armor, and overlooking the fact that cultures, armies, and empires that adopted an armor pattern at "TL2.2" might still have been using it at "TL2.8" largely out of tradition and having a base of production for that armor, even in the face of "TL2.5" armor being better because it's 0.3 TLs more advanced.
Heh. The modern mind is trained to think in terms of neat rows of data leading to clear concise analysis. This is actually not how most processes work today, even in the sciences. In fact, most people do not approach anything in their lives the way gamers insist "reality" works.
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Old 09-27-2017, 01:10 PM   #47
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Heh. The modern mind is trained to think in terms of neat rows of data leading to clear concise analysis. This is actually not how most processes work today, even in the sciences. In fact, most people do not approach anything in their lives the way gamers insist "reality" works.
Agreed.

I was just thinking about a friend who did this with apartment rent back when I was in grad school. He was super-geeky and super-mathematical. He did an analysis – considering rent, heating of the units found in various areas, prices at local shops (shops here vary their prices considerably by neighborhood), cost to travel to/from, and so on – that yielded the neighborhood where he would pay the least rent per square metre. He got a decent-sized apartment for a modest monthly rate. Except that it happened to be in an area where he was culturally a terrible fit . . . there was nothing that catered to students nearby, no friends lived close by, and all his neighbors were older, less educated, and spoke a different language.

Meanwhile, another friend from the same period in my life just plonked himself down in a student-friendly area near his friends and favorite pubs. Everyone around him was of the same "culture": proximate in age, going to school, from out of town, mostly speaking English. He paid a lot more to live in less space. He did zero analysis but he was overall happier than the first friend.

The first guy definitely had the more efficient life. If he were a character in an RPG, he'd have more money to spend on gear, a bigger space in which to work on projects (like skill development and invention), and greater security (student ghettoes filled with pubs aren't known for that, while graying working-class areas are). However, I knew far, far, far more people like the second guy, because most people make their decisions based on peer pressure, what's easiest, and what amounts to the real-life version of the Rule of Cool.

I suspect this kind of thinking applies to just about anything that costs money, which is why games that use real-life costs, weights, and other stats might offer things that are clearly bad deals in the mathematical sense. In essence, these items are for people who put either roleplaying or realism ahead of efficiency – which is pretty much everybody in real life.
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Old 09-27-2017, 02:29 PM   #48
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
It's doubtful that every sort of armor or even most sorts of armor lumped into a single GURPS tech level ever coexisted in the same time and place, so the comparison was unlikely to have been made. Yet mail did replace segmented plate, so clearly its superiority was eventually recognized . . . it's just that the process took place over what GURPS calls an 1,800-year span but lumps into a single, neat TL. What's going on here, then, is that we're comparing "TL2.0" and "TL2.5" armor, and overlooking the fact that cultures, armies, and empires that adopted an armor pattern at "TL2.2" might still have been using it at "TL2.8" largely out of tradition and having a base of production for that armor, even in the face of "TL2.5" armor being better because it's 0.3 TLs more advanced.
Didn't mail predate as well as postdate segmentata, though not necessarily all forms of segmented plate?


My impression, though it comes largely from threads here (and a little bit from knowing someone who makes decorative butted mail), is that realistic pricing for mail should be much higher than any of the GURPS presentations for it, due to the extremely labor-intensive production process - and that reducing that enough to give Cheap-grade prices isn't possible either. At which point segmented plate's niche is easier to understand.
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Old 09-27-2017, 02:36 PM   #49
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by safisher View Post
Forming a sheet of metal into plate armor is actually quite easy (it's quicker than mail, and arguably requires less artistry than leathermaking). I've made several pieces of plate armor from sheet metal and all you need is a pattern to work from, something to cut the sheet, and either a stump with a depression in it or a bag of leather filled with sand, and a small round object to planish the armor on and smooth it out. As you might suspect, the real difficulty is making sheet metal. Make a pattern from a piece of cardboard, checking its fit on the wearer. In an AtE setting there will be metric tons of usable steel sheet for plate armor. Cut with a hammer and chisel, shape it, then add straps and buckles, etc. Adding fluting, for instance, simply requires a length of metal rod which you form into a shape you want and then place under the armor piece. You then hammer the plate to shape it to fit the rod beneath. You can harden and temper it if you want, but frankly even real medieval armor was seldom of such uniform quality.
Aha, excellent to know. I'm certainly familiar with this concept when doing laminates or something like Worbla. Sheet metal plate is going to be pretty common stuff I would expect in AtE.

Man, really need to do a "home-brew armor" supplement or article for AtE, but I doubt I have the chops for it, as was just shown :)

Flyndaran: I'd drop CC to 1.1 or 1.0, in line with Scale. It is higher TL and costs more, and that is sufficient to justify the lack of split DR. You still pay for actual Plate for the best DR/lb where that is important.
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Old 09-27-2017, 04:26 PM   #50
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Default Re: Segmented Plate - Pyramid Low Tech II what am I missing?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
My impression, though it comes largely from threads here (and a little bit from knowing someone who makes decorative butted mail), is that realistic pricing for mail should be much higher than any of the GURPS presentations for it, due to the extremely labor-intensive production process - and that reducing that enough to give Cheap-grade prices isn't possible either. At which point segmented plate's niche is easier to understand.
Mail was the most expensive and labour intensive armour ever invented, yet it was preferred by virtually every metal-using culture on the planet for the best part of two thousand years (China is the main exception). We have texts telling us that mail was preferred by some people even when plate was available and cheaper to purchase. Here is one written by Giovanni Michiel, late Ambassador to Queen Mary and King Philip, in a report about England to the Venetian Senate, on the 13th May 1557.

... and for the body they either use some sort of breastplate (qualche petto di corsaletto) which guards the forepart, although indifferently, or else more willingly (especially those who have the means) some jack (giaco) or shirt of mail (camicia di maglia); but what they usually wear are padded canvas jupons (giubboni di canevaccio imbottiti), quilted with many layers, each of which is two fingers or more in thickness; and these jupons are considered the most secure defence against the shock of arrows. Upon their arms they place strips of mail (liste di maglia), put lengthways, and nothing else.

According to this, the English preferred any kind of armour other than plate and only used plate if they couldn't afford anything better.
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