01-12-2022, 05:50 PM | #51 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
In the real world if you multiply the size of a projectile (in all dimensions) by N, while not changing shape or speed or composition, you multiply penetration by N. The effects of changing speed on penetration can range from the second power to less than zero, but is usually less than linear in energy.
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01-13-2022, 10:14 AM | #52 | |
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
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01-13-2022, 10:41 AM | #53 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
If you want to see the formula for projectile damage, I think there is a copy in the bow design rules and associated spreadsheet. There was an early version on Pyramid #2, maybe in some designer's notes. The trouble of keeping track of these things without citations is one reason I'm not such a GURPS grognard any more. Better to just have fun building and playing!
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01-13-2022, 10:49 AM | #54 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
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01-13-2022, 11:03 AM | #55 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
The simple version is that (as long as velocity remains constant) penetration of armor goes up in proportion to the increase in mass.
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Fred Brackin |
01-13-2022, 12:16 PM | #56 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
While that's a more reliable formula than anything you can do for mass, there are still plenty of conditions under which it's false.
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01-13-2022, 01:40 PM | #57 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
You'll notice that I made it "penetration of armor" rather than just "damage"? That's just the beginning of simplifications you have to make to come up with a simple statement. I didn't even try and explain "sectional density".
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Fred Brackin |
01-18-2022, 01:15 PM | #58 |
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
I wound up grabbing a copy of BTRC's Fires of Heaven, a sci-fi game that seems to want to pay attention to realism. The spaceship combat section emphasizes that routinely engaging in spaceship combat will get you killed, and that the section is very much a "use what you need for your campaign and no more". Oddly, though, while relative speed impacts ramming, missile speed seems to be entirely abstracted out, even though it seems like it should be variable, at least in cases of what GURPS Spaceships calls "fast pass" combat.
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01-26-2022, 04:10 AM | #59 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
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01-26-2022, 04:17 AM | #60 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?
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For large ships toughness scales up faster than firepower, and ships get slow (comparatively speaking), so it devolves into a very long and tedious slugging match. There's also an oddity where in general whether or not an attacker can penetrate your shields doesn't actually affect how long it takes to pound your ship to scrap. The author said that how badly they broke the rules with warships was set for each navy, but that he'd long-since lost his drafts and notes (and he passed away years ago). Apparently the stats were done in something like a single weekend, so I don't imagine there was a lot of number-checking, let alone play-testing.
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