Clarification Needed: Homogeneous Object HP Calculation in Supers vs Basic Set

[Werethunder]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to express my gratitude to all of you who took the time to respond to my query regarding the calculation of HP for homogeneous objects in Supers and the Basic Set. Your insights have been incredibly helpful.

Firstly, I'd like to thank zoncxs and others who pointed out the focus on cover value in Supers. While I understand your perspective, my original question was indeed concerning the calculation of HP contribution to cover value, especially the specific method outlined on page 76 of Supers which seems to differ from the Basic Set approach in a first glance ("The usual rule for an object’s cover value is to determine its HP from its weight using the table on p. B558; divide this by 2 for machines, or by 4 for homogenous objects").

A special thanks to sir_pudding for highlighting the correlation between Cover Value and HP as per B408. This connection is crucial and helps to put things into perspective.

Most importantly, I'd like to extend my deepest thanks to Varyon and Anaraxes. Your careful explanations about how living, unliving, and homogeneous things each contribute differently to Cover Value, depending on their HP, really clarified the issue for me. The distinction you made — that living things provide Cover DR equal to their HP, unliving things provide Cover DR equal to HP/2, and homogeneous things provide Cover DR equal to HP/4 — was particularly enlightening. This approach makes sense and resolves the confusion around the apparent contradiction in the rules.

Thanks to everyone's contributions, I now have a much clearer understanding of how to handle these calculations in my games. It's discussions like this that make the GURPS community such a valuable resource!

Warm regards,
Werethunder