[High-Tech] Drills: what's the point of the Armour Divisor?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

2d+2(2) halves DR for purposes of penetration . . . but reading the entry on Semi-Ablative (B47) and DR loss on concrete (B559), it doesn't care about armour divisors

Where does either rule say, "ignore armor divisors"? Nowhere, because you don't do that. An attack with a divisor faces less DR in the first place. It's this DR that's reduced, not full DR. If I have a divisor (2), then I need to carve away DR 40 to get through a DR 80 ablative target. On the other hand, if another attack comes along, I've only carved away DR 40, so that attack still faces DR 40, because the DR just has a little hole in it.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

and is reduced based on damage rolled, not injury sustained.

Please check my examples again. Nowhere am I using injury. I only start applying the injury rules once the damage begins to penetrate DR. That's when homogenous kicks in.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Where does the faster ablation come from?

The fact that pi++ is treated as ablative, not semi-ablative. The footnote on p. B559 is quite explicit on this point: "Repeated impaling, piercing, and large piercing . . . semi-ablative; repeated burning, corrosion, crushing, cutting, or huge piercing . . . ablative." And p. B47 is quite clear on how ablative DR works; namely, it's carved away on 1:1 basis by damage points. This is why just about all tools intended for slicing through bulk matter are either burning (burn) or huge piercing (pi++).