Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

In which case why does it matter what the stats are for ships and weapons in the tactical combat system if you aren't going to actually use it?

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

I reworked those SM-scaled pi vs modified ship HP numbers, eg if the frigate hull is treated as SM+7, and it has 1600HP, a 24lb cannon is pi+6 and a 42lb cannon is pi+8... An SM+7 Unliving target treats SM+6 as SM-3, SM+8 as SM-1. Average damage from 6d*5 is 105; with DR6 that's 30 and 70 HP Injury. The 4d+2 musket would barely manage 1HP Injury.
Even with such extreme mods, having approx 30 cannon averaging 50HP Injury per hit - if half hit, once per 1.5 minutes, that's 3 minutes to 0HP, 18 minutes to -5*HP. Perhaps I should keep it as an SM+9 target...

Got to include that the SM-pi scaling system treats a pi++ bullet vs an SM+3 elephant as pi-. But the .600 Nitro Express, 5d*2 pi++, still comes out as approx 21HP Torso wound or 90HP Skull (Basic Set Elephant has 45HP...)

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

So the etymological dictionaries tell me, anyway. It is a rank as well as a role, as you say.

It seems to me that it's also a useful task for apprentice officers-to-be. They get to see what orders experienced officers give in various situations, and get used to telling the sailors what to do and having them do it.

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

Would some of the damage problems go away if parts of a vehicle were treated in a manner similar to limbs?

By that I mean a human's arm (or leg) can only take so much damage; extra is lost. Instead of treating a vehicle as a big hunk of HP, would it be better to view it in sections?

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

Yes and that was suggested upthread. Lot of reading here to sift through.

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

You're hitting sections of wooden walls for the most part; some with extra armor. A foot-thick one-hex section of wooden wall has DR 12* (Combustible), HP 54 and HT 12. (GURPS Basic, pg 558)

The problem with vehicles is rather simple: Vehicles are structures composed of many sections that don't especially care about what you do to the other sections unless you hit a vital bit of machinery or a load-bearing structural member. GURPS treats all of those semi-independent structures as having a single shared pool of hit points when they do no such thing. The most obvious solution to this renders it less than gameable though ... tracking injury done and the effects thereof for every hex of structure separately can be a rather large chunk of numbers to keep track of.

Especially when one considers that each hex is also acting as cover for every hex 'behind' it. One can always have a computer track it, or a lot of notes!, admittedly, but the requirement for such can and will slow play down in a non-negligible manner. Ah well.

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

Hmm. That is an idea actually.
Limbs already are treated in some ways as separate compartments.
So what about buying Extra Limb as External Shell/Hull?
As an Extra Limb it can get damaged and blowthrough goes into the interior space but its not destroyed or count as additional HP damage once disabled until it gets a blow high enough to destory it.
Have to work out a few other details.

Other compartments can be bought as well. Bridge and many compartments could be treated as Extra head or Limbs.
I think you still need the damage reduction.

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

That is true of some vehicles, mainly those build in a frame-first tradition. It is not true for others, particularly those built in a hull-first tradition.

I think its obvious why any system which depends on having detailed plans of a vehicle (or on the GM understanding shipbuilding traditions and aircraft manufacturing techniques) won't work for 99% of cases.

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

I'm not using the GURPS rules because they are unusable? Where they usable and gave reasonably expected and consistent results, I'd be trying to make use of them instead of having to use a different game to play it out. As it is? The game stats are easily enough understood that one could use both GURPS and BEAT TO QUARTER in a relatively seamless manner. You wouldn't have to use cube roots, nor would you have do a lot of calculations on how many dice each cannon does. A GURPS age of sail game should be so easy!

Re: 4E's hit point philosophy
 

Yep, I stand corrected. I think I got this confused with some optional - yet I'm positive it's official - rule somewhere (Monster Hunter? Dungeon Fantasy?) which simplified it to divide injury by 3 for Unliving and by 5 for Homogenous, which is what I tend to do on the fly as a GM.

But even then I still made the mistake that the normal Wounding Modifier should have applied, as the /3 is to the injury, not penetrating damage. So it should have been x2 for pi++, then /3, for a net x2/3. With that rule, it would have been (92 x 2/3 =) 61 injury to the ship.

As to Beam Weapons, this I really don't remember where that came from. Probably just a personal house rule I implemented, so can't even claim that's an official optional rule from anywhere. (But I still think it makes sense to treat it the same as bullets as they only make small holes)