GURPS Heavy Gear

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

lexington,

I appreciate the input. However, our problem is, actually, the opposite of your suggestion: We need a weapon that can damage heavily armored targets, but not obliterate lesser armored targets (a common GURPS conundrum) in the same hit.

This is usually solved with heavy use of armor divisors. So an attack that can do 6d to a human but also penetrate a tank with DR2000 would have 6d(100).

[Ragitsu]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

And, I agree with OldSam: extra bookkeeping = bad. I’m a huge fan of KISS (the concept, not the band).

I was not concerned about perceived laboriousness (this is apparently a problem with some gamers that has become especially popularized with the advent of a certain system's edition. It's not a problem with me and many others), just accuracy.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by shadowjack

A Hunter mecha had armor roughly equivalent to a good armored car, didn't it? Or an old light tank? So, just for eyeballing, we grab the Cold War Armored Car stats from GURPS High-Tech: DR 40 front, DR 20 flanks. The armored car's HP are even close to your 100 HP estimate.

Nope. A Hunter has an Armor Value of 15, and a T-72 has an Armor Value of 16. So, its only slightly less-well armored than a T-72.

A T-72 has an AV of 16, a Challenger has a 22, and an M1A1DU has a 25.

That that AV of 16 would be DR 1,155. However, Heavy Gear math would say that it has a DR of 706.

Originally Posted by shadowjack

Another reason I say this is that some of your estimated numbers break my suspension of disbelief. A "light" autocannon that does damage like a 75mm tank gun carried by a mere 7-ton mecha with more armor protection than a WWII tank with five times its mass… well, no wonder they're either shrugging off all harm, or getting splattered like eggs! :)

See, there not my numbers, they're Heavy Gear's numbers. Also Keep in mind that they've had over four-thousand years of technological evolution to make their vehicles tougher. WWII was in the 1940s and Heavy Gear takes place in the 6130s.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

This is usually solved with heavy use of armor divisors. So an attack that can do 6d to a human but also penetrate a tank with DR2000 would have 6d(100).

And how do you explain this? I have a 25mm round that can damage both a tank and a person, where does this (100) come from? That's superior to Shaped-Charge weapons that also exist in the setting.

Originally Posted by Ragitus

I was not concerned about perceived laboriousness (this is apparently a problem with some gamers that has become especially popularized with the advent of a certain system's edition. It's not a problem with me and many others, just accuracy.

However, that devastates the feel of Heavy Gear. HG is a fast, simple combat system, so it didn't bog down play (that screaming that you hear is MonkeyFist disagreeing with me). A gear's stats could be put on a tiny playing card and you'd have everything you needed to play.

Originally Posted by shadowjack

I am probably way off on my memories of the Heavy Gear stats and descriptions, but that all feels pretty right to me for a one-on-one heavy gear duel, about the right level of risk to fit my mental image. Whether I've got the numbers right or not, the point is that doing it this way means you don't have to grind your way through some weapons formula unless there's some weapon that doesn't have a direct equivalent; you just start with work GURPS has already done for you, and tweak it to match.

You are, but I won't hold that against you ;-)

I've got some ideas that I'm playing around with.

My goals:

#1, It needs to be fun.
#2, It needs to feel like Heavy Gear even if the numbers don't quite match up.
#3, It need to be compatible with the rest of the rules from GURPS

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

And how do you explain this? I have a 25mm round that can damage both a tank and a person, where does this (100) come from? That's superior to Shaped-Charge weapons that also exist in the setting.

I don't explain it at all. In "the real world" a 25mm shell will paste a person and scratch a tank. Something that has enough kinetic energy to punch through a T72 will turn a person into pink mist.

If you want a type of damage that lances through armor but won't turn the contents of that armor into jelly, Armor Divisor is the way to go.

If you're looking for real world physics, well, penetration is proportional to sqrt(KE), and that's hard to edit around.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

If you're looking for real world physics, well, penetration is proportional to sqrt(KE), and that's hard to edit around.

You are correct sir! Hence the problems. However, I may have found a solution. It ain't Heavy Gear math, but it's a conversion, and I think it'll keep the feel of the game:

Once again, I’m trying too hard. Someone else has already done a double-butt-load of work in keeping GURPS vehicles simple.

Ladies and Gentlemen: David L. Pulver. A round of applause, please.

Once again, looking at what he’s done, makes my life easier. Thank you, David, for GURPS Spaceships for a place to get inspiration from.

First of all, I’m going to make them Decade-scale constructs.

A Gear’s dDR = 2x its AV.
So, a Hunter’s AV of 15 would be a dDR of 30.
A Cheetah’s AV of 10 would be dDR of 20
A Grizzly’s AV of 18 would be a dDR of 36.

A Weapon’s dice of d-damage = its Damage Multiplier, factoring in Armor Divisor (give or take a die)
So, a Hunter’s LAC (a x8 weapon) would be 4d (2) pi++.
The Cheetah’s DPG (also a x8 weapon) would also be 4d(2) pi++. Also, the Grizzly caries one of these to add insult to injury.
The Hunter’s and Cheetah’s LRP/24 (a x12 weapon) would be 4d (3) cr ex.
The Grizzly’s HAC (a x12 weapon) would be 6d(2) pi++.
The Grizzly’s two MRP/18s (x18 weapons) would be 6d(3) cr ex.
The Grizzly’s HGM (a x20 weapon) would be 4d (5) cr ex.
(fighting a Grizzly is usually a Bad Thing™, unless you’re also in something brutally tough, say a Spitting Cobra, Kodiak, King Cobra or Agamemnon.)

A Gear’s dHP = 2x its HP based on mass (from Campaigns pg 558).
So, a Hunter’s dHP would be 20. The doubling is reflecting the redundancy and sturdiness of Gear construction.
The Cheetah’s dHP would be 18 as it’s mass is 5,230 kg.
The massive Grizzly, massing a whooping 9,210 kg would have . . . 22 dHP.

So, the Cheetah is pretty much toast when someone hits it (much like the actual, tactical game). A Hunter can take a hit or two and the Grizzly makes everyone run to their mommy. Hopefully, mommy isn’t a Mammoth.

Comments, critiques, suggestions, vibroaxes to tender places.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

See, there not my numbers, they're Heavy Gear's numbers. Also Keep in mind that they've had over four-thousand years of technological evolution to make their vehicles tougher. WWII was in the 1940s and Heavy Gear takes place in the 6130s.

Yeah, but absent some fantasy materials, we pretty much know how to make vehicles tougher. Make the armour thicker.

And that's insufficient for the kind of weapons that modern technology can engineer, mostly.

It's been a long time since defence could hold a candle to offence, technologically speaking. We've gotten used to things that are visible being eminiently killable.

If that has changed in a particular setting, we need to postulate some miracle in materials science that somehow does not carry over to offence. And since energy shields are voodoo and superdense materials would realistically mean superdense penetrators, it pretty much needs to be a furious handwave, scientifically speaking.

[zorg]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Comments, critiques, suggestions, vibroaxes to tender places.

Not exactly helpful, but you've made me curious about Heavy Gear.

[cmac]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I don't explain it at all. In "the real world" a 25mm shell will paste a person and scratch a tank. Something that has enough kinetic energy to punch through a T72 will turn a person into pink mist.

If you want a type of damage that lances through armor but won't turn the contents of that armor into jelly, Armor Divisor is the way to go.

If you're looking for real world physics, well, penetration is proportional to sqrt(KE), and that's hard to edit around.

In today's US Army the Bradley AFV uses a 25mm Bushmaster cannon. It's devistating vs troops and can destroy some Tanks. It accomplishes this by switching ammunition types. 25mm HE for those pesky troops and then AP for those nasty tanks.

During the events of 2003 in Iraq, US Army Bradley IFVs were recorded killing t-72s with their 25s.

Just attempting to bring a little Real World comparison.

[Juca]

Well, and what about unnarmed strikes? If I remeber well, in Heavy Gear there is some mechs with melee weapons and, in Gurps, they will be night invulnerable to these attacks...

[mlangsdorf]

In Heavy Gear, melee attacks were generally useless, except for the infamous "give a guy a grenade from behind" trick. Actually hitting someone with a vibroblade meant you were out of ranged weapons and grenades, which never happened in the games I played.

If you wanted to roughly eyeball it, I'd probably make the vibroblade an 8d weapon, so it carves up Cheetahs pretty well but is useless against real gears. Grenades would be a 5d (3) weapon. It'll wreck a Cheetah if it hits and put the hurt on most other Gears.

Mark - I think the d-scale version works pretty well, though I'd probably base dHP on Heavy Gear scale Gear size and comments on toughness. ie, a Hunter might be 18 HP to a Cheetah's 14 and a Grizzly's 22 or more. I think Grizzlys should take a lot more damage than a Hunter, not 10%. But that's just a quibble, the rest looks good.

The other thing is I don't see an HGM as a heavily armor piercing weapon. I'd reserve that for the ATGM and AGM, at 5d (5) and 3d (5), respectively. The HGM is just a big hammer, so make it 6d+2 (3).