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Old 01-12-2022, 05:50 PM   #51
Anthony
 
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
I'm not saying this is great—energy/area would probably make more sense than energy/linear dimension. But there might be a method to the madness.
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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Old 01-13-2022, 10:14 AM   #52
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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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.
Out of curiosity, what happens if you lengthen a projectile while keeping diameter constant?
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Old 01-13-2022, 10:41 AM   #53
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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It dawns on me that under the hood, GURPS may be trying to scale damage from projectiles and collisions as sqrt(energy/linear dimension).
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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Old 01-13-2022, 10:49 AM   #54
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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Out of curiosity, what happens if you lengthen a projectile while keeping diameter constant?
I suggest http://panoptesv.com/RPGs/Equipment/...le_physics.php
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Old 01-13-2022, 11:03 AM   #55
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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Out of curiosity, what happens if you lengthen a projectile while keeping diameter constant?
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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Old 01-13-2022, 12:16 PM   #56
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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The simple version is that (as long as velocity remains constant) penetration of armor goes up in proportion to the increase in mass.
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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Old 01-13-2022, 01:40 PM   #57
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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.
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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Old 01-18-2022, 01:15 PM   #58
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Default 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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Old 01-26-2022, 04:10 AM   #59
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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I have always been partial to the Knight Hawks rules of the Star Frontiers RPG. In addition to a fast-playing but fairly detailed spaceship board wargame, plus a massive wartime military campaign, it is an expansion of the RPG into spaceships and has a complete spaceship-design system, down to the complete list of programs in the ship's computer and the number of airlocks. It not only has costs for everything, but also lists all the spaceship construction centers in the Frontier, the time you have to wait to get into one, and the time it takes to build your ship.
My recollection of that system is that how fast ships were and how manoeuvrable was strongly based on what hull you chose and was pretty arbitrary.
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Old 01-26-2022, 04:17 AM   #60
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Default Re: What RPG has the best spaceship design system?

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"Space Opera" from FGU had a ship design system and space combat system, in fitting with the same "total campaign"* concept as "Chivalry and Sorcery."

That said, I don't recall enough about it to say if it was good or bad, but it was definitely on the very soft end of the scale.
It wasn't awful, as long as you stayed with small ships. However, the books of warships, while fun reads for nerdy types that like poring over stats with small but possibly (but probably not) meaningful differences, ignored the design rules.

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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