03-25-2023, 08:42 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
Part of the problem with modeling BT armor as ablative or semi-ablative is that the way GURPS does ablative armor (and hit points in general) doesn't scale well across size modifiers. In BT, a mech that's twice the weight of another mech probably has twice the armor and twice the firepower. In GURPS, doubling the size of a vehicle is typically a 25% increase in DR and damage.
That can work with non-ablative DR - if you're using 20 point attacks on a target with DR 12 and 40 hp, you need 5 hits to kill; against DR 15 and 50 hp you need 10 -- but it doesn't work with ablative DR, unless you put a layer of non-ablative DR on top of the ablative (this is not a problem unique to mecha -- if you have a battleship with a force field and it gets attacked by a squadron of fighters, its force field disappears instantly). |
03-25-2023, 08:45 PM | #32 | |
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
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You are not wrong. In order to fully embrace it, you have to, as I did in my example, ignore how GURPS defines HP. Now, let's be fair--GURPS doesn't care which of its rules you use or ignore or change. |
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03-25-2023, 09:15 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
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Battletech now is and for many years has been a setting, not a settingless game system.
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03-26-2023, 01:03 AM | #34 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
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The thing about the DR also doesn't to some extent, because the problem is that you are thinking about mech armor as DR to penetrate. BT armor doesn't really care how thick it is. It cares how much it is. Because the attacker gets through by ablating it all, not by punching a narrow hole. (Yes, that's pretty bizarre. Not as bizarre as heavier cannons having less range than lighter ones though!)
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03-26-2023, 12:20 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
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More generally, every table in Spaceships uses one of three standard progressions, depending on how many SMs you need to go up in order to get to ten times the quantity. The fast progression is a two-step of either 3/10 or 1.5/5; the medium progression is always 2/5/10; and the slow progression is 1.5/2/3/5/7/10. I have more granular replacements for this that let you interpolate systems that fall between these values based on whether they're ±0.2 or ±0.4. The tonnages given above are an example of applying this principle to a fast progression; but similar interpolations exist for medium and slow progressions as well. For those who want to use them, my interpolation charts follow: Fast Progression This is the default progression. +0.0: 1.0, 3.0, 10, 30, 100, 300 +0.2: 1.2, 4.0, 12, 40, 120, 400 +0.4: 1.5, 5.0, 15, 50, 150, 500 +0.6: 2.0, 6.0, 20, 60, 200, 600 +0.8: 2.5, 8.0, 25, 80, 250, 800 Sometimes the progression starts at 2/6 or 5/15 instead of 1/3. To handle these, just shift the rows: +0.0: 2.0, 06, 20, 060, 200, 0600 +0.2: 2.5, 08, 25, 080, 250, 0800 +0.4: 3.0, 10, 30, 100, 300, 1000 +0.6: 4.0, 12, 40, 120, 400, 1200 +0.8: 5.0, 15, 50, 150, 500, 1500 +0.0: 0.5, 1.5, 05, 15, 050, 150 +0.2: 0.6, 2.0, 06, 20, 060, 200 +0.4: 0.8, 2.5, 08, 25, 080, 250 +0.6: 1.0, 3.0, 10, 30, 100, 300 +0.8: 1.2, 4.0, 12, 40, 120, 400 Medium Progression Used by Open Space, Soft Landing System, and Stasis Web +0.0: 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10, 20, 50 +0.2: 1.2, 2.5, 5.5, 12, 25, 55 +0.4: 1.4, 3.0, 6.0, 14, 30, 60 +0.6: 1.6, 3.5, 7.0, 16, 35, 70 +0.8: 1.8, 4.0, 8.0, 18, 40, 80 Slow Progression Used by Armor, Force Screens, and Weapons. +0.0: 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, 5.0, 7.0 +0.2: 1.1, 1.6, 2.2, 3.2, 5.2, 7.5 +0.4: 1.2, 1.7, 2.4, 3.6, 5.5, 7.8 +0.6: 1.3, 1.8, 2.6, 4.0, 5.8, 8.0 +0.8: 1.4, 1.9, 2.8, 4.5, 6.0, 9.0 Weapon systems introduce two complications which the above doesn't address: gun calibur/launchers, and D-damage. The former doubles every +4 SM; so it should be possible to build an interpolation chart. I simply haven't bothered to, as I don't know of any rules where this would matter. The latter is more important: when you're talking about dice of damage, interpolation gets tricky; especially when you want to keep the existing damage dice in place. It's a tough nut, and the only part of the interpolation system that I haven't resolved to my liking. For now, I'm just using “round SM to nearest whole number when deciding damage”. ——— For Battletech-style Mecha, SM 4 (or rather, 4.0 to 4.4) is your Light Mechs, ranging from 10 to 15 tons; SM 5 (4.6 to 5.4) is your Medium Mechs, ranging from 20 to 50 tons; and SM 6 (5.6 to 6.0) is your Heavy Mechs, ranging from 60 to 100 tons. It actually captures much of the feel of Battletech while staying true to GURPS material. Last edited by dataweaver; 03-27-2023 at 08:04 AM. |
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03-27-2023, 07:16 AM | #36 |
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
Of course, if you're going to do what the OP wants to do and play Battle-Tech at the human scale, without mechs, then you can mostly just pull out Gurps and use it.
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03-27-2023, 07:25 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
That goes without saying. The difficulties in doing Battletech using GURPS all lie in handling Battletech's technology; and much of that is really addressed by going with the Safetech path from Ultra-Tech.
Last edited by dataweaver; 03-27-2023 at 07:41 AM. |
03-27-2023, 04:37 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: In the UFO
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
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Although that may depend on whether you're trying to simulate a particular edition of the board game, or the computer games, or the novel fiction. (One assumes that this is the "range to penetrate armor" except it also applies when engaging infantry...)
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03-31-2023, 07:24 AM | #39 |
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Battletech to Gurps
As others have said UT works well enough for the non mecha game, but you will have to go through what technologies are available, starting at safetech path notes.
As for mechas if wanted: In one of my short "near future scifi" games had quie large "combat walkers", basically smallish mechaas, so I used Supers guidelines and ran them at D-scale and it worked quite well. But for Battletech C-Scale might be better fit as the mechas are more powerful than tanks in that game. |
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