How to Make Ultra-Tech Combat Exciting (TL10)?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by myrmidon

Thank you for the tip. As I'm reading through this, I think I'm realizing I need to change the weapons for different scenarios. Some of our combat is with light armor, and some with medium armor (as I described above), but I use Gauss weapons for all of them. And Gauss weapons scare me against light armor! I will look at switching weapons based off of the armor the PCs should be wearing. On this note, how do you all decide between realism (everyone using Gauss weapons, for example) and making an interesting scenario?

Note that all the gauss weapons that fire 3mm or 4mm darts should do pi- damage. This makes them unlikely to kill outright, aside from skull/vitals hits.

I've decided that I'm okay with the PCs generally not being very banged up, and that I'm okay with them shooting up large numbers of less well armoured foes. So most of the opponents they fight when well armoured are not well armoured, and have weapons that need decent rolls to penetrate or (when the PCs are in hardsuits) only penetrate the thinner parts of the armour. I then add in some specialists with heavier weapons that are more of a threat. None of them will have good armour, or terribly high skills, as a rule (the vast majority of my NPC soldiers have skill-12 in their weapons). Bad luck and/or bad planning can still get the PCs badly shot up, but if they're at all sensible it's pretty unlikely.

If I want to challenge them more, and remind them that they're not the only badasses in the universe, I up-armour the badguys, and give them higher skills and/or higher RoF weapons, but still not ones that will turn the PCs into chowder, aside from some low RoF single-shot support weapons - usually something like an underslung grenade launcher firing SEFOP or HEAT rounds.

Because the setting I use was a T11 empire a century before the game, and is now in a 'long night' state with the PCs having largely TL10 gear, I can justify the odd blaster and the like if I want, for extra-high penetration. If I want to really scare the players, I deploy plasma/fusion guns - good penetration and most of it from high base damage.

One thing I'll never be doing - letting the PCs have hardened armour, because anything that reduces penetration modifiers requires more base damage to penetrate it, and that means more chance of a high damage roll smearing a PC all over any nearby walls.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by myrmidon

Thank you for the tip. As I'm reading through this, I think I'm realizing I need to change the weapons for different scenarios. Some of our combat is with light armor, and some with medium armor (as I described above), but I use Gauss weapons for all of them. And Gauss weapons scare me against light armor! I will look at switching weapons based off of the armor the PCs should be wearing. On this note, how do you all decide between realism (everyone using Gauss weapons, for example) and making an interesting scenario?

The question is, do you think 'interesting' combat needs to involve people taking hits and not being incapacitated, reliably? If yes, then yes. If no, then you're fine.

[Rupert]

A couple of other things -

If the PCs have access to good TL10 (or better, TL10^ using forced-growth tanks for cloned body parts), getting a limb or extremity wrecked is an in-combat problem, and an expense for the replacement, especially if you allow a shorter recovery time if the replacement limb is a cloned part.

Explosives: If the PCs are in good whole-body armour, and thus have high DR, explosions won't hurt them much but will throw them around and even in rigid armour the collisions and falls can hurt via blunt trauma. If they're using Reactive Armour Paste (UT189) a nearby explosion is an excellent excuse to blow it all off, too.

[AlexanderHowl]

One way to get survivable combat is to have restricted weapons. For example, it is highly unlikely that any government will allow any non-governmental personal to carry firearms (or beam weapons, railguns, etc) on any spacecraft because of the dangers associated with such weapons poking holes in the hull (my earlier example would punch through a hull with dDR 20). Spacers would probably learn to use melee weapons and unarmed combat to settle informal conflicts (though they might have an arms locker so they can deal with people trying to take over their spaceship). With that in mind, there is no reason why TL10 conflicts would be much more deadly that TL3 conflicts (taking into account weapon, armor, and medicine differences).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

One way to get survivable combat is to have restricted weapons. For example, it is highly unlikely that any government will allow any non-governmental personal to carry firearms (or beam weapons, railguns, etc) on any spacecraft because of the dangers associated with such weapons poking holes in the hull (my earlier example would punch through a hull with dDR 20). Spacers would probably learn to use melee weapons and unarmed combat to settle informal conflicts (though they might have an arms locker so they can deal with people trying to take over their spaceship). With that in mind, there is no reason why TL10 conflicts would be much more deadly that TL3 conflicts (taking into account weapon, armor, and medicine differences).

There's tons of TL10 non-lethal/less-lethal gun options that you could fire aboard a spaceship without much concern, and some of them even work well against lightly armored enemies. And if you want lethal you can use frangible solids easily enough.

Of course, that doesn't change that brawling with no or improvised weapons is always likely to be relevant.

[khorboth]

An option to extend combat is semi-ablative armor, possibly with inflated DR. If every 10 points of damage the armor absorbs ticks down the DR by 1, the players watch guns eat at their armor coming closer and closer to the point where it will no longer protect them. Having played with this, I can say it works out pretty well. Assuming HT 12+, the first penetrating will probably give you a really bad day but not kill you outright.

[myrmidon]

Rupert, your responses were very helpful. Thank you! I sometimes forget that pi- halves penetrating damage; it is good to be reminded. It does make combat more survivable. Also, your explanation of how you design your combat scenarios was very helpful, in the way you build standard combat with a few more important threats versus the more intense battles. I will definitely incorporate the different levels of combat into my scenario-building. I'll just have to remind the players to pay attention to the enemy's equipment. And sometimes it is fun to give the players a good scare.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The question is, do you think 'interesting' combat needs to involve people taking hits and not being incapacitated, reliably?

This question was very helpful. It sums up the question I'm struggling with. I think my answer is yes; I just haven't been able to figure out how to make it work. The advice I've received here has given me lots of good ideas.

Thank you all for the advice. It's greatly appreciated and has made me much more comfortable in building combat scenarios.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

One way to get survivable combat is to have restricted weapons. For example, it is highly unlikely that any government will allow any non-governmental personal to carry firearms (or beam weapons, railguns, etc) on any spacecraft because of the dangers associated with such weapons poking holes in the hull (my earlier example would punch through a hull with dDR 20). Spacers would probably learn to use melee weapons and unarmed combat to settle informal conflicts (though they might have an arms locker so they can deal with people trying to take over their spaceship). With that in mind, there is no reason why TL10 conflicts would be much more deadly that TL3 conflicts (taking into account weapon, armor, and medicine differences).

Realistically, the time it will take for a spacecraft to depressurize from a bullet hole is long enough to finish the firefight, slap a patch on the hole, and then perform damage control to seal it up.

Luke

[GM.Casper]

Ablative DR. If you are buying DR with points, an outer layer of full DR and a bigger inner layer of Ablative DR (-80%) works well. Could design your equipment armor to work similarly.

Ultra tech medicine. Lost limbs can be replaced overnight, dead people can be easily revived as long as the brain is intact, etc.

[myrmidon]

Originally Posted by GM.Casper

Ultra tech medicine. Lost limbs can be replaced overnight, dead people can be easily revived as long as the brain is intact, etc.

This has definitely saved me a couple of times. What do you do when an NPC has a gun held to a PC's head and another PC misses the take-down shot? You just pull the trigger and see what happens. (I was nice and made it a face shot since the NPC was standing in front of the PC with the gun to his head.) And it has saved PCs a couple of other times, as well.