Pyramid #3/34: Alternate GURPS

[wabishtar]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The formula for crush depth appears to be off by a factor of 10, and L should be in yards rather than feet.

Thank you.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by wabishtar

On a streamlined SM +8 hull, the dDR of steel is 3. Four systems in each hull section, 12 systems total, equals a dDR of 12. Multiply by 1.8, you get 21.6, which you rounded up to 22. 22 * 150 / 90 (the length of an SM +7 hull) is 36. I forgot to multiply by 1.8 the first time, which is how I ended up with 20. You'll notice I edited my post. Still 36 yards is a pretty pitiful crush depth.

Being off by a factor of 10 in physics is good going:)
Although, I'm not sure the length should be yards.
Factoring in "off by factor of 10" and your numbers, dDR21x1500/90 = 350.
But I did notice that 9 armour sections, dDR9x1.4, with a length of 56 yards gives a depth of 330. The 1,100ton U-534's pressure hull is about 56 metres.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

Sorry about that. When I was writing it up, while the core concept is actually pretty simple, it always ended up becoming crazy complicated as I tried to work through all the implications of adding an entire extra level of scale to GURPS. Armor. Movement and combat and reach with 3.6" hexes (especially since you can have Fractional Move and Fractional DR as well as Fractional ST/HP). I finally decided that if I couldn't do it right, I should just provide the basic concepts so people could at least try it out in their own groups if they wanted to.

No need to apologize, the article is really good. I was sort of just pinning for that micro-scale universe. I realize how complicated it must be (I kind of tried, although not very hard). And the .5 scale is much more useful and readily applicable to normal scale situations.

I hope at some point in the future someone gives this another shot. Maybe with the article out, more people will try. I realize this isn't so generically useful and fits a more... minute... range of settings.

Also, it's really hard to find weight values for most insects. (Honestly, don't these biologists know there are game designers who need this information?) I did find out that a black widow spider weighs just shy of one gram, giving her a ST of 0.2. I guesstimated that a honeybee would be ST 0.1 and a dragonfly would be ST 0.3.

Nice to know! Thanks! Gives me an eyeballing reference.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by wabishtar

Thank you.

Be aware that that is my interpretation of appearances, not an official statement, which I have no authority or qualifications to make.

[Tzeentch]

Spaceships does not discriminate between form hulls and pressure hulls, which is going to lead to some unintentionally wierd results for modern and ultra-tech submarines :/ May want to include a TL modifier to account for it.

[RyanW]

I also notice that (assuming projectile damage in Spaceships is Pi++), that the change in the Unliving modifier in Mr. Pulver's Extreme Damage article will help out some people who complain that a missile battle always leaves ships either unhurt or vaporized.

However, it also makes fighters even more useless.

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Tzeentch

Spaceships does not discriminate between form hulls and pressure hulls, which is going to lead to some unintentionally wierd results for modern and ultra-tech submarines :/ May want to include a TL modifier to account for it.

Maybe a design feature, like Nautical Lines? Pressure Hull, increase price by X, multiply crush depth by 10.

Edit: That reminds me of a Futurerama episode where their spaceship is dragged to the bottom of the ocean. "How many atmospheres of press can we take?!" "Well, it is a spaceship, so between one and zero."

[Tzeentch]

I don't expect Spaceships to cover every edge case (go buy Transhuman Space: Under Pressure if you want lots of ship and submersible details not covered by Vehicles) so simplicity is key. A TL or price mod can handle some of the crush depth issues. Another, more complex way, is to build it as a Core/Husk design with the pressure hull as a smaller vehicle. Basically, this is like an Upper Stage/Small Upper Stage you can spread out a bit between sections in the outer form hull if you wish. The core contains all the living spaces, control room, life support, and the torpedo tubes. It will also usually house the power plant and sometimes the propulsion (if accessible - note that Smaller propulsion systems can get whacky results sometimes). The form hull can house the ballast tanks (Spaceships does not have hydrodynamic lift rules), missile batteries, some armor modules, and so on. You can even design it as multiple Small Upper Stages and calculate crush depth separately for each - the form hull is flooded and doesn't have a crush depth (it's armor is there to protect the inner hulls from concussion damage).

[Mgellis]

Just curious...is there any plan to update the formula for crush depth and then repost the issue once the errata is fixed? It shouldn't be too hard since there's no printing, just updating a file, and then people can download it at their leisure.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

Just curious...is there any plan to update the formula for crush depth and then repost the issue once the errata is fixed? It shouldn't be too hard since there's no printing, just updating a file, and then people can download it at their leisure.

SJG does update PDFs for errata, especially simple numerical errors in formulas. The schedule is erratic, depending on available resources and how much it makes the layout wobble.

Has anyone actually reported this to the errata email address or through the web form? Whomever is wearing the errata hat right now won't ever do the work unless someone tells them ;)