Battlesuit ST

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by weby

Nut my point is that feed back does not mean that a stronger user would get more total work out of it. A feedback can be proportional to the user's strength.

This. If Sargent Max Force -ST 30 - grips a girder with all of his might and gets the machine to give him everything it has got there is no reason that Private Wee Willie - ST 8 - can't have the machine adjusted to give him the same top end performance when he grips as tight as he can. The upper limit should be based on what the maximum out put of the machine is and pegging that to the performance of the wearer.

[Kalzazz]

I personally like it, it means that a brawny space marine in a battlesuit is stronger than a flabby couch potato

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I personally like it, it means that a brawny space marine in a battlesuit is stronger than a flabby couch potato

In a cinematic campaign, sure. In a realistic one, it depends on your technological assumptions.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

This. If Sargent Max Force -ST 30 - grips a girder with all of his might and gets the machine to give him everything it has got there is no reason that Private Wee Willie - ST 8 - can't have the machine adjusted to give him the same top end performance when he grips as tight as he can. The upper limit should be based on what the maximum out put of the machine is and pegging that to the performance of the wearer.

While yeah, both users are going to get the same boost from the suit, the quadratic nature of 4th edition ST means that realistically if Mr. Force wears a TL9 Powered Combat Armor, he should only get ~+5 to ST for a total ST of 35 which is roughly a 1/3rd increase. Willie in the same suit is going to have his ST8 boosted to ST19, a 5.7× increase in ST.

With the flat +10 ST bonus Force becomes ST40, which now almost doubles his effective ST and Willie becomes ST18, a 5× increase. Now in both cases Willie has his over all ST boosted more then then Force but with the flat bonus Force gets +140lbs added to his Basic Lift while Willie gets only +52lbs added where in the realistic example they both had their Basic Lifts boosted 60lbs.

So in this case using a flat bonus going to cause the suit to change it's output magically based on the ST of the user.

[sir_pudding]

Yes, if you want to do it realistically you should do something like Suit ST=[(ST^2)+300]^(1\2)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

This. If Sargent Max Force -ST 30 - grips a girder with all of his might and gets the machine to give him everything it has got there is no reason that Private Wee Willie - ST 8 - can't have the machine adjusted to give him the same top end performance when he grips as tight as he can. The upper limit should be based on what the maximum out put of the machine is and pegging that to the performance of the wearer.

A suit that has a mechanical upper limit that Wee Willie can safely reach is probably weaker than Force is naked.

In that case Force should probably have his effective ST reduced, because he is fighting the suit. Alternatively the suit can take HT damage as he forces it to use Extra Effort.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yes, if you want to do it realistically you should do something like Suit ST=5(ST^2/5+60)^(1\2).

Yeah, a powered suit is pretty much an example of "The GM may let multiple characters add their BL (not their ST) whenever it seems reasonable; e.g., to
carry a stretcher or pull a wagon." Basic Set pg. 353

The suit is like having someone help you lift something heavy. Suits should add a basic lift bonus not a ST bonus, but this of course adds extra detail that some players might not want.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yes, if you want to do it realistically you should do something like Suit ST=5(ST^2/5+60)^(1\2).

That would be mathematically correct.
Alas, it would give ammunition to the "No way, not GURPS! GURPS forces me to perform exponentiation just to see how strong I am/become" crowd, even more so than the original one time players have to do it during chargen. (Joint lifting so far hasn't come up in my campaigns, so I consider it a rare occurrence based on my experience.)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

That would be mathematically correct.
Alas, it would give ammunition to the "No way, not GURPS! GURPS forces me to perform exponentiation just to see how strong I am/become" crowd, even more so than the original one time players have to do it during chargen.

Yes, so Ultra-Tech assumes that you probably have ST 10-15 or so, and says +10 ST (or whatever), which is more-or-less the same thing.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

That would be mathematically correct.
Alas, it would give ammunition to the "No way, not GURPS! GURPS forces me to perform exponentiation just to see how strong I am/become" crowd, even more so than the original one time players have to do it during chargen. (Joint lifting so far hasn't come up in my campaigns, so I consider it a rare occurrence based on my experience.)

It's exactly what GURPS Low-Tech recommends for multiple people combining ST.

In fact, you should have figured BL during character creation. For a lot of applications, "add up the BLs" is just second grade arithmetic.

I think that Kromm offers the handwavy shortcut somewhere of "use the full ST of the stronger character and one-fifth that of the weaker." If the suit provides ST 10, then Max Force will be at 30 + 10/5 = 32 for BL going from 180 to 205, and Wee Willie will be at 8/5 + 10 = 12 for BL going from 13 to 29. That's a bigger absolute increase for Max but a bigger proportional increase for Willie.

If you actually add the BLs, multiply the sum by 5, and take the square root, Max goes from 30 to SQRT(5 x [180 + 20]) = SQRT(1000) = 32, and Willie from 8 to SQRT(5 x [13 + 20]) = SQRT(165) = 13. So Kromm's formula isn't a disastrously bad fit.

Anyone remember where that formula is, and do I have it right?