Phoenix Command & GURPS

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The main thing I'd want to mine from it is the tables for 'which organ did you hit at what depth'.

That's a lot of it for me. Also tracking individual bullet paths and velocities of the bullets are they are in motion is something I think you can do with it, and that's interesting too; useful for supplying forensics data for after battles.

[Anthony]

Well, what I have is small arms spectrum, and I'm not 100% sure how it compares to PCCS; I suspect it's based on the same computer model of the human body, but the processing may be different. In SAS, the basic method is that you look up EID on a table to figure out penetration, and then cross-reference to figure out BSP and BDP (you can see it's an 80s game, everything is an acronym). A sample might look like this (slightly reformatted)

27 Lower Chest Liver, Frnt to Rear
EID      1  1  2  3  4  5  7  7  8  8  9  9 10 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 16 19 20 20 20 20 21 21
BDP      1  1  1  1  2  2  2  4  7 10 13 16 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 44 45 45 46 46 46 47 47 47 47
   XXXXXXXXXXX/////RIB////XX---------------------------------------------XXX////RIB/////XXXXXXXXXXXX

Not sure why the --- section isn't labeled as liver, it is for other examples, but I'm pretty sure each column is a fixed thickness of tissue (per table; it seems to scale so it's always one page wide, unless the location is very thin); XXX is generic flesh, --- is an organ, /// is bone. Generic tissue has penetration and wounding equal; organs seem to have the same penetration difficulty as flesh but much higher wounding (looks like about x6 for the liver), bone is much harder to penetrate (x5-10, hard to tell) but has normal wounding, the spine has both increased difficulty and increased wounding.

Once you have that, you multiply by the DM for your weapon (comes off a lookup chart for the weapon and range); the writers seem to have bought fully into the concept of hydrostatic shock, since at 25 yards an M16 has RID 142, DM 7.1, whereas an M1911A1 has RID 20, DM 2.2 (while relative penetration may be realistic, the wound channel multipliers are rather doubtful).

Incidentally, nothing in the game explains what it means to have two columns with the same EID. I assume it's a resolution problem.

[hal]

I used Phoenix Command with GURPS back when GURPS was 2nd edition. It worked out well enough. Use the Skill system from GURPS and use the combat rules from PC as written. As a "fusion" - it worked out well enough. My most memorable combats with PC involved the taking down of an American Soldier patrol (this was during an aftermath campaign in which the US military at Camp Drum (now Fort Drum by the way) were rounding up supplies and materials for survival by the organized military versus the civilians. Needless to say, two laws plus a remington 700 with a scope and other various small arms, was capable of taking out a squad of 1980's soldiers with M16 rifles, a few M203's, plus an RTO in communication with Camp Drum's artillery tubes. Rifle fire directed at the RTO plus a law at the front of the squad and at the rear of the squad inflicted some serious wounds quickly.

In the other encounter, we had Rhodisian Soldiers trying to secure a border crossing from smugglers and terrorists infiltrating into the country. In that scenario, the Stick (Rhodisian paratroopers) were holding a river ford and maintaining an inspection point. We had an overwatch atop a nearby hill with a radio keeping the watch post appraised of what was going on with the civilians making the crossing at the ford. When the Terrorists refused to be inspected, and then attempted to pull their weapons from concealment (bundles of firewood and other such things being carried by the people), it got grisly fast. Why? Because we had set up an L shaped ambush with a light machinegun firing down the length of the path. Although we were outnumbered, the ambush was nasty, and the players playing the terrorists didn't think about flanking the check point FIRST instead of all walking into the kill zone pretending to be innocent civilians.

In all? PC wasn't all TOO bad, but being chart intensive, it did slow down game play relative to other skirmish rules. It was, if nothing else, rather graphic in its effects. The other books that came out with PHOENIX COMMAND were nice, including rules for finding cover, spotting people at a distance, etc.

Would I play it again - especially in an era of modern laptop computers? In a word? Yes.

[Gigermann]

All those intimidating charts from back then would be simple now, with a little programming knowledge—push a button, read the result. If someone hasn't tried it already, I'll be surprised.

[Juca]

I tried, we used an html + javascript webpage that made all calculations, but still the results were "weird" at best.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Once you have that, you multiply by the DM for your weapon (comes off a lookup chart for the weapon and range); the writers seem to have bought fully into the concept of hydrostatic shock, since at 25 yards an M16 has RID 142, DM 7.1, whereas an M1911A1 has RID 20, DM 2.2 (while relative penetration may be realistic, the wound channel multipliers are rather doubtful).

You should look at ballistic gelatin tests (Yes, not perfect, but the best visual representation we can get). The .45 punches a roughly half-inch hole some 10 inches deep. The 5.56mm starts by punching a slightly smaller hole, then yaws and, at that range, fragments, tearing through a much larger area. Not only are the temporary and permanent cavities many times the size of the .45, there are also fragments sent out into the rest of the body.

Though mind, DM usually makes a fairly small effective difference. The location hit is the big decider in lethality.

[chandley]

I break out the Advanced Hit tables (with separate tables for oblique and front shots and everything) for grins when I want to find out exactly which organ and bone was just destroyed by a hit. But I dont use it in any kind of regular game.

I actually converted all of Living Steel into GURPS some time ago, and it plays very well in GURPS. Arguably better, since you dont have old school 80's style "we make up a rule on the spot for every situation" style rules. Plus character creation and advancement is much nicer... But this is a GURPS forum, so that shouldnt be surprising.

I talked to the authors a long time ago, back when they where still making noises about publishing either novels or background (rules-lite to -free) campaign books for the Living Steel universe. They deliberately obfuscated some of the formulas and data points they used. Pen 298 = 1" of RHA Pen 1600 = 4.176" of RHA... The formula, someone actually did some point matching to try and find this out, ended up looking like 49.4*inches^2+182*inches-19.1. Nothing to love about that :)

But I loved the Living Steel universe, still try to get people to play in it from time to time. And we had a one-shot Aliens game that was absolutely horrifying, in a good way. When the GM has a mandate to wipe you out in any fair way he can? Yah, you get scared :). 2 survivors, one badly wounded, a giant melted hole in our cruiser from the queen dying messily... pyrrhic victory at best!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by chandley

They deliberately obfuscated some of the formulas and data points they used. Pen 298 = 1" of RHA Pen 1600 = 4.176" of RHA... The formula, someone actually did some point matching to try and find this out, ended up looking like 49.4*inches^2+182*inches-19.1. Nothing to love about that :)!

Did they say it was deliberate obfuscation? I figured they were just slavishly applying some complex terminal ballistics model.

[chandley]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Did they say it was deliberate obfuscation? I figured they were just slavishly applying some complex terminal ballistics model.

They said there was some deliberate obfuscation. How much there was, vs just using the model for ballistics they had, I couldnt say. The one designer was an engineer at NASA and loved complex math. He, naturally, thought the system was too simple :)

The point of the obfuscation was, apparently, to preserve their ability to release expansion (splat) books for various eras of guns, where they made a great deal of their money. The other money maker where the movie tie in games (except Lawnmower Man. That game didnt go anywhere...). Check out their Dracula game sometime, kind of interesting. All of this was related in a somewhat bitter rant during the last Gen Con they attended, as they where going out of business. So who knows how much is true and how much was said to put me off.