Vehicle hit points

[maximara]

Originally Posted by the-red-scare

Pretend you’re in charge of choosing the hit point system for GURPS Vehicle Design. Unlike David Pulver in the real world, you have no mandate to be even slightly consistent with established 4e vehicle stats, but do have to remain consistent with the rest of GURPS mechanics and weapon damage values. You can choose any of the existing systems or build your own.

3e: multiply surface area by 1.5, with a 0.1x to 2x modifier based on frame strength. Cars have around 200 HP, an SM +10 space cruiser might have around 150,000 HP.

4e: multiply the cube root of empty weight by 4. Cars have around 60 HP, the same space cruiser has around 1,000.

Unused 4e (from Pyramid “Extreme Damage”): multiply the square root of empty weight by 1.7. Cars have around 100 HP, the space cruiser has around 7,000.

Damage never changed from 3e to 4e, but vehicles are anywhere from 2x to 150x or more easier to destroy. I know there’s lots of ways to mitigate that via house rules, but suppose you were staring over: what kind of HP formula actually makes sense for vehicles and makes them appropriately easy or hard to kill?

Perhaps I am missing something but by the square-cube rule the base 4e should make vehicles harder to destroy.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by maximara

Perhaps I am missing something but by the square-cube rule the base 4e should make vehicles harder to destroy.

There's no square involved, it's just a cube root.