closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcraft?
 

Until seeing this it never really hit home to me just how much of the in-game unit size is due to mechanical enhancements, it's a lot more like the Rifts Glitter Boy than it is to just a suit of Dead Boy armor, in terms of limb extension and size increase, basically...

Kind of wondering if there are any examples in one of the supplements that come close to this kind of PA and if the take the "vehicle as ally" or "vehicle as gadget advantages" approach to doing it.

Trying to think of realistic bare-bones minimums you would have for the HP and DR of such things. What you would expect as the lower threshold of what metal exoskeleta like these would provide. Is this the type of thing done in games like Warhammer?

This just makes me realize how absurd it is for Starcraft to treat these units as entirely organic when the majority of their durability surely must be mechanics. Maybe not to the same degree as a Siege Tank or SCV but still at least 50% mechanics not biologics.

I guess a similar criticism could be made of Warcraft, some of that HP has gotta be "armor" repairable via peasants as a Transport is (weirdly not Ballistas... I guess it takes more skill to build a balista than a transport) rather than helped w/ healing touch of a Paladin.

I suppose unless you use "Damage to Armor" rules in Low-Tech GURPS operates in a simialr way though because in these games they have 'armor' stats equivalent to the "never goes away DR" that armor provides under Basic Set rules. But since GURPS does have such tools it allows for more realistic thinking about iconic things of these old RTS games.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

The closest thing in 4e materials would be the TL9 Combat Walkers in UT which would probably be fairly close to Battletech Clan Elemental aremor if illustrated. They are definitely larger than man-sized and "climbed into" rather than "worn".

Being in UT they are simply gear bought with money.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Being TL9, they are technically capable of being mass produced in a realistic TL8 society, though it would involve the difficulties involved in realistic invention and mass production (and finding a military that wants to pay nearly a $1 million each for them). In a TL10+ setting though, they have largely been replaced by heavy battlesuits (a TL10 version of a combat walker should probably increase the bonuses and DR given by 50%, while keeping the same price). In any case, +30 Lifting, +30 Striking ST, and DR 300/180 may only be worth the intimidation factor, as TL 10 weapons can punch through armor rather easily.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Starcraft, especially the first one could basically be described as hillbillies in space. Iirc. the Terrans there are basically rejects sent far far far away to colonize.

Given that the marines are probably genetically modified giants and they inject themselves with almost lethal drugs (stimpack) I'd guess that their power armor requires exceptional strength to properly use.

I'd put Starcraft in the 'Space Fantasy' category where they are basically operating at TL8^ or TL9^ with bits and pieces of higher tech-levels (AI, FTL, ...). Heck, you might even declare that much of Terrain tech basically operates by the power of WH40K-orc-style "WAAAGH!", and it would probably feel perfectly fine. Might explain why marines seem to have been bred to be dumber than a box of rocks too. Don't ask questions about how your stuff works, just take the drugs and shoot.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

The idea that Starcraft is a ripoff of WH40 and Warcraft is a ripoff of Warhammer is... probably accurate.

The problem with hulking battle suits is that the articulation really doesn't work; try to bend the arms/legs of one of those hulking suits and you dislocate or break your limbs. Either it has to be basically the same size as the wearer, or it has to be big enough that the wearer fits entirely within the torso.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

In a SM+2 suit, you could function through having the leg controls in the upper legs and the arm controls in the upper arms, though there may be difficulties with fine control.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Starcraft ripoffed Starship Trooper, not WH40k. I think it deserve some respect :)

Big battlesuits don't dislocate people limbs, limbs usually extend to the shoulders and the hips, or something... it depends on the design. It is a matter of designer choice, it is not real engineering or science, just decide how it work and it will work like that.

you just have to look for it
https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/CM...ed_Combat_Suit

There you get all the specs you need for a conversion, the rest is handwave and game design choice (put as much armor to stop the weapons you want it to stop, etc).

With weight you can get hit points too.

You can also get GURPS Mecha (3ed) and make it more "accurately", the translation from 3ed to 4ed for that type of equipment is not big, you can use 3ed mecha straight from the book in 4ed games.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Try actually overlaying a human image over one of those giant suits.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

I'm sure you can find a few arts showing exactly the pilot body, head, arms and legs are when using the suit.

Some designers have the arms in the chest, somewhat like driving a byke, some in the shoulders, some crossed over the chest (using direct neural control)... for the starcraft ones I think it in the shoulders and the legs fit in the legs, the soldier knees don't get too far from the suit knees so they can bend just fine, but I'm not really a fan of the setting.

If you see the multiple arts in the wiki page I linked you will see that some of the arts are not as disproportionately large and not all suits accommodate the soldier in the same way.

Edit:
IIRC, those suits are connected to the soldier spine, so the arms and legs just need a bit of space, the arms may be crossed over the chest. the legs extend well enough to flex at the hips and knees due to the design of the suit.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

This animation, on the other hand, makes them a lot smaller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaXs...hannel=IulianG

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Most of those aren't very advanced b Gurps standards. There were improbable missing items and features added in later models should have been too simple to be left out of the earlier ones.

There was little information I could use to establish stats. I'd use stats from UT wholesale.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

I think it is more important if the stats go along with your defined campaign.

If you want your average marine to survive the basic zerg attack the armor must stop most or all of it. So basic zerg must swarm the marine and attack chinks in armor or slowly degrade the armor somehow.

If the marine armor should survive civilian weapons the armor should have enough DR to simulate that reality.

ST, HT, Hp are also campaign related...

using Ultratech as a base is a good choice, as those armors are already designed to compare to the weapons in the same book, so you can have some parameters. With that you make the zergs (if you want to make a starcraft conversion) comply to the Ultratech armors and weapons.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

If you want a Zerg Rush that actually threatens UT powered armor, I would suggest a 3d corrosive dual weapon melee attack. Each attack would reduce DR by an average of 1, which matters when a few dozen are attacking each space marine. If each space marine is suffering twelve attacks per turn because they are surrounded by six Zerg, they are losing an average of 12 DR per turn. Even if they kill two Zerg per turn, it will not matter if there are thirty waiting to take the place of every one that falls.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Our own CousinX generated reams of material for his GURPS Starcraft campaign years ago that you may find handy. You can find it here.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

There is exactly one statement of weigh on that page that I could find: firebat armor is 140kg, and its considered heavy.

The Suit there seems to be based on the TL9 powered combat armor from ultra-tech. Its not an exact match, but its pretty close. Its probably a decent starting point.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

It's totally based on that, yep. I was more thinking of the Zerg and Protoss stats, which were designed to line up with that. The campaign we used all that for went great.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

If you've done the original Starcraft missions, there are a bunch that have either civilians or random animals, and they aren't that much less durable than combat units, so starcraft armor really isn't terribly good.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Of course, if you'd rather have marines in giant combat walkers, that's awesome, and a few weeks ago I was actually trying to use spaceships (with some tweaks and glances at 3e mecha and vehicles) to come up with a range of suit sizes for a space culture inspired by starcraft (They're essentially creep farmers. Its a terraforming agent that extracts minerals and produces a biosphere. The big monsters only show up if the stuff gets infected or feels stressed. The "farmers" are nomadic, so they don't stress out one area too much)

Power armor in gurps mecha has a huge weight range, from about 200 lbs to 10,000 lbs.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

If you kept elbows/knees locked and most of your limb occupies the proximal half of limbs (thighs/upper arms) it seems like you could use your ankle/wrist to articulate the armor's knee/elbow?

This makes me wonder how you'd create the distinction between "extremities in limb joints" giant armors vs "extremities in extremities" normal armors, when distinguishing overpenetrating damage for wearable allies.

Basically if you wear a smaller SM ally (your SM, or maybe 1 or 2 higher) then if it loses a shin/forearm you're going to lose one too. There might be some small extensions (it can lose a hand/foot without you losing one) to protect your extremities from damage to theirs, but because f a "elbows in elbows and knees inside knees" design, damage you take will more greatly resemble the damage your wearable ally takes in terms of hit location.

If you wear a much bigger SM ally then we get stuff like "it can get blown off at the knee/elbow and my extremity takes damage instead of a limb" or even "I don't take any damage at all because the thigh/upperarm is slightly longer than my full limb length" by the hand/foot controlling pistons above the knee/elbow to operate the knee/elbow.

You'd still be taking damage to some part of your lower body from damage just to the thigh though (maybe 2/1/2/1 odds of it being thigh/knee/shin/foot ?) when you have a "hip inside hip" and "shoulder inside shoulder" design.

To have both hip=hip and shoulder=shoulder would require bots whose torso height matches your own, of course, which would look very odd with long legs/arms but not impossible...

I could be thinking too one-dimensionally (vertical distance) though. Another factor is to have hip/hip and shoulder/shoulder would be that the width between these joints has to roughly match your own, or else you would need to be a LOT more flexible to make the armor do certain things.

Example: if a human has shoulder joints spaced 3ft (1y) apart (sounds above average but doable for a roided marine) then the armor would need that too, giving it a narrow torso which would also look odd if you had long arms.

Marine's power armor seems to resemble human proportions between torso height/width to limb length though so it doesn't fit my theory...

I wonder if this might be even more extreme like "elbows and knees operate the shoulders" ?

This would give an even smaller proportion of your limbs inside the limbs of the armor. Only the proximal halves of the proximal halves (first 50% of thigh, first 50% of upper arm) would be occupied by the distal halves (forearm+hand and shin+foot) of the pilot's limbs. This would have the benefit of protecting them even more from overpenetrating damage to the limbs of their armor. You would definitely be protected from elbow/knee hits and maybe even attacks to the upper arm / thigh might occasionally miss your limb, or at worst lop off an extremity instead.

With that kind of size contrast there's probably also room for a pilot to do a last-minute "yankback" to pull their limb entirely inside the torso if they see it's about to be lost, like if a Zergling is gnawing on it and you can't pull it free, worry-through being unavoidable in the next couples seconds.

You're better off in that cast to free your limb (your PA limb is immobile anyway) to avoid blood loss, and maybe you could even use it to operate something inside the torso?

With a HUGE contrast (as we see in the CMC donned by Shivani Singh ... being a short female I think she might wear a different design than huge guys like Tychus Findlay though? dunno) maybe you'd even have room to store a small weapon like a pistol inside your armor, and even use it to fire wildly outside the "shoulder hole" created when a Zergling rips off your arm?

Probably pointless though because small pistols probably aren't enough to harm a Zergling. The lowest threshold of damage in SC seems to be 5 for SCVs but these are still 12ft tall mining robots who use the power drills (for mining) and plasma torches (for welding repairs) for attacks, which in gurps terms I'm guessing could still be more than 5x more powerful than a low-caliber pistol.

SC has a weird mechanic where all attacks do at least 1 damage regardless of how much armor you have, which I guess in GURPS terms means that to account for such mandatory incrementing any DR you buy should at least be Semi-Ablative so it can be whittled down over time.

Or at least any DR you get that's not Ablative should not be high enough to make 0 damage possible for the lowest caliber of weapon (SCVs I assume... Zerg Drone and Protoss Probe do identical 5 dmg and are probably also giant things 2x the size of a human: seem slightly bigger than marines and def bigger than zerglings which I think are meant to be horse-sized) but you could make it high enough to prevent damage from attacks/sources not actually accounted for in the RTS like say shrapnel from small explosions, walking on sharp rocks, the heat of being adjacent to a firebat's flame w/o getting hit directly, or the burning damage of hot shells ejected from a marine's weapon.

The use of a stimpack in-game has to be researched and gives you extra speed, but that just might be "10x as much stim as I usually use" (it damages them) so you could definitely assume that the long-term use of stim-packs work like roids and make them stronger/faster at baseline than a Terran Scientist / Terran Dropship Pilot / Terran SCV pilot NPC would have.

That would aid in the explanation (aside from the actual skills to use specific suits or weaponry) why you can't reassign certain people to new careers. Part of that also seems to be the crazy-long suit-up process seen in the Wings of Liberty OP.

Marines are bolted into their armors that makes makes the slow suitup Tony Stark did in the Iron Man OP or first live film (as oppose to faster suitup in 3rd film) seem quick by comparison...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZd9n373vf4&t=1m

Actually I guess 1m50s isn't that long (unless they FF'd some parts) I'm sure there are power armors which take longer than that to get into. I imagine by SC2 due to tech advances the process was faster than in SC1. Here you see a bunch of robots helping him put on the armor but maybe they had fewer robots (or slower robots) doing it with earlier Marine production.

I'm betting that's what the "training time" and "mineral cost" of Marines is supposed to be, the Barracks going through that automated process of putting armor on, since it could cause problems to be wearing that kind of thing for long periods of time you would assume that marines would in their leisure time not be wearing it.

Tychus Findlay could be an exception because he seems to keep his armor on even when not fighting, like when hanging out in a bar. I think that's because of the whole "armor is your prison" thing. I'm only a couple missions into the campaign so I want to avoid spoilers but it sounds from opening narration that Mengsk (you memorize his voice if you played SC1) sent him to mess with Raynor's plans.

Raynor by compairson hangs out w/o his marine armor on in the 1st/2nd pre-mission RP fluff, even though he wears it when you can control him in-game as a hero unit.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Just so long as we are clear that the March 1998 game did not rip off armor from the Nov 1997 live film.

The game would clearly be in development longer than that (it was planned since 1995) and there was 1996 demo at E3.

Any inspiration from Heinlein's creation would come from the 1959 novel itself, or the 6-episode anime OVA series released in 1988 which more faithfully adapted the power armor from the novel than the live films.

we never saw the SST armor done faithful to novels until the 1999 "Roughnecks" 3d-animated show, whose 36/40 episodes were GLORIOUS and I really wish they'd done more of that.

I wish we could blame that on budgeting restrictions, but I bet a lot of it has to do with the actors wanting face time which you don't get as much of when they're wearing suits instead of open-face helmets. IE why Robert Downy Junior just seems to have his helmet off so often in the movies, or why Grant Gustin as Barry Allen just happens to have a bunch of buddies who know his secret ID so he can "talk shop" as Flash unmasked on the CW's TV show.

The only way I can puzzle out the clear "proportions difference" between Findlay's animated suitup and Singh's comic suitup is they must be different CMC models.

I haven't been able to find specifics on what model number CMC either of them use (though I'm not looking too hard, wary of spoilers) but I think that while the end result is probably similar (probably around 10-12ft tall) there's proportional differences in the design between what a 5ft woman and some 8ft roidmonster wear to get to that point.

Nice find, also seeing height of 1.98m mentioned. Appropriate find for you too since Firebat CMC660 is red!

ie bugs/skinnies, but Blizzard certainly took things in unique directions with the Xel'Naga connection between them, and even though bugs were messing around with human psychics to some degree, Blizz also had a unique take w/ Infested Terrans and the fate of Sarah Kerrigan too I think.

Then again I haven't delved into WH40/Warhammer so I might be overlooking some similarities to non-SST stuff too.

the lowest human unit I can recall had 20 HP which was half that of a starting marine: https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Scientist_(Deception)

there were even some who had the same HP as marines (40):

https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Genetic_engineer
https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/UED_scientist

and an advanced one who had 60, which is more than the 50 than even a firebat starts with: https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/UED_genetic_engineer

They weren't exactly naked though, so we might handwave this as these scientists all having super-durable armor because they deal with volatile chemicals / high heat / etc.

They definitely seem slimmer and less bulky than a marine, but a lot of the marine armor probably goes toward stuff like having the strength to carry their guns, handle the recoil of the guns, etc.

That could even apply to Deception's scientists wh owere less protected than the UED ones and gene engineers, while being a UED into genetic engineer seems to give the +20 bonus twice because theirs is presumably the most dangerous field needing the most protection.

Of course: all of this "the HP is the armor" is a problematic assumption with Medics being able to heal the whole kaboodle of these "organic" units. I could handwaive these as medics having repair skills too (like SCVs but for small armor instead of vehicles/buildings) but a key diff is they use energy alone while SCVs use resources, so that implies you need resources to repair machines and energy to repair organics.

It's a weird assumption because I'd think you'd need resources to repair organics too...

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

All the SC1 critters have 60 hp, though they're all fairly large (would have 20-30 hp in GURPS).

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

A while back, I was musing over making a Starcraft campaign (set well after the events of Starcraft II), and decided the ideal approach was to reconsider the Marine units as only using mundane, "dumb" armor, with power armor only being used relatively rarely (being more akin to armored cavalry than infantry), as this also has the side benefit of giving letting Zerg and Protoss units (Zerglings and Zealots, respectively) have less-ridiculous damage outputs to be able to threaten Terrans. Oh, and it allows Ghosts/Specters to be less obvious ("Oh, look, a human combatant who isn't walking around inside a tank - must be a Ghost").

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

There's cinematics with unarmored people walking around, such as the jeep ambush, the demo person in the demolition of the Amerigo, and blowing up protoss illusions. The suits in the Amerigo cinematic do look powered, but possibly they're environment suits, not really armor.

There isn't really much heavy armor in the Starcraft setting, the stuff they call 'tanks' are mobile howitzers.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

How? It puts troops in bulky armor, yes, but they're nothing like the Mobile Infantry. (Very little in any game I can think of is, really, between the armament and the extreme mobility.) They're not much like the 40k Space Marines either in terms of lore, but in terms of being ridiculously bulky armor-dudes with huge rifles they're right on.

Also, while zerg could be taken as the SST 'bugs' (though more the cinematic misrepresentation than the original thing) instead of 40k Tyrannids, the Protoss have no such referent but are dead ringers for the Eldar.

(Of course, the thing about all these GW/Blizzard 'ripoffs' is that they replicate aesthetics and then pair them with totally different lore. Terran marines are expendable brainwashed convicts, not immortal engineered superhumans. The protoss homeworld is just fine. The Zerg aren't from outside the galaxy. Chaos isn't around at all. And back in Warcraft, the orcs are extradimensional invaders!)

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

FGU's Space Opera was actually fairly heavy into Starship Troopers emulation. The powered armor did the leaping and had Y-racks to sow explosive confusion on their flanks as they leapt. Portabel missiel alunchers with nuclear warheads too.

The UT TL10 Heavy Battlesuits have some of the right features. Particularly with the Scout and Command versions.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

*reads up on them more*
I feel like a failure of a Blizzard-player for never actually finding this out via playtest, because I otherwise do habitually click on units over and over just to see if they'll give different canned responses (as they've done since WC2) but I guess I never tried that on a critter.

They were only ever stuff I would just kill when bored to pass the time. Reading about some of their tactical uses (putting parasites inside them to spy on others, mind-controlling them to block narrow passages) actually makes me feel very low-IQ for never experimenting with how to interact with them more. The only thing I might've done is used them to spawn Broodlings.

Custom SC maps would actually be much much cooler if you filled them full of critters or could code critters to spawn at certain places, where killing them would be necessary to access certain areas at max speeds without needing to navigate around them.

it's a factor I bet a lot overlook when designing custom maps. You could definitely slow down "zerg rush" tactics by putting hordes of critters in between base spawn locations.

Kinda similar to doing a "labyrinth design" connecting them to slow ground traffic except it's not a permanent impede to ground traffic, it can be stopped, but like the new "there's rocks in the way" feature introduced in SC2 it requires active efforts by one side or the other.

Especially troublesome since you don't auto-attack critters (they function like allies instead of enemies) so your units will try to walk around them unless you give specific orders to click on an individual critter (one at a time!)

There should prob be some option in SC to designate critters as an enemy group instead of an ally, and to perhaps prioritize certain enemy groups over others, like you would attack a critter if there's no targets around, but leave them to last if enemy was attacking.

Critters could also run away more if attacked (maybe at high speed ) so you could herd them towards enemy bases as parasite-carrying spies or cannon fodder even if you lacked the resources to mind control them.

Super-mysterious how Bengalaas and Kakarus disappear in a protoss teleport flash... actually seems like all but one do that. Maybe protoss are trying to save most of the animals so they don't actually die?

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

A good source for general "How Powered Armor Works" stuff is CJ Cherryh's Rimrunners in her Union/Alliance/Chanur series.

The Marine armor there is in the "not that much larger than people" category, which it needs to be since it is mostly used for boarding or defending ships and space stations. There is a section where the protagonist is given the job of repairing two captured suits and then fitting them and teaching an officer how to use it. So you get a fair amount of detail about how they work and capabilities.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

I never playerd Starcraft but reading the wiki linked earlier in this thread, it seems even normal infantry guns (needle guns) can penetrate these power armors so it really doesn't seem like they're made to be man-like tanks but a weapon platform like Fallout's.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Starcraft does have a concept of damage resistance, but it's very low (marines have 0-3 DR based on upgrade level and 40 hp; they do 6-9 damage based on upgrade level. The heaviest armor in SC1 is a max upgrade Protoss carrier with 7 armor, in SC2 it is a max upgrade Ultralisk with 7 armor).

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

At some point, it stops being ripping off and becomes exploring, expanding, or subverting. Truly new and simple ideas that work are rare and precious, but when combined with each other they can appear new and fresh, and indeed tell very different stories.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

I don't think using the RTS stats is meaningful. A handful of marines can shoot down a Battlecruiser despite the crusiers being over a kilometer in length.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

DR (Ablative (Cutting Only)) would model armor that resists most attacks but gets worn down by the zerg rush.

Another build I've considered is layered DR of:
DR (All or Nothing) Enough to resist small arms and the like.
DR (Ablative or Semi-Ablative)

I like the second one since it works for a lot of situations where you want armor to be worn down reasonably quickly, but not by attacks that are below a certain threshold.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

I generally assume that on the RTS maps (as opposed to the no-recruitment mission maps) a single counter of marines is actually a platoon or so.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

I've long felt that a decent idea for a certain type of ablative armor would be to have it with a given DR that roughly follows the normal semi-ablative scheme (optionally a bit faster, say -1 DR per 5 damage), but instead of a penetration damaging the character, it instead degrades the armor on a 1-for-1 basis. So, a character with DR 100 in this scheme, if struck by a 150 damage attack, would have the first 100 reduce DR to 90, and the remaining 50 would reduce DR to 40 (rather than pulping the character). Such a modifier is arguably worth a net -10%* if it's part of the character or a Gadget (if it's just gear, like the armor of most Marines, it doesn't need such stats). This basically means the character won't be harmed at all until the armor - or at least that part of it - is completely destroyed (I should note I initially came up with this while musing on how Shardplate from The Stormlight Archives might function, and also considered a one-shot adventure involving space marines in armor that functions similarly for some players more familiar with "buckets of HP" characters/enemies). This can also work well for superscience shields that won't let anything through until they've been fully depleted.

*Something that comes close in function would be a layer of Semi-ablative DR and an equal layer of Ablative DR. For DR 100, the first layer (with Semi-ablative -20%) would cost [400], while the second (with Ablative -80%) would cost [100], for a total of [500] - essentially a net +0% modifier on the initial DR 100. That would outperform the above, however, as the Semi-ablative layer wouldn't lose DR when the Ablative one does, so I felt roughly halving the cost of the Ablative layer would be appropriate for linking its DR to the Semi-ablative layer's. That changes the cost to [450], or a net -10%.

EDIT:They also likely have weapons beyond their rifles, which may be better fits against targets they logically shouldn't be able to harm - the intro to the Brood War expansion shows a Marine blowing up some Zerglings with rocket propelled explosives of some flavor, although given he only takes out one with each, (and doesn't harm the nearby Marine at all) they likely aren't very powerful. That cinematic - and I think pretty much all of the relevant cinematics from SC1 - also shows a Marine's rifle being unable to penetrate the Zergling's armor, of course.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Interesting concept! If I may, I'd like to call this "Double-Pass Ablative" or DP-Ablative.

In my personal system off allowing any arbitrary value of Ablative, where Ablative is Ablative(1) and Semi-Ablative is Ablative(10) I'd have DP-Ablative be Ablative(X/Y) so your example would be Ablative(10/1). A Fair value for the limitation would, in my opinion, be the full -% of the first pass and half the value of the second pass.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Feel free to steal and name it however you'd like. As you note, I feel a fair way to price it is the two-layer approach, with the second layer at half price. This may interact poorly with non-standard ablation rates, however. I was going to suggest building the second layer as always ablating 1:1, with the option to have it with more DR than the first, so long as the loss is proportional. I don't know what pricing scheme you use, but let's say Ablative(5) is -40% and Ablative(3) is -50% (Ablative(1) is still -80%). Simply going with halving the second layer would make DPA(5/3) be -15%, and a character with DR 20 would pay [85] to be able to soak up to a 48 damage attack. Instead requiring the character to build the first layer as DR 20(Ablative(5) -40%) [60] and the second as DR 60(Ablative(1) -80%) [60], halved to [30] for being linked to the first layer for an end cost of [90], works out to a very similar cost, so I suspect just halving the second layer is probably fine.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

To be fair, this was pretty much inherited from Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness where the Elven Archer (3-9 damage) could eventually (150 hp) destroy a battleship.

Battleships had 15 armor which means it would reduce damage to the minimum of 1, so it would take 150 shots, but 150 arrows destroying a battleship is still pretty extreme.

Elven Archers had equal damage as Troll Axethrowers, though in GURPS terms I'm pretty sure cutting damage would be better at damaging wood than impaling damage, due to the "Unliving" status of wood and all that.

That kind of complexity didn't make it into WC3 either ... not sure about WOW as I haven't played it yet... dunno if they distinquish impaling arrows vs. cutting axes vs "wooden foes" types.

Do you mean to stack them (DR always ablates from all damage hitting it, and only subtracts from cutting damage) ?

Or to "either or" them (DR subtracts from all damage, but only ablates from cutting damage) ?

Like with DR 1, 1 basic damage has 0 penetrating damage, 2 basic damage has 2 penetrating damage?

You could stack or either-or this with ablative too:

1) stacked: small damage is lessened and ablates, big damage is not lessened, but still ablates
2) either: small damage is lessened and does not ablate, big damage is lessened but ablates

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

The DR behaves normally, but only ablates from cutting damage.

Yes, All-Or-Nothing means it either completely stops the attack or fails completely. Stacking it on ablative would be quite weird, I'm not sure what behavior that would be representative of.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

The other fairly simple way to emulate Starcraft armor is to treat it as fairly high DR flexible armor, and you mostly just kill things by bleeding through damage.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

"Ablates or Else" is definitely either/or...

On more thought though I think the other condition might be "Bane:Cutting" rather than "Limited:Cutting".

Basically to avoid Cutting ignoreing the DR (which Bane causes) you switch to ablate.

If it was either/or Ablative/Limited:Cutting then I think it would be that cutting alone stops it without ablating while all other attacks were stopped w/ Ablate.

basically how Corrosion Attack w/ Ignores DR might work: something would not have DR subtracted from it, but still reduce DR on its way in.

Or the opposite of how Corrosion Attack w/ No Wounding works (no damage gets through, but lowers DR)

Would work if it was physical attacks but there's energy stuff like w/ Firebats flamethrowers which don't suffer Blunt Trauma.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Given limitation value, and frankly reality for most such things, I wouldn't mind changing 'blunt trauma' to 'nonpenetrating trauma' and applying it to additional damage types. Or just giving all wide area burning attacks some additional ability to penetrate armor.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

There is the "your metal armor heats up" aspect but I don't know how we adapt that into trait terms...

It's almost like to emulate realism you couldn't use Innate Attack alone, you'd need to do other stuff like "Control Heat" and "Obscure" to reflect how a flamethrower would increase temperature in addition to burning, or how the continuous stream would obstruct vision.

To qualify for Obscure I think an attack would need to blot out an entire hex though...

Unless maybe you could take "Bombardment" limitation to reflect how it's not a complete hex blackout but just partial obscuration. That sounds pretty spot on TBH, you're just rolling to see if someone suffers penalties rather than if they suffer damage.

Would be further neat if we could somehow tie output (damace dice, levels of obscure) to the margin rolled on Bombardment

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

Why would you want that? Armor blocking flames and the like works very well as far as I know...

When wide area burning-like effects defeat armor well, it's usually because the armor isn't sealed and thus lets hot gasses or burning liquid fuel get inside.

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

The armor would function like ablative normally, but if damage exceeded it, it would both ablate away and completely fail to protect the target. Which would be pretty nasty. The closest analogue I can think of is the shielding in the Strike Suit Zero computer game, at least when it comes to physical attacks - the shield completely fails to protect you against collisions, and also drops if you bump into anything (it also functions poorly against guns, although fortunately the enemies seem to exclusively use energy weapons against you).

Re: closest Space/Ultratech equiv to the giant power armors used by Marines in Starcr
 

The Limited (Cutting) is a limitation on Ablative, not a limitation on the DR, reducing Ablative from a -80% to a -48% limitation. I take it my nested limitations caused confusion and should have been more explicit.